Louis granted them a hearing in order to conceal his intentions. It was only a blind to cover his purpose, which was to resume, at the first opportunity, what he had relinquished, and to send Mirabeau and Talleyrand, with their friends the _sans-culottes_, adrift. { 97} These liberals were consequently deceived; in truth, they aided in their own deception; they could not imagine the king would prove a traitor to his own interests. The king, however, was only playing over again the losing game practised by Charles I., and by his son, James II., of England. The stake in both countries was the same: it was, whether sovereignty should repose in the crown, as in ancient times, or in the people, in accordance with modern ideas. The prize cannot be divided, as some supposed; it can never be divided; in its very nature it is indivisible; it would be as impossible as to place one crown on two separate heads at the same time. Sir Henry Bulwer, as a true Briton, thinks, no doubt, the Stuart sovereigns were perjured knaves, because they deceived the House of Commons, and broke solemn promises made to their ministers; but he views the Bourbon king as foolish only in doing the same things, and pursuing the same line of policy. Now, in verity, the moral code applies alike to both dynasties, in both countries, in both centuries. Whatever royal promise is made should be royally and religiously fulfilled; but its violation does not justify a resort to the block at Whitehall or to the guillotine at the Carrousel. The execution of a monarch for defending his prerogatives by fair means or false promises, is no less a crime against civilization than it is a political error. No good can come of it; no good ever has.
But the duplicity and falsehood of Louis, in its incidents, brought on the first blow against property; and with the attack on property, all the crimes and calamities, all the misery, poverty, and long list of woes of the Revolution commenced. Then society began to disintegrate; then France began to disbone; it never ended until morality, Christianity, civilization, were crushed to a jelly. Talleyrand was the leader in this raid, and on his head rests the responsibility. He was the great oracle on financial topics in the National Assembly; he was the member looked up to for the solution of the financial problem to save the nation from ruin; he had accepted the position almost thrust upon him; and his reputation was at stake in surmounting the crisis. With success he could compel the king to invite him into the ministry. Mirabeau admitted this in a letter to a friend, and a portfolio in the ministry was the goal of Talleyrand's ambition. All eyes were, therefore, turned to the Bishop of Autun, and the eyes of the bishop turned to the landed property of the church, from whence the wants of the treasury could be immediately and with facility supplied. He was willing to propose the double sacrilege on religion and on society; for it was no less an outrage on civilization or civil government than it was on Christianity, which is the foundation of good government.