ake
refuge in constitutional forms--they do not act. The strong measures
which the eighty decided and clear-sighted deputies propose, are
weakened or suspended by the precautions of the three hundred others,
short-sighted, unreliable or timid.[5163] They dare not even avail
themselves of their legal arms:

* annul the military division of the interior,

* suppress Augereau's commission,

* and break the sword presented at their throats by the three conspiring
Directors.

In the Directory, they have only passive or neutral allies, Barthelemy,
who had rather be assassinated than murder, Carnot, the servant of his
legal pass-word, fearing to risk his Republic, and, moreover, calling
to mind that he had voted for the King's death. Among the "Five Hundred"
and the "Ancients," Thibaudeau and Troncon-Ducoudray, the two leaders
"du ventre," arrest the arms of Pichegru and other energetic men,
prevent them from striking, allow them only to ward off the blow,
and always too late. Three days after the 10th of Fructidor, when, as
everybody knew and saw, the final blow was to be struck, the eighty
deputies, who change their quarters so as not to be seized in their
beds, cannot yet make up their minds to take the offensive. On that
day, an eye-witness[5164] came to Mathieu Dumas and told him that,
the evening before, in Barras' house, they discussed the slaughter or
transportation to Cayenne of about forty members of the two Councils,
and that the second measure was adopted. On which a commandant of the
National Guard, having led Dumas at night into the Tuileries garden,
showed him his men concealed behind the trees, armed and ready to march
at the first signal. He is to possess himself at once of the Luxembourg
(palace)[5165] which is badly guarded, and put an end to Barras and
Reubell on the spot: in war one kills so as not to be killed, and, when
the enemy takes aim, you have the right to fire without waiting. "Only,"
says the commandant, "promise me that you will state in the tribune that
you ordered this attack, and give me your word of honor."[5166] Mathieu
Dumas refuses, simply because he is a man of honor. "You were a fool,"
Napoleon afterwards said to him in this connection, "you know nothing
about revolutions."--In effect, honor, loyalty, horror of blood, respect
for the law, such are the weak points of the party.

The opposite sentiments form the strong points of the other party. On
the side of the triumvirs nobody k