n their stage of progress, and that a Constitution like the
English applies not to a region, but to a time. He belonged to
that type of statesmanship which Washington had shown to be so
powerful--revolutionary doctrine in a conservative temper. In the
centre of affairs the powerful provincial betrayed a lack of sympathy
and attraction. He refused to meet Sieyes, and persistently denounced
and vilified Mirabeau. Influence and public esteem came to him at
once, and in the great constructive party he was a natural leader, and
predominated for a time. But at the encounter of defeat, his austere
and rigid character turned it into disaster; and as he possessed but
one line of defence, the failure of his tactics was the ruin of his
cause. Although he despaired prematurely, and was vociferously
repentant of his part in the great days of June, parading his
sackcloth before Europe, he never faltered in the conviction that the
interests of no class, of no family, of no man, can be preferred to
those of the nation. Napoleon once said with a sneer: "You are still
the man of 1789." Mounier replied: "Yes, sir. Principles are not
subject to the law of change."

He desired to adopt the English model, which meant: representation of
property; an upper house founded upon merit, not upon descent; royal
veto and right of dissolution. This could only be secured by active
co-operation on the part of all the conservative elements. To obtain
his majority he required that the other orders should come over, not
vanquished and reluctant, but under the influence of persuasion.
Mirabeau and his friends only wished to put the nobles in the wrong,
to expose their obstinacy and arrogance, and then to proceed without
them. The plan of Mounier depended on a real conciliation.

The clergy were ready for a conference; and by their intervention the
nobles were induced to take part in it. There, on May 23, the
Archbishop of Vienne, who was in the confidence of Mounier, declared
that the clergy recognised the duty of sharing taxes in equal
proportion. The Duke of Luxemburg, speaking for the nobles, made the
same declaration. The intention, he said, was irrevocable; but he
added that it would not be executed until the problem of the
Constitution was solved. The nobles declined to abandon the mode of
separate verification which had been practised formerly. And when the
Commons objected that what was good in times of civil dissension was
inapplicable to the Arc