Ghosts from
the period of the Terror install themselves in the ministries, Robert
Lindet in the Treasury, Fouch? in the Police. Everywhere, in the
departments, they put in or restore "the exclusives," that is to say,
the resolute scoundrels who have proved their capacity.[141] The
Jacobins re-open their Club under its old name in the hall of the
Man?ge. Two directors and one hundred and fifty members of the
Legislative Corps fraternize with "all that the dregs of the people
provide that is vilest and most disgusting." Eulogies are here
pronounced on Robespierre and on Babeuf himself; they demand the levy
en masse and the disarming of "suspects." Jourdan exclaims in a toast,
"Here's to the resurrection of pikes! May they in the people's hands
crush out all its enemies!" In the council of the Five Hundred, the
same Jourdan proposes in the tribune to declare the "country in
danger," while the gang of shouting politicians, the bull-dogs of the
streets and tribunes, gather around the hesitating representatives and
howl and threaten as in 1793.
Is it, then, the r?gime of 1793 which is about to be set up in France?
- Not even that one. Immediately after the victory, the victors 30 of
Prairial separated and formed two camps of enemies, watching each
other with arms in hand, entrenched and making sorties on each other:
On one side are the simple bandits and the lowest of the populace, the
followers of Marat, incorrigible monomaniacs, headstrong, conceited
spirits proud of their crimes and disposed to repeat them rather than
admit their guilt, the dogmatic simpletons who go ahead with their
eyes shut and who have forgotten everything and learnt nothing.
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