rs," employed to
direct opinion in the Palais-Royal, also among the Tuileries groups,
as well as in the tribunes of the Convention and of the
Hotel-de-Ville;[3332] two hundred more at four hundred francs per annum,
to waiters in coffee-houses, gambling-saloons and hotels, for watching
foreigners and customers; hundreds of places at two, three, and five
francs a day with meals, for the guardians of seals, and for garrisoning
the domiciles of "suspects"; thousands, with premiums, pay, and full
license, for brigands who, under Ronsin, compose the revolutionary army,
and for the gunners, paid guard and gendarmes of Henriot.--The principal
posts, however, are those which subject lives and freedom to the
discretion of those who occupy them: for, through this more than
regal power, they possess all other power, and such is that of the men
composing the forty-eight revolutionary committees, the bureaus of the
Committee of General Security and of the Commune, and the staff-officers
of the armed force. They are the prime-movers and active incentives
of the system of Terror, all picked Jacobins and tested by repeated
selection, all designated or approved by the Central Club, which claims
for itself the monopoly of patriotism, and which, erected into a supreme
council of the party, issues no patent of orthodoxy except to its own
henchmen.[3333]

They immediately assume the tone and arrogance of dictatorship. " Pride
has reached its highest point:[3334]... One who, yesterday, had no post
and was amiable and honest, has become haughty and insolent because,
deceived by appearances, his fellow-citizens have elected him
commissioner, or given him some employment or other." Henceforth, he
behaves like a Turkish agha amongst infidels, and, in command, carries
things out with a high hand.--On the 20th of Vendemiaire, year II., "in
the middle of the night," the committee of the Piques section summons
M. Belanger, the architect. He is notified that his house is wanted
immediately for a new Bastille.--"But, said he, 'I own no other, and it
is occupied by several tenants; it is decorated with models of art, and
is fit only for that purpose.'--'Your house or you go to prison!'--'But
I shall be obliged to indemnify my tenants.'--'Either your house or
you go to prison; as to indemnities, we have vacant lodgings for your
tenants, as well as for yourself, in (the prisons of) La Force, or
Sainte-Pelagie.' Twelve sentinels on the post start off at on