There were thus, by the summer of 1791, large numbers of people, both in town and country, who would not tolerate the idea that the Revolution was over, and who still hoped for a share in the spoils of freedom. To meet and govern their wishes, to remove the causes of their trouble, to convert them into fairly contented citizens, was no easy task. The greatest statesmen might well have failed in the endeavour, for social perplexities are wont to tax the wisdom of the most experienced politicians. Unfortunately, the politicians then at the head of affairs in France were neither experienced nor wise. They were not alive to the dangers which threatened. They did not attempt to understand their cause. Satisfied that they had regenerated France, they did not fully believe in the existence of the grievances put forward, and they had no notion of what they ought to do to meet them. The truth is that the dominant party in 1791, the party represented by Lafayette and Bailly, by Barnave and the Lameths, were in an impossible position. They were pledged to support the King and the new Constitution. They were pledged to resist republicanism. Their instincts led them to sympathise with the idea of a well-ordered freedom, based on property and on the predominance of the middle-class. But such a system was difficult to reconcile with the theory which they preached. For two years past they had been proclaiming the absolute equality of men, the sovereignty of the whole people, the pure democracy of Rousseau's dream. For two years past they had been busy stripping the Crown of its attributes, denouncing its agents, limiting its power. Thus, when they endeavoured to pause, when they began to insist upon the necessity of maintaining the monarchical system, when they plainly showed their intention not to admit the poorest class to power, that class retorted by echoing the theories which they had taught them, and by resenting the consequences which they deduced. Logically, the position of the Constitutional party was untenable, and to fail in logic was then a crime in France. Morally and materially their position was untenable too. For their action could not be reconciled with the dogmas on which they professed that all government was based.