Bold and radical reformers as the makers of the constitution proved themselves, monarchical sentiment and distrust of the political capacity of some million and a half of their countrymen had caused them at times to shrink from carrying out fully Rousseau’s theory of the sovereignty of the people. Hence, while their work was on one side attacked by the party of reaction, on the other it was decried by the extreme left, as being in contradiction to the principles which the Assembly had itself proclaimed in the Declaration of Rights. Outside the Assembly these views were even more strongly expressed. ♦Brissot.♦ One of the most noted journalists of the time, Brissot, combined with ultra-democratic tendencies a firm belief in the advantages of individual liberty, and was a zealous exponent of opinions subsequently known as Girondist. His ideal form of government, which he aspired to see established in France, was a democratic republic, where no civil or political distinctions existed between man and man; where habits of local government and obedience to the law allowed, without detriment to public order, the action of the central government to be barely visible; where principles of free trade, liberty of the press, and religious toleration were carried systematically out; where education, respect for labour, simple and virtuous habits of life prevailed amongst all classes. On the ground that vice and corruption readily found footing in large towns, Brissot was averse to the capital exercising political ascendancy over the country. ‘Without private morality,’ he said, ‘no public morality, no public spirit, and no liberty.’ The goal here pointed out was truly Utopian as compared with the actual condition of things in France. Nevertheless, Brissot was credulous enough to believe that, owing to the beneficial influences of general education and free institutions, its attainment would be possible in the course of some twenty or thirty years. ♦Desmoulins.♦