search the
adjacent villages several days successively without finding a single
septier of corn. The farmers who have yet been able to conceal any,
refuse to dispose of it for assignats; and the poor, who have neither
plate nor money, exchange their best clothes or linen for a loaf, or a
small quantity of flour. Our gates are sometimes assailed by twenty or
thirty people, not to beg money, but bread; and I am frequently accosted
in the street by women of decent appearance, who, when I offer them
assignats, refuse them, saying, "We have enough of this sorry paper--it
is bread we want."--If you are asked to dine, you take your bread with
you; and you travel as though you were going a voyage--for there are not
many inns on the road where you can expect to find bread, or indeed
provisions of any kind.

Having procured a few six-livre pieces, we were enabled to purchase a
small supply of corn, though by no means enough for our consumption, so
that we are obliged to oeconomise very rigidly. Mr. D-------- and the
servants eat bread made with three-parts bran to one of flour. The
little provision we possess is, however, a great embarrassment to us, for
we are not only subject to domiciliary visits, but continually liable to
be pillaged by the starving poor around us; and we are often under the
necessity of passing several meals without bread, because we dare not
send the wheat to be ground, nor bake except at night. While the last
operation is performing, the doors are carefully shut, the bell rings in
vain, and no guest is admitted till every vestige of it is removed.--All
the breweries have seals put upon the doors, and severe penal laws are
issued against converting barley to any other purpose than the making of
bread. If what is allowed us were composed only of barley, or any other
wholesome grain, we should not repine; but the distribution at present is
a mixture of grown wheat, peas, rye, &c. which has scarcely the
resemblance of bread.

I was asked to-day, by some women who had just received their portion,
and in an accent of rage and despair that alarmed me, whether I thought
such food fit for a human creature.--We cannot alleviate this misery, and
are impatient to escape from the sight of it. If we can obtain passports
to go from hence to Paris, we hope there to get a final release, and a
permission to return to England.

My friend Madame de la F-------- has left us, and I fear is only gone
home to die. Her