I hope, on my return, to find them more reconciled.
At Villars de Bretonne, on my road hither, some people told me, with
great gaiety, that the English had made a descent on the coast of
Picardy. Such a report (for I did not suppose it possible) during the
last war would have made me tremble, but I heard this without alarm,
having, in no instance, seen the people take that kind of interest in
public events which formerly made a residence in France unpleasant to an
individual of an hostile nation. It is not that they are become more
liberal, or better informed--no change of this kind has been discovered
even by the warmest advocates of the revolution; but they are more
indifferent, and those who are not decidedly the enemies of the present
government, for the most part concern themselves as little about the
events of the war, as though it were carried on in the South Sea.
I fear I should risk an imputation on my veracity, were I to describe the
extreme ignorance and inattention of the French with respect to public
men and measures. They draw no conclusions from the past, form no
conjectures for the future, and, after exclaiming "Il ne peut pas durer
comme cela," they, with a resignation which is certainly neither pious
nor philosophic, leave the rest to the agency of Providence.--Even those
who are more informed so bewilder themselves in the politics of Greece
and Rome, that they do not perceive how little these are applicable to
their own country.
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