-(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. Low, indeed, as their
condition may be, their feeling and intelligence are yet lower because,
in their professions or occupations, they are the refuse instead of
the elite, and, especially on this account, they are turned out after
Thermidor, some, it is true, as Terrorists, but the larger number as
either dolts, scandalous or crazy, simply intruders, or mere valets.--At
Rheims, the president of the district is[3397] "a former bailiff, on
familiar terms with the spies of the Robespierre regime, acting in
concert with them, but without being their accomplice, possessing none
of the requisite qualities for administration." Another administrator
is likewise "a former bailiff, without means, negligent in the
highest degree and a confirmed drunkard." Alongside of these sit "a
horse-dealer, without any means, more fit for shady dealings than
governing, moreover a drunkard, a dyer, lacking judgment, open to all
sorts of influences, pushed ahead by the Jacobin faction, and having
used power in the most arbitrary manner, rather, perhaps, through
ignorance than through cruelty, a shoemaker, entirely uninstructed,
knowing only how to sign his name," and others of the same character. In
the Tribunal, a judge is noted as

"true in p