orst
citizens of a state. A miracle would be necessary to render them
otherwise. In all countries they are the _spoiled children_ of
nations. They are proud and haughty, since they pretend it is from God
himself they received their mission and their power. They are
ingrates, since they assume to owe only to God benefits which they
visibly hold from the generosity of governments and the people. They
are audacious, because for many ages they have enjoyed supremacy with
impunity. They are unquiet and turbulent, because they are never
without the desire of playing a great part. They are quarrelsome and
factious, because they are never able to find out a method of enabling
men to understand the pretended truths they teach. They are
suspicious, defiant, and cruel, because they sensibly feel that they
may well dread the discovery of their impostures. They are the
spontaneous enemies of truth, because they justly apprehend it will
annihilate their pretensions. They are implacable in their vengeance,
because it would be dangerous to pardon those who wish to crush their
doctrines, whose weakness they know. They are hypocrites, because most
of them possess too much sense to believe the reveries they retail to
others. They are obstinate in their ideas, because they are inflated
with vanity, and because they could not consistently deviate from a
method of thinking of which they pretend God is the author. We often
see them unbridled and licentious in their manners, because it is
impossible that idleness, effeminacy, and luxury should not corrupt
the heart. We sometimes see them austere and rigid in their conduct in
order to impose on the people and accomplish their ambitious views. If
they are hypocrites and rogues, they are extremely dangerous; and if
they are fanatical in good faith, or imbecile, they are not less to be
feared. In fine, we almost always see them rebellious and seditious,
because an authority derived from God is not disposed to bend to
authority derived from men.

You have here, Madam, a faithful portrait of the members of a powerful
body, in whose favor governments, for a long time, have believed it
their duty to sacrifice the other interests of the state. You here see
the citizens whom prejudice most richly recompenses, whom princes
honor in the eyes of the people, to whom they give their confidence,
whom they regard as the support of their power, and whom they consider
as necessary to the happiness and security