A certain Andre Dumont, an old village attorney, now king of Picardie, or sultan, as occasion offers, "figures as a white Negro," sometimes jovial, but generally as a rude hardened cynic, treating female prisoners and petitioners as in a kermesse.[32104]--One morning a lady enters his ante-room, and waits amidst about twenty sans-culottes, to solicit the release of her husband.

Dumont appears in a morning-gown, seats himself and listens to the petitioner.
"Sit down, citoyenne." He takes her on his lap, thrusts his hand in her bosom and exclaims: "Who would suppose that the bust of a marchioness would feel so soft to one of the people's representatives." The sans-culottes shout with laughter.

He sends the poor woman away and keeps her husband locked up.

In the evening he may write to the Convention that he investigates things himself, and closely examines aristocrats .-- If one is to maintain the revolutionary enthusiasm at a high level it is helpful to have a drop too much in one's head, and most of them take precautions in this direction.

At Lyons,[32105] "the representatives sent to ensure the people's welfare, Albitte and Collot," call upon the Committee of Sequestrations to deliver at their house two hundred bottles of the best wine to be found, and five hundred bottles more of Bordeaux red wine, first quality, for table use .-- In three months, at the table of the representatives who devastate la Vendee, nineteen hundred and seventy-four bottles of wine are emptied,[32106] taken from the houses of the emigres belonging to the town; for, "when one has helped to preserve a commune one has a right to drink to the Republic." Representative Bourbotte presides at this bar; Rossignol touches his glass, an ex-jeweler and then a September massacreur, all his life a debauchee and brigand, and now a major-general; alongside of Rossignol, stand his adjutants, Grammont, an old actor, and Hazard, a former priest; along with them is Vacheron, a good republican, who ravishes women and shoots them when they refuse to succumb;[32107] in addition to these are some "brilliant" young ladies, undoubtedly brought from Paris, "the prettiest of whom share their nights between Rossignol and Bourbotte," whilst the others serve their subordinates: the entire band, male and female, is installed in a Hotel de Fontenay, where they begin by breaking the seals, so as t o confiscate "for their own benefit, furniture, jewelry, dresses, feminine trinkets and even porcelains."[32108] Meanwhile, at Chantonney, representative Bourdon de l'Oise drinks with General Tunck, becomes "frantic" when tipsy, and has patriotic administrators seized in their beds at midnight, whom he had embraced the evening before .-- Nearly all of them, like the latter, get nasty after a few drinks,--Carrier at Nantes, Petit-Jean at Thiers, Duquesnoy at Arras, Cusset at Thionville, Monestier at Tarbes.