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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

Accordingly,
* it must proclaim them heroes and martyrs,
* it must canonize their memory,[82]
* it must avenge their tortures,
* it must resume and complete their assaults,
* it must restore their accomplices to their places,
* it must render them omnipotent,
* it must force each rebel city to accept the rule of its rabble and
villains.
It matters little whether the Jacobins be a minority, whether at
Bordeaux, they have but four out of twenty-eight sections on their
side, at Marseilles five out of thirty-two, whether at Lyons they can
count up only fifteen hundred devoted adherents.[83] Suffrages are
not reckoned, but weighed, for legality is founded, not on numbers,
but on patriotism, the sovereign people being composed wholly of sans-
culottes. So much the worse for towns where the anti-revolutionary
majority is so great; they are only more dangerous; under the
republican demonstrations is concealed the hostility of old parties
and of the "suspect" classes, the Moderates, the Feuillants and
Royalists, merchants, men of the legal profession, property-owners and
muscadins.[84] These towns are nests of reptiles and must be crushed
out.


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