des villes et ceux des
campagnes, entre les cultivateurs, les artisans et les commercans,
entre les citoyens des departements et districts, et meme des
communes voisines. On a voulu s'isoler de toutes parts."
Discours de Lindet._

"Self-interest and a criminal avarice have fomented and kept alive
the seeds of division between the inhabitants of the towns and those
of the country, between the farmer, the mechanic, and the trader--
the like has happened between adjoining towns and districts--an
universal selfishness, in short, has prevailed."
Lindet's Speech.

This picture, drawn by a Jacobin Deputy, is not flattering to
republican fraternization.

--It is true, the wants of the lower classes are afflicting. The whole
town has, for some weeks, been reduced to a nominal half pound of bread a
day for each person--I say nominal, for it has repeatedly happened, that
none has been distributed for three days together, and the quantity
diminished to four ounces; whereas the poor, who are used to eat little
else, consume each, in ordinary times, two pounds daily, on the lowest
calculation.

We have had here a brutal vulgar-looking Deputy, one Florent-Guyot, who
has harangued upon the virtues of patience, and the magnanimity of
suffering hunger for the good of the republic. This doctrine has,
however, made few converts; though we learn, from a letter of
Florent-Guyot's to the Assembly, that the Amienois are excellent
patriots, and that they starve with the best grace possible.

You are to understand, that the Representatives on mission, who describe
the inhabitants of all the towns they visit as glowing with
republicanism, have, besides the service of the common cause, views of
their own, and are often enabled by these fictions to administer both to
their interest and their vanity. They ingratiate themselves with the
aristocrats, who are pleased at the imputation of principles which may
secure them from persecution--they see their names recorded on the
journals; and, finally, by ascribing these civic dispositions to the
power of their own eloquence, they obtain the renewal of an itinerant
delegation--which, it may be presumed, is very profitable.

Beauvais, March 13, 1795.

I have often, in the course of these letters, experienced how difficult
it is to describe the political situation of a country governed by no
fixed principles, and su