People make use of their hands too much;
horny hands do not write every day; nobody desires to take up a pen,
especially to keep a register that may be preserved and some day or
other prove compromising. It is already a difficult matter to recruit
a municipal council, to find a mayor, the two additional municipal
officers, and the national agent which the law requires; in the small
communes, these are the only agents of the revolutionary government,
and I fancy that, in most cases, their Jacobin fervor is moderate.
Municipal officer, national agent or mayor, the real peasant of that
day belongs to no party, neither royalist nor republican;[61] his
ideas are rare, too transient and too sluggish, to enable him to form
a political opinion. All he comprehends of the Revolution is that
which nettles him, or that which he sees every day around him, with
his own eyes; to him '93 and '94 are and will remain "the time of bad
paper (money) and great fright," and nothing more.[62] Patient in his
habits., he submits to the new as he did to the ancient r?gime,
bearing the load put on his shoulders, and stooping down for fear of a
heavier one. He is often mayor or national agent in spite of himself;
he has been obliged to take the place and would gladly throw the
burden off.
Pages:
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539