* In their zeal to imitate the Roman republicans, the French seem to
forget that a political consideration very different from the love
of simplicity, or an idea of the dignity of man, made the Romans
averse from distinguishing their slaves by any external indication.
They were so numerous that it was thought impolitic to furnish them
with such means of knowing their own strength in case of a revolt.

The marks of service cannot be more degrading than service itself; and it
is the mere chicane of philosophy to extend reform only to cuffs and
collars, while we do not dispense with the services annexed to them. A
valet who walks the street in his powdering jacket, disdains a livery as
much as the fiercest republican, and with as much reason--for there is no
more difference between domestic occupation performed in one coat or
another, than there is between the party-coloured habit and the jacket.

If the luxury of carriages be an evil, it must be because the horses
employed in them consume the produce of land which might be more
beneficially cultivated: but the gilding, fringe, salamanders, and lions,
in all their heraldic positions, afford an easy livelihood to
manufacturers and artisans, who might not be capable of more laborious
occupations.

I believe it will generally be found, that most of the republican reforms
are of this description--calculated only to impose on the people, and
disguising, by frivolous prohibitions, their real inutility. The
affectation of simplicity in a nation already familiarized with luxury,
only tends to divert the wealth of the rich to purposes which render it
more destructive. Vanity and ostentation, when they are excluded from
one means of gratification, will always seek another; and those who,
having the means, cannot distinguish themselves by ostensible splendour,