As revolutionarily as the democrats had agitated and stormed during the constitutional struggles, so constitutionally did they, now, when it was imperative to attest, arms in hand, the earnestness of their late electoral victories, preach order, “majestic calmness,” lawful conduct, i. e., blind submission to the will of the counter-revolution, which revealed itself as law.
During the debate, the Mountain put the party of Order to shame by maintaining the passionless attitude of the law-abiding burger, who upholds the principle of law against revolutionary passions; and by twitting the party of Order with the fearful reproach of proceeding in a revolutionary manner.
Even the newly elected deputies took pains to prove by their decent and thoughtful deportment what an act of misjudgment it was to decry them as anarchists, or explain their election as a victory of the revolution.
The new election law was passed on May 31.
The Mountain contented itself with smuggling a protest into the pockets of the President of the Assembly.
To the election law followed a new press law, whereby the revolutionary press was completely done away with.
It had deserved its fate.
The “National” and the “Presse,” two bourgeois organs, remained after this deluge the extreme outposts of the revolution.