rat himself; better informed and less shortsighted, are well aware
that brutal murder would be revolting to the already half-aroused
departments.[34124] The legislative machinery is not to be shattered,
but made use of; it must be employed against itself to effect the
required injury; in this way the operation at a distance will appear
legal, and, garnished with the usual high-flown speeches, impose on
the provincial mind.[34125] From the 3rd of April, Robespierre, in
the Jacobin club, always circumspect and considerate, had limited and
defined in advance the coming insurrection. "Let all good citizens,"
he says, "meet in their sections, and come and force us to place the
disloyal deputies under arrest." Nothing can be more moderate, and, if
they refer to principles, nothing can be more correct. The people always
reserves the right to cooperate with its mandatories, which right it
practices daily in the galleries. Through extreme precaution, which well
describes the man,[34126] Robespierre refuses to go any further in his
interference. "I am incapable of advising the people what steps to
take for its salvation. That is not given to one man alone. I, who
am exhausted by four years of revolution, and by the heart-rending
spectacle of the triumph of tyranny, am not thus favored.... I, who am
wasted by a slow fever, and, above all by the fever of patriotism. As I
have said, there remains for me no other duty to fulfill at the present
moment." What's more, he enjoins the municipality "to unite with the
people, and form a close alliance with it."--In other words, the blow
must be struck by the Commune, the "Mountain" must appear to have
nothing to do with it. But, "it is privy to the secret";[34127] its
chiefs pull the wires which set the brutal dancing-jacks in motion on
the public trestles of the Hotel-de-ville. Danton and Lacroix wrote in
the bureau of the Committee of "Public Safety," the insolent summons
which the procureur of the Commune is to read to the Convention on the
31st of May, and, during seven days of crisis, Danton, Robespierre and
Marat are the counselors, directors and moderators of all proceedings,
and lead, push on or restrain their stooges of the insurrection within
the limits of this program.

VII. The central Jacobin committee in power.

The 27th day of May.--The central revolutionary committee.
--The municipal body displaced and then restored.--Henriot,
commanding general.

It