ction; so that I do not
despair of the safety of some, who are now thought to have perished.--
I am, as you may suppose, in haste to leave this place, and I hope to
return to Montmorency tomorrow; but every body is soliciting passports.
The Hotel de Ville is besieged, and I have already attended two days
without success.--I beg my respectful homage to Monsieur and Madame de
____; and I have the honour to be, with esteem, the affectionate servant
of my friends in general.

"L____."

You will read M. L____'s letter with all the grief and indignation we
have already felt, and I will make no comment on it, but to give you a
slight sketch of the history of Guermeur, whom he mentions as being
President of the Committee of Surveillance.--In the absence of a man,
whom he called his friend, he seduced his wife, and eloped with her: the
husband overtook them, and fell in the dispute which insued; when
Guermeur, to avoid being taken by the officers of justice, abandoned his
companion to her fate, and escaped alone. After a variety of adventures,
he at length enlisted himself as a grenadier in the regiment of Dillon.
With much assurance, and talents cultivated above the situation in which
he appeared, he became popular amongst his fellow-soldiers, and the
military impunity, which is one effect of the revolution, cast a veil
over his former guilt, or rather indeed enabled him to defy the
punishment annexed to it. When the regiment was quartered at ____, he
frequented and harangued at the Jacobin club, perverted the minds of the
soldiers by seditious addresses, till at length he was deemed qualified
to quit the character of a subordinate incendiary, and figure amongst the
assassins at Paris. He had hitherto, I believe, acted without pay, for
he was deeply in debt, and without money or clothes; but a few days
previous to the tenth of August, a leader of the Jacobins supplied him
with both, paid his debts, procured his discharge, and sent him to Paris.
What intermediate gradations he may have passed through, I know not; but
it is not difficult to imagine the services that have advanced him to his
present situation.--It would be unsafe to risk this letter by the post,
and I close it hastily to avail myself of a present conveyance.--I
remain, Yours, &c.

Arras, September 14, 1792.

The camp of Maulde is broken up, and we deferred our journey, that we
might pass a day at Douay with M. de ____'s son. The road within some
m