University of Virginia Library

4676. LIBERTY, France and.—[continued].

May you see France reestablished
in that temperate portion of lib


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erty which does not infer either anarchy or
licentiousness, in that high degree of prosperity
which would be the consequence of
such a government, in that, in short, which
the constitution of 1789 would have insured
it, if wisdom could have stayed at that point
the fervid but imprudent zeal of men, who
did not know the character of their own
countrymen.—
To Madame de Stael. Washington ed. vi, 120.
(May. 1813)