He does nothing but read his book.

I make his shoes and will answer for him."[3208] Of course, previous to the 9th of Thermidor, none of them open their mouths; it is only the "Montagnards" who make speeches, and on the countersign being given.

If Legendre, the admirer, disciple and confidential friend of Danton, dares at one time interfere in relation to the decree which sends his friend to the scaffold, asking that he may first be heard, it is only to retract immediately; that very evening, at the Jacobin club, for greater security, "he wallows in the mud;"[3209] he declares "that he submits to the judgment of the revolutionary Tribunal," and swears to denounce "whoever shall oppose any obstacle to the execution of the decree."[3210] Has not Robespierre taught him a lesson, and in his most pedantic manner?
What is more beautiful, says the great moralist, more sublime, than an Assembly which purges itself ?[3211]--Thus, not only is the net which has already dragged out so many palpitating victims still intact, but it is enlarged and set again, only, the fish are now caught on the "Left" as well as on the "Right," and preferably on the topmost benches of the "Mountain."[3212] And better still, through the law of Prairial 22, its meshes are reduced in size and its width increased; with such admirable contraption, the fishpond could not fail to be exhausted.

A little before the 9th of Thermidor, David, who was one of Robespierre's devoted adherents, himself exclaimed: "Will twenty of us be left on the Mountain ?" About the same time, Legendic, Thuriot, Leonard Bourdon, Tallien, Bourdon de l'Oise, and others, each has a spy all day long at his heels.

There are thirty deputies to be proscribed and their names are whispered about; whereupon, sixty stay out all night, convinced that they will be seized the next morning before they can get up.[3213] Subject to such a system, prolonged for so many months, people sink down and become discouraged.