l'oratoire,_ or a
disbanded capuchin, is in most places the candidate for this office.
The clubs often assemble only to read the newspapers; but where they
are sufficiently in force, they make motions for "fetes," censure the
municipalities, and endeavour to influence the elections of the members
who compose them.--That of Paris is supposed to consist of about six
thousand members; but I am told their number and influence are daily
increasing, and that the National Assembly is more subservient to them
than it is willing to acknowledge--yet, I believe, the people at large
are equally adverse to the Jacobins, who are said to entertain the
chimerical project of forming a republic, and to the Aristocrates, who
wish to restore the ancient government. The party in opposition to both
these, who are called the Feuillans,* have the real voice of the people
with them, and knowing this, they employ less art than their opponents,
have no point of union, and perhaps may finally be undermined by
intrigue, or even subdued by violence.

*They derive this appellation, as the Jacobins do theirs, from the
convent at which they hold their meetings.

You seem not to comprehend why I include vanity among the causes of
emigration, and yet I assure you it has had no small share in many of
them. The gentry of the provinces, by thus imitating the higher
noblesse, imagine they have formed a kind of a common cause, which may
hereafter tend to equalize the difference of ranks, and associate them
with those they have been accustomed to look up to as their superiors.
It is a kind of ton among the women, particularly to talk of their
emigrated relations, with an accent more expressive of pride than regret,
and which seems to lay claim to distinction rather than pity.

I must now leave you to contemplate the boasted misfortunes of these
belles, that I may join the card party which forms their alleviation.--
Adieu.

June 24, 1792.

You have doubtless learned from the public papers the late outrage of the
Jacobins, in order to force the King to consent to the formation of an
army at Paris, and to sign the decree for banishing the nonjuring Clergy.
The newspapers will describe to you the procession of the Sans-Culottes,
the indecency of their banners, and the disorders which were the result--
but it is impossible for either them or me to convey an idea of the
general indignation excited by these atrocities. Every well-meaning
per