--I have just received
advice that my friends have left Lausanne, and are on their way to Paris.
Our first plan of passing the winter there will be imprudent, if not
impracticable, and we have concluded to take a house for the winter six
months at Amiens, Chantilly, or some place which has the reputation of
being quiet. I have already ordered enquiries to be made, and shall set
out with Mrs. ____ in a day or two for Amiens. I may, perhaps, not write
till our return; but shall not cease to be, with great truth.--Yours, &c.
Amiens, 1792.
The departement de la Somme has the reputation of being a little
aristocratic. I know not how far this be merited, but the people are
certainly not enthusiasts. The villages we passed on our road hither
were very different from those on the frontiers--we were hailed by no
popular sounds, no cries of Vive la nation! except from here and there
some ragged boy in a red cap, who, from habit, associated this salutation
with the appearance of a carriage. In every place where there are half a
dozen houses is planted an unthriving tree of liberty, which seems to
wither under the baneful influence of the _bonnet rouge_. [The red cap.]
This Jacobin attribute is made of materials to resist the weather, and
may last some time; but the trees of liberty, being planted unseasonably,
are already dead. I hope this will not prove emblematic, and that the
power of the Jacobins may not outlive the freedom of the people.
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