rance,
who became the lawgivers of successive Assemblies, until they
completed their code under Napoleon. Of all the enemies of the old
monarchical _regime_, they were the most methodical and consistent.
The leader of the Paris Bar, Target, was their most active politician.
When he heard of a plan for setting the finances in order he said, "If
anybody has such a plan, let him at once be smothered. It is the
disorder of the finances that puts the king in our power." The
Economists were as systematic and definite as the lawyers, and they
too had much to destroy. Through Dupont de Nemours their theories
obtained enduring influence.

There were two or three of the future Girondins who taught that the
people may be better trusted than representatives, and who were ready
to ratify the Constitution, and even to decide upon the adoption of
laws, by the popular vote. And there were two men, not yet distinctly
divided from these their future victims, who went farther in
opposition to the Rights of Man, and towards the confusion of powers.
In their eyes, representation and delegation were treason to true
democracy. As the people could not directly govern itself, the
principle exacted that it should do so as nearly as possible, by means
of a perpetual control over the delegates. The parliamentary vote
ought to be constantly brought into harmony with the wish of the
constituency, by the press, the galleries and the mob. To act
consciously in opposition to the delegating power was a breach of
trust. The population of Paris, being the largest collected portion of
sovereign power, expresses its will more surely than deputies at
second hand. Barere, who was one of these, proposed an ingenious plan
by which every law that passed remained suspended until after the next
elections, when the country pronounced upon it by imperative mandate.
Thus he disposed of royal veto and dissolution.

Robespierre would not suspend the law, but left it to the next
legislature to rectify or revoke the errors of the last. He argued
that powers require to be checked in proportion to the danger they
present. Now the danger from a power not representative exceeds that
from a power that represents, and is better acquainted with the needs
and wishes of the mass. A nation governs itself, and has a single
will, not two. If the whole does not govern the part, the part will
govern the whole. Robespierre conceived that it was time to constitute
powers sufficient t