The result
is that the honest, to whom serving with men regarded by them with
aversion is repugnant, employ substitutes instead of mounting guard
themselves, the security of the town being in the hands of those who
themselves ought to be watched."
[140] Archives Nationales, F.7, 3273. (Letter of M?rard, former
administrator and judge in 1790 and 1791, in years III., IV. and V.,
to the Minister, Apt, Pluvi?se 15, year III., with personal references
and documentary evidence.) "I can no longer refrain at the sight of so
many horrors . . . . The justices of the peace and the director of
the jury excuse themselves on the ground that no denunciations or
witnesses are brought forward. Who would dare appear against men
arrogating to themselves the title of superior patriots, foremost in
every revolutionary crisis, and with friends in every commune and
protectors in all high places? The favor they enjoyed was such that
the commune of Gordes was free of any levy of conscripts and from all
requisitions. People thus disposed, they said, to second civic and
administrative views, could not be humored too much. . . . . This
discouraging state of things simply results from the weakness,
inexperience, ignorance, apathy and immorality of the public
functionaries who, since the 18th of Fructidor, year V.
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