threatened with death if they dare go back.[2238]--With such allies a minority is very strong. Thanks to its two agencies of constraint it will detach the votes it needs from the majority and, either through terror or craft, secure the passage of all the decrees it needs. VI.--Parliamentary maneuvers. Abuses of urgency.--Vote on the principle.--Call by name. --Intimidation of the "Center."--Opponents inactive.--The majority finally disposed of. Sometimes it succeeds surreptitiously by rushing them through. As "there is no order of the day circulated beforehand, and, in any event, none which anybody is obliged to adhere to,"[2239] the Assembly is captured by surprise. "The first knave amongst the 'Left,' (which expression, says Hua, I do not strike out, because there were many among those gentlemen), brought up a ready-made resolution, prepared the evening before by a clique. We were not prepared for it and demanded that it should be referred to a committee. Instead of doing this, however, the resolution was declared urgent, and, whether we would or not, discussion had to take place forthwith."[2240]--"There were other tactics equally perfidious, which Thuriot, especially, made use of. This great rascal got up and proposed, not the draft of a law, but what he called a principle; for instance, a decree should be passed confiscating the property of the émigrés,.. or that unsworn priests should be subject to special surveillance.[2241]... In reply, he was told that his principle was the core of a law, the very law itself; so let it be debated by referring it to a committee to make a report on it.--Not at all--the matter is urgent; a committee might fix the articles as it pleases; they are worthless if the principle is not common sense." Through this expeditious method discussion is stifled. The Jacobins purposely prevent the Assembly from giving the matter any consideration. They count on its bewilderment. In the name of reason, they discard reason as far as they can, and hasten a vote because their decrees do not stand up to analysis.--At other times, and especially on grand occasions, they compel a vote. In general, votes are given by the members either sitting down or standing up, and, for the four hundred deputies of the "Center," subject to the scolding of the exasperated galleries, it is a tolerably hard trial. "Part of them do not arise, or they rise with the 'Left'."[2242] If the "Right" happens to have a majority, "this is contested in bad faith and a call of the house is demanded." Now, "the calls of the house, through an intolerable abuse, are always published; the Jacobins declaring that it is well for the people to know their friends from their enemies." The meaning of this is that this list of the opposition will soon serve as a list of the outlaws, on which the timid are not disposed to inscribe themselves. The result is an immediate defection in the heavy battalions of the "Centre"; "this is