de-pi?t?
at Milan, Bologna, Ravenna, Modena, Venice and Rome, 56 millions;
* furniture and works of art at Milan and in other towns, 5 millions;
* furniture and works of art in the Venetian towns and palaces of
Brenta, 6, 500,000;
* the spoils of Rome sacked, as formerly by the mercenaries of the Duc
de Bourbon, collections of antiques, pictures, bronzes, statues, the
treasures of the Vatican and of palaces, jewels, even the pastoral
ring of the Pope, which the Directorial commissary himself wrests from
the Pope's finger, 43 millions,
and all this without counting analogous articles, and especially
direct assessments levied on this or that individual as rich or a
proprietor,[124] veritable ransoms, similar to those demanded by the
bandits of Calabria and Greece, extorted from any traveler they
surprise on the highway. -
Naturally operations of this kind cannot be carried on without
instruments of constraint; the Parisian manipulators must have
military automatons, "saber hilts " in sufficient numbers. Now,
through constant slashing, a good many hilts break, and the broken
ones must be replaced; in October, 1798, 200,000new ones are required,
while the young men drafted for the purpose fail to answer the summons
and fly, and even resist with arms, especially in Belgium,[125] by
maintaining a revolt for many months, with this motto: "Better die
here than elsewhere.
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