d into a legal body of Janissaries on triple pay; once "enlarged
with idle hairdressers, unemployed lackeys, designers of mad schemes,
and other scoundrels unable to earn their keep in an honest manner,"
it will supply the detachments needed for garrison at Bordeaux, Lyons,
Dijon and Nantes, still leaving "ten thousand of these Mamelukes to keep
down the capital."

The civilian body of supporters comprises, first, those who haunt the
sections, and are about to receive 40 sous for attending each meeting;
next; the troop of figure-heads who, in other public places, are to
represent the people, about 1,000 bawlers and claqueurs, "two-thirds of
which are women." "While I was free," says Beaulieu,[34179] "I
closely observed their movements. It was a magic-lantern constantly in
operation. They traveled to and from the Convention to the Revolutionary
Tribunal, and from this to the Jacobin Club, or to the Commune, which
held its meetings in the evening.... They scarcely took time for their
natural requirements; they were often seen dining and supping at
their posts when some action or an important murder was in the offing.
Henriot, the commander-in-chief of both hordes, was at one time a
swindler, then a police-informer, then imprisoned at Bicetre for
robbery, and then one of the September murderers. His military bearing
and popularity are due to parading the streets in the uniform of a
general, and appearing in humbug performances; he is the type of a
swaggerer, always drunk or soaked with brandy. A blockhead, with a beery
voice, blinking eyes, and a face distorted by nervous twitching,
he possesses all the external characteristics of his employment.
In talking, he vociferates like men with the scurvy; his voice is
sepulchral, and when he stops talking his features come to rest only
after repeated agitations; he blinks three times, after which his face
recovers its equilibrium."[34180]

Marat, Hebert, and Henriot, the maniac, the thief and the brute. Were it
not for the dagger of Charlotte Corday,[34181] it is probable that this
trio, master of the press and of the armed force, aided by Jacques Roux,
Leclerc, Vincent, Ronsin, and other madmen of the slums, would have put
aside Danton, suppressed Robespierre, and governed France. Such are the
counselors, the favorites, and the leaders of the ruling revolutionary
class; did one not know what was to occur during the next fourteen
months, one might form an idea of its government