ere are very few of what we call Tabbies in
France; that is, females of severe principles and contracted features, in
whose apparel every pin has its destination with mathematical exactness,
who are the very watch-towers of a neighbourhood, and who give the alarm
on the first appearance of incipient frailty. Here, antique dowagers and
faded spinsters are all gay, laughing, rouged, and indulgent--so that
'bating the subtraction of teeth and addition of wrinkles, the disparity
between one score and four is not so great:

"Gay rainbow silks their mellow charms enfold,
Nought of these beauties but themselves is old."

I know if I venture to add a word in defence of Tabbyhood, I shall be
engaged in a war with yourself and all our young acquaintance; yet in
this age, which so liberally "softens, and blends, and weakens, and
dilutes" away all distinctions, I own I am not without some partiality
for strong lines of demarcation; and, perhaps, when fifty retrogrades
into fifteen, it makes a worse confusion in society than the toe of the
peasant treading on the heel of the courtier.--But, adieu: I am not gay,
though I trifle. I have learnt something by my residence in France, and
can be, as you see, frivolous under circumstances that ought to make me
grave.--Yours.

Peronne, August 29, 1793.

The political horizon of France threatens nothing but tempests. If we
are still tranquil here, it is only because the storm is retarded, and,
far from deeming ourselves secure from its violence, we suffer in
apprehension almost as much as at other places is suffered in reality.
An hundred and fifty people have been arrested at Amiens in one night,
and numbers of the gentry in the neighbouring towns have shared the same
fate. This measure, which I understand is general throughout the
republic, has occasioned great alarms, and is beheld by the mass of the
people themselves with regret. In some towns, the Bourgeois have
petitions to the Representatives on mission in behalf of their gentry
thus imprisoned: but, far from succeeding, all who have signed such
petitions are menaced and intimidated, and the terror is so much
increased, that I doubt if even this slight effort will be repeated any
where.

The levee en masse, or rising in a body, which has been for some time
decreed, has not yet taken place. There are very few, I believe, that
comprehend it, and fewer who are disposed to comply. Many consu