must be given only limited power in the municipalities.
Let us beware above all of giving them too much force; their despotism is too dangerous, we must flatter the people by gratuitous justice, promise them a great diminution in taxes and a more equal division, more extension in fortunes, and less humiliation. These phantasies [*vertiges*] will fanaticise the people, who will flatten out all resistance. What matter the victims and their numbers? spoliations, destructions, burnings, and all the necessary effects of a revolution? nothing must be sacred and we can say with Machiavelli: "What matter the means as long as one arrives at the end?"
Were all these the ideas of Mirabeau, or were they, like the other document of the Illuminati found amongst his papers, the programme of a conspiracy? I incline to the latter theory.