though last, not least formidable--
fishwomen. They usually take their stand two or three hours before the
time of delivery, and the interval is employed in discussing the news,
and execrating paper money. But when once the door is opened, a scene
takes place which bids defiance to language, and calls for the pencil of
a Hogarth. Babel was, I dare say, comparatively to this, a place of
retreat and silence. Clamours, revilings, contentions, tearing of hair,
and breaking of heads, generally conclude the business; and, after the
loss of half a day's time, some part of their clothes, and the expence of
a few bruises, the combatants retire with small bills to the value of
five, or perhaps ten livres, as the whole resource to carry on their
little commerce for the ensuing week. I doubt not but the paper may have
had some share in alienating the minds of the people from the revolution.
Whenever I want to purchase any thing, the vender usually answers my
question by another, and with a rueful kind of tone inquires, "En papier,
madame?"--and the bargain concludes with a melancholy reflection on the
hardness of the times.

The decrees relative to the priests have likewise occasioned much
dissension; and it seems to me impolitic thus to have made religion the
standard of party. The high mass, which is celebrated by a priest who
has taken the oaths, is frequented by a numerous, but, it must be
confessed, an ill-drest and ill-scented congregation; while the low mass,
which is later, and which is allowed the nonjuring clergy, has a gayer
audience, but is much less crouded.--By the way, I believe many who
formerly did not much disturb themselves about religious tenets, have
become rigid Papists since an adherence to the holy see has become a
criterion of political opinion. But if these separatists are bigoted and
obstinate, the conventionalists on their side are ignorant and
intolerant.

I enquired my way to-day to the Rue de l'Hopital. The woman I spoke to
asked me, in a menacing tone, what I wanted there. I replied, which was
true, that I merely wanted to pass through the street as my nearest way
home; upon which she lowered her voice, and conducted me very civilly.--I
mentioned the circumstance on my return, and found that the nuns of the
hospital had their mass performed by a priest who had not taken the
oaths, and that those who were suspected of going to attend it were
insulted, and sometimes ill treated. A poor woman