The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
had seduced by his promises. He may sacrifice the royalists of France,
whom he had called to his standard, as a salutary example to those who
shall adhere to their native sovereign, or shall confide in any other
who undertakes the cause of oppressed kings and of loyal subjects.
How can I help it, if this high-minded prince will subscribe to the
invectives which the regicides have made against all kings, and
particularly against himself? How can I help it, if this royal
propagandist will preach the doctrine of the Rights of Men? Is it my
fault, if his professors of literature read lectures on that code in all
his academies, and if all the pensioned managers of the newspapers in
his dominions diffuse it throughout Europe in an hundred journals? Can
it be attributed to me, if he will initiate all his grenadiers and all
his hussars in these high mysteries? Am I responsible, if he will make
_Le Droit de l'Homme_, or _La Souverainté du Peuple_ the favorite parole
of his military orders? Now that his troops are to act with the brave
legions of freedom, no doubt he will fit them for their fraternity. He
will teach the Prussians to think, to feel, and to act like them, and to
emulate the glories of the _régiment de l'échafaud_. He will employ the
illustrious Citizen Santerre, the general of his new allies, to instruct
the dull Germans how they shall conduct themselves towards persons who,
like Louis the Sixteenth, (whose cause and person he once took into his
protection,) shall dare, without the sanction of the people, or with it,
to consider themselves as hereditary kings. Can I arrest this great
potentate in his career of glory? Am I blamable in recommending virtue
and religion as the true foundation of all monarchies, because the
protector of the three religions of the Westphalian arrangement, to
ingratiate himself with the Republic of Philosophy, shall abolish all
the three? It is not in my power to prevent the grand patron of the
Reformed Church, if he chooses it, from annulling the Calvinistic
sabbath, and establishing the _décadi_ of atheism in all his states. He
may even renounce and abjure his favorite mysticism in the Temple of
Reason. In these things, at least, he is truly despotic. He has now
shaken hands with everything which at first had inspired him with
horror. It would be curious indeed to see (what I shall not, however,
travel so far to see) the ingenious devices and the elegant
transparencies which, on the restoration of peace and the commencement
of Prussian liberty, are to decorate Potsdam and Charlottenburg
_festeggianti_. What shades of his armed ancestors of the House of
Brandenburg will the committee of _Illuminés_ raise up in the
opera-house of Berlin, to dance a grand ballet in the rejoicings for
this auspicious event? Is it a grand master of the Teutonic order, or is
it the great Elector? Is it the first king of Prussia, or the last? or
is the whole long line (long, I mean, _a parte ante_) to appear like
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