I have done it the rather,
because, though you will have heard many of them, and seen them in the
public papers, yet, floating in the mass of lies which constitute the
atmosphere of London and Paris, you may not have been sure of their
truth; and I have mentioned every truth of any consequence, to enable
you to stamp as false, the facts pretermitted. I think that in the
course of three months, the royal authority has lost, and the rights
of the nation gained, as much ground by a revolution of public opinion
only, as England gained in all her civil wars under the Stuarts. I
rather believe, too, they will retain the ground gained, because it
is defended by the young and the middle-aged, in opposition to the old
only. The first party increases, and the latter diminishes daily, from
the course of nature. You may suppose, that in this situation, war would
be unwelcome to France. She will surely avoid it, if not forced into it
by the courts of London and Berlin. If forced, it is probable she
will change the system of Europe totally, by an alliance with the two
empires, to whom nothing would be more desirable.
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