"At the moment, perhaps too long deferred, in which I am about to call your attention to the highest public interests, and to point out among our dangers, the _conduct of a ministry_, whom I have for a long time censured in my correspondence, I learn that, unmasked in consequence of its own divisions, it has fallen a sacrifice to its own intrigues. [This was the Brissotin ministry.] It is not enough however, that _this branch_ of the government has been delivered from its disastrous influence. The public welfare is in peril--The fate of France depends principally on its representatives--The nation expects from them its security. But in giving them a _constitution_, France has prescribed to them the _only_ means by which she can be saved. "Persuaded, gentlemen, that as the rights of man are the law of every constituent assembly, a constitution ought to be the law of the legislators, which that constitution shall have established. It is to you that I ought to denounce the too powerful efforts which are making, to induce you to depart from that course which you have promised to pursue. "_Nothing shall deter me from the exercise of this right of a free man, to fulfill this duty of a citizen_; neither the momentary errors of opinion; for what are opinions when they depart from principles: nor my respect for the _representatives_ of the people; for I respect still more the _people_, whose sovereign will it is to have a constitution: nor the benevolence and kindness which you have constantly evinced for myself; for I would _preserve_ that as I _obtained_ it, by an inflexible love of liberty. "Your situation is difficult--France is menaced from without, and agitated within. Whilst foreign powers announce the intolerable (inadmissible) project of attacking our national sovereignty, and avow it as a principle! at the same time the enemies of France, its interior enemies, intoxicated with fanaticism and pride, entertain chimerical hopes, and annoy us with their insolent malevolence. You ought, gentlemen, to repress them; and you will have the power so to do, _only when_ you shall become _constitutional_ and _just_. You wish it, _no doubt_; but cast your eyes upon all that passes within your own body and around you. Can you dissemble even to yourselves, that a _faction_, (and to avoid all vague denunciations) the _jacobin faction_, have caused all these disorders? It _is that which I boldly accuse_--organized like a separate empire in the metropolis, and in its affiliated societies, blindly directed by some ambitious leaders, this sect forms a _corporation entirely distinct_ in the midst of the French people, whose powers it usurps, by tyrannizing over its representatives and constituted authorities.