sic in particular; there were also several charitable institutions for the maintenance of the poor and the gratuitous education of their chil dren; there were manufactories of different sorts, and great distilleries, an overflowing commerce, beautiful public walks, and a thea tre twice as large, says Arthur Young, as that of Drury Lane, and five times as magnificent. Of all this display of opulence and prospe rity there remains little more at present than empty warehouses, and mouldering walls; libraries, hospitals, and schools have gone to ruin, as well as convents and churches, nor has any art and science, or any elegant institution met with more protection than religion: as to commerce and manufactories they are but the shadow of what they were, and seven eighths of the general capital is sunk: now and then a small American vessel aided by a swell of the river, and a strong wind from the sea, gets up as far as the city, and there are frequently five or six of them at anchor below Paimboeuf, but the flag of France which formerly crossed the ocean from Nantes in so many various directions, is now seen only on vessels of from thirty to fifty or perhaps sixty tons, which run from harbour to harbour along the coast, like mice from one hiding place to another, under convoy of an armed vessel or two, the commodore of which with a broad penant at his main top gallant mast, and carries perhaps six four pounders and forty men. The squares and public walks are still beautiful, but they are silent and solitary, and have been stained with the best blood of the city. Of the playhouse nothing remains but the vestibule; the other parts of this magnificent edifice were consumed by fire during the revolution, nor is there any prospect of its being re built; those meanwhile who cannot live without the amusements of the theatre, must be satisfied with a corner of an old convent which has been converted into something like a playhouse, and with a company of comedians who appear to be in no better circumstances than those of Tours. There is a part of the city called La Fosse, where a long row of lofty houses follows the direction of the river, with trees in front and very commodious quais for the despatch of business; it was along this street that the victims of Carrier's cruelty were conducted, and at the extremity of it immediately before the doors of a large mill, which was for

merly worked by stream, but which has long been useless, lay the fatal barges. I am not now going to shock you by a recital of scenes that do not bear description. But as far as I could learn from persons who were at Nantes during those wretched times, there does not appear to be any exaggeration in the printed accounts-as no one ever returned of the hundreds who were embarked, it was easy to prevent the effects of despair by making the prisoners believe, that they were to be transported to some distant country; they would surely otherwise have rushed upon their guard, and expired on the bayonet, rather than have been exposed to a death so unheard of, and in so frightful a form: they consisted in general of citizens of Nantes, of priests who were collected from different departments, and of the inhabitants of La Vendèe: A corps of troops was frequently sent out for the purpose of collecting these last, and with general orders to destroy every thing, nor was it unusual to see the party return, (if they escaped the effects of rage and despair in the unhappy people whom they attacked, which was not always the case) loaded like Tartars, from a plundering excursion into some christian country, with various sorts of booty, and driving before them a promiscuous crowd of old and young and women and children. It is but justice to the regular troops to say, that though ready enough to execute the orders of their superiors in spreading ruin and devastation over the fields and through the villages of La Vendée, they refused any longer to conduct prisoners to the water side, when the effects of Carrier's cruel artifice were apparent, it became necessary therefore to have instruments for that special purpose, and the volunteers of Marat were raised, consisting of sixty men under a captain, these wretches who were of the lowest, the most brutal, the most profligate of the populace, soon deserved the approbation of their employer, and so well satisfied was he with their alacrity, that he extended their powers to the making of domiciliary visits at all hours of the day and night, a power dreadful at all times and in any hands, but more dreadful than death itself in their abominable perversion of it at the expense of the unhappy families, who were in any degree and from any motive the objects of their attentions.

I have been told of an individual, who acted frequently as a supernumerary upon these occasions, and whose pleasure it was to be ready at the water side, where he would wound and mutilate such of the prisoners as the volunteers of Marat were fastening to the timbers, and seats of the barge, adding thus a degree of corporal pain to the anguish of approaching death. It so happened, that he was unnoticed when a change of measures took place, and Carrier and his committee were ordered to Paris: but a young man, whose parents had been among the victims of his brutality, returning from exile some years after, shot the wretch through the head in a public coffeehouse, nor did the police, which is so singularly strict in this country, take any cognisance of the affair. Whilst the inhabitants of Nantes were thus suffering from exhibitions, which were at first confined to the night, but which were soon perpetrated in open day, exhibitions, from the bare recital of which our nature revolts; from a vigilant, an enraged and inveterate enemy, who waylaid every approach to the city, from the death or imprisonment of their principal citizens, who were suspected of being rich, or of what in the dialect of the times was called negociantism, from continued and severe military duty, from fines and impositions, from famine, and almost from thirst, for the waters of the river were polluted to a degree which rendered it unfit for use. Carrier, a man of profigate life, and violent passions, insulted the public misery by scenes of riot and debauchery. The wretches too who surrounded him, and who formed in some measure his court, had appetites and passions of their own to gratify, and interests to consult and enmities to satisfy, and the whole city with as much of the neighbouring country as their power extended over, was thus a prey to the most worthless of mankind.

