But he would have things to cease
_at length_. But when? and where?--When they may approach his own
person.
"_Yesterday_," says he, "the ministers _were denounced: vaguely_,
indeed, as to the _matter_, because subjects of reproach were wanting;
but with that warmth and force of assertion which strike the imagination
and seduce it for a moment, and which mislead and destroy confidence,
without which no man should remain in place in a free government.
_Yesterday, again_, in an assembly of the presidents of all the
sections, convoked by the ministers, with the view of conciliating all
minds, and of mutual explanation, I perceived _that distrust which
suspects, interrogates, and fetters operations_."
In this manner (that is, in mutual suspicions and interrogatories) this
virtuous Minister of the Home Department, and all the magistracy of
Paris, spent the first day of the massacre, the atrocity of which has
spread horror and alarm throughout Europe. It does not appear that the
putting a stop to the massacre had any part in the object of their
meeting, or in their consultations when they were met. Here was a
minister tremblingly alive to his own safety, dead to that of his
fellow-citizens, eager to preserve his place, and worse than indifferent
about its most important duties. Speaking of the people, he says "that
their hidden enemies may make use of this _agitation_" (the tender
appellation which he gives to horrid massacre) "to hurt _their best
friends and their most able defenders.
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