"Patriots are driven away be the patrol." Mayor Bailly, "who keeps
liveried servants, who gives himself a salary of 110,000 livres," who
distributes captains' commissions, who forces peddlers to wear
metallic badges, and who compels newspapers to have signatures to
their articles is not only a tyrant, but a crook, thief and "guilty of
lése-nation." -- Worse are the abuses of the National Assembly. To
swear fidelity to the constitution, as this body has just done, to
impose its work on us, forcing us to take a similar oath, disregarding
our superior rights to veto or ratify their decisions,[5] is to
"slight and scorn our sovereignty". By substituting the will of 1200
individuals for that of the people, "our representatives have failed
to treat us with respect." This is not the first time, and it is not
to be the last. Often do they exceed their mandate, they disarm,
mutilate, and gag their legitimate sovereign and they pass decrees
against the people in the people's name. Such is their martial law,
specially devised for "suppressing the uprising of citizens", that is
to say, the only means left to us against conspirators, monopolists,
and traitors. Such a decree against publishing any kind of joint
placard or petition, is a decree "null and void," and "constitutes a
most flagrant attack on the nation's rights."[6] Especially is the
electoral law one of these, a law which, requiring a small
qualification tax for electors and a larger one for those who are
eligible, "consecrates the aristocracy of wealth." The poor, who are
excluded by the decree, must regard it as invalid; register themselves
as they please and vote without scruple, because natural law has
precedence over written law. It would simply be "fair reprisal" if, at
the end of the session, the millions of citizens lately deprived of
their vote unjustly, should seize the usurping majority by the threat
and tell them: