different prisons during the slaughter, and finds that "things are going on well in all of them."[3173] The same day, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Billaud-Varennes, deputy-attorney for the Commune, "in his well-known puce-colored coat and black perruque," walking over the corpses, says to the Abbaye butchers: "Fellow-citizens, you are immolating your enemies, you are performing your duty." He returns during the night, highly commends them, and confirms the promise of the "agreed wages." On the following any at noon, he again returns, congratulates them more warmly, allows each one twenty francs, and urges them to keep on.[3174]--In the mean time, Santerre, summoned to the general staff headquarters by Roland, hypocritically deplores his voluntary inability, and persists in not giving the orders, without which the National Guard cannot move.[3175] At the sections, the presidents, Chénier, Ceyrat, Boula, Momoro, Collot d'Herbois, dispatch or take their victims back under pikes. At the Commune, the council-general votes 12,000 francs, to be taken from the dead, to defray the expenses of the operation.[3176] In the Committee of Supervision, Marat sends off dispatches to spread murder through the departments.--It is evident that the leaders and their subordinates are unanimous, each at his post and in the service he performs; through the spontaneous co-operation of the whole party, the command from above meets the impulse from below;[3177] both unite in a common murderous disposition, the work being done with the more precision in proportion to its being easily done.--Jailers have received orders to open the prison doors, and give themselves no concern. Through an excess of precaution, the knives and forks of the prisoners have been taken away from them.[3178] One by one, on their names being called, they will march out like oxen in a slaughter-house, while about twenty butchers to each prison, from to two to three hundred in all,[3179] will suffice to do the work. V. Abasement and Stupor. Common workers.--Their numbers.--Their condition.--Their sentiments.--Effect of murder on the murderers.--Their degradation.--Their insensibility. Two kinds of men make up the recruits, and it is especially on their crude brains that we have to admire the effect of the revolutionary dogma.