LONDON, September 13, O. S. 1748.
DEAR BOY: I have more than once recommended to you the “Memoirs” of the
Cardinal de Retz, and to attend particularly to the political reflections
interspersed in that excellent work. I will now preach a little upon two
or three of those texts.
In the disturbances at Paris, Monsieur de Beaufort, who was a very
popular, though a very weak man, was the Cardinal’s tool with the
populace.
Proud of his popularity, he was always for assembling the people of Paris
together, thinking that he made a great figure at the head of them. The
Cardinal, who was factious enough, was wise enough at the same time to
avoid gathering the people together, except when there was occasion, and
when he had something particular for them to do. However, he could not
always check Monsieur de Beaufort; who having assembled them once very
unnecessarily, and without any determined object, they ran riot, would
not be kept within bounds by their leaders, and did their cause a great
deal of harm: upon which the Cardinal observes most judiciously, ‘Que
Monsieur de Beaufort me savoit pas, que qui assemble le peuple, l’emeut’.
It is certain, that great numbers of people met together, animate each
other, and will do something, either good or bad, but oftener bad; and
the respective individuals, who were separately very quiet, when met
together in numbers, grow tumultuous as a body, and ripe for any mischief
that may be pointed out to them by the leaders; and, if their leaders
have no business for them, they will find some for themselves. The
demagogues, or leaders of popular factions, should therefore be very
careful not to assemble the people unnecessarily, and without a settled
and well-considered object. Besides that, by making those popular
assemblies too frequent, they make them likewise too familiar, and
consequently less respected by their enemies. Observe any meetings of
people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or
fall in proportion to their numbers: when the numbers are very great, all
sense and reason seem to subside, and one sudden frenzy to seize on all,
even the coolest of them.
Another very just observation of the Cardinal’s is, That, the things
which happen in our own times, and which we see ourselves, do not
surprise us near so much as the things which we read of in times past,
though not in the least more extraordinary; and adds, that he is
persuaded that when Caligula made his horse a Consul, the people of Rome,
at that time, were not greatly surprised at it, having necessarily been
in some degree prepared for it, by an insensible gradation of
extravagances from the same quarter. This is so true that we read every
day, with astonishment, things which we see every day without surprise.
We wonder at the intrepidity of a Leonidas, a Codrus, and a Curtius; and
are not the least surprised to hear of a sea-captain, who has blown up
his ship, his crew, and himself, that they might not fall into the hands
of the enemies of his country. I cannot help reading of Porsenna and
Regulus, with surprise and reverence, and yet I remember that I saw,
without either, the execution of Shepherd,--[James Shepherd, a
coach-painter’s apprentice, was executed at Tyburn for high treason,
March 17, 1718, in the reign of George I.]--a boy of eighteen years old,
who intended to shoot the late king, and who would have been pardoned, if
he would have expressed the least sorrow for his intended crime; but, on
the contrary, he declared that if he was pardoned he would attempt it
again; that he thought it a duty which he owed to his country, and that
he died with pleasure for having endeavored to perform it. Reason equals
Shepherd to Regulus; but prejudice, and the recency of the fact, make
Shepherd a common malefactor and Regulus a hero.
Examine carefully, and reconsider all your notions of things; analyze
them, and discover their component parts, and see if habit and prejudice
are not the principal ones; weigh the matter upon which you are to form
your opinion, in the equal and impartial scales of reason. It is not to
be conceived how many people, capable of reasoning, if they would, live
and die in a thousand errors, from laziness; they will rather adopt the
prejudices of others, than give themselves the trouble of forming
opinions of their own. They say things, at first, because other people
have said them, and then they persist in them, because they have said
them themselves.
The last observation that I shall now mention of the Cardinal’s is, “That
a secret is more easily kept by a good many people, than one commonly
imagines.” By this he means a secret of importance, among people
interested in the keeping of it. And it is certain that people of
business know the importance of secrecy, and will observe it, where they
are concerned in the event. To go and tell any friend, wife, or mistress,
any secret with which they have nothing to do, is discovering to them
such an unretentive weakness, as must convince them that you will tell it
to twenty others, and consequently that they may reveal it without the
risk of being discovered. But a secret properly communicated only to
those who are to be concerned in the thing in question, will probably be
kept by them though they should be a good many. Little secrets are
commonly told again, but great ones are generally kept. Adieu!