Consequently, swarms of Jacobin locusts spread from Paris out over the provinces, and from the local country-towns over the surrounding country.—In this cloud of destructive insects, there are various figures of different sizes: in the front rank, are the representatives on mission, who are to take command in the departments; in the second rank, "the political agents," who, assigned the duty of watching the neighboring frontier, take upon themselves the additional duty of leading the popular club of the town they reside in, or of urging on its administrative body.3369 Besides that, there issue from the Paris headquarters in the rue St. HonorÉ, select sans-culottes who, authorized or delegated by the Committee of Public Safety, proceed to Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Tonnerre, Rochefort and elsewhere, to act as missionaries among the too inert population, or form the committees of action and the tribunals of extermination that are recruited with difficulty on the spot.3370—Sometimes also, when a town has a bad record, the popular club of a sounder-minded city sends its delegates there, to bring it into line; thus, four deputies of the Metz club arrive without notice in Belfort, catechize their brethren, associate with them on the local Revolutionary Committee, and, suddenly, without consulting the municipality, or any other legal authority, draw up a list of "moderates, fanatics and egoists," on whom they impose an extraordinary tax of one hundred and thirty-six thousand six hundred and seventeen livres;3371 in like manner, sixty delegates from the club of CÔte-d'Or, Haute-Marne, Vosges, Moselle, Saone-et-Loire and Mont-Terrible, all "tempered by the white heat of PÉre Duchesne," proceed to Strasbourg at the summons of the representatives, where, under the title of "propagandists," they are to regenerate the town.—At the same time, in each department, the Jacobins of the principal town are found scattered along the high ways, that they may inspect their domain and govern their subjects. Sometimes, it is the representative on mission, who, personally, along with twenty "hairy devils," makes his round and shows off his traveling dictatorship; again, it is his secretary or delegate who, in his place and in his name, comes to a second-class town and draws up his documents.3372 At another time, it is "a committee of investigation and propaganda" which, "chosen by the club and provided with full powers," comes, in the name of the representatives, to work up for a month all the communes of the district.3373 Again, finally, it is the revolutionary committee of the principal town, which," declared central for the whole department,"3374 delegates one or the other of its members to go outside the walls, and purge and recompose suspected municipalities.—Thus does Jacobinism descend and spread itself, story after story, from the Parisian center to the smallest and remotest commune: throughout provincial France, whether colorless or of uncertain color, the imposed or imported administration imposes its red stigma.

But the stamp is only superficial; for the sans-culottes, naturally, are not disposed to confer offices on any but men of their sort, while in the provinces, especially in the rural districts, such men are rare. As one of the representatives says: there is a "dearth of subjects."—At MÂcon, Javogues tries in vain;3375 he finds in the club only "disguised federalists;" the people, he says, "will not open their eyes it seems to me that this blindness is due to the physique of the country, which is very rich." Naturally, he storms and dismisses; but, even in the revolutionary committee, none but dubious candidates are presented to him for selection; he does not know how to manage in order to renew the local authorities. "They play into each others' hands," and he ends by threatening to transfer the public institutions of the town elsewhere, if they persist in proposing to him none but bad patriots.—At Strasbourg,3376 Couturier, and Dentzel, on mission, report that: "owing to an unexampled coalition among all the capable citizens, obstinately refusing to take the office of mayor, in order, by this course, to clog the wheels, and subject the representatives to repeated and indecent refusals," he is compelled to appoint a young man, not of legal age, and a stranger in the department.—At Marseilles, write the agents,3377 "in spite of every effort and our ardent desire to republicanize the Marseilles people, our pains and fatigues are nearly all fruitless.... Public spirit among owners of property, mechanics and journey-men is everywhere detestable.... The number of discontented seems to increase from day to day. All the communes in Var, and most of those in this department are against us.... they constitute a race to be destroyed, a country to be colonized anew....

"I repeat it, the only way to work out the Revolution in the federalized departments, and especially in this one, is to deport all the indigenous population who are able to bear arms, scatter them through the armies and put garrisons in their places, which, again, will have to be changed from time to time."—At the other extremity of the territory, in Alsace, "republican sentiments are still in the cradle; fanaticism is extreme and incredible; the spirit of the inhabitants in general is in no respect revolutionary... Nothing but the revolutionary army and the venerated guillotine will cure them of their conceited aristocracy. The execution of the laws depends on striking off the heads of the guilty, for nearly all the rural municipalities are composed only of the rich, of clerks of former bailiffs, almost always devoted to the ancient rÉgime."3378—And in the rest of France, the population, less refractory, is not more Jacobin; here where the people appear "humble and submissive" as in Lyons and Bordeaux, the inspectors report that it is wholly owing to terror;3379 there, where opinion seems enthusiastic, as at Rochefort and Grenoble, they report that it is "artificial heat."3380 At Rochefort, zeal is maintained only "by the presence of five or six Parisian Jacobins." At Grenoble, ChÉpy, the political agent and president of the club, writes that "he is knocked up, worn out, and exhausted, in trying to keep up public spirit and maintain it on a level with events," but he is "conscious that, if he should leave, all would crumble."—There are none other than Moderates at Brest, at Lille, at Dunkirk; if this or that department, the Nord, for instance, hastened to accept the "Montagnard" constitution, it is only a pretense: "an infinitely small portion of the population answered for the rest."3381—At Belfort, where "from one thousand to twelve hundred fathers of families alone are counted," writes the agent,3382 "one popular club of thirty or forty members, at the most, maintains and enforces the love of liberty."—In Arras, "out of three or four hundred members composing the popular club" the weeding-out of 1793 has spared but "sixty-three, one tenth of whom are absent."3383 At Toulouse, "out of about fourteen hundred members" who form the club, only three or four hundred remain after the weeding-out of 1793,3384 "mere machines, for the most part," and "whom ten or a dozen intriguers lead as they please."—The same state of things exists elsewhere, a dozen or two determined Jacobins-twenty-two at Troyes, twenty-one at Grenoble, ten at Bordeaux, seven at Poitiers, as many at Dijon-constitute the active staff of a large town:3385 the whole number might sit around one table.—The Jacobins, straining as they do to swell their numbers, only scatter their band; careful as they are in making their selections, they only limit their number. They remain what they always have been, a small feudality of brigands superposed on conquered France.3386 If the terror they spread around multiplies their serfs, the horror they inspire diminishes their proselytes, while their minority remains insignificant because, for their collaborators, they can have only those just like themselves.