millions of francs lost, without any
further benefit. With this sum, if the king had shut the
isthmus of Suez by a strong wall, like that of China, the
destinies of Egypt might have been entirely changed.
Foreign invasions would have been prevented, and the Arabs
of the desert would neither have conquered nor harassed that
country. Sterile labors! how many millions lost in putting
one stone upon another, under the forms of temples and
churches! Alchymists convert stones into gold; but
architects change gold into stone. Woe to the kings (as
well as subjects) who trust their purse to these two classes
of empirics!

And in the insatiable thirst of enjoyment, the ordinary revenues no
longer sufficing, they were augmented; the cultivator, seeing his
labors increase without compensation, lost all courage; the merchant,
despoiled, was disgusted with industry; the multitude, condemned to
perpetual poverty, restrained their labor to simple necessaries; and all
productive industry vanished.

The surcharge of taxes rendering lands a burdensome possession, the poor
proprietor abandoned his field, or sold it to the powerful; and fortune
became concentrated in a few hands. All the laws and institutions
favoring this accumulation, the nation became divided into a group
of wealthy drones, and a multitude of mercenary poor; the people were
degraded with indigence, the great with satiety, and the number of those
interested in the preservation of the state decreasing, its strength and
existence became proportionally precarious.

On the other hand, emulation finding no object, science no
encouragement, the mind sunk into profound ignorance.

The administration being secret and mysterious, there existed no means
of reform or amelioration. The chiefs governing by force or fraud,
the people viewed them as a faction of public enemies; and all harmony
ceased between the governors and governed.

And these vices having enervated the states of the wealthy part of Asia,
the vagrant and indigent people of the adjacent deserts and mountains
coveted the enjoyments of the fertile plains; and, urged by a cupidity
common to all, attacked the polished empires, and overturned the thrones
of their despots. These revolutions were rapid and easy; because the
policy of tyrants had enfeebled the subjects, razed the fortresses,
destroyed the warriors; and because the oppressed subjects remained
w