And let there be no delay in
responding to these orders within the prescribed time! Otherwise the
delinquents will be placed in the stocks, on the scaffold, face to
face with the guillotine. "One of the best citizens in the commune,
who had steadily manifested his attachment to the Revolution, being
unable to realize a sum of 250,000 livres in one day, was fastened in
the pillory."[128] Sometimes the orders affected an entire class, not
alone nobles or priests, but all the members of any bourgeois
profession or even of any handicraft. At Strasbourg, a little later,
"considering that the thirst for gold has always controlled the
brewers of the commune," they are condemned to 250,000 livres fine, to
be paid in three days under penalty of being declared rebels, with the
confiscation of their possessions;" then, upon another similar
consideration, the bakers and flour dealers are taxed three hundred
thousand livres.[129] In addition to this, writes Representative
Milhaud, at Guyardin,[130] "We have ordered the arrest of all bankers,
stock-brokers and notaries. . . . All their wealth is confiscated;
we estimate the sums under seal at 2 or 3 millions in coin, and 15 or
16 in assignats.
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