Though, with the ascendancy of Louis, the political power of the nobles finally came to an end, France remained, in the whole complexion of her social life, completely aristocratic.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
France cannot be destroyed. She is an old country who, despite her misfortunes, has, and always will have, thanks to her past, a tremendous prestige in the world, whatever the fate inflicted upon her.
France is no longer herself when she is folded in on herself, tormented by ignorance and intolerance. The country would plunge into decline if it refused to be itself, if it was afraid of the future, afraid of the world.
Everyone says Francois Mitterrand had huge charisma. But before he was president they used to call him badly dressed, old, archaic and say he knew nothing about the economy... until the day he was elected. It's called universal suffrage. When you're elected, you become the person that embodies France.
There is a certain dignity to being French.
Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
The French Revolution ends slavery unilaterally. And it does so at this moment when the British, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Americans - all of the other major powers - keep slavery. And the fact is that it's almost bankrupting the French Colonial Empire.
Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
I am the successor, not of Louis XVI, but of Charlemagne.
Real nobility is based on scorn, courage, and profound indifference.
When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower.