A centralized government, when it is well managed and carefully watched
from above, may reach a degree of efficiency and quickness of action
which a government of distributed local powers cannot hope to equal. But
if a strong central government become disorganized, if inefficiency, or
idleness, or, above all, dishonesty, once obtain a ruling place in it,
the whole governing body is diseased. The honest men who may find
themselves involved in any inferior part of the administration will
either fall into discouraged acquiescence, or break their hearts and
ruin their fortunes in hopeless revolt. Nothing but long years of
untiring effort and inflexible will on the part of the ruler, with power
to change his agents at his discretion, can restore order and honesty.

There is no doubt that the French administrative body at the time when
Louis XVI. began to reign, was corrupt and self-seeking. In the
management of the finances and of the army, illegitimate profits were
made. But this was not the worst evil from which the public service was
suffering. France was in fact governed by what in modern times is called
"a ring." The members of such an organization pretend to serve the
sovereign, or the public, and in some measure actually do so; but their
rewards are determined by intrigue and favor, and are entirely
disproportionate to their services. They generally prefer jobbery to
direct stealing, and will spend a million of the state's money in a
needless undertaking, in order to divert a few thousands into their own
pockets.

They hold together against all the world, while trying to circumvent
each other. Such a ring in old France was the court. By such a ring will
every country be governed, where the sovereign who possesses the