my himself; he records in his journal the mending of
his watch, and leaves the State carriage in the hands of Calonne to be
loaded with fresh abuses that it may revert back to the old rut from
which it is to issue only by breaking down.

Undoubtedly the wrong they do, or which is done in their name,
dissatisfies the kings and upsets them, but, at the bottom, their
conscience is not disturbed. They may feel compassion for the people,
but they do not feel guilty; they are its sovereigns and not its
representatives. France, to them, is as a domain to its lord, and a lord
is not deprived of honor in being prodigal and neglectful. He merely
gambles away his own property, and nobody has a right to call him
to account. Founded on feudal society, royalty is like an estate, an
inheritance. It would be infidelity, almost treachery in a prince,
in any event weak and base, should he allow any portion of the trust
received by him intact from his ancestors for transmission to his
children, to pass into the hands of his subjects. Not only according
to medieval traditions is he proprietor-commandant of the French and of
France, but again, according to the theory of the jurists, he is,
like Caesar, the sole and perpetual representative of the nation,
and, according to the theological doctrine, like David, the sacred and
special delegate of God himself. It would be astonishing, if, with all
these titles, he did not consider the public revenue as his personal
revenue, and if, in many cases, he did not act accordingly. Our point of
view, in this matter, is so essentially opposed to his, we can scarcely
put ourselves in his place; but at that time his point of view was
everybody's point of view. It seemed, then, as strange to meddle with
the king's business as to meddle with that of a private person. Only
at the end of the year 1788[1437] the famous salon of the Palais-Royal
"with boldness and unimaginable folly, asserts that in a true monarchy
the revenues of the State should not be at the sovereign's disposition;
that he should be granted merely a sum sufficient to defray the expenses
of his establishment, of his donations, and for favors to his servants
as well as for his pleasures, while the surplus should be deposited
in the royal treasury to be devoted only to purposes sanctioned by the
National Assembly. To reduce the sovereign to a civil list, to seize
nine-tenths of his income, to forbid him cash on demand, what an
outrage! The sur