He has been habituated to commissions; and he is as well qualified as
Santerre for this. Nero wished the Roman people had but one neck. The
wish of the more exalted Tallien, when he sat in judgment, was, that his
sovereign had eighty-three heads, that he might send one to every one of
the departments. Tallien will make an excellent figure at Guildhall at
the next sheriff's feast. He may open the ball with my Lady Mayoress.
But this will be after he has retired from the public table, and gone
into the private room for the enjoyment of more social and unreserved
conversation with the ministers of state and the judges of the bench.
There these ministers and magistrates will hear him entertain the worthy
aldermen with an instructing and pleasing narrative of the manner in
which he made the rich citizens of Bordeaux squeak, and gently led them
by the public credit of the guillotine to disgorge their
anti-revolutionary pelf.
All this will be the display, and the town-talk, when our regicide is on
a visit of ceremony. At home nothing will equal the pomp and splendour
of the Hotel de la Republique. There another scene of gaudy grandeur
will be opened. When his citizen excellency keeps the festival, which
every citizen is ordered to observe, for the glorious execution of Louis
the Sixteenth, and renews his oath of detestation of kings, a grand
ball, of course, will be given on the occasion.
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