had rendered it capable of further progress, with the assurance that
there would be no lack of opportunity for them to obtain still more.

"This was all," he continues, "that I thought your countrymen able to
bear soberly and usefully."

Arthur Young, who studies the moral life of France so conscientiously,
and who is so severe in depicting old abuses, cannot comprehend the
conduct of the Commons.

"To set aside practice for theory... in establishing the interests of a
great kingdom, in securing freedom to 25,000,000 of people, seems to me
the very acme of imprudence, the very quintessence of insanity."

Undoubtedly, now that the Assembly is all-powerful, it is to be hoped
that it will be reasonable:

"I will not allow myself to believe for a moment that the
representatives of the people can ever so far forget their duty to
the French nation, to humanity, and their own fame, as to suffer
any inordinate and impracticable views--any visionary or theoretic
systems--... to turn aside their exertions from that security which is
in their hands, to place on the chance and hazard of public commotion
and civil war the invaluable blessings which are certainly in their
power. I will not conceive it possible that men who have eternal fame
within their grasp will place the rich inheritance on the cast of a die,
and, losing the venture, be damned among the worst and most profligate
adventurers that ever disgraced humanity."

As their plan becomes more definite the remonstrances become more
decided, and all the expert judges point out to them the importance of
the wheels which they are willfully breaking.

"As they have[2121] hitherto felt severely the authority exercised over
them in the name of their princes, every limitation of that authority
seems to them desirable. Never having felt the evils of too weak an
executive, the disorders to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet no
impression"--"They want an American Constitution,[2122] but with a
King instead of a President, without reflecting they have no American
citizens to support that Constitution... If they have the good sense
to give the nobles, as nobles, some portion of the national power, this
free constitution will probably last, But otherwise it will degenerate
either into a pure monarchy, or a vast republic, or a democracy. Will
the latter last? I doubt it. I am sure that it will not, unless the
whole nation is changed."

A little later, when they renounce a par