ens of the debts, and furnish
a rich prize to the robbers who domineered in France.

Do you believe the Belgians have ever been the dupes of those
well-rounded periods which they vended in the pulpit in order to
familiarize them to the idea of an union with France? Do you believe
they were ever imposed upon by those votes and resolutions, made by what
is called acclamation, for their union, of which corruption paid one
part,[9] and fear forced the remainder? Who, at this time of day, is
unacquainted with the springs and wires of their miserable puppet-show?
_Who does not know the farces of primary assemblies, composed of a
president, of a secretary, and of some assistants, whose day's work was
paid for?_ No: it is not by means which belong only to thieves and
despots that the foundations of liberty can be laid in an enslaved
country. It is not by those means, that a new-born republic, a people
who know not yet the elements of republican governments, can be united
to us. Even slaves do not suffer themselves to be seduced by such
artifices; and if they have not the strength to resist, they have at
least the sense to know how to appreciate the value of such an attempt.

If we would attach the Belgians to us, we must at least enlighten their
minds by _good writings_; we must send to them _missionaries_, and not
despotic commissioners.[10] We ought to give them time to see,--to
perceive by themselves the advantages of liberty, the unhappy effects of
superstition, the fatal spirit of priesthood. And whilst we waited for
this moral revolution, we should have accepted the offers which they
incessantly repeated to join to the French army an army of fifty
thousand men, to entertain them at their own expense, and to advance to
France the specie of which she stood in need.

But have we ever seen those fifty thousand soldiers who were to join our
army as soon as the standard of liberty should be displayed in Belgium?
Have we ever seen those treasures which they were to count into our
hands? Can we either accuse the sterility of their country, or the
penury of their treasure, or the coldness of their love for liberty? No!
despotism and anarchy, these are the benefits which we have transplanted
into their soil. We have acted, we have spoken, like masters; and from
that time we have found the Flemings nothing but jugglers, who made the
grimace of liberty for money, or slaves, who in their hearts cursed
their new tyrants. Our commissi