revolving vast designs; he wished to strengthen the throne, and
consolidate the revolution; two attempts extremely difficult at such a
time. It is to be feared that royalty, if he had made it independent,
would have put down the revolution; or, if he had failed, that the
revolution would have put down royalty. It is, perhaps, impossible to
convert an ancient power into a new order; perhaps a revolution must be
prolonged in order to become legitimate, and the throne, as it recovers,
acquire the novelty of the other institutions.

From the 5th and 6th of October, 1789, to the month of April, 1791, the
national assembly completed the reorganization of France; the court gave
itself up to petty intrigues and projects of flight; the privileged
classes sought for new means of power, those which they formerly possessed
having been successively taken from them. They took advantage of all the
opportunities of disorder which circumstances furnished them with, to
attack the new regime and restore the old, by means of anarchy. At the
opening of the law courts the nobility caused the Chambres de vacations to
protest; when the provinces were abolished, it made the orders protest. As
soon as the departments were formed, it tried new elections; when the old
writs had expired, it sought the dissolution of the assembly; when the new
military code passed, it endeavoured to excite the defection of the
officers; lastly, all these means of opposition failing to effect the
success of its designs, it emigrated, to excite Europe against the
revolution. The clergy, on its side, discontented with the loss of its
possessions still more than with the ecclesiastical constitution, sought
to destroy the new order by insurrections, and to bring on insurrections
by a schism. Thus it was during this epoch that parties became gradually
disunited, and that the two classes hostile to the revolution prepared the
elements of civil and foreign war.