l but overlooked this aspect, the soul of
the whole: that which makes it terrible to the Enemies of France. Let
Despotism and Cimmerian Coalitions consider. All French men and French
things are in a State of Requisition; Fourteen Armies are got on foot;
Patriotism, with all that it has of faculty in heart or in head, in soul
or body or breeches-pocket, is rushing to the frontiers, to prevail
or die! Busy sits Carnot, in Salut Public; busy for his share, in
'organising victory.' Not swifter pulses that Guillotine, in dread
systole-diastole in the Place de la Revolution, than smites the Sword
of Patriotism, smiting Cimmeria back to its own borders, from the sacred
soil.

In fact the Government is what we can call Revolutionary; and some men
are 'a la hauteur,' on a level with the circumstances; and others are
not a la hauteur,--so much the worse for them. But the Anarchy, we may
say, has organised itself: Society is literally overset; its old forces
working with mad activity, but in the inverse order; destructive and
self-destructive.

Curious to see how all still refers itself to some head and fountain;
not even an Anarchy but must have a centre to revolve round. It is now
some six months since the Committee of Salut Public came into existence:
some three months since Danton proposed that all power should be given
it and 'a sum of fifty millions,' and the 'Government be declared
Revolutionary.' He himself, since that day, would take no hand in it,
though again and again solicited; but sits private in his place on
the Mountain. Since that day, the Nine, or if they should even rise to
Twelve have become permanent, always re-elected when their term runs
out; Salut Public, Surete Generale have assumed their ulterior form and
mode of operating.

Committee of Public Salvation, as supreme; of General Surety, as
subaltern: these like a Lesser and Greater Council, most harmonious
hitherto, have become the centre of all things. They ride this
Whirlwind; they, raised by force of circumstances, insensibly, very
strangely, thither to that dread height;--and guide it, and seem to
guide it. Stranger set of Cloud-Compellers the Earth never saw. A
Robespierre, a Billaud, a Collot, Couthon, Saint-Just; not to mention
still meaner Amars, Vadiers, in Surete Generale: these are your
Cloud-Compellers. Small intellectual talent is necessary: indeed where
among them, except in the head of Carnot, busied organising victory,
would you find an