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116 flitting from France to Switzerland, from Switzerland to England, from England to America, he had had better opportunities than most of the French patriots of studying the workings of different systems of government, so as to be able to institute a comparison between them. "The English Constitution, which I had studied on the spot," says Brissot in his Memoirs, seemed to me, in spite of its defects, well adapted to serve as a model to societies desirous of changing their system." Republican at heart, Brissot was no advocate for the Republic in the early days of the Revolution; for he believed in a gradual transition from the old order to the new, and wished that on its completion the Constitution should be given a fair trial by the nation.

Madame Roland, who first made his personal acquaintance in the winter of 1791, hits off his character in these telling lines: "He knew man but not men: was meant to live with sages and to be the dupe of rogues." Such a dupe he had time after time been made, as, for example, during his literary connection with such vile offscourings of journalism as Morande, Lointon, and Latour, the editor of the Courrier de l'Europe. This facility of being hoodwinked by designing men afterwards furnished a fatal instrument of attack to his political opponents. "What a pleasant intriguer is that man," says Madame Roland, "who never considers himself nor his family, who is as incapable as he is averse to occupy himself with his private interests, and who is no more ashamed of poverty than afraid of death." This disinterestedness of character kept him in a state of chronic impecuniosity, in spite of his great facility as a writer. Brissot composed whole chapters of those works