IN THEIR PROCEEDINGS relative to this object, if possible, still
fewer traces appear of political judgment or financial resource.
When the states met, it seemed to be the great object to improve the
system of revenue, to enlarge its collection, to cleanse it of
oppression and vexation, and to establish it on the most solid
footing. Great were the expectations entertained on that head
throughout Europe. It was by this grand arrangement that France was to
stand or fall; and this became, in my opinion, very properly the
test by which the skill and patriotism of those who ruled in that
Assembly would be tried. The revenue of the state is the state. In
effect, all depends upon it, whether for support or for reformation.
The dignity of every occupation wholly depends upon the quantity and
the kind of virtue that may be exerted in it. As all great qualities
of the mind which operate in public, and are not merely suffering
and passive, require force for their display, I had almost said for
their unequivocal existence, the revenue, which is the spring of all
power, becomes in its administration the sphere of every active
virtue. Public virtue, being of a nature magnificent and splendid,
instituted for great things and conversant about great concerns,
requires abundant scope and room and cannot spread and grow under
confinement and in circumstances straitened, narrow, and sordid.
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