the French philosophers on the
religious and moral principles of their countrymen, has certainly been
very great, and has been probably strengthened, rather than weakened, by
the events of the last twenty-five years.

The general diffusion of a military spirit; the unprincipled manner in
which war has been conducted, and the encouragement which has been given
to martial qualities, to the exclusion of all pacific virtues, have
promoted the growth of the French military vices, particularly
selfishness and licentiousness, among all ranks and descriptions of the
people, and materially injured their general character, even in the
remotest parts of the country. During the revolution, and under the
Imperial Government, men have owed their success, in France, almost
exclusively to the influence of their intellectual abilities, without
any assistance from their moral character; in consequence, the contempt
for religion is more generally diffused, and more openly expressed than
it was; and although loud protestations of inviolable honour are still
necessary, integrity of conduct is much less respected. The abolition of
the old, and the formation of a new nobility, composed chiefly of men
who had risen from inferior military situations, has had a most
pernicious effect on the general manners of the nation. The chief or
sole use of a hereditary nobility in a free country, is to keep up a
standard of dignity and elegance of manner, which serves as a model of
imitation much more extensively than the middling and lower ranks are
often willing to allow, and has a more beneficial effect on the national
character, than it is easy to explain on mere speculative principles.
But the manners of the new French nobility being the very reverse of
dignified or elegant, their constitution has hitherto tended only to
confirm the changes in the general manners of a great proportion of the
French nation, which the revolutionary ideas had effected. There are
very few men to be seen now in France, who (making all allowances for
difference of previous habits) appear to Englishmen to possess either
the manners or feelings of gentlemen.

The best possible proof that this is not a mere national prejudice, in
so far as the army is concerned, is, that the French _ladies_ are very
generally of the same way of thinking. After the English officers left
Toulouse in the summer of 1814, the ladies of that town found the
manners of the French officers who succeed