OF FRENCH SOCIETY. 47 which contribute little to the real gran- deur ofa country ; unless, indeed, it can be proved that, according to the fearfully unguarded expression of the otherwise moral Burke, the exhibition of vice in a better taste, by taking from it all its ap, parent grossness, takes away half of its real turpitude. What arts of refinement could neutral- ise the evil, when all the bounds of moral restraint were so far broken through, as that the royal wife and the royal mistress were every where received with the same appearance. of respect, when they fre- quently even met together in the same societies, when the favour of the mistress was even more assiduously courted ? Louis has lately obtained in certain quarters, a kind of resuscitation of his buried fame, by the only method perhaps by which it could have been raised -a comparison with the prisoner of St. He- lena. But surely to have committed fewer crimes than the man who has com- mitted more than any other man, is not
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