In Camille Desmoulins the levelling principles of the revolution found their ablest advocate. He belonged to the lower section of the middle class; and, while speaking in the name of the people, gave expression to the intense jealousy with which men in his position of life regarded claims of property or of birth to political or social distinction. Young, naive, and enthusiastic, Desmoulins was incapable of throwing dust in his own eyes or in the eyes of others, and from the first avowed that even the form of monarchical government was incompatible with the principles that his party held. Since, however, the Assembly ordained that France was to have a king, he expressed his readiness to take off his hat when Louis passed by, but he refused to recognise Marie Antoinette as Queen, and only made mention of her as the King’s wife. Desmoulins was no precisian like Brissot, and did not concern himself with the moral disposition of his fellow-countrymen. When attacking men whom he designated as ‘reactionaries’ and ‘aristocrats,’ without heed of consequences, he made use of every arm which served his end--irony, calumny, and gross exaggeration. The prevailing state of anarchy he made light of. Rousseau had said that the people were by nature merciful and forgiving, and his disciples palliated acts of ferocity on the score of ignorance and misery. Was it to be expected, Desmoulins asked, that after centuries of debasement liberty could be obtained without a little blood-letting? ♦Marat.♦ Marat, a writer of a third type--called, after the title of his journal, the ‘People’s Friend’--had no faith in any of the distinctive principles of the time. He did not believe in the goodness of human nature, nor in reason as the main lever by which to reconstitute society and government, nor in the political capacity of his countrymen, and was as ready to throw suspicion on the people’s nominees as Brissot on the integrity of men put in office by the King. He did not regard either commercial or individual liberty as necessarily calculated to increase the happiness and prosperity of the masses. The goal to which he pointed was a shadowy one of a democratic state, where mediocrity ruled, and government provided that the working-classes lacked neither labour nor bread. His means were the re-establishment of absolute power and the use of force. Since officials were corrupt, the upper classes seeking power merely for selfish ends, the people ignorant and easily deceived, Marat proposed to invest a dictator with authority to establish genuine equality by crushing under foot the possessors of wealth and talent. As, however, there appeared no probability of the adoption of this plan, he filled the pages of his journal with incentives to murder and insurrection, advising the people to secure their happiness by rising and killing their enemies in a body. Some thousands of heads laid low, the true era of freedom and prosperity would open.