The good man, who was probably not versed in the etiquette of the revolution, conceived nothing of the matter, and when at the end of their journey they were deposited at the Bicetre, his head was so totally deranged, that he imagined himself still in his own house, and continued for some days addressing all the prisoners as though they were his guests—at one moment congratulating them on their arrival, the next apologizing for want of room and accommodation.—The evasion of the young men, as you will conclude, availed them nothing, except a delay of their captivity for a few hours.

A report has circulated amongst us to-day, that all who are not detained on specific charges are soon to be liberated. This is eagerly believed by the new-comers, and those who are not the "pale converts of experience." I am myself so far from crediting it, that I dread lest it should be the harbinger of some new evil, for I know not whether it be from the effect of chance, or a refinement in atrocity, but I have generally found every measure which tended to make our situation more miserable preceded by these flattering rumours.

You would smile to see with what anxious credulity intelligence of this sort is propagated: we stop each other on the stairs and listen while our palled dinner, just arrived from the traiteur, is cooling; and the bucket of the draw-well hangs suspended while a history is finished, of which the relator knows as little as the hearer, and which, after all, proves to have originated in some ambiguous phrase of our keeper, uttered in a good-humoured paroxysm while receiving a douceur.

We occasionally lose some of our associates, who, having obtained their discharge, depart a la Francaise, forget their suffering, and praise the clemency of Dumont, and the virtue of the Convention; while those who remain still unconverted amuse themselves in conjecturing the channel through which such favours were solicited, and alleging reasons why such preferences were partial and unjust.

Dumont visits us, as usual, receives an hundred or two of petitions, which he does not deign to read, and reserves his indulgence for those who have the means of assailing him through the smiles of a favourite mistress, or propitiating him by more substantial advantages.—Many of the emigrants' wives have procured their liberty by being divorced, and in this there is nothing blameable, for I imagine the greater number consider it only as a temporary expedient, indifferent in itself, and which they are justified in having recourse to for the protection of their persons and property. But these domestic alienations are not confined to those who once moved in the higher orders of society—the monthly registers announce almost as many divorces as marriages, and the facility of separation has rendered the one little more than a licentious compact, which the other is considered as a means of dissolving. The effect of the revolution has in this, as in many other cases, been to make the little emulate the vices of the great, and to introduce a more gross and destructive policy among the people at large, than existed in the narrow circle of courtiers, imitators of the Regent, or Louis the fifteenth. Immorality, now consecrated as a principle, is far more pernicious than when, though practised, it was condemned, and, though suffered, not sanctioned.

You must forgive me if I ennuye you a little sententiously—I was more partial to the lower ranks of life in France, than to those who were deemed their superiors; and I cannot help beholding with indignant regret the last asylums of national morals thus invaded by the general corruption.—I believe no one will dispute that the revolution has rendered the people more vicious; and, without considering the matter either in a moral or religious point of view, it is impossible to assert that they are not less happy. How many times, when I was at liberty, have I heard the old wish for an accession of years, or envy those yet too young to be sensible of "the miseries of a revolution!"—Were the vanity of the self-sufficient philosopher susceptible of remorse, would he not, when he beholds this country, lament his presumption, in supposing he had a right to cancel the wisdom of past ages; or that the happiness of mankind might be promoted by the destruction of their morals, and the depravation of their social affections?—Yours, &c.

April 30, 1794.

For some years previous to the revolution, there were several points in which the French ascribed to themselves a superiority not very distant from perfection. Amongst these were philosophy, politeness, the refinements of society, and, above all, the art of living.—I have sometimes, as you know, been inclined to dispute these claims; yet, if it be true that in our sublunary career perfection is not stationary, and that, having reached the apex of the pyramid on one side, we must necessarily descend on the other, I might, on this ground, allow such pretensions to be more reasonable than I then thought them. Whatever progress might have been attained in these respects, or however near our neighbours might have approached to one extreme, it is but too certain they are now rapidly declining to the other. This boasted philosophy is become a horrid compound of all that is offensive to Heaven, and disgraceful to man—this politeness, a ferocious incivility—and this social elegance and exclusive science in the enjoyment of life, are now reduced to suspicious intercourse, and the want of common necessaries.

