Edmund Burke: “God forbid that prudence, the first of all the virtues, as well as the supreme director of them all, should ever be…”

But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.

The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.

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.

They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.