1. In Madame de Stael’s Considerations on the principle Events of the French Revolution there is this perfectly formulation. De #Stael is explaining the predominance of a #Richelieu or a Mazarin, who though foreigners came to possess such absolute power in France.

The individuals of this nation are too lively to submit to the perseverance it takes to be a despot; but he who has that perseverance is very formidable in a land where, the law having never reigned, one judges only by the event."