If the national vanity only were wounded, perhaps I might smile, though I hope I should not triumph; but when I see so much misery accompany so profound a degradation, my heart does not accord with my language, if I seem to do either one or the other.

I should ineffectually attempt to describe the circumstances and situation which have given rise to these reflections. Imagine to yourself whatever tyranny can inflict, or human nature submit to— whatever can be the result of unrestrained wickedness and unresisting despair—all that can scourge or disgrace a people—and you may form some idea of the actual state of this country: but do not search your books for comparisons, or expect to find in the proscriptions and extravagancies of former periods any examples by which to judge the present.—Tiberius and Nero are on the road to oblivion, and the subjects of the Lama may boast comparative pretensions to rank as a free and enlightened nation.

The frantic ebullitions of the revolutionary government are now as it were subsided, and instead of appearing the temporary resources of "despotism in distress," [Burke.] have assumed the form of a permanent and regular system. The agitation occasioned by so many unexampled scenes is succeeded by an habitual terror, and this depressing sentiment has so pervaded all ranks, that it would be difficult to find an individual, however obscure or inoffensive, who deems his property, or even his existence, secure only for a moment. The sound of a bell or a knocker at the close of the evening is the signal of dismay. The inhabitants of the house regard each other with looks of fearful interrogation—all the precautions hitherto taken appear insufficient— every one recollects something yet to be secreted—a prayer-book, an unburied silver spoon, or a few assignats "a face royale," are hastily scrambled together, and if the visit prove nothing more than an amicable domiciliary one, in search of arms and corn, it forms matter of congratulation for a week after. Yet such is the submission of the people to a government they abhor, that it is scarcely thought requisite now to arrest any person formally: those whom it is intended to secure often receive nothing more than a written mandate* to betake themselves to a certain prison, and such unpleasant rendezvous are attended with more punctuality than the most ceremonious visit, or the most gallant assignation.

* These rescripts were usually couched in the following terms:— "Citizen, you are desired to betake yourself immediately to ———, (naming the prison,) under pain of being conveyed there by an armed force in case of delay."

—A few necessaries are hastily packed together, the adieus are made, and, after a walk to their prison, they lay their beds down in the corner allotted, just as if it were a thing of course.

It was a general observation with travellers, that the roads in France were solitary, and had rather the deserted appearance of the route of a caravan, than of the communications between different parts of a rich and populous kingdom. This, however, is no longer true, and, as far as I can learn, they are now sufficiently crowded—not, indeed, by curious itinerants, parties of pleasure, or commercial industry, but by Deputies of the Convention,* agents of subsistence,** committee men, Jacobin missionaries,*** troops posting from places where insurrection is just quelled to where it has just begun, besides the great and never-failing source of activity, that of conveying suspected people from their homes to prison, and from one prison to another.—

