If they err from _our_ interests, what care has
been taken to keep them in those interests? or what desire has ever
been shown to employ them in any other way than as instruments of their
own degradation, shame, and ruin?
The Parliament of Paris, by whom the title of the regent is to be
recognized, (not made,) according to the laws of the kingdom, is ready
to recognize it, and to register it, if a place of meeting was given to
them, which might be within their own jurisdiction, supposing that only
locality was required for the exercise of their functions: for it is one
of the advantages of monarchy to have no local seat. It may maintain its
rights out of the sphere of its territorial jurisdiction, if other
powers will suffer it.
I am well apprised that the little intriguers, and whisperers, and
self-conceited, thoughtless babblers, worse than either, run about to
depreciate the fallen virtue of a great nation. But whilst they talk, we
must make our choice,--they or the Jacobins. We have no other option. As
to those who in the pride of a prosperity not obtained by their wisdom,
valor, or industry, think so well of themselves, and of their own
abilities and virtues, and so ill of other men, truth obliges me to say
that they are not founded in their presumption concerning themselves,
nor in their contempt of the French princes, magistrates, nobility, and
clergy.
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