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.
To these may be added a few men of weak character, and unsteady
principles, who remain in office because they fear to resign; with a few,
and but very few, ignorant fanatics, who really imagine they are free
because they can molest and destroy with impunity all they have hitherto
been taught to respect, and drink treble the quantity they did formerly.
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