MIRABEAU
nature of things, almost entirely blunted in affairs of execution; rarely can it take place in matters relative to war. You parry this inconvenience; you reestablish the superintendency, the reciprocal control, which the Constitution has provided, in imposing upon the two delegates of the nation, her removable representatives and her unremovable representative, the mutual duty of coinciding when the question is upon war. You attribute likewise to the legislative body the sole faculty which can enable it to concur, without inconvenience, in the exercise of this terrible privilege. You at the same time secure the national interest, as far as in you lies; since all that you will have to do in order to arrest the progress of the executive power will be to require it to place continually within the reach of the legislative body the means of deliberating on every case which can present itself.
It appears to me, gentlemen, that the point of difficulty is at length completely known; and, for a man for whom such applause was prepared within and without doors, M. Barnave has not at all approached the true state of the question. It were now but too easy a triumph to pursue him through all the particulars, where, if he has exhibited the talents of a speaker, he has not betrayed the slightest symptoms of a statesman, nor any knowledge of human affairs. He has declaimed against the mischiefs which kings can do, and which they have done; and he has taken special care not to remark that in our Constitu-
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