--The insult and oppression
which the nobility frequently experience from those who have been
promoted by the revolution, will, I trust, be a useful lesson in future
to the great, who may be inclined to arrogate too much from adventitious
distinctions, to forget that the earth we tread upon may one day
overwhelm us, and that the meanest of mankind may do us an injury which
it is not in the power even of the most exalted to shield us from.
The inquisition begins to grow so strict, that I have thought it
necessary to-day to bury a translation of Burke.--In times of ignorance
and barbarity, it was criminal to read the bible, and our English author
is prohibited for a similar reason--that is, to conceal from the people
the errors of those who direct them: and, indeed, Mr. Burke has written
some truths, which it is of much more importance for the Convention to
conceal, than it could be to the Catholic priests to monopolize the
divine writings.--As far as it was possible, Mr. Burke has shown himself
a prophet: if he has not been completely so, it was because he had a
benevolent heart, and is the native of a free country. By the one, he
was prevented from imagining the cruelties which the French have
committed; by the other, the extreme despotism which they endure.
April 20, 1793.
Before these halcyon days of freedom, the supremacy of Paris was little
felt in the provinces, except in dictating a new fashion in dress, an
improvement in the art of cookery, or the invention of a minuet.
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