They little heeded the blood of the people, provided that it cemented their ambition.
The Jacobin party, with the exception of Robespierre, clamoured loudly for war: his fanaticism deceived him as to his weakness.

War was to these men an armed apostleship, which was about to propagate their social philosophy over the universe.

The first cannon shot fired in the name of the rights of man would shake thrones to their centre.

Then there was finally a third party which hoped for war, that of the constitutional _moderes_, which flattered itself that it would restore sound energy to the executive power, by the necessity of concentrating the military authority in the hands of the king at the moment when the nationality should be menaced.

All extremity of war places the dictatorship in the hands of the party which makes it, and they hoped, on behalf of the king, and of themselves, for this dictatorship of necessity.
XIX.
A young, but already influential, female had lent to this latter party the _prestige_ of her youth, her genius, and her enthusiasm--it was Madame de Staeel.