" - Free living and
"extravagant expenditure" were common even "among the employees of the
government." "I encountered," says Meissner, "government carters
served with chickens, pastry and game, whilst at the traveler's table
there was simply an old leg of mutton and a few poor side-dishes."
("Voyage en France," toward the end of 1795, p.371.)
[109] Some of them, nevertheless, are not ugly, but merely sots. The
following is a specimen. A certain Velu, a born vagabond, formerly in
the alms-house and brought up there, then a shoemaker or a cobbler,
afterwards teaching school in the faubourg de Vienne, and at last a
haranguer and proposer of tyrannicide motions, short, stout and as
rubicund as his cap, is made President of the Popular club at Blois,
then delegate for domiciliary visits, and, throughout the reign of
Terror, he is a principal personage in the town, district and
department. (Dufort de Cheverney, "M?moires," (MS.) March 21, 1793
and June, 1793.) In June, 1793, this Velu is ordered to visit the
chateau de Cheverney, to verify the surrender of all feudal documents.
He arrives unexpectedly, meets the steward, Bambinet, enters the
mayor's house, who keeps an inn, and drinks copiously, which gives
Bambinet time to warn M.
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