" - Incorrigible and contemptuous heretics
against the new creed, they are only too lucky to be treated somewhat
like infidel Jews in the middle-ages. Accordingly, if they are
tolerated, it is on the condition that they let themselves be pillaged
at discretion, covered with opprobrium and subdued through fear. - At
one time, with insulting irony, they are called upon to prove their
dubious civism by forced donations. "Whereas,"[114] says
Representative Milhaud, "all the citizens and citoyennes of Narbonne
being in requisition for the discharge and transport of forage;
whereas, this morning, the Representative, in person, having inspected
the performance of this duty," and having observed on the canal "none
but sans-culottes and a few young citizens; whereas, not finding at
their posts any muscadin and no muscadine; whereas, the persons, whose
hands are no doubt too delicate, even temporarily, for the glorious
work of robust sans-culottes, have, on the other hand, greater
resources in their fortune, and, desiring to afford to the rich of
Narbonne the precious advantage of being equally useful to the
republic," hereby orders that "the richest citizens of Narbonne pay
within twenty-four hours" a patriotic donation of one hundred thousand
livres, one-half to be assigned to the military hospitals, and the
other half, on the designation thereof by a "Committee of Charity,
composed of three reliable revolutionary sans-culottes," to be
distributed among the poor of the Commune.
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