The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
The truth is, that France is out of itself,--the moral France is
separated from the geographical. The master of the house is expelled,
and the robbers are in possession. If we look for the _corporate people_
of France, existing as corporate in the eye and intention of public law,
(that corporate people, I mean, who are free to deliberate and to
decide, and who have a capacity to treat and conclude,) they are in
Flanders, and Germany, in Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and England. There
are all the princes of the blood, there are all the orders of the state,
there are all the parliaments of the kingdom.
This being, as I conceive, the true state of France, as it exists
_territorially_, and as it exists _morally_, the question will be, with
whom we are to concert our arrangements, and whom we are to use as our
instruments in the reduction, in the pacification, and in the settlement
of France. The work to be done must indicate the workmen. Supposing us
to have national objects, we have two principal and one secondary. The
first two are so intimately connected as not to be separated even in
thought: the reëstablishment of royalty, and the reëstablishment of
property. One would think it requires not a great deal of argument to
prove that the most serious endeavors to restore royalty will be made by
Royalists. Property will be most energetically restored by the ancient
proprietors of that kingdom.
When I speak of Royalists, I wish to be understood of those who were
always such from principle. Every arm lifted up for royalty from the
beginning was the arm of a man so principled. I do not think there are
ten exceptions.
The principled Royalists are certainly not of force to effect these
objects by themselves. If they were, the operations of the present great
combination would be wholly unnecessary. What I contend for is, that
they should be consulted with, treated with, and employed; and that no
foreigners whatsoever are either in interest so engaged, or in judgment
and local knowledge so competent to answer all these purposes, as the
natural proprietors of the country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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