We can judge by one example: in
the department of Doubs, which is not put down among those to be
purged, five hundred and thirty administrators or municipal
magistrates are dismissed in 1797, and, in addition, forty-nine others
in 1798. The Directory puts its creatures in their places: suddenly,
the departmental, cantonal, municipal and judicial system, which was
American, becomes Napoleonic so that the local officials, instead of
being delegates of the people, are government delegates. - Note,
especially, the most threatening of all usurpations, the way in which
this government takes justice into its hands and attributes to itself
the right of life and death over persons: not only does it break up
common criminal courts and reorganize them as it pleases, not only
does it renew and select among the purest Jacobins judges of the court
of appeals, but again, in each military division, it institutes a
special and expeditious court without appeal, composed of docile
officers, sub-officers and soldiers, which is to condemn and execute
within twenty-four hours, under pretext of emigration or priesthood,
every man who is obnoxious to the ruling factions. -- As to the
twenty-five millions of subjects it has just acquired, there is no
refuge: it is forbidden even to complain.
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