the constitution. I met there several of the original patriots of the
revolution; I do not mean of the last order of Jacobins, but of the
first of that name. The faction in the Council of Five Hundred,
who, finding no counsel from the public, began to be frightened at
appearances, fortified itself against the dread of this Society, by
passing a law to dissolve it. The constitutionality of the law was at
least doubtful: but the Society, that it might not give the example of
exasperating matters already too much inflamed, suspended its meetings.

A matter, however, of much greater moment soon after presented itself.
It was the march of four regiments, some of whom, in the line of their
route, had to pass within about twelve leagues of Paris, which is the
boundary the Constitution had fixed as the distance of any armed
force from the legislative body. In another state of things, such a
circumstance would not have been noticed. But conspiracy is quick of
suspicion, and the fear which the faction in the Council of Five
Hundred manifested upon this occasion could not have suggested itself
to innocent men; neither would innocent men have expostulated with the
Directory upon the case, in the manner these men did. The question they
urged went to extort from the Directory, and to make known to the enemy,
what the destination of the troops was. The leaders of the faction
conceived that the troops were marching against them; and the conduct
they adopted in consequence of it was sufficient to justify the measure,
even if it had been so. From what other motive than the consciousness of
their own designs could they have fear? The troops, in every instance,
had been the gallant defenders of the Republic, and the openly declared
friends of the Constitution; the Directory had been the same, and if the
faction were not of a different description neither fear nor suspicion
could have had place among them.

All those manouvres in the Council were acted under the most
professional attachment to the Constitution; and this as necessarily
served to enfeeble their projects. It is exceedingly difficult, and next
to impossible, to conduct a conspiracy, and still more so to give it
success, in a popular government. The disguised and feigned pretences
which men in such cases are obliged to act in the face of the public,
suppress the action of the faculties, and give even to natural courage
the features of timidity. They are not half the men they w