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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

"The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)"


Speaking of this nation as part of a general combination of powers, are
we quite sure that others can believe us to be sincere, or that we can
be even fully assured of our own sincerity, in the protection of those
who shall risk their lives for the restoration of monarchy in France,
when the world sees that those who are the natural, legal,
constitutional representatives of that monarchy, if it has any, have not
had their names so much as mentioned in any one public act, that in no
way whatever are their persons brought forward, that their rights have
not been expressly or implicitly allowed, and that they have not been in
the least consulted on the important interests they have at stake? On
the contrary, they are kept in a state of obscurity and contempt, and in
a degree of indigence at times bordering on beggary. They are, in fact,
little less prisoners in the village of Hanau than the royal captives
who are locked up in the tower of the Temple. What is this, according to
the common indications which guide the judgment of mankind, but, under
the pretext of protecting the crown of France, in reality to usurp it?
I am also very apprehensive that there are other circumstances which
must tend to weaken the force of our declarations.


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