The representatives are arrested in their
committee-rooms or domiciles, or pursued, tracked and hunted down,
while the rest of their opponents, notables, officers, heads of
bureaux, journalists, former ministers and directors, Barth?l?my and
Carnot, are treated in the same way. Barb?-Marbois, on demanding by
virtue of what law they were arrested,[69] is told, "by the law of the
saber," while Sotin, Minister of the Police, adds with a smile, "You
may be sure that after what I have taken on myself, it matters little
whether one is more or less compromised." - Thus purged, the two
Councils complete themselves their purgation; they cancel, in forty-
nine departments, the election of their colleagues; through this
decree and transportation, through forced and voluntary resignations,
two hundred and fourteen representatives are withdrawn from the
Legislative Corps, while one hundred and eighty others, through fear
or disgust, cease to attend its meetings.[70] Nothing remains of the
two Councils, except, as in the English Parliament under Cromwell, a
"rump," which rump does business under drawn swords. In the Council
of the Ancients, which, on the 18th of Fructidor, discussed at
midnight[71] the decree of transportation, "groups of grenadiers, with
a haggard look, in brusque language, with threatening gestures" and
fixed bayonets, surround the amphitheatre, and, mingled with the
soldiers and civil cut-throats, shout out their orders.
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