These nefarious monsters
destroyed their country for what was good in it: for much good there was
in the Constitution of that noble monarchy, which, in all kinds, formed
and nourished great men, and great patterns of virtue to the world. But
though its enemies were not enemies to its faults, its faults furnished
them with means for its destruction. My dear departed friend, whose loss
is even greater to the public than to me, had often remarked, that the
leading vice of the French monarchy (which he had well studied) was in
good intention ill-directed, and a restless desire of governing too
much. The hand of authority was seen in everything and in every place.
All, therefore, that happened amiss, in the course even of domestic
affairs, was attributed to the government; and as it always happens in
this kind of officious universal interference, what began in odious
power ended always, I may say without an exception, in contemptible
imbecility. For this reason, as far as I can approve of any novelty, I
thought well of the provincial administrations. Those, if the superior
power had been severe and vigilant and vigorous, might have been of much
use politically in removing government from many invidious details. But
as everything is good or bad as it is related or combined, government
being relaxed above as it was relaxed below, and the brains of the
people growing more and more addle with every sort of visionary
speculation, the shiftings of the scene in the provincial theatres
became only preparatives to a revolution in the kingdom, and the popular
actings there only the rehearsals of the terrible drama of the Republic.
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