You have been refused even uniforms, and
condemned to wander from department to department, objects of contempt
to the minister, and of derision to the patricians, who receive you
only to enjoy the spectacle of your distress. No matter; come, we will
combat naked like the American savages.

"But shall we await the orders of the war office to destroy thrones?
Shall we await the signal of the court? Shall we be commanded by these
patricians, these eternal favourites of despotism, in this war against
aristocrats and kings? No--let us march forward alone; let us be our own
leaders. But see, the orators of war stop me! Here is Monsieur Brissot,
who tells me that Monsieur le Comte de Narbonne must conduct this
affair; that we must march under the orders of Monsieur le Marquis de La
Fayette; that the executive power alone possesses the right of leading
the nation to victory and freedom. Ah, citizens, this word has dispelled
all the charm! Adieu, victory and the independence of the people; if the
sceptres of Europe ever be broken, it will not be by such hands. Spain
will continue for some time the degraded slave of superstition and
royalism. Leopold will continue the tyrant of Germany and Italy, and we
shall not speedily behold Catos or Ciceros replace the pope and the
cardinals in the conclave. I declare openly, that war, as I understand
the term--war, such as I have proposed, is impracticable. And if it be
the war of the court, of the ministers, of the patricians who affect
patriotism, that we must accept--oh, then, far from believing in the
freedom of the world, I despair of your liberty. The wisest course left
us is to defend it against the perfidy of those enemies at home who lull
you with these heroic illusions.

"I continue calmly and sorrowfully. I have proved that liberty possesses
no more deadly foe than war; I have proved that war, advised by men
already objects of suspicion, was, in the hands of the executive power,
nought save a means of annihilating the constitution, only the end of a
plot against the Revolution. Thus to favour these plans of war, under
what pretext soever, is to associate ourselves with these treasonable
plots against the Revolution. All the patriotism in the world, all the
pretended political commonplaces, cannot change the nature of things. To
inculcate, like M. Brissot and his friends, confidence in the executive
power, and to call down public favour on the generals, is to disarm the
Revolut