[19] - Such is the mode of getting at the voice of the
nation. Apparently, it is induced to speak; in practice, its silence
is ensured.
The last and most ingenious expedient of all: when a primary assembly
speaks too loudly it is taken for granted that it kept silent. In
Paris, where the electors are more clear sighted and more decided than
in the provinces, in eighteen well-known departments, and probably in
many others, the electors who voted on the decrees almost all voted
against them; in many cases, even their minutes state that the
negative vote was "unanimous," but the minutes fail to state the exact
number of the noes. On this, in the total of noes hostile to the
decrees, these noes are not counted.[20] Through this trickery, the
Convention, in Paris alone, reduced the number of negatives by 50,000
and the same in the provinces, after the fashion of a dishonest
steward who, obliged to hand in an account, falsifies the figures by
substituting subtractions for additions.-Such is the way, in relation
to the decrees, in which, out of the 300,000 votes which it accepts,
it is able to announce 200,000 yeas and 100,000 noes and thus proclaim
that its master, the sovereign people, after giving it a general
acquittance, a discharge in full, invests it anew with its confidence
and expressly continues its mandate.
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