tee of
the Constitution' got together. Sieyes, Old-Constituent,
Constitution-builder by trade; Condorcet, fit for better things; Deputy
Paine, foreign Benefactor of the Species, with that 'red
carbuncled face, and the black beaming eyes;' Herault de Sechelles,
Ex-Parlementeer, one of the handsomest men in France: these, with
inferior guild-brethren, are girt cheerfully to the work; will once more
'make the Constitution;' let us hope, more effectually than last time.
For that the Constitution can be made, who doubts,--unless the Gospel
of Jean Jacques came into the world in vain? True, our last Constitution
did tumble within the year, so lamentably. But what then, except sort
the rubbish and boulders, and build them up again better? 'Widen your
basis,' for one thing,--to Universal Suffrage, if need be; exclude
rotten materials, Royalism and such like, for another thing. And in
brief, build, O unspeakable Sieyes and Company, unwearied! Frequent
perilous downrushing of scaffolding and rubble-work, be that an
irritation, no discouragement. Start ye always again, clearing aside the
wreck; if with broken limbs, yet with whole hearts; and build, we say,
in the name of Heaven,--till either the work do stand; or else mankind
abandon it, and the Constitution-builders be paid off, with laughter and
tears! One good time, in the course of Eternity, it was appointed that
this of Social Contract too should try itself out. And so the Committee
of Constitution shall toil: with hope and faith;--with no disturbance
from any reader of these pages.

To make the Constitution, then, and return home joyfully in a few
months: this is the prophecy our National Convention gives of itself; by
this scientific program shall its operations and events go on. But from
the best scientific program, in such a case, to the actual fulfilment,
what a difference! Every reunion of men, is it not, as we often say,
a reunion of incalculable Influences; every unit of it a microcosm of
Influences;--of which how shall Science calculate or prophesy! Science,
which cannot, with all its calculuses, differential, integral, and of
variations, calculate the Problem of Three gravitating Bodies, ought to
hold her peace here, and say only: In this National Convention there are
Seven Hundred and Forty-nine very singular Bodies, that gravitate and
do much else;--who, probably in an amazing manner, will work the
appointment of Heaven.

Of National Assemblages, Parliaments, C