--*
* This gentleman's fate is truly to be pitied. After rejecting, as
his friends assert, two hundred a year from the English Ministry, he
is obliged now to be silent gratis, with the additional desagrement
of occupying a corner in the Luxembourg.
--Adieu!--Heaven knows how often I may have to repeat the word thus
unmeaningly. I sit here, like Pope's bard "lulled by soft zephyrs
through the broken pane," and scribbling high-sounding phrases of
monarchy, patriotism, and republics, while I forget the humbler subject
of our wants and embarrassments. We can scarcely procure either bread,
meat, or any thing else: the house is crouded by an importation of
prisoners from Abbeville, and we are more strictly guarded than ever. My
friend ennuyes as usual, and I grow impatient, not having sang froid
enough for a true French ennuie in a situation that would tempt one to
hang one's self.
March, 1794.
The aspect of the times promises no change in our favour; on the
contrary, every day seems to bring its attendant evil. The gentry who
had escaped the comprehensive decree against suspected people, are now
swept away in this and the three neighbouring departments by a private
order of the representatives, St. Just, Lebas, and Dumont.*
* The order was to arrest, without exception, all the ci-devant
Noblessse, men, women, and children, in the departments of the
Somme, North, and Pas de Calais, and to exclude them rigourously
from all external communication--(mettre au secret).
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