The second stage of the Jacobin conquest will,[3301] after August 10th
and during the next three months, extend and multiply all vacancies from
the top to the bottom of the hierarchy, for the purpose of filling
them with their own men.--In the first place, the faction (the party)
installs representatives on the summits of public authority which
represent itself alone, seven hundred and forty-nine omnipotent
deputies, in a Convention which, curbed neither by collateral powers nor
by a previously established constitution, disposes at pleasure of the
property, the lives and the consciences of all French people.--Then,
through this barely installed convention, it decrees the complete
renewal[3302] of all administrative and judicial bodies, councils and
directories of departments, councils and communal municipalities, civil,
criminal and commercial tribunals, justices and their assistants in the
lower courts, deputies of the justices, national commissaries of the
civil courts, with secretaries and bailiffs belonging to the various
tribunals and administrations.[3303] The obligation of having practiced
as a lawyer is abolished by the same stroke, so that the first comer, if
he belongs to the club (party) may become a judge without knowing how to
write, and even without being able to read.[3304]--Just before this the
staff of the National Guard, in all towns above fifty thousand souls,
and afterwards in all the towns on the frontier, has again passed
through the electoral sieve.[3305] In like manner, the officers of the
gendarmerie at Paris and throughout France once more undergo an election
by their men. Finally, all post-masters and post-office comptrollers
have to submit to election.--Even better, below or alongside the
elected officials, this administrative purge concerns all non-elective
functionaries and employees, no matter how insignificant their service,
however feeble and indirect their office may be connected with political
matters. This is because tax receivers and assessors, directors and
other agents of rivers and forests, engineers, notaries, attorneys,
clerks and scribes belonging to the administrative branch, are all
subject to dismissal if they do not obtain a certificate of civism from
their municipality. At Troyes, out of fifteen notaries, it is refused
to four,[3306] which leaves four places to be filled by their Jacobin
clerks. At Paris,[3307] "all honest folks, all clerks who are educated,"
are driven out of the navy offices; the war department is getting to be
"a den where everybody on duty wears a red cap, where all thee-and-thou
each other, even the Minister, where four hundred employees, among
which are a number of women, show off in the dirtiest dress, affect
the coolest cynicism, do nothing, and steal on all sides."--Under the
denunciation of the clubs, the broom is applied even at the bottom of
the hierarchical scale, even to secretaries of village councils, to
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