Amiens, October 4, 1794.
We have had our guard withdrawn for some days; and I am just now returned
from Peronne, where we had been in order to see the seals taken off the
papers, &c. which I left there last year. I am much struck with the
alteration observable in people's countenances. Every person I meet
seems to have contracted a sort of revolutionary aspect: many walk with
their heads down, and with half-shut eyes measure the whole length of a
street, as though they were still intent on avoiding greetings from the
suspicious; some look grave and sorrow-worn; some apprehensive, as if in
hourly expectation of a _mandat d'arret;_ and others absolutely ferocious,
from a habit of affecting the barbarity of the times.
Their language is nearly as much changed as their appearance--the
revolutionary jargon is universal, and the most distinguished aristocrats
converse in the style of Barrere's reports. The common people are not
less proficients in this fashionable dialect, than their superiors; and,
as far as I can judge, are become so from similar motives. While I was
waiting this morning at a shop-door, I listened to a beggar who was
cheapening a slice of pumpkin, and on some disagreement about the price,
the beggar told the old _revendeuse_ [Market-woman.] that she was
_"gangrenee d'aristocratie."_ ["Eat up with aristocracy."] _"Je vous en
defie,"_ ["I defy you.
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