CHAP. XI.: Of the Excellence of a monarchical government.

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 Lib. 3. de Leg. ^†107 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 See the first note of book 2. ch. 4. ^†108 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 Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, and other histories. ^†109.

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 Testam, polit. ^†110 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 scarce can we flatter ourselves ever to see such a prince and ministers, no not 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 either their own passions or those of their subjects.