. The obligation of
taking the oath has already partly provided for this, in Lozere all the
officials send in their resignations rather than take the oath;[2109]
here are men who will not be candidates at the coming elections, for
nobody covets a place which he was forced to abandon; in general, the
suppression of all party candidatures is effected in no other way than
by making the post of a magistrate distasteful.--The Jacobins have
successfully adhered to this principle by promoting and taking the lead
in innumerable riots against the King, the officials and the clerks,
against nobles, ecclesiastics, corn-dealers and land-owners, against
every species of public authority whatever its origin. Everywhere the
authorities are constrained to tolerate or excuse murders, pillage and
arson, or, at the very least, insurrections and disobedience. For two
years a mayor runs the risk of being hung on proclaiming martial law;
a captain is not sure of his men on marching to protect a tax levy;
a judge on the bench is threatened if he condemns the marauders who
devastate the national forests. The magistrate, whose duty it is to see
that the law is respected, is constantly obliged to strain the law,
or allow it to be strained; if refractory, a summary blow dealt by the
local Jacobins forces his legal authority to yield to their illegal
dictate, so that he has to resign himself to being either their
accomplice or their puppet. Such a role is intolerable to a man of
feeling or conscience. Hence, in 1790 and 1791, nearly all the prominent
and reputable men who, in 1789, had seats in the Hotels-de-villes, or
held command in the National Guard, all country-gentlemen, chevaliers
of St. Louis, old parliamentarians, the upper bourgeoisie and large
landed-proprietors, retire into private life and renounce public
functions which are no longer tenable. Instead of offering themselves to
public suffrage they avoid it, and the party of order, far from electing
the magistracy, no longer even finds candidates for it.

Through an excess of precaution, its natural leaders have been legally
disqualified, the principal offices, especially those of deputy and
minister, being interdicted beforehand to the influential men in whom we
find the little common sense gained by the French people during the past
two years.-In the month of June, 1779, even after the irreconcilables
had parted company with the "Right," there still remained in the
Assembly about 700