Thus, all the purposes for which this general demoralization was
promoted, being at length attained, those who were rich having been
pillaged, those who were feared massacred, and a croud of needy and
desperate adventurers attached to the fate of the revolution, the
expediency of a reform has lately been suggested. But the mischief is
already irreparable. Whatever was good in the national character is
vitiated; and I do not scruple to assert, that the revolution has both
destroyed the morals of the people, and rendered their condition less
happy*--that they are not only removed to a greater distance from the
possession of rational liberty, but are become more unfit for it than
ever.

* It has been asserted, with a view to serve the purposes of party,
that the condition of the lower classes in France was mended by the
revolution. If those who advance this were not either partial or
ill-informed, they would observe that the largesses of the
Convention are always intended to palliate some misery, the
consequence of the revolution, and not to banish what is said to
have existed before. For the most part, these philanthropic
projects are never carried into effect, and when they are, it is to
answer political purposes.--For instance, many idle people are kept
in pay to applaud at the debates and executions, and assignats are
distributed to those who have sons serving in the army. The
tendency of both these donations needs no comment. The last, which
is the most specious, only affords a means of temporary profusion to
people whose children are no incumbrance to them, while such as have
numerous and helpless families, are left without assistance. Even
the poorest people now regard the national paper with contempt; and,
persuaded it must soon be of no value, they eagerly squander
whatever they receive, without care for the future.

As I have frequently, in the course of these letters, had occasion to
quote from the debates of the Convention, and other recent publications,
I ought to observe that the French language, like every thing else in the
country, has been a subject of innovation--new words have been invented,
the meaning of old ones has been changed, and a sort of jargon,
compounded of the appropriate terms of various arts and sciences,
introduced, which habit alone can render intelligible. There is scarcely
a report read i