n every thing inconsistent with the immediate
safety of the Republic, and which served to encourage the enemy to
prolong the war, admitted of no other direct interpretation than that
something was rotten in the Council of Five Hundred. The evidence of
circumstances became every day too visible not to be seen, and too
strong to be explained away. Even as errors, (to say no worse of
them,) they are not entitled to apology; for where knowledge is a duty,
ignorance is a crime.

The more serious republicans, who had better opportunities than the
generality had, of knowing the state of politics, began to take
the alarm, and formed themselves into a Society, by the name of the
Constitutional Club. It is the only Society of which I have been a
member in France; and I went to this because it was become necessary
that the friends of the Republic should rally round the standard of
the constitution. I met there several of the original patriots of the
revolution; I do not mean of the last order of Jacobins, but of the
first of that name. The faction in the Council of Five Hundred,
who, finding no counsel from the public, began to be frightened at
appearances, fortified itself against the dread of this Society, by
passing a law to dissolve it. The constitutionality of the law was at
least doubtful: but the Society, that it might not give the example of
exasperating matters already too much inflamed, suspended its meetings.

A matter, however, of much greater moment soon after presented itself.
It was the march of four regiments, some of whom, in the line of their
route, had to pass within about twelve leagues of Paris, which is the
boundary the Constitution had fixed as the distance of any armed
force from the legislative body. In another state of things, such a
circumstance would not have been noticed. But conspiracy is quick of
suspicion, and the fear which the faction in the Council of Five
Hundred manifested upon this occasion could not have suggested itself
to innocent men; neither would innocent men have expostulated with the
Directory upon the case, in the manner these men did. The question they
urged went to extort from the Directory, and to make known to the enemy,
what the destination of the troops was. The leaders of the faction
conceived that the troops were marching against them; and the conduct
they adopted in consequence of it was sufficient to justify the measure,
even if it had been so. From what other motive than t