With much stronger reason ought the politics of France to
take the same direction,--as well for pursuing objects which her
situation would dictate to her, though England had no existence, as for
counteracting the politics of that nation: to France Continental
politics are primary; they looked on them only of secondary
consideration to England, and, however necessary, but as means necessary
to an end.
What is truly astonishing, the partisans of those two opposite systems
were at once prevalent, and at once employed, and in the very same
transactions, the one ostensibly, the other secretly, during the latter
part of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth. Nor was there one court in
which an ambassador resided on the part of the ministers, in which
another, as a spy on him, did not also reside on the part of the king:
they who pursued the scheme for keeping peace on the Continent, and
particularly with Austria, acting officially and publicly; the other
faction counteracting and opposing them. These private agents were
continually going from their function to the Bastile, and from the
Bastile to employment and favor again. An inextricable cabal was formed,
some of persons of Rank, others of subordinates. But by this means the
corps of politicians was augmented in number, and the whole formed a
body of active, adventuring, ambitious, discontented people, despising
the regular ministry, despising the courts at which they were employed,
despising the court which employed them.
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