In extraordinary governments all impulsion must come from the center; it is from the convention that elections must issue....

You would injure the people by confiding the election of officials to them, because you would expose them to electing men that would betray them." -- The result is that the constitutional maxims of 1789 give way to radically opposed maxims; instead of subjecting the government to the people, the people is made subject to the government.

The hierarchy of the ancient regime is re-established under revolutionary terms, and henceforth all powers, much more formidable than those of the ancient regime, cease to be delegated from the depths to the summit and will henceforth instead be delegated from the summit to the bottom.
At the summit, a committee of twelve members, similar to the former royal council, exercises collective royalty; nominally, authority is divided amongst the twelve; it is, in practice, concentrated in a few hands.

Several members occupy only a subaltern position, and amongst these, Barere, who, official secretary and mouthpiece, is always ready to make a speech or draft an editorial; others, with special functions, Jean Bon St.Andre, Lindet, and above all, Prieur de la Cote d'Or and Carnot, confine themselves each to his particular department, navy, war, supplies, with blank signatures, for which they give in return their signatures to the political leaders; the latter, called "the statesmen," Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varennes, are the real rulers providing overall direction.

It is true that their mandate has to be renewed monthly; but this is a certainty, for, in the present state of the Convention, its vote, required beforehand, becomes an almost vain formality.