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harsh decree. Nay, he must concur in the butchery of those who fhall attempt to free him from his imprisonment, or shew the flightest attachment to his perfon or to his antient authority.

Executive magistracy ought to be constituted in fuch a manner, that those who compose it should be disposed to love and to venerate those whom they are bound to obey. A purposed neglect, or, what is worse, a literal but perverse and malignant obedience, must be the ruin of the wifeft counsels. In vain will the law attempt to anticipate or to follow fuch studied neglects and fraudulent atten tions. To make men act zealously is not in the competence of law. Kings, even such as are truly kings, may and ought to bear the freedom of fubjects that are obnoxious to them. They may too, without derogating from themselves, bear even the authority of fuch persons if it promotes their service. Louis the XIIIth mortally hated the cardinal de Richlieu; but his support of that minifter against his rivals was the fource of all the glory of his reign, and the folid foundation of his throne itself. Louis the XIVth, when come to the throne, did not love the cardinal Mazarin; but for his interests he preferved him in power. When old, he detested Louvois; but for years, whilft he faithfully ferved his greatness, he endured his person. When George the Ild took Mr. Pitt, who certainly was not agreeable to him, into his councils, he did nothing which could humble a wife fovereign. But these ministers, who were chofen by affairs, not by affections, acted in the name of, and in trust for, kings; and not as their avowed,

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avowed, conftitutional, and ostensible masters. I think it impoffible that any king, when he has recovered his first terrors, can cordially infuse vivacity and vigour into measures which he knows to be dictated by those who he must be perfuaded are in the highest degree ill affected to his person. Will any minifters, who serve such a king (or whatever he may be called) with but a decent appearance of respect, cordially obey the orders of those whom but the other day in his name they had committed to the Bastile? will they obey the orders of those whom, whilst they were exercising despotic justice upon them, they conceived they were treating with lenity; and for whom, in a prison, they thought they had provided an asylum? If you expect fuch obedience, amongst your other innovations and regenerations, you ought to make a revolution in nature, and provide a new constitution for the human mind. Otherwise, your fupreme government cannot harmonize with its executory system. There are cases in which we cannot take up with names and abstractions. You may call half a dozen leading individuals, whom we have reason to fear and hate, the nation. It makes no other difference, than to make us fear and hate them the more. If it had been thought juftifiable and expedient to make such a revolution by such means, and through fuch perfons, as you have made yours, it would have been more wife to have completed the business of the fifth and fixth of October. The new executive officer would then owe his fituation to those who are his creators as well as his masters; and he might be bound

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bound in interest, in the society of crime, and (if in crimes there could be virtues) in gratitude, to serve those who had promoted him to a place of great lucre and great fenfual indulgence; and of fomething more: For more he must have received from those who certainly would not have limited an aggrandized creature, as they have done a fubmitting antagonist.

A king circumstanced as the present, if he is totally stupified by his misfortunes, so as to think it not the neceffity, but the premium and privilege of life, to eat and fleep, without any regard to glory, never can be fit for the office. If he feels as men commonly feel, he must be sensible, that an office fo circumftanced is one in which he can obtain no fame or reputation. He has no generous interest that can excite him to action. At best, his conduct will be paffive and defenfive. To inferior people fuch an office might be matter of honour. But to be raised to it, and to descend to it, are different things, and suggest different fentiments. Does he really name the ministers? They will have a sympathy with him. Are they forced upon him? The whole business between them and the nominal king will be mutual counteraction. In all other countries, the office of minifters of state is of the highest dignity. In France it is full of peril and incapable of glory. Rivals however they will have in their nothingness, whilst shallow ambition exifts in the world, or the defire of a miferable salary is an incentive to short-fighted avarice. Those competitors of the minifters are enabled by your conftitution to attack them in their vital parts, whilft they have

not

not the means of repelling their charges in any other than the degrading character of culprits. The ministers of state in France are the only persons in that country who are incapable of a share in the national councils. What ministers! What councils! What a nation!-But they are refponsible. It is a poor service that is to be had from responsibility. The elevation of mind, to be derived from fear, will never make a nation glorious. Responsibility prevents crimes. It makes all attempts against the laws dangerous. But for a principle of active and zealous fervice, none but idiots could think of it. Is the conduct of a war to be trusted to a man who may abhor its principle; who, in every step he may take to render it fuccessful, confirms the power of those by whom he is oppressed? Will foreign states serioufly treat with him who has no prerogative of peace or war; no, not fo much as in a fingle vote by himself or his minifters, or by any one whom he can possibly influence. A state of contempt is not a state for a prince: better get rid of him at

once.

I know it will be faid, that these humours in the court and executive government will continue only through this generation; and that the king has been brought to declare the dauphin shall be educated in a conformity to his situation. If he is made to conform to his situation, he will have no education at all. His training must be worse even than that of an arbitrary monarch. If he reads, whether he reads or not, fome good or evil genius will tell him his ancestors were kings. Thenceforward Thenceforward his object must be to affert humself, and to avenge his parents. This you will say is not his duty. That may be; but it is Nature; and whilst you pique Nature against you, you do unwisely to truft to Duty. In this futile scheme of polity, the state nurses in its bofom, for the present, a fource of weakness, perplexity, counteraction, inefficiency, and decay; and it prepares the means of its final ruin. In short, I fee nothing in the executive force (I cannot call it authority) that has even an appearance of vigour, or that has the smallest degree of just correfpondence or symmetry, or amicable relation, with the supreme power, either as it now exifts, or as it is planned for the future government.

You have fettled, by an economy as perverted as the policy, two* establishments of government; one real, one fictitious. Both mainrained at a vast expence; but the fictitious at, I think, the greatest. Such a machine as the latter is not worth the grease of its wheels. The expence is exorbitant; and neither the shew nor the use deserve the tenth part of the charge. Oh! but I don't do justice to the talents of the legiflators. I don't allow, as I ought to do, for neceffity. Their scheme of executive force was not their choice. This pageant must be kept. The people would not confent to part with it. Right; I understand you. You do, in fpite of your grand theories, to which you would have heaven and earth to bend, you do know how to conform

* In reality three, to reckon the provincial republican esta

blishments.

yourselves

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