f L'Intrigue du Cabinet, (Intrigue of the Cabinet), who
wrote before any revolution was thought of in France, speaking of the
States-General of 1614, says, "They held the public in suspense five
months; and by the questions agitated therein, and the heat with which
they were put, it appears that the great (les grands) thought more to
satisfy their particular passions, than to procure the goods of the
nation; and the whole time passed away in altercations, ceremonies and
parade."--L'Intrigue du Cabinet, vol. i. p. 329.]

[Footnote 10: There is a single idea, which, if it strikes rightly upon the mind,
either in a legal or a religious sense, will prevent any man or any body
of men, or any government, from going wrong on the subject of religion;
which is, that before any human institutions of government were known in
the world, there existed, if I may so express it, a compact between
God and man, from the beginning of time: and that as the relation and
condition which man in his individual person stands in towards his Maker
cannot be changed by any human laws or human authority, that religious
devotion, which is a part of this compact, cannot so much as be made a
subject of human laws; and that all laws must conform themselves to this
prior existing compact, and not assume to make the compact conform to
the laws, which, besides being human, are subsequent thereto. The first
act of man, when he looked around and saw himself a creature which he
did not make, and a world furnished for his reception, must have been
devotion; and devotion must ever continue sacred to every individual
man, as it appears, right to him; and governments do mischief by
interfering.]

[Footnote 11: See this work, Part I starting at line number 254.--N.B. Since the
taking of the Bastille, the occurrences have been published: but the
matters recorded in this narrative, are prior to that period; and some
of them, as may be easily seen, can be but very little known.]

[Footnote 12: See "Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain," by G.
Chalmers.]

[Footnote 13: See "Administration of the Finances of France," vol. iii, by M.
Neckar.]

[Footnote 14: "Administration of the Finances of France," vol. iii.]

[Footnote 15: Whether the English commerce does not bring in money, or whether the
government sends it out after it is brought in, is a matter which the
parties concerned can best explain; but that the deficiency exists, is
not in the pow