However this may turn out with regard to Poland, I am quite sure
that France could not be so well under a foreign direction as under that
of the representatives of its own king and its own ancient estates.
I think I have myself studied France as much as most of those whom the
allied courts are likely to employ in such a work. I have likewise of
myself as partial and as vain an opinion as men commonly have of
themselves. But if I could command the whole military arm of Europe, I
am sure that a bribe of the best province in that kingdom would not
tempt me to intermeddle in their affairs, except in perfect concurrence
and concert with the natural, legal interests of the country, composed
of the ecclesiastical, the military, the several corporate bodies of
justice and of burghership, making under a monarch (I repeat it again
and again) _the French nation according to its fundamental
Constitution_. No considerate statesman would undertake to meddle with
it upon any other condition.
The government of that kingdom is fundamentally monarchical.
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