If you can hear yourself think amid the weeping and wailing, keep one thing clear: The separatists have been dealt a serious blow by this defeat, a fact that only the separatists themselves seem to understand. Consider: With the softest possible question, facing the weakest possible federalist leadership, after the worst possible federalist campaign, Saint Lucien his holy self could not put them over the top. Now they must somehow convince Quebeckers to put themselves through this torture once again, with no clear prospect of success even if they do.

What is more, federalist opinion in Quebec has been radicalized, if only by the disastrous experience of the first four weeks of the campaign. Unwilling to challenge the assumptions of Quebec nationalism head on, the federalists tried to campaign as nationalists with their hands on their wallets - sovereignty's a beautiful idea, but it would cost too much - and went straight downhill. But in those last days, when they began, at last, to speak as Canadians, they found an echo. Why, you even heard people say that Quebec was not humiliated in 1982.

It is perhaps the ultimate expression of Quebeckers' contrariness that they remain so strongly attached to Canada. Even after two generations of nationalist rhetoric, in which they have been told that the federal government was the enemy, that Canada was an alien power, that Canadians had rejected them - and this by federalists, including the former prime minister of Canada -upward of 80 per cent of Quebeckers stubbornly refuse to leave. That is why the separatists had to phrase the question as they did: as a promise of a new and impossibly wonderful form of federalism.

Yet the country has sustained a grievous wound these past few weeks: not from the separatists' attempts to kill it, but from the quack doctors sent to save it. Apparently, bleeding the patient is back in medical fashion. The Prime Minister did enough damage with his about-face on the Constitution in the final week of the campaign. But what really threatens to drain the federation of all colour are the thousand leeches that have attached themselves in the days since. Veto, wholesale devolution of powers, distinct society: It's Meech Lake and Charlottetown all over again.

The political class has been waiting for the chance to have its revenge ever since, believing always that the reason Meech and Charlottetown failed was not that their handiwork was faulty, but that the process was too democratic. Once again the media is in advanced crisis mode, once again Canadians are to be browbeaten into submission; only this time, our astonishing reserves of good will toward Quebec are to be used against us. The thousands who rushed to Montreal? According to Jean Charest, they were there demanding "change."

What message do we think we will send to Quebec with this? It is a very simple one: That the knife at the throat really does work. Just make sure it's a real knife. Already the sovereigntists were playing this line during the campaign: If this is what we can get from the mere fear of a Yes, imagine what a Yes itself will bring. Federalist leaders have utterly undercut their own credibility on the issue on which we must be most frank with Quebeckers: that there will be no "partnership" after separation; that it is federalism pur et dur or nothing. If the sovereigntists ever do regroup for a referendum, we will have a terrible problem on our hands.

Those in the vanguard of this rush to make "offers" cannot sensibly argue that Quebec lacks any of the powers it needs to preserve its language, culture and society. Indeed, they no longer even try. They are offering to pay a ransom, nothing more. Can it sensibly be argued, either, that what Canada suffers from is too powerful a federal government? No: devolution is simply a means of making the danegeld acceptable to the other provinces.

This is how they hope to keep the country together: national unity at the cost of national integrity.