BOOK VII.
I.
The Constituent Assembly had abdicated in a storm.
This assembly had consisted of the most imposing body of men that had ever represented, not only France, but the human race.

It was in fact the oecumenical council of modern reason and philosophy.

Nature seemed to have created expressly, and the different orders of society to have reserved, for this work, the geniuses, characters, and even vices most requisite to give to this focus of the lights of the age the greatness, _eclat_, and movement of a fire destined to consume the remnants of an old society, and to illumine a new one.

There were sages, like Bailly and Mounier; thinkers, like Sieyes; factious partisans, like Barnave; statesmen like Talleyrand; men, epochs, like Mirabeau, and men, principles like Robespierre.

Each cause was personified by what most distinguished each party.