they hope to remove from each power separately the idea of
a distinct affront. The persons first pointed at by the menace are
certainly the princes of Germany, who harbor the persecuted House of
Bourbon and the nobility of France; the declaration, however, is
general, and goes to every state with which they may have a cause of
quarrel. But the terror of France has fallen upon all nations. A few
months since all sovereigns seemed disposed to unite against her; at
present they all seem to combine in her favor. At no period has the
power of France ever appeared with so formidable an aspect. In
particular the liberties of the Empire can have nothing more than an
existence the most tottering and precarious, whilst France exists with a
great power of fomenting rebellion, and the greatest in the
weakest,--but with neither power nor disposition to support the smaller
states in their independence against the attempts of the more powerful.

I wind up all in a full conviction within my own breast, and the
substance of which I must repeat over and over again, that the state of
France is the first consideration in the politics of Europe, and of each
state, externally as well as internally considered.

Most of the topics I have used are drawn from fear and apprehension.
Topics derived from fear or addressed to it are, I well know, of
doubtful appearance. To be sure, hope is in general the incitement to
action. Alarm some men,--you do not drive them to provide for their
security; you put them to a stand; you induce them, not to take measures
to prevent the approach of danger, but to remove so unpleasant an idea
from their minds; you persuade them to remain as they are, from a new
fear that their activity may bring on the apprehended mischief before
its time. I confess freely that this evil sometimes happens from an
overdone precaution; but it is when the measures are rash, ill-chosen,
or ill-combined, and the effects rather of blind terror than of
enlightened foresight. But the few to whom I wish to submit my thoughts
are of a character which will enable them to see danger without
astonishment, and to provide against it without perplexity.

To what lengths this method of circulating mutinous manifestoes, and of
keeping emissaries of sedition in every court under the name of
ambassadors, to propagate the same principles and to follow the
practices, will go, and how soon they will operate, it is hard to say;
but go on it will, more or