They have their ebbs and their flows. This
has been eminently the fate of the monarchy of France. There have been
times in which no power has ever been brought so low. Few have ever
flourished in greater glory. By turns elevated and depressed, that power
had been, on the whole, rather on the increase; and it continued not
only powerful, but formidable, to the hour of the total ruin of the
monarchy. This fall of the monarchy was far from being preceded by any
exterior symptoms of decline. The interior were not visible to every
eye; and a thousand accidents might have prevented the operation of what
the most clear-sighted were not able to discern nor the most provident
to divine. A very little time before its dreadful catastrophe, there was
a kind of exterior splendor in the situation of the crown, which usually
adds to government strength and authority at home. The crown seemed then
to have obtained some of the most splendid objects of state ambition.
None of the Continental powers of Europe were the enemies of France.
They were all either tacitly disposed to her or publicly connected with
her; and in those who kept the most aloof there was little appearance of
jealousy,--of animosity there was no appearance at all. The British
nation, her great preponderating rival, she had humbled, to all
appearance she had weakened, certainly had endangered, by cutting off a
very large and by far the most growing part of her empire.
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