Paris and proceeded
to London, where he remained until the storm had blown over. By this
stroke the assembly for the moment retained control. But the situation
was profoundly changed. If Danton and the popular insurrectional force
were for the moment defeated, Robespierre and intellectual democracy
were making rapid headway; the centre of gravity of revolutionary
opinion was shifting in his direction. Just before the crisis the
Jacobins had been invaded by a Palais Royal mob who had hooted down the
constitutionalist speakers, and imposed their opinion on the club.
This led to disruption. The moderate Jacobins left, and, at the
neighbouring _Feuillants_, founded a new society that was gradually to
become more and more retrograde. The few advanced Jacobins retained
possession of the old club, with its great affiliation of country
clubs, infused a radical element into its membership, and soon, making
of Robespierre its mouthpiece and its prophet, advanced in the
direction of imposing his doctrine of political salvation on France.

Meanwhile the assembly, with its constitutional {125} keystone securely
locked up in the Tuileries, was hastening to profit by its victory.
The opportunity for completing the Constitution might never recur, and
was eagerly seized. Louis, a necessary prop to the elaborate structure
devised by the wisdom of the deputies, was deliberately made use of.
Discredited, a virtual prisoner, finished as a monarch, he was
converted into a constitutional fiction, and was compelled by his
circumstances to resume the farce of kingship, and to put his signature
to the Constitution which, on the 3rd of September, was sent to him.

The Constitution of 1791 was compounded partly of political theory,
partly of revolutionary effort, of desire to pull down the prerogatives
of the monarchy in favour of the middle class. It was prefaced by a
declaration of the rights of man that stamps the whole as a piece of
class legislation. By this all Frenchmen were guaranteed certain
fundamental rights of justice, of opinion, of speech, of
opportunity,--these were passive rights. There were, however, active
rights as well; and those were reserved for a privileged class.[1]
{126} Only those paying taxes equivalent to three days' labour had
active political rights, that is, the right to vote. In primary and
secondary assemblies they were to elect the 750 deputies who were to
constitute the sole representative chamber. T