Those who give the first shock to a state are apt to be the first ones swallowed up in its ruin. CThe fruits of the trouble rarely go to the one who has stirred it up; he beats and disturbs the water for other fishermen. BThe unity and contexture of this monarchy, this great structure, having been dislocated and dissolved, especially in its old age, by this innovation, as wide an entry as one could wish is opened to similar attacks. CThe majesty of kings, says an ancient, declines less easily from the summit to the middle than it plunges from the middle to the bottom.
