tened prince beware of
flatterers, whose object is to lull him to sleep upon the brink of the
precipice which they form beneath him?

151.

If sacerdotal flatteries succeed in perverting princes and making them
tyrants; tyrants, on their part, necessarily corrupt both the great and
the humble. Under an unjust ruler, void of goodness and virtue, who knows
no law but his caprice, a nation must necessarily be depraved. Will this
ruler wish to have, about his person, honest, enlightened, and virtuous
men? No. He wants none but flatterers, approvers, imitators, slaves, base
and servile souls, who conform themselves to his inclinations. His court
will propagate the contagion of vice among the lower ranks. All will
gradually become corrupted in a state, whose chief is corrupt. It was long
since said, that "Princes seem to command others to do whatever they do
themselves."

Religion, far from being a restraint upon sovereigns, enables them to
indulge without fear or remorse, in acts of licentiousness as injurious to
themselves, as to the nations whom they govern. It is never with impunity,
that men are deceived. Tell a sovereign, that he is a god; he will very
soon believe that he owes nothing to any one. Provided he is feared, he
will care very little about being loved: he will observe neither rules,
nor relations with his subjects, nor duties towards them. Tell this
prince, that he is _accountable for his actions to God alone_, and he will
soon act as if he were accountable to no one.

152.

An enlightened sovereign is he, who knows his true interests; who knows,
that they are connected with the interests of his nation; that a prince
cannot be great, powerful, beloved, or respected, while he commands only
unhappy slaves; that equity, beneficence, and vigilance will give him
more real authority over his people, than the fabulous titles, said to be
derived from heaven. He will see, that Religion is useful only to priests,
that it is useless to society and often troubles it, and that it ought to
be restrained in order to be prevented from doing injury. Finally, he will
perceive, that, to reign with glory, he must have good laws and inculcate
virtue, and not found his power upon impostures and fallacies.

153.

The ministers of religion have taken great care to make of their God, a
formidable, capricious, and fickle tyrant. Such a God was necessary to
their variable interests. A God, who should be just a