d--in despair--too feeling a heart--
his heart is wrung or wounded.] and the well-placing of these dolorous
assertions depends rather upon the judgement and eloquence of the
speaker, than the seriousness of the case which gives rise to them. For
instance, the despair and desolation of him who has lost his money, and
of him whose head is ill drest, are of different degrees, but the
expressions are usually the same. The debates of the Convention, the
debates of the Jacobins, and all the public prints, are fraught with
proofs of this appropriated susceptibility, and it is often attributed to
persons and occasions where we should not much expect to find it. A
quarrel between the legislators as to who was most concerned in promoting
the massacres of September, is reconciled with a "sweet and enthusiastic
excess of fraternal tenderness." When the clubs dispute on the
expediency of an insurrection, or the necessity of a more frequent
employment of the guillotine, the debate terminates by overflowing of
sensibility from all the members who have engaged in it!

At the assassinations in one of the prisons, when all the other miserable
victims had perished, the mob discovered one Jonneau, a member of the
Assembly, who had been confined for kicking another member named
Grangeneuve.* As the massacrers probably had no orders on the subject,
he was brought forth, from amidst heaps of murdered companions, and a
messenger dispatched to the Assembly, (which during these scenes met as
usual,) to enquire if they acknowledged Jonneau as a member. A decree
was passed in the affirmative, and Jonneau brought by the assassins, with
the decree fastened on his breast, in triumph to his colleagues, who, we
are told, at this instance of respect for themselves, shed tears of
tenderness and admiration at the conduct of monsters, the sight of whom
should seem revolting to human nature.

* When the massacres began, the wife and friends of Jonneau
petitioned Grangeneuve on their knees to consent to his enlargement;
but Grangeneuve was implacable, and Jonneau continued in prison till
released by the means above mentioned. It is observable, that at
this dreadful moment the utmost strictness was observed, and every
form literally enforced in granting the discharge of a prisoner. A
suspension of all laws, human and divine, was allowed to the
assassins, while those only that secured them their victims were