All temporal government must rest on a compromise of interests and abstract
rights. Who would listen to the county of Bedford, if it were to declare
itself disannexed from the British empire, and to set up for itself?
* * * * *
The most desirable thing that can happen to France, with her immense army
of gensd'armes, is, that the service may at first become very irksome to
the men themselves, and ultimately, by not being called into real service,
fall into general ridicule, like our trained bands. The evil in France, and
throughout Europe, seems now especially to be, the subordination of the
legislative power to the direct physical force of the people. The French
legislature was weak enough before the late revolution; now it is
absolutely powerless, and manifestly depends even for its existence on the
will of a popular commander of an irresistible army. There is now in France
a daily tendency to reduce the legislative body to a mere deputation from
the provinces and towns.
September 21. 1830.