All these patriots by prescription and system have likewise a peculiar and appropriated dialect—they address every one by the title of Citizen, thee and thou indistinctly, and talk of nothing but the agents of Pitt and Cobourg, the coalesced tyrants, royal ogres, satellites of the despots, automaton slaves, and anthropophagi; and if they revert to their own prosperous state, and this very happy country, it is, un peuple libre, en peuple heureux, and par excellence la terre de la liberte. ["A free people—a happy people—and, above all others, the land of liberty.">[—It is to be observed, that those with whom these pompous expressions are most familiar, are officers employed in the war-like service of mutilating the wooden saints in churches, and arresting old women whom they encounter without national cockades; or members of the municipalities, now reduced to execute the offices of constables, and whose chief functions are to hunt out suspected people, or make domiciliary visits in quest of concealed eggs and butter. But, above all, this democratic oratory is used by tailors, shoemakers, &c.* of the Committees of Inspection, to whom the Representatives on mission have delegated their unlimited powers, who arrest much on the principle of Jack Cade, and with whom it is a crime to read and write, or to appear decently dressed.
* For some months the departments were infested by people of this description—corrupt, ignorant, and insolent. Their motives of arrest were usually the hope of plunder, or the desire of distressing those whom they had been used to look upon as their superiors.—At Arras it sufficed even to have disobliged the wives of these miscreants to become the object of persecution. In some places they arrested with the most barbarous caprice, even without the shadow of a reason. At Hesden, a small town in Artois, Dumont left the Mayor carte blanche, and in one night two hundred people were thrown into prison. Every where these low and obscure dominators reigned without controul, and so much were the people intimidated, that instead of daring to complain, they treated their new tyrants with the most servile adulation.—I have seen a ci-devant Comtesse coquetting with all her might a Jacobin tailor, and the richest merchants of a town soliciting very humbly the good offices of a dealer in old clothes.
* For some months the departments were infested by people of this description—corrupt, ignorant, and insolent. Their motives of arrest were usually the hope of plunder, or the desire of distressing those whom they had been used to look upon as their superiors.—At Arras it sufficed even to have disobliged the wives of these miscreants to become the object of persecution. In some places they arrested with the most barbarous caprice, even without the shadow of a reason. At Hesden, a small town in Artois, Dumont left the Mayor carte blanche, and in one night two hundred people were thrown into prison. Every where these low and obscure dominators reigned without controul, and so much were the people intimidated, that instead of daring to complain, they treated their new tyrants with the most servile adulation.—I have seen a ci-devant Comtesse coquetting with all her might a Jacobin tailor, and the richest merchants of a town soliciting very humbly the good offices of a dealer in old clothes.
* For some months the departments were infested by people of this description—corrupt, ignorant, and insolent. Their motives of arrest were usually the hope of plunder, or the desire of distressing those whom they had been used to look upon as their superiors.—At Arras it sufficed even to have disobliged the wives of these miscreants to become the object of persecution. In some places they arrested with the most barbarous caprice, even without the shadow of a reason. At Hesden, a small town in Artois, Dumont left the Mayor carte blanche, and in one night two hundred people were thrown into prison. Every where these low and obscure dominators reigned without controul, and so much were the people intimidated, that instead of daring to complain, they treated their new tyrants with the most servile adulation.—I have seen a ci-devant Comtesse coquetting with all her might a Jacobin tailor, and the richest merchants of a town soliciting very humbly the good offices of a dealer in old clothes.
* For some months the departments were infested by people of this description—corrupt, ignorant, and insolent. Their motives of arrest were usually the hope of plunder, or the desire of distressing those whom they had been used to look upon as their superiors.—At Arras it sufficed even to have disobliged the wives of these miscreants to become the object of persecution. In some places they arrested with the most barbarous caprice, even without the shadow of a reason. At Hesden, a small town in Artois, Dumont left the Mayor carte blanche, and in one night two hundred people were thrown into prison. Every where these low and obscure dominators reigned without controul, and so much were the people intimidated, that instead of daring to complain, they treated their new tyrants with the most servile adulation.—I have seen a ci-devant Comtesse coquetting with all her might a Jacobin tailor, and the richest merchants of a town soliciting very humbly the good offices of a dealer in old clothes.
* For some months the departments were infested by people of this description—corrupt, ignorant, and insolent. Their motives of arrest were usually the hope of plunder, or the desire of distressing those whom they had been used to look upon as their superiors.—At Arras it sufficed even to have disobliged the wives of these miscreants to become the object of persecution. In some places they arrested with the most barbarous caprice, even without the shadow of a reason. At Hesden, a small town in Artois, Dumont left the Mayor carte blanche, and in one night two hundred people were thrown into prison. Every where these low and obscure dominators reigned without controul, and so much were the people intimidated, that instead of daring to complain, they treated their new tyrants with the most servile adulation.—I have seen a ci-devant Comtesse coquetting with all her might a Jacobin tailor, and the richest merchants of a town soliciting very humbly the good offices of a dealer in old clothes.
These ridiculous accoutrements, and this magnificent phraseology, are in themselves very harmless; but the ascendancy which such a class of people are taking has become a subject of just alarm.—The whole administration of the country is now in the hands of uninformed and necessitous profligates, swindlers, men already condemned by the laws, and who, if the revolution had not given them "place and office," would have been at the galleys, or in prison.*
* One of the administrators of the department de la Somme (which, however, was more decently composed than many others,) was, before the revolution, convicted of house-breaking, and another of forgery; and it has since been proved on various occasions, particularly on the trial of the ninety-four Nantais, that the revolutionary Committees were, for the most part, composed of the very refuse of society—adventurers, thieves, and even assassins; and it would be difficult to imagine a crime that did not there find reward and protection.—In vain were the privileges of the nobility abolished, and religion proscribed. A new privileged order arose in the Jacobins, and guilt of every kind, without the semblance of penitence, found an asylum in these Committees, and an inviolability more sacred than that afforded by the demolished altars.
* One of the administrators of the department de la Somme (which, however, was more decently composed than many others,) was, before the revolution, convicted of house-breaking, and another of forgery; and it has since been proved on various occasions, particularly on the trial of the ninety-four Nantais, that the revolutionary Committees were, for the most part, composed of the very refuse of society—adventurers, thieves, and even assassins; and it would be difficult to imagine a crime that did not there find reward and protection.—In vain were the privileges of the nobility abolished, and religion proscribed. A new privileged order arose in the Jacobins, and guilt of every kind, without the semblance of penitence, found an asylum in these Committees, and an inviolability more sacred than that afforded by the demolished altars.
* One of the administrators of the department de la Somme (which, however, was more decently composed than many others,) was, before the revolution, convicted of house-breaking, and another of forgery; and it has since been proved on various occasions, particularly on the trial of the ninety-four Nantais, that the revolutionary Committees were, for the most part, composed of the very refuse of society—adventurers, thieves, and even assassins; and it would be difficult to imagine a crime that did not there find reward and protection.—In vain were the privileges of the nobility abolished, and religion proscribed. A new privileged order arose in the Jacobins, and guilt of every kind, without the semblance of penitence, found an asylum in these Committees, and an inviolability more sacred than that afforded by the demolished altars.