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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

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

His brother, the Comte
d'Artois, sustains still better the representation of his place. He is
eloquent, lively, engaging in the highest degree, of a decided
character, full of energy and activity. In a word, he is a brave,
honorable, and accomplished cavalier. Their brethren of royalty, if they
were true to their own cause and interest, instead of relegating these
illustrious persons to an obscure town, would bring them forward in
their courts and camps, and exhibit them to (what they would speedily
obtain) the esteem, respect, and affection of mankind.
[Sidenote: Objection made to the regent's endeavor to go to Spain.]
As to their knocking at every door, (which seems to give offence,) can
anything be more natural? Abandoned, despised, rendered in a manner
outlaws by all the powers of Europe, who have treated their unfortunate
brethren with all the giddy pride and improvident insolence of blind,
unfeeling prosperity, who did not even send them a compliment of
condolence on the murder of their brother and sister, in such a state is
it to be wondered at, or blamed, that they tried every way, likely or
unlikely, well or ill chosen, to get out of the horrible pit into which
they are fallen, and that in particular they tried whether the princes
of their own blood might at length be brought to think the cause of
kings, and of kings of their race, wounded in the murder and exile of
the branch of France, of as much importance as the killing of a brace of
partridges? If they were absolutely idle, and only eat in sloth their
bread of sorrow and dependence, they would be forgotten, or at best
thought of as wretches unworthy of their pretensions, which they had
done nothing to support.


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