r week.[1247] Thus laboriously started but half
in motion, it poorly meets the various tasks imposed upon it--the
collection of taxes, public order in the streets, the circulation of
supplies, and security for consciences, lives and property. Toppled over
by its own action, another rises out of it, illegal and serviceable,
which takes its place and stands.--In a great centralized state whoever
possesses the head possesses the body. By virtue of being led, the
French have contracted the habit of letting themselves be led.[1248]
People in the provinces involuntarily turn their eyes to the capital,
and, on a crisis occurring, run out to stop the mailman to know what
government happens to have fallen, the majority accepts or submits to
it.--Because, in the first place, most of the isolated groups which
would like to overthrow it dare not engage in the struggle: it seems too
strong; through inveterate routine they imagine behind it that great,
distant France which, under its impulsion, will crush them with its
mass.[1249] In the second place, should a few isolated groups undertake
to overthrow it, they are not in a condition to keep up the struggle: it
is too strong. They are, indeed, not yet organized while it is fully
so, owing to the docile set of officials inherited from the government
overthrown. Under monarchy or republic the government clerk comes to
his office regularly every morning to dispatch the orders transmitted
to him.[1250] Under monarchy or republic the policeman daily makes
his round to arrest those against who he has a warrant. So long as
instructions come from above in the hierarchical order of things, they
are obeyed. From one end of the territory to the other, therefore, the
machine, with its hundred thousand arms, works efficiently in the hands
of those who have seized the lever at the central point. Resolution,
audacity, rude energy, are all that are needed to make the lever act,
and none of these are wanting in the Jacobin. [1251]

First, he has faith, and faith at all times "moves mountains.[1252]
"Take any ordinary party recruit, an attorney, a second-rate lawyer,
a shopkeeper, an artisan, and conceive, if you can, the extraordinary
effect of this doctrine on a mind so poorly prepared for it, so narrow,
so out of proportion with the gigantic conception which has mastered it.
Formed for the routine and the limited views of one in his position, he
is suddenly carried away by a complete system of philo