et nurses, on a
scale proportionate to the activity of the guillotine."--In any event,
the pirates are not disturbed, for the trade in lives and liberties
leaves no trace behind it, and is carried on with impunity for two
years, from one end of France to the other, according to a tacit
understanding between sellers and buyers.

There is a third windfall, not less large, but carried on in more
open sunshine and therefore still more enticing.--Once the "suspect is
incarcerated, whatever he brings to prison along with him, whatever
he leaves behind him at home, becomes plunder; for, with the
incompleteness, haste and irregularity of papers,[33120] with the lack
of surveillance and known connivance, the vultures, great and small,
could freely use their beaks and talons.--At Toulouse, as in Paris and
elsewhere, commissioners take from prisoners every object of value and,
accordingly, in many cases, all gold, silver, assignats, and jewelry,
which, confiscated for the Treasury, stop half-way in the hands of those
who make the seizure.[33121] At Poitiers, the seven scoundrels who
form the ruling oligarchy, admit, after Thermidor, that they stole the
effects of arrested parties.[33122] At Orange, "Citoyenne Riot," wife of
the public prosecutor, and "citoyennes Fernex and Ragot," wives of two
judges, come in person to the record-office to make selections from the
spoils of the accused, taking for their wardrobe silver shoe-buckles,
laces and fine linen.[33123]--But all that the accused, the imprisoned
and fugitives can take with them, amounts to but little in comparison
with what they leave at home, that is to say, under sequestration. All
the religious or seignorial chateaux and mansions in France are in
this plight, along with their furniture, and likewise most of the fine
bourgeois mansions, together with a large number of minor residences,
well-furnished and supplied through provincial economy; besides these,
nearly every warehouse and store belonging to large manufacturers and
leading commercial houses; all this forms colossal spoil, such as was
never seen before, consisting of objects one likes to possess, gathered
in vast lots, which lots are distributed by hundreds of thousands over
the twenty-six thousand square miles of territory. There are no owners
for this property but the nation, an indeterminate, invisible personage;
no barrier other than so many seals exists between the spoils and the
despoilers, that is to say, s