special favour, have no particular spite at me; no more have I to
them: I should have my hands too full. Like consciences are lodged under
several sorts of robes; like cruelty, disloyalty, rapine; and so much the
worse, and more falsely, when the more secure and concealed under colour
of the laws. I less hate an open professed injury than one that is
treacherous; an enemy in arms, than an enemy in a gown. Our fever has
seized upon a body that is not much the worse for it; there was fire
before, and now 'tis broken out into a flame; the noise is greater, not
the evil. I ordinarily answer such as ask me the reason of my travels,
"That I know very well what I fly from, but not what I seek." If they
tell me that there may be as little soundness amongst foreigners, and
that their manners are no better than ours: I first reply, that it is
hard to be believed;
"Tam multa: scelerum facies!"
["There are so many forms of crime."--Virgil, Georg., i. 506.]
secondly, that it is always gain to change an ill condition for one that
is uncertain; and that the ills of others ought not to afflict us so much
as our own.
I will not here omit, that I never mutiny so much against France, that I
am not perfectly friends with Paris; that city has ever had my heart from
my infancy, and it has fallen out, as of excellent things, that the more
beautiful cities I have seen since, the more the beauty of this still
wins upon my affection. I love her for herself, and more in her own
native being, than in all the pomp of foreign and acquired
embellishments. I love her tenderly, even to her warts and blemishes.
I am a Frenchman only through this great city, great in people, great in
the felicity of her situation; but, above all, great and incomparable in
variety and diversity of commodities: the glory of France, and one of the
most noble ornaments of the world. May God drive our divisions far from
her. Entire and united, I think her sufficiently defended from all other
violences. I give her caution that, of all sorts of people, those will
be the worst that shall set her in discord; I have no fear for her, but
of herself, and, certainly, I have as much fear for her as for any other
part of the kingdom. Whilst she shall continue, I shall never want a
retreat, where I may stand at bay, sufficient to make me amends for
parting with any other retreat.
Not because Socrates has said so, but because it is in truth my
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