and
ceremonies, while you enjoy a constitution which requires no oath to make
you cherish it: and a national liberty, which is felt and valued without
the aid of extrinsic decoration.--Yours.

August 15.

The consternation and horror of which I have been partaker, will more
than apologize for my silence. It is impossible for any one, however
unconnected with the country, not to feel an interest in its present
calamities, and to regret them. I have little courage to write even now,
and you must pardon me if my letter should bear marks of the general
depression. All but the faction are grieved and indignant at the King's
deposition; but this grief is without energy, and this indignation
silent. The partizans of the old government, and the friends of the new,
are equally enraged; but they have no union, are suspicious of each
other, and are sinking under the stupor of despair, when they should be
preparing for revenge.--It would not be easy to describe our situation
during the last week. The ineffectual efforts of La Fayette, and the
violences occasioned by them, had prepared us for something still more
serious. On the ninth, we had a letter from one of the representatives
for this department, strongly expressive of his apprehensions for the
morrow, but promising to write if he survived it. The day, on which we
expected news, came, but no post, no papers, no diligence, nor any means
of information. The succeeding night we sat up, expecting letters by the
post: still, however, none arrived; and the courier only passed hastily
through, giving no detail, but that Paris was _a feu et a sang_.*

* All fire and slaughter.

At length, after passing two days and nights in this dreadful suspence,
we received certain intelligence which even exceeded our fears.--It is
needless to repeat the horrors that have been perpetrated. The accounts
must, ere now, have reached you. Our representative, as he seemed to
expect, was so ill treated as to be unable to write: he was one of those
who had voted the approval of La Fayette's conduct--all of whom were
either massacred, wounded, or intimidated; and, by this means, a majority
was procured to vote the deposition of the King. The party allow, by
their own accounts, eight thousand persons to have perished on this
occasion; but the number is supposed to be much more considerable. No
papers are published at present except those whose editors, being members
of the Assemb