To give
their brutalities the semblance of right, they improvise two pompous
demonstrations, first, the sudden manufacture of a paper constitution,
which molders away in their archives, and next, the scandalous farce
of a hollow and compulsory plebiscite. - A dozen leaders of the party
concentrate unlimited authority in their own hands; but, as admitted
by them, their authority is derivative; it is the Convention which
makes them its delegates; their precarious title has to be renewed
monthly; a turn of the majority may sweep them and their work away to-
morrow; an insurrection of the people, whom they have familiarized
with insurrection, may to-morrow sweep them away, their work and their
majority. - They maintain only a disputed, limited and transient
ascendancy over their adherents. They are not military chieftains
like Cromwell and Napoleon, generals of an army obeyed without a
murmur, but common stump-speakers at the mercy of an audience that
sits in judgment on them. There is no discipline in this public;
every Jacobin remains independent by virtue of his principles; if he
accepts leaders, it is with a reservation of their worth to him;
selecting them as he pleases, he is free to change them when he
pleases; his trust in them is intermittent, his loyalty provisional,
and, as his adhesion depends on a mere preference, he always reserves
the right to discard the favorite of to-day as he has discarded the
favorite of yesterday.
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