Whether this arises from political
causes, or the natural indifference of the French character, I am not
qualified to determine; probably from both: yet when I observe this
facility of mind general, and by no means peculiar to the higher classes,
I cannot myself but be of opinion, that it is more an effect of their
original disposition than of their form of government; for though in
England we were accustomed from our childhood to consider every man in
France as liable to wake and find himself in the Bastille, or at Mont St.
Michel, this formidable despotism existed more in theory than in
practice; and if courtiers and men of letters were intimidated by it,
the mass of the people troubled themselves very little about Lettres de
Cachet. The revenge or suspicion of Ministers might sometimes pursue
those who aimed at their power, or assailed their reputation; but the
lesser gentry, the merchants, or the shopkeepers, were very seldom
victims of arbitrary imprisonment--and I believe, amongst the evils which
it was the object of the revolution to redress, this (except on the
principle) was far from being of the first magnitude. I am not likely,
under my present circumstances, to be an advocate for the despotism of
any form of government; and I only give it as a matter of opinion, that
the civil liberty of the French was not so often and generally violated,*
as to influence their character in such a degree as to render them
insensible of its loss.
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