The Jacobin conquest takes place like this: already in during April, 1792, through acts of violence almost equal to those we have just described, it spreads over more than twenty departments and, to a smaller degree, over the other sixty.[2454] The composition of the parties is the same everywhere. On one side are the irresponsible of all conditions, "squanderers who, having consumed their own inheritance, cannot tolerate that of another, men without property to whom disorder is a door open to wealth and public office, the envious, the ungrateful whose obligations to their benefactors the revolution cancels, the hot-headed, all those enthusiastic innovators who preach reason with a dagger in their hand, the poor, the brutal and the wretched of the lower class who, possessed by one leading anarchical idea, one example of immunity, with the law dumb and the sword in the scabbard, are stimulated to dare all things On the other side are the steady-going, peaceable class, minding their own business, upper and lower middle class in mind and spirit, "weakened by being used to security and wealth, surprised at any unforeseen disturbance and trying to find their way, isolated from each other by diversity of interests, opposing only tact and caution to persevering audacity in defiance of legitimate means, unable either to make up their mind or to remain inactive, perplexed over sacrifices just at the time when the enemy is going to render it impossible to make any in the future, in a word, bringing weakness and egoism to bear against the liberated passions, great poverty and hardened immorality."[2455] The issue of the conflict is everywhere the same. In each town or canton an aggressive squad of unscrupulous fanatics and resolute adventurers imposes its rule over a sheep-like majority which, accustomed to the regularity of an old civilization, dares neither disturb order for the sake of putting and end to disorder, or get together a mob to put down another mob. Everywhere the Jacobin principle is the same. "Your system," says one of the department Directories to them,[2456] "is to act imperturbably on all occasions, even after a constitution is established, and the limitations to power are fixed, as if the empire would always be in a state of insurrection, as if you were granted a dictatorship essential for the city's salvation, as if you were given such full power in the name of public safety." Everywhere are Jacobin tactics the same. At the outset they assume to have a monopoly of patriotism and, through the brutal destruction of other associations, they are the only visible organ of public opinion. Their voice, accordingly, seems to be the voice of the people; their control is established on that of the legal authorities; they have taken the lead through persistent and irresistible misdeeds; their crimes are consecrated by exemption from punishment.