* Santerre, a fine circumspect figure-head, who, on the 2nd of September, under pretense of watching the baggage, climbs on the seat of a landau standing on the street, where he remains a couple of hours, to avoid doing his duty as commanding-general;[3165] * Panis, president of the Committee of Supervision, a good subordinate, his born disciple and bootlicker, an admirer of Robespierre's whom he proposes for the dictatorship, as well as of Marat, whom he extols as a prophet;[3166] * Henriot, Hébert, and Rossignol, simple evil-doers in uniform or in their scarves; * Collot d'Herbois, a stage poetaster, whose theatrical imagination delights in a combination of melodramatic horrors;[3167] * Billaud-Varennes, a former oratorian monk, irascible and gloomy, as cool before a murder as an inquisitor at an auto-da-fé; finally, the wily Robespierre, pushing others without committing himself, never signing his name, giving no orders, haranguing a great deal, always advising, showing himself everywhere, getting ready to reign, and suddenly, at the last moment, pouncing like a cat on his prey, and trying to slaughter his rivals, the Girondists.[3168] Up to this time, in slaughtering or having it done, it was always as insurrectionists in the street; now, it is in places of imprisonment, as magistrates and functionaries, according to the registers of a lock-up, after proofs of identity and on snap judgments, by paid executioners, in the name of public security, methodically, and in cool blood, almost with the same regularity as subsequently under "the revolutionary government." September, indeed, is the beginning of it, a summary and a model; they will not do it differently or better than during the best days of the guillotine. Only, as they are as yet poorly supplied with tools, they are obliged to use pikes instead of the guillotine, and, as decency has not entirely disappeared, the chiefs conceal themselves behind maneuvers. Nevertheless, we can track them, take them in the act, and we have their signatures; they planned commanded, and conducted the operation. On the 30th of August, the Commune decided that the sections should try accused persons, and, on the 2nd of September, five trusted sections reply to it by resolving that the accused shall be murdered.[3169] The same day, September 2, Marat takes his place on the Committee of Supervision. The same day, September 2, Panis and Sergent sign the commissions of "their comrades," Maillard and associates, for the Abbaye, and "order them to judge," that is to say, kill the prisoners.[3170] The same and the following days, at La Force, three members of the Commune, Hébert, Monneuse, and Rossignol, preside in turn over the assassin court.[3171] The same day, a commissar of the Committee of Supervision comes and demands a dozen men of the Sans-Culottes section to help massacre the priests of Saint Firmin.[3172] The same day, a commissar of the Commune visits the