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Rapport de Courtois sur les Papiers de Robespierre.
** Besides those who, being really noble, were anxious to procure
certificates of sans-cullotism, many who had assumed such honours
without pretensions now relinquished them, except indeed some few,
whose vanity even surmounted their fears. But an express law
included all these seceders in the general proscription; alledging,
with a candour not usual, that those who assumed rank were, in fact,
more criminal than such as were guilty of being born to it.
--Places and employments, which are in most countries the objects of
intrigue and ambition, are here refused or relinquished with such
perfect sincerity, that a decree became requisite to oblige every
one, under pain of durance, to preserve the station to which his ill
stars, mistaken politics, or affectation of patriotism, had called
him. Were it not for this law, such is the dreadful responsibility
and danger attending offices under the government, that even low and
ignorant people, who have got possession of them merely for support,
would prefer their original poverty to emoluments which are
perpetually liable to the commutation of the guillotine.--Some
members of a neighbouring district told me to-day, when I asked them
if they came to release any of our fellow-prisoners, that so far
from it, they had not only brought more, but were not certain twelve
hours together of not being brought themselves.
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