from eighteen to thirty-six livres. This, according to the comparative
value of assignats, is very trifling: but the people, who have so long
been flattered with the ideas of partition and equality, and are now
starving, consider it as a great deal, and much discontent is excited,
which however evaporates, as usual, in the national talent for bon mots.
The augmentation, though an object of popular jealousy, is most likely
valued by the leading members only as it procures them an ostensible
means of living; for all who have been on missions, or had any share in
the government, have, like Falstaff, "hid their honour in their
necessities," and have now resources they desire to profit by, but cannot
decently avow.

The Jacobin party have in general opposed this additional eighteen
livres, with the hope of casting an odium on their adversaries; but the
people, though they murmur, still prefer the Moderates, even at the
expence of paying the difference. The policy of some Deputies who have
acquired too much, or the malice of others who have acquired nothing, has
frequently proposed, that every member of the Convention should publish
an account of his fortune before and since the revolution. An
enthusiastic and acclamatory decree of assent has always insued; but
somehow prudence has hitherto cooled this warmth before the subsequent
debate, and the resolution has never yet been carried into effect.

The crimes of Maignet, though they appear to occasion but little regret
in his colleagues, have been the source of considerable embarrassment to
them. When he was on mission in the department of Vaucluse, besides
numberless other enormities, he caused the whole town of Bedouin to be
burnt, a part of its inhabitants to be guillotined, and the rest
dispersed, because the tree of liberty was cut down one dark night, while
they were asleep.*