Note 801 — Chapter V

The French writers, under the old régime, constantly boast that loyalty was the characteristic of their nation, and taunt the English with their opposite and insubordinate spirit. ‘Il n'est pas ici question des François, qui se sont toujours distingués des autres nations par leur amour pour leurs rois.’ Le Blanc, Lettres d'un François, vol. iii. p. 523. ‘The English do not love their sovereigns as much as could be desired.’ Sorbière's Voyage to England, p. 58. ‘Le respect de la majesté royale, caractère distinctif des Français.’ Mém. de Montbarey, vol. ii. p. 54. ‘L'amour et la fidélité que les Français ont naturellement pour leurs princes.’ Mém. de Motteville, vol. ii. p. 3. ‘Les Français, qui aiment leurs princes.’ De Thou, Hist. Univ. vol. iii. p. 381; and see vol. xi. p. 729. For further evidence, see Sully, Œconomies, vol. iv. p. 346; Monteil, Divers Etats, vol. vii. p. 105; Ségur, Mémoires, vol. i. p. 32; Lamartine, Hist. des Girondins, vol. iv. p. 58.

Now, contrast with all this the sentiments contained in one of the most celebrated histories in the English language: ‘There is not any one thing more certain and more evident, than that princes are made for the people, and not the people for them; and perhaps there is no nation under heaven that is more entirely possessed with this notion of princes than the English nation is in this age; so that they will soon be uneasy to a prince who does not govern himself by this maxim, and in time grow very unkind to him.’ Burnet's History of his Own Time, vol. vi. p. 223. This manly and wholesome passage was written while the French were licking the dust from the feet of Louis XIV.