At Blois, for this kind of
expenditure, Guimberteau discharges his obligations by drafts on the
proceeds of the revolutionary tax.[142] Carrier, at Nantes,
appropriates to himself the house and garden of a private person for
"his seraglio"; the reader may judge whether, on desiring to be a
third party in the household, the husband would make objections. At
other times, in the hotel Henry IV., "with his friends and prostitutes
brought under requisition, he has an orgy;" he allows himself the same
indulgence on the galiot during the drownings; there at the end of a
drunken frolic, he is regaled with merry songs, for example, "la
gamelle":[143] he needs his amusements.
Some, who are shrewd, think of the more substantial and look out for
the future. Foremost among these is Tallien, the king of robbers, but
prodigal, whose pockets, full of holes, are only filled to be at once
emptied; Javogues, who makes the most of Montbrison; Rov?re, who, for
eighty thousand francs in assignats, has an estate adjudged to him
worth five hundred thousand francs in coin; Fouch?, who, in Ni?vre,
begins to amass the twelve or fourteen millions which he secures later
on;[144] and so many others, who were either ruined or impoverished
previous to the outbreak of the Revolution, and who are rich when it
ends: Barras with his domain of Gros Bois; Andr? Dumont, with the
Hotel de Plouy, its magnificent furniture, and an estate worth four
hundred thousand livres; Merlin de Thionville, with his country-
houses, equipages, and domain of Mont-Val?rien, and other domains;
Salicetti, Reubell, Rousselin, Chateauneuf-Randon, and the rest of the
gluttonous and corrupted members of the Directory.
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