"The people" (it was said) "could entertain no objects of ambition";
they were out of the road of intrigue and cabal, and could possibly have
no other view than the support of the mild and parental authority by
which they were invested, for the first time collectively, with real
importance in the state, and protected in their peaceable and useful
employments.
[Sidenote: King of France.]
This unfortunate king (not without a large share of blame to himself)
was deluded to his ruin by a desire to humble and reduce his nobility,
clergy, and big corporate magistracy: not that I suppose he meant wholly
to eradicate these bodies, in the manner since effected by the
democratic power; I rather believe that even Necker's designs did not go
to that extent. With his own hand, however, Louis the Sixteenth pulled
down the pillars which upheld his throne; and this he did, because he
could not bear the inconveniences which are attached to everything
human,--because he found himself cooped up, and in durance, by those
limits which Nature prescribes to desire and imagination, and was taught
to consider as low and degrading that mutual dependence which Providence
has ordained that all men should have on one another.
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