1789-90, a powerful monarchy, established on a possession of fourteen
centuries, and on that sort of national prosperity which seemed to
challenge the approbation of future ages, had been destroyed by the
force of opinion which, like, a subterraneous fire, consumed its very
foundations, and plunged the nation into a sea of troubles, in which
it was, for several years, tossed about, amid the wreck of its
greatness.

This is a phenomenon of which antiquity affords no parallel; and it
has produced a rapid succession of events so extraordinary as almost
to exceed belief.

It is not the crimes to which it has given birth that will be thought
improbable: the history of revolutions, as well ancient as modern,
furnishes but too many examples of them; and few have been committed,
the traces of which are not to be found in the countries where the
imagination of the multitude has been exalted by strong and new
ideas, respecting Liberty and Equality. But what posterity will find
difficult to believe, is the agitation of men's minds, and the
effervescence of the passions, carried to such a pitch, as to stamp
the French revolution with a character bordering on the marvellous
--Yes; posterity will have reason to be astonished at the facility
with which the human mind can be modified and made to pass from one
extreme to another; at the suddenness, in short, with which the ideas
and manners of the French were changed; so powerful, on the one hand,
is the ascendency of certain imaginations; and, on the other, so
great is the weakness of the vulgar!

It is in the recollection of most persons, that the agitation of the
public mind in France was such, for a while, that, after having