At other times, in the hotel Henry IV., "with his friends and prostitutes brought under requisition, he has an orgy;" he allows himself the same indulgence on the galiot during the drownings; there at the end of a drunken frolic, he is regaled with merry songs, for example, "la gamelle":[32143] he needs his amusements.
Some, who are shrewd, think of the more substantial and look out for the future.

Foremost among these is Tallien, the king of robbers, but prodigal, whose pockets, full of holes, are only filled to be at once emptied; Javogues, who makes the most of Montbrison; Rovere, who, for eighty thousand francs in assignats, has an estate adjudged to him worth five hundred thousand francs in coin; Fouche, who, in Nievre, begins to amass the twelve or fourteen millions which he secures later on;[32144] and so many others, who were either ruined or impoverished previous to the outbreak of the Revolution, and who are rich when it ends: Barras with his domain of Gros Bois; Andre Dumont, with the Hotel de Plouy, its magnificent furniture, and an estate worth four hundred thousand livres; Merlin de Thionville, with his country-houses, equipages, and domain of Mont-Valerien, and other domains; Salicetti, Reubell, Rousselin, Chateauneuf-Randon, and the rest of the gluttonous and corrupted members of the Directory.

Without mentioning the taxes and confiscations of which they render no account, they have, for their hoard, the ransoms offered underhandedly by "suspects" and their families; what is more convenient ?[32145] And all the more, because the Committee of General Security, even when informed, let things take their course: to prosecute "Montagnards," would be "making the Revolution take a step backward." One is bound to humor useful servants who have such hard work, like that of the September killings, to do.

Irregularities, as with these September people, must be overlooked; it is necessary to allow them a few perquisites and give them gratuities.[32146] All this would not suffice to keep them at work if they had not been held by an even greater attraction .-- To the common run of civilized men, the office of Septembriseur is at first disagreeable; but, after a little practice, especially with a tyrannical nature, which, under cover of the theory, or under the pretext of public safety, can satiate its despotic instincts, all repugnance subsides.

There is keen delight in the exercise of absolute power; one is glad, every hour, to assert one's omnipotence and prove it by some act, the most conclusive of all acts being some act of destruction.