all,
every infraction of the laws in a country just supposing itself become
free, cannot be too severely repressed. The National Assembly have done
all that humanity could suggest--they have ordered the punishment of the
assassins, and have pensioned and adopted the General's children. The
orator expatiated both on the horror of the act and its consequences, as
I should have thought, with some ingenuity, had I not been assured by a
brother orator that the whole was "execrable." But I frequently remark,
that though a Frenchman may suppose the merit of his countrymen to be
collectively superior to that of the whole world, he seldom allows any
individual of them to have so large a portion as himself.--Adieu: I have
already written enough to convince you I have neither acquired the
Gallomania, nor forgotten my friends in England; and I conclude with a
wish _a propos_ to my subject--that they may long enjoy the rational
liberty they possess and so well deserve.--Yours.

May, 1792.

You, my dear _____, who live in a land of pounds, shillings, and pence,
can scarcely form an idea of our embarrassments through the want of them.
'Tis true, these are petty evils; but when you consider that they happen
every day, and every hour, and that, if they are not very serious, they
are very frequent, you will rejoice in the splendour of your national
credit, which procures you all the accommodation of paper currency,
without diminishing the circulation of specie. Our only currency here
consists of assignats of 5 livres, 50, 100, 200, and upwards: therefore
in making purchases, you must accommodate your wants to the value of your
assignat, or you must owe the shopkeeper, or the shopkeeper must owe you;
and, in short, as an old woman assured me to-day, "C'est de quoi faire
perdre la tete," and, if it lasted long, it would be the death of her.
Within these few days, however, the municipalities have attempted to
remedy the inconvenience, by creating small paper of five, ten, fifteen,
and twenty sols, which they give in exchange for assignats of five
livres; but the number they are allowed to issue is limited, and the
demand for them so great, that the accommodation is inadequate to the
difficulty of procuring it. On the days on which this paper (which is
called billets de confiance) is issued, the Hotel de Ville is besieged by
a host of women collected from all parts of the district--Peasants, small
shopkeepers, fervant maids, and