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 center 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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