Page:Lectures on the French Revolution of John Acton.djvu/125

Rh Mounier, with some of his friends, deserves to be remembered among the men, not so common as they say, who loved liberty sincerely; I mean, who desired it, not for any good it might do them, but for itself, however arduous, or costly, or perilous its approach might be. They subordinated the means to the end, and never regarded conditional forms as an emanation of eternal principles. Having secured the Rights of Man, they looked with alarm at future legislation, that could not improve, and might endanger them. They wished the Constituent Assembly to bind and bar its successors as far as possible; for none would ever speak with so much authority as the genuine voice of the entire people.

By an extraordinary fortune, the nation, this time, had responded wisely. It was certain that it would not always do so well. It had passions; it had prejudices; it was grossly ignorant; it was not disinterested; and it was demoralized by an evil tradition. The French were accustomed to irresponsible power. They were not likely to consent that the power in their hands should be inferior to that which had been exercised over them, or to admit that an entire people is not above the law which it obeys. It was to be expected that they would endeavour by legislation to diminish those securities for the minority and the weaker cause which were appointed by the Rights of Man. Opinion was changing rapidly, and had become more favourable to violence, more indulgent to crime. A draft project of the Rights of Man had appeared, in which the writer avowed that, by the law of nature, a man may do what he likes in the pursuit of happiness, and, to elude oppression, may oppress, imprison, and destroy.

The man who wrote thus quickly acquired a dread ascendancy over the people, and was able to defy police and governments and assemblies, for it was the beginning of Marat. Lists of proscription were circulated; threatening letters poured in on the deputies; and Paris, at the end of August, was preparing to march upon Versailles, to expel obnoxious members, and, when they ceased to be inviolable, to put them on their trial. These