When the whole committee deliberates, they are bound, in important decrees, to submit to the preponderating opinion of the majority, after voting in the negative.

In relation to secondary decrees, in which there has been no preliminary discussion in common, the only responsible member is the one whose signature stands first; the following signatures affixed, without reading the document, are simply a "formality which the law requires," merely a visa, necessarily mechanical; with "four or five hundred business matters to attend to daily," it is impossible to do otherwise.

To read all and vote in every case, would be "a physical impossibility."[3242]--Finally, as things are, "is not the general will, at least the apparent general will, that alone on which the government can decide, itself ultra-revolutionary ?"[3243] In other words, should not the five or six rascals in a State who vociferate, be listened to, rather than a hundred honest folks who keep their mouths shut?
With this sophism, gross as it is, but of pure Jacobin manufacture, Carnot ends by hoodwinking his honor and his conscience; otherwise intact, and far more so than his colleagues, he likewise undergoes moral and mental mutilation; constrained by the duties of his post and the illusions of his creed, he succeeded in an inward decapitation of the two noblest of human faculties, common-sense, the most useful, and the moral sense, the most exalted of all.
IV.

The Statesmen.
Billaud-Varennes, Collot d'Herbois, Robespierre, Couthon and Saint-Just .-- Conditions of this rule .-- Dangers to which they are subject .-- Their dissensions .-- Pressure of Fear and Theory.
If such are the ravages which are made in an upright, firm and healthy personality, what must be the havoc in corrupt or weak natures, in which bad instincts already predominate!--And note that they are without the protection provided by a pursuit of some specific and useful objective.
They are "government men," also "revolutionaries" or "the people in total control;"[3244] they are in actual fact men with an overall concept of things, also direct these.

The creation, organization and application of Terror belongs wholly to them; they are the constructors, regulators and engineers of the machine,[3245] the recognized heads of the party, of the sect and of the government, especially Billaud and Robespierre, who never serve on missions,[3246] nor relax their hold for a moment on the central motor.