Future inquests and accounts will charge on the Committee of Supervision, "abstractions, dilapidations, and embezzlements," in short, "a mass of violations and breaches of trust."-- When one is king, one easily mistakes the money-drawer of the State for the drawer in which one keeps one's own money.
Unfortunately, this full possession of public power and the public funds holds only by a slender thread.

Let the evicted and outraged majority dare, as subsequently at Lyons, Marseilles, and Toulon, to Return to the section assemblies and revoke the false mandate which they have arrogated to themselves through fraud and force, and, on the instance, they again become, through the sovereign will of the people, and by virtue of their own deed, what they really are, usurpers, extortioners, and robbers, there is no middle course for them between a dictatorship and the galleys .-- The mind, before such an alternative, unless extraordinarily well-balanced, loses its equilibrium; they have no difficulty in deluding themselves with the idea that the State is menaced in their persons, and, in postulating the rule, that all is allowable for them, even massacre.

Has not Bazire stated in the tribune that, against the enemies of the nation, "all means are fair justifiable?
Has not another deputy, Jean Debry, proposed the formation of a body of 1,200 volunteers, who "will sacrifice themselves," as formerly the assassins of the Old Man of the Mountain, in "attacking tyrants, hand to hand, individually," as well as generals ?[3132] Have we not seen Merlin de Thionville insisting that "the wives and children of the emigres should be kept as hostages," and declared responsible, or, in other words, ready for slaughter if their relatives continue their attacks ?[3133] That is all that is left to do, since all the other measures have proved insufficient .-- In vain has the Commune decreed the arrest of journalists belonging to the opposite party, and distributed their printing machinery amongst patriotic printers.[3134] In vain has it declared the members of the Sainte-Chapelle club, the National Guards who have sworn allegiance to Lafayette, the signers of the petition of 8,000, and of that of 20,000, disqualified for any service whatever.[3135] In vain has it multiplied domiciliary visits, even to the residence and carriages of the Venetian ambassador.

In vain, through insulting and repeated examinations, does it keep at its bar, under the hootings and death-cries of its tribunes, the most honorable and most illustrious men, Lavoisier, Dupont de Nemours, the eminent surgeon Desault, the most harmless and most refined ladies, Madame de Tourzel, Mademoiselle de Tourzel, and the Princesse de Lamballe.[3136] In vain, after a profusion of arrests during twenty days, it envelopes all Paris inside one cast of its net for a nocturnal search[3137]during which, 1.

the barriers are closed and doubly guarded, 2.