You cannot propose a remedy for the incompetence of
the crown without displaying the debility of the Assembly. You
cannot deliberate on the confusion of the army of the state without
disclosing the worse disorders of the armed municipalities. The
military lays open the civil, and the civil betrays the military,
anarchy. I wish everybody carefully to peruse the eloquent speech
(such it is) of M. de la Tour du Pin. He attributes the salvation of
the municipalities to the good behavior of some of the troops. These
troops are to preserve the well-disposed part of those municipalities,
which is confessed to be the weakest, from the pillage of the
worst-disposed, which is the strongest. But the municipalities
affect a sovereignty and will command those troops which are necessary
for their protection. Indeed they must command them or court them. The
municipalities, by the necessity of their situation, and by the
republican powers they have obtained, must, with relation to the
military, be the masters, or the servants, or the confederates, or
each successively; or they must make a jumble of all together,
according to circumstances. What government is there to coerce the
army but the municipality, or the municipality but the army? To
preserve concord where authority is extinguished, at the hazard of all
consequences, the Assembly attempts to cure the distempers by the
distempers themselves; and they hope to preserve themselves from a
purely military democracy by giving it a debauched interest in the
municipal.
Pages:
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340