If I could, I would
resign." -- The government, as the system becomes aggravated, is
forced to descend lower still that it may find suitable instruments;
it finds them now only in the lowest depths: in Germinal, to renew the
Commune, in Flor?al, to renew the ministries, in Prairial, to re-
compose the revolutionary Tribunal, month after month, purging and re-
constituting the committees of each quarter[18] of the city. In vain
does Robespierre, writing and re-writing his secret lists, try to find
men able to maintain the system; he always falls back on the same
names, those of unknown persons, illiterate, about a hundred knaves or
fools with four or five second-class despots or fanatics among them,
as malevolent and as narrow as himself. - The purifying crucible has
been used too often and for too long a time; it has overheated; what
was sound, or nearly so, in the elements of the primitive fluid has
been forcibly evaporated; the rest has fermented and become acid;
nothing remains in the bottom of the vessel but the lees of stupidity
and wickedness, their concentrated and corrosive dregs.
II. Subaltern Jacobins.
Quality of subaltern leaders. - How they rule in the section
assemblies.
Pages:
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513