Yes, Sir, I am shocked at the conduct of the Parliament—­ one would think it was an English one!  I am scandalized at the speeches of the Ivocat-g`en`eral,(250) who sets up the odious interests of the nobility and clergy against the cries and groans of the poor; and who employs his wicked eloquence to tempt the good young monarch, by personal views, to sacrifice the mass of his subjects to the privileges of the few.  But why do I call it eloquence?  The fumes of interest had so clouded his rhetoric, that he falls into a downright Iricism.  He tells the King, that the intended tax on the proprietors of land will affect the property not only of the rich, but of the poor.  I should be glad to know what is the Property of the poor?  Have the poor landed estates?  Are those who have landed estates the poor?  Are the poor that will suffer by the tax, the wretched labourers who are dragged from their famishing families to work on the roads?  But it is wicked eloquence when it finds a reason, or gives a reason for continuing the abuse.  The Advocate tells the King, those abuses are presque consacr`es par l’anciennet`e.  Indeed, he says all that can be said for nobility, it is consacr`ee par l’anciennet`e—­and thus the length of the pedigree of abuses renders them respectable!

His arguments are as contemptible when he tries to dazzle the King by the great names of Henri Quatre and Sully, of Louis XIV. and Colbert, two couple whom nothing but a mercenary orator would have classed together.  Nor, were all four equally venerable, would it prove any thing.  Even good kings and good ministers, if such have been, may have erred; nay, may have done the best they could.  They would not have been good, if they wished their errors should be preserved, the longer they had lasted.

In short, Sir, I think this resistance of the Parliament to the adorable reformation planned by Messrs. de Turgot and Malesherbes, is more phlegmatically scandalous than the wildest tyranny of despotism.  I forget what the nation was that refused liberty when it was offered.  This opposition to so noble a work is worse.  A whole people may refuse its own happiness; but these profligate magistrates resist happiness for others, for millions, for posterity!  Nay, do they not half vindicate Maupeou, who crushed them?  And you, dear Sir, will you now chide my apostacy?  Have-I not cleared myself to your eyes?  I do not see a shadow of sound logic in all Monsieur Seguier’s but in his proposing that the soldiers should work on the roads, and that passengers should contribute to their fabric; though, as France is not so luxuriously mad as England, I do not believe passengers could support the expense of the roads.  That argument, therefore, is like another that the Avocat proposes to the King, and which, he modestly owns, he believes would be impracticable.