ed and the Marais lets things take their course."--"Marais
frogs"[3206] is the appellation bestowed on them before the 2nd of
June, when, amongst the dregs of the "Center," they "broke" with the
"Mountain;" now, they still number four hundred and fifty, three times
as many as the "Montagnards;" but they purposely keep quiet; their
old name "renders them, so to say, soft; their ears ring with eternal
menaces; their hearts shrivel up with terror;[3207] while their tongues,
paralyzed by habitual silence, remain as if glued to the roofs of their
mouths. In vain do they keep in the back-ground, consent to everything,
ask nothing for themselves but personal safety, and surrender all else,
their votes, their wills and their consciences; they feel that their
life hangs by a thread. The greatest mute among them all, Sieyes,
denounced in the Jacobin Club, barely escapes, and through the
protection of his shoemaker, who rises and exclaims: "That Sieyes! I
know him. He don't meddle with politics. He does nothing but read his
book. I make his shoes and will answer for him."[3208]

Of course, previous to the 9th of Thermidor, none of them open their
mouths; it is only the "Montagnards" who make speeches, and on the
countersign being given. If Legendre, the admirer, disciple and
confidential friend of Danton, dares at one time interfere in relation
to the decree which sends his friend to the scaffold, asking that he may
first be heard, it is only to retract immediately; that very evening, at
the Jacobin club, for greater security, "he wallows in the mud;"[3209]
he declares "that he submits to the judgment of the revolutionary
Tribunal," and swears to denounce "whoever shall oppose any obstacle
to the execution of the decree."[3210] Has not Robespierre taught him
a lesson, and in his most pedantic manner? What is more beautiful,
says the great moralist, more sublime, than an Assembly which purges
itself?[3211]--Thus, not only is the net which has already dragged out
so many palpitating victims still intact, but it is enlarged and set
again, only, the fish are now caught on the "Left" as well as on the
"Right," and preferably on the topmost benches of the "Mountain."[3212]
And better still, through the law of Prairial 22, its meshes are reduced
in size and its width increased; with such admirable contraption, the
fishpond could not fail to be exhausted. A little before the 9th of
Thermidor, David, who was one of Robespierre's devoted adh