One is self-condemned if one has not converted oneself into a sans-culotte and proletarian, in accordance with affected modes, air, language and dress. Hence,
"through a hypocritical contest hitherto unknown men who were not vicious deemed it necessary to appear so."
And worse still,
"one was even afraid to be oneself; one changed one's name, one went in disguise, wearing a vulgar and tasteless attire; everybody shrunk from being what he was."
For, according to the Jacobin program, all Frenchmen must be recast[41147] in one uniform mold; they must be taken when small; all must be subject to the same enforced education, that of a mechanic, rustic and soldier's boy. Be warned, ye adults, by the guillotine, reform yourselves beforehand according to the prescribed pattern! No more costly, elegant or delicate crystal or gold vases! All are shattered or are still being shattered. Henceforth, only common ware is to be tolerated or ordered to be made, all alike in substance, shape and color, manufactured by thousands at wholesale and in public factories, for the common and plain uses of rural and military life; all original and superior forms are to be rejected.
"The masters of the day," writes Daunou,[41148] "deliberately aimed their sword thrusts at superior talent, at energetic characters; they mowed down as well as they could in so short a time, the flower and hope of the nation."
In this respect they were consistent; equality-socialism[41149] allows none but automatic citizens, mere tools in the hands of the State, all alike, of a rudimentary fashion and easily managed, without personal conscience, spontaneity, curiosity or integrity; whoever has cultivated himself, whoever has thought for himself and exercised his own will and judgment rises above the level and shakes off the yoke; to obtain consideration, to be intelligent and honorable, to belong to the élite, is to be anti-revolutionary. In the popular club of Bourg-en-Bresse,[41150] Representative Javogues declared that,
"the Republic could be established only on the corpse of the last of the respectable men."