potentate, with all the luxuries which the situation affords. At the
theaters, in his presence, they give a ballet in which shepherds form
with garlands of flowers the words "Ysabeau, Liberty, Equality." He
allows his portrait to pass from hand to hand, and condescendingly
smiles on the artist who inscribes these words at the bottom of
an engraving of the day: "An event which took place under Ysabeau,
representative of the people." "When he passes in the street people take
off their hats to him, cheer him, and shout 'Hurrah for Ysabeau! Hurrah
for the savior of Bordeaux, our friend and father!' The children of
aristocrats come and apostrophize him in this way, even at the doors
of his carriage; for he has a Carriage, and several of them, with
a coachman, horses, and the equipage of a former noble, gendarmes
preceding him everywhere, even on excursions into the country," where
his new courtiers call him "great man," and welcome him with "Asiatic
magnificence." There is good cheer at his table, "superb white bread,"
called "representatives' bread," whilst the country folk of the
neighborhood live on roots, and the inhabitants of Bordeaux can scarcely
obtain more than four ounces of musty bread per day.--There is the same
feasting with the representatives at Lyons, in the midst of similar
distress. In the reports made by Collot we find a list of bottles of
brandy at four francs each, along with partridges, capons, turkeys,
chickens, pike, and crawfish, note also the white bread, the other kind,
called "equality bread," assigned to simple mortals, offends this august
palate. Add to this the requisitions made by Albitte and Fouche, seven
hundred bottles of fine wine, in one lot, another of fifty pounds
of coffee, one hundred and sixty ells of muslin, three dozen silk
handkerchiefs for cravats, three dozen pairs of gloves, and four
dozen pairs of stockings: they provide themselves with a good
stock.[32139]--Among so many itinerant tyrants, the most audaciously
sensual is, I believe, Tallien, the Septembriseur at Paris and
guillotineur at Bordeaux, but still more rake and robber, caring mostly
for his palate and stomach. Son of the cook of a grand seignior, he is
doubtless swayed by family traditions: for his government is simply a
larder where, like the head-butler in "Gil Blas," he can eat and turn
the rest into money. At this moment, his principal favorite is Teresa
Cabarrus, a woman of society, or one of the demi-monde, who