censured, and do still presume to censure, your Parliament of Paris for
not having suggested to the king that this proper measure was of all
measures the most critical and arduous, one in which the utmost
circumspection and the greatest number of precautions were the most
absolutely necessary. The very confession that a government wants either
amendment in its conformation or relief to great distress causes it to
lose half its reputation, and as great a proportion of its strength as
depends upon that reputation. It was therefore necessary first to put
government out of danger, whilst at its own desire it suffered such an
operation as a general reform at the hands of those who were much more
filled with a sense of the disease than provided with rational means of
a cure.

It may be said that this care and these precautions were more naturally
the duty of the king's ministers than that of the Parliament. They were
so: but every man must answer in his estimation for the advice he gives,
when he puts the conduct of his measure into hands who he does not know
will execute his plans according to his ideas. Three or four ministers
were not to be trusted with the being of the French monarchy, of all the
orders, and of all the distinctions, and all the property of the
kingdom. What must be the prudence of those who could think, in the then
known temper of the people of Paris, of assembling the States at a place
situated as Versailles?

The Parliament of Paris did worse than to inspire this blind confidence
into the king. For, as if names were things, they took no notice of
(indeed, they rather countenanced) the deviations, which were manifest
in the execution, from the true ancient principles of the plan which
they recommended. These deviations (as guardians of the ancient laws,
usages, and Constitution of the kingdom) the Parliament of Paris ought