Statesmen of a more judicious prescience look for the
fortunate moment too; but they seek it, not in the conjunctions and
oppositions of planets, but in the conjunctions and oppositions of men
and things. These form their almanac.
To illustrate the mischief of a wise plan, without any attention to
means and circumstances, it is not necessary to go farther than to your
recent history. In the condition in which France was found three years
ago, what better system could be proposed, what less even savoring of
wild theory, what fitter to provide for all the exigencies whilst it
reformed all the abuses of government, than the convention of the
States-General? I think nothing better could be imagined. But I have
censured, and do still presume to censure, your Parliament of Paris for
not having suggested to the king that this proper measure was of all
measures the most critical and arduous, one in which the utmost
circumspection and the greatest number of precautions were the most
absolutely necessary. The very confession that a government wants either
amendment in its conformation or relief to great distress causes it to
lose half its reputation, and as great a proportion of its strength as
depends upon that reputation.
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