. . . Every good
government should possess a center of willpower and the levers
connected with it. . . . Every government activity should
exclusively originate from the central source." -
"In ordinary governments," says Couthon, finally,[118] "the right of
electing belongs to the people; you cannot take it away from them. In
extraordinary governments all impulsion must come from the center; it
is from the convention that elections must issue. . . . You would
injure the people by confiding the election of officials to them,
because you would expose them to electing men that would betray them."
-- The result is that the constitutional maxims of 1789 give way to
radically opposed maxims ; instead of subjecting the government to the
people, the people is made subject to the government. The hierarchy
of the ancient r?gime is re-established under revolutionary terms, and
henceforth all powers, much more formidable than those of the ancient
r?gime, cease to be delegated from the depths to the summit and will
henceforth instead be delegated from the summit to the bottom.
At the summit, a committee of twelve members, similar to the former
royal council, exercises collective royalty ; nominally, authority is
divided amongst the twelve; it is, in practice, concentrated in a few
hands.
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