s resounded with _"Dieu de clemence et de
justice."_ ["God of mercy and justice."] and _"Liberte, Liberte,
cherie!"_ ["Liberty, beloved Liberty!"] while the instrument of death was
in a state of unceasing activity--and when the auditors, who joined in
these invocations to Liberty, returned to their homes trembling, lest
they should be arrested in the street, or find a mandate or guard at
their own houses.*

* An acquaintance of mine told me, that he was one evening in
company at Dijon, where, after singing hymns to liberty in the most
energetic style, all the party were arrested, and betook themselves
as tranquilly to prison, as though the name of liberty had been
unknown to them. The municipality of Dijon commonly issued their
writs of arrest in this form--"Such and such a person shall be
arrested, and his wife, if he has one!"

--At present, however, the Parisians really sing the _Reveil_ from
principle, and I doubt if even a new and more agreeable air in the
Jacobin interest would be able to supplant it.

We have had our permission to remain here extended to another Decade; but
Mr. D------, who declares, ten times in an hour, that the French are the
strangest people on earth, besides being the most barbarous and the most
frivolous, is impatient to be gone; and as we now have our passports, I
believe we shall depart the middle of next week.

--Yours.

Paris, June 15, 1795.

I am now, after a residence of more than three years, amidst the chaos of
a revolution, on the eve of my departure from France. Yet, while I
joyfully prepare to revisit my own country, my mind involuntarily traces
the rapid succession of calamities which have filled this period, and
dwells with painful contemplation on those changes in the morals and
condition of the French people that seem hitherto to be the only fruits
which they have produced. In this recurrence to the past, and estimation
of the present, however we may regret the persecution of wealth, the
destruction of commerce, and the general oppression, the most important
and irretrievable mischief of the revolution is, doubtless, the
corruption of manners introduced among the middle and lower classes of
the people.

The labouring poor of France have often been described as frugal,
thoughtless, and happy, earning, indeed, but little, yet spending still
less, and in general able to procure such a subsistence as their habits
and climate re