"On ne fauroit la reformer."_
La Fontaine.

The Deputies who were imprisoned as accomplices of the Girondists, and on
other different pretexts, have petitioned either to be brought to trial
or released; and the abominable conduct of Carrier at Nantes is so fully
substantiated, that the whole country is impatient to have some steps
taken towards bringing him to punishment: yet the Convention are averse
from both these measures--they procrastinate and elude the demand of
their seventy-two colleagues, who were arrested without a specific
charge; while they almost protect Carrier, and declare, that in cases
which tend to deprive a Representative of his liberty, it is better to
reflect thirty times than once. This is curious doctrine with men who
have sent so many people arbitrarily to the scaffold, and who now detain
seventy-two Deputies in confinement, they know not why.

The ashes of Rousseau have recently been deposited with the same
ceremonies, and in the same place, as those of Marat. We should feel for
such a degradation of genius, had not the talents of Rousseau been
frequently misapplied; and it is their misapplication which has levelled
him to an association with Marat. Rousseau might be really a fanatic,
and, though eccentric, honest; yet his power of adorning impracticable
systems, it must be acknowledged, has been more mischievous to society
than a thousand such gross impostors as Marat.

I have learned since my return from the Providence, the death of Madame
Elizabeth. I was ill when it happened, and my friends took some pains to
conceal an event which they knew would affect me. In tracing the motives
of the government for this horrid action, it may perhaps be sufficiently
accounted for in the known piety and virtues of this Princess; but
reasons of another kind have been suggested to me, and which, in all
likelihood, contributed to hasten it. She was the only person of the
royal family of an age competent for political transactions who had not
emigrated, and her character extorted respect even from her enemies. [The
Prince of Conti was too insignificant to be an object of jealousy in this
way.] She must therefore, of course, since the death of the Queen, have
been an object of jealousy to all parties. Robespierre might fear that
she would be led to consent to some arrangement with a rival faction for
placing the King on the throne--the Convention were under similar
apprehen