Very notable also is the Tribunal Extraordinaire:  (Moniteur, No. 70, (du 11 Mars), No. 76, &c.) decreed by the Mountain; some Girondins dissenting, for surely such a Court contradicts every formula;—­other Girondins assenting, nay co-operating, for do not we all hate Traitors, O ye people of Paris?—­Tribunal of the Seventeenth in Autumn last was swift; but this shall be swifter.  Five Judges; a standing Jury, which is named from Paris and the Neighbourhood, that there be not delay in naming it:  they are subject to no Appeal; to hardly any Law-forms, but must ‘get themselves convinced’ in all readiest ways; and for security are bound ‘to vote audibly;’ audibly, in the hearing of a Paris Public.  This is the Tribunal Extraordinaire; which, in few months, getting into most lively action, shall be entitled Tribunal Revolutionnaire, as indeed it from the very first has entitled itself:  with a Herman or a Dumas for Judge President, with a Fouquier-Tinville for Attorney-General, and a Jury of such as Citizen Leroi, who has surnamed himself Dix-Aout, ‘Leroi August-Tenth,’ it will become the wonder of the world.  Herein has Sansculottism fashioned for itself a Sword of Sharpness:  a weapon magical; tempered in the Stygian hell-waters; to the edge of it all armour, and defence of strength or of cunning shall be soft; it shall mow down Lives and Brazen-gates; and the waving of it shed terror through the souls of men.

But speaking of an amorphous Sansculottism taking form, ought we not above all things to specify how the Amorphous gets itself a Head?  Without metaphor, this Revolution Government continues hitherto in a very anarchic state.  Executive Council of Ministers, Six in number, there is; but they, especially since Roland’s retreat, have hardly known whether they were Ministers or not.  Convention Committees sit supreme over them; but then each Committee as supreme as the others:  Committee of Twenty-one, of Defence, of General Surety; simultaneous or successive, for specific purposes.  The Convention alone is all-powerful,—­especially if the Commune go with it; but is too numerous for an administrative body.  Wherefore, in this perilous quick-whirling condition of the Republic, before the end of March, we obtain our small Comite de Salut Public; (Moniteur, No. 83 (du 24 Mars 1793) Nos. 86, 98, 99, 100.) as it were, for miscellaneous accidental purposes, requiring despatch;—­as it proves, for a sort of universal supervision, and universal subjection.  They are to report weekly, these new Committee-men; but to deliberate in secret.  Their number is Nine, firm Patriots all, Danton one of them:  Renewable every month;—­yet why not reelect them if they turn out well?  The flower of the matter is that they are but nine; that they sit in secret.  An insignificant-looking thing at first, this Committee; but with a principle of growth in it!  Forwarded by fortune, by internal Jacobin energy, it will reduce all Committees and the Convention itself to mute obedience, the Six Ministers to Six assiduous Clerks; and work its will on the Earth and under Heaven, for a season.  ‘A Committee of Public Salvation,’ whereat the world still shrieks and shudders.