all
its treasures to Paris, as has lately been suggested in the Convention,
we shall tempt you to return, in spite of yourself."*

*The project of pillaging Italy of its most valuable works of art
was suggested by the philosophic Abbe Gregoire, a constitutional
Bishop, as early as September 1794, because, as he alledged, the
chefs d'ouvres of the Greek republic ought not to embellish a
country of slaves.

--I told him, I neither doubted their intending such a scheme, nor the
possibility of its success, though it was not altogether worthy of
philosophers and republicans to wage war for Venus's and Appollos, and to
sacrifice the lives of one part of their fellow-citizens, that the rest
might be amused with pictures and statues.--"That's not our affair (says
Monsieur de --------). Soldiers do not reason. And if the Convention
should have a fancy to pillage the Emperor of China's palace, I see no
remedy but to set sail with the first fair wind,"--"I wish, (said his
sister, who was the only person present,) instead of being under such
orders, you had escaped from the service." "Yes, (returned the General
quickly,) and wander about Europe like Dumouriez, suspected and despised
by all parties." I observed, Dumouriez was an adventurer, and that on
many accounts it was necessary to guard against him. He said, he did not
dispute the necessity or even the justice of the conduct observed towards
him, but that nevertheless I might be assured it had operated as an
effectual check to those who might, otherwise, have been tempted to
follow Dumouriez's example; "And we have now (added he, in a tone between
gaiety and despair,) no alternative but obedience or the guillotine."--I
have transcribed the substance of this conversation, as it confirms what
I have frequently been told, that the fate of Dumouriez, however merited,
is one great cause why no desertion of importance has since taken place.

I was just now interrupted by a noise and shouting near my window, and
could plainly distinguish the words Scipio and Solon uttered in a tone of
taunt and reproach. Not immediately comprehending how Solon or Scipio
could be introduced in a fray at Paris, I dispatched Angelique to make
enquiry; and at her return I learned that a croud of boys were following
a shoemaker of the neighbourhood, who, while he was member of a
revolutionary Committee, had chosen to unite in his person the glories of
both Rome and Greece,