I declare that these persons I shall not attack.
Whosoever has a pure political opinion has a right to communicate it; but we have another class of foes.

They are the foes of all government.
If this class betrays its opposition, it is not because it prefers the republic to the monarchy, democracy to aristocracy, it is because all that concentrates the political machine, all that is order, all that places in his right position the honest man and the rogue, the candid man and the calumniator, is contrary and hateful to its system." (Long and loud applause from the majority on the left.) "Yes, gentlemen," continued Barnave, "such is the party which has the most strongly opposed our labours.

They have sought fresh sources of revolution because the revolution as defined by us escaped them.

These are the men who, changing the name of things, by uttering sentiments apparently patriotic, in the stead of sentiments of honour, probity, purity--by sitting even in the most august places with a mask of virtue, have believed that they would impose upon public opinion, and have coalesced with certain writers.

(The plaudits here redoubled, and all eyes were turned towards Robespierre and Brissot.) If we desire to see our constitution carried out, if you desire that the nation, after having owed to you its hopes of liberty,--for as yet it is but hope (Murmurs of dissent),--shall owe to you reality, prosperity, happiness, peace, let us endeavour to simplify it, by giving to the government--by which I mean all the powers established by this constitution--the amount of simultaneous strength requisite to move the social machine, and to preserve to the nation the liberty you have conferred upon it.