[The Origins of Contemporary France<br> Volume 3 (of 6) by Hippolyte A. Taine]@TWC D-Link book
The Origins of Contemporary France
Volume 3 (of 6)

CHAPTER II
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After countless useless entreaties, after repeated calls to order, "received with hooting," after a dozen "regulations that are made, revised, countermanded and posted up" as if better to prove the impotence of the law, of the authorities and of the Assembly itself, the usurpations of these intruders keep on increasing.

They have shouted for ten months "Down with the civil list! Down with the ministerials! Down with those curs! Silence, slaves!' On the 26th of July, Brissot himself is to appear lukewarm and be struck on the face with two plums.

"Three or four hundred individuals without either property, title, or means of subsistence...

have become the auxiliaries, petitioners and umpires of the legislature," their paid violence completely destroying whatever is still left of the Assembly's reason.[2223] IV .-- The Parties.
The "Right."-- "Center."-- The "Left."-- Opinions and sentiments of the Girondins .-- Their Allies of the extreme "left." In an assembly thus composed and surrounded, it is easy to foresee on which side the balance will turn .-- Through the meshes of the electoral net which the Jacobins have spread over the whole country, about one hundred well-meaning individuals of the common run, tolerably sensible and sufficiently resolute, Mathieu Dumas, Dumolard, Becquet, Gorguereau, Vaublanc, Beugnot, Girardin, Ramond, Jaucourt, were able to pass and form the party of the "Right."[2224] They resist to as great an extent as possible, and seem to have obtained a majority .-- For, of the four hundred deputies who have their seats in the center, one hundred and sixty-four are inscribed on the rolls with them at the Feuillants club, while the rest, under the title of "Independents," pretend to be of no party.[2225] Besides, the whole of these four hundred, through monarchical traditions, respect the King; timid and sensible, violence is repugnant to them.

They distrust the Jacobins, dread what is unknown, desire to be loyal to the Constitution and to live in peace.
Nevertheless, the pompous dogmas of the revolutionary catechism still have their prestige with them; they cannot comprehend how the Constitution which they like produces the anarchy which they detest; they are "foolish enough to bemoan the effects while swearing to maintain their causes; totally deficient in spirit, in union and in boldness," they float backwards and forwards between contradictory desires, while their predisposition to order merely awaits the steady impulsion of a vigorous will to turn it in the opposite direction .-- On such docile material the "Left" can work effectively.


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