“The passionate love of liberty which took me to America disposed me naturally to adopt a democratic and republican system. Afterwards, moved by all the dangers of royalty and of an English aristocracy, I remembered also the faults of our previous experiences. I concluded that the science of a social organization had not been sufficiently studied, and I desired that it should have a universal trial. The first principles, however, appeared to me indubitable. The fundamental doctrines of the rights of the man and the citizen, reduced to what I believed to be necessary and sufficient, were proclaimed by me; and after the national triumph of July 14, 1789, a civil militia was instituted, to measure itself against the permanent armies of Europe. “Very soon after, all ancient abuses, all hereditary pretensions disappeared. However, an hereditary president of executive power had been established in the royal family, and that decision was so conformed to the will of the people, to the opinions of their representatives, and to other circumstances, that in the month of June, 1791, almost an entire majority of our constitutional assembly, heretofore discontented, thought better to replace upon the throne a constitutional king, than to complete the establishment of a republican government. The extent of the English prerogative was judged inadmissible, particularly on account of our military situation. If one believes that a constitutional monarchy, such as ours, might be modified so that it might gradually arrive at the adoption of a government entirely elective, such an inconvenience would be less grievous than that of usurpations upon the rights of the national sovereignty, or upon the liberty of citizens. It was after this manner of viewing affairs, that in the midst of popular outrages, the intrigues of factions, and the machinations of foreigners, a constitution was freely discussed and adopted by the nation. It had faults, truly, but it contained nothing contrary to the rights of men, and it included means, lawful and easy, for ameliorations. “It is against this constitution that the old governments have united; it is to them, as well as to the Jacobins, that we must attribute our ruin. Until then, the excesses so often unpunished had not been official. When anarchy and the assassin had put down the honest patriot, the kings had the satisfaction of seeing extinguished all desire of imitation in Europe. “Their hopes of conquest, however, were disappointed. The National Guard, dismissed from the interior, ran to the frontiers and fought with an irresistible force for national independence. During three years the Republic had been in France but a name tarnished by an extravagant and sanguinary tyranny. To these misfortunes succeeded the establishment of a constitution which was violated on the 18th _Fructidor_.