During the last six months of Terror, but two out of the one hundred and sixty boarders of the "Bonnet Rouge" Committee are withdrawn from the establishment and handed over to the guillotine.

It is only on the 7th and 8th of Thermidor that the Committee of Public Safety, having undertaken to empty the prisons, breaks in upon the precious herd and disturbs the well-laid scheme, so admirably managed .-- It was only too well managed, for it excited jealousy; three months after Thermidor, the "Bonnet Rouge" committee is denounced and condemned; ten are sentenced to twenty years in irons, with the pillory in addition, and, among others, the clever notary,[3354] amidst the jeering and insults of the crowd .-- And yet these are not the worst; their cupidity had mollified their ferocity.
Others, less adroit in robbing, show greater cruelty in murdering.

In any event, in the provinces as well as in Paris, in the revolutionary committees paid three francs a day for each member, the quality of one or the other of the officials is about the same.

According to the pay-lists which Barere keeps, there are twenty-one thousand five hundred of these committees in France.[3355] IV.

Provincial Administration.
The administrative staff in the provinces .-- Jacobinism less in the departmental towns than in Paris .-- Less in the country than in the towns .-- The Revolutionary Committees in the small communes .-- Municipal bodies lukewarm in the villages .-- Jacobins too numerous in bourgs and small towns.
-- Unreliable or hampered as agents when belonging to the administrative bodies of large or moderate-sized towns.
-- Deficiency of locally recruited staff.
Had the laws of March 21 and September 5, 1793, been strictly enforced, there would, instead of 21,500 have been 45,000 of these revolutionary committees.