If fortunate, military feeling, the invariable companion of aristocratic feeling, honour, that religion that binds the soldier to the throne; discipline, that despotism of glory, would usurp the place of those stern virtues to which the exercise of the constitution would have accustomed the people,--then they would forgive every thing, even despotism, in those who had saved them.

The gratitude of a nation to those who have led its children to victory is a pitfall in which the people will ever be ensnared,--nay, they even offer their necks to the yoke; civil virtues must ever fade before the brilliancy of military exploits.

Either the army would return to surround the ancient royalty with all its strength, and France would have her Monk, or the army would crown the most successful of its generals, and liberty would have her Cromwell.

In either case the Revolution escaped from the people, and lay at the mercy of the soldiery, and thus to save it from war was to save it from a snare.

These reflections decided him; as yet he meditated no violence; he but saw into the future, and read it aright.