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hey do not possess; they reciprocally lavish flatteries on one another. Though no one of them believes in the honor of the rest, nevertheless, through weakness, they play together the parts they have learned, for want of courage to show themselves such as they are. The best among them are those who are most condemned, because they do not know how to feign, and the false virtue of the rest gives more eclat to their crimes. Nothing is more revolting to me than this mania for falsehood, to which I have sometimes been myself obliged to make sacrifices, that I might not expose others. Their private life is but a constant series of boasting, a disconnected conversation, the repetition of a part carefully studied. As I saw everywhere that ambition and interest prevailed (taking from all and giving to none), that all wished to command and no one wished to obey, I resolved to terminate this insensate dispute, by taking from all what they desired so eagerly and could not possess; thus, the men who loudly demanded liberty were compelled to learn to know it, and appreciate it by a blind obedience. It was in this manner that by a voluntary reciprocity each one recovered his due. Renouncing all these frivolous manners, all these theatrical caricatures of our times, let us be more sincere; less of courtiers, more serious, more reflective, and less apish. This is a sure method, if there is one, of renewing the Golden Age. For myself, I care very little what may be said, thought, or written of me. I have been accused of having done, and suffered to be done, much evil. When the storm hovers over the surface of the earth, to purify the air and fertilize the mountains, ought we to complain if, in its course, it carries away roofs and loose tiles, or shakes off the fruits of trees? Even the sun, when he sheds his beneficent light upon the Arctic pole, kills and scorches all vital plants beneath his meridian. With the amiable popularity of a Caesar and of a Henry IV, I might not have found, it is true, a single Brutus, but a hundred Ravaillacs. Although I care little for the people, because they are fickle, flattering, cruel, and capricious as children (for they are always such) and trample beneath their feet to-day those they idolized yesterday,
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