ionnaire was first raised by order of the
Jacobins, for the purpose of searching the countries for provisions,
and conducting them to Paris. Under this pretext, a levy was made
of all the most desperate ruffians that could be collected together.
They were divided into companies, each with its attendant
Guillotine, and then distributed in the different departments:
they had extraordinary pay, and seem to have been subject to no
discipline. Many of them were distinguished by the representation
of a Guillotine in miniature, and a head just severed, on their
cartouch-boxes. It would be impossible to describe half the
enormities committed by these banditti: wherever they went they were
regarded as a scourge, and every heart shrunk at their approach.
Lecointre, of Versailles, a member of the Convention, complained
that a band of these wretches entered the house of a farmer, one of
his tenants, by night, and, after binding the family hand and foot,
and helping themselves to whatever they could find, they placed the
farmer with his bare feet on the chaffing-dish of hot ashes, by way
of forcing him to discover where he had secreted his plate and
money, which having secured, they set all the vessels of liquor
running, and then retired.

You are not to suppose this a robbery, and the actors common thieves; all
was in the usual form--"au nom de la loi," and for the service of the
republic; and I do not mention this instance as remarkable, otherwise
than as having been noticed in the Convention. A thousand events of this
kind, even still more atrocious, have happened; but the sufferers who had
not the means of defence as well as of complaint, were obliged, through
policy, to be silent.

--The garrison and national guard, indignant at the horrors they
committed, obliged them to decamp. Even the people of Dunkirk, whose
resistance to the English, while the French army was collecting together
for their relief, was perhaps of more consequence than ten victories,
have been since intimidated with Commissioners, and Tribunals, and
Guillotines, as much as if they had been convicted of selling the town.
In short, under this philanthropic republic, persecution seems to be very
exactly proportioned to the services rendered. A jealous and suspicious
government does not forget, that the same energy of character which has
enabled a people to defe