Monarchy has a great advantage over a despotic government. As it
naturally requires there should be several orders or ranks of subjects,
the state is more permanent, the constitution more steady, and the
person of him who governs more secure.
Cicero is of opinion that the establishing of the tribunes preserved
the republic. "And indeed," says he, "the violence of a headless people
is more terrible. A chief or head is sensible that the affair depends
upon himself, and therefore he thinks; but the people in their
impetuosity are ignorant of the danger into which they hurry
themselves." This reflection may be applied to a despotic government,
which is a people without tribunes; and to a monarchy, where the people
have some sort of tribunes.
Accordingly it is observable that in the commotions of a despotic
government, the people, hurried away by their passions, are apt to push
things as far as they can go. The disorders they commit are all extreme;
whereas in monarchies matters are seldom carried to excess. The chiefs
are apprehensive on their own account; they are afraid of being
abandoned, and the intermediate dependent powers do not choose that the
populace should have too much the upper hand. It rarely happens that the
states of the kingdom are entirely corrupted: the prince adheres to
these; and the seditious, who have neither will nor hopes to subvert the
government, have neither power nor will to dethrone the prince.
In these circumstances men of prudence and authority interfere;
moderate measures are first proposed, then complied with, and things at
length are redressed; the laws resume their vigour, and command
submission.
Thus all our histories are full of civil wars without revolutions,
while the histories of despotic governments abound with revolutions
without civil wars.
The writers of the history of the civil wars of some countries, even
those who fomented them, sufficiently demonstrate the little foundation
princes have to suspect the authority with which they invest particular
bodies of men; since, even under the unhappy circumstance of their
errors, they sighed only after the laws and their duty; and restrained,
more than they were capable of inflaming, the impetuosity of the
revolted.
[33]
Cardinal Richelieu, reflecting perhaps that he had too
much reduced the states of the kingdom, has recourse to the virtues of
the prince and of his ministers for the support
[34]
of government: but he requires so many things, that indeed there is none but an angel
capable of such attention, such resolution and knowledge; and scarcely
can we flatter ourselves that we shall ever see such a prince and
ministers while monarchy subsists.
As people who live under a good government are happier than those
who without rule or leaders wander about the forests, so monarchs who
live under the fundamental laws of their country are far happier than
despotic princes who have nothing to regulate, neither their own
passions nor those of their subjects.
