and yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which obtains in all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by so fast. a revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand revolutionary committees all over the land; a law of the suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing; these things became the established order and nature of appointed things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks old.