What will then be the situation of France?
Who can reflect without trembling at the prospect?--It is not yet safe to
walk the streets decently dressed; and I have been obliged to supply
myself with trowsers, a jacket, coloured neckcloths, and coarse linen,
which I take care to soil before I venture out.
"The Agrarian law is now the moral of Paris, and I had nearly lost my
life yesterday by tearing a placard written in support of it. I did it
imprudently, not supposing I was observed; and had not some people, known
as Jacobins, come up and interfered in my behalf, the consequence might
have been fatal.--It would be difficult, and even impossible, to attempt
a description of the manners of the people of Paris at this moment: the
licentiousness common to great cities is decency compared with what
prevails in this; it has features of a peculiar and striking description,
and the general expression is that of a monstrous union of opposite
vices. Alternately dissolute and cruel, gay and vindictive, the Parisian
vaunts amidst debauchery the triumph of assassination, and enlivens his
midnight orgies by recounting the sufferings of the massacred
aristocrates: women, whose profession it is to please, assume the _bonnet
rouge_ [red cap], and affect, as a means of seduction, an intrepid and
ferocious courage.--I cannot yet learn if Mons. S____'s sister be alive;
her situation about the Queen makes it too doubtful; but endeavour to
give him hope--many may have escaped whose fears still detain them in
concealment.
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