l no longer resound with the illustrious
orators, whose words seemed to descend from divine inspiration.
Statesmen will be without elevation: instead of able men, mere
intriguers: the influence of talent will be replaced by the influence of
coteries. Business will be treated of in boudoirs, and decided according
to the caprice of abandoned women. They will dispose of administrations,
lower politics to the level of their own minds, and even ecclesiastical
dignities will depend on their patronage. As a consequence of that
general debasement, an unmeasured disdain will arise in the inferior
classes of all that is great in the state. Doubt will be applauded, and
it will extend to the power of the king, the noblesse, and the clergy.
The spirit of investigation and analysis will replace the flights of the
imagination. Men will sound the depths of that power which they have
ceased to regard with respect. The authorities of the earth will not be
sufficiently respected to make them look up to them--they must bring
them down to their own level, and look below them. A terrible reaction
will arise--the result of old rancours to which general feeling will no
longer oppose any barrier. On all sides will spring up the ideas of
liberty and independence. Meanwhile the redoubtable progress of a
revolution, which is advancing, will escape the observation of those
whom it is to swallow up; for the frivolity of their lives, and the
vacancy of their thoughts, will have deprived them of all
foresight."--(Vol. i. p. 22.)

The courage with which the French church frequently denounced the vices
and corruptions in high places with which it was surrounded, has always
been one of the most honourable features of its glorious annals.
Massillon, in the corrupted days of the regency, was not behind
Bourdalone and Bossuet and Fenelon, in the time of Louis XIV., in the
discharge of this noble duty:--

"When Massillon ascended the pulpit to instruct the young king, he
threatened with the wrath of God the great on the earth who violated his
commandments, and the Regent manifested no displeasure: conscience had
palsied his mind. Never had religion been more sublime,--never did she
appear clothed in more magnificent language. To the profound corruption
of the court, the preacher opposed the example of the little and the
weak; to their pride, the virtue of the poor, and its omnipotence in the
sight of God. 'If Providence permits,' said he, 'the elevation of