They are, if not enemies, at least not friends, to the orders of their own state,--not to the princes, the clergy, or the nobility; they possess only an attachment to the monarchy, or rather to the persons of the late king and queen.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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Those whom I have in my eye I respect as gallant soldiers, as much as any one can do; but on their political judgment and prudence I have not the slightest reliance, nor on their knowledge of their own country, or of its laws and…
Instead of inspiring me with dislike and distrust of the unfortunate, engaged with us in a common cause against our Jacobin enemy, they take away all my esteem for their own characters, and all my deference to their judgment.
But whilst they talk, we must make our choice,--they or the Jacobins.
I am well apprised that the little intriguers, and whisperers, and self-conceited, thoughtless babblers, worse than either, run about to depreciate the fallen virtue of a great nation.
If they err from our interests, what care has been taken to keep them in those interests? or what desire has ever been shown to employ them in any other way than as instruments of their own degradation, shame, and ruin?
If they were absolutely idle, and only eat in sloth their bread of sorrow and dependence, they would be forgotten, or at best thought of as wretches unworthy of their pretensions, which they had done nothing to support.
Their brethren of royalty, if they were true to their own cause and interest, instead of relegating these illustrious persons to an obscure town, would bring them forward in their courts and camps, and exhibit them to (what they would…
In some points he has but too much resemblance to his unfortunate brother, who, with all his weaknesses, had a good understanding, and many parts of an excellent man and a good king.
After being well informed as any man here can be, I do not find that these blemishes in this eminent person are at all considerable, or that they at all affect a character which is full of probity, honor, generosity, and real goodness.
But faults or defects (always supposing them faults of common human infirmity) are not what in any country destroy a legal title to government.
It is not honest, it is not decent, still less is it politic, for foreign powers themselves to attempt anything in this minute, internal, local detail, in which they could show nothing but ignorance, imbecility, confusion, and oppression.
It must be gained and settled by itself, and through the medium of its own native dignity and property.
In this way, and in this way alone, the country (once broken in upon by foreign force well directed) may be gained and settled.
Its virtuous men are, I believe, amongst the most virtuous, as its wicked are amongst the most abandoned upon earth.
This means, if properly used, is of value inestimable.
If we should obtain, in any considerable district, a footing in France, we possess an immense body of physicians and magistrates of the mind, whom we now know to be the most discreet, gentle, well-tempered, conciliatory, virtuous, and…
To administer the only cure for the unheard-of disorders of that undone country, I think it infinitely happy for us that God has given into our hands more effectual remedies than human contrivance could point out.
If they were left to themselves, I am quite sure they would not retain their attachment to monarchy of any name for a single week.
We must not judge of other parts of France by the temporary submission of Toulon, with two vast fleets in its harbor, and a garrison far more numerous than all the inhabitants able to bear arms.
Descriptions of men of their own race, but better in rank, superior in property and decorum, of honorable, decent, and orderly habits, are absolutely necessary to bring them to such a frame as to qualify them so much as to come into…
France has no resemblance to other countries which have undergone troubles and been purified by them.
But examples drawn from history in occasions like the present will be found dangerously to mislead us.
I know that there is a leaning to prosperity, however obtained, and a prejudice in its favor.
I know that misfortune is not made to win respect from ordinary minds.
Politicians like Edmund Burke
