- Naturally, the others take warning and are
careful. At the opening of the session they are seen entering the
hall, looking uneasy, full of distrust,"[1] like animals driven into a
pen and suspicious of a trap.
"Each," writes an eye-witness, "acted and spoke with circumspection,
for fear of being charged with some crime: in effect, nothing was
unimportant, the seat one took, a glance of the eye, a gesture, a
murmur, a smile."
Hence, they flock instinctively to the side which is best sheltered,
the left side.
"The tide flowed towards the summit of the Mountain; the right side
was deserted. . . . Many took no side at all, and, during the
session, often changed their seats, thinking that they might thus
elude the spy by donning a mixed hue and keeping on good terms with
everybody. The most prudent never sat down; they kept off the
benches, at the foot of the tribune, and, on matters getting to be
serious, slipped quietly out of the hall."
Most of them took refuge in their committee-rooms; each tries to be
over-looked, to be obscure, to appear insignificant or absent.[2]
During the four months following the 2nd of June, the hall of the
Convention is half or three-quarters empty; the election of a
president does not bring out two hundred and fifty voters;[3] only two
hundred, one hundred, fifty votes, elect the Committees of Public
Safety and General Security; about fifty votes elect the judges of the
Revolutionary Tribunal; less than ten votes elect their
substitutes;[4] not one vote is cast for the adoption of the decree
indicting the deputy, Dulaure;[5] "no member rises for or against it;
there is no vote;" the president, nevertheless, pronounces the act
passed and the Marais lets things take their course.
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