t of
their offices. None of this class are scrupulous concerning human life
or property; for, as we have seen, they have shaped the theory to suit
themselves, and reduced popular sovereignty to their sovereignty.
The commonwealth, according to the Jacobin, is his; with him, the
commonwealth comprises all private possessions, bodies, estates, souls
and consciences; everything belongs to him; the fact of being a Jacobin
makes him legitimately czar and pope. Little does he care about the
wills of actually living Frenchmen; his mandate does not emanate from
a vote; it descends to him from aloft, conferred on him by Truth, by
Reason, by Virtue. As he alone is enlightened, and the only patriot,
he alone is worthy to take command, while resistance, according to his
imperious pride, is criminal. If the majority protests it is because
the majority is imbecile or corrupt; in either case, it deserves to be
brought to heel. And, in fact, the Jacobin only does that and right
away too; insurrections, usurpations, pillaging, murders, assaults on
individuals, on judges and public attorneys, on assemblies, violations
of law, attacks on the State, on communities--there is no outrage not
committed by him. He has always acted as sovereign instinctively; he
was so as a private individual and clubbist; he is not to cease being
so, now that he possesses legal authority, and all the more because if
he hesitates he knows he is lost; to save himself from the scaffold
he has no refuge but in a dictatorship. Such a man, unlike his
predecessors, will not allow himself to be turned out; on the contrary,
he will exact obedience at any cost. He will not hesitate to restore
the central power; he will put back the local wheels that have been
detached; he will repair the old forcing gear; he will set it agoing so
as to work more rudely and arbitrarily than ever, with greater contempt
for private rights and public liberties than either a Louis XIV. or a
Napoleon.

II. Jacobin Dissimulation.

Contrast between his words and his acts.--How he
dissimulates his change of front.--The Constitution of June,
1793.--Its promises of freedom.

In the mean time, he has to harmonize his coming acts with his recent
declarations, which, at the first glance, seems a difficult operation:
for, in the speeches he has made he has already condemned the actions he
meditates. Yesterday he exaggerated the rights of the governed, even to
a suppression of t