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 Fouché, 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, whom he took
out of prison; he rides about the streets with her in an open carriage,
"with a courier behind and a courier in front," sometimes wearing the
red cap and holding a pike in her hand,[32140] thus exhibiting his
goddess to the people. And this is the sentiment which does him the most
credit; for, when the crisis comes, the imminent peril of his mistress
arouses his courage against Robespierre, and this pretty
woman, who is good-natured, begs him, not for murders, but for
pardons.[32141]--Others, as gallant as he is, but with less taste,
obtain recruits for their pleasures in a rude way, either as fast-livers
on the wing, or because fear subjects the honor of women to their
caprices, or because the public funds defray the expenses of their
guard-room habits. At Blois, for this kind of expenditure, Guimberteau
discharges his obligations by drafts on the proceeds of the
revolutionary tax.[32142] Carrier, at Nantes, appropriates to himself
the house and garden of a private person for "his seraglio"; the reader
may judge whether, on desiring to be a third party in the household, the
husband would make objections. At other times, in the hotel Henry IV.,
"with his friends and prostitutes brought under requisition, he has an
orgy;" he allows himself the same indulgence on the galiot during the
drownings; there at the end of a drunken frolic, he is regaled with
merry songs, for example, "la gamelle":[32143] he needs his amusements.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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