* Every department was infested by one, two, or more of these strolling Deputies; and, it must be confessed, the constant tendency of the people to revolt in many places afforded them sufficient employment. Sometimes they acted as legislators, making laws on the spot—sometimes, both as judges and constables—or, if occasion required, they amused themselves in assisting the executioner.—The migrations of obscure men, armed with unlimited powers, and whose persons were unknown, was a strong temptation to imposture, and in several places adventurers were detected assuming the character of Deputies, for various purposes of fraud and depredation.—The following instance may appear ludicrous, but I shall be excused mentioning it, as it is a fact on record, and conveys an idea of what the people supposed a Deputy might do, consistent with the "dignity" of his executive functions. An itinerant of this sort, whose object seems to have been no more than to procure a daily maintenance, arriving hungry in a village, entered the first farm-house that presented itself, and immediately put a pig in requisition, ordered it to be killed, and some sausages to be made, with all speed. In the meanwhile our mock-legislator, who seems to have acted his part perfectly well, talked of liberty, l'amour de la Patrie, of Pitt and the coalesced tyrants, of arresting suspicious people and rewarding patriots; so that the whole village thought themselves highly fortunate in the presence of a Deputy who did no worse than harangue and put their pork in requisiton.—Unfortunately, however, before the repast of sausages could be prepared, a hue and cry reached the place, that this gracious Representant was an impostor! He was bereft of his dignities, conveyed to prison, and afterwards tried by the Tribunal Revolutionnaire at Paris; but his Counsel, by insisting on the mildness with which he had "borne his faculties," contrived to get his punishment mitigated to a short imprisonment.—Another suffered death on a somewhat similar account; or, as the sentence expressed it, for degrading the character of a National Representative.—Just Heaven! for degrading the character of a National Representative!!! —and this too after the return of Carrier from Nantes, and the publication of Collot d'Herbois' massacres at Lyons! **The agents employed by government in the purchase of subsistence amounted, by official confession, to ten thousand. In all parts they were to be seen, rivalling each other, and creating scarcity and famine, by requisitions and exactions, which they did not convert to the profit of the republic, but to their own.—These privileged locusts, besides what they seized upon, occasioned a total stagnation of commerce, by laying embargoes on what they did not want; so that it frequently occurred that an unfortunate tradesman might have half the articles in his shop under requisition for a month together, and sometimes under different requisitions from deputies, commissaries of war, and agents of subsistence, all at once; nor could any thing be disposed of till such claims were satisfied or relinquished. *** Jacobin missionaries were sent from Paris, and other great towns, to keep up the spirits of the people, to explain the benefits of the revolution, (which, indeed, were not very apparent,) and to maintain the connection between the provincial and metropolitan societies.—I remember the Deputies on mission at Perpignan writing to the Club at Paris for a reinforcement of civic apostles, "pour evangeliser les habitans et les mettre dans la voie de salut"—("to convert the inhabitants, and put them in the road to salvation").

—These movements are almost entirely confined to the official travellers of the republic; for, besides the scarcity of horses, the increase of expence, and the diminution of means, few people are willing to incur the suspicion or hazard* attendant on quitting their homes, and every possible obstacle is thrown in the way of a too general intercourse between the inhabitants of large towns.

* There were moments when an application for a passport was certain of being followed by a mandat d'arret—(a writ of arrest). The applicant was examined minutely as to the business he was going upon, the persons he was to transact it with, and whether the journey was to be performed on horseback or in a carriage, and any signs of impatience or distaste at those democratic ceremonies were sufficient to constitute "un homme suspect"—("a suspicious person"), or at least one "soupconne d'etre suspect," that is, a man suspected of being suspicious. In either case it was usually deemed expedient to prevent the dissemination of his supposed principles, by laying an embargo on his person.—I knew a man under persecution six months together, for having gone from one department to another to see his family.

The committee of Public Welfare is making rapid advances to an absolute concentration of the supreme power, and the convention, while they are the instruments of oppressing the whole country, are themselves become insignificant, and, perhaps, less secure than those over whom they tyrannize. They cease to debate, or even to speak; but if a member of the Committee ascends the tribune, they overwhelm him with applauses before they know what he has to say, and then pass all the decrees presented to them more implicitly than the most obsequious Parliament ever enregistered an arrete of the Court; happy if, by way of compensation, they attract a smile from Barrere, or escape the ominous glances of Robespierre.*

* When a member of the committee looked inauspiciously at a subordinate accomplice, the latter scarce ventured to approach his home for some time.—Legendre, who has since boasted so continually about his courage, is said to have kept his bed, and Bourdon de l'Oise, to have lost his senses for a considerable time, from frights, the consequence of such menaces.

Having so far described the situation of public affairs, I proceed as usual, and for which I have the example of Pope, who never quits a subject without introducing himself, to some notice of my own. It is not only bad in itself, but worse in perspective than ever: yet I learn not to murmur, and derive patience from the certainty, that almost every part of France is more oppressed and wretched than we are.—Yours, etc.

June 3, 1794.

The individual sufferings of the French may perhaps yet admit of increase; but their humiliation as a people can go no farther; and if it were not certain that the acts of the government are congenial to its principles, one might suppose this tyranny rather a moral experiment on the extent of human endurance, than a political system.