The people of the earldom of Nantes having separated themselves from Britany in the 12th century, and chosen a sovereign of their own, whom they afterwards expelled to make room for Geoffry of Anjou, brother to Henry II of England, that enterprising and able monarch was enabled to get possession not only of Nantes but of all Britany, first as representative of his brother, who died without children, and afterwards as guardian of his own son Geoffry, whom he married to Constance, the daughter

of a late duke of Britany, and prevailed upon the inhabitants of that extensive dutchy to acknowledge as their sovereign. This Constance is the lady who renders Shakspeare's play of king John so interesting, and whose adventures, affected as they were by the sad fate of her son, seemed more of the province of romance, than history. The subsequent history of Britany, the fortunes of the house of Montfort, and the circumstances which finally annexed this part of France to the monarchy are also very interesting. The Britons were able to secure very important previleges at the marriage of their princess with Charles V; and these joined to the circumstance of their speaking a different language made them always seem a separate people from the French. The ancient castle of Nantes, in which so many monarchs have lodged from the days of Henry II, to those of Lewis XIV, has suffered by the accidental explosion of a quantity of gunpowder during the revolution, but is in other respects entire. The angle of the bastion from which the cardinal de Retz let himself down by a rope, remains precisely as it was at the time of his evasion, and I was glad that the door also which opens upon the river, and at which Mad. de Sevignè describes herself as having been so handsomely received by torch light, is still entire. I wished very much to have gone to Rennes and to Vitri, but it was impossible. I received however a very particular account of the house of Les Roches from a friend at Renncs, and was glad to find, that the name of Mad. de Sevignè had afforded protection to some old fashioned walks, and that the desk at which she wrote, and the inkstand she made use of are preserved with religious care. The estate of Les Roches is the property of Monsieur des Netumiers, a gentleman of lower Britany, who having been driven from his paternal castle during the civil war, has been so fortunate as to make himself a home at this once favourite residence of Mad. de Sevignè. As we had come provided with letters of recommendation we experienced the kindness and hospitality of two or three families whom I shall always think of with gratitude, and we found a friend in Mr. Patterson the American consul. Mixing as I did in company at his hospitable house, and at other places, I had frequent opportunities of

conversing with persons who had borne a part in the late war of La Vendee, and been present at many of the horrors which attended it: it is the memory of those dismal times which gives to the present government its principal support, for there is nothing which a great majority would not submit to, rather than risk a renewal of them: they feel however very sensibly in Nantes the weight of taxes, and the loss of trade; they feel that the treasury calls for more in proportion as they are less able to pay, and the additional duty on salt which raises the price of that indispensable article from two to five sous a pound, has occasioned no slight sensation. The peasants of Britany who had lately adopted the custom of manuring a certain quality of land with salt, have been obliged to desist: the sudden manner too in which the government imposes any additional duty, and the numerous regulations which are made by people entirely ignorant of or regardless of trade, add extremely to the embarrassment of the commercial world. Disputes are every day arising between the buyers and sellers of salt in cases where the article has not been yet delivered, and many who had contracted to furnish large quantities at certain prices must either recede from their engagements, or be ruined. An appearance of something like a riot in the streets, which I saw yesterday for the first time since I have been in France, I at first imagined was connected with this general cause of dissatisfaction, but I soon discovered my error. Forty or fifty people, partly young men and partly fathers of families, had assembled somewhat tumultuously and were endeavouring to make the keeper of an e o table, who had been carrying on his business very successfully for some time, consent to leave the city, or shut his doors; but the man, who had according to custom paid largely for permission to hold his table in Nantes a certain time, applied to the police for protection, a captain's guard was immediately paraded at his door, good order was instantly established, and the keeper of the e o table goes on ruining people with impunity as before. The prevalent turn for gaming either with dice, or in the lottery, which is renewed every fortnight throughout all France, furnishes indeed one of the great financial resources of the empire, unfortunately for the