50 CHA A PP . . IIV. V.
H I S T O R Y
O P
ways defeats its own purpofe. They muft have encouraged the vain and fallacious idea that fcenes of bloodfhed, devaftation, and ruin, in different parts of the French dominions, would induce the great body of the people to look back with regret to their former government, and lead them by degrees to co-operate in the fcheme of effecting a counter-revolution; regarding the evils of anarchy, as lefs tolerable than the dead repofe of defpotifm. If fuch were their motives, we can only afcribe them to that infatuation with which Providence (as wife men have ob足 served, and history evinces) blinds a people devoted to deftruction.
CHAP.