The French Revolution, vol 3 | Page 9

protecting them against prostitutes and swindlers.
There, they are taken possession of, and conducted to the mayoralty,
where they receive lodging tickets, while a picket of gendarmerie
escorts them to their allotted domiciles.[25] -- Behold them in pens like
sheep, each in his numbered stall; there is no fear of the dissidents
trying to escape and form a band apart: one of them, who comes to the

Convention and asks for a separate hall for himself and his adherents, is
snubbed in the most outrageous manner; they denounce him as an
intriguer, and accuse him of a desire to defend the traitor Castries; they
take his name and credentials, and threaten him with an
investigation.[26] The unfortunate speaker hears the Abbaye alluded to,
and evidently thinks himself fortunate to escape sleeping there that
night. -- After this, it is certain that he will not again demand the
privilege of speaking, and that his colleagues will remain quiet; and all
this is the more likely
* because the revolutionary tribunal holds permanent sessions under
their eyes,
* because the guillotine is set up and in operation on the "Place de la
Révolution;"
* because a recent act of the Commune enjoins on the police "the most
active surveillance" and "constant patrols" by the armed force;
* because, from the first to the fourth of August, the barriers are closed;
* because, on the 2nd of August, a raid into three of the theaters puts
five hundred young men in the lock-up,[27]
so the discontented soon discover, if there are any, that this is not the
time or the place to protest.
As to the others, already Jacobin, the faction takes it upon itself to
render them still more so. -- Lost in the immensity of Paris, all these
provincials require moral as well as physical guides; it agrees to
exercise toward them "hospitality in all its plenitude, the sweetest of
Republican virtues."[28] Hence, ninety-six sans-culottes, selected from
among the sections, wait on them at the Mayoralty to serve as their
correspondents, and perhaps as their guarantees, and certainly as pilots
* to give them lodging-tickets,
* to escort and install them,

* to indoctrinate them, as formerly with the federates of July, 1792,
* to prevent their getting into bad company,
* to introduce them into all the exciting meetings,
* to see that their ardent patriotism quickly rises to the proper
temperature of Parisian Jacobinism.[29]
The theaters must not offend their eyes or ears with pieces "opposed to
the spirit of the Revolution."[30] An order is issued for the performance
three times a week of "republican tragedies, such as 'Brutus', 'William
Tell', 'Caius Gracchus,' and other dramas suitable for the maintenance
of the principles of equality and liberty." Once a week the theaters must
be free, when Chéniér's alexandrines are spouted on the stage to the
edification of the delegates, crowded into the boxes at the expense of
the State. The following morning, led in groups into the tribunes of the
Convention,[31] they there find the same, classic, simple, declamatory,
sanguinary tragedy, except that the latter is not feigned but real, and the
tirades are in prose instead of in verse. Surrounded by paid yappers like
victims for the ancient Romans celebrations of purifications, our
provincials applaud, cheer and get excited, the same as on the night
before at the signal given by the claqueurs and the regulars. Another
day, the procureur- syndic Lhullier summons them to attend the
"Evéché," to "fraternize with the authorities of the Paris
department;"[32] the "Fraternité" section invites them to its daily
meetings; the Jacobin club lends them its vast hall in the morning and
admits them to its sessions in the evening. -- Thus monopolized and
kept, as in a diving bell, they breathe in Paris nothing but a Jacobin
atmosphere; from one Jacobin den to another, as they are led about in
this heated atmosphere, their pulse beats more rapidly. Many of them,
who, on their arrival, were "plain, quiet people,"[33] but out of their
element, subjected to contagion without any antidote, quickly catch the
revolutionary fever. The same as at an American revival, under the
constant pressure of preaching and singing, of shouts and nervous
spasms, the lukewarm and even the indifferent have not long to wait
before the delirium puts them in harmony with the converted.

V.
They make their profession of Jacobin faith. -- Their part in the Fête of
August 10th. -- Their enthusiasm.
On the 7th of August things come to a head. -- Led by the department
and the municipality, a number of delegates march to the bar of the
Convention, and make a confession of Jacobin faith. "Soon," they
exclaim, "will search be made on the banks of the Seine for the foul
marsh intended to engulf us. Were