If we would attach the Belgians to us, we must at least enlighten their minds by _good writings_; we must send to them _missionaries_, and not despotic commissioners.[10] We ought to give them time to see,--to perceive by themselves the advantages of liberty, the unhappy effects of superstition, the fatal spirit of priesthood. And whilst we waited for this moral revolution, we should have accepted the offers which they incessantly repeated to join to the French army an army of fifty thousand men, to entertain them at their own expense, and to advance to France the specie of which she stood in need. But have we ever seen those fifty thousand soldiers who were to join our army as soon as the standard of liberty should be displayed in Belgium? Have we ever seen those treasures which they were to count into our hands? Can we either accuse the sterility of their country, or the penury of their treasure, or the coldness of their love for liberty? No! despotism and anarchy, these are the benefits which we have transplanted into their soil. We have acted, we have spoken, like masters; and from that time we have found the Flemings nothing but jugglers, who made the grimace of liberty for money, or slaves, who in their hearts cursed their new tyrants. Our commissioners address them in this sort: "You have nobles and priests among you: drive them out without delay, or we will neither be your brethren nor your patrons." They answered: "Give us but time; only leave to us the care of reforming these institutions." Our answer to them was: "No! it must be at the moment, it must be on the spot; or we will treat you as enemies, we will abandon you to the resentment of the Austrians." What could the disarmed Belgians object to all this, surrounded as they were by seventy thousand men? They had only to hold their tongues, and to bow down their heads before their masters. They did hold their tongues, and their silence is received as a sincere and free assent.