But these were, however, in comparison generous
delusions. They supposed, and they aimed at, an increase of the
commerce of France. They opened to it the whole range of the two
hemispheres. They did not think of feeding France from its own
substance. A grand imagination found in this night of commerce
something to captivate. It was wherewithal to dazzle the eye of an
eagle. It was not made to entice the smell of a mole nuzzling and
burying himself in his mother earth, as yours is. Men were not then
quite shrunk from their natural dimensions by a degrading and sordid
philosophy, and fitted for low and vulgar deceptions. Above all,
remember that in imposing on the imagination the then managers of
the system made a compliment to the freedom of men. In their fraud
there was no mixture of force. This was reserved to our time, to
quench the little glimmerings of reason which might break in upon
the solid darkness of this enlightened age.
On recollection, I have said nothing of a scheme of finance
which may be urged in favor of the abilities of these gentlemen, and
which has been introduced with great pomp, though not yet finally
adopted, in the National Assembly. It comes with something solid in
aid of the credit of the paper circulation; and much has been said
of its utility and its elegance. I mean the project for coining into
money the bells of the suppressed churches.
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