The French Revolution furnishes authentic illustration of a few predominating over a great change. Among the good men at that time who followed “principle of right” were others with whom success was the primary object, while even good men sometimes forgot goodness; but at each stage a minority gave the law. Pétion, the famous mayor of Paris, boasted, that, when he began, “there were but five men in France who wished a Republic.”[221] From a contemporary debate in the British Parliament, it appears that the asserted power of a minority was made the express ground of appeal by French revolutionists to the people of other countries. Sheridan, in a brilliant speech, dwells on this appeal, and by mistake ascribes to Condorcet the unequivocal utterances, that “revolutions must always be the work of the minority,”--that “every revolution is the work of a minority,”--that “the French Revolution was accomplished by the minority.”[222] This philosopher, who sealed his principles by a tragical death, did say, in an address to the Parliamentary Reformers of England, that from Parliamentary reform “the passage to the complete establishment of a republic would be short and easy”;[223] but it was Cambon, the financier of the Revolution, and one of its active supporters, who, in the National Convention, put forth the cries attributed to Condorcet.[224] The part of the minority was also attested by Brissot de Warville, who imputed the triumph of the Jacobins, under whose bloody sway his own life became a sacrifice, to “some twenty men,” or, as he says in another place, “a score of anarchists,” and then again, “a club, or rather a score of those robbers who direct that club.”[225] The future historian will record, that the present rebellion, notwithstanding its protracted origin, the multitudes it enlisted, and its extensive sweep, was at last precipitated by fewer than twenty men,--Mr. Everett says by as few as eight or ten.[226] It is certain that thus far it has been the triumph of a minority,--but of a minority moved, inspired, combined, and aggrandized by Slavery. * * * * * And now this traitorous minority, putting aside the sneaking, slimy devices of conspiracy, steps forth in full panoply of war. Assuming all functions of government, it organizes States under a common head,--sends ambassadors into foreign countries,--levies taxes,--borrows money,--issues letters of marque,--and sets armies in the field, summoned from distant Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, as well as from nearer Virginia, and composed of the whole lawless population, the poor who cannot own slaves as well as the rich who pretend to own them, throughout the extensive region where with Satanic grasp this Slave-Master minority claims for itself “ample room and verge enough The characters of Hell to trace.”