Just in proportion as the authority of
a State becomes weakened, and in proportion as security diminishes,
the distribution of subsistence becomes more and more difficult: a
gendarmerie, therefore, is an indispensable wheel in the machine by
which we are able to secure our daily bread. Hence it is that, in
1791, daily bread is wanting to a large number of men. Simply
through the working of the Constitution, all restraints, already
slackened both at the extremities and at the center, are becoming
looser and more loose each day. The municipalities, which are
really sovereign, repress the people more feebly, some because the
latter are the bolder and themselves more timid, and others because
they are more radical and always consider them in the right. The
National Guard is wearied, never comes forward, or refuses to use
its arms. The active citizens are disgusted, and remain at home.
At ?tampes,[17] where they are convoked by the commissioners of the
department to take steps to re-establish some kind of order, only
twenty assemble; the others excuse themselves by saying that, if the
populace knew that they opposed its will, "their houses would be
burnt," and they accordingly stay away.
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