At first the politicians of the Right, though some were decidedly more liberal-minded than others, consisted principally of men attached to privilege upon grounds of interest, and utterly out of sympathy with the reforming spirit. But events moved fast; and before long the Right was reinforced by a group of deputies of higher capacity, who had welcomed the reforming movement, but whom the measures of the Assembly, after July, 1789, gradually drove into combination with the enemies of change. Among the members whom this group included were a few noblemen of Liberal opinions, in keen sympathy with constitutional reform--the Comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, whose romantic story and generous eloquence more than once, in the first days of the Revolution, roused the interest and enthusiasm of the Assembly, and the Duc de Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, the friend of Turgot and of Arthur Young, and the finest type which those days offer, of what a Grand Seigneur might have been, but rarely was, under the Ancien Régime. The real leaders of this group in the Assembly were two conspicuous members of the Tiers-État, Mounier and Malouet. No deputies of the Commons had come to Versailles with a higher reputation than these two men. Mounier had been the head and front of the movement in Dauphiné in 1788, which had led to the famous Assembly of Vizille, and which had contributed as much as anything else to the summoning of the States-General. When Mounier arrived at Versailles, many people expected that he would become the recognised leader of the Commons. Malouet too had obtained, in Auvergne, a very great reputation during the elections. His fame also had preceded him to Versailles, and had marked him out for future celebrity. These men were no lovers of the Ancien Régime, no lovers of privilege or of unjust distinction. They had, many of them, studied English politics and had a great admiration for the English constitution. They wished to see something like it established in France. They hoped for a Parliament of two Houses, and for a State which would use and employ its leisured class. One of them, Malouet, had had, at home and in the colonies, considerable experience of affairs. They were all fully alive to the advisability of proceeding, with caution, to the wisdom, when possible, of following precedent, to the immediate necessity of enforcing and maintaining order. But it may be that some of them lacked the force, and it seems that Mounier especially lacked the self-command and insight, essential to a leader. For when, in October 1789, difficulties accumulated round them, some of them lost heart and temper, resigned their seats, and gave up the struggle. They had comparatively little sympathy with the vague philosophic and democratic theories in which the majority of their colleagues delighted. They had no sympathy whatever with the Assembly's hesitation to establish a strong Executive, with its passion