and listen, are in the habit of sneering at these new Legislators;
(Dumouriez, ii. 150, &c.) but let not us! The poor Seven Hundred and
Forty-five, sent together by the active citizens of France, are what
they could be; do what is fated them. That they are of Patriot temper we
can well understand. Aristocrat Noblesse had fled over the marches, or
sat brooding silent in their unburnt Chateaus; small prospect had they
in Primary Electoral Assemblies. What with Flights to Varennes, what
with Days of Poniards, with plot after plot, the People are left to
themselves; the People must needs choose Defenders of the People, such
as can be had. Choosing, as they also will ever do, 'if not the ablest
man, yet the man ablest to be chosen!' Fervour of character, decided
Patriot-Constitutional feeling; these are qualities: but free
utterance, mastership in tongue-fence; this is the quality of qualities.
Accordingly one finds, with little astonishment, in this First Biennial,
that as many as Four hundred Members are of the Advocate or Attorney
species. Men who can speak, if there be aught to speak: nay here are
men also who can think, and even act. Candour will say of this ill-fated
First French Parliament that it wanted not its modicum of talent, its
modicum of honesty; that it, neither in the one respect nor in the
other, sank below the average of Parliaments, but rose above the
average. Let average Parliaments, whom the world does not guillotine,
and cast forth to long infamy, be thankful not to themselves but to
their stars!

France, as we say, has once more done what it could: fervid men have
come together from wide separation; for strange issues. Fiery Max Isnard
is come, from the utmost South-East; fiery Claude Fauchet, Te-Deum
Fauchet Bishop of Calvados, from the utmost North-West. No Mirabeau now
sits here, who had swallowed formulas: our only Mirabeau now is
Danton, working as yet out of doors; whom some call 'Mirabeau of the
Sansculottes.'

Nevertheless we have our gifts,--especially of speech and logic. An
eloquent Vergniaud we have; most mellifluous yet most impetuous of
public speakers; from the region named Gironde, of the Garonne: a
man unfortunately of indolent habits; who will sit playing with your
children, when he ought to be scheming and perorating. Sharp bustling
Guadet; considerate grave Censonne; kind-sparkling mirthful young Ducos;
Valaze doomed to a sad end: all these likewise are of that Gironde,
or Bour