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Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893

"The French Revolution - Volume 3"

[46]. . . . The eight electors
for the town obtained at the first ballot the absolute majority of
suffrages. . . . Everybody went to the polls so as to prevent the
nomination of any elector among the terrorists, who had declared that
their reign was going to return." - In the environs of Blois, a rural
proprietor, the most circumspect and most peaceable of men, notes in
his journal[47]that " now is the time to take a personal interest. .
. . Every sound-thinking man has promised not to refuse any office
tendered to him so as to keep out the Jacobins. . . . . It is
reasonably hoped that the largest number of the electors will not be
terrorists and that the majority of the Legislative Corps being all
right, the minority of the furious, who have only one more year of
office, will give way (in 1798) to men of probity not steeped in
crime. . . . In the country, the Jacobins have tried in vain:
people of means who employed a portion of the voters, obtained their
suffrages, every proprietor wishing to have order. . . . The
Moderates have agreed to vote for no matter what candidate, provided
he is not a Jacobin. . . . Out of two hundred and thirty electors
for the department, one hundred and fifty are honest and upright
people.


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