his private virtues,
which the people almost always confound with public virtues, and
subsequently by his democratic speeches in the Constituent Assembly. The
skilful balance which he preserved at the Jacobins between the
Girondists and Robespierre had rendered him respectable and important.
Friend of Roland, Robespierre, Danton, and Brissot, at the same time
suspected of too close connection with Madame de Genlis and the Duc
d'Orleans' party, he still always covered himself with the mantle of
proper devotion to order and a superstitious reverence for the
constitution. He had thus all the apparent titles to the esteem of
honest men and the respect of factions; but the greatest of all was in
his mediocrity. Mediocrity, it must be confessed, is almost always the
brand of these idols of the people: either that the mob, mediocre
itself, has only a taste for what resembles it; or that jealous
contemporaries can never elevate themselves sufficiently high towards
great characters and great virtues; or that Providence, which
distributes gifts and faculties in proportion, will not allow that one
man should unite in himself, amidst a free people, these three
irresistible powers, virtue, genius, and popularity; or rather, that the
constant favour of the multitude is a thing of such a nature that its
price is beyond its worth in the eyes of really virtuous men, and that
it is necessary to stoop too low to pick it up, and become too weak to
retain it. Petion was only king of the people on condition of being
complaisant to its excesses. His functions as mayor of Paris, in a time
of trouble, placed him constantly between the king, the Assembly, and
the revolts. He bearded the king, flattered the Assembly, and pardoned
crime. Inviolable as the capital which he personified in his position of
first magistrate of the commune, his unseen dictatorship had no other
title than his inviolability, and he used it with respectful boldness
towards the king, bowed before the Assembly, and knelt to the
malcontents. To his official reproaches to the rioters, he always added
an excuse for crime, a smile for the culprits, encouragement to the
misled citizens. The people loved him as anarchy loves weakness; it knew
it could do as it pleased with him. As mayor, he had the law in his
hand; as a man, he had indulgence on his lips and connivance in his
heart: he was just the magistrate required in times of the _coups
d'etat_ of the faubourgs.

Petion allo