The Assembly, having
accepted theatrical exhibitions when these were sincere and earnest,
is obliged to tolerate them when they become mere sham and
buffoonery. At this vast national banquet, over which it meant to
preside, and to which, throwing the doors wide open, it invited all
France, its first intoxication was due to wine of a noble quality;
but it has touched glasses with the populace, and by degrees, under
the pressure of its associates, it has descended to adulterated and
burning drinks, to a grotesque unwholesome inebriety which is all
the more grotesque and unwholesome, because it persists in believing
itself to be reason.
II.
Inadequacy of its information - Its composition - The social
standing and culture of the larger number - Their incapacity.
Their presumption - Fruitless advice of competent men.- Deductive
politics - Parties - The minority; its faults - The majority; its
dogmatism.
If reason could only resume its empire during the lucid intervals!
But reason must exist before it can govern, and in no French
Assembly, except the two following this, have there ever been fewer
political intellects.
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