The French Revolution, vol 3 | Page 5

spot and by his subordinates, has come to depend on
them. Thenceforth, each post in which authority is vested is found
isolated, dismantled and preyed upon, while, to crown all, the
Declaration of Rights, proclaiming "the jurisdiction of constituents over
their clerks,"[2] has invited the assailants to make the assault. On the
strength of this a faction arises which ends in becoming an organized
band ; under its clamor, its menaces and its pikes, at Paris and in the
provinces, at the polls and in the parliament, the majorities are all
silenced, while the minorities vote, decree and govern; the Legislative

Assembly is purged, the King is dethroned, and the Convention is
mutilated. Of all the garrisons of the central citadel, whether royalists,
Constitutionalists, or Girondins, not one has been able to defend itself,
to re-fashion the executive instrument, to draw the sword and use it in
the streets: on the first attack, often at the first summons, all have
surrendered, and now the citadel, with every other public fortress, is in
the hands of the Jacobins.
This time, its occupants are of a different stamp. Aside from the great
mass of well-disposed people fond of a quiet life, the Revolution has
sifted out and separated from the rest all who are fanatical, brutal or
perverse enough to have lost respect for others; these form the new
garrison -- sectarians blinded by their creed, the roughs (assommeurs)
who are hardened by their calling, and those who make all they can out
of their offices. None of this class are scrupulous concerning human
life or property ; for, as we have seen, they have shaped the theory to
suit themselves, and reduced popular sovereignty to their sovereignty.
The commonwealth, according to the Jacobin, is his; with him, the
commonwealth comprises all private possessions, bodies, estates, souls
and consciences; everything belongs to him; the fact of being a Jacobin
makes him legitimately czar and pope. Little does he care about the
wills of actually living Frenchmen; his mandate does not emanate from
a vote ; it descends to him from aloft, conferred on him by Truth, by
Reason, by Virtue. As he alone is enlightened, and the only patriot, he
alone is worthy to take command, while resistance, according to his
imperious pride, is criminal. If the majority protests it is because the
majority is imbecile or corrupt; in either case, it deserves to be brought
to heel. And, in fact, the Jacobin only does that and right away too;
insurrections, usurpations, pillaging, murders, assaults on individuals,
on judges and public attorneys, on assemblies, violations of law,
attacks on the State, on communities -- there is no outrage not
committed by him. He has always acted as sovereign instinctively ; he
was so as a private individual and clubbist; he is not to cease being so,
now that he possesses legal authority, and all the more because if he
hesitates he knows he is lost; to save himself from the scaffold he has
no refuge but in a dictatorship. Such a man, unlike his predecessors,
will not allow himself to be turned out; on the contrary, he will exact

obedience at any cost. He will not hesitate to restore the central power;
he will put back the local wheels that have been detached; he will repair
the old forcing gear; he will set it agoing so as to work more rudely and
arbitrarily than ever, with greater contempt for private rights and public
liberties than either a Louis XIV. or a Napoleon.

II. Jacobin Dissimulation.
Contrast between his words and his acts. - How he dissimulates his
change of front. -- The Constitution of June, 1793. - Its promises of
freedom.
In the mean time, he has to harmonize his coming acts with his recent
declarations, which, at the first glance, seems a difficult operation: for,
in the speeches he has made he has already condemned the actions he
meditates. Yesterday he exaggerated the rights of the governed, even to
a suppression of those of the government; to-morrow he is to
exaggerate the rights of the people in power, even to suppressing those
who are governed. The people, as he puts it, is the sole sovereign, and
he is going to treat the people as slaves; the government, as he puts it,
is a valet, and he is going to endow the government with prerogatives
of a sultan. He has just denounced the slightest exercise of public
authority as a crime; he is now going to punish as a crime the slightest
resistance to public authority. What will justify such a volte-face and
with what excuse can he repudiate the principles with which he
justified his takeover? -- He takes good care not to repudiate them; it
would drive the already rebellious provinces