the measure of all
these horrors, the commandants of places have had their throats out
under the eyes and almost in the arms of their own soldiers.

"These evils are great; but they are not the worst consequences which
may be produced by such military insurrections. Sooner or later they may
menace the nation itself. _The nature of things requires_ that the army
should never act but as _an instrument_. The moment that, erecting
itself into a deliberate body, it shall act according to its own
resolutions, _the government, be it what it may, will immediately
degenerate into a military democracy_: a species of political monster
which has always ended by devouring those who have produced it.

"After all this, who must not be alarmed at the irregular consultations
and turbulent committees formed in some regiments by the common soldiers
and non-commissioned officers, without the knowledge, or even in
contempt of the authority, of their superiors?--although the presence
and concurrence of those superiors could give no authority to such
monstrous democratic assemblies [_comices_]."

It is not necessary to add much to this finished picture,--finished as
far as its canvas admits, but, as I apprehend, not taking in the whole
of the nature and complexity of the disorders of this military
democracy, which, the minister at war truly and wisely observes,
wherever it exists, must be the true constitution of the state, by
whatever formal appellation it may pass. For, though he informs the
Assembly that the more considerable part of the army have not cast off
their obedience, but are still attached to their duty, yet those
travellers who have seen the corps whose conduct is the best rather
observe in them the absence of mutiny than the existence of discipline.

I cannot help pausing here for a moment, to reflect upon the expressions
of surprise which this minister has let fall relative to the excesses he
relates. To him the departure of the troops from their ancient
principles of loyalty and honor seems quite inconceivable. Surely those
to whom he addresses himself know the causes of it but too well. They
know the doctrines which they have preached, the decrees which they have
passed, the practices which they have countenanced. The soldiers
remember the sixth of October. They recollect the French guards. They
have not forgot the taking of the king's castles in Paris and at
Marseilles. That the governors in both places were murdered wit