; some Girondins
dissenting, for surely such a Court contradicts every formula;--other
Girondins assenting, nay co-operating, for do not we all hate Traitors,
O ye people of Paris?--Tribunal of the Seventeenth in Autumn last was
swift; but this shall be swifter. Five Judges; a standing Jury, which
is named from Paris and the Neighbourhood, that there be not delay in
naming it: they are subject to no Appeal; to hardly any Law-forms, but
must 'get themselves convinced' in all readiest ways; and for security
are bound 'to vote audibly;' audibly, in the hearing of a Paris Public.
This is the Tribunal Extraordinaire; which, in few months, getting
into most lively action, shall be entitled Tribunal Revolutionnaire, as
indeed it from the very first has entitled itself: with a Herman or
a Dumas for Judge President, with a Fouquier-Tinville for
Attorney-General, and a Jury of such as Citizen Leroi, who has surnamed
himself Dix-Aout, 'Leroi August-Tenth,' it will become the wonder of
the world. Herein has Sansculottism fashioned for itself a Sword of
Sharpness: a weapon magical; tempered in the Stygian hell-waters; to the
edge of it all armour, and defence of strength or of cunning shall be
soft; it shall mow down Lives and Brazen-gates; and the waving of it
shed terror through the souls of men.

But speaking of an amorphous Sansculottism taking form, ought we not
above all things to specify how the Amorphous gets itself a Head?
Without metaphor, this Revolution Government continues hitherto in a
very anarchic state. Executive Council of Ministers, Six in number,
there is; but they, especially since Roland's retreat, have hardly known
whether they were Ministers or not. Convention Committees sit supreme
over them; but then each Committee as supreme as the others: Committee
of Twenty-one, of Defence, of General Surety; simultaneous
or successive, for specific purposes. The Convention alone is
all-powerful,--especially if the Commune go with it; but is too numerous
for an administrative body. Wherefore, in this perilous quick-whirling
condition of the Republic, before the end of March, we obtain our small
Comite de Salut Public; (Moniteur, No. 83 (du 24 Mars 1793) Nos. 86, 98,
99, 100.) as it were, for miscellaneous accidental purposes, requiring
despatch;--as it proves, for a sort of universal supervision,
and universal subjection. They are to report weekly, these new
Committee-men; but to deliberate in secret. Their number is Nin