As legislator, as burgomaster, and as judge, the prince has set
himself up as a representative of divine authority. A defender
of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, he has promised to cause
liberty and equality to prevail around the throne, to come to the
aid of labor, and to listen to the voice of the people. And the
people have thrown themselves lovingly into the arms of power;
and, when experience has made them feel that power was against
them, instead of blaming the institution, they have fallen to
accusing the prince, ever unwilling to understand that, the
prince being by nature and destination the chief of non-producers
and greatest of monopolists, it was impossible for him, in spite
of himself, to take up the cause of the people.
All criticism, whether of the form or the acts of government,
ends in this essential contradiction. And when the self-styled
theorists of the sovereignty of the people pretend that the
remedy for the tyranny of power consists in causing it to emanate
from popular suffrage, they simply turn, like the squirrel, in
their cage.
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