The French Revolution, vol 3 | Page 7

people in its
primary assemblies, spontaneously formed, manifesting or changing at
will its staff of clerks. -- In the third place, even when installed and at
work, the people may, if it pleases, become their collaborator: means
are provided for "deliberating" with its deputies. The latter, on
incidental questions, those of slight importance, on the ordinary
business of the year, may enact laws; but on matters of general,
considerable and permanent interest, they are simply to propose the
laws, while, especially as regards a declaration of war, the people alone
must decide. The people have a suspensive veto and, finally, a

definitive veto, which they may exercise when they please. To this end,
they may assemble in extraordinary session; one-fifth of the citizens
who have the right to vote suffice for their convocation. Once
convoked, the vote is determined by a Yes or a No on the act proposed
by the legislative body. If, at the expiration of forty days, one-tenth of
the primary assemblies in one-half of the departments vote No, there is
a suspensive veto. In that event all the primary assemblies of the
Republic must be convoked and if the majority still decides in the
negative, that is a definitive veto. The same formalities govern a
revision of the established constitution. -- In all this, the plan of the
"Montagnards" is a further advance on that of the Girondins; never was
so insignificant a part assigned to the rulers nor so extensive a part to
the governed. The Jacobins profess a respect for the popular initiative
which amounts to a scruple.[9] According to them the sovereign people
should be sovereign de facto, permanently, and without interregnum,
allowed to interfere in all serious affairs, and not only possess the right,
but the faculty, of imposing its will on its mandatories. -- All the
stronger is the reason for referring to it the institutions now being
prepared for it. Hence the Convention, after the parade is over,
convokes the primary assemblies and submits to them for ratification
the Constitutional bill has been drawn up.

III.
Primary Assemblies. - Proportion of Absentees. -- Unanimity of the
voters. -- Their motives for accepting the Constitution. -- Pressure
brought to bear on voters. - Choice of Delegates.
The ratification will, undoubtedly, be approved. Everything has been
combined beforehand to secure it, also to secure it as wanted,
apparently spontaneously, and almost unanimously. -- The primary
assemblies, indeed, are by no means fully attended; only one-half, or a
quarter, or a third of the electors in the cities deposit their votes, while
in the rural districts there is only a quarter, and less.[10] Repelled by
their experience with previous convocations the electors know too well
the nature of these assemblies; how the Jacobin faction rules them, how

it manages the electoral comedy, with what violence and threats it
reduces all dissidents to voting either as figurants or claqueurs. From
four to five million of electors prefer to hold aloof and stay at home as
usual. Nevertheless the organization of most of the assemblies takes
place, amounting to some six or seven thousand. This is accounted for
by the fact that each canton contains its small group of Jacobins. Next
to these come the simple-minded who still believe in official
declarations; in their eyes a constitution which guarantees private rights
and institutes public liberties must be accepted, no matter what hand
may present it to them. And all the more readily because the usurpers
offer to resign; in effect, the Convention has just solemnly declared that
once the Constitution is adopted, the people shall again be convoked to
elect "a new national assembly . . . a new representative body invested
with a later and more immediate trust,"[11] which will allow electors, if
they are so disposed, to return honest deputies and exclude the knaves
who now rule. Thereupon even the insurgent departments, the mass of
the Girondins population, after a good deal of hesitation, resign
themselves at last to voting for it.[12] This is done at Lyons and in the
department of Calvados only on the 30th of July. A number of
Constitutionalists or neutrals have done the same thing, some through a
horror of civil war and a spirit of conciliation, and others through fear
of persecution and of being taxed with royalism;[13] one conception
more: through docility they may perhaps succeed in depriving the
"Mountain" of all pretext for violence.
In this they greatly deceive themselves, and, from the first, they are
able to see once more the Jacobins interpretation of electoral liberty. --
At first, all the registered,[14] and especially the "suspects," are
compelled to vote, and to vote Yes; otherwise, says a Jacobin
journal,[15] "they themselves will indicate the true opinion one ought
to have of their attitudes, and no