-
Other steps taken against remaining proprietors. - Bankruptcy, forced
loan, hostages.
It is natural that with pure Jacobins one notes the re-appearance of
the pure Jacobinism, the egalitarian and anti-Christian socialism, the
programme of the funereal year; in short, the rigid, plain,
exterminating ideas which the sect gathers together, like daggers
encrusted with gore, from the cast-off robes of Robespierre, Billaud-
Varennes and Collot d'Herbois.[90]
In the forefront appears the fixed and favorite idea of the old-
fashioned philosophism. By that I mean the consistent and decreed
plan to found a lay religion, and impose the observances and dogmas of
its theories on twenty-six millions of Frenchmen, and, consequently
extirping Christianity, its worship and its clergy. The inquisitors
who hold office multiply, with extraordinary persistence and
minuteness, proscriptions and vigorous measures for the forcible
conversion of the nation. The aim is to substitute the improvised
rites of a logical abstraction mechanically elaborated in the closet
for the tender emotions nourished by the customs of eighteen
centuries. - Never did the dull imagination of a third-rate scholar
and classic poetaster, never did the grotesque solemnity of a pedant
fond of his phrases, never did the irritating hardness of the narrow
and stubborn devotee display with greater sentimental bombast and more
administrative officiousness than in the decrees of the Legislative
Corps,[91] in the acts passed by the Directory and in the instructions
issued by the ministers Sotin, Letourneur, Lambrechts, Duval and
Fran?ois de Neufchateau.
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