t 17.
--The funereal fete of August 27.--The prison plot.

Let us trace the progress of the homicidal idea in the mass of the
party. It lies at the very bottom of the revolutionary creed. Collot
d'Herbois, two months after this, aptly says in the Jacobin tribune:
"The second of September is the great article in the credo of our
freedom."[3105] It is peculiar to the Jacobin to consider himself as a
legitimate sovereign, and to treat his adversaries not as belligerents,
but as criminals. They are guilty of lese-nation; they are outlaws, fit
to be killed at all times and places, and deserve extinction, even when
no longer able or in a condition do any harm.--Consequently, on the 10th
of August the Swiss Guards, who do not fire a gun and who surrender, the
wounded lying on the ground, their surgeons, the palace domestics, are
killed; and worse still, persons like M. de Clermont-Tonnerre who pass
quietly along the street. All this is now called in official phraseology
the justice of the people.--On the 11th the Swiss Guards, collected
in the Feuillants building, come near being massacred; the mob on the
outside of it demand their heads;[3106] "it conceives the project
of visiting all the prisons in Paris to take out the prisoners and
administer prompt justice on them."--On the 12th in the markets "diverse
groups of the low class call Petion a scoundrel," because "he saved the
Swiss in the Palais Bourbon"; accordingly, "he and the Swiss must be
hung to-day."-In these minds turned topsy-turvy the actual, palpable
truth gives way to its opposite; "the attack was not begun by them; the
order to sound the tocsin came from the palace; it is the palace which
was besieging the nation, and not the nation which was besieging the
palace."[3107] The vanquished "are the assassins of the people,"
caught in the act; and on the 14th of August the Federates demand a
court-martial "to avenge the death of their comrades."[3108] And even
a court-martial will not answer. "It is not sufficient to mete out
punishment for crimes committed on the 10th of August, but the vengeance
of the people must be extended to all conspirators;" to that "Lafayette,
who probably was not in Paris, but who may have been there;" to all the
ministers, generals, judges, and other officials guilty of maintaining
legal order wherever it had been maintained, and of not having
recognized the Jacobin government before it came into being. Let them
be brought before, not