In honor of Bastille Day, I offer a quotation from French playwright and wit, Pierre de Beaumarchais (1732-1799).

Beaumarchais supplied guns to the Americans during our war for independence, and wrote the play, The Marriage of Figaro, which helped to undermine the ancien regime in France.

Ironically, the French Revolution landed him in prison. He had been a music master at Versailles to the daughters of Louis XV, and was therefore tainted with "royalism" in the eyes of the revolutionaries. Upon his release, he went into exile. He returned to France in 1796, where he died in poverty.

Given the facts of his career, it is not surprising that he held all politicians in contempt. He wrote: "To be a politician is but to feign ignorance of what you know well, pretend knowledge of what you totally ignorant, decline to listen to what you hear, attempt what is beyond your capacity, hide what ought to be exposed, appear profound when you are dull-witted and to justify ignoble means by claiming admirable ends."

In the words of an old French proverb, "Plus ca change ...." The more things change, the more they stay the same.