V.

Before we depict the state of these parties, let us throw a rapid glance
over the commencement of the Revolution, the progress it had made, and
the principal leaders who were about to attempt directing it in the way
they desired to see it advance.

It was hardly two years since opinion had opened the breaches against
the monarchy, yet it had already accomplished immense results. The weak
and vacillating spirit of the government had convoked the Assembly of
Notables, whilst public spirit had placed its grasp on power and
convoked the States General. The States General being established, the
nation had felt its omnipotence, and from this feeling to a legal
insurrection there was but a word; that word Mirabeau had uttered. The
National Assembly had constituted itself in front of, and higher than,
the throne itself. The prodigious popularity of M. Necker was exhausted
by concessions, and utterly vanished when he no longer had any of the
spoils of monarchy to cast before the people. Minister of a monarch in
retirement, his own had been utter defeat. His last step conducted him
out of the kingdom. The disarmed king had remained the hostage of the
ancient _régime_ in the hands of the nation. The declaration of the
rights of man and citizen, the sole metaphysical act of the Revolution
to this time, had given it a social and universal signification. This
declaration had been much jeered; it certainly contained some errors,
and confused in terms the state of nature and the state of society; but
it was, notwithstanding, the very essence of the new dogma.