g department, is deposed in the slaughterhouse. The latter is
saved with the utmost difficulty; many a blow is necessary before he
can be wrested from the maniac who had seized him. With a surgeon like
Marat, and medics like the four or five hundred leaders of the Commune
and of the sections, it is not essential to guide the knife; it is a
foregone conclusion that the amputation will be extensive. Their names
speak for themselves: in the Commune, Manuel, the syndic-attorney; and
his two deputies Hebert and Billaud-Varennes, Huguenin, Lhuillier,
M.-J. Chenier, Audoin, Leonard Bourdon, Boula and Truchon, presidents
in succession. In the Commune and the sections, Panis, Sergent, Tallien,
Rossignol, Chaumette, Fabre d'Eglantine, Pache, Hassenfratz, the
cobbler Simon, and the printer Momoro. From the National Guard, the
commanding-general, Santerre, and the battalion commander Henriot, and,
lower down, the common herd of district demagogues, Danton's,
Hebert's, or Robespierre's side kicks, guillotined later on with
their file-leaders, in brief, the flower of the future
terrorists.[3163]--Today they are taking their first steps in blood,
each with their own attitude and motives:

* Chenier denounced as a member of the Sainte-Chapelle club, in danger
because he is among the suspected;[3164]

* Manuel, poor, excitable, bewildered, carried away, and afterwards
shuddering at the sight of his own work;

* Santerre, a fine circumspect figure-head, who, on the 2nd of
September, under pretense of watching the baggage, climbs on the seat of
a landau standing on the street, where he remains a couple of hours, to
avoid doing his duty as commanding-general;[3165]

* Panis, president of the Committee of Supervision, a good subordinate,
his born disciple and bootlicker, an admirer of Robespierre's whom he
proposes for the dictatorship, as well as of Marat, whom he extols as a
prophet;[3166]

* Henriot, Hebert, and Rossignol, simple evil-doers in uniform or in
their scarves;

* Collot d'Herbois, a stage poetaster, whose theatrical imagination
delights in a combination of melodramatic horrors;[3167]

* Billaud-Varennes, a former oratorian monk, irascible and gloomy, as
cool before a murder as an inquisitor at an auto-da-fe;

finally, the wily Robespierre, pushing others without committing
himself, never signing his name, giving no orders, haranguing a great
deal, always advising, showing himself everywhere, getting ready to
reign,