point, they besought the powerful to make a compromise with the weak.
Before the 14th of July they asked the court and privileged classes to
satisfy the commons; afterwards, they asked the commons to agree to an
arrangement with the court and the privileged classes. They thought that
each ought to preserve his influence in the state; that deposed parties
are discontented parties, and that a legal existence must be made for
them, or interminable struggles be expected on their part. But they did
not see how little their ideas were appropriate to a moment of exclusive
passions. The struggle was begun, the struggle destined to result in the
triumph of a system, and not in a compromise. It was a victory which had
made the three orders give place to a single assembly, and it was
difficult to break the unity of this assembly in order to arrive at a
government of two Chambers. The moderate party had not been able to obtain
this government from the court, nor were they to obtain it from the
nation: to the one it had appeared too popular; for the other, it was too
aristocratic.

The rest of the assembly consisted of the national party. As yet there
were not observed in it men who, like Robespierre, Petion, Buzot, etc.,
wished to begin a second revolution when the first was accomplished. At
this period the most extreme of this party were Duport, Barnave, and
Lameth, who formed a triumvirate, whose opinions were prepared by Duport,
sustained by Barnave, and managed by Alexander Lameth. There was something
remarkable and announcing the spirit of equality of the times, in this
intimate union of an advocate belonging to the middle classes, of a
counsellor belonging to the parliamentary class, and a colonel belonging
to the court, renouncing the interests of their order to unite in views of
the public good and popular happiness. This party at first took a more
advanced position than that which the revolution had attained. The 14th of
July had been the triumph of the middle class; the constituent assembly