They hold on only to the shorter end, the rough,
clumsy, iron-bound, creaking and grinding extremity, that is to say,
to physical force, - the means for physical constraint, the heavy hand
of the gendarme on the shoulder of the suspect, the jailer's bolts and
keys turned on the prisoner, the club used by the sans-culottes on the
back of the bourgeois to quicken his pace, and, better still, the
Septembriseur's pike thrust into the aristocrat's belly, and the blade
falling on the neck held fast in the clutches of the guillotine. -
Such, henceforth, is the only machinery they posses for governing the
country, for they have deprived themselves of all other. Their engine
has to be exhibited, for it works only on condition that its bloody
image be stamped indelibly on every body's imagination; if the Negro
monarch or the pasha desires to see heads bowing as he passes along,
he must be escorted by executioners. They must abuse their engine
because fear losing its effect through habit, needs example to keep it
alive; the Negro monarch or the pasha who would keep the fear alive by
which he rules, must be stimulated every day; he must slaughter too
many to be sure of slaughtering enough; he must slaughter constantly,
in heaps, indiscriminately, haphazard, no matter for what offense, on
the slightest suspicion, the innocent along with the guilty.
Pages:
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272