More conversant with politics than the young orators of the Gironde, he did not comprehend the Revolution without government; anarchy, in his opinion, did not destroy the monarchy more than it did liberty.

The greater were events, the more necessary was the direction of them.

Placed disarmed in the foremost rank of the Assembly and of opinion, power presented itself, and it was necessary to lay hands upon it.

Once in their grasp, they would make of it, according to the dictates of fortune and the will of the people, a monarchy or a republic.

Ready for any thing that would allow them to reign in the name of the king or of the people, this counsel was pleasing to men who had scarcely emerged from obscurity, and who, seduced by the facility of their good fortune, seized on it at its first smile.