The chances of support and resistance in wars of political opinions are about equal. It may be recollected how in 1792 associations of fanatics thought it possible to propagate throughout Europe the famous declaration of the rights of man, and how governments became justly alarmed, and rushed to arms probably with the intention of only forcing the lava of this volcano back into its crater and there extinguishing it. The means were not fortunate; for war and aggression are inappropriate measures for arresting an evil which lies wholly in the human passions, excited in a temporary paroxysm, of less duration as it is the more violent. Time is the true remedy for all bad passions and for all anarchical doctrines. A civilized nation may bear the yoke of a factious and unrestrained multitude for a short interval; but these storms soon pass away, and reason resumes her sway. To attempt to restrain such a mob by a foreign force is to attempt to restrain the explosion of a mine when the powder has already been ignited: it is far better to await the explosion and afterward fill up the crater than to try to prevent it and to perish in the attempt. After a profound study of the Revolution, I am convinced that, if the Girondists and National Assembly had not been threatened by foreign armaments, they would never have dared to lay their sacrilegious hands upon the feeble but venerable head of Louis XVI. The Girondists would never have been crushed by the Mountain but for the reverses of Dumouriez and the threats of invasion. And if they had been permitted to clash and quarrel with each other to their hearts' content, it is probable that, instead of giving place to the terrible Convention, the Assembly would slowly have returned to the restoration of good, temperate, monarchical doctrines, in accordance with the necessities and the immemorial traditions of the French. In a military view these wars are fearful, since the invading force not only is met by the armies of the enemy, but is exposed to the attacks of an exasperated people. It may be said that the violence of one party will necessarily create support for the invaders by the formation of another and opposite one; but, if the exasperated party possesses all the public resources, the armies, the forts, the arsenals, and if it is supported by a large majority of the people, of what avail will be the support of the faction which possesses no such means? What service did one hundred thousand Vendeans and one hundred thousand Federalists do for the Coalition in 1793?