[Footnote 31135: "Archives Nationales," II. 58 to 76. Official reports of the Paris electoral assembly.--Robespierre is elected the twelfth (Sept. 5), then Danton and Collot d'Herbois (Sept. 6) then Manuel and Billaud-Varennes (Sept. 7), next C. Desmoulins (Sept. 8), Marat (Sept. 9) etc.--Mortimer-Ternaux, IV. 35 (act passed by the commune at the instigation of Robespierre for the regulation of electoral operations).--Louvet, "Mémoires." Louvet, in the electoral assembly asks to be heard on the candidacy of Marat, but is unsuccessful. "On going out I was surrounded by those men with big clubs and sabers by whom the future dictator was always attended, Robespierre's body-guard. They threatened me and told me in very concise terms: 'Before long you shall have your turn. This is the freedom of that assembly in which one declared his vote under a dagger pointed at him."'] [Footnote 31136: In reading this all socialist and communists and other potential manipulators of democracy would have taken and will continue to take note. Once the hidden combination can manage to invest all the different, in theory opponent, parties with their own men, an eternal control by a hidden mafia can now take place. (SR).] [Footnote 31137: Such procedures set a precedence for 200 years of 'guided democracy' in many trade unions and elsewhere. (SR).] CHAPTER II. THE DEPARTMENTS.--THE EPEDEMIC AND CONTAGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY DISEASE. In the departments, it is by hundreds that we enumerate days like the 20th of June, August 10, September 2. The body has its epidemic, its contagious diseases; the mind has the same; the revolutionary malady is one of them. It appears throughout the country at the same time; each infected point infects others. In each city, in each borough, the club is a Center of inflammation which disorganizes the sound parts; and the example of each disorganized Center spreads afar like contagious fumes.[3201] Everywhere the same fever, delirium, and convulsions mark the presence of the same virus. That virus is the Jacobin dogma. By virtue of the Jacobin dogma, theft, usurpation, murder, take on the guise of political philosophy, and the gravest crimes against persons, against public or private property, become legitimate; for they are the acts of the legitimate supreme power, the power that has the public welfare in its keeping. I. The Sovereignty of the People. Its principle is the Jacobin dogma of the sovereignty of the people.----The new right is officially proclaimed.--Public statement of the new régime.--Its object, its opponents, its methods.--Its extension from Paris to the provinces.