this his power consisted, for parties paused but he never did. He placed
this ideal as an end to reach in every revolutionary movement, and
advanced towards it with those who sought to attain it; then, this goal
reached, he placed it still further off, and again marched forward with
other men, continually advancing without ever deviating, ever pausing,
ever retreating. The Revolution, decimated in its progress, must one day
or other inevitably arrive at a last stage, and he desired it
should end in himself. He was the entire incorporation of the
Revolution,--principles, thoughts, passions, impulses. Thus
incorporating himself wholly with it, he compelled it one day to
incorporate itself in him--that day was a distant one.


XVIII.

Robespierre, who had often struggled against Mirabeau with Duport, the
Lameths, and Barnave, began to separate himself from them as soon as
they appeared to predominate in the Assembly. He formed, with Pétion and
some others of small note, a small band of opposition, radically
democratic, who encouraged the Jacobins without, and menaced Barnave and
the Lameths whenever they ventured to pause. Pétion and Robespierre in
the Assembly, Brissot and Danton at the Jacobin Club, formed the nucleus
of the new party which was destined to accelerate the movement and
speedily to convert it into convulsions and catastrophes.

Pétion was a popular Lafayette: popularity was his aim, and he acquired
it earlier than Robespierre. A barrister without talent but upright, he
had imbibed no more of philosophy than the Social Contract; young, good
looking and a patriot, he was destined to become one of those
complaisant idols of whom the people make what they please except a man;