after our arrival, we found
it very much diminshed; and this has happened to almost all the people
who have been arrested. Our suspicions naturally fall on the dragoons,
and it is not very surprizing that they should attempt to steal from
those whom they are certain would not dare to make any complaint.

Many of our fellow-prisoners are embarrassed by their servants having
quitted them.--One Collot d'Herbois, a member of the Commite de Salut
Public, has proposed to the Convention to collect all the gentry,
priests, and suspected people, into different buildings, which should be
previously mined for the purpose, and, on the least appearance of
insurrection, to blow them up all together.--You may perhaps conclude,
that such a project was received with horror, and the adviser of it
treated as a monster. Our humane legislature, however, very coolly sent
it to the committee to be discussed, without any regard to the terror and
apprehension which the bare idea of a similar proposal must inspire in
those who are the destined victims. I cannot myself believe that this
abominable scheme is intended for execution, but it has nevertheless
created much alarm in timid minds, and has occasioned in part the
defection of the servants I have just mentioned. Those who were
sufficiently attached to their masters and mistresses to endure the
confinement and privations of a Maison d'Arret, tremble at the thoughts
of being involved in the common ruin of a gunpowder explosion; and the
men seem to have less courage than the women, at least more of the latter
have consented to remain here.--It was atrocious to publish such a
conception, though nothing perhaps was intended by it, as it may deprive
many people of faithful attendants at a time when they are most
necessary.

We have a tribunal revolutionnaire here, with its usual attendant the
Guillotine, and executions are now become very frequent. I know not who
are the sufferers, and avoid enquiring through fear of hearing the name
of some acquaintance. As far as I can learn, the trials are but too
summary, and little other evidence is required than the fortune, rank,
and connections of the accused. The Deputy who is Commissioner for this
department is one Le Bon, formerly a priest--and, I understand, of an
immoral and sanguinary character, and that it is he who chiefly directs
the verdicts of the juries according to his personal hatred or his
personal interest.--We have lately had a ver