National Convention.)]

[Footnote 33106: "Recueil de Pieces Authentiques sur la Revolution de
Strasbourg," I., 187, and letter of Burger, Thermidor 25, year II.]

[Footnote 33107: Archives Nationales, D., P I, 6 (file 37)--Letter of
the members of the Strasbourg revolutionary committee, Ventose 13,
year III., indicating to the mayor and municipal officers of
Chalons-sur-Marne certain Jacobins of the town as suitable members of
the Propaganda at Strasbourg.]

[Footnote 33108: "Recueil de Pieces Authentiques concernant la
Revolution a Strasbourg," I.,71. Deposition of the recorder Weis on the
circuit of the Revolutionary Tribunal, composed of Schneider, Clavel
and Taffin. "The judges never left the table without having become
intoxicated with everything of the finest, and, in this state, they
gathered in the tribunal and condemned the accused to death."--Free
living and "extravagant expenditure" were common even "among the
employees of the government." "I encountered," says Meissner,
"government carters served with chickens, pastry and game, whilst at the
traveler's table there was simply an old leg of mutton and a few poor
side-dishes." ("Voyage en France," toward the end of 1795, p.371.)]

[Footnote 33109: Some of them, nevertheless, are not ugly, but merely
sots. The following is a specimen. A certain Velu, a born vagabond,
formerly in the alms-house and brought up there, then a shoemaker or a
cobbler, afterwards teaching school in the faubourg de Vienne, and at
last a haranguer and proposer of tyrannicide motions, short, stout and
as rubicund as his cap, is made President of the Popular club at Blois,
then delegate for domiciliary visits, and, throughout the reign
of Terror, he is a principal personage in the town, district and
department. (Dufort de Cheverney, "Memoires," (MS.) March 21, 1793 and
June, 1793.) In June, 1793, this Velu is ordered to visit the chateau de
Cheverney, to verify the surrender of all feudal documents. He arrives
unexpectedly, meets the steward, Bambinet, enters the mayor's house, who
keeps an inn, and drinks copiously, which gives Bambinet time to warn M.
Dufort de Cheverney and have the suspicious registers concealed.--This
done, "Velu is obliged to leave his bottle and march to the chateau.--He
assumed haughtiness and aimed at familiarity; he would put his hand on
his breast and, taking yours, address you: "Good day, brother."--He came
there at nine o'clock in the morning, advanced, too