s not changed; how Cesar, formerly, on landing in the
country, found nothing but a ferocious tribe battling with wolves in
the forest and threatening to burn every vessel which would try to land
there; and how he still remains like that." A lecture from a fairground
surgeon who, using bombastic words, recommends extensive amputations,
a fairground-prospectus so crude that it does not even deceive a poor
sergeant,--such is the exposition of motives by a government for the
purpose of enforcing a decree that might have been drawn up by redskins;
to horrible acts he adds debased language, and employs the inept to
justify their atrocities.

VI. Commissars of the Revolution.

Representatives on Mission.--Their absolute power.--Their
perils and their fear.--Fit for their work.--Effect of this
situation.

A hundred or so representatives of the Committee of Public Safety, are
sent to the provinces, "with unlimited power," to establish, enforce or
exacerbate the revolutionary government, and their proclamations at
once explain the nature of this government.[3279]--"Brave and vigorous
sans-culottes!" writes a deputy on leaving a mission and announcing
his successor,[3280] "You seem to have desired a good b... of a
representative, who has never swerved from his principles, that is to
say, a regular Montagnard. I have fulfilled your wishes, and you will
have the same thing in citizen Ingrand. Remember, brave sans-culottes,
that, with the patriot Ingrand, you can do everything, get anything,
cancel whatever you please, imprison, bring to trial, deport and
guillotine every-body and regenerate society. Don't try to play with
him; everybody is afraid of him, he overcomes all resistance and
restores at once the most complete order!"--The representative arrives
at the center of the department by post, and presents his credentials.
All the authorities at once bow to the ground. In the evening, in his
saber and plume, he harangues the popular club, blowing into a flame
the smoldering embers of Jacobinism. Then, according to his personal
acquaintances, if he has any in the place, or according to the votes of
the Committee of General Security, if he is a new-comer, he selects five
or six of the "warmest sans-culottes" there, and, forming them into
a Revolutionary Committee, installs them permanently at his side,
sometimes in the same building, in a room next to his own, where, on
lists or with verbal communications fur