s,
armed with such decrees, might have reduced France to the primitive state
of ancient Gaul. Several valuable paintings are said to have been
conveyed to England, and it will be curious if the barbarism of France in
the eighteenth century should restore to us what we, with a fanaticism
and ignorance at least more prudent than theirs, sold them in the
seventeenth. The zealots of the Barebones' Parliament are, however, more
respectable than the atheistical Vandals of the Convention; and, besides
the benefit of our example, the interval of a century and an half, with
the boast of a philosophy and a degree of illumination exceeding that of
any other people, have rendered the errors of the French at once more
unpardonable and more ridiculous; for, in assimilating their past
presentations to their present conduct and situation, we do not always
find it possible to regret without a mixture of contempt.

Amiens, Nov. 29, 1794.

The selfish policy of the Convention in affecting to respect and preserve
the Jacobin societies, while it deprived them of all power, and help up
the individuals who composed them to abhorrence, could neither satisfy
nor deceive men versed in revolutionary expedients, and more accustomed
to dictate laws than to submit to them.*

* The Jacobins were at this time headed by Billaud Varenne, Collot,
Thuriot, &c.--veterans, who were not likely to be deceived by
temporizing.

Supported by all the force of government, and intrinsically formidable by
their union, the Clubs had long existed in defiance of public
reprobation, and for some time they had braved not only the people, but
the government itself. The instant they were disabled from corresponding
and communicating in that privileged sort of way which rendered them so
conspicuous, they felt their weakness; and their desultory and
unconnected efforts to regain their influence only served to complete its
annihilation. While they pretended obedience to the regulations to which
the Convention had subjected them, they intrigued to promote a revolt,
and were strenuously exerting themselves to gain partizans among the idle
and dissolute, who, having subsisted for months as members of
revolutionary committees, and in other revolutionary offices, were
naturally averse from a more moderate government. The numbers of these
were far from inconsiderable: and, when it is recollected that this
description of people only had been allowed to