It lies at the very bottom of the revolutionary creed.

Collot d'Herbois, two months after this, aptly says in the Jacobin tribune: "The second of September is the great article in the credo of our freedom."[3105] It is peculiar to the Jacobin to consider himself as a legitimate sovereign, and to treat his adversaries not as belligerents, but as criminals.

They are guilty of lese-nation; they are outlaws, fit to be killed at all times and places, and deserve extinction, even when no longer able or in a condition do any harm .-- Consequently, on the 10th of August the Swiss Guards, who do not fire a gun and who surrender, the wounded lying on the ground, their surgeons, the palace domestics, are killed; and worse still, persons like M.de Clermont-Tonnerre who pass quietly along the street.

All this is now called in official phraseology the justice of the people .-- On the 11th the Swiss Guards, collected in the Feuillants building, come near being massacred; the mob on the outside of it demand their heads;[3106] "it conceives the project of visiting all the prisons in Paris to take out the prisoners and administer prompt justice on them."-- On the 12th in the markets "diverse groups of the low class call Petion a scoundrel," because "he saved the Swiss in the Palais Bourbon"; accordingly, "he and the Swiss must be hung to-day."-In these minds turned topsy-turvy the actual, palpable truth gives way to its opposite; "the attack was not begun by them; the order to sound the tocsin came from the palace; it is the palace which was besieging the nation, and not the nation which was besieging the palace."[3107] The vanquished "are the assassins of the people," caught in the act; and on the 14th of August the Federates demand a court-martial "to avenge the death of their comrades."[3108] And even a court-martial will not answer.

"It is not sufficient to mete out punishment for crimes committed on the 10th of August, but the vengeance of the people must be extended to all conspirators;" to that "Lafayette, who probably was not in Paris, but who may have been there;" to all the ministers, generals, judges, and other officials guilty of maintaining legal order wherever it had been maintained, and of not having recognized the Jacobin government before it came into being.