.
. . tacking on a bit of field or rabbit-warren belonging to the
former count or marquis?" Why not take a portion of his furniture, any
of his beds or clothes-presses - - It is not surprising that, after
this, the slip of paper which protects sequestrated furniture and
confiscated merchandise should be ripped off by gross and greedy
hands! When, after Thermidor, the master returns to his own roof it is
generally to an empty house; in this or that habitation in the
Morvan,[127] the removal of the furniture is so complete that a bin
turned upside down serves for a table and chairs, when the family sit
down to their first meal.
In the towns the embezzlements are often more brazenly carried out
than in the country. At Valenciennes, the Jacobin chiefs of the
municipality are known under the title of "seal-breakers and patriotic
robbers."[128] At Lyons, the Maratists, who dub themselves "the
friends of Chalier," are, according to the Jacobins' own admission,
"brigands, thieves and rascals."[129] They compose, to the number of
three or four hundred, the thirty-two revolutionary committees; one
hundred and fifty of leaders, "all of them administrators," form the
popular club; in this town of one hundred and twenty thousand souls
they number, as they themselves state, three thousand, and they firmly
rely on "sharing with each other the wealth of Lyons.
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