For this purpose the party required agitation; tranquillity by no means suited its designs.

It had ambitious desires as vast as its talents, ardent as its youth, impatient as its thirst for advancement.

The Constituent Assembly, composed of reflective men of eminence in the state, and in the social hierarchy, had but the ambition of advancing the ideas of liberty and fame; the new Assembly had that of tumult, fortune, and power.

Formed of obscure, poor, and unknown men, it aspired to the acquisition of all in which it was deficient.
This latter party, of which Brissot was the journalist, Petion the popular member, Vergniaud the genius, the party of the Girondists the body, entered on the scene with the boldness and unity of a conspiracy.
It was the _bourgeoisie_ triumphant, envious, turbulent, eloquent, the aristocracy of talent, desiring to acquire and control by itself alone liberty, power, and the people.

The Assembly was made up of unequal portions of three elements; the constitutionalists, who formed the aristocratic liberty and moderate monarchy party; the Girondists, the party of the movement, sustained until the Revolution fell into their hands; the Jacobins, the party of the people, and of philosophy in action; the first arrangement and transition, the second boldness and intrigue, the third fanaticism and devotion.