* "I observed in the french revolutions that they always proceeded by stages, and made each stage a stepping stone to another. The Convention, to amuse the people, voted a constitution, and then voted to suspend the practical establishment of it till after the war, and in the meantime to carry on a revolutionary government. When Robespierre fell they proposed bringing forward the suspended Constitution, and apparently for this purpose appointed a committee to frame what they called organic laws, and these organic laws turned out to be a new Constitution (the Directory Constitution which was in general a good one). When Bonaparte overthrew this Constitution he got himself appointed first Consul for ten years, then for life, and now Emperor with an hereditary succession."--Paine to Jefferson. MS. (Dec. 27, 1804). The Paine-Condorcet Constitution is printed in Œuvres Completes de Condorcet, vol. xviii. That which superseded it may be read (the Declaration of Rights omitted) in the "Constitutional History of France. By Henry C. Lockwood." (New York, 1890). It is, inter alia, a sufficient reason for describing the latter as revolutionary, that it provides that a Convention, elected by a majority of the departments, and a tenth part of the primaries, to revise or alter the Constitution, shall be "formed in like manner as the legislatures, and unite in itself the highest power." In other words, instead of being limited to constitutional revision, may exercise all legislative and other functions, just as the existing Convention was doing.