no slow-paced, methodical, formal, lawyer-like system, still less that of a showy, superficial, trifling, intriguing court, guided by cabals of ladies, or of men like ladies, least of all a philosophic, theoretic, disputatious school of sophistry,—­none of these ever will or ever can lay the foundations of an order that can last.  Whoever claims a right by birth to govern there must find in his breast, or must conjure up in it, an energy not to be expected, perhaps not always to be wished for, in well-ordered states.  The lawful prince must have, in everything but crime, the character of an usurper.  He is gone, if he imagines himself the quiet possessor of a throne.  He is to contend for it as much after an apparent conquest as before.  His task is, to win it:  he must leave posterity to enjoy and to adorn it.  No velvet cushions for him.  He is to be always (I speak nearly to the letter) on horseback.  This opinion is the result of much patient thinking on the subject, which I conceive no event is likely to alter.

A valuable friend of mine, who I hope will conduct these affairs, so far as they fall to his share, with great ability, asked me what I thought of acts of general indemnity and oblivion, as a means of settling France, and reconciling it to monarchy.  Before I venture upon any opinion of my own in this matter, I totally disclaim the interference of foreign powers in a business that properly belongs to the government which we have declared legal.  That government is likely to be the best judge of what is to be done towards the security of that kingdom, which it is their duty and their interest to provide for by such measures of justice or of lenity as at the time they should find best.  But if we weaken it not only by arbitrary limitations of our own, but preserve such persons in it as are disposed to disturb its future peace, as they have its past, I do not know how a more direct declaration can be made of a disposition to perpetual hostility against a government.  The persons saved from the justice of the native magistrate by foreign authority will owe nothing to his clemency.  He will, and must, look to those to whom he is indebted for the power he has of dispensing it.  A Jacobin faction, constantly fostered with the nourishment of foreign protection, will be kept alive.

This desire of securing the safety of the actors in the present scene is owing to more laudable motives.  Ministers have been made to consider the brothers of the late merciful king, and the nobility of France who have been faithful to their honor and duty, as a set of inexorable and remorseless tyrants.  How this notion has been infused into them I cannot be quite certain.  I am sure it is not justified by anything they have done.  Never were the two princes guilty, in the day of their power, of a single hard or ill-natured act.  No one instance of cruelty on the part of the gentlemen ever came to my ears.  It is true that the English Jacobins, (the