Mr. D____ is one of the best men existing--well bred and well
informed; yet, without its appearing to the common observer, he is of a
very singular and original turn of mind. He is most exceedingly nervous,
and this effect of his physical construction has rendered him so
susceptible, that he is continually agitated and hurt by circumstances
which others pass by unnoticed. In other respects he is a great lover of
exercise, fond of domestic life, reads much, and has an aversion from
bustle of all kind.
The banishment of the Priests, which in many instances was attended with
circumstances of peculiar atrocity, has not yet produced those effects
which were expected from it, and which the promoters of the measure
employed as a pretext for its adoption. There are indeed now no masses
said but by the Constitutional Clergy; but as the people are usually as
ingenious in evading laws as legislators are in forming them, many
persons, instead of attending the churches, which they think profaned by
priests who have taken the oaths, flock to church-yards, chapels, or
other places, once appropriated to religious worship, but in disuse since
the revolution, and of course not violated by constitutional masses. The
cemetery of St. Denis, at Amiens, though large, is on Sundays and
holidays so crouded, that it is almost difficult to enter it. Here the
devotees flock in all weathers, say their mass, and return with the
double satisfaction of having preserved their allegiance to the Pope, and
risked persecution in a cause they deem meritorious.
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