* through the decree which orders a forced loan of a billion, extorted from the rich;[3470]
* through the decree which raises in each town a paid army of sans-culottes "to hold aristocrats under their pikes "[3471] and at last,
* through the decree which, instituting the Committee of Public Safety,[3472] fashions a central motor to set these sharp scythes agoing and mow down fortunes and lives with the utmost rapidity.—
To these engines of general destruction it adds one more, which is special and operates against itself. Not only does it furnish its rivals of the Commune with the millions they need to pay their bands; not only does it advance to the different sections,[3473] in the form of a loan, the hundreds of thousands of francs which are needed to satisfy the thirst of their yelpers; but again, at the end of March, just at the moment when it happens to escape the first Jacobin invasion, it provides for the election by each section of a Committee of Supervision, authorized to make domiciliary visits and to disarm the suspected;[3474] it allows this committee to make arrests and inflict special taxes; to facilitate its operations it orders a list of the inmates of each house, legibly "stating names, surnames, ages and professions," to be affixed to the entrance,[3475] a copy of which must be left with the committee, and which is subject to its control.
To end the matter, it submits itself; and, "regardless of the inviolability of a representative of the French nation,"[3476] it decides that, in case of political denunciation, its own members may be brought to trial.
V. Jacobin violence against the people.
Committees of Supervision after March 28, 1793.—The régime
of August and September, 1792, revived.—Disarmament.
—Certificates of civism.—Forced enlistment.—Forced loans.
—Use made of the sums raised.—Vain resistance of the
population.—Manifestations by young men repressed.
—Violence and victory of the Jacobins in the assemblies of
the sections.
"I seem to hear you," writes a sarcastic observer,[3477] "addressing the (Jacobin) faction in these terms:
'Now, look here, we have the means, but we are not disposed to make use of them against you; it would be unfair to attack you unarmed. Public power emanates from two sources, legal authority and armed force. Now we will at once create committees of supervision, of which you shall appoint the heads, for the reason that, with a whip of this kind, you can lash every honest man in Paris, and thus regulate public opinion. We will do more than this, because our sacrifice is not yet complete; we are disposed to make you a present of our armed force, with authority to disarm anybody that you may suspect. As far as we are concerned, we are ready to surrender even our pocketknives,[3478] and remain apart, content with our virtues and talents.—But mind what you are about. Should you be so ungrateful as to attack our sacred persons, we shall find avengers in the departments.'