Either the vanity or cowardice of Robespierre is continually suggesting to him plots for his assassination; and on pretexts, at once absurd and atrocious, a whole family, with near seventy other innocent people as accomplices, have been sentenced to death by a formal decree of the convention.

One might be inclined to pity a people obliged to suppress their indignation on such an event, but the mind revolts when addresses are presented from all quarters to congratulate this monster's pretended escape, and to solicit a farther sacrifice of victims to his revenge.— The assassins of Henry the Fourth had all the benefit of the laws, and suffered only after a legal condemnation; yet the unfortunate Cecilia Renaud, though evidently in a state of mental derangement, was hurried to the scaffold without a hearing, for the vague utterance of a truth, to which every heart in France, not lost to humanity, must assent. Brooding over the miseries of her country, till her imagination became heated and disordered, this young woman seems to have conceived some hopeless plan of redress from expostulation with Robespierre, whom she regarded as a principal in all the evils she deplored. The difficulty of obtaining an audience of him irritated her to make some comparison between an hereditary sovereign and a republican despot; and she avowed, that, in desiring to see Robespierre, she was actuated only by a curiosity to "contemplate the features of a tyrant."—On being examined by the Committee, she still persisted that her design was "seulement pour voir comment etoit fait un tyrant;" and no instrument nor possible means of destruction was found upon her to justify a charge of any thing more than the wild and enthusiastic attachment to royalism, which she did not attempt to disguise. The influence of a feminine propensity, which often survives even the wreck of reason and beauty, had induced her to dress with peculiar neatness, when she went in search of Robespierre; and, from the complexion of the times, supposing it very probable a visit of this nature might end in imprisonment and death, she had also provided herself with a change of clothes to wear in her last moments.

Such an attention in a beautiful girl of eighteen was not very unnatural; yet the mean and cruel wretches who were her judges, had the littleness to endeavour at mortifying, by divesting her of her ornaments, and covering her with the most loathsome rags. But a mind tortured to madness by the sufferings of her country, was not likely to be shaken by such puerile malice; and, when interrogated under this disguise, she still preserved the same firmness, mingled with contempt, which she had displayed when first apprehended. No accusation, nor even implication, of any person could be drawn from her, and her only confession was that of a passionate loyalty: yet an universal conspiracy was nevertheless decreed by the Convention to exist, and Miss Renaud, with sixty-nine others,* were sentenced to the guillotine, without farther trial than merely calling over their names.

* It is worthy of remark, that the sixty-nine people executed as accomplices of Miss Renaud, except her father, mother, and aunt, were totally unconnected with her, or with each other, and had been collected from different prisons, between which no communication could have subsisted.

—They were conducted to the scaffold in a sort of red frocks, intended, as was alleged, to mark them as assassins—but, in reality, to prevent the crowd from distinguishing or receiving any impression from the number of young and interesting females who were comprised in this dreadful slaughter.—They met death with a courage which seemed almost to disappoint the malice of their tyrants, who, in an original excess of barbarity, are said to have lamented that their power of inflicting could not reach those mental faculties which enabled their victims to suffer with fortitude.*

* Fouquier Tinville, public accuser of the Revolutionary Tribunal, enraged at the courage with which his victims submitted to their fate, had formed the design of having them bled previous to their execution; hoping by this means to weaken their spirits, and that they might, by a pusillanimous behaviour in their last moments, appear less interesting to the people.

Such are the horrors now common to almost every part of France: the prisons are daily thinned by the ravages of the executioner, and again repeopled by inhabitants destined to the fate of their predecessors. A gloomy reserve, and a sort of uncertain foreboding, have taken possession of every body—no one ventures to communicate his thoughts, even to his nearest friend—relations avoid each other—and the whole social system seems on the point of being dissolved. Those who have yet preserved their freedom take the longest circuit, rather than pass a republican Bastille; or, if obliged by necessity to approach one, it is with downcast or averted looks, which bespeak their dread of incurring the suspicion of humanity.

