Through it,[16]
"The smaller number would control the greater;" ... "we should fall
back on the humiliating distinctions" of the ancient regime; "we
should revivify the germ of an aristocracy which must be
exterminated.".... "Moreover, whatever recalls or revives feudal
Institutions is bad, and an Upper Chamber is one of its remnants."
...."If the English have one, it is because they have been forced to
make a compromise with prejudice."
The National Assembly, sovereign and philosophic, soars above their
errors, their trammel; and their example. The depository of truth,
it has not to receive lessons from others, but to give them, and to
offer to the world's admiration the first type of a Constitution
which is perfect and in conformity with principle, the most
effective of any in preventing the formation of a governing class;
in closing the way to public business, not only to the old noblesse,
but to the aristocracy of the future; in continuing and exaggerating
the work of absolute monarchy; in preparing for a community of
officials and administrators; in lowering the level of humanity; in
reducing to sloth and brutalizing or blighting the elite of the
families which maintain or raise themselves; and in withering the
most precious of nurseries, that in which the State recruits its
statesmen.
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