faith in the rights
of Man, they have had too little in the authority of the magistrate.
Moreover, through humanity, they have abhorred bloodshed and, unwilling
to repress, they have allowed themselves to be repressed. Thus from
the 1st of May, 1789, to June 2, 1793, they have administrated or
legislated, escaping countless insurrections, almost all of them going
unpunished; while their constitution, an unhealthy product of theory and
fear, have done no more than transform spontaneous anarchy into legal
anarchy. Deliberately and through distrust of authority they have
undermined the principle of command, reduced the King to the post of a
decorative puppet, and almost annihilated the central power: from the
top to the bottom of the hierarchy the superior has lost his hold on
the inferior, the minister on the departments, the departments on the
districts, and the districts on the communes. Throughout all branches of
the service, the chief, elected on the spot and by his subordinates,
has come to depend on them. Thenceforth, each post in which authority
is vested is found isolated, dismantled and preyed upon, while, to
crown all, the Declaration of Rights, proclaiming "the jurisdiction of
constituents over their clerks,"[1102] has invited the assailants to
make the assault. On the strength of this a faction arises which ends in
becoming an organized band; under its clamor, its menaces and its pikes,
at Paris and in the provinces, at the polls and in the parliament,
the majorities are all silenced, while the minorities vote, decree and
govern; the Legislative Assembly is purged, the King is dethroned,
and the Convention is mutilated. Of all the garrisons of the central
citadel, whether royalists, Constitutionalists, or Girondins, not one
has been able to defend itself, to re-fashion the executive instrument,
to draw the sword and use it in the streets: on the first attack, often
at the first summons, all have surrendered, and now the citadel, with
every other public fortress, is in the hands of the Jacobins.

This time, its occupants are of a different stamp. Aside from the great
mass of well-disposed people fond of a quiet life, the Revolution has
sifted out and separated from the rest all who are fanatical, brutal
or perverse enough to have lost respect for others; these form the new
garrison--sectarians blinded by their creed, the roughs (assommeurs) who
are hardened by their calling, and those who make all they can ou