No foreigner can make this
discrimination nor these arrangements. The ancient corporations of
burghers according to their several modes should be restored, and placed
(as they ought to be) in the hands of men of gravity and property in the
cities or bailliages, according to the proper constitutions of the
commons or third estate of France. They will restrain and regulate the
seditious rabble there, as the gentlemen will on their own estates. In
this way, and _in this way alone_, the country (once broken in upon by
foreign force well directed) may be gained and settled. It must be
gained and settled by _itself_, and through the medium of its _own_
native dignity and property. It is not honest, it is not decent, still
less is it politic, for foreign powers themselves to attempt anything in
this minute, internal, local detail, in which they could show nothing
but ignorance, imbecility, confusion, and oppression. As to the prince
who has a just claim to exercise the regency of France, like other men
he is not without his faults and his defects.
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