I say little of my own feelings; they are not of a nature to be relieved by pathetic expressions: "I am e'en sick at heart." For some time I have struggled both against my own evils, and the share I take in the general calamity, but my mortal part gives way, and I can no longer resist the despondency which at times depresses me, and which indeed, more than the danger attending it, has occasioned my abandoning my pen for the last month.—Several circumstances have occurred within these few days, to add to the uneasiness of our situation, and my own apprehensions. Le Bon,* whose cruelties at Arras seem to have endeared him to his colleagues in the Convention, has had his powers extended to this department, and Andre Dumont is recalled; so that we are hourly menaced with the presence of a monster, compared to whom our own representative is amiable.—

* I have already noticed the cruel and ferocious temper of Le Bon, and the massacres of his tribunals are already well known. I will only add some circumstances which not only may be considered as characteristic of this tyrant, but of the times—and I fear I may add of the people, who suffered and even applauded them. They are selected from many others not susceptible of being described in language fit for an English reader. As he was one day enjoying his customary amusement of superintending an execution, where several had already suffered, one of the victims having, from a very natural emotion, averted his eyes while he placed his body in the posture required, the executioner perceived it, and going to the sack which contained the heads of those just sacrificed, took one out, and with the most horrible imprecations obliged the unhappy wretch to kiss it: yet Le Bon not only permitted, but sanctioned this, by dining daily with the hangman. He was afterwards reproached with this familiarity in the Convention, but defended himself by saying, "A similar act of Lequinio's was inserted by your orders in the bulletin with 'honourable mention;' and your decrees have invariably consecrated the principles on which I acted." They all felt for a moment the dominion of conscience, and were silent.—On another occasion he suspended an execution, while the savages he kept in pay threw dirt on the prisoners, and even got on the scaffold and insulted them previous to their suffering. When any of his colleagues passed through Arras, he always proposed their joining with him in a "partie de Guillotine," and the executions were perpetrated on a small square at Arras, rather than the great one, that he, his wife, and relations might more commodiously enjoy the spectacle from the balcony of the theatre, where they took their coffee, attended by a band of music, which played while this human butchery lasted. The following circumstance, though something less horrid, yet sufficiently so to excite the indignation of feeling people, happened to some friends of my own.—They had been brought with many others from a distant town in open carts to Arras, and, worn out with fatigue, were going to be deposited in the prison to which they were destined. At the moment of their arrival several persons were on the point of being executed. Le Bon, presiding as usual at the spectacle, observed the cavalcade passing, and ordered it to stop, that the prisoners might likewise be witnesses. He was, of course, obeyed; and my terrified friends and their companions were obliged not only to appear attentive to the scene before them, but to join in the cry of "Vive la Republique!" at the severing of each head.— One of them, a young lady, did not recover the shock she received for months. The Convention, the Committees, all France, were well acquainted with the conduct of Le Bon. He himself began to fear he might have exceeded the limits of his commission; and, upon communicating some scruples of this kind to his employers, received the following letters, which, though they do not exculpate him, certainly render the Committee of Public Welfare more criminal than himself. "Citizen, "The Committee of Public Welfare approve the measures you have adopted, at the same time that they judge the warrant you solicit unnecessary—such measures being not only allowable, but enjoined by the very nature of your mission. No consideration ought to stand in the way of your revolutionary progress—give free scope therefore to your energy; the powers you are invested with are unlimited, and whatever you may deem conducive to the public good, you are free, you are even called upon by duty, to carry into execution without delay.—We here transmit you an order of the Committee, by which your powers are extended to the neighbouring departments. Armed with such means, and with your energy, you will go on to confound the enemies of the republic, with the very schemes they have projected for its destruction. "Carnot. "Barrere. "R. Lindet."

Extract from another letter, signed Billaud Varenne, Carnot, Barrere. "There is no commutation for offences against a republic. Death alone can expiate them!—Pursue the traitors with fire and sword, and continue to march with courage in the revolutionary track you have described."

