"What!" said he, "instructors of nations, is it thus that you have deceived them?"
And the terrified priests replied.
"O legislator! we are men. The people are so superstitious! they have themselves encouraged these errors."*
* Consider in this view the Brabanters.
And the kings said:
"O legislator! the people are so servile and so ignorant! they prostrated themselves before the yoke, which we scarcely dared to show them."*
* The inhabitants of Vienna, for example, who harnessed
themselves like cattle and drew the chariot of Leopold.
Then the legislator, turning to the people—"People!" said he, "remember what you have just heard; they are two indelible truths. Yes, you yourselves cause the evils of which you complain; yourselves encourage the tyrants, by a base adulation of their power, by an imprudent admiration of their false beneficence, by servility in obedience, by licentiousness in liberty, and by a credulous reception of every imposition. On whom shall you wreak vengeance for the faults committed by your own ignorance and cupidity?"
And the people, struck with confusion, remained in mournful silence.