ing, but, again, it
is proved that the sums collected disappeared wholly or in part. At
Villefranche, out of one hundred and thirty-eight thousand francs
collected, the collector of the district deposited but forty-two
thousand; at Baugency, out of more than five hundred thousand francs
collected, there were only fifty thousand deposited; at la Reole, out
of at least five hundred thousand francs collected, there were but
twenty-two thousand six hundred and fifty deposited. "The rest,"
says the collector at Villefranche, "were wasted by the Committee
of Surveillance." "The tax-collectors," writes the national-agent at
Orleans, "after having employed terror gave themselves up to orgies and
are now building palaces."[33112]--As to the expenses which they claim,
they almost always consist of "indemnities to members of revolutionary
committees, to patriots, and to defray the cost of patriotic missions,"
to maintaining and repairing the meeting-rooms of the popular clubs, to
military expeditions, and to succoring the poor, so that three or four
hundred millions in gold or silver, extorted before the end of 1793,
hundreds of millions of assignats extorted in 1793 and 1794, in short,
almost the entire product of the total extraordinary taxation[33113]
was consumed on the spot and by the sans-culottes. Seated at the
public banqueting table they help themselves first, and help themselves
copiously.

A second windfall, equally gross. Enjoying the right to dispose
arbitrarily of fortunes, liberties and lives, they can traffic in these,
while no traffic can be more advantageous, both for buyers and sellers.
Any man who is rich or well-off, in other words, every man who is likely
to be taxed, imprisoned or guillotined, gladly consents "to compound,"
to redeem himself and those who belong to him. If he is prudent, he
pays, before the tax, so as not to be over-taxed; he pays, after the
tax, to obtain a diminution or delays; he pays to be admitted into the
popular club. When danger draws near he pays to obtain or renew his
certificate of civism, not to be declared "suspect," not to be
denounced as a conspirator. After being denounced, he pays to be allowed
imprisonment at home rather than in the jail, to be allowed imprisonment
in the jail rather than in the general prison, to be well treated if he
gets into this, to have time to get together his proofs in evidence,
to have his record (dossier) placed and kept at the bottom of the file