XT • 



JNangis 151 



ing disposition did not tend to bring me into better humour. — 

 30 miles. 



2<^th. To Nangis, the chateau of which belongs to the Marquis 

 de Guerchy, who last year at Caen had kindly made me promise 

 to spend a few days here. A house almost full of company, and 

 some of them agreeable, with the eagerness of Monsieur de 

 Guerchy for farming, and the amiable naivete of the marchioness, 

 whether in life, poHtics, or a farm, were well calculated to bring 

 me into tune again. But I found myself in a circle of politicians 

 with whom I could agree in hardly any other particular except 

 the general one of cordially wishing that France might establish 

 an indestructible system of liberty; but for the means of doing 

 it we were far as the poles asunder. The chaplain of Monsieur 

 de Guerchy's regiment, who has a cure here, and I had known 



at Caen, Monsieur TAbbe de , was particularly strenuous for 



what is called the regeneration of the kingdom, by which it is 

 impossible, from the explanation, to understand anything more 

 than a theoretic perfection of government; questionable in its 

 origin, hazardous in its progress, and visionary in its end; but 

 always presenting itself under a most suspicious appearance to 

 me, because its advocates, from the pamphlets of the leaders in 

 the National Assembly to the gentlemen who make its pane- 

 gyric at present, all affect to hold the constitution of England 

 cheap in respect of liberty: and as that is unquestionably, and 

 by their own admission the best the world ever saw, they profess 

 to appeal from practice to theory, which, in the arrangement of 

 a question of science, might be admitted (though with caution); 

 but, in establishing the complex interests of a great kingdom, 

 in securing freedom to 25,000,000 of people, seems to me the 

 very acme of imprudence, the very quintessence of insanity. 

 My argument was an appeal to the English constitution; take 

 it at once, which is the business of a single vote; by your 

 possession of a real and equal representation of the people you 

 have freed it from its only great objection; in the remaining 

 circumstances, which are but of small importance, improve it 

 — but improve it cautiously; for surely that ought to be touched 

 with caution which has given from the moment of its establish- 

 ment felicity to a great nation; which has given greatness to 

 a people designed by nature to be little; and, from being the 

 humble copiers of every neighbour, has rendered them, in a 

 single century, rivals to the most successful nations in those 

 decorative arts that embellish human life: and the masters of 

 the world in all those that contribute to its convenience. I was 