—Merciful Heaven! are there yet positive distinctions betwixt bad and worse that we thus regret a Dumont, and deem ourselves fortunate in being at the mercy of a tyrant who is only brutal and profligate? But so it is; and Dumont himself, fearful that he has not exercised his mission with sufficient severity, has ordered every kind of indulgence to cease, the prisons to be more strictly guarded, and, if possible, more crowded; and he is now gone to Paris, trembling lest he should be accused of justice or moderation!

The pretended plots for assassinating Robespierre are, as usual, attributed to Mr. Pitt; and a decree has just passed, that no quarter shall be given to English prisoners. I know not what such inhuman politics tend to, but my contempt, and the conscious pride of national superiority; certain, that when Providence sees fit to vindicate itself, by bestowing victory on our countrymen, the most welcome

"Laurels that adorn their brows "Will be from living, not dead boughs."

The recollection of England, and its generous inhabitants, has animated me with pleasure; yet I must for the present quit this agreeable contemplation, to take precautions which remind me that I am separated from both, and in a land of despotism and misery!

—Yours affectionately.

June 11, 1794.

The immorality of Hebert, and the base compliances of the Convention, for some months turned the churches into "temples of reason."—The ambition, perhaps the vanity, of Robespierre, has now permitted them to be dedicated to the "Supreme Being," and the people, under such auspices, are to be conducted from atheism to deism. Desirous of distinguishing his presidency, and of exhibiting himself in a conspicuous and interesting light, Robespierre, on the last decade, appeared as the hero of a ceremony which we are told is to restore morals, destroy all the mischiefs introduced by the abolition of religion, and finally to defeat the machinations of Mr. Pitt. A gay and splendid festival has been exhibited at Paris, and imitated in the provinces: flags of the republican colours, branches of trees, and wreaths of flowers, were ordered to be suspended from the houses—every countenance was to wear the prescribed smile, and the whole country, forgetting the pressure of sorrow and famine, was to rejoice. A sort of monster was prepared, which, by some unaccountable ingenuity, at once represented Atheism and the English, Cobourg and the Austrians—in short, all the enemies of the Convention.—This external phantom, being burned with proper form, discovered a statue, which was understood to be that of Liberty, and the inauguration of this divinity, with placing the busts of Chalier* and Marat in the temple of the Supreme Being, by way of attendant saints, concluded the ceremony.—

* Chalier had been sent from the municipality of Paris after the dethronement of the King, to revolutionize the people of Lyons, and to excite a massacre. In consequence, the first days of September presented the same scenes at Lyons as were presented in the capital. For near a year he continued to scourge this unfortunate city, by urging the lower classes of people to murder and pillage; till, at the insurrection which took place in the spring of 1793, he was arrested by the insurgents, tried, and sentenced to the guillotine. —The Convention, however, whose calendar of saints is as extraordinary as their criminal code, chose to beatify Chalier, while they executed Malesherbes; and, accordingly, decreed him a lodging in the Pantheon, pensioning his mistress, and set up his bust in their own Hall as an associate for Brutus, whom, by the way, one should not have expected to find in such company.

The good citizens of the republic, not to be behind hand with their representatives, placed Chalier in the cathedrals, in their public-houses, on fans and snuff-boxes—in short, wherever they thought his appearance would proclaim their patriotism.—I can only exclaim as Poultier, a deputy, did, on a similar occasion—"Francais, Francais, serez vous toujours Francais?"—(Frenchmen, Frenchmen, will you never cease to be Frenchmen?)

—But the mandates for such celebrations reach not the heart: flowers were gathered, and flags planted, with the scrupulous exactitude of fear;* yet all was cold and heavy, and a discerning government must have read in this anxious and literal obedience the indication of terror and hatred.

* I have more than once had occasion to remark the singularity of popular festivities solemnized on the part of the people with no other intention but that of exact obedience to the edicts of government. This is so generally understood, that Richard, a deputy on mission at Lyons, writes to the Convention, as a circumstance extraordinary, and worthy of remark, that, at the repeal of a decree which was to have razed their city to the ground, a rejoicing took place, "dirigee et executee par le peuple, les autorites constitutees n'ayant fait en quelque sorte qu'y assister,"— (directed and executed by the people, the constituted authorities having merely assisted at the ceremony).

