n du lit de justice_
that has operated the miracle. When two ministers are found so humane,
so virtuous, so excellent, as to study nothing but the welfare and
deliverance of the people; when a king listens to such excellent men;
and when a parliament, from the basest, most interested motives,
interposes to intercept the blessing, must I not change my opinions, and
admire arbitrary power? or can I retain my sentiments, without varying
the object?

Yes, Sir, I am shocked at the conduct of the Parliament--one would think
it was an English one! I am scandalised at the speeches of the
_Avocat-general_,[1] who sets up the odious interests of the nobility
and clergy against the cries and groans of the poor; and who employs his
wicked eloquence to tempt the good young monarch, by personal views, to
sacrifice the mass of his subjects to the privileges of the few--But why
do I call it eloquence? The fumes of interest had so clouded his
rhetoric, that he falls into a downright Iricism.--He tells the King,
that the intended tax on the proprietors of land will affect the
property not only of the rich, but of the poor. I should be glad to know
what is the property of the poor? Have the poor landed estates? Are
those who have landed estates the poor? Are the poor that will suffer by
the tax, the wretched labourers who are dragged from their famishing
families to work on the roads?--But _it is_ wicked eloquence when it
finds a reason, or gives a reason for continuing the abuse. The Advocate
tells the King, those abuses _presque consacres par l'anciennete_;
indeed, he says all that can be said for nobility, it is _consacree par
l'anciennete_; and thus the length of the pedigree of abuses renders
them respectable!

[Footnote 1: The _Avocat-General_ was M. de Seguier; and, under his
guidance, the Parliament had passed the monstrous resolution that "the
_people_ in France was liable to the tax of _la taille_, and to _corvee_
at discretion" (_etait tailleable et corveable a volonte_), and that
their "liability was an article of the Constitution which it was not in
the power of even the King himself to change" ("France under the
Bourbons," iii. 422).]

His arguments are as contemptible when he tries to dazzle the King by
the great names of Henri Quatre and Sully,[1] of Louis XIV. and Colbert,
two couple whom nothing but a mercenary orator would have classed
together. Nor, were all four equally venerable, would it prove anything.
Even goo