3147When, on March 27, 1794, the
Committee of Public Safety, threatened by H?bert, has them disbanded
for being H?bertists, in any of them are to remain at least as a
nucleus, under various forms and names, either as kept by the local
administration under the title of "paid guards,"[148] or as disbanded
soldiers, loitering about and doing nothing, getting themselves
assigned posts of rank in the National Guard of their town on account
of their exploits; in this way they keep themselves in service, which
is indispensable, for it is through these that the r?gime is
established and lasts. "The revolutionary army,[149] say the orders
and decrees promulgated, "is intended to repress anti-revolutionaries,
to execute, whenever it is found necessary, revolutionary laws and
measures for public safety," that is to say, "to guard those who are
shut up, arrest 'suspects,' demolish chateaux, pull down belfries,
ransack vestries for gold and silver objects, seize fine horses and
carriages," and especially " to seek for private stores and
monopolies," in short, to exercise manual constraint and strike every
one on the spot with physical terror. - We readily see what sort of
soldiers the revolutionary army is composed of.
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