ft" and the galleries, and a decree
ordering the speeches of both president and children to be printed. 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 rubbis