He was or appeared to be sometimes their accomplice.

Hideous blotches thus stain his life, and were cruelly revived by his enemies, when the time came in which he was compelled to appeal to public esteem.
Returning to France at the first symptoms of the Revolution, he watched its successive phases, with the ambition of an impatient man, and with the indecision of one not knowing what part to take.

He was frequently wrong.

He compromised himself by his devotion, too early displayed, towards certain men who had seemed to him for a moment to be all powerful, especially towards La Fayette.

Editor of the _Patriote Francais_, he had occasionally put forth revolutionary feelers, and flattered the future by going even faster than the factions themselves.
He had even been disowned by Robespierre.