According to Bernard Manin, historically, representative government, based on the election of representatives, was conceived as an alternative to “direct democracy”, an ancient regime granting a central place to sortition. This chapter offers an alternative reading of the origins of representative government. In the wake of the French Revolution, Madame de Staël, Sismonde de Sismondi and Benjamin Constant – key members of the “Coppet Group” – theorized representative government not as an alternative to “direct democracy” but as an alternative to what the revolutionaries, from 1793 onward, called “representative democracy.” Recovering these French origins of representative government invites us to reconsider the historical relationship between representative democracy and representative government as well as the presumed connection between public opinion and democracy. These two points are explored in the chapter’s conclusion.