I
must confess I am touched with a sorrow mixed with some indignation, at
the conduct of a few men, once of great rank, and still of great
character, who, deluded with specious names, have engaged in a business
too deep for the line of their understanding to fathom,--who have lent
their fair reputation and the authority of their high-sounding names to
the designs of men with whom they could not be acquainted, and have
thereby made their very virtues operate to the ruin of their country.
So far as to the first cementing principle.
The second material of cement for their new republic is the superiority
of the city of Paris; and this, I admit, is strongly connected with the
other cementing principle of paper circulation and confiscation. It is
in this part of the project we must look for the cause of the
destruction of all the old bounds of provinces and jurisdictions,
ecclesiastical and secular, and the dissolution of all ancient
combinations of things, as well as the formation of so many small
unconnected republics. The power of the city of Paris is evidently one
great spring of all their politics. It is through the power of Paris,
now become the centre and focus of jobbing, that the leaders of this
faction direct, or rather command, the whole legislative and the whole
executive government. Everything, therefore, must be done which can
confirm the authority of that city over the other republics.
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