may have occupied
the Convention during part of this important crisis--nothing less than
inventing a dress for their Commissioners! But, as Sterne says, "it is
the spirit of the nation;" and I recollect no circumstance during the
whole progress of the revolution (however serious) that has not been
mixed with frivolities of this kind.

I know not what effect this new costume may produce on the rebels or the
enemy, but I confess it appears to me more ludicrous than formidable,
especially when a representative happens to be of the shape and features
of the one we have here. Saladin, Deputy for this department, and an
advocate of the town of Amiens, has already invested himself with this
armour of inviolability; "strange figure in such strange habiliments,"
that one is tempted to forget that Baratraria and the government of
Sancho are the creation of fancy. Imagine to yourself a short fat man,
of sallow complexion and small eyes, with a sash of white, red, and blue
round his waist, a black belt with a sword suspended across his
shoulders, and a round hat turned up before, with three feathers of the
national colours: "even such a man" is our representative, and exercises
a more despotic authority than most Princes in Europe.--He is accompanied
by another Deputy, who was what is called Pere de la Oratoire before the
revolution--that is, in a station nearly approaching to that of an
under-master at our public schools; only that the seminaries to which
these were attached being very numerous, those employed in them were
little considered. They wore the habit, and were subject to the same
restrictions, as the Clergy, but were at liberty to quit the profession
and marry, if they chose.--I have been more particular in describing
this class of men, because they have every where taken an active and
successful part in perverting and misleading the people: they are in the
clubs, or the municipalities, in the Convention, and in all elective
administrations, and have been in most places remarkable for their
sedition and violence.

Several reasons may be assigned for the influence and conduct of men
whose situation and habits, on a first view, seem to oppose both. In the
first ardour of reform it was determined, that all the ancient modes of
education should be abolished; small temporary pensions were allotted to
the Professors of Colleges, and their admission to the exercise of
similar functions in the intended new system was left