The
majority of the people have no point of union nor mode of communication,
while the Jacobins, whose numbers are comparatively insignificant, are
strong, by means of their general correspondence, their common center at
Paris, and the exclusive direction of all the public prints. But,
whatever are the causes, it is certain that the government is at once
powerful and detested--almost without apparent support, yet difficult to
overthrow; and the submission of Rome to a dotard and a boy can no longer
excite the wonder of any one who reflects on what passes in France.
After various decrees to effect the levee en masse, the Convention have
discovered that this sublime and undefined project was not calculated for
the present exhausted state of martial ardour. They therefore no longer
presume on any movement of enthusiasm, but have made a positive and
specific requisition of all the male inhabitants of France between
eighteen and twenty-five years of age. This, as might be expected, has
been more effectual, because it interests those that are exempt to force
the compliance of those who are not. Our young men here were like
children with a medicine--they proposed first one form of taking this
military potion, then another, and finding them all equally unpalatable,
would not, but for a little salutary force, have decided at all.
A new law has been passed for arresting all the English who cannot
produce two witnesses of their civisme, and those whose conduct is thus
guaranteed are to receive tickets of hospitality, which they are to wear
as a protection.
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