The others were the Duke
de Riviere and the Baron de Damas. The Duke of Montmorency was
named in anticipation the 8th of January, 1826, although his task
did not begin until the 29th of September. Mathieu de Montmorency,
first Viscount and then Duke, was born in 1766. After having been
through the war in America, he had adopted the ideas of Lafayette,
and had been distinguished by his extreme liberalism. He took the
oath of the Jeu de Paume, and was the first to give up the
privileges derived from his birth on the celebrated night of the
4th of August. The 12th of July, 1791, he was one of the
deputation that attended the solemn transfer of the ashes of
Voltaire, and, August 27th, he sustained the proposition to decree
the honors of the Pantheon to Jean Jacques Rousseau. In his Petit
Almanach des Grands Hommes de la Revolution, Rivarol wrote, not
without irony:--
"The most youthful talent of the Assembly, he is still stammering
his patriotism, but he already manages to make it understood, and
the Republic sees in him all it wishes to see. It was necessary
that Montmorency should appear popular for the Revolution to be
complete, and a child alone could set this great example. The
little Montmorency therefore devoted himself to the esteem of the
moment, and combated aristocracy under the ferrule of the Abbe
Sieyes."
Mathieu de Montmorency did not adhere to his revolutionary ideas.
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