—Even the prisons were insultingly decorated with the mockery of colours, which, we are told, are the emblems of freedom; and those whose relations have expired on the scaffold, or who are pining in dungeons for having heard a mass, were obliged to listen with apparent admiration to a discourse on the charms of religious liberty.—The people, who, for the most part, took little interest in the rest of this pantomime, and insensible of the national disgrace it implied, beheld with stupid satisfaction* the inscription on the temple of reason replaced by a legend, signifying that, in this age of science and information, the French find it necessary to declare their acknowledgment of a God, and their belief in the immortality of the soul.

* Much has been said of the partial ignorance of the unfortunate inhabitants of La Vendee, and divers republican scribblers attribute their attachment to religion and monarchy to that cause: yet at Havre, a sea-port, where, from commercial communication, I should suppose the people as informed and civilized as in any other part of France, the ears of piety and decency were assailed, during the celebration above-mentioned, by the acclamations of, "Vive le Pere Eternel!"—"Vive l'etre Supreme!"—(I entreat that I may not be suspected of levity when I translate this; in English it would be "God Almighty for ever! The Supreme Being for ever!")

—At Avignon the public understanding seems to have been equally enlightened, if we may judge from the report of a Paris missionary, who writes in these terms:—"The celebration in honour of the Supreme Being was performed here yesterday with all possible pomp: all our country-folks were present, and unspeakably content that there was still a God—What a fine decree (cried they all) is this!"

My last letter was a record of the most odious barbarities—to-day I am describing a festival. At one period I have to remark the destruction of the saints—at another the adoration of Marat. One half of the newspaper is filled with a list of names of the guillotined, and the other with that of places of amusement; and every thing now more than ever marks that detestable association of cruelty and levity, of impiety and absurdity, which has uniformly characterized the French revolution. It is become a crime to feel, and a mode to affect a brutality incapable of feeling—the persecution of Christianity has made atheism a boast, and the danger of respecting traditional virtues has hurried the weak and timid into the apotheosis of the most abominable vices. Conscious that they are no longer animated by enthusiasm,* the Parisians hope to imitate it by savage fury or ferocious mirth—their patriotism is signalized only by their zeal to destroy, and their attachment to their government only by applauding its cruelties.—If Robespierre, St. Just, Collot d'Herbois, and the Convention as their instruments, desolate and massacre half France, we may lament, but we can scarcely wonder at it. How should a set of base and needy adventurers refrain from an abuse of power more unlimited than that of the most despotic monarch; or how distinguish the general abhorrence, amid addresses of adulation, which Louis the Fourteenth would have blushed to appropriate?*

* Louis the Fourteenth, aguerri (steeled) as he was by sixty years of adulation and prosperity, had yet modesty sufficient to reject a "dose of incense which he thought too strong." (See D'Alembert's Apology for Clermont Tonnerre.) Republicanism, it should seem, has not diminished the national compliasance for men in power, thought it has lessened the modesty of those who exercise it.—If Louis the Fourteenth repressed the zeal of the academicians, the Convention publish, without scruple, addresses more hyperbolical than the praises that monarch refused.—Letters are addressed to Robespierre under the appellation of the Messiah, sent by the almighty for the reform of all things! He is the apostle of one, and the tutelar deity of another. He is by turns the representative of the virtues individually, and a compendium of them altogether: and this monster, whose features are the counterpart of his soul, find republican parasites who congratulate themselves on resembling him.

The bulletins of the Convention announce, that the whole republic is in a sort of revolutionary transport at the escape of Robespierre and his colleague, Collot d'Herbois, from assassination; and that we may not suppose the legislators at large deficient in sensibility, we learn also that they not only shed their grateful tears on this affecting occasion, but have settled a pension on the man who was instrumental in rescuing the benign Collot.

