orage, the immediate
environs are begun to be inundated, and every thing wears the appearance
of impending hostility. The town is so full of troops, that without the
interest of our military friends we should scarcely have procured a
lodging. All was bustle and confusion, the enemy are very near, and the
French are preparing to form a camp under the walls. Amidst all this, we
found it difficult to satisfy our curiosity in viewing the churches and
pictures: some of the former are shut, and the latter concealed; we
therefore contented ourselves with seeing the principal ones.

The town-house is a very handsome building, where the Parliament was
holden previous to the revolution, and where all the business of the
department of the North is now transacted.--In the council-chamber, which
is very elegantly carved, was also a picture of the present King. They
were, at the very moment of our entrance, in the act of displacing it.
We asked the reason, and were told it was to be cut in pieces, and
portions sent to the different popular societies.--I know not if our
features betrayed the indignation we feared to express, but the man who
seemed to have directed this disposal of the portrait, told us we were
not English if we saw it with regret. I was not much delighted with such
a compliment to our country, and was glad to escape without farther
comment.

The manners of the people seem every where much changed, and are becoming
gross and inhuman. While we were walking on the ramparts, I happened to
have occasion to take down an address, and with the paper and pencil in
my hand turned out of the direct path to observe a chapel on one side of
it. In a moment I was alarmed by the cries of my companions, and beheld
the musquet of the centinel pointed at me, and M. de ____ expostulating
with him. I am not certain if he supposed I was taking a plan of the
fortifications, and meant really more than a threat; but I was
sufficiently frightened, and shall not again approach a town wall with
pencils and paper.

M. de ____ is one of the only six officers of his regiment who have not
emigrated. With an indignation heated by the works of modern
philosophers into an enthusiastic love of republican governments, and
irritated by the contempt and opposition he has met with from those of
this own class who entertain different principles, he is now become
almost a fanatic. What at first was only a political opinion is now a
religious tene