At the Tuileries, the omnipotent Convention sits enthroned in the theater, converted into an Assembly room. It carries on its deliberations daily, in grand style. Its decrees, received with blind obedience, startle France and upset all Europe. At a distance, its majesty is imposing, more august than that of the Republican senate in Rome. Near by, the effect is quite otherwise; these undisputed sovereigns are serfs who live in trances, and justly so, for, nowhere, even in prison, is there more constraint and less security than on their benches. After the 2nd of June, 1793, their inviolable precincts, the grand official reservoir from which legal authority flows, becomes a sort of tank, into which the revolutionary net plunges and successfully brings out its choicest fish, singly or by the dozen, and sometimes in vast numbers; at first, the sixty-seven Girondist deputies, who are executed or proscribed; then, the seventy-three members of the "Right," swept off in one day and lodged in the prison of La Force; next, the prominent Jacobins:

Osselin, arrested on the 19th of Brumaire, Bazire, Chabot, and Delaunay, accused by decree on the 24th Brumaire, Fabre d'Eglantine, arrested on the 24th of NivÔse, Bernard, guillotined on the 3rd of PluviÔse, Anacharsis Clootz guillotined on the 4th of Germinal, HÉrault de SÉchelles, Lacroix, Philippeaux, Camille Desmoulins and Danton, guillotined with four others on the 10th of Germinal, Simon, guillotined on the 24th of Germinal, and Osselin, guillotined on the 8th of Messidor.—Naturally, the others take warning and are careful. At the opening of the session they are seen entering the hall, looking uneasy, full of distrust,"3201 like animals driven into a pen and suspicious of a trap.

"Each," writes an eye-witness, "acted and spoke with circumspection, for fear of being charged with some crime: in effect, nothing was unimportant, the seat one took, a glance of the eye, a gesture, a murmur, a smile."

Hence, they flock instinctively to the side which is best sheltered, the left side.

"The tide flowed towards the summit of the Mountain; the right side was deserted.... Many took no side at all, and, during the session, often changed their seats, thinking that they might thus elude the spy by donning a mixed hue and keeping on good terms with everybody. The most prudent never sat down; they kept off the benches, at the foot of the tribune, and, on matters getting to be serious, slipped quietly out of the hall."

Most of them took refuge in their committee-rooms; each tries to be over-looked, to be obscure, to appear insignificant or absent.3202 During the four months following the 2nd of June, the hall of the Convention is half or three-quarters empty; the election of a president does not bring out two hundred and fifty voters;3203 only two hundred, one hundred, fifty votes, elect the Committees of Public Safety and General Security; about fifty votes elect the judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal; less than ten votes elect their substitutes;3204 not one vote is cast for the adoption of the decree indicting the deputy, Dulaure;3205 "no member rises for or against it; there is no vote;" the president, nevertheless, pronounces the act passed 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, SiÉyÈs, denounced in the Jacobin Club, barely escapes, and through the protection of his shoemaker, who rises and exclaims: "That SiÉyÈs! 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 adherents, himself exclaimed: "Will twenty of us be left on the Mountain?" About the same time, Legendic, Thuriot, LÉonard 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 rÉgime 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.