"[106] It is, undoubtedly, when coming out
from one of these orgies that they proceed, sword in hand, to the
popular club,[107] vote and force others to vote "death to all
prisoners confined in the Seminary to the number of seven hundred, of
every age and of both sexes, without any preliminary trial." For a man
to become a good cut-throat, he must first get intoxicated;[108] such
was the course pursued in Paris by those who did the work in
September: the revolutionary government being an organized, prolonged
and permanent Septembrisade, most of its agents are obliged to drink
hard.[109] - For the same reasons when the opportunity, as well as the
temptation, to steal, presents itself, they steal. - At first, during
six months, and up to the decree assigning them pay, the revolutionary
committees "take their pay themselves;"[110] they then add to their
legal salary of three and five francs a day about what they please:
for it is they who assess the extraordinary taxes, and often, as at
Montbrison, "without making any list or record of collections." On
Frimaire 16, year II., the financial committee reports that "the
collection and application of extraordinary taxes is unknown to the
government; that it was impossible to supervise them, the National
treasury having received no sums whatever arising from these
taxes.
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