us deed.
Murmur is regarded as mutiny, and he who complains is shot as a
conspirator.

There exist only two ways for the wretched Piedmontese to escape these
legal assassinations. They must either desert their country or sacrifice
a part of their property. In the former case, if retaken, they are
condemned as emigrants; and in the latter they incur the risk that those
to whom they have already given a part of their possessions will also
require the remainder, and having obtained it, to enjoy in security the
spoil, will send them to the tribunals and to death. De Menou has a
fixed tariff for his protection, regulated according to the riches of
each person; and the tax-gatherers collect these arbitrary contributions
with the regular ones, so little pains are taken to conceal or to
disguise these robberies.

De Menou, by turns a nobleman and a sans-culotte, a Christian and a
Mussulman, is wicked and profligate, not from the impulse of the moment
or of any sudden gust of passion, but coldly and deliberately. He
calculates with sangfroid the profit and the risk of every infamous
action he proposes to commit, and determines accordingly. He owed some
riches and the rank of the major-general to the bounty of Louis XVI., but
when he considered the immense value of the revolutionary plunder, called
national property, and that those who confiscated could also promote, he
did not hesitate what party to take. A traitor is generally a coward; he
has everywhere experienced defeats; he was defeated by his Royalist
countrymen in 1793, by his Mahometan sectaries in 1800, and by your
countrymen in 1801.

Besides his Turkish wife, De Menou has in the same house with her one
Italian and two French girls, who live openly with him, but who are
obliged to keep themselves by selling their influence and protection,
and, perhaps, sometimes even their personal favours. He has also in his
hotel several gambling-tables, where those who are too bashful to address
themselves to himself or his mistresses may deposit their donations, and
if they are thought sufficient, the hint is taken and their business
done. He never pays any debts and never buys anything for ready money,
and all persons of his suite, or appertaining to his establishment, have
the same privilege. Troublesome creditors are recommended to the care of
the special tribunals, which also find means to reduce the obstinacy of
those refractory merchants or traders who refuse givi