But power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which
manners and opinions perish! And it will find other and worse means
for its support. The usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient
institutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts
similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and
chivalrous spirit of FEALTY, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed
both kings and subjects from the precaution of tyranny, shall be extinct
in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by
preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of
grim and bloody maxims, which form the political code of all power, not
standing on its own honour, and the honour of those who are to obey
it. Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from
principle.