and executed.  Among these were twenty-two young girls, under twenty years of age, whose crime was the having presented nosegays to the late King of Prussia on his entry after the surrender of Verdun.  He was afterwards a national commissary with the armies on the coast near Brest, on the Rhine, and in Western Pyrenees, and everywhere he signalized himself by unheard of ferocities and sanguinary deeds.  The following anecdote, printed and published by our revolutionary annalist, Prudhomme, will give you some idea of the morality of this our regenerator and Imperial Solon:  “Cavaignac and another deputy, Pinet,” writes Prudhomme, “had ordered a box to be kept for them at the play-house at Bayonne on the evening they expected to arrive in that town.  Entering very late, they found two soldiers, who had seen the box empty, placed in its front.  These they ordered immediately to be arrested, and condemned them, for having outraged the national representation, to be guillotined on the next day, when they both were accordingly executed!” Labarrere, a provost of the Marechaussee at Dax, was in prison as a suspected person.  His daughter, a very handsome girl of seventeen, lived with an aunt at Severe.  The two pro-consuls passing through that place, she threw herself at their feet, imploring mercy for her parent.  This they not only promised, but offered her a place in their carriage to Dax, that she might see him restored to liberty.  On the road the monsters insisted on a ransom for the blood of her father.  Waiting, afflicted and ashamed, at a friend’s house at Dag, the accomplishment of a promise so dearly purchased, she heard the beating of the alarm drum, and looked, from curiosity, through the window, when she saw her unfortunate parent ascending the scaffold!  After having remained lifeless for half an hour, she recovered her senses an instant, when she exclaimed: 

“Oh, the barbarians! they violated me while flattering me with the hope of saving my father!” and then expired.  In October, 1795, Cavaignac assisted Barras and Bonaparte in the destruction of some thousands of men, women, and children in the streets of this capital, and was, therefore, in 1796, made by the Directory an inspector-general of the customs; and, in 1803, nominated by Bonaparte a legislator.  His colleague, Citizen Pinet, is now one of our Emperor’s Counsellors of State, and both are commanders of His Majesty’s Legion of Honour; rich, respected, and frequented by our most fashionable ladies and gentlemen.

LETTER XXXIII.

Paris, October, 1805.