long time in the quarter, but "strangers, or young
men trying to be something,"[3480] ambitious underlings, ignorant
daredevils, despotic intruders, fierce, touchy and inexperienced
inquisitors".

The first thing is the disarmament of the suspected. "It is enough that
any citizen shall be denounced, and that the case is made known to the
Committee";[3481] or that his certificate of civism is less than one
month old,[3482] to make a delegate, accompanied by ten armed men,
search his house. In the section of the Reunion alone, on the first
day, 57 denounced persons are thus disarmed for "acts of incivism or
expressions adverse to the Republic," not merely lawyers, notaries,
architects, and other prominent men, but petty tradesmen and
shop-keepers, hatters, dyers, locksmiths, mechanics, gilders, and
bar-keepers. One section; in defiance of the law, adds to these in block
the signers of the petition of the eight thousand and that of the twenty
thousand. "Through such schemes," says an observer,[3483] "all the guns
in Paris, numbering more than a hundred thousand, pass into the hands of
the faction. None remain for its adversaries, even in the gunshops; for,
through an ordinance of the Commune, no one may purchase a gun without
a certificate issued by the Committee of Supervision of the
section.[3484]--On the other hand, owing to the power of granting or
refusing certificates of civism, each Committee, on its own authority,
interposes barriers as it pleases in all directions, public or private,
to every inhabitant within its bounds. It is impossible for any person
who has not obtained his certificate[3485] to have a passport for
traveling, although a tradesman; no public employee, no clerk of the
administration, advocate or notary can keep his place without it; no one
can go out of Paris or return late at night. If one goes out to take
a walk, there is danger of being arrested and brought back between two
soldiers to the committee of the section; if one stays at home, it is
with the chance of being inspected as a harbourer of priests or nobles.
Any Parisian opening his windows in the morning may find his house
surrounded by a company of carmagnoles, if he has not the indispensable
certificate in his pocket.[3486] In the eyes of a Jacobin committee,
there is no civism but in Jacobinism, and we can imagine whether
this patent would be willingly conferred on opponents, or even on the
lukewarm; what examinations they would have