which it never can remove; and which the or|der of civil life establishes as much for the be|nefit of those whom it must leave in an humble state, as those whom it is able to exalt to a con|dition more splendid, but not more happy. You had a smooth and easy career of felicity and glory laid open to you, beyond any thing re|corded in the history of the world; but you have shewn that difficulty is good for man.
Compute your gains: see what is got by those extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all their pre|decessors, and all their contemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the moment in which they became truly despicable. By fol|lowing those false lights, France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal bles|sings! France has bought poverty by crime! France has not sacrificed her virtue to her in|terest; but she has abandoned her interest, that she might prostitute her virtue. All other nations have begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally, or by enforcing with greater exactness some rites or other of religion. All other people have laid the foundations of civil freedom in severer manners, and a system of a more austere and masculine morality. France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the licence, of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners, and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and prac|tices;
