4 ‘ 
‘wantonly and blindly ruthing into 
aconteit which fhe was totally in- 
| Capable of faltaining. On the other 
| fide of the Mediterranean, the king 
of Sardinia, befides his being by 
mature a peaceable prince totally 
goles te war, was not, from the 
tate of his finances, of his army, of 
his fortrefles, or of any of the lead- 
ing requifites effential to fuch a de- 
¢ilion, in any condition to hazard 
the experiment, even fuppofing that 
1s own difpofition had prompted 
him ever fo ftrongly to the mea- 
fure. 
_ Under thefe circumfances it fo 
happened, that fcarcely in any age 
ancient or modern, whether among 
tefined or half civilized nations, any 
fimilar body of men, fo fuddenly 
wolved in the moft pitiable ftate 
Of degradation and ruin, ever ex- 
cited io little fympathy, or ever met 
- with fo cold and forbidding a recep- 
“tio he French nobility expe. 
ion, as the ch nobility expe 
“fienced upon this occafion in all 
the neighbouring countries. They 
were, almoft without exception, 
every where beheld with a preju- 
diced and malignant, rather than a 
ind or benevolent eye; and even 
while they yet poflefled money, 
found it difficult to procure thelter. 
_ It would be in vain to attribute this 
_ general public diflike-(for it was 
Wweh Pronger than mere indifer- 
fence) to political caufes or motives, 
any more than to the particular dif- 
pofition of fovereigns. For, although 
the human mind willingly makes 
Many great facrifices to laws, to go- 
ern.nent, and to power, itis by no 
means difpofed to refign its fympa- 
thies or antipathies to the will or 
; ee of others; and perhaps lefs 
fo its rulers than to any. In 
whateves interefts the heart it is ex- 
tepely tenacious; nature {ceming 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. [133 
to have implanted that principle in 
order to afiord fome thelter or re- 
fuge, even in deipite of power, to 
the forlorn victims of opprefiion and 
diftrefs. ‘There feems much room 
then for prefuming, unlefs fome 
more cogent caufe can be produced, 
than the infufferable vanity and ar- 
rogance, which nad ever marked 
the charaéter of that people, whe- 
ther collectively or individually, 
through all tue days of thes proi- 
perity, was now, in the hard feafoa 
of their adverfity, too well remem- 
bered by thofe neighbours, whom 
they had heretafore treated with the 
moft fapreme and morufying con- 
tempt. 
But the overweening confidence, 
the rafh and imperious language, 
with the precipitate determinations 
of the national affembly, were fully 
competent to the creation of ene- 
mies abroad as well as at home, whe 
might otherwife have been friends, 
or at leaft indifferent {pectators. In 
their rage for the total overthrow - 
and abolition of the feudal fyftem, 
they had paidas little regard to the 
rights and interelts of foreigners, as 
they had done in all cafes with re- 
{pect to thofe of their own nobility 
and clergy. The duke of Wirtem-. 
berg, the prince of Deuxponts, with 
many other German princes both 
fecular and ecclefiaftical, held great 
poffeffions in Aiface, and other pro- 
vinces, which France had hereto- 
fore wrenched from the empire in 
the days of its troubles and diltrefs, 
and which thefe princes held by the 
fame original tenure that they did 
their other eftates more immedyate! 
at home. ‘Thetfe feveral diitriéts, 
with all the ancient rights apper-_ 
taining to them, were, in the year 
1648, afier the forcible transfer of 
paramount dominion by arms had 
[73] already 
. 
\ 
