"
Danton seizes the opportunity. With his usual lucidity he finds the
expression which describes the situation:
"The deputies of the primary assemblies," he says, "have just begun to
practice among us the initiative of terror."
He moreover reduces the absurd notions of the fanatics to a practical
measure: "A mobilization en masse, yes, but with order" by at once
calling out the first class of conscript, all men from eighteen to
twenty-five years of age; the arrest of all 'suspects', yes, but not
to lead them against the enemy; "they would be more dangerous than
useful in our armies; let us shut them up; they will be our hostages."
-- He also proposes employment for the delegates who are only in the
way in Paris and might be useful in the provinces. Let us make of
them "various kinds of representatives charged with animating
citizens. . . Let them, along with all good citizens and the
constituted authorities, take charge of the inventories of grain and
arms, and make requisitions for men, and let the Committee of Public
Safety direct this sublime movement. . . . All will swear that, on
returning to their homes, they will give this impulse their fellow
citizens.
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