he national propensity to submission, than the circumstance of making
it penal to refuse one day, what, by the same authority, is rendered
valueless the next--and that notwithstanding this, the remaining
assignats are still received under all the probability of their
experiencing a similar fate.

Paris now offers an interval of tranquillity which we mean to avail
ourselves of, and shall, in a day or two, leave this place with the hope
of procuring passports for England. The Convention affect great
moderation and gratitude for their late rescue; and the people, persuaded
in general that the victorious party are royalists, wait with impatience
some important change, and expect, if not an immediate restoration of the
monarchy, at least a free election of new Representatives, which must
infallibly lead to it. With this hope, which is the first that has long
presented itself to this harassed country, I shall probably bid it adieu;
but a visit to the metropolis will be too interesting for me to conclude
these papers, without giving you the result of my observations.

--Yours. &c.

Paris, June 3, 1795.

We arrived here early on Saturday, and as no stranger coming to Paris,
whether a native of France, or a foreigner, is suffered to remain longer
than three days without a particular permission, our first care was to
present ourselves to the Committee of the section where we lodge, and, on
giving proper security for our good conduct, we have had this permission
extended to a Decade.

I approached Paris with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension, as
though I expected the scenes which had passed in it, and the moral
changes it had undergone, would be every where visible; but the gloomy
ideas produced by a visit to this metropolis, are rather the effect of
mental association than external objects. Palaces and public buildings
still remain; but we recollect that they are become the prisons of
misfortune, or the rewards of baseness. We see the same hotels, but
their owners are wandering over the world, or have expired on the
scaffold. Public places are not less numerous, nor less frequented; but,
far from inspiring gaiety, we behold them with regret and disgust, as
proofs of the national levity and want of feeling.

I could almost wish, for the credit of the French character, to have
found some indications that the past was not so soon consigned to
oblivion. It is true, the reign of Robespierre and his sanguinary