Gazette Of The United States And Daily Evening Advertiser

Opinion of Public Spirit.
Every day augments our fears; the crimes of France are exhausted, but the crimes of Greece and Rome begin. A new costume has taken place in this nation, destined to preserve nothing of its habitudes and antiquity. The empire of the senses rules the multitude, and the Grecian and Roman Robes, will soon deprive Frenchmen of the remembrance of their country. Gymnasia, courses and wrestlings, triumphal festivals, branches of oak and the Pantheon, theatres dedicated to the people, and formed upon the great models of antiquity, which ages have respected, will long mitigate their slavery with the varnished colours of liberty. A religion whose augurs bring down the goddesses of victory and Justice upon this renovated earth, may perhaps make their old regrets less poignant, and their new vows sincere. These principles which have given birth to public schools, sufficiently illustrate their intentions, and this generation whose infancy has been nourished by crimes, they will make dangerous to the universe from the necessity of exercising its courage, and maintaining a military republic; and by dissemination of principles, the most false, but yet the most seductive that men had ever to combat, we should every where see a sovereignty usurped, a lawless equality, and robbery legitimated.