CHAPTER IX.

THE JACOBINS IN POWER 208-235

The Constitution of '93.--Conflict between Jacobin theory and Jacobin practice.--The Constitution suspended.--Intimidation of the Convention.--Services of its Committees to the cause of reform.--The Revolutionary Government in Paris and in the provinces.--The Committee of Public Safety.--Its members, its divisions and its heroic work.--The Representatives on Mission.--Varied character of their rule.--Their violence and excesses.--Principles of the Terrorists.--Influence of the Parisian Commune.--Supremacy of the State enforced in every relation of life.--The State, in return for implicit obedience, undertakes to provide for all its subjects.--Its methods of doing this.--Attempts to fix prices.--The Maximum ruthlessly enforced.--Ruin resulting from these arbitrary measures in industry and trade.--General scarcity of food.--The State regulates private conduct and family life.--Abolition of the Christian faith and of the Christian era.--Moral results.--The idealists of the Terror.--Its practical agents.--Hébert and his party.--License and cruelty of many leading Terrorists.--General worthlessness of their subordinates.--Blindness and self-delusion of the best among them.--Entire failure of the Terrorist ideal.