Of course, so would a landslide win -- as part of the "healing" process -- and it's hard to imagine the prescription being any different had the federalists actually lost. All roads, apparently, lead to special status. The alternative -- do nothing, or if you prefer, Plan C -- was ruled out from the start, since that would imply that the Constitution we have now was somehow legitimate.

The political class has remained in this state of suspended hysteria throughout the intervening months, warning against complacency, grumping that the momentum for devolution seemed to have stalled, and denouncing any and all attempts to defend the existing constitutional order as provocations that could only spark a surge in support for separation in Quebec. They have been sustained in this belief even as it has become ever clearer that separatism is on the wane.

When the federal government first began speaking of applying "the rule of law" to any secession bid, those columnists and editorialists who were not revolted at the very idea worried that it would backfire in the polls. And support for separation began to fall. When the Prime Minister and the Intergovernmental Affairs Minister noted the obvious, that the partition of Canada could only raise the odds of the partition of Quebec, sensible people everywhere predicted a firestorm of reaction. And support for separation fell a little more.

When at last the federal government worked up the nerve to refer the legalities of the issue to the Supreme Court, received opinion was of one mind: much too much emphasis was being placed on the so-called Plan B -- that is, setting the terms on which Quebec would be allowed to leave -- and not nearly enough on Plan A: making the changes that alone would persuade it to stay. In all the clanging about, the real story escaped notice: not only had support for "sovereignty" among Quebecers fallen a full 10 percentage points since June, but the federal Liberals had crept ahead of the Bloc Quebecois in the party standings.

And now we come to the present. Having humiliated one leader and deposed another in the space of two weeks, the separatists are in obvious disarray, divided over how fast and how far to push for independence, quarrelling over language and economic policy, consumed with personal vendettas and petty scheming. Close your eyes, and it could be 1985, when the separatists, becalmed in the polls and unsure of direction, were likewise at each other's throats -- coincidentally, after the last show of federalist backbone, the patriation exercise.

Yet just as the leading figures in the separatist movement are busy tying anvils to each other's feet, along come the federalists to throw them all a life- preserver -- just as we did a decade ago, with the reopening of the constitutional file at Meech Lake. With suspicious regularity, political leaders in the rest of Canada have been popping up in recent months to voice their support for some form of constitutional "recognition" of Quebec, if not in the precise form of "distinct society," then using some other wording.

The latest spasms of unrest in the sovereignty camp, in this view, only reinforce the case for special status: to seize the initiative, to put the separatists on the defensive, to exploit their current weakness. Before too many weeks have passed, the Quebec Liberal Party will be releasing its constitutional position paper, which cannot fail to include some reworking of the "distinct society" clause. Canadians will be urged once again to grasp this "last chance" for Confederation.

Yet the arguments, for the most part, have not changed. Is the province of Quebec in legitimate need of any power that it does not already possess? No.

Would it do any harm, then, even if it is unnecessary? Yes: it would fatally imbalance the federation, leading either to the eventual exclusion of any meaningful role for Quebecers in federal politics, or the emasculation of the federal government altogether.

Very well: is it necessary, all the same, to forestall the greater evil of separation? Plainly not. Indeed, the one thing that could give new life to the separatist cause is another exercise in raising expectations, only to dash them again against an amending formula that is if anything more impregnable than ever before. It will not pass. It shouldn't be tried.