The French Revolution, Volume 3

So far, the weakness of the legal government is extreme. During four years, whatever its kind, it has constantly and everywhere been disobeyed. For four years it never dared enforce obedience. Recruited among the cultivated and refined class, the rulers of the country have brought with them into power the prejudices and sensibilities of the epoch. Under the influence of the prevailing dogma they have submitted to the will of the multitude and, with too much faith in the rights of Man, they have had too little in the authority of the magistrate. Moreover, through humanity, they have abhorred bloodshed and, unwilling to repress, they have allowed themselves to be repressed. Thus from the 1st of May, 1789, to June 2, 1793, they have administrated or legislated, escaping countless insurrections, almost all of them going unpunished; while their constitution, an unhealthy product of theory and fear, have done no more than transform spontaneous anarchy into legal anarchy. Deliberately and through distrust of authority they have undermined the principle of command, reduced the King to the post of a decorative puppet, and almost annihilated the central power: from the top to the bottom of the hierarchy the superior has lost his hold on the inferior, the minister on the departments, the departments on the districts, and the districts on the communes. Throughout all branches of the service, the chief, elected on the spot and by his subordinates, has come to depend on them. Thenceforth, each post in which authority is vested is found isolated, dismantled and preyed upon, while, to crown all, the Declaration of Rights, proclaiming “the jurisdiction of constituents over their clerks,” has invited the assailants to make the assault. On the strength of this a faction arises which ends in becoming an organized band; under its clamor, its menaces and its pikes, at Paris and in the provinces, at the polls and in the parliament, the majorities are all silenced, while the minorities vote, decree and govern; the Legislative Assembly is purged, the King is dethroned, and the Convention is mutilated. Of all the garrisons of the central citadel, whether royalists, Constitutionalists, or Girondins, not one has been able to defend itself, to re-fashion the executive instrument, to draw the sword and use it in the streets: on the first attack, often at the first summons, all have surrendered, and now the citadel, with every other public fortress, is in the hands of the Jacobins.