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[ Dufort de Cheverney, "Mémoires." (Before the Revolution he enjoyed an income of fifty thousand livres, of which only five thousand remain.) "Madame Amelot likewise reduced, rents her mansion for a living. Through the same delicacy as our own she did not avail herself of the facility offered to her of indemnifying her creditors with assignats." "Another lady, likewise ruined, seeks a place in some country house in order that herself and son may live."—"Statistique de la Moselle," by Colchen, préfet, year VI. "A great many people with incomes have perished through want and through payment of interest in paper-money and the reduction of Treasury bonds."—Dufort de Cheverney, Ibid., March, 1799. "The former noblesse and even citizens who are at all well-off need not depend on any amelioration.... They must expect a complete rescission of bodies and goods.... Pecuniary resources are diminishing more and more.... Impositions are starving the country."—Mallet-Dupan, "Mercure Britannique," January 25, 1799. "Thousands of invalids with wooden legs garrison the houses of the tax-payers who do not pay according to the humor of the collectors. The proportion of impositions as now laid in relation to those of the ancient regime in the towns generally is as 88 to 32.">[
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[ De Tocqueville, "oeuvres complètes," V., 65. (Extracts from secret reports on the state of the Republic, September 26, 1799.)]
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[ Decree of Messidor 24, year VI.]
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[ De Barante, "Histoire du Directoire," III., 456.]
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[ A. Sorel, "Revue Historique," No.1, for March and May, 1882. "Les Frontières Constitutionelles en 1795." The treaties concluded in 1795 with Tuscany, Prussia and Spain show that peace was easy and that the recognition of the Republic was effected even before the Republican government was organized..... that France, whether monarchical or republican, had a certain limit which French power was not to overstep, because this was not in proportion to the real strength of France, nor with the distribution of force among the other European governments. On this capital point the convention erred; it erred knowingly, through a long-meditated calculation, which calculation, however, was false. and France paid dearly for its consequences."—Mallet-Dupan, II., 288, Aug. 23, 1795. "The monarchists and many of the deputies in the Convention sacrificed all the conquests to hasten on and obtain peace. But the fanatical Girondists and Siéyès' committee persisted in the tension system. They were governed by three motives: 1, the design of extending their doctrine along with their territory; 2, the desire of successively federalizing the States of Europe with the French Republic; and 3, that of prolonging a partial war which also prolongs extraordinary powers and revolutionary resources."—Carnot, "Mémoires," I., 476. (Report to the Committee of Public Safety, Messidor 28, year II.) "It seems much wiser to restrict our plans of aggrandizement to what is purely necessary in order to obtain the maximum security of our country."—Ibid., II., 132, 134 and 136. (Letters to Bonaparte, Oct. 28, 1796, and Jan. 1, 1797.) "It would be imprudent to fan the revolutionary flame in Italy too strongly.... They desired to have you work out the Revolution in Piedmont, Milan, Rome and Naples; I thought it better to treat with these countries, draw subsidies from them, and make use of their own organization to keep them under control.">[