should be nearest to it. Making this their polar
star, they moved in phalanx, gave preponderance on every question to the
minorities of the Patriots, and always to those who advocated the
least change. The features of the new constitution were thus assuming a
fearful aspect, and great alarm was produced among the honest Patriots
by these dissensions in their ranks. In this uneasy state of things, I
received one day a note from the Marquis de la Fayette, informing me,
that he should bring a party of six or eight friends, to ask a dinner of
me the next day. I assured him of their welcome. When they arrived, they
were La Fayette himself, Duport, Barnave, Alexander la Meth, Blacon,
Mounier, Maubourg, and Dagout. These were leading Patriots, of honest
but differing opinions, sensible of the necessity of effecting a
coalition by mutual sacrifices, knowing each other, and not afraid,
therefore, to unbosom themselves mutually. This last was a material
principle in the selection. With this view, the Marquis had invited the
conference, and had fixed the time and place inadvertently, as to the
embarrassment under which it might place me. The cloth being removed,
and wine set on the table, after the American manner, the Marquis
introduced the objects of the conference, by summarily reminding them of
the state of things in the Assembly, the course which the principles of
the constitution were taking, and the inevitable result, unless checked
by more concord among the Patriots themselves. He observed, that
although he also had his opinion, he was ready to sacrifice it to that
of his brethren of the same cause; but that a common opinion must now be
formed, or the aristocracy would carry every thing, and that, whatever
they should now agree on, he, at the head of the national force, would
maintain. The discussions began at the hour of four, and were continued
till ten o'clock in the evening; during which time I was a silent
witness to a coolness and candor of argument unusual in the conflicts
of political opinion; to a logical reasoning, and chaste eloquence,
disfigured by no gaudy tinsel of rhetoric or declamation, and truly
worthy of being placed in parallel with the finest dialogues of
antiquity, as handed to us by Xenophon, by Plato, and Cicero. The result
was, that the King should have a suspensive veto on the laws, that the
legislature should be composed of a single body only, and that to
be chosen by the people. This Concordat de