Madame de ____ is to remain with me till her house can be repaired; for
it has been in requisition so often, that there is now, we are told,
scarcely a bed left, or a room habitable. We have an old man placed with
us by way of a guard, but he is civil, and is not intended to be a
restraint upon us. In fact, he has a son, a member of the Jacobin club,
and this opportunity is taken to compliment him, by taxing us with the
maintenance of his father. It does not prevent us from seeing our
acquaintance, and we might, I suppose, go out, though we have not yet
ventured.
The politics of the Convention are fluctuating and versatile, as will
ever be the case where men are impelled by necessity to act in opposition
to their principles. In their eagerness to attribute all the past
excesses to Robespierre, they have, unawares, involved themselves in the
obligation of not continuing the same system. They doubtless expected,
by the fall of the tyrant, to become his successors; but the people,
weary of being dupes, and of hearing that tyrants were fallen, without
feeling any diminution of tyranny, have every where manifested a temper,
which the Convention, in the present relaxed state of its power, is
fearful of making experiments upon. Hence, great numbers of prisoners
are liberated, those that remain are treated more indulgently, and the
fury of revolutionary despotism is in general abated.
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