The Assembly keep a school, where, systematically, and with unremitting perseverance, they teach principles and form regulations destructive to all spirit of subordination, civil and military,--and then they expect that they shall hold in obedience an anarchic people by an anarchic army.
In his critique of the French Revolution, Burke argues the National Assembly's policies foster insubordination while paradoxically expecting obedience from a chaotic populace and military.
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More from Edmund Burke
There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I say no more upon it.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
It was not made to entice the smell of a mole, nuzzling and burying himself in his mother earth, as yours is.
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