These legislators remind me of one of Swift's female attendants, who, in
spite of the literary taste he endeavoured to inspire her with, never
could be divested of her original housewifely propensities, but would
quit the most curious anecdote, as he expresses it, "to go seek an old
rag in a closet." Their projects for the revival of their navy seldom go
farther than a transposal in the stripes of the flag, and their vengeance
against regal anthropophagi, and proud islanders, is infallibly diverted
by a denunciation of an aristocratic quartrain, or some new mode, whose
general adoption renders it suspected as the badge of a party.--If,
according to Cardinal de Retz' opinion, elaborate attention to trifles
denote a little mind, these are true Lilliputian sages.--Yours, &c.
August, 1794.
I did not leave the Providence until some days after the date of my last:
there were so many precautions to be taken, and so many formalities to be
observed--such references from the municipality to the district, and from
the district to the Revolutionary Committee, that it is evident
Robespierre's death has not banished the usual apprehension of danger
from the minds of those who became responsible for acts of justice or
humanity. At length, after procuring a house-keeper to answer with his
life and property for our re-appearance, and for our attempting nothing
against the "unity and indivisibility" of the republic, we bade (I hope)
a long adieu to our prison.
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