The moment they are seen to warp, they are reduced to nothing. They have
no attached army,--no party that is at all personal.
It is not to be imagined, because a political system is, under certain
aspects, very unwise in its contrivance, and very mischievous in its
effects, that it therefore can have no long duration. Its very defects
may tend to its stability, because they are agreeable to its nature. The
very faults in the Constitution of Poland made it last; the _veto_ which
destroyed all its energy preserved its life. What can be conceived so
monstrous as the republic of Algiers, and that no less strange republic
of the Mamelukes in Egypt? They are of the worst form imaginable, and
exercised in the worst manner, yet they have existed as a nuisance on
the earth for several hundred years.
[Sidenote: Conclusions.]
From all these considerations, and many more that crowd upon me, three
conclusions have long since arisen in my mind.
First, that no counter revolution is to be expected in France from
internal causes solely.
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