The hall does not
contain fifty honorable men in whom character sustains conscience, and
who had a right to carry their heads erect.[8] In no law they
passed, good or bad, did the other seven hundred have in view the
interests of their constituents. In all their laws, good or bad, they
solely regarded their own interests. So long as the attacks of the
"Mountain" and of the rabble affected the public only, they lauded
them, decreed them and had them executed. If they finally rebelled
against the "Mountain," and against the rabble, it was at the last
moment, and solely to save their lives. Before, as after the 9th of
Thermidor, before, as after the 1st of Prairial, the incentives of the
conduct of these pusillanimous oppressors or involuntary liberators
were baseness and egoism. Hence, "the contempt and horror universally
poured out against them; only Jacobins could be still more odious!"[9]
If further support is given to these faithless mandatories, it is
because they are soon to be put out. On the premature report that the
Convention is going to break up, people accost each other in the
street, exclaiming, "We are rid of these brigands, they are going at
last .
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