misfortunes.

But the Bishop, yet in the vigour of life, is better capable of enduring
these hardships than most of the poor priests with whom he is associated:
the greater number of them are very old men, with venerable grey locks--
and their tattered clerical habits, scanty meals, and wretched beds, give
me many an heart-ache. God send the constant sight of so much misery may
not render me callous!--It is certain, there are people here, who,
whatever their feelings might have been on this occasion at first, seem
now little affected by it. Those who are too much familiarized with
scenes of wretchedness, as well as those to whom they are unknown, are
not often very susceptible; and I am sometimes disposed to cavil with our
natures, that the sufferings which ought to excite our benevolence, and
the prosperity that enables us to relieve them, should ever have a
contrary effect. Yet this is so true, that I have scarcely ever observed
even the poor considerate towards each other--and the rich, if they are
frequently charitable, are not always compassionate.*

* Our situation at the Bicetre, though terrible for people unused to
hardships or confinement, and in fact, wretched as personal
inconvenience could make it, was yet Elysium, compared to the
prisons of other departments. At St. Omer, the prisoners were
frequently disturbed at midnight by the entrance of men into their
apartments, who, with the detestable ensign of their order, (red
caps,) and pipes in their mouths, came by way of frolic to search
their pockets, trunks, &c.--At Montreuil, the Maisons d'Arret were
under the direction of a Commissary, whose behaviour to the female
prisoners was too atrocious for recital--two young women, in
particular, who refused to purchase milder treatment, were locked up
in a room for seventeen days.--Soon after I left Arras, every prison
became a den of horror. The miserable inhabitants were subject to
the agents of Le Bon, whose avarice, cruelty, and licentiousness,
were beyond any thing a humane mind can imagine. Sometimes the
houses were suddenly surrounded by an armed force, the prisoners
turned out in the depth of winter for several hours into an open
court, during the operation of robbing them of their pocket-books,
buckles, ear-rings, or whatever article of value they had about
them. At other times they were visited by th