sions such a
decided and impenetrable incredulity in a Frenchman as precludes all
hopes of convincing him. He listens with a sort of self-sufficient
complacence which tells you he does not consider your assertions as any
thing more than the exaggerations of national vanity, but that his
politeness does not allow him to contradict you. I know nothing more
disgustingly impertinent than his ignorance, which intrenches itself
behind the forms of civility, and, affecting to decline controversy,
assumes the merit of forbearance and moderation: yet this must have been
often observed by every one who has lived much in French society: for the
first emotion of a Frenchman, on hearing any thing which tends to place
another country on an equality with France, is doubt--this doubt is
instantly reinforced by vanity--and, in a few seconds, he is perfectly
satisfied that the thing is impossible.

One must be captious indeed to object to this, did it arise from that
patriotic feeling so common in the English; but here it is all vanity,
downright vanity: a Frenchman must have his country and his mistress
admired, though he does not often care much for either one or the other.
I have been in various parts of France in the most critical periods of
the revolution--I have conversed with people of all parties and of all
ranks--and I assert, that I have never yet met but with one man who had a
grain of real patriotism. If the Athenian law were adopted which doomed
all to death who should be indifferent to the public welfare in a time of
danger, I fear there would be a woeful depopulation here, even among the
loudest champions of democracy.

It is not thirty miles from Amiens to Peronne, yet a journey of thirty
miles is not now to be undertaken inconsiderately; the horses are so much
worked, and so ill fed, that few perform such a distance without rest and
management. If you wish to take others, and continue your route, you
cannot, or if you wait while your own horses are refreshed, as a reward
for your humanity you get starved yourself. Bread being very scarce, no
family can get more than sufficient for its own consumption, and those
who travel without first supplying themselves, do it at the risk of
finding none on the road.

Peronne is chiefly remarkable in history for never having been taken, and
for a tower where Louis XI. was confined for a short time, after being
outwitted in a manner somewhat surprizing for a Monarch who piqued