Camille Desmoulins, an ardent, impetuous son of liberty, gave unequivocal expression of republican sentiments as early as 1789, and even asserted that the republican form of government was best suited for France.[108] In May, 1793, in two addresses, made in answer to Brissot, he confirms his early preference for republicanism. He said: “In the month of July, 1789, the number of Republicans in Paris did not probably exceed ten: and this it is which crowns with eternal glory those old members of the _Club of Cordeliers_, who began building the edifice of the republic with such slight materials.”[109] In June, 1790, he used the term Congress of the Republic of France in speaking of the Constituent Assembly, and said that only four republicans had had the courage to resist the royal budget of 25,000,000 voted upon in the Assembly. Again in the Jacobin Club, October 21, 1791, at the time when France was big with hope that the new Constitution would work, Desmoulins pointed out its imperfections and favored republican institutions. Here then was one mind already thinking of a republic and claiming that in the _Cordelier Club_ there were others who, at that early period, shared his opinions. Who these were he does not say.[110] The district of the city called the Cordeliers had formed a popular society which manifested a severely critical spirit toward the monarchical and aristocratic legislation. This district clamored for liberty of the press,[111] and championed the political rights of passive citizens.[112] It took the side of the sixty districts which kept up their popular electoral assemblies and which continued to meet in the interim of elections, as against the forty-eight sections, which convened only for elections. The ardent opposition of the Cordeliers to the Assembly and to the municipality doubtless provoked the enactment of the law which, on May 27, 1790, transformed these districts into the sections.[113] Then forming the _Club of Cordeliers, the Society of the Rights of Man and of Citizens_, this district continued its policy of aggression upon the conservatives, until their more democratic programme became an accomplished fact. Here then was a company of men, having a common interest in extreme radicalism, meeting frequently and fanning into fuller heat by their addresses the embers of opposition. This society, anti-aristocratic, anti-monarchical, occasionally uttered republican sentiments and indulged in the word republic. They remarked the inconsistency between the principles contained in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and an hereditary monarchy, resting upon the divine right of kings.[114] On June 22, 1791, the _Club of Cordeliers_ issued an address to the Assembly showing its republican proclivities, much to the displeasure of the Jacobins. They said: “We conjure you, in the name of the country, either to declare immediately that France is no more a monarchy, that it is a republic, or at least to wait until all