g mean and cruel in this
procedure. If policy demand the sacrifice, it does not require that the
victims should be rendered odious; and if it be necessary to dispossess
them of their habitations, they ought not, at the moment they are thrown
upon the world, to be painted as monsters unworthy of its pity or
protection. It is the cowardice of the assassin, who murders before he
dares to rob.

This custom of making public amusements subservient to party, has, I
doubt not, much contributed to the destruction of all against whom it has
been employed; and theatrical calumny seems to be always the harbinger of
approaching ruin to its object; yet this is not the greatest evil which
may arise from these insidious politics--they are equally unfavourable
both to the morals and taste of the people; the first are injured beyond
calculation, and the latter corrupted beyond amendment. The orders of
society, which formerly inspired respect or veneration, are now debased
and exploded; and mankind, once taught to see nothing but vice and
hypocrisy in those whom they had been accustomed to regard as models of
virtue, are easily led to doubt the very existence of virtue itself: they
know not where to turn for either instruction or example; no prospect is
offered to them but the dreary and uncomfortable view of general
depravity; and the individual is no longer encouraged to struggle with
vicious propensities, when he concludes them irresistibly inherent in his
nature. Perhaps it was not possible to imagine principles at once so
seductive and ruinous as those now disseminated. How are the morals of
the people to resist a doctrine which teaches them that the rich only can
be criminal, and that poverty is a substitute for virtue--that wealth is
holden by the sufferance of those who do not possess it--and that he who
is the frequenter of a club, or the applauder of a party, is exempt from
the duties of his station, and has a right to insult and oppress his
fellow citizens? All the weaknesses of humanity are flattered and called
to the aid of this pernicious system of revolutionary ethics; and if
France yet continue in a state of civilization, it is because Providence
has not yet abandoned her to the influence of such a system.

Taste is, I repeat it, as little a gainer by the revolution as morals.
The pieces which were best calculated to form and refine the minds of the
people, all abound with maxims of loyalty, with respect for religion