128 
will not pretend to that, for they 
can frame no conceptions of it: 
They are fure there is fuch an 
union from the operations and ef- 
feéts, but the caufe and the manner 
of it are too fubtle and fecret to 
be difcovered by the eye of reafon ; 
"tis myftery, "tis divine magic, ’tis 
natural miracle.” 
Political Epes of the Function be- 
tween the reat monied Intereft and 
_ the philofophical Cabals of France. 
From Burke’s Reflexions on the 
Revolution in France. 
N the mean time, the pride of 
the wealthy men, not noble or 
newly noble, encreafed with its 
eaufe. They felt with refentment 
an inferiority, the grounds of which 
they did not acknowledge. ‘There 
was no meafure to which they were 
not willing to lend themfelves, in 
order to be revenged of the outrages 
of this rival pride, and to exalt 
their wealth to what they confidered 
as its natural rank and eitimation. 
They ftruck at thenobility through 
the crown and,the church. They 
attacked them particularly on the 
fide on which they thought them the 
moft vulnerable, that is, the pof- 
feffions of the church, which, thro’ 
the patronage of the crown, gene- 
rally devolved upon the nobility. 
The bifhopricks, and the great 
commendatory abbies, were, with 
few exceptions, held by that order. 
In this ftate of real, though not 
always peiceived warfare between 
the noble antient landed intereft, 
‘and the new monied intereft, the 
greateft becaufe the moft applicable 
itreneth was in the hands of the 
latter. The monied intereft is itt 
its nature more ready for any ad- 
venture; and its pofiefiors more 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1790. 
difpofed to new enterprizes of any 
kind. Being of a recent acquifis 
tion, it falls in more naturally with 
any novelties. It is therefore the © 
kind of wealth which will be ree 
forted to by all who wifh for change. 
Along with the monied interett, 
a new defcription of mén had-grown | 
up, with whom that intereft foon — 
formed a clofe and marked union: 
I mean the political men of letters, 
Men of letters, fond of diftinguifh- 
ing themfelves, are rarely averfe to” 
innovation. Since the decline of. 
the life and greatnefs of Lewis the 
XIVth, they were not fo much cul- 
tivated either by hims or by the” 
regent, or the fucceffors. to the) 
crown; nor were they engaged tq’ 
the court by favours and emolu- 
ments fo fyitematically as during 
the fplendid period of that oftenta- 
tious and not impolitic reign. What 
they loft in the old court protection; 
they endeavoured to make up by 
joining in a fort of incorporation 
of their own; to which the two 
academies of France, and after- 
wards the vaft undertaking of the 
Encyclopedia, carried on by a fo4 
ciety of thefe gentlemen, did not a 
little contribute. a 
The literary cabal had fome years | 
ago forined fomething like a regular 
plan for the deftruction of the Chrif- 
tian religion. This object they 
purfued with a degree of zeal which 
hitherto had been difcovered only 
in the propagators of fome fyitem” 
of piety. ‘They were poflefied with 
a fpirit of profelytifm in the moft) 
fanatical degree; and from thence, 
by an eafy progrefs, with the fpirit§ 
of perfecution according to their 
means. ‘What was not to be done” 
towards their great end by any di= 
ret or immediate ad, might 
wrought by a longer proces thro’ 
