420 Readings in European History or destruction who did not profit by them ; let even men of good faith be questioned who did profit by them. But let us leave one side those who, in order to ennoble the demands of purely personal interests, now choose as the objects of their commiseration the fate of those to whom they were formerly quite indifferent. We may then judge if each sub- ject of reform does not enjoy the approval of all of those whose opinions should be considered. Some say that we have acted too precipitately, as many others proclaim that we have been too deliberate. Too much precipitation ! Does not every one know that only by attacking and overthrowing all the abuses at the same time can we hope to be freed from them without danger of their return; that then, and then only, every one becomes inter- ested in the reestablishment of order ; that slow and partial reforms have always resulted in no reform at all, and that an abuse preserved becomes the support, and before long the means of restoring all those which we thought to have destroyed ? Our meetings are said to be disorderly; what of that, if the decrees which proceed from them are wise? We are indeed far from wishing to hold up for your admiration the details of all our debates. More than once they have been a source of annoyance to us, but at the same time we have felt that it was very unjust to take advantage of this dis- order ; and indeed this impetuosity is the almost inevitable effect of the first conflict which has perhaps ever been fought by every right principle against every 'form of error. We are accused of having aspired to a chimerical per- fection. A curious reproach indeed, which, if one looks at it closely, proves to be only an ill-disguised desire for the perpetuation of the abuses. The National Assembly has not allowed itself to be influenced by motives of servile interest or pusillanimity. It has had the courage, or rather the sense, to believe that useful ideas, essential to the human race, were not destined simply to adorn the pages of a book, and that the Supreme Being, when he granted the attribute of perfectibility to man, did not forbid him
