Louis the Sixteenth was a diligent reader of history. But the very lamp
of prudence blinded him. The guide of human life led him astray. A
silent revolution in the moral world preceded the political, and
prepared it. It became of more importance than ever what examples were
given, and what measures wore adopted. Their causes no longer lurked in
the recesses of cabinets or in the private conspiracies of the factious.
They were no longer to be controlled by the force and influence of the
grandees, who formerly had been able to stir up troubles by their
discontents and to quiet them by their corruption. The chain of
subordination, even in cabal and sedition, was broken in its most
important links. It was no longer the great and the populace. Other
interests were formed, other dependencies, other connections, other
communications. The middle classes had swelled far beyond their former
proportion. Like whatever is the most effectively rich and great in
society, these classes became the seat of all the active politics, and
the preponderating weight to decide on them. There were all the energies
by which fortune is acquired; there the consequence of their success.
There were all the talents which assert their pretensions, and are
impatient of the place which settled society prescribes to them. These
descriptions had got between the great and the populace; and the
influence on the lower classes was with them. The spirit of ambition had
taken possession of this class as violently as ever it had done of any
other.
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