Knowing how opposite a permanent landed interest is to that scheme, they
have resolved, and it is the great drift of all their regulations, to
reduce that description of men to a mere peasantry for the sustenance of
the towns, and to place the true effective government in cities, among
the tradesmen, bankers, and voluntary clubs of bold, presuming young
persons,--advocates, attorneys, notaries, managers of newspapers, and
those cabals of literary men called academies. Their republic is to have
a first functionary, (as they call him,) under the name of King, or not,
as they think fit. This officer, when such an officer is permitted, is,
however, neither in fact nor name to be considered as sovereign, nor the
people as his subjects. The very use of these appellations is offensive
to their ears.
[Sidenote: Partisans of the French system.]
This system, as it has first been realized, dogmatically as well as
practically, in France, makes France the natural head of all factions
formed on a similar principle, wherever they may prevail, as much as
Athens was the head and settled ally of all democratic factions,
wherever they existed.
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