[Footnote 3302: "The Revolution," II., pp.298-304, and p. 351. Should the foregoing testimony be deemed insufficient, the following, by those foreigners who had good opportunities for judging, may be added: (Gouverneur Morris, letter of December 3, 1794.) "The French are plunged into an abyss of poverty and slavery, a slavery all the more degrading because the men who have plunged them into it merit the utmost contempt."--Meissner, "Voyage à Paris," (at the end of 1795,) p. 160. "The (revolutionary) army and the revolutionary committees were really associations organized by crime for committing every species of injustice, murder, rapine, and brigandage with impunity. The government had deprived all men of any talent or integrity of their places and given these to its creatures, that is to say, to the dregs of humanity."--Baron Brinckmann, Chargé d'Affaires from Sweden. (Letter of July 11, 1799.) "I do not believe that the different classes of society in France are more corrupt than elsewhere; but I trust that no people may ever be ruled by as imbecile and cruel scoundrels as those that have ruled France since the advent of its new state of freedom... The dregs of the people, stimulated from above by sudden and violent excitement, have everywhere brought to the surface the scum of immorality."] [Footnote 3303: Fleury, "Babeuf," 139, 150.--Granier de Cassagnac, "Histoire du Directoire," II., 24-170.--(Trial of Babeuf, passim.) The above quotations are from documents seized in Babeuf's house, also from affidavits made by witnesses, and especially by captain Grizel.] [Footnote 3304: Moniteur, session of September 5, 1793. "Since our virtue, our moderation, our philosophic ideas, are of no use to us, let us be brigands for the good of the people; let us be brigands!"] [Footnote 3305: Babeuf, "Le Tribun du Peuple," No.40. Apologia for the men of September, "who have only been the priests, the sacrificers of a just immolation for public security. If anything is to be regretted it is that a larger and more general Second of September did not sweep away all starvers and all despoilers."] [Footnote 3306: Granier de Cassagnac, II., 90. (Deposition of Grisel.) Rossignol said, "That snuff-box is all I have left, here it is so that I may exist."--"Massard owned a pair of boots which he could not collect because he had no money with which to pay the shoemaker."] [Footnote 3307: Archives Nationales, Cf. 31167. (Report of Robin, Nivôse 9.): "The women always had a deliberative voice in the popular assemblies of the Pantheon section," and in all the other clubs they attended the meetings.] [Footnote 3308: Moniteur, XIX., 103. (Meeting of the Jacobin club, Dec. 28, 1793.) Dubois-Crancé introduces the following question to each member who is subjected to the weeding-out vote: "What have you done that would get you hung in case of a counter revolution?"] [Footnote 3309: Ibid., XVII., 410. (Speech by Maribon-Montaut, Jacobin club, Brumaire 21, year II.)]