They consider the Constitution as a panacea, and they are going to consign it, like some dangerous drug, to this coffer which they call an ark.

They have just proclaimed the liberty of the people, and are going to perpetuate the dictatorship of the Convention.
VI.

The Mountain.
Maneuvers of the "Mountain."-- The Jacobin Club on the eve of August 11th .-- Session of the Convention on the 11th of August .-- The Delegates initiate Terror .-- Popular consecration of the Jacobin dictatorship.
This volteface has, of course, to appear spontaneous and the hand of the titular rulers remain invisible: the Convention, as usual with usurpers, is to simulate reserve and disinterestedness .-- Consequently, the following morning, August 11, on the opening of the session, it simply declares that "its mission is fulfilled:"[1141] on the motion of Lacroix, a confederate of Danton's, it passes a law that a new census of the population and of electors shall be made with as little delay as possible, in order to convoke the primary assemblies at once; it welcomes with joy the delegates who bring to it the Constitutional Ark; the entire Assembly rises in the presence of this sacred receptacle, and allows the delegates to exhort it and instruct it concerning its duties.[1142] But in the evening, at the Jacobin Club, Robespierre, after a long and vague discourse on public dangers, conspiracies, and traitors, suddenly utters the decisive words: "The most important of my reflections was about to escape me[1143]...
The proposition made this morning will only facilitate the replacement of the purified members of this Convention by the envoys of Pitt and Cobourg." Dreadful words in the mouth of a man of principles! They are at once understood by the leaders, great and small, also by the selected fifteen hundred Jacobins then filling the hall.

"No! no! shouts the entire club." The delegates are carried away: "I demand," exclaims one of them, "that the dissolution of the Convention be postponed until the end of the war."-- At last, the precious motion, so long desired and anticipated, is made: the calumnies of the Girondins now fall the ground; it is demonstrated that the Convention does not desire to perpetuate itself and that it has no ambition; if it remains in power it is because it is kept there; the delegates of the people compel it to stay.
And better still, they are going to mark out its course of action .-- The next day, the 12th of August, with the zeal of new converts, they spread themselves through the hall in such numbers that Assembly, no longer able to carry on is deliberations, crowds toward the left and yields the whole of the space on the right that they may occupy and "purify" it.[1144] All the combustible material in their minds, accumulated during the past fortnight, takes fire and explodes; they are more furious than the most ultra Jacobins; they repeat at the bar of the house the extravagances of Rose Lacombe, and of the lowest clubs; they even transcend the program drawn up by the "Mountain." "The time for deliberation is past," exclaims their spokesman, "we must act[1145]...
Let the people rouse themselves in a mass...

it alone can annihilate its enemies...