From the opening of the sittings Barnave attempted to consolidate around the constitution the opinions so fiercely shaken by Robespierre and his friends.  He did it with a caution which bespoke but too well the weakness of his position, notwithstanding the boldness of his language.  “The labours of your committee of the constitution are assailed,” he said.  “There exist against our work but two kinds of opposition.  Those who, up to the present time, have constantly shown themselves inimical to the Revolution—­the enemies of equality, who hate our constitution because it is the condemnation of their aristocracy.  Yet there is another class hostile also, and I will divide it into two distinct species.  One of these is the men who, in the opinion of their own conscience, give the preference to another government which they disguise more or less in their language, and seek to deprive our monarchical government of all the strength which can retard the advent of a republic.  I declare that these persons I shall not attack.  Whosoever has a pure political opinion has a right to communicate it; but we have another class of foes.  They are the foes of all government.  If this class betrays its opposition, it is not because it prefers the republic to the monarchy, democracy to aristocracy, it is because all that concentrates the political machine, all that is order, all that places in his right position the honest man and the rogue, the candid man and the calumniator, is contrary and hateful to its system.” (Long and loud applause from the majority on the left.) “Yes, gentlemen,” continued Barnave, “such is the party which has the most strongly opposed our labours.  They have sought fresh sources of revolution because the revolution as defined by us escaped them.  These are the men who, changing the name of things, by uttering sentiments apparently patriotic, in the stead of sentiments of honour, probity, purity—­by sitting even in the most august places with a mask of virtue, have believed that they would impose upon public opinion, and have coalesced with certain writers. (The plaudits here redoubled, and all eyes were turned towards Robespierre and Brissot.) If we desire to see our constitution carried out, if you desire that the nation, after having owed to you its hopes of liberty,—­for as yet it is but hope (Murmurs of dissent),—­shall owe to you reality, prosperity, happiness, peace, let us endeavour to simplify it, by giving to the government—­by which I mean all the powers established by this constitution—­the amount of simultaneous strength requisite to move the social machine, and to preserve to the nation the liberty you have conferred upon it.  If the welfare of your country is dear to you, take care what you are about to do.  Above all, let us discard injurious mistrust, which can serve none but our enemies, when they would believe that this national assembly, this constant majority, at once bold and sagacious, which has so much cast upon it since the king’s