How the sleek Pache might mine and undermine, one knows not well; this however one does know:  that his War-Office has become a den of thieves and confusion, such as all men shudder to behold.  That the Citizen Hassenfratz, as Head-Clerk, sits there in bonnet rouge, in rapine, in violence, and some Mathematical calculation; a most insolent, red-nightcapped man.  That Pache munches his pocket-loaf, amid head-clerks and sub-clerks, and has spent all the War-Estimates:  that Furnishers scour in gigs, over all districts of France, and drive bargains;—­and lastly that the Army gets next to no furniture.  No shoes, though it is winter; no clothes; some have not even arms:  ’In the Army of the South,’ complains an honourable Member, ’there are thirty thousand pairs of breeches wanting,’—­a most scandalous want.

Roland’s strict soul is sick to see the course things take:  but what can he do?  Keep his own Department strict; rebuke, and repress wheresoever possible; at lowest, complain.  He can complain in Letter after Letter, to a National Convention, to France, to Posterity, the Universe; grow ever more querulous indignant;—­till at last may he not grow wearisome?  For is not this continual text of his, at bottom a rather barren one:  How astonishing that in a time of Revolt and abrogation of all Law but Cannon Law, there should be such Unlawfulness?  Intrepid Veto-of-Scoundrels, narrow-faithful, respectable, methodic man, work thou in that manner, since happily it is thy manner, and wear thyself away; though ineffectual, not profitless in it—­then nor now!—­The brave Dame Roland, bravest of all French women, begins to have misgivings:  the figure of Danton has too much of the ‘Sardanapalus character,’ at a Republican Rolandin Dinner-table:  Clootz, Speaker of Mankind, proses sad stuff about a Universal Republic, or union of all Peoples and Kindreds in one and the same Fraternal Bond; of which Bond, how it is to be tied, one unhappily sees not.

It is also an indisputable, unaccountable or accountable fact that Grains are becoming scarcer and scarcer.  Riots for grain, tumultuous Assemblages demanding to have the price of grain fixed abound far and near.  The Mayor of Paris and other poor Mayors are like to have their difficulties.  Petion was re-elected Mayor of Paris; but has declined; being now a Convention Legislator.  Wise surely to decline:  for, besides this of Grains and all the rest, there is in these times an Improvised insurrectionary Commune passing into an Elected legal one; getting their accounts settled,—­not without irritancy!  Petion has declined:  nevertheless many do covet and canvass.  After months of scrutinising, balloting, arguing and jargoning, one Doctor Chambon gets the post of honour:  who will not long keep it; but be, as we shall see, literally crushed out of it. (Dictionnaire des Hommes Marquans, para Chambon.)