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<p>Edward Gibbon skrev:</p>
<blockquote lang="en">
The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be
usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate
is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner
of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. A
martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious
of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the
only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against
enterprises of an aspiring prince.
</blockquote>
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