ith whom he had associated
during the two years he was in England.1 Willot and Delarue attacked the
Directory: their object was to displace some one of the directors, to
get in another of their own. Their motives with respect to the age of
Barras (who is as old as he wishes to be, and has been a little too old
for them) were too obvious not to be seen through.(2)

1 Paine's pamphlet, addressed to Jordan, deals mainly with
religions matters, and is reserved for oar fourth volume.--
_Editor._.

2 Paul Francois Jean Nicolas Barras (1755-1899) was
President of the Directory at this time, 1797.--_Editor._.

In this suspensive state of things, the public mind, filled with
apprehensions, became agitated, and without knowing what it might be,
looked for some extraordinary event. It saw, for it could not avoid
seeing, that things could not remain long in the state they were in,
but it dreaded a convulsion. That spirit of triflingness which it
had indulged too freely when in a state of security, and which it is
probable the new agents had interpreted into indifference about the
success of the Republic, assumed a serious aspect that afforded to
conspiracy no hope of aid; but still it went on. It plunged itself into
new measures with the same ill success, and the further it went the
further the public mind retired. The conspiracy saw nothing around it to
give it encouragement.

The obstinacy, however, with which it persevered in its repeated
attacks upon the Directory, in framing laws in favour of emigrants and
refractory priests, and in every thing inconsistent with the immediate
safety of the Republic, and which served to encourage the enemy to
prolong the war, admitted of no other direct interpretation than that
something was rotten in the Council of Five Hundred. The evidence of
circumstances became every day too visible not to be seen, and too
strong to be explained away. Even as errors, (to say no worse of
them,) they are not entitled to apology; for where knowledge is a duty,
ignorance is a crime.

The more serious republicans, who had better opportunities than the
generality had, of knowing the state of politics, began to take
the alarm, and formed themselves into a Society, by the name of the
Constitutional Club. It is the only Society of which I have been a
member in France; and I went to this because it was become necessary
that the friends of the Republic should rally round the standard of