ve this party the ascendancy, and these advantages are
of such importance that henceforth whoever possesses them is sure of
being master.--In the first place the prevailing theory is on the
side of the revolutionaries, and they alone are, in the second place,
determined thoroughly to apply it. This party, therefore, is the only
one which is consistent and popular in the face of adversaries who are
unpopular and inconsequent. Nearly all of the latter, indeed, defenders
of the ancient regime, or partisans of a limited monarchy, are likewise
imbued with abstract principles and philosophical speculation. The most
refractory nobles have advocated the rights of man in their memorials.
Mounier, the principal opponent of the demagogues, was the
leader of the commons when they proclaimed themselves to be the
National--Assembly.[2133] This is enough: they have entered the narrow
defile which leads to the abyss. They had no idea of it at the first
start, but one step leads to another, and, willing or unwilling, they
march on, or are pushed on. When the abyss comes in sight it is too
late; they have been driven there by the logical results of their own
concessions; they can do nothing but wax eloquent and indignant;
having abandoned their vantage ground, they find no halting-place
remaining.--There is an enormous power in general ideas, especially
if they are simple, and appeal to the passions. None are simpler than
these, since they are reducible to the axiom which assumes the rights
of man, and subordinate to them every institution, old or new. None are
better calculated to inflame the sentiments, since the doctrine enlists
human arrogance and pride in its service, and, in the name of justice,
consecrates all the demands of independence and domination. Consider
three-fourths of the deputies, immature and prejudiced, possessing no
information but a few formulas of the current philosophy, with no thread
to guide them but pure logic, abandoned to the declamation of lawyers,
to the wild utterances of the newspapers, to the promptings of
self-esteem, to the hundred thousand tongues which, on all sides, at the
bar of the Assembly, at the tribune, in the clubs, in the streets, in
their own breasts, repeat unanimously to them, and every day, the same
flattery:

"You are sovereign and omnipotent. Right is vested in you alone. The
King exists only to execute your will. Every order, every corporation,
every power, every civil or ecclesiasti