These deviations (as guardians of the ancient laws,
usages, and Constitution of the kingdom) the Parliament of Paris ought
not to have suffered, without the strongest remonstrances to the throne.
It ought to have sounded the alarm to the whole nation, as it had often
done on things of infinitely less importance. Under pretence of
resuscitating the ancient Constitution, the Parliament saw one of the
strongest acts of innovation, and the most leading in its consequences,
carried into effect before their eyes,--and an innovation through the
medium of despotism: that is, they suffered the king's ministers to
new-model the whole representation of the _Tiers Etat_, and, in a great
measure, that of the clergy too, and to destroy the ancient proportions
of the orders. These changes, unquestionably, the king had no right to
make; and here the Parliaments failed in their duty, and, along with
their country, have perished by this failure.
What a number of faults have led to this multitude of misfortunes, and
almost all from this one source,--that of considering certain general
maxims, without attending to circumstances, to times, to places, to
conjunctures, and to actors! If we do not attend scrupulously to all
these, the medicine of to-day becomes the poison of to-morrow.
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