The composition of this second body of representatives was much more unfavourable to the royal cause than that of those whom they succeeded. In a bad hour for France and themselves, the Constituent Assembly had adopted two regulations, which had the same disabling effect on their own political interest, as the celebrated self-denying ordinance in the Long Parliament had upon that of the Presbyterians. By the first of these decrees, the members of the Constituent Assembly were rendered incapable of being elected to that which should succeed its dissolution: by the second, they were declared ineligible to be ministers of the crown, until two years had elapsed after their sitting as legislators.[159] Those individuals who had already acquired some political knowledge and information, were thus virtually excluded from the counsels of the state, and pronounced inadmissible into the service of the crown. This exclusion was adopted upon the wild principle of levelling, which was one prime moving spring of the Revolution, and which affected to destroy even the natural aristocracy of talents. "Who are the _distinguished members_ whom the speaker mentions?" said a Jacobin orator, in the true spirit of this imaginary equality;--"There are no members of the Assembly more distinguished than others by talents or skill, any more than by birth or rank--We are all EQUAL."[160] Rare words indeed, and flattering, doubtless, to many in the Assembly. Unhappily no legislative decree can give sense to folly, or experience to ignorance; it could only prevent a certain portion of wisdom and talent from being called into the service of the country. Both King and people were necessarily obliged to put their confidence in men of inexperience in business, liable to act with all the rashness by which inexperience is generally attended. As the Constituent Assembly contained the first and readiest choice among the men of ability whom France had in her bosom, it followed that the second Assembly could not be equal to the first in abundance of talent; but still the Legislative Assembly held in its ranks many men of no ordinary acquirements, and a few of a corresponding boldness and determination of character. A slight review of the parties into which it was divided, will show how much the influence of the crown was lowered in the scale. [Sidenote: CONSTITUTIONALISTS.]