silver spoon, or a few assignats "a face royale," are hastily
scrambled together, and if the visit prove nothing more than an amicable
domiciliary one, in search of arms and corn, it forms matter of
congratulation for a week after. Yet such is the submission of the
people to a government they abhor, that it is scarcely thought requisite
now to arrest any person formally: those whom it is intended to secure
often receive nothing more than a written mandate* to betake themselves
to a certain prison, and such unpleasant rendezvous are attended with
more punctuality than the most ceremonious visit, or the most gallant
assignation.

* These rescripts were usually couched in the following terms:--
"Citizen, you are desired to betake yourself immediately to ------,
(naming the prison,) under pain of being conveyed there by an armed
force in case of delay."

--A few necessaries are hastily packed together, the adieus are made,
and, after a walk to their prison, they lay their beds down in the corner
allotted, just as if it were a thing of course.

It was a general observation with travellers, that the roads in France
were solitary, and had rather the deserted appearance of the route of a
caravan, than of the communications between different parts of a rich and
populous kingdom. This, however, is no longer true, and, as far as I can
learn, they are now sufficiently crowded--not, indeed, by curious
itinerants, parties of pleasure, or commercial industry, but by Deputies
of the Convention,* agents of subsistence,** committee men, Jacobin
missionaries,*** troops posting from places where insurrection is just
quelled to where it has just begun, besides the great and never-failing
source of activity, that of conveying suspected people from their homes
to prison, and from one prison to another.--

* Every department was infested by one, two, or more of these
strolling Deputies; and, it must be confessed, the constant tendency
of the people to revolt in many places afforded them sufficient
employment. Sometimes they acted as legislators, making laws on the
spot--sometimes, both as judges and constables--or, if occasion
required, they amused themselves in assisting the executioner.--The
migrations of obscure men, armed with unlimited powers, and whose
persons were unknown, was a strong temptation to imposture, and in
several places adventurers were detected assuming