Two of the first acts of the Convention, very natural for it after this Thermidor, are to be specified here:  the first is renewal of the Governing Committees.  Both Surete Generale and Salut Public, thinned by the Guillotine, need filling up:  we naturally fill them up with Talliens, Frerons, victorious Thermidorian men.  Still more to the purpose, we appoint that they shall, as Law directs, not in name only but in deed, be renewed and changed from period to period; a fourth part of them going out monthly.  The Convention will no more lie under bondage of Committees, under terror of death; but be a free Convention; free to follow its own judgment, and the Force of Public Opinion.  Not less natural is it to enact that Prisoners and Persons under Accusation shall have right to demand some ‘Writ of Accusation,’ and see clearly what they are accused of.  Very natural acts:  the harbingers of hundreds not less so.

For now Fouquier’s trade, shackled by Writ of Accusation, and legal proof, is as good as gone; effectual only against Robespierre’s Tail.  The Prisons give up their Suspects; emit them faster and faster.  The Committees see themselves besieged with Prisoners’ friends; complain that they are hindered in their work:  it is as with men rushing out of a crowded place; and obstructing one another.  Turned are the tables:  Prisoners pouring out in floods; Jailors, Moutons and the Tail of Robespierre going now whither they were wont to send!—­The Hundred and thirty-two Nantese Republicans, whom we saw marching in irons, have arrived; shrunk to Ninety-four, the fifth man of them choked by the road.  They arrive:  and suddenly find themselves not pleaders for life, but denouncers to death.  Their Trial is for acquittal, and more.  As the voice of a trumpet, their testimony sounds far and wide, mere atrocities of a Reign of Terror.  For a space of nineteen days; with all solemnity and publicity.  Representative Carrier, Company of Marat; Noyadings, Loire Marriages, things done in darkness, come forth into light:  clear is the voice of these poor resuscitated Nantese; and Journals and Speech and universal Committee of Mercy reverberate it loud enough, into all ears and hearts.  Deputation arrives from Arras; denouncing the atrocities of Representative Lebon.  A tamed Convention loves its own life:  yet what help?  Representative Lebon, Representative Carrier must wend towards the Revolutionary Tribunal; struggle and delay as we will, the cry of a Nation pursues them louder and louder.  Them also Tinville must abolish;—­if indeed Tinville himself be not abolished.

We must note moreover the decrepit condition into which a once omnipotent Mother Society has fallen.  Legendre flung her keys on the Convention table, that Thermidor night; her President was guillotined with Robespierre.  The once mighty Mother came, some time after, with a subdued countenance, begging back her keys:  the keys were restored her; but the strength could not be restored her; the strength had departed forever.  Alas, one’s day is done.  Vain that the Tribune in mid air sounds as of old:  to the general ear it has become a horror, and even a weariness.  By and by, Affiliation is prohibited:  the mighty Mother sees herself suddenly childless; mourns, as so hoarse a Rachel may.