h
the new fanaticism daily feeds itself. Madame Roland herself delights,
with evident complacency, in it, something which can be seen in the two
famous letters in which, with a supercilious tone, she first instructs
the King and next the Pope.[2351] Brissot, at bottom, regards himself as
a Louis XIV, and expressly invites the Jacobins to imitate the haughty
ways of the Great Monarch.[2352]--To the tactlessness of the intruder,
and the touchiness of the parvenu, we can add the rigidity of the
sectarian. The Jacobins, in the name of abstract rights, deny historic
rights; they impose from above, and by force, that truth of which they
are the apostles, and allow themselves every provocation which they
prohibit to others.

"Let us tell Europe," cries Isnard,[2353] "that ten millions of
Frenchmen, armed with the sword, with the pen, with reason, with
eloquence, might, if provoked, change the face of the world and make
tyrants tremble on their thrones of clay."

"Wherever a throne exists," says Herault de Sechelles, "there is an
enemy."[2354]

"An honest peace between tyranny and liberty," says Brissot, "is
impossible. Our Constitution is an eternal anathema to absolute
monarchs... It places them on trial, it pronounces judgment on them; it
seems to say to each: to-morrow thou have ceased to be or shalt be king
only through the people... War is now a national benefit, and not to
have war is the only calamity to be dreaded." [2355]

"Tell the king," says Gensonne, "that the war is a must, that public
opinion demands it, that the safety of the empire makes it a law."[2356]

"The state we are in," concludes Vergniaud, "is a veritable state of
destruction that may lead us to disgrace and death. So then to arms! to
arms! Citizens, freemen, defend your liberty, confirm the hopes of that
of the human race... Lose not the advantage of your position. Attack
now that there is every sign of complete success... The spirits of past
generations seem to me crowding into this temple to conjure you, in the
name of the evils which slavery had compelled them to endure, to protect
the future generations whose destinies are in your hands! Let this
prayer be granted! Be for the future a new Providence! Ally yourselves
with eternal justice!"[2357]

Among the Marseilles speakers there is no longer any room for serious
discussion. Brissot, in reply to the claim made by the Emperor on behalf
of the princes' property in Alsatia, replies that "the