"On the Committee of March 20, "Paillasse, half drunk, gives a dissertation on the way to carry on the war, and interrogates and censures the Minister. The poor Minister evades his questions with café gossip and a review of campaigns. These are the men placed at the head of the government to save the Republic!"--"H...., in his distraction, had the air of a sly fox inwardly smiling at his own knavish thoughts. Ruit irrevocabile vulgus... Jusque Datum sceleri."--"Are you keeping silent?"--"Of what use is my glass of wine in this torrent of ardent spirits?"-- All this is very well, but he did not merely keep silent and abstain. He voted, legislated and decreed, along with the unanimous Convention; he was a collaborator, not only passively, through his presence, but also through his active participation in the acts of the government which he elected and enthroned, re-elected twelve times, cheered every week, and flattered daily, authorizing and keeping on to the end its work of spoliation and massacre. "Everybody is guilty here," said Carrier in the Convention, "even to the president's bell." In vain do they constantly repeat to themselves that they were forced to obey under penalty of death: the conscience of the purest among them, if he has any, replies: "You too, in spite of yourself, I admit; less than others, if you please, but you were a terrorist, that is to say, a brigand and an assassin."[3232] III. The Committee of Public Safety. The Men who do the work.--Carnot, Prieur de-la-Côte d'Or, Jean Bon Saint André, Robert Lindet. On a man becoming a slave, said old Homer, the Gods take away the half of his soul; the same is true of a man who becomes a tyrant.--In the Pavilion de Flore, alongside of and above the enslaved Convention, sit the twelve kings it has enthroned, twice a day,[3233] ruling over it as well as over France.[3234] Of course, some guarantee is required from those who fill this place; there is not one of them who is not a revolutionary of long standing, an impenitent regicide, a fanatic in essence and a despot through principle; but the fumes of omnipotence have not intoxicated them all to the same degree.--Three or four of them, Robert Lindet, Jean Bon St. André, Prieur de la Côte-d'Or and Carnot, confine themselves to useful and secondary duties; this suffices to keep them partially safe. As specialists, charged with an important service, their first object is to do this well, and hence they subordinate the rest to this, even theoretical exigencies and the outcries of the clubs. Lindet's prime object is to feed the departments that are without wheat, and the towns that are soon to be short of bread. Prieur's business is to see that biscuits, brandy, clothes, shoes, gunpowder and arms are manufactured.[3235] Jean Bon, that vessels are equipped and crews drilled.