Consequently, the very large
majority of new administrators in the departments, cantons and
municipalities, and the very large majority of new civil and criminal
judges and justices of the peace are, like the new third of the
Convention, highly esteemed or estimable men. They are untainted with
excesses, still preserving their hopes of 1789, but preserved from the
outset against, or soon cured of, the revolutionary fever. Every
decree of spoliation or persecution loses some of its force in their
hands. Supported by the steady and manifest will of their present
constituents, we see them resisting the commissioners of the
Directory, at least protesting against their exactions and brutality,
gaining time in favor of the proscribed, dulling the point of, or
turning aside, the Jacobin sword.
Again, on the other hand, the government which holds this sword dare
not, like the Committee of Public Safety, thrust it in up to the hilt.
If wielded as before it might slip from its grasp. The furious in its
own camp are ready to wrest it away and turn the blade against it. It
must defend itself against the reviving clubs, against Babeuf and his
accomplices, against the desperadoes who, through a nocturnal attempt,
try to stir up the Grenelle camp: in Paris, there are four or five
thousand now ready to undertake a "civic St.
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