house, pillaged what was moveable, and spoiled what could not be pillaged.  Soon after the ninth of Thermidor they were released, but they returned to bare walls, and their annuity, being paid in assignats, now scarcely affords them a subsistence.--Monsieur du G-------- is near seventy, and Madame is become helpless from a nervous complaint, the effect of fear and confinement; and if this depreciation of the paper should continue, these poor people may probably die of absolute want.

I dined with a relation of the Marquise’s, and in the afternoon we called by appointment on a person who is employed by the Committee of National Domains, and who has long promised my friend to facilitate the adjustment of some of the various claims which the government has on her property.  This man was originally a valet to the brother of the Marquise:  at the revolution he set up a shop, became a bankrupt, and a furious Jacobin, and, in the end, a member of a Revolutionary Committee.  In the last capacity he found means to enrich himself, and intimidate his creditors so as to obtain a discharge of his debts, without the trouble of paying them.*

     * “It was common for men in debt to procure themselves to be made
     members of a revolutionary committee, and then force their creditors
     to give them a receipt in full, under the fear of being imprisoned.” 
                              Clauzel’s Report, Oct. 13, 1794.

     I am myself acquainted with an old lady, who was confined four
     months, for having asked one of these patriots for three hundred
     livres which he owed her.

—­Since the dissolution of the Committees, he has contrived to obtain the situation I have mentioned, and now occupies superb apartments in an hotel, amply furnished with the proofs of his official dexterity, and the perquisites of patriotism.

The humiliating vicissitudes occasioned by the revolution induced Madame
de la F-------- to apply to this democratic parvenu, [Upstart.] whose
office at present gives him the power, and whose former obligations to
her family (by whom he was brought up) she hoped would add the
disposition, to serve her.—­The gratitude she expected has, however,
ended only in delays and disappointments, and the sole object of my
commission was to get some papers which she had entrusted to him out of
his possession.

When we enquired if the Citizen was at home, a servant, not in livery, informed us Monsieur was dressing, but that if we would walk in, he would let Monsieur know we were there.  We passed through a dining parlour, where we saw the remains of a dessert, coffee, &c. and were assailed by the odours of a plentiful repast.  As we entered the saloon, we heard the servant call at the door of an adjoining parlour, "Monsieur, voici deux Citoyennes et un Citoyen qui vous demandent." ["Sir, here are two female citizens and one male citizen enquiring for you.”] When Monsieur appeared,