He carries this savagery and bewilderment into politics, and hence the evil arising from his government.

Simply a brigand, he would have murdered only to rob, and his murders would have been restricted.

As representing the State, he undertakes wholesale massacres, of which he has the means ready at hand .-- For he has not yet had time enough to take apart the old administrative implements; at all events the minor wheels, gendarmes, jailers, employees, book-keepers, and accountants, are always in their places and under control.

There can be no resistance on the part of those arrested; accustomed to the protection of the laws and to peaceable ways and times, they have never relied on defending themselves nor ever could imagine that any one could be so summarily slain.

As to the mass, rendered incapable of any effort of its own by ancient centralization, it remains inert and passive and lets things go their own way .-- Hence, during many long, successive days, without being hurried or impeded, with official papers quite correct and accounts in perfect order, a massacre can be carried out with the same impunity and as methodically as cleaning the streets or clubbing stray dogs.[3104] II .-- The development of the ideas of killings in the mass of the party.
The morning after August 10 .-- The tribunal of August 17.
-- The funereal fete of August 27 .-- The prison plot.
Let us trace the progress of the homicidal idea in the mass of the party.