ave already too much of it."]

Many of the old shops are nearly empty, and the little trade which yet
exists is carried on by a sort of adventurers who, without being bred to
any one trade, set up half a dozen, and perhaps disappear three months
afterwards. They are, I believe, chiefly men who have speculated on the
assignats, and as soon as they have turned their capital in a mercantile
way a short time, become apprehensive of the paper, realize it, and
retire; or, becoming bankrupts by some unlucky monopoly, begin a new
career of patriotism.

There is, properly speaking, no money in circulation, yet a vast quantity
is bought and sold. Annuitants, possessors of moderate landed property,
&c., finding it impossible to subsist on their incomes, are forced to
have recourse to the little specie they have reserved, and exchange it
for paper. Immense sums in coin are purchased by the government, to make
good the balance of their trade with the neutral countries for
provisions, so that I should suppose, if this continue a few months, very
little will be left in the country.

One might be tempted to fancy there is something in the atmosphere of
Paris which adapts the minds of its inhabitants to their political
situation. They talk of the day appointed for a revolt a fortnight
before, as though it were a fete, and the most timid begin to be inured
to a state of agitation and apprehension, and to consider it as a natural
vicissitude that their lives should be endangered periodically.

A commission has been employed for some time in devising another new
constitution, which is to be proposed to the Assembly on the thirteenth
of this month; and on that day, it is said, an effort is to be made by
the royalists. They are certainly very numerous, and the interest taken
in the young King is universal. In vain have the journalists been
forbidden to cherish these sentiments, by publishing details concerning
him: whatever escapes the walls of his prison is circulated in impatient
whispers, and requires neither printing nor gazettes a la main to give it
publicity.*

* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence
which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written
gazettes.--I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them
at present.

--The child is reported to be ill, and in a kind of stupefaction, so as
to sit whole days without speaking or moving: this is not