ation, and the refusal of exemptions to the
poor. In April, an unknown deputy from the Colonies had demanded that
the Divinity be recognised in the preamble, and in June, after the
elimination of the Girondins, the idea was adopted. At the same time,
inverting the order of things, equality was made the first of the
Rights of Man, and Happiness, instead of Liberty, was declared the
supreme end of civil society. In point of spiritual quality, nothing
was gained by the invocation of the Supreme Being.

Herault proposed that a Grand Jury should be elected by the entire
nation to hear complaints against the government or its agents, and to
decide which cases should be sent for trial. The plan belonged to
Sieyes, and was supported by Robespierre. When it was rejected, he
suggested that each deputy should be judged by his constituency, and
if censured, should be ineligible elsewhere. This was contrary to the
principle that a deputy belongs to the whole nation, and ought to be
elected by the nation, but for the practical difficulty which compels
the division into separate constituencies. The end was, that the
deputies remained inviolable, and subject to no check, although the
oldest member, a man so old that he might very well have remembered
Lewis XIV., spoke earnestly in favour of the Grand Jury.

The Constitution wisely rescinded the standing offer of support to
insurgent nations, and renounced all purpose of intervention or
aggression. When the passage was read declaring that there could be no
peace with an invader, a voice cried, "Have you made a contract with
victory?" "No," replied Bazire; "we have made a contract with death."
A criticism immediately appeared, which was anonymous, but in which
the hand of Condorcet was easily recognised. He complained that judges
were preferred to juries, that functionaries were not appointed by
universal suffrage, that there was no fixed term of revision, that the
popular sanction of laws was reduced to a mere form. Condorcet
believed that nearly all inequality of fortune, such as causes
suffering, is the effect of imperfect laws, and that the end of the
social art is to reduce it. There were others who objected that the
Constitution did not benefit the poor. In regard to property, as in
other things, it was marked by a pronounced Conservatism. It was
adopted by a national vote of 1,801,918 to 11,610, and, with solemn
rites, was inaugurated on August 10. No term was fixed for it to com