all those whom the shadow of that great man eclipsed in common with
themselves. They sought for a rival to oppose to him, and found only men
who envied him. Barnave presented himself, and they surrounded him,
applauded him, intoxicated him with his self-importance. They persuaded
him for a moment that phrases were politics, and that a rhetorician was
a statesman.

Mirabeau was great enough not to fear, and just enough not to despise
him. Barnave, a young barrister of Dauphiné, had made his _début_ with
much effect in the struggles between the parliament and the throne which
had agitated his province, and displayed on small theatres the eloquence
of men of the bar. Sent at thirty years of age to the States General,
with Mounier his patron and master, he had soon quitted Mounier and the
monarchical party, and made himself conspicuous amongst the democratic
division. A word of sinister import which escaped not from his heart,
but from his lips, weighed on his conscience with remorse. "Is then the
blood that flows so pure?" he exclaimed at the first murder of the
Revolution. This phrase had branded him on the brow with the mark of a
ringleader of faction. Barnave was not this, or only as much so as was
necessary for the success of his discourses; nothing in him was extreme
but the orator: the man was by no means so, neither was he at all cruel.
Studious, but without imagination; copious, but without warmth, his
intellect was mediocre, his mind honest, his will variable, his heart in
the right place. His talent, which they affected to compare with
Mirabeau's, was nothing more than a power of skilfully rivetting public
attention. His habit of pleading gave him, with its power of extempore
speaking, an apparent superiority which vanished before reflection,
Mirabeau's enemies had created him a pedestal on their hatred, and
magnified his importance to make the comparison closer. When reduced to
his actual stature, it was easy to recognise the distance that existed