nd its representative
and local agents; the latter are actual administrators alongside of
administrations which are abolished, or athwart administrations which
are brought under subjection.--In vain do the latest ministers, good
clerks and honest men, try to fulfill their duties; their injunctions
and remonstrances are only so much waste paper.[2472] They resign in
despair, declaring that,

"in this overthrow of all order,... in the present weakness of the
public forces, and in the degradation of the constituted authorities,...
it is impossible for them to maintain the life and energy of the vast
body, the members of which are paralyzed."--

When the roots of a tree are laid bare, it is easy to cut it down; now
that the Jacobins have severed them, a push on the trunk suffices to
bring the tree to the ground.

*****

[Footnote 2401: De Lomenie, "Les Mirabeaus," I. 11. (Letter of the
Marquis de Mirabeau).]

[Footnote 2402: "Archives Nationales," F7, 7171, No. 7915. Report on the
situation in Marseilles, by Miollis, commissioner of the Directory in
the department, year V. Nivose 15. "A good many strangers from France
and Italy are attracted there by the lust of gain, a love of pleasure,
the want of work, a desire to escape from the effects of ill conduct. ..
Individuals of both sexes and of every age, with no ties of country or
kindred, with no profession, no opinions, pressed by daily necessities
that are multiplied by debauched habit, seeking to indulge these without
too much effort, the means for this being formerly found in the many
manual operations of commerce, gone astray during the Revolution and,
subsequently, scared of the dominant party, accustomed unfortunately at
that time to receiving pay for taking part in political strife, and now
reduced to living on almost gratuitous distributions of food, to
dealing in small wares, to the menial occupations which chance rarely
presents--in short, to swindling. Such is what the observer finds in
that portion of the population of Marseilles most in sight; eager
to profit by whatever occurs, easily won over, active through its
necessities, flocking everywhere, and appearing very numerous... The
patriot Escalon had twenty rations a day; Feri, the journalist, had six;
etc... Civil officers and district commissioners still belong, for the
most part, to that class of men which the Revolution had accustomed
to live without work, to making those who shared their princip