some
unworthy characters, it is that they may be rendered useful to others.
All power comes from God, and is established only for the use of man.
The great would be useless on the earth if they were not surrounded by
the poor and the indigent; they owe their elevation to the public
necessities; and, so far are the people from being made for them, it is
they who are made for the people. It is the people who give the great
the right which they have to approach the throne; and it is for the
people that the throne itself has been raised. In a word, the great and
the princes are but, as it were, the men of the people: thence it is
that the prosperity of the great and their ministers, and of the
sovereigns who have been the oppressors of the people, has never brought
any thing but shame, ignominy, and maledictions to their descendants. We
have seen issue from that stem of iniquity the shameless shoots which
have been the disgrace of their name and of their age. The Lord has
breathed upon the heaps of their ill-gotten riches; he has dispersed
them as the dust: if he yet leaves on the earth the remnants of their
race, it is that they may remain an eternal monument of his vengeance.

"'The glory of a conqueror will be always stained with blood:--He passes
like a torrent over the earth, only to devastate it, and not as a
majestic river which brings joy and abundance. The remembrance of his
reign will recall only the recollection of the evils he has inflicted on
humanity. The people suffer always from the vices of their sovereign.
Whatever exaggerates authority, vilifies or degrades it; princes, ruled
by their passions, are always pernicious and bizarre masters. Government
has no longer a ruler when its head has none.

"'The Lord has ever blown on the haughty races and withered their roots.
The prosperity of the impious has never passed to their descendants.
Thrones themselves, and royal succession have failed, to effeminate and
worthless princes; and the history of the crimes and excess of the great
is, at the same time, the history of their misfortunes and of their
fall.

"'Prince's and sovereigns cannot be great but in rendering themselves
useful to the people--in bringing them, like Jesus Christ, abundance and
peace. The liberty which princes owe to their people, is the liberty of
the laws. You know only God above you, it is true; but the laws should
have an authority even superior to yourselves.

"'A great man--a prince--