And this is the reason
why the merely nominal Republicans were bound to crush them.
In effect, under a government which disavows attacks on persons and on
public or private property, not only is the Jacobin theory impossible,
but Jacobin wrongs are condemned. Now, the Jacobins, even if they
have abjured their principles, remember their acts. They become
alarmed on the arrival of the first Third, in October, 1795: "The
Conventionalists," writes one of the new deputies,[60] "look upon us
as men who will one day give them up to justice." After the entry of
the second Third, in May, 1797, their fright increased; the regicides,
especially, feel that "their safety depends only on an exclusive and
absolute dominion."[61] One day, Treilhard, one of their notables,
alone with Mathieu Dumas, says to this old Feuillant and friend of
Lafayette, of well known loyalty and moderation: "You are very honest
and very able men, and I believe that you really desire to maintain
the government as it is, because neither for you nor for us is there
any sure way of substituting another for it. But we Conventionalists
cannot allow you to go on; whether you mean it or not, you are
gradually leading us to our certain ruin; there is nothing in common
between us.
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