"A fact unfortunately too true," writes the commissary of a rural
canton,[133] "is that the people en masse seem not to want any of our
institutions. . . . It is considered well-bred, even among country
folks, to show disdain for everything characteristic of republican
usages. . . Our rich farmers, who have profited most by the
Revolution, are the bitterest enemies of its forms: any citizen who
depended on them for the slightest favor and thought it well to
address them as citizen, would be turned out of their houses."
To call someone Citizen is an insult, and patriot a still greater
one; for this term signifies Jacobin, partisan, murderer, robber[134]
and, as they were then styled, "man-eaters." What is worse is that a
falsification of the word has brought discredit on the thing. -
Nobody, say the reports, troubles himself about the general
interest;[135] nobody will serve as national guard or mayor.
"Public spirit has fallen into such a lethargic slumber as to make
one fear its complete collapse. Our successes or our failures excite
neither uneasiness nor pleasure.[136] It seems, on reading the
accounts of battles, as if it were the history of another people.
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