The members of the Committee are not, however, the exclusive objects of public adoration—the whole Convention are at times incensed in a style truly oriental; and if this be sometimes done with more zeal than judgment, it does not appear to be less acceptable on that account. A petition from an incarcerated poet assimilates the mountain of the Jacobins to that of Parnassus—a state-creditor importunes for a small payment from the Gods of Olympus—and congratulations on the abolition of Christianity are offered to the legislators of Mount Sinai! Every instance of baseness calls forth an eulogium on their magnanimity. A score of orators harangue them daily on their courage, while they are over-awed by despots as mean as themselves and whom they continue to reinstal at the stated period with clamorous approbation. They proscribe, devastate, burn, and massacre—and permit themselves to be addressed by the title of "Fathers of their Country!"

All this would be inexplicable, if we did not contemplate in the French a nation where every faculty is absorbed by a terror which involves a thousand contradictions. The rich now seek protection by becoming members of clubs,* and are happy if, after various mortifications, they are finally admitted by the mob who compose them; while families, that heretofore piqued themselves on a voluminous and illustrious genealogy,** eagerly endeavour to prove they have no claim to either.

* Le diplome de Jacobin etait une espece d'amulette, dont les inities etaient jaloux, et qui frappoit de prestiges ceux qui ne l'etaient pas—"The Jacobin diploma was a kind of amulet, which the initiated were jealous of preserving, and which struck as it were with witchcraft, those who were not of the number." Rapport de Courtois sur les Papiers de Robespierre. ** Besides those who, being really noble, were anxious to procure certificates of sans-cullotism, many who had assumed such honours without pretensions now relinquished them, except indeed some few, whose vanity even surmounted their fears. But an express law included all these seceders in the general proscription; alledging, with a candour not usual, that those who assumed rank were, in fact, more criminal than such as were guilty of being born to it. —Places and employments, which are in most countries the objects of intrigue and ambition, are here refused or relinquished with such perfect sincerity, that a decree became requisite to oblige every one, under pain of durance, to preserve the station to which his ill stars, mistaken politics, or affectation of patriotism, had called him. Were it not for this law, such is the dreadful responsibility and danger attending offices under the government, that even low and ignorant people, who have got possession of them merely for support, would prefer their original poverty to emoluments which are perpetually liable to the commutation of the guillotine.—Some members of a neighbouring district told me to-day, when I asked them if they came to release any of our fellow-prisoners, that so far from it, they had not only brought more, but were not certain twelve hours together of not being brought themselves.

The visionary equality of metaphysical impostors is become a substantial one—not constituted by abundance and freedom, but by want and oppression. The disparities of nature are not repaired, but its whole surface is levelled by a storm. The rich are become poor, but the poor still remain so; and both are conducted indiscriminately to the scaffold. The prisons of the former government were "petty to the ends" of this. Convents, colleges, palaces, and every building which could any how be adapted to such a purpose, have been filled with people deemed suspicious;* and a plan of destruction seems resolved on, more certain and more execrable than even the general massacre of September 1792.

* Now multiplied to more than four hundred thousand!—The prisons of Paris and the environs were supposed to contain twenty-seven thousand. The public papers stated but about seven thousand, because they included the official returns of Paris only.

—Agents of the police are, under some pretended accusation, sent to the different prisons; and, from lists previously furnished them, make daily information of plots and conspiracies, which they alledge to be carrying on by the persons confined. This charge and this evidence suffice: the prisoners are sent to the tribunal, their names read over, and they are conveyed by cart's-full to the republican butchery. Many whom I have known, and been in habits of intimacy with, have perished in this manner; and the expectation of Le Bon,* with our numbers which make us of too much consequence to be forgotten, all contribute to depress and alarm me.

* Le Bon had at this period sent for lists of the prisoners in the department of the Somme—which lists are said to have been since found, and many of the names in them marked for destruction.

—Even the levity of the French character yields to this terrible despotism, and nothing is observed but weariness, silence, and sorrow:— "O triste loisir, poids affreux du tems." [St. Lambert.] The season returns with the year, but not to us—the sun shines, but to add to our miseries that of insupportable heat—and the vicissitudes of nature only awaken our regret that we cannot enjoy them—