By 1832 Papineau's political views had taken a more revolutionary turn. From being an admirer of the constitution of 1791, he had come to regard it as 'bad; very, very bad.' 'Our constitution,' he said, 'has been manufactured by a Tory influenced by the terrors of the French Revolution.' He had lost faith in the justice of the British government and in its willingness to redress grievances; and his eyes had begun to turn toward the United States. Perhaps he was not yet for annexation to that country; but he had conceived a great admiration for the American constitution. The wide application of the principle of election especially attracted him; and, although he did not relinquish his hope of subordinating the Executive to the Assembly by means of the control of the finances, he {36} began to throw his main weight into an agitation to make the Legislative Council elective. Henceforth the plan for an elective Legislative Council became the chief feature of the policy of the _Patriote_ party. The existing nominated and reactionary Legislative Council had served the purpose of a buffer between the governor's Executive Council and the Assembly. This buffer, thought Papineau and his friends, should be removed, so as to expose the governor to the full hurricane of the Assembly's wrath. It was not long before Papineau's domineering behaviour and the revolutionary trend of his views alienated some of his followers. On John Neilson, who had gone to England with him in 1822 and with Cuvillier and Viger in 1828, and who had supported him heartily during the Dalhousie regime, Papineau could no longer count. Under Aylmer a coolness sprang up between the two men. Neilson objected to the expulsion of Mondelet from the House; he opposed the resolutions of Louis Bourdages, Papineau's chief lieutenant, for the abolition of the Legislative Council; and in the debate on Quesnel's bill for the independence of judges, he administered a severe rebuke to Papineau for language he {37} had used. Augustin Cuvillier followed the lead of his friend Neilson, and so also did Andrew Stuart, one of the ablest lawyers in the province, and Quesnel. All these men were politicians of weight and respectability.