e--"holy lottery."

The dark and ferocious character of Le Bon developes itself hourly: the
whole department trembles before him; and those who have least merited
persecution are, with reason, the most apprehensive. The most cautious
prudence of conduct, the most undeviating rectitude in those who are by
their fortune or rank obnoxious to the tyrant, far from contributing to
their security, only mark them out for a more early sacrifice. What is
still worse, these horrors are not likely to terminate, because he is
allowed to pay out of the treasury of the department the mob that are
employed to popularize and applaud them.--I hope, in a few days, we shall
receive our permission to depart. My impatience is a malady, and, for
nearly the first time in my life, I am sensible of ennui; not the ennui
occasioned by want of amusement, but that which is the effect of unquiet
expectation, and which makes both the mind and body restless and
incapable of attending to any thing. I am incessantly haunted by the
idea that the companion of to-day may to-morrow expire under the
Guillotine, that the common acts of social intercourse may be explained
into intimacy, intimacy into the participation of imputed treasons, and
the fate of those with whom we are associated become our own. It appears
both useless and cruel to have brought us here, nor do I yet know any
reason why we were not all removed to Amiens, except it was to avoid
exposing to the eyes of the people in the places through which we must
pass too large a number of victims at once.--The cause of our being
removed from Peronne is indeed avowed, as it is at present a rule not to
confine people at the place of their residence, lest they should have too
much facility or communication with, or assistance from, their friends.*

* In some departments the nobles and priests arrested were removed
from ten to twenty leagues distant from their homes; and if they
happened to have relations living at the places where they were
confined, these last were forbidden to reside there, or even to
travel that way.

We should doubtless have remained at Arras until some change in public
affairs had procured our release, but for the fortunate discovery of the
man I have mentioned; and the trifling favour of removal from one prison
to another has been obtained only by certain arrangements which Fleury
has made with this subordinate agent of tyranny, and in which justice or