If anything attests the super-natural power which the leaders of the Convention enjoy, it is to see, in one instant, through one act of the will and nobody offering any resistance, or complaining of it, the nation from Perpignan to Lille, deprived of every means of defense against oppression, with a facility still more unprecedented than that which attended the universal arming of the nation in 1789."-- "A Residence in France," II., 409.

"The National Guard as a regular institution was in great part suppressed after the summer of 1793, those who composed it being gradually disarmed.

Guard-mounting was continued, but the citizens performing this service were, with very few exceptions, armed with pikes, and these again were not fully entrusted to them; each man, on quitting his post, gave up his arms more punctually than if he had been bound to do so through capitulation with a victorious enemy."] [Footnote 11116: Moniteur, XVIII., 106.

(Report by Saint-Just, Oct.
10th).] [Footnote 11117: Ibid., 473.

(Report of Billaud-Varennes, Nov.