Note 91 — Chapter XXIV

"It is really done to please the National Guards; they mistrust those who remain 'in mufti;' they attribute their reluctance to don the uniform to the fear of being compromised, to the wish to escape unnoticed if things should go wrong. I grant you that all this does not warrant the uniforms most of my colleagues do wear, but to the Latin races the wisdom of Solomon lies in his magnificence, and they trace the elevation of Joseph to its primary cause—his coat of many colours. I am not only 'delegate of finances' and paymaster-general, but head cook and bottle-washer in all that concerns monetary matters to the Central-Committee. I have very few clerks to assist me in my work, and fewer still upon whose honesty I can depend; consequently, I am compelled to do a good deal of drudgery myself. Yesterday I received the fortnightly accounts of Godillot,[91] the military tailors and accoutrement manufacturers. They seemed to me simply monstrous, not so much in respect of the prices charged for each uniform, as in respect of the number of uniforms supplied. To have sent one of my clerks would have been of no earthly use; there is an old Normand saying about sending the cat to Rome and his coming back mewing; the clerk would have simply come back mewing, saying that there was no mistake, so I went myself. I saw the chief manager.