reatened.--
Perhaps I may have before noticed to you that the convention never seemed
capable of any thing great or uniform, and that all their proceedings
took a tinge from that frivolity and meanness which I am almost tempted
to believe inherent in the French character. They have just now, amidst
a long string of decrees, the objects of which are of the first
consequence, inserted one for the destruction of all the royal tombs
before the tenth of August, and another for reducing the expences of the
King's children, particularly their food, to bare necessaries. Had our
English revolutionists thus employed themselves, they might have expelled
the sculptured Monarchs from the Abbey, and waged a very successful war
on the admirers of Gothic antiquity; but neither the Stuarts, nor the
Catholic religion, would have had much to fear from them.

We have been wandering about the town all day, and I have not remarked
that the successes of the enemy have occasioned any regret. When I was
in France three years ago, you may recollect that my letters usually
contained some relation of our embarrassment and delays, owing to the
fear and ignorance of the people. At one place they apprehended the
introduction of foreign troops--at another, that the Comte d'Artois was
to burn all the corn. In short, the whole country teemed with plots and
counterplots, every one of which was more absurd and inexplicable than
those of Oates, with his whole tribe of Jesuits. At present, when a
powerful army is invading the frontiers, and people have not in many
places bread to eat, they seem to be very little solicitous about the
former, and as little disposed to blame the aristocrates for the latter.

It is really extraordinary, after all the pains that have been taken to
excite hatred and resentment against the English, that I have not heard
of a single instance of their having been insulted or molested. Whatever
inconveniencies they may have been subjected to, were acts of the
government, not of the people; and perhaps this is the first war between
the two nations in which the reverse has not been the case.

I accompanied Mad. de ____ this afternoon to the house of a rich
merchant, where she had business, and who, she told me, had been a
furious patriot, but his ardour is now considerably abated. He had just
returned from the department, [Here used for the place where the public
business is transacted.] where his affairs had led him; and he a