No man ever was attached by a sense of pride, partiality,
or real affection to a description of square measurement. He never
will glory in belonging to the Chequer No. 71, or to any other
badge-ticket. We begin our public affections in our families. No
cold relation is a zealous citizen. We pass on to our neighborhoods
and our habitual provincial connections. These are inns and resting
places. Such divisions of our country as have been formed by habit,
and not by a sudden jerk of authority, were so many little images of
the great country in which the heart found something which it could
fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate
partiality. Perhaps it is a sort of elemental training to those higher
and more large regards by which alone men come to be affected, as with
their own concern, in the prosperity of a kingdom so extensive as that
of France. In that general territory itself, as in the old name of
provinces, the citizens are interested from old prejudices and
unreasoned habits, and not on account of the geometric properties of
its figure. The power and pre-eminence of Paris does certainly press
down and hold these republics together as long as it lasts. But, for
the reasons I have already given you, I think it cannot last very
long.
Passing from the civil creating and the civil cementing principles
of this constitution to the National Assembly, which is to appear
and act as sovereign, we see a body in its constitution with every
possible power, and no possible external control.
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