In the former instance, year after year we imagined things to be what they were not: and in this, by a more fatal and more common delusion, the thought of what things really are--precludes the thought of what in a moment they may become: the mind, overlaid by the present, cannot lift itself to attain a glimpse of the future.
All--which is comparatively inherent, or can lay claim to any degree of permanence, in the tyranny which the French Nation maintains over Europe--rests upon two foundations:--First; Upon the despotic rule which has been established in France over a powerful People who have lately passed from a state of revolution, in which they supported a struggle begun for domestic liberty, and long continued for liberty and national independence:--and, secondly, upon the personal character of the Man by whom that rule is exercised.
As to the former; every one knows that Despotism, in a general sense, is but another word for weakness.

Let one generation disappear; and a people over whom such rule has been extended, if it have not virtue to free itself, is condemned to embarrassment in the operations of its government, and to perpetual languor; with no better hope than that which may spring from the diseased activity of some particular Prince on whom the authority may happen to devolve.

This, if it takes a regular hereditary course: but,--if the succession be interrupted, and the supreme power frequently usurped or given by election,--worse evils follow.

Science and Art must dwindle, whether the power be hereditary or not: and the virtues of a Trajan or an Antonine are a hollow support for the feeling of contentment and happiness in the hearts of their subjects: such virtues are even a painful mockery;--something that is, and may vanish in a moment, and leave the monstrous crimes of a Caracalla or a Domitian in its place,--men, who are probably leaders of a long procession of their kind.

The feebleness of despotic power we have had before our eyes in the late condition of Spain and Prussia; and in that of France before the Revolution; and in the present condition of Austria and Russia.