But if it should be imagined by those who, having never been engaged in
publick affairs, cannot properly judge of their intricacy and extent,
that such an inquiry is in reality so far from being impossible, that it
is only the work of a few months, and that the labour of it will be
amply recompensed by the discoveries which it will produce, let them but
so long suspend the gratification of their curiosity, as to consider the
nature of that demand by which they are about to satisfy it. A demand,
by which nothing less is required than that all the secrets of our
government should be made publick.

It is known in general to every man, whose employment or amusement it
has been to consider the state of the French kingdoms, that the last
twenty years have been a time not of war, but of negotiations; a period
crowned with projects, and machinations often more dangerous than
violence and invasions; and that these projects have been counteracted
by opposite schemes, that treaties have been defeated by treaties, and
one alliance overbalanced by another.

Such a train of transactions, in which almost every court of France has
been engaged, must have given occasion to many private conferences, and
secret negotiations; many designs must have been discovered by informers
who gave their intelligence at the hazard of their lives, and been
defeated, sometimes by secret stipulations, and sometimes by a judicious
distribution of money to those who presided in senates or councils.

Every man must immediately be convinced, that by the inquiry now
proposed, all these secrets will be brought to light; that one prince
will be informed of the treachery of his servants, and another see his
own cowardice or venality exposed to the world. It is plain, that the