t Paris,[3307] "all honest folks, all clerks who are educated,"
are driven out of the navy offices; the war department is getting to be
"a den where everybody on duty wears a red cap, where all thee-and-thou
each other, even the Minister, where four hundred employees, among
which are a number of women, show off in the dirtiest dress, affect
the coolest cynicism, do nothing, and steal on all sides."--Under the
denunciation of the clubs, the broom is applied even at the bottom of
the hierarchical scale, even to secretaries of village councils, to
messengers and call-boys in the towns, to jail-keepers and door-keepers,
to beadles and sextons, to foresters, field-custodians, and others of
this class.[3308] All these persons must be, or appear to be, Jacobin;
otherwise, their place slips away from them, for there is always some
one to covet it, apply for it and take it.--Outside of employees the
sweeping operation reaches the suppliers and contractors; even here
there are the faithful to be provided for, and nowhere is the bait so
important. The State, even in ordinary times, is always the largest of
consumers, and, at this moment, it is expending monthly, merely on
the war, two hundred millions extra. What fish may be caught in such
disturbed waters![3309]--All these lucrative orders as well as all these
remunerated positions are at the disposition of the Jacobins, and they
seize the opportunity; they are the lawful owner, who comes home after a
long absence and gives or withdraws his custom as the pleases, while
he makes a clean sweep in his own household.--The administrative and
judicial services alone number 1,300,000 places, all those in the
treasury department, in that of public works, in that of public
education, and in the Church; all posts in the National Guard and in the
army, from that of commander-in-chief down to a drummer; the whole of
the central or local power, with the vast patronage flowing from this.
Never had such rich spoils been made available to the general public in
one go. Lots will be drawn, apparently, by vote; but it is evident that
the Jacobins have no intention of surrendering their prey to the hazards
of a free ballot; they mean to keep it the way they got it; by force,
and will leave no stone unturned to control the elections.

II.--The elections.

The young and the poor invited to the ballot-box.--Danger of
the Conservatives if candidates.--Their chiefs absent
themselves