nstruments of oppressing the whole country, are themselves become
insignificant, and, perhaps, less secure than those over whom they
tyrannize. They cease to debate, or even to speak; but if a member of
the Committee ascends the tribune, they overwhelm him with applauses
before they know what he has to say, and then pass all the decrees
presented to them more implicitly than the most obsequious Parliament
ever enregistered an arrete of the Court; happy if, by way of
compensation, they attract a smile from Barrere, or escape the ominous
glances of Robespierre.*

* When a member of the committee looked inauspiciously at a
subordinate accomplice, the latter scarce ventured to approach his
home for some time.--Legendre, who has since boasted so continually
about his courage, is said to have kept his bed, and Bourdon de
l'Oise, to have lost his senses for a considerable time, from
frights, the consequence of such menaces.

Having so far described the situation of public affairs, I proceed as
usual, and for which I have the example of Pope, who never quits a
subject without introducing himself, to some notice of my own. It is not
only bad in itself, but worse in perspective than ever: yet I learn not
to murmur, and derive patience from the certainty, that almost every part
of France is more oppressed and wretched than we are.--Yours, etc.

June 3, 1794.

The individual sufferings of the French may perhaps yet admit of
increase; but their humiliation as a people can go no farther; and if it
were not certain that the acts of the government are congenial to its
principles, one might suppose this tyranny rather a moral experiment on
the extent of human endurance, than a political system.

Either the vanity or cowardice of Robespierre is continually suggesting
to him plots for his assassination; and on pretexts, at once absurd and
atrocious, a whole family, with near seventy other innocent people as
accomplices, have been sentenced to death by a formal decree of the
convention.

One might be inclined to pity a people obliged to suppress their
indignation on such an event, but the mind revolts when addresses are
presented from all quarters to congratulate this monster's pretended
escape, and to solicit a farther sacrifice of victims to his revenge.--
The assassins of Henry the Fourth had all the benefit of the laws, and
suffered only after a legal condemnation; yet the unfortunate Cecilia