They remain what they always have been, a small feudality of brigands superposed on conquered France.[3386] If the terror they spread around multiplies their serfs, the horror they inspire diminishes their proselytes, while their minority remains insignificant because, for their collaborators, they can have only those just like themselves.
VI.

Quality of staff thus formed.
Quality of staff thus formed .-- Social state of the agents.
-- Their unfitness and bad conduct .-- The administrators in Seine-et-Marne .-- Drunkenness and feasting .-- Committees and Municipalities in the Cote-d'Or .-- Waste and extortions.
-- Traffickers in favors at Bordeaux .-- Seal breakers at Lyons.
-- Monopolizers of national possessions .-- Sales of personal property .-- Embezzlements and Frauds.-A proces-verbal in the office of the mayor of Strasbourg .-- Sales of real-estate.
-- Commissioners on declarations at Toulouse .-- The administrative staff and clubs of buyers in Provence .-- The Revolutionary Committee of Nantes.
But when we regard the final and last set of officials of the revolutionary government closely, in the provinces as well as at Paris, we find among them we hardly anyone who is noteworthy except in vice, dishonesty and misconduct, or, at the very least, in stupidity and grossness .-- First, as is indicated by their name, they all must be, and nearly all are, sans-culottes, that is to say, men who live from day to day on their daily earnings, possessing no income from capital, confined to subordinate places, to petty trading, to manual services, lodged or encamped on the lowest steps of the social ladder, and therefore requiring pay to enable them to attend to public business;[3387] it is on this account that decrees and orders allow them wages of three, five, six, ten, and even eighteen francs a day .-- At Grenoble, the representatives form the municipal body and the revolutionary committee, along with two health-officers, three glovers, two farmers, one tobacco-merchant, one perfumer, one grocer, one belt-maker, one innkeeper, one joiner, one shoemaker, one mason, while the official order by which they are installed, appoints "Teyssiere, licoriste," national agent.[3388]--At Troyes,[3389] among the men in authority we find a confectioner, a weaver, a journeyman-weaver, a hatter, a hosier, a grocer, a carpenter, a dancing-master, and a policeman, while the mayor, Gachez, formerly a private soldier in the regiment of Vexin, was, when appointed, a school-teacher in the vicinity .-- At Toulouse,[3390] a man named Terrain, a pate dealer, is installed as president of the administration; the revolutionary committee is presided over by Pio, a journeyman-barber; the inspiration, "the soul of the club," is a concierge, that of the prison .-- The last and most significant trait is found at Rochefort,[3391] where the president of the popular club is the executioner .-- If such persons form the select body of officials in the large towns, what must they be in the small ones, in the bourgs and in the villages ?" Everywhere they are of the meanest"[3392] cartmen, sabot--( wooden shoe) makers, thatchers, stone-cutters, dealers in rabbit-skins, day laborers, unemployed craftsmen, many without any pursuit, or mere vagabonds who had already participated in riots or jacqueries, bar flies, having given up work and designated for a public career only by their irregular habits and incompetence to follow a private career .-- Even in the large towns, it is evident that discretionary power has fallen into the hands of nearly raw barbarians; one has only to note in the old documents, at the Archives, the orthography and style of the committees empowered to grant or refuse civic cards, and draw up reports on the opinions and pursuits of prisoners.

"His opinions appear insipid (Ces opignons paroisse insipide)[3393]....

He is married with no children." (Il est marie cent (sans) enfants)....

Her profession is wife of Paillot-Montabert, she is living on her income, his relations are with a woman we pay no attention to; we presume her opinions are like her husband's."[3394] The handwriting, unfortunately, cannot be represented here, being that of a child five years old.[3395] "As stupid as they are immoral,"[3396] says Representative Albert, of the Jacobins he finds in office at Troyes.