HISTORYDOFK EUROPE 
wo dedicate their lives to the pur- 
fuit of literature. Of thefe the 
capital alone was computed to con- 
tain twenty thoufand; including no 
doubt a confiderable number of 
thofe perfons who affumed the name 
of literati, becaufe they had no- 
thing. to do, and could not clafs un- 
der any other defcription. This 
20,000, however, from the advan- 
tage of their: being concentrated in 
the capital, gave the law in mat- 
ter of opinion, or at leaft in what. 
ever related to government and the 
mew philofophy to the whole na- 
tion. 
The theories now publifhed were 
derived from the tenets of Roufleau, 
Voltaire, and the other fathers of 
that philofophy. They were in ge- 
neral abftract, vifionary, unintelli- 
gible, or impraéticable ; and the 
authors feemed to have run wildly 
in the purfuit of an imaginary 
phantom of perfection, which nei- 
ther did nor could exift. They 
went not only to the fubverfion of 
government under all its known 
forms, but to the loofening all the 
bands of civil fociety, and deftroy- 
ing its harmony, beauty and order. 
All the wifdom of paft tages, philo- 
fophers, and legiflators, all that 
‘could be derived from the practical 
experience of unnumbered ages and 
nations, in their exertions to pro- 
mote or fecure the felicity of man- 
kind, were now fet at nought, to 
make way for the reveries of the 
new illuminators, who deipifed all 
experience, and difdained all wif- 
dom but their own. It feemed as 
if the pages of paft hiftory had 
been for ever clofed, and that their 
knowledge was totally forgotten, 
or that a new generation of men 
was juft created, who were to be- 
{11 
gin every thing in this world a- 
new. 
Of all the heavy charges which 
have been laid againft thofe minif- 
ters to whom the king had the ir- 
retrievable misfortune of entrufting 
the adminiftration of public affairs, 
in none were they more faulty, nor 
in no inftances, excepting only the 
affair of the double reprefentation, 
and the abforption of the three or- 
ders into one, were their errors or 
conduct more fatally ruinous, than 
in the fhameful and unaccountable 
fupinenefs with which they beheld 
the flame which was {preading from 
the licentioufnefs of the prefs 
through every part of the kingdom, 
without their ufing a fingle exertion 
to correct the cauie, or to counteraét 
the effect. 
The enormity was’ accordingly 
carried to an extent beyond al! ex- 
ample in any country. The nume- 
rous prefles in Paris hourly groaned 
under the number of feditious and 
levelling pamphlets which they were 
continually bringing forth. Indeed 
their number was icarcely credible ; 
13, and even 16 different pamphlets 
in one day, were no matter of fur- 
prize; and gz came out in one 
week; while the avidity for read- 
ing and procuring them was fo 
great, that it was a matter of fome 
difficulty to enter the bookiellers 
fhops they were {o conftantly crowd- 
ed, ‘The price of printing had ac- 
cordingly rifen in the capital to 
fomething near three times its cuf- 
tomary rate per fheet; and yet the 
prefles in every part of France were 
faid to be at the fame time equally 
occupied. But the moft extraordi- . 
nary circumftances were the amaz- 
ing difpatch with which thefe in- 
numerable productions were {pread 
' from 
