The children, probably, would rather have gone out to play; but, willingly or unwillingly, they receive or endure the honors of the sitting.[2116] Such are the tricks of the stage and of the platform by which the managers here move their political puppets.

Emotional susceptibility, once recognized as a legitimate force, thus becomes an instrument of intrigue and constraint.

The Assembly, having accepted theatrical exhibitions when these were sincere and earnest, is obliged to tolerate them when they become mere sham and buffoonery.

At this vast national banquet, over which it meant to preside, and to which, throwing the doors wide open, it invited all France, its first intoxication was due to wine of a noble quality; but it has touched glasses with the populace, and by degrees, under the pressure of its associates, it has descended to adulterated and burning drinks, to a grotesque unwholesome inebriety which is all the more grotesque and unwholesome, because it persists in believing itself to be reason.
II .-- Inadequacy of its information.
Its composition--The social standing and culture of the larger number--Their incapacity.

Their presumption -- Fruitless advice of competent men .-- Deductive politics -- Parties--The minority; its faults--The majority; its dogmatism.
If reason could only resume its empire during the lucid intervals! But reason must exist before it can govern, and in no French Assembly, except the two following this, have there ever been fewer political intellects .-- Strictly speaking, with careful search, there could undoubtedly be found in France, in 1789, five or six hundred experienced men, such as the intendants and military commanders of every province; next to these the prelates, administrators of large dioceses the members of the local "parlements," whose courts gave them influence, and who, besides judicial functions, possessed a portion of administrative power; and finally, the principal members of the Provincial Assemblies, all of them influential and sensible people who had exercised control over men and affairs, at once humane, liberal, moderate, and capable of understanding the difficulty, as well as the necessity, of a great reform; indeed, their correspondence, full of facts, stated with precision and judgment, when compared with the doctrinaire rubbish of the Assembly, presents the strongest possible contrast .-- But most of these lights remain under a bushel; only a few of them get into the Assembly; these burn without illuminating, and are soon extinguished in the tempest.' I.The venerable Machault is not there, nor Malesherbes; there are none of the old ministers or the marshals of France.