erents,
himself exclaimed: "Will twenty of us be left on the Mountain?" About
the same time, Legendic, Thuriot, Leonard Bourdon, Tallien, Bourdon de
l'Oise, and others, each has a spy all day long at his heels. There are
thirty deputies to be proscribed and their names are whispered about;
whereupon, sixty stay out all night, convinced that they will be seized
the next morning before they can get up.[3213]

Subject to such a system, prolonged for so many months, people sink down
and become discouraged. "Everybody made themselves small so as to
pass beneath the popular yoke.[3214] Everybody became one of the low
class.... Clothes, manners, refinement, cleanliness, the conveniences
of life, civility and politeness were all renounced."--People wear
their clothes indecently and curse and swear; they try to resemble the
sans-culottes Montagnards "who are profane and dress themselves like so
many dock-loafers;"[3215] at Armonville, the carder, who presides (at a
meeting) wears a woolen cap, and similarly at Cusset, a gauze-workman,
who is always drunk. Only Robespierre dares appear in neat attire; among
the others, who do not have his influence, among the demi-suspects
with a pot-belly, such a residue of the ancient regime might become
dangerous; they do well not to attract the attention of the foul-mouthed
spy who cannot spell;[3216] especially is it important at a meeting to
be one of the crowd and remain unnoticed by the paid claqueurs, drunken
swaggerers and "fat petticoats" of the tribunes. It is even essential
to shout in harmony with them and join in their bar-room dances. The
deputations of the popular clubs come for fourteen months to the bar of
the house and recite their common-place or bombastic tirades, and the
Convention is forced to applaud them. For nine months,[3217] street
ballad-singers and coffee-house ranters attend in full session and sing
the rhymes of the day, while the Convention is obliged to join in the
chorus. For six weeks,[3218] the profaners of churches come to the hall
and display their dance-house buffooneries, and the Convention has not
only to put up with these, but also to take part in them.--Never, even
in imperial Rome, under Nero and Heliogabalus, did a senate descend so
low.

II. Its participation in crime.

How the parades are carried out.--Its slavery and servility
--Its participation in crime.

Observe one of their parades, that of Brumaire 20th, 22nd or 30th, whic