Each committee was to draw up a list of the suspects in its district, secure their papers, and put them in a house of detention—or, that failing, guard them in their homes. No committee, however, was to act unless seven of its members were present (thus were petty personal rancors to be avoided), and each committee was to furnish the Committee of General Security with a list of persons arrested, a statement of the reasons for arrest, and the documents seized on the suspected premises. Thus the local committees became branches of the central government.
