[235] Le Chateau des Tuileries, par Roussel, in Hist. Parl., vol. iv., p. 195.
[236] That hall has since been destroyed. It stood upon the place now occupied by the houses No. 36 and 38 Rue de Rivoli.
[237] Even the most zealous of the revolutionary journals denounced with unmeasured severity the murder of François. Loustalot exclaimed, "Des Français! des Français! non, non de tels monstres n'appartiennent à aucun pays; le crime est leur element, le gibet leur patrie."
[238] On the 15th of March, M. de Lamarck took to Mirabeau the overtures of the court, but found him very cool. When pressed by Lamarck, he said that the throne could only be restored by establishing it upon a basis of liberty; that, if the court wanted any thing else, he would oppose instead of serving it.—Michelet, p. 328.
[239] In attestation of the correctness of these remarks, see the statements of Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Alexander de Lameth.
[240] Michelet, vol. i., p. 290.
[241] In the army there was the same inequality. According to the budget for war in 1784, the officers received forty-six millions of francs, and the whole body of soldiers but forty-four. "It is true," says Michelet, "that, under Louis XVI., another pay was added, settled with the cudgel. This was to imitate the famous discipline of Prussia, and was supposed to contain the whole secret of the victories of Frederick the Great: man driven like a machine, and punished like a child." The soldiers under the Empire knew how to appreciate the change.
[242] "Every body was acquainted with the morals of the prelates and the ignorance of the inferior clergy. The curates possessed some virtues but no information. Wherever they ruled they were an obstacle to every improvement of the people, and caused them to retrograde. To quote but one example, Poitou, civilized in the sixteenth century, became barbarous under their influence; they were preparing for us the civil war of Vendée."—Michelet, p. 222.
[243] Some curious facts were elicited during the progress of this discussion respecting the manner in which a portion of the vast revenues of the Church had been obtained. The clergy of Condom promised the simple, kind-hearted peasants, in consideration for a large quantity of grain, that they would every year conduct two hundred and fifty souls from purgatory directly to Paradise. In some places a regular tariff of prices had been established for the pardon of crimes. Absolution for incest could be purchased for one dollar, arson required one dollar and a quarter, parricide one dollar, and absolution could be obtained for all sins united for about sixteen dollars. These prices seem very moderate. But it must be remembered that the peasants were excessively poor, and could not, even to escape from purgatory, pay large sums.—Villiaumé, p. 52.
[244] Histoire des Montagnards, par Alphonse Esquiros, p. 25.