Meanwhile, we will hate Anarchy as Death, which it is; and the things worse than Anarchy shall be hated more!  Surely Peace alone is fruitful.  Anarchy is destruction:  a burning up, say, of Shams and Insupportabilities; but which leaves Vacancy behind.  Know this also, that out of a world of Unwise nothing but an Unwisdom can be made.  Arrange it, Constitution-build it, sift it through Ballot-Boxes as thou wilt, it is and remains an Unwisdom,—­the new prey of new quacks and unclean things, the latter end of it slightly better than the beginning.  Who can bring a wise thing out of men unwise?  Not one.  And so Vacancy and general Abolition having come for this France, what can Anarchy do more?  Let there be Order, were it under the Soldier’s Sword; let there be Peace, that the bounty of the Heavens be not spilt; that what of Wisdom they do send us bring fruit in its season!—­It remains to be seen how the quellers of Sansculottism were themselves quelled, and sacred right of Insurrection was blown away by gunpowder:  wherewith this singular eventful History called French Revolution ends.

The Convention, driven such a course by wild wind, wild tide, and steerage and non-steerage, these three years, has become weary of its own existence, sees all men weary of it; and wishes heartily to finish.  To the last, it has to strive with contradictions:  it is now getting fast ready with a Constitution, yet knows no peace.  Sieyes, we say, is making the Constitution once more; has as good as made it.  Warned by experience, the great Architect alters much, admits much.  Distinction of Active and Passive Citizen, that is, Money-qualification for Electors:  nay Two Chambers, ‘Council of Ancients,’ as well as ’Council of Five Hundred;’ to that conclusion have we come!  In a like spirit, eschewing that fatal self-denying ordinance of your Old Constituents, we enact not only that actual Convention Members are re-eligible, but that Two-thirds of them must be re-elected.  The Active Citizen Electors shall for this time have free choice of only One-third of their National Assembly.  Such enactment, of Two-thirds to be re-elected, we append to our Constitution; we submit our Constitution to the Townships of France, and say, Accept both, or reject both.  Unsavoury as this appendix may be, the Townships, by overwhelming majority, accept and ratify.  With Directory of Five; with Two good Chambers, double-majority of them nominated by ourselves, one hopes this Constitution may prove final.  March it will; for the legs of it, the re-elected Two-thirds, are already there, able to march.  Sieyes looks at his Paper Fabric with just pride.

But now see how the contumacious Sections, Lepelletier foremost, kick against the pricks!  Is it not manifest infraction of one’s Elective Franchise, Rights of Man, and Sovereignty of the People, this appendix of re-electing your Two-thirds?  Greedy tyrants who would perpetuate yourselves!—­For the truth is, victory over Saint-Antoine, and long right of Insurrection, has spoiled these men.  Nay spoiled all men.  Consider too how each man was free to hope what he liked; and now there is to be no hope, there is to be fruition, fruition of this.