But if some of the leading Terrorists were worthless, many of their subordinates were worse. The character of the men who carried out the system in the Sections of Paris and in the towns and villages of France, who governed the clubs, ruled the committees and composed the armed force, was generally unredeemed by any larger public motives. Not only were they very rough and ignorant, but they were necessarily men without scruples. No others would perform the duties of the Terror or execute the orders that came from above. Their powers being enormous, their opportunities for tyranny and plunder were unlimited, and those opportunities were constantly abused. Money levied recklessly upon the rich never reached the coffers of the State. Salaries were multiplied to an extraordinary degree. Cambon, speaking for the Treasury, bore witness to the wholesale peculation. A hundred other witnesses have brought forward instances of corruption and excess, and even of debauchery and crime. The armed force on which the small minority of Terrorists relied to maintain their precarious authority, freely enlisted the most ruffianly recruits. Their own general described them as 'scoundrels and brigands,' and excused himself by pleading that 'honest men could not be found to undertake such work.' Such a class exists in every country, especially in countries that have been long mis-ruled; but civilised communities place it under strict restraint. The Jacobins, on the other hand, invited it to govern, and invested it with despotic powers. It is noticeable that many of the Jacobin agents were men who had failed in the ordinary walks of life, and who were consequently bitter against social laws. In their compassion for suffering and their contempt for the magic of wealth, the Jacobins fell into the opposite excess, professed to find magic in poverty, and regarded ignorance and destitution as entitled to honour in themselves. Recalling the doctrine of their master, that in a state of Nature men's instincts are good, they refused to recognise the frailty of humanity, and forgot that misfortune is sometimes due to fault. Strange as the truth appears, it would seem to be indisputably proved that under the Terror the Government of France fell largely into the hands of the unscrupulous and worthless, and that the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, once welcomed with such pure enthusiasm, came to mean the tyranny of the lowest of the people, not only of the lowest in wealth and station--that would not have mattered--but of the lowest in education and capacity, in nature and in morals too.