They required the king, in order to defend themselves from their enemies.

So long as there was a man (Mirabeau) between the throne and themselves, they had played with the republic and sapped the throne in order to crush a rival.

But Mirabeau dead and the throne shaken, they felt themselves weak against the very impulse they had given.

They sustained, therefore, this wreck of monarchy in order to be sustained in their turn.

Founders of the Jacobins, they trembled before their own handiwork:--they took refuge in the constitution which they themselves had dilapidated, and passed from the character of destructives to that of statesmen.