[Footnote 2168: Ibid., XIX., 484. (Report by Barère, Ventôse 21, year II.)--Ibid., XX., 445. (Report by Barère, Floréal 22, year II.)--Decrees on public assistance, June 28, 1793, July 25, 1793, Frimaire 2, and Floréal 22, year II.)--this principle, moreover, was set forth in the Constitution of 1793. "Public help is a sacred obligation; society owes a subsistence to unfortunate citizens, whether by providing work for them, or by ensuring the means of existence to those who are not in a condition to work."--Archives Nationales, AF. II., 39. The character of this measure is very clearly expressed in the following circular of the Committee of Public Safety to its representatives on mission in the departments, Ventôse, year II. "A summary act was necessary to put the aristocracy down. The national Convention has struck the blow. Virtuous indigence had to recover the property which crime had encroached upon. The national Convention has proclaimed its rights. A general list of all prisoners should be sent to the Committee of General Security, charged with deciding on their fate. The Committee of Public Safety will receive the statement of the indigent in each commune so as to regulate what is due to them. Both these proceedings demand the utmost dispatch and should go together. It is necessary that terror and justice be brought to bear on all points at once. The Revolution is the work of the people and it is time they should have the benefit of it."] [Footnote 2169: Moniteur, XX., 449. (Report by Barère, Floréal 22, year II.)] [Footnote 2170: Decree of April 2-5, 1793.] [Footnote 2171: Moniteur, XVIII., 505. (Orders of Fouché and Collet d'Herbois, dated at Lyons and communicated to the commune of Paris, Frimaire 3, year II.)--De Martel, "Etude sur Fouché," 132. Orders of Fouché on his mission in the Nievre, Sept. 19, 1793. "There shall be established in each district town a Committee of Philanthropy, authorized to levy on the rich a tax proportionate to the number of the indigent."] [Footnote 2172: Decree of April 2-5, 1793. "There shall be organized in each large commune a guard of citizens selected from the least fortunate. These citizens shall be armed and paid at the expense of the Republic."] [Footnote 2173: Moniteur, XX., 449. (Report of Barère, Floréal 22, year II.)] [Footnote 2174: Ibid., XIX., 689. (Report by Saint-Just, Ventôse 23, year II.) "We spoke of happiness. It is not the happiness of Persepolis we have offered to you. It is that of Sparta or Athens in their best days, the happiness of virtue, that of comfort and moderation, the happiness which springs from the enjoyment of the necessary without the superfluous, the luxury of a cabin and of a field fertilized by your own hands. A cart, a thatched roof affording shelter from the frosts, a family safe from the lubricity of a robber--such is happiness!"] [Footnote 2175: Buchez et Roux, XXXI., 402. (Constitution of 1793.)]