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Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.

of the people, in cases in which real oppression existed, I am ready to admit that they were not without considerable faults and errors. A foolish imitation of the worst part of the manners of Eng|land, which impaired their natural character with|out substituting in its place what perhaps they meant, has certainly rendered them worse than formerly they were. Habitual dissoluteness of man|ners continued beyond the pardonable period of life, was more common amongst them than it is with us; and it reigned with the less hope of remedy, though possibly with something of less mischief, by being covered with more exterior decorum. They countenanced too much that licentious philosophy which has helped to bring on their ruin. There was another error amongst them more fatal. Those of the commons, who approached to or exceeded many of the nobility in point of wealth, were not fully admitted to the rank and estimation which wealth, in reason and good policy, ought to bestow in every country; though I think not equally with that of other nobility. The two kinds of aristo|cracy were too punctiliously kept asunder; less so, however, than in Germany and some other nations. This separation, as I have already taken the liberty of suggesting to you, I conceive to be one principal cause of the destruction of the old nobility. The mi|litary, particularly, was too exclusively reserved for men of family. But after all, this was an error of opi|nion, which a conflicting opinion would have recti|fied. A permanent assembly, in which the commons had their share of power, would soon abolish what|ever was too invidious and insulting in these distinc|tions; and even the faults in the morals of the no|bility
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Title
Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
Author
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.
Canvas
Page 204
Publication
London :: printed for J. Dodsley,
1790.

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"Reflections on the Revolution in France: and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris. By the Right Honourable Edmund Burke." In the digital collection Eighteenth Century Collection Online Demo. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eccodemo/k043880.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 20, 2025.
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