[22] Such brigands are they, that Menon,
"major-general of the army of the interior and commandant of the armed
force of Paris," comes the next day with several of his staff-officers
and tells the Committee of Five that he "will not have such bandits in
his army nor under his orders". "I will not march with a lot of
rascals and assassins organized in battalions "under the name of
"patriots of '89." Indeed, the true patriots of '89 are on the other
side, the constitutionalists of 1791, sincere liberals, "forty
thousand proprietors and merchants," the elite and mass of the
Parisian population,[23] "the majority of men really interested in
public matters," and at this moment, the common welfare is all that
concerns them. Republic or royalty is merely a secondary thought, an
idea in the back-ground; nobody dreams of restoring the ancient
r?gime; but very few are preoccupied with the restoration of a limited
monarchy.[24] "On asking those most in earnest what government they
would like in place of the Convention, they reply 'We want that no
longer, we want nothing belonging to it; we want the Republic and
honest people for our rulers.'"[25] - That is all; their upraisal is
not a political insurrection against the form of the government, but a
moral insurrection against the criminals in office.
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