Is the
conduct of a war to be trusted to a man who may abhor its
principle,--who, in every step he may take to render it successful,
confirms the power of those by whom he is oppressed? Will foreign
states seriously treat with him who has no prerogative of peace or
war,--no, not so much as in a single vote by himself or his ministers,
or by any one whom he can possibly influence? A state of contempt is not
a state for a prince: better get rid of him at once.
I know it will be said that these humors in the court and executive
government will continue only through this generation, and that the king
has been brought to declare the dauphin shall be educated in a
conformity to his situation. If he is made to conform to his situation,
he will have no education at all. His training must be worse even than
that of an arbitrary monarch. If he reads,--whether he reads or not,
some good or evil genius will tell him his ancestors were kings.
Thenceforward his object must be to assert himself and to avenge his
parents. This you will say is not his duty. That may be; but it is
Nature; and whilst you pique Nature against you, you do unwisely to
trust to duty. In this futile scheme of polity, the state nurses in its
bosom, for the present, a source of weakness, perplexity, counteraction,
inefficiency, and decay; and it prepares the means of its final ruin.
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