But neither zeal, nor labor, nor talent are of any use when not employed in the service of a sound idea; and if in the service of a false one, the greater they are the more mischief they do.
Towards the end of the year 1789, there can be not doubt of this; and the parties now formed reveal their presumption, improvidence, incapacity, and obstinacy.

"This Assembly," writes the American ambassador,[2128] "may be divided into three parties;-- one called the aristocrats, consists of the high clergy, the parliamentary judges, and such of the nobility as think they ought to form a separate order." This is the party which offers resistance to follies and errors, but with follies and errors almost equally great.
In the beginning "the prelates,[2129] instead of conciliating the cures, kept them at a humiliating distance, affecting distinctions, exacting respect," and, in their own chamber, "ranging themselves apart on separate benches." The nobles, on the other hand, the more to alienate the commons, began by charging these with, "revolt, treachery, and treason," and by demanding the use of military force against them.

Now that the victorious Third-Estate has again overcome them and overwhelms them with numbers, they become still more maladroit, and conduct the defense much less efficiently than the attack.

"In the Assembly," says one of them, "they do not listen, but laugh and talk aloud;" they take pains to embitter their adversaries and the galleries by their impertinence.

"They leave the chamber when the President puts the question and invite the deputies of their party to follow them, or cry out to them not to take part in the deliberation: through this desertion, the clubbists become the majority, and decree whatever they please." It is in this way that the appointment of judges and bishops is withdrawn from the King and assigned to the people.