As  to  the  revolution  which  Mr.  D calculates  upon,  I

agree  with  him  that  a  great  change  must  take  place,  but  not
altogether,  or  even  mainly,  from  the  causes  which  he  looks  to,
if  I  be  right  in  conjecturing  that  he  expects  that  the  religionists
who  have  at  present  such  influence  over  the  king's  mind  will  be
predominant.  The  extremes  to  which  they  wish  to  carry  things
are  not  sufficiently  in  the  spirit  of  the  age  to  suit  their  purpose.
The  French  monarchy  must  undergo  a  great  change,  or  it  will
fall  altogether.  A  constitution  of  government  so  disproportioned
cannot  endure.  A  monarchy,  without  a  powerful  aristocracy  or
nobility  graduating  into  a  gentry,  and  so  downwards,  cannot
long  subsist.  This  is  wanting  in  France,  and  must  continue  to
be  wanting  till  the  restrictions  imposed  on  the  disposal  of  pro-
perty by  will,  through  the  Code  Napoleon,  are  done  away  with  :
and  it  may  be  observed,  by  the  by,  that  there  is  a  bareness,  some
would  call  it  a  simplicity,  in  that  code  which  unfits  it  for  a  com-

*  Memoirs,  ii.  116.
284  Letters  and  Extracts  from  Letters.
