Their confederations, their spectacles,
their civic feasts, and their enthusiasm I take no notice of; they are
nothing but mere tricks; but tracing their policy through their
actions, I think I can distinguish the arrangements by which they
propose to hold these republics together. The first is the
confiscation, with the compulsory paper currency annexed to it; the
second is the supreme power of the city of Paris; the third is the
general army of the state. Of this last I shall reserve what I have to
say until I come to consider the army as a head by itself.
As to the operation of the first (the confiscation and paper
currency) merely as a cement, I cannot deny that these, the one
depending on the other, may for some time compose some sort of
cement if their madness and folly in the management, and in the
tempering of the parts together, does not produce a repulsion in the
very outset. But allowing to the scheme some coherence and some
duration, it appears to me that if, after a while, the confiscation
should not be found sufficient to support the paper coinage (as I am
morally certain it will not), then, instead of cementing, it will
add infinitely to the dissociation, distraction, and confusion of
these confederate republics, both with relation to each other and to
the several parts within themselves. But if the confiscation should so
far succeed as to sink the paper currency, the cement is gone with the
circulation.
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