A taste had sprung up in France
for constitution-making, one of the most difficult and expensive of
public works. A translation of the American State Constitutions
attracted more attention in Paris than Paine's iron-work; for these
also, the French thought, were _ingenieusement imaginees_, and worthy
of an attempt to execute them abroad. The American Revolution, with its
brilliant termination of wisdom, liberty, and peace, seemed to promise
similar good results to the efforts of reformers elsewhere. Treatises
on moral science and on the nature and end of civil government were
eagerly read, "_Humanite, mot nouveau_," as Cousin says, became the
watch-word of the Parisians. It was the fashion among all classes, high
as well as low, to talk of human rights, to exalt the virtue of the
people, hitherto supposed to have none, and to execrate "bloody
tyrants," "silly despots," the members of the kingly profession, which
fell into such sad disfavor towards the end of the last century. Segur,
after his return from America, heard the whole court applaud these
lines at the theatre:--
"Je suis fils de Brutus, et je porte en mon coeur
La liberte gravee et les rois en horreur.
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