"
[115] Mallet-Dupan, II., 8. (February, 1794). "At this moment the
entire people is disarmed. Not a gun can be found either in town or
country. If anything attests the super-natural power which the
leaders of the Convention enjoy, it is to see, in one instant, through
one act of the will and nobody offering any resistance, or complaining
of it, the nation from Perpignan to Lille, deprived of every means of
defense against oppression, with a facility still more unprecedented
than that which attended the universal arming of the nation in 1789."
- "A Residence in France," II., 409. "The National Guard as a regular
institution was in great part suppressed after the summer of 1793,
those who composed it being gradually disarmed. Guard-mounting was
continued, but the citizens performing this service were, with very
few exceptions, armed with pikes, and these again were not fully
entrusted to them; each man, on quitting his post, gave up his arms
more punctually than if he had been bound to do so through
capitulation with a victorious enemy."
[116] Moniteur, XVIII., 106. (Report by Saint-Just, Oct. 10th).
[117] Ibid., 473. (Report of Billaud-Varennes, Nov.
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