But it must be
observed, that he all along grounds his departure from the engagement at
Pilnitz to the princes on the will and actions of _the king_ and the
majority of the people, without any regard to the natural and
constitutional orders of the state, or to the opinions of the whole
House of Bourbon. Though it is manifestly under the constraint of
imprisonment and the fear of death that this unhappy man has been guilty
of all those humilities which have astonished mankind, the advisers of
the Emperor will consider nothing but the _physical_ person of Louis,
which, even in his present degraded and infamous state, they regard as
of sufficient authority to give a complete sanction to the persecution
and utter ruin of all his family, and of every person who has shown any
degree of attachment or fidelity to him or to his cause, as well as
competent to destroy the whole ancient constitution and frame of the
French monarchy.
The present policy, therefore, of the Austrian politicians is, to
recover despotism through democracy,--or, at least, at any expense,
everywhere to ruin the description of men who are everywhere the objects
of their settled and systematic aversion, but more especially in the
Netherlands.
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