Into whose hands could the property of anti-revolutionists better fall than into those of patriots?
According to Marat, the martyr apostle and canonised saint of the Revolution, what is the object of the Revolution but to give to the lowly the fortunes of the great ?[33141] In all national sales everywhere, in guarding sequestrations, in all revolutionary ransoms, taxes, loans and seizures, the same excellent argument prevails; nowhere, in printed documents or in manuscripts, do I find any revolutionary committee which is at once terrorist and honest.

Only, it is rare to find specific and individual details regarding all the members of the same committee .-- Here, however, is one case, where, owing to the lucky accident of an examination given in detail, one can observe in one nest, every variety of the species and of its appetites, the dozen or fifteen types of the Jacobin hornet, each abstracting what suits him from whatever he lights on, each indulging in his favorite sort of rapine .-- At Nantes, "Pinard, the great purveyor of the Committee,[33142] orders everything that each member needs for his daily use to be carried to his house."-- "Gallou takes oil and brandy," and especially "several barrels from citizen Bissonneau's house."-- "Durassier makes domiciliary visits and exacts contributions;" among others "he compels citizen Lemoine to pay twenty-five hundred livres, to save him from imprisonment."-- "Naud affixes and removes seals in the houses of the incarcerated, makes nocturnal visits to the dwellings of the accused and takes what suits him."-- "Grandmaison appropriates plate under sequestration, and Bachelier plate given as a present."-- "Joly superintends executions and takes all he can find, plate, jewelry, precious objects."-- "Bolognie forces the return of a bond of twenty thousand livres already paid to him."-- Perrochaux demands of citoyenne Ollemard-Dudan "fifty thousand livres, to prevent her imprisonment," and confiscates for his own benefit sixty thousand livres worth of tobacco, in the house of the widow Daigneau-Mallet, who, claiming it back, is led off by him to prison under the pretext of interceding for her .-- Chaux frightens off by terrorism his competitors at auction sales, has all the small farms on the Baroissiere domain knocked down to him, and exclaims concerning a place which suits him: "I know how to get it! I'll have the owner arrested.

He'll be very glad to let me have his ground to get out of prison.' "-- The collection is complete, and gathered on a table, it offers specimens which can be found scattered all over France.
VII.

The Armed Forces.
The Armed Force, the National Guard and the Gendarmerie.
-- Its purgation and composition .-- The Revolutionary Armies in Paris and in the departments .-- Quality of the recruits.
-- Their employment .-- Their expeditions into the countryside and the towns .-- Their exploits in the vicinity of Paris and Lyons .-- The company of Maratists, the American Hussars and the German Legion at Nantes .-- General character of the Revolutionary government and of the administrative staff of the Reign of Terror.
The last manipulators of the system remain, the hands which seize, the armed force which takes bodily hold of men and things .-- The first who are employed for this purpose are the National Guard and the ordinary gendarmerie.

Since 1790, these bodies are of course constantly weeded out until only fanatics and robots are left;[33143] nevertheless, the weeding-out continues as the system develops itself.