[20] "A person of mean extraction, remarkable only for his vices, had been employed in correcting the Regent's tasks, and, by a servile complacence for all his inclinations, had acquired an ascendency over his pupil, which he abused, for the purpose of corrupting his morals, debasing his character, and ultimately rendering his administration an object of universal indignation. Soon after his patron's accession to power, Dubois was admitted into the council of state. He asked for the Archbishopric of Cambray. Unaccustomed as he was to delicate scruples, the Regent was startled at the idea of encountering the scandal to which such a prostitution of honours must expose him. He, however, ultimately yielded. This man, one of the most profligate that ever existed, was actually married at the time he received Catholic orders, but he suborned the witnesses, and contrived to have the parish registers, which might have deposed against him, destroyed."--See LACRETELLE, tom. i., p. 348. [21] Thiers, Histoire de la Rév. Franç., tom. i., p. 34. [22] Mémoires de Bouillé, p. 289. [23] Plaidoyer pour Louis Seize, 1793. CHAPTER II. _State of France continued--State of Public Opinion--Men of Letters encouraged by the Great--Disadvantages attending this Patronage--Licentious tendency of the French Literature--Their Irreligious and Infidel Opinions--Free Opinions on Politics permitted to be expressed in an abstract and speculative, but not in a practical Form--Disadvantages arising from the Suppression of Free Discussion--Anglomania--Share of France in the American War--Disposition of the Troops who returned from America._ [Sidenote: STATE OF PUBLIC OPINION.] We have viewed France as it stood in its grand political divisions previous to the Revolution, and we have seen that there existed strong motives for change, and that a great force was prepared to level institutions which were crumbling to pieces of themselves. It is now necessary to review the state of the popular mind, and consider upon what principles, and to what extent, the approaching changes were likely to operate, and at what point they might be expected to stop. Here, as with respect to the ranks of society, a tacit but almost total change had been operated in the feelings and sentiments of the public, principally occasioned, doubtless, by the great ascendency acquired by literature--that tree of knowledge of good and evil, which, amidst the richest and most wholesome fruits, bears others, fair in show, and sweet to the taste, but having the properties of the most deadly poison.