ould be where
no disguise is necessary. It is impossible to be a hypocrite and to be
brave at the same instant.

The faction, by the imprudence of its measures, upon the march of
the troops, and upon the declarations of the officers and soldiers to
support the Republic and the Constitution against all open or concealed
attempts to overturn them, had gotten itself involved with the army, and
in effect declared itself a party against it. On the one hand, laws were
proposed to admit emigrants and refractory priests as free citizens; and
on the other hand to exclude the troops from Paris, and to punish the
soldiers who had declared to support the Republic In the mean time all
negociations for peace went backward; and the enemy, still recruiting
its forces, rested to take advantage of circumstances. Excepting the
absence of hostilities, it was a state worse than war.

If all this was not a conspiracy, it had at least the features of one,
and was pregnant with the same mischiefs. The eyes of the faction could
not avoid being open to the dangers to which it obstinately exposed
the Republic; yet still it persisted. During this scene, the journals
devoted to the faction were repeatedly announcing the near approach of
peace with Austria and with England, and often asserting that it was
concluded. This falsehood could be intended for no other purpose than to
keep the eyes of the people shut against the dangers to which they were
exposed.

Taking all circumstances together, it was impossible that such a state
of things could continue long; and at length it was resolved to bring it
to an issue. There is good reason to believe that the affair of the
18th Fructidor (September 4) was intended to have taken place two days
before; but on recollecting that it was the 2d of September, a day
mournful in the annals of the revolution, it was postponed. When the
issue arrived, the faction found to its cost it had no party among the
public. It had sought its own disasters, and was left to suffer the
consequences. Foreign enemies, as well as those of the interior, if
any such there be, ought to see in the event of this day that all
expectation of aid from any part of the public in support of a counter
revolution is delusion. In a state of security the thoughtless, who
trembled at terror, may laugh at principles of Liberty (for they have
laughed) but it is one thing to indulge a foolish laugh, quite another
thing to surrender Liberty.

Consi