ivres every three years, without legitimate cause, and
independently of frequent and ample gifts which the province awards
to him for repairs on his canal."--The province likewise gives to the
commandant, Comte de Perigord, a gratuity of 12,000 livres in addition
to his salary, and to his wife another gratuity of 12,000 livres on her
honoring the states for the first time with her presence. It again pays,
for the same commandant, forty guards, "of which twenty-four only
serve during his short appearance at the Assembly," and who, with their
captain, annually cost 15,000 livres. It pays likewise for the Governor
from eighty to one hundred guards, "who each receive 300 or 400 livres,
besides many exemptions, and who are never on service, since the
Governor is a non-resident." The expense of these lazy subalterns is
about 24,000 livres, besides 5,000 to 6,000 for their captain, to which
must be added 7,500 for gubernatorial secretaries, besides 60,000 livres
salaries, and untold profits for the Governor himself. I find everywhere
secondary idlers swarming in the shadow of idlers in chief,[1411] and
deriving their vigor from the public purse which is the common nurse.
All these people parade and drink and eat copiously, in grand style; it
is their principal service, and they attend to it conscientiously. The
sessions of the Assembly are junketings of six weeks' duration, in which
the intendant expends 25,000 livres in dinners and receptions.[1412]

Equally lucrative and useless are the court offices[1413], so many
domestic sinecures, the profits and accessories of which largely exceed
the emoluments. I find in the printed register 295 cooks, without
counting the table-waiters of the king and his people, while "the head
butler obtains 84,000 livres a year in billets and supplies," without
counting his salary and the "grand liveries" which he receives in money.
The head chambermaids to the queen, inscribed in the Almanac for 150
livres and paid 12,000 francs, make in reality 50,000 francs by the sale
of the candles lighted during the day. Augeard, private secretary, and
whose place is set down at 900 livres a year, confesses that it is worth
to him 200,000. The head huntsman at Fontainebleau sells for his own
benefit each year 20,000 francs worth of rabbits. "On each journey to
the king's country residences the ladies of the bedchamber gain eighty
per cent on the expenses of moving; it is said that the coffee and bread
for eac