--Your
uncharitable discernment, you see, has led me into a digression, and I
have, without intending it, connected the motives of my stay with
reflections on Voltaire's General History, Barillon's Letters, and all
the secret biography of our modern libraries. This, you will say, is
only a chapter of a "man's importance to himself;" but public affairs are
now so confused and disgusting, that we are glad to encourage any train
of ideas not associated with them.
The Commissioners I gave you some account of in a former letter are
departed, and we have lately had Chabot, an Ex-capuchin, and a patriot of
special note in the Convention, and one Dumont, an attorney of a
neighbouring village. They are, like all the rest of these missionaries,
entrusted with unlimited powers, and inspire apprehension and dismay
wherever they approach.
The Garde Nationale of Amiens are not yet entirely subdued to the times,
and Chabot gave some hints of a project to disarm them, and actually
attempted to arrest some of their officers; but, apprized of his design,
they remained two nights under arms, and the Capuchin, who is not
martially inclined, was so alarmed at this indication of resistance,
that he has left the town with more haste than ceremony.--He had, in an
harangue at the cathedral, inculcated some very edifying doctrines on the
division of property and the right of pillage; and it is not improbable,
had he not withdrawn, but the Amienois would have ventured, on this
pretext, to arrest him.
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