Liberty, equality, and justice were, at that period, in all other
respects, mere fictions. The most arbitrary rule in reality existed,
and the new provinces were systematically drained by taxes of every
description, as, for instance, register, stamp, patent, window, door,
and land taxes: there was also a tax upon furniture and upon luxuries
of every sort; a poll-tax, a percentage on the whole assessment, etc.;
besides extortion, confiscation, and forced sales. And woe to the new
citizen of the great French republic if he failed in paying more
servile homage to its officers, from the prefect down to the lowest
underling, than had ever been exacted by the princes![12] Such was the
liberty bestowed by republican France! Thus were her promises
fulfilled! The German Illuminati were fearfully undeceived,
particularly on perceiving how completely their hopes of universally
revolutionizing Germany were frustrated by the treaty of Basel. The
French, who had proclaimed liberty to all the nations of the earth,
now offered it for sale. The French character was in every respect the
same as during the reign of Louis XIV. The only principle to which
they remained ever faithful was that of robbery.--Switzerland was now,
in her turn, attacked, and vengeance thus overtook every province that
had severed itself from the empire, and every part of the once
magnificent empire of Germany was miserably punished for its want of
unity.


[Footnote 1: Clausewitz demands, with great justice, why the Austrians
so greatly divided their forces on this occasion for the sake of
saving Italy, as they had only to follow up their successes vigorously
on the Rhine in order to gain, in that quarter, far more than they
could lose on the Po.]