Brissot had not the properties of an orator: his dogged spirit, sectarian and arbitrary, was fitter for conspiracy than action: the ardour of his mind was excessive, but concentrated.

He shed neither those lights nor those flames which kindle enthusiasm--that explosion of ideas.

It was the lamp of the Gironde party; it was neither its beacon nor its torch.
XX.
The Jacobins, weakened for a time by the great number of their members elected to the Legislative Assembly, remained for a brief space without a fixed course to pursue, like an army disbanded after victory.

The club of the Feuillants, composed of the remains of the constitutional party in the Constituted Assembly, strove to resume the ascendency over the mind of the people.

Barnave, Lameth, and Duport were the leaders of this party.