xclude the natives, but they will take that mode of consulting and
employing them which most nearly approaches to an exclusion. In some
particulars they propose what amounts to that exclusion, in others they
do much worse. They recommend to ministry, "that no Frenchman who has
given a decided opinion or acted a decided part in this great
Revolution, for or against it, should be countenanced, brought forward,
trusted, or employed, even in the strictest subordination to the
ministers of the allied powers." Although one would think that this
advice would stand condemned on the first proposition, yet, as it has
been made popular, and has been proceeded upon practically, I think it
right to give it a full consideration.

And first, I have asked myself who these Frenchmen are, that, in the
state their own country has been in for these last five years, of all
the people of Europe, have alone not been able to form a decided
opinion, or have been unwilling to act a decided part?

Looking over all the names I have heard of in this great revolution in
all human affairs, I find no man of any distinction who has remained in
that more than Stoical apathy, but the Prince de Conti. This mean,
stupid, selfish, swinish, and cowardly animal, universally known and
despised as such, has indeed, except in one abortive attempt to elope,
been perfectly neutral. However, his neutrality, which it seems would
qualify him for trust, and on a competition must set aside the Prince de
Conde, can be of no sort of service. His moderation has not been able to
keep him from a jail. The allied powers must draw him from that jail,
before they can have the full advantage of the exertions of this great
neutralist.

Except him, I do not recollect a man of rank or talents, who by his
speeches or his votes, by his pen or by his sword, has not been active
on this scene. The time, indeed, could admit no neutrality in any person
worthy of the name of man. There were originally two great divisions in
France: the one is that which overturned the whole of the government in
Church and State, and erected a republic on the basis of atheism. Their
grand engine was the Jacobin Club, a sort of secession from which, but
exactly on the same principles, begat another short-lived one, called
the Club of Eighty-Nine,[37] which was chiefly guided by the court
rebels, who, in addition to the crimes of which they were guilty in
common with the others, had the merit of betraying