The things we do!

And the more as, amid
the municipal officers of the towns, three-quarters of them,
prosecutors or lawyers, are imbued with the new dogmas, and are
persuaded that in themselves alone, the directly elected of the
people, is vested all legitimate authority. Bewildered by their
recent elevation, distrustful as upstarts, in revolt against all
ancient or rival powers, they are additionally alarmed by their
imagination and ignorance, their minds being vaguely disturbed by
the contrast between their role in the past and their present role:
anxious on their own account, they find no security but in abuse and
use of power. The municipalities, on the strength of the reports
emanating from the coffee-houses, decide that the ministry are
traitors. With an obstinacy of conviction and a boldness of
presumption alike extraordinary, they believe that they have the
right to act without and against their orders, and against the
orders of the National Assembly itself, as if, in the now
disintegrated France, each municipality constituted the nation.


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