sed some of them.
The old States, methodized by orders, settled the more ancient. They may
say to the Assembly,--"Who are you, that are not our kings, nor the
States we have elected, nor sit on the principles on which we have
elected you? And who are we, that, when we see the _gabelles_ which you
have ordered to be paid wholly shaken off, when we see the act of
disobedience afterwards ratified by yourselves, who are we, that we are
not to judge what taxes we ought or ought not to pay, and are not to
avail ourselves of the same powers the validity of which you have
approved in others?" To this the answer is, "We will send troops." The
last reason of kings is always the first with your Assembly. This
military aid may serve for a time, whilst the impression of the increase
of pay remains, and the vanity of being umpires in all disputes is
flattered. But this weapon will snap short, unfaithful to the hand that
employs it. The Assembly keep a school, where, systematically, and with
unremitting perseverance, they teach principles and form regulations
destructive to all spirit of subordination, civil and military,--and
then they expect that they shall hold in obedience an anarchic people by
an anarchic army.

The municipal army, which, according to their new policy, is to balance
this national army, if considered in itself only, is of a constitution
much more simple, and in every respect less exceptionable. It is a mere
democratic body, unconnected with the crown or the kingdom, armed and
trained and officered at the pleasure of the districts to which the
corps severally belong; and the personal service of the individuals who
compose, or the fine in lieu of personal service, are directed by the
same authority.[130] Nothing is more uniform. If, however, considered in
any relation to the crown, to the National Assembly, to the public
tribunals, or to the other army, or considered in a view to any
coherence or connection between its parts, it seems a monster, and can
hardly fail to terminate its perplexed movements in some great national
calamity. It is a worse preservative of a general constitution than the
systasis of Crete, or the confederation of Poland, or any other
ill-devised corrective which has yet been imagined, in the necessities
produced by an ill-constructed system of government.

* * * * *

Having concluded my few remarks on the constitution of the supreme
power, the executive, the