rival pride, and to exalt their wealth to what they confidered as its natural rank and estimation. They ftruck at the nobility through the crown and the church. They attacked them particularly on the fide on which they thought them the most vulnerable, that is, the poffeffions of the church, which, through the patronage of the crown, generally devolved upon the nobility. The bishopricks, and the great commandatory abbies, were, with few exceptions, held by that order. In this state of real, though not always perceived warfare between the noble ancient landed intereft, and the new monied intereft, the greatest because the most applicable ftrength was in the hands of the latter. The monied interest is in its nature more ready for any adventure, and its poffeffors more difpofed to new enterprizes of any kind. Being of a recent acquifition, it falls in more naturally with any novelties. It is therefore the kind of wealth which will be resorted to by all who wish for change. Along with the monied intereft, a new defcription of men had grown up, with whom that interest foon formed a clofe and marked union; I mean the political men of letters: Men of letters, fond of diftinguishing themselves, are rarely averfe to innovation. Since the decline of the life and greatness of Lewis the XIVth, they were not so much cultivated either by him, or by the regent, or the fucceffors to the crown; nor were they engaged to the court by favours and emoluments fo fyftematically as during the fplendid period of that oftentatious and not impolitic reign. What they loft in the old court protection they endeavoured to make up by joining in, a fort of incorporation of their own; to which the two academies of France, and afterwards the vast undertaking of the Encyclopædia, carried on by a fociety of these gentlemen, did not a little contribute. The literary cabal had fome years ago formed fomething like a regular plan for the deftruction of the Christian religion. This object they pursued with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been discovered only in the propagators of fome fyftem of piety. They were poffeffed with a spirit of profelytifim in the most fanatical degree; and from thence thence by an easy progrefs, with the spirit of perfecution according to their means. What was not to be done towards their great end by any direct or immediate act, might be wrought by a longer process through the medium of opinion. To command that opinion, the first step is to establish a dominion over those who direct it. They contrived to poffefs themselves, with great method and perfeverance, of all the avenues to literary fame. Many of them indeed stood high in the ranks of literature and fcience. The world had done them justice, and in favour of general talents, forgave the evil tendency of their peculiar principles. This was true liberality, which they returned by endeavouring to confine the reputation of fense, learning, and taste to themselves or their followers. I will venture to say that this narrow, exclufive fpirit, has not been lefs prejudicial to literature and to taste, than to morals and true philofophy. These Atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own; and they have learnt to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk. But in fome things they are men of the world. The resources of intrigue are called in to supply the defects of argument and wit. To this fyftem of literary monopoly was joined an unremitting industry to blacken and difcredit in every way, and by every means, all those who did not hold to their faction. To those who have observed the spirit of their conduct, it has long been clear that nothing was wanted but the power of carrying the intolerance of the tongue and of the pen into a perfecution which would ftrike at property, liberty, and life. The defultory and faint perfecution carried on against them, more from compliance with form and decency than with ferious refentment, neither weakened their ftrength, nor relaxed their efforts. The iffue of the whole was, that what with oppofition, and what with fuccefs, a violent and malignant zeal, of a kind hitherto unknown in the world, had taken an entire poffeffion of their minds, and rendered their whole converfation, which otherwise would have been pleasing and instructive, perfectly difgufting. A spirit of cabal, intrigue, and profelytifm, pervaded all their thoughts, words, and actions. And, as controverfial zeal foon turns its thoughts thoughts on force, they began to infinuate themfelves into a correfpondence with foreign princes; in hopes, through their authority, which at firft they flattered, they might bring about the changes they had in view. To them it was indifferent whether thefe changes were to be accomplished by the thunderbolt of defpotifm, or by the earthquake of popular commotion. The correlpondence between this cabal, and the late king of Pruffia, will throw no fmall light upon the fpirit of all their proceedings. For the fame purpofe for which they intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a diftinguished manner, the monied intereft of France; and partly through the means furnished by thofe whofe peculiar offices gave them the most extenfive and certain means of communication, they carefully occupied all the avenues to opinion. Writers, efpecially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind; the alliance therefore of thefe writers with the monied interest had no small effect in removing the popular odium and envy which attended that fpecies of wealth. These writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great zeal for the poor, and the lower orders, whilft in their fatires they rendered hateful, by every exaggeration, the faults of courts, of nobility, and of priesthood. They became a fort of demagogues. They ferved as a link to unite, in favour of one object, obnoxious wealth to restlefs and defperate poverty. As these two kinds of men appear principal leaders in all the late tranfactions, their junction and politics will ferve to account, not upon any principles of law or of policy, but as a caufe, for the general fury with which all the landed property of ecclefiaftical corporations has been attacked; and the great care which, contrary to their pretended principles, has been taken, of a monied interest originating from the authority of the crown. All the envy against wealth and power, was artificially directed against other defcriptions of riches. On what other principles than that which I have stated can we account for I do not chufe to fhock the feeling of the moral reader with any quo tation of their vulgar, base, and profane language. for an appearance fo extraordinary and unnatural as that of the ecclefiaftical poffeffions, which had stood fo many fucceffions of ages and fhocks of civil violences, and were guarded at once by juftice, and by prejudice, being applied to the payment of debts, comparatively recent, inviduous, and contracted by a decried and fubverted government? the Was the public eftate a fufficient stake for the public debts? Affume that it was not, and that a lofs must be incurred fomewhere-When the only estate lawfully poffeffed, and which the contracting parties had in contemplation at the time in which their bargain was made, happens to fail, who, according to the principles of natural and legal equity, ought to be the fufferer? Certainly it ought to be either the party who trusted, or the party who perfuaded him to truft, or both; and not third parties who had no concern with the tranfaction. Upon any infolvency, they ought to fuffer who were weak enough to lend upon bad fecurity, or they who fraudulently held out a fecurity that was not valid. Laws are acquainted with no other rules of decifion. But by the new inftitute of the rights of men, the only perfons who in equity ought to fuffer, are the only perfons who are to be faved harmless those are to answer the debt who neither were lenders or borrowers, mortgagers, or mortgagees. : What had the clergy to do with these transactions? What had they to do with any public engagement further than the extent of their own debt? To that, to be fure, their eftates were bound to the laft acre. Nothing can lead more to the true fpirit of the affembly which fits for public confifcation, with its new equity and its new morality, than an attention to their proceeding with regard to this debt of the clergy. The body of confifcators, true to that monied intereft for which they were falfe to every other, have found the clergy competent to incur a legal debt. Of course, they declared them legally entitled to the property which their power of incurring the debt and mortgaging the estate implied; recognizing the rights of thofe perfecuted citizens, in the very act in which they were thus grofsly violated. If, as I faid, any perfons are to make good deficiencies to to the public creditor, befides the public at large, they must be thofe who managed the agreement. Why therefore are not the eftates of all the comptrollers general confifcated? Why not thofe of the long fucceffion of minifters, financiers, and bankers who have been enriched whilft the nation was impoverished by their dealings and their counfels? Why is not the eftate of Mr. Laborde declared forfeited rather than of the archbishop of Paris, who has had nothing to do in the creation or in the jobbing of the public funds? Or, if you must confifcate old landed eftates in favour of the money-jobbers, why is the penalty confined to one defcription? I do not know whether the expences of the Duke de Choiseul have left any thing of the infinite fums which he had derived from the bounty of his mafter, during the transactions of a reign which contributed largely, by every fpecies of prodigality in war and peace, to the prefent debt of France. If any fuch remains, why is not this confiscated? I remember to have been in Paris during the time of the old government. I was there juft after the duke d'Aiguillon had been fnatched (as it was generally thought) from the block by the hand of a protecting defpotifm. He was a minister, and had fome concern in the affairs of that prodigal period. Why do I not fee his eftate delivered up to the municipalities in which it is fituated? The noble family of Noailles have long been fervants, (meritorious fervants I admit) to the crown of France, and have had of course fome share in its bounties. Why do I hear nothing of the application of their eftates to the public debt? Why is the eftate of the duke de Rochefoucault more facred than that of the cardinal de Rochefoucault? The former is, I doubt not, a worthy perfon; and (if it were not a fort of profaneness to talk of the ufe, as affecting the title to property) he makes a good use of his revenues; but it is no difrepect to him to fay, what authentic information well warrants me in faying, that the ufe made of a property equally valid, by his brother the cardinal archbishop of Rouen, was far more laudable and far more public-fpirited. Can one hear of the profcription of fuch perfons, and the confifcation of their effects, without indignation and horror? He is not a man who does not |