Catherine’s comments about events in France became increasingly caustic. The National Assembly was “the Hydra with twelve hundred heads.” In the new governing figures, she discerned “only people who set in motion a machine which they lack the talent and skill to control.… France is the prey of a crowd of lawyers, fools masquerading as philosophers, rascals, young prigs destitute of common sense, puppets of a few bandits who do not even deserve the title of illustrious criminals.” Her defense of monarchy followed from her belief in the need for efficiency in administration and the preservation
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