Page:A discourse upon the origin and foundation of the inequality among mankind (IA discourseuponori00rous).pdf/217

By continuing in this manner to compare Facts with Right, we ſhould diſcover as little Solidity as Truth in the voluntary Eſtabliſhment of Tyranny; and it would be a hard Matter to prove the Validity of a Contract which was binding only on one Side, in which one of the Parties ſhould ſtake every thing and the other nothing, and which could turn out to the Prejudice of him alone who had bound himſelf. This odious Syſtem is even, at this Day, far from being that of wiſe and good Monarchs, and eſpecially of the Kings of France, as may be ſeen by divers paſſages in their Edicts, and particularly by that of a celebrated Piece publiſhed in 1667 in the Name and by the Orders of Lewis XIV. "Let it therefore not be ſaid that the Sovereign is not ſubject to the Laws of his Realm, ſince, that he is, is a Maxim of the Law of Nations which Flattery has ſometimes at-