As a considerable period has elapsed since my return, it may not be
improper to add, that I took some steps for the publication of these
Letters so early as July, 1795. Certain difficulties, however, arising,
of which I was not aware, I relinquished my design, and should not have
been tempted to resume it, but for the kindness of the Gentleman whose
name appears as the Editor.
Sept. 12, 1796.
A RESIDENCE IN FRANCE.
May 10, 1792.
I am every day more confirmed in the opinion I communicated to you on my
arrival, that the first ardour of the revolution is abated.--The bridal
days are indeed past, and I think I perceive something like indifference
approaching. Perhaps the French themselves are not sensible of this
change; but I who have been absent two years, and have made as it were a
sudden transition from enthusiasm to coldness, without passing through
the intermediate gradations, am forcibly struck with it. When I was here
in 1790, parties could be scarcely said to exist--the popular triumph was
too complete and too recent for intolerance and persecution, and the
Noblesse and Clergy either submitted in silence, or appeared to rejoice
in their own defeat. In fact, it was the confusion of a decisive
conquest--the victors and the vanquished were mingled together; and the
one had not leisure to exercise cruelty, nor the other to meditate
revenge. Politics had not yet divided society; nor the weakness and
pride of the great, with the malice and insolence of the little, thinned
the public places.
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