whole of a vast country to the arbitrary dictates of a knot of despots in
the capital, was not the fruit of the Revolution, but of the Ancien
Regime which preceded it; and that Robespierre and his "Comite de Salut
Public," and commissioners sent forth to the four winds of heaven in
bonnet rouge and carmagnole complete, to build up and pull down,
according to their wicked will, were only handling, somewhat more
roughly, the same wires which had been handled for several generations by
the Comptroller-General and Council of State, with their provincial
intendants.

"Do you know," said Law to the Marquis d'Argenson, "that this kingdom of
France is governed by thirty intendants? You have neither parliament,
nor estates, nor governors. It is upon thirty masters of request,
despatched into the provinces, that their evil or their good, their
fertility or their sterility, entirely depend."

To do everything for the people, and let them do nothing for
themselves--this was the Ancien Regime. To be more wise and more loving
than Almighty God, who certainly does not do everything for the sons of
men, but forces them to labour for themselves by bitter need, and after a
most Spartan mode of education; who allows them to burn their hands as
often as they are foolish enough to put them into the fire; and to be
filled with the fruits of their own folly, even though the folly be one
of necessary ignorance; treating them with that seeming neglect which is
after all the most provident care, because by it alone can men be trained
to experience, self-help, science, true humanity; and so become not
tolerably harmless dolls, but men and women worthy of the name; with

The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;