though they
understood the value of the money, did not that of the civic wreaths, or
the embraces; they therefore looked vacant enough during this part of the
business, and grinned most facetiously when they began to examine the
appearance of each other in their oaken crowns, and, I dare say, thought
the whole comical enough.--This is one trait of national pedantry.
Because the Romans awarded a civic wreath for an act of humanity, the
French have adopted the custom; and decorate thus a soldier or a sailor,
who never heard of the Romans in his life, except in extracts from the
New Testament at mass.

But to return to our fete, of which I have only to add, that the
magistrates departed in the order they observed in coming, and the troops
and Garde Nationale filed off with their hats in the air, and with
universal acclamations, to the sound of ca ira.--Things of this kind are
not susceptible of description. The detail may be uninteresting, while
the general effect may have been impressive. The spirit of the scene I
have been endeavouring to recall seems to have evaporated under my pen;
yet to the spectator it was gay, elegant, and imposing. The day was
fine, a brilliant sun glittered on the banners, and a gentle breeze gave
them motion; while the satisfied countenances of the people added spirit
and animation to the whole.

I must remark to you, that devots, and determined aristocrates, ever
attend on these occasions. The piety of the one is shocked at a mass by
a priest who has taken the oaths, and the pride of the other is not yet
reconciled to confusion of ranks and popular festivities. I asked a
woman who brings us fruit every day, why she had not come on the
fourteenth as usual. She told me she did not come to the town, _"a cause
de la foederation"--"Vous etes aristocrate donc?"--"Ah, mon Dieu non--ce
n'est pas que je suis aristocrate, ou democrate, mais que je suis
Chretienne._*"

*"On account of the foederation."--"You are an aristocrate then, I
suppose?"--"Lord, no! It is not because I am an aristocrate, or a
democrate, but because I am a Christian."

This is an instance, among many others I could produce, that our
legislators have been wrong, in connecting any change of the national
religion with the revolution. I am every day convinced, that this and
the assignats are the great causes of the alienation visible in many who
were once the warmest patriots.--Adieu: do not envy us our fetes