BOOK II.
I.
The National Assembly, wearied with two years of existence, relaxed in its legislative movement: from the moment when it had nothing more to destroy, it really was at a loss what to do.

The Jacobins took umbrage at it, its popularity was disappearing, the press inveighed against it, the clubs insulted it; the worn-out tool by which the people had acquired conquest, it felt the people were about to snap it asunder if it did not dissolve of its own accord.

Its sittings were inanimate, and it was completing the constitution as a task inflicted on it, but at which it was discouraged before completion.

It had no belief in the duration of that which it proclaimed imperishable.

The lofty voices which had shaken France so long were now no more, or were silent from indifference.