Whether this be
an actual payment for the nine months of their existence, or an estimate
of their yearly charge, I do not clearly perceive. It is of no great
importance, as certainly they may take whatever they please.
[131] The reader will observe that I have but lightly touched (my plan
demanded nothing more) on the condition of the French finances as
connected with the demands upon them. If I had intended to do otherwise,
the materials in my hands for such a task are not altogether perfect. On
this subject I refer the reader to M. de Calonne's work, and the
tremendous display that he has made of the havoc and devastation in the
public estate, and in all the affairs of France, caused by the
presumptuous good intentions of ignorance and incapacity. Such effects
those causes will always produce. Looking over that account with a
pretty strict eye, and, with perhaps too much rigor, deducting
everything which may be placed to the account of a financier out of
place, who might be supposed by his enemies desirous of making the most
of his cause, I believe it will be found that a more salutary lesson of
caution against the daring spirit of innovators than what has been
supplied at the expense of France never was at any time furnished to
mankind.
[132] La Bruyere of Bossuet.
[133] "Ce n'est point a l'assemblee entiere que je m'adresse ici; je ne
parle qu'a ceux qui l'egarent, en lui cachant sous des gazes seduisantes
le but ou ils l'entrainent.
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