in favour of the culprits, has only served to excite the public
indignation, and to render them more odious. Those who cannot judge of
the logical precision of Lecointre's arguments, or the justness of his
inferences, can feel that his charges are merited. Every heart, every
tongue, acknowledges the guilt of those he has attacked. They are
certain France has been the prey of numberless atrocities--they are
certain, that these were perpetrated by order of the committee; that
eleven members composed it; and that Robespierre and his associates being
but three, did not constitute a majority.

These facts are now commented on with as much freedom as can be expected
among a people whose imaginations are yet haunted by revolutionary
tribunals and Bastilles, and the conclusions are not favourable to the
Convention. The national discontent is, however, suspended by the
hostilities between the legislature and the Jacobin club: the latter
still persists in demanding the revolutionary system in its primitive
severity, while the former are restrained from compliance, not only by
the odium it must draw on them, but from a certainty that it cannot be
supported but through the agency of the popular societies, who would thus
again become their dictators. I believe it is not unlikely that the
people and the Convention are both endeavouring to make instruments of
each other to destroy the common enemy; for the little popularity the
Convention enjoy is doubtless owing to a superior hatred of the Jacobins:
and the moderation which the former affect towards the people, is equally
influenced by a view of forming a powerful balance against these
obnoxious societies.--While a sort of necessity for this temporizing
continues, we shall go on very tranquilly, and it is become a mode to say
the Convention is "adorable."

Tallien, who has been wrestling with his ill fame for a transient
popularity, has thought it advisable to revive the public attention by
the farce of Pisistratus--at least, an attempt to assassinate him, in
which there seems to have been more eclat than danger, has given rise to
such an opinion. Bulletins of his health are delivered every day in form
to the Convention, and some of the provincial clubs have sent
congratulations on his escape. But the sneers of the incredulous, and
perhaps an internal admonition of the ridicule and disgrace attendant on
the worship of an idol whose reputation is so unpropitious, have much
re