But how can the people be led to that point? By the example of good
government established among us; by the example of order; by the care of
spreading nothing but moral ideas among them: to respect their
properties and their rights; to respect their prejudices, even when we
combat them: by disinterestedness in defending the people; by a zeal to
extend the spirit of liberty amongst them.
This system was at first followed.[7] Excellent pamphlets from the pen
of Condorcet prepared the people for liberty; the 10th of August, the
republican decrees, the battle of Valmy, the retreat of the Prussians,
the victory of Jemappes, all spoke in favor of France: all was rapidly
destroyed by _the revolutionary power_. Without doubt, good intentions
made the majority of the Assembly adopt it; they would plant the tree of
liberty in a foreign soil, under the shade of a people already free. To
the eyes of the people of Belgium it seemed but the mask of a new
foreign tyranny. This opinion was erroneous; I will suppose it so for a
moment; but still this opinion of Belgium deserved to be considered. In
general, we have always considered our own opinions and our own
intentions rather than the people whose cause we defend. We have given
those people a will: that is to say, we have more than ever alienated
them from liberty.
How could the Belgic people believe themselves free, since we exercise
for them, and over them, the rights of sovereignty,--when, without
consulting them, we suppress, all in a mass, their ancient usages, their
abuses, their prejudices, those classes of society which without doubt
are contrary to the spirit of liberty, but the utility of whose
destruction was not as yet proved to them? How could they believe
themselves free and sovereign, when we made them take such an oath as we
thought fit, as a test to give them the right of voting? How could they
believe themselves free, when openly despising their religious worship,
which religious worship that superstitious people valued beyond their
liberty, beyond even their life; when we proscribed their priests; when
we banished them from their assemblies, where they were in the practice
of seeing them govern; when we seized their revenues, their domains, and
riches, to the profit of the nation; when we carried to the very censer
those hands which they regarded as profane? Doubtless these operations
were founded on principles; but those principles ought to have had the
consent of the Belgians, before they were carried into practice;
otherwise they necessarily became our most cruel enemies.
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