r stop short until he had mounted either the throne or the
scaffold.

The overthrow of Robespierre was the result of an alliance between
what have been called the radicals and the conservatives in the
Convention. Both were Jacobins, for the Girondists had been
discredited, and put out of doors. It was not, however, the
Convention, but Paris, which took command of the resulting movement.
The social structure of France has been so strong, and the nation so
homogeneous, that political convulsions have had much less influence
there than elsewhere. But the "Terror" had struck at the heart of
nearly every family of consequence in the capital, and the people were
utterly weary of horrors. The wave of reaction began when the would-be
dictator fell. A wholesome longing for safety, with its attendant
pleasures, overpowered society, and light-heartedness returned.
Underneath this temper lay but partly concealed a grim determination
not to be thwarted, which awed the Convention. Slowly, yet surely, the
Jacobins lost their power. As once the whole land had been mastered by
the idea of "federation," and as a later patriotic impulse had given
as a watchword "the nation," so now another refrain was in every
mouth--"humanity." The very songs of previous stages, the "Ca ira" and
the "Carmagnole," were displaced by new and milder ones. With Paris in
this mood, it was clear that the proscribed might return, and the
Convention, for its intemperate severity, must abdicate.

This, of course, meant a new political experiment; but being, as they
were, sanguine admirers of Rousseau, the French felt no apprehension
at the prospect. The constitution of the third republic in France has
been considered a happy chance by many. Far from being perfectly
adapted to the needs of the nation, the fine qualities it possesses
are the outcome, not of chance, nor of theory, but of a century's
experience. It should be remembered that France in the eighteenth
century had had no experience whatever of constitutional government,
and the spirit of the age was all for theory in politics. Accordingly
the democratic monarchy of 1791 had failed because, its framework
having been built of empty visions, its constitution was entirely in
the air. The same fate had now overtaken the Girondist experiment of
1792 and the Jacobin usurpation of the following year, which was
ostensibly sanctioned by the popular adoption of a new constitution.
With perfect confidence in Rousse