net with green ribbons.

Our embarrassment for small change is renewed: many of the communes who
had issued bills of five, ten, and fifteen sols, repayable in assignats,
are become bankrupts, which circumstance has thrown such a discredit on
all this kind of nominal money, that the bills of one town will not pass
at another. The original creation of these bills was so limited, that no
town had half the number requisite for the circulation of its
neighbourhood; and this decrease, with the distrust that arises from the
occasion of it, greatly adds to the general inconvenience.

The retreat of the Prussian army excites more surprize than interest, and
the people talk of it with as much indifference as they would of an event
that had happened beyond the Ganges. The siege of Lisle takes off all
attention from the relief of Thionville--not on account of its
importance, but on account of its novelty.--I remain, Yours, &c.

Abbeville, September, 1792.

We left Amiens early yesterday morning, but were so much delayed by the
number of volunteers on the road, that it was late before we reached
Abbeville. I was at first somewhat alarmed at finding ourselves
surrounded by so formidable a cortege; they however only exacted a
declaration of our political principles, and we purchased our safety by a
few smiles, and exclamations of vive la nation! There were some hundreds
of these recruits much under twenty; but the poor fellows, exhilarated by
their new uniform and large pay, were going gaily to decide their fate by
that hazard which puts youth and age on a level, and scatters with
indiscriminating hand the cypress and the laurel.

At Abbeville all the former precautions were renewed--we underwent
another solemn identification of our persons at the Hotel de Ville, and
an abstract of our history was again enregistered at the inn. One would
really suppose that the town was under apprehensions of a siege, or, at
least, of the plague. My "paper face" was examined as suspiciously as
though I had had the appearance of a travestied Achilles; and M____'s,
which has as little expression as a Chinese painting, was elaborately
scrutinized by a Dogberry in spectacles, who, perhaps, fancied she had
the features of a female Machiavel. All this was done with an air of
importance sufficiently ludicrous, when contrasted with the object; but
we met with no incivility, and had nothing to complain of but a little
additional fatigue, and t