he parties,[26115] in short, every measure is
taken which tend to disturb property, break up the family, persecute
conscience, suspend the law, pervert justice, and rehabilitate crime.
laws are promulgated to deliver:

* the judicial system,

* the full control of the nation,

* the selection of the members of the future omnipotent Assembly,

* in short, the entire government,

to an autocratic, violent minority, which, having risked all to grab the
dictatorship, dares all to keep it.[26116]

VIII.--State of Paris in the Interregnum.

The mass of the population.--Subaltern Jacobins.--The
Jacobin leaders.

Let us stop a moment to contemplate this great city and its new
rulers.--From afar, Paris seems a club of 700,000 fanatics, vociferating
and deliberating on the public squares; near by, it is nothing of the
sort. The slime, on rising from the bottom, has become the surface,
and given its color to the stream; but the human stream flows in its
ordinary channel, and, under this turbid exterior, remains about the
same as it was before. It is a city of people like ourselves,
governed, busy, and fond of amusement. To the great majority, even in
revolutionary times, private life, too complex and absorbing, leaves but
an insignificant corner for public affairs. Through routine and through
necessity, manufacturing, display of wares, selling, purchasing, keeping
accounts, trades, and professions, continue as usual. The clerk goes
to his office, the workman to his shop, the artisan to his loft, the
merchant to his warehouse, the professional to his cabinet, and the
official to his duty;[26117] they are devoted, first of all, to their
pursuits, to their daily bread, to the discharge of their obligations,
to their own advancement, to their families, and to their pleasures; to
provide for these things the day is not too long. Politics only briefly
distract them, and then rather out of curiosity, like a play one
applauds or hisses in his seat without stepping upon the stage.--"The
declaration that the country is in danger," says many eye
witnesses,[26118] "has made no change in the physiognomy of Paris. There
are the same amusements, the same gossip.... The theaters are full as
usual. The wine-shops and places of diversion overflow with the people,
National Guards, and soldiers.... The fashionable world enjoys its
pleasure-parties,"--"The day after the decree, the effect of the
ceremony, so skillfully manage