and, still better, "the magistracy and all government
powers."[26130] France belongs to them, if they are bold enough to seize
hold of it.--And, on the other hand, should they miss their prey, they
feel themselves lost, for the Brunswick manifesto,[26131] which had made
no impression on the public, remains deeply impressed in their minds.
They apply its threats to themselves, while their imagination, as usual,
translates it into a specific legend:[26132] all the inhabitants
of Paris are to be led out on the plain of Saint-Denis, and there
decimated; previous to this, the most notorious patriots will be singled
out together with forty or fifty market-women and broken on the wheel.
Already, on the 11th of August, a rumor is current that 800 men of the
late royal guards are ready to make a descent on Paris;[26133] that very
day the dwelling of Beaumarchais is ransacked for seven hours;[26134]
the walls are pierced, the privies sounded, and the garden dug down to
the rock. The same search is repeated in the adjoining house. The women
are especially "enraged at not finding anything," and wish to renew the
attempt, swearing that they will discover where things are hidden in
ten minutes. The nightmare is evidently too much for these unballasted
minds. They break down under the weight of their accidental kingship,
their inflamed pride, extravagant desires, and intense and silent fears
which form in them that morbid and evil concoction which, in democracy
as well as in a monarchy, fashions a Nero.[26135]

Their leaders, who are even more upset, conceited, and despotic, have no
scruples holding them back, for the most noteworthy are corrupt, acting
alone or as leaders. Of the three chiefs of the old municipality,
Petion, the mayor, actually in semi-retirement, but verbally respected,
is set aside and considered as an old decoration. The other two remain
active and in office, Manuel,[26136] the syndic-attorney, son of
a porter, a loud-talking, untalented bohemian, stole the private
correspondence of Mirabeau from a public depository, falsified it, and
sold it for his own benefit. Danton,[26137] Manuel's deputy, faithless
in two ways, receives the King's money to prevent the riot, and makes
use of it to urge it on.--Varlet, "that extraordinary speech-maker, led
such a foul and prodigal life as to bring his mother in sorrow to
the grave; afterwards he spent what was left, and soon had
nothing."[26138]--Others not only lacked honor bu