d, this
day, on the foul black-spot of its fair Convention Domain; has trodden
on it, and yet not trodden it down. Alas, it is a well-spring, as we
said, this black-spot; and will not tread down!

Chapter 3.2.II.

The Executive.

May we not conjecture therefore that round this grand enterprise
of Making the Constitution there will, as heretofore, very strange
embroilments gather, and questions and interests complicate themselves;
so that after a few or even several months, the Convention will not
have settled every thing? Alas, a whole tide of questions comes rolling,
boiling; growing ever wider, without end! Among which, apart from this
question of September and Anarchy, let us notice those, which emerge
oftener than the others, and promise to become Leading Questions: of the
Armies; of the Subsistences; thirdly, of the Dethroned King.

As to the Armies, Public Defence must evidently be put on a proper
footing; for Europe seems coalising itself again; one is apprehensive
even England will join it. Happily Dumouriez prospers in the North;--nay
what if he should prove too prosperous, and become Liberticide, Murderer
of Freedom!--Dumouriez prospers, through this winter season; yet not
without lamentable complaints. Sleek Pache, the Swiss Schoolmaster,
he that sat frugal in his Alley, the wonder of neighbours, has got
lately--whither thinks the Reader? To be Minister of war! Madame Roland,
struck with his sleek ways, recommended him to her Husband as Clerk: the
sleek Clerk had no need of salary, being of true Patriotic temper; he
would come with a bit of bread in his pocket, to save dinner and time;
and, munching incidentally, do three men's work in a day, punctual,
silent, frugal,--the sleek Tartuffe that he was. Wherefore Roland, in
the late Overturn, recommended him to be War-Minister. And now, it would
seem, he is secretly undermining Roland; playing into the hands of your
hotter Jacobins and September Commune; and cannot, like strict Roland,
be the Veto des Coquins! (Madame Roland, Memoires, ii. 237, &c.)

How the sleek Pache might mine and undermine, one knows not well; this
however one does know: that his War-Office has become a den of thieves
and confusion, such as all men shudder to behold. That the Citizen
Hassenfratz, as Head-Clerk, sits there in bonnet rouge, in rapine,
in violence, and some Mathematical calculation; a most insolent,
red-nightcapped man. That Pache munches his pocket-loaf, amid
head-c