f St. Omer, he occasionally went to the town on his
private concerns. One day, while he was waiting at the inn where he
intended to dine, two young men accosted him, and after engaging him in a
general conversation for some time, began to talk with great freedom,
though with an affected caution of public men and measures, of the
banditti who governed, the tyranny that was exercised, and the supineness
of the people: in short, of all those too poignant truths which
constitute the leze nation of the day. Mons. de ____ was not at first
very attentive, but finding their discourse become still more liberal, it
excited his suspicions, and casting his eyes on a glass opposite to where
they were conversing, he perceived a sort of intelligence between them,
which immediately suggested to him the profession of his companions; and
calling to a couple of dragoons who had attended him, ordered them to
arrest the two gentlemen as artistocrates, and convey them without
ceremony to prison. They submitted, seemingly more surprized than
alarmed, and in two hours the General received a note from a higher
power, desiring him to set them at liberty, as they were agents of the
republic.

Duquesnoy, one of the Representatives now with the Northern army, is
ignorant and brutal in the extreme. He has made his brother (who, as
well as himself, used to retail hops in the streets of St. Pol,) a
General; and in order to deliver him from rivals and critics, he breaks,
suspends, arrests, and sends to the Guillotine every officer of any merit
that comes in his way. After the battle of Maubeuge, he arrested a
General Bardell, [The Generals Bardell and D'Avesnes, and several others,
were afterwards guillotined at Paris.] for accommodating a wounded
prisoner of distinction (I think a relation of the Prince of Cobourg)
with a bed, and tore with his own hands the epaulette from the shoulders
of those Generals whose divisions had not sustained the combat so well as
the others. His temper, naturally savage and choleric, is irritated to
fury by the habit of drinking large quantities of strong liquors; and
Mad. de ___'s relation assured us, that he had himself seen him take the
Mayor of Avesnes (a venerable old man, who was presenting some petition
to him that regarded the town,) by the hair and throw him on the ground,
with the gestures of an enraged cannibal. He also confined one of his
own fellow deputies in the tower of Guise, upon a very frivolous p