power. The favourite Re

possesses treble power.

public is evanescent; and yet the versatile thoughtless French are as merry as if the democracy, for which they murdered half the nation, were established.

B

LETTER IV.

Paris, August 10, 1802.

Ir soldiers, being dispersed all over the city, and so numerous, as to equal the citizens, be indications of a military government, France is the strongest in Europe, and Paris the most subjugated of all cities: yet Paris seems in riotous joy at the intended settlement for life of the Consulate on Bonaparte. These people who condemned the bravest and the most estimable men of the Convention, the renowned twenty-two, lest any one should aspire to the Dictatorship, lest they should uphold the falling house of Bourbon, or assist Orleans, or favor a regal government in any form: these very people are preparing to illuminate all the city; are revelling and

frantic with joy at the permanent Consulate, and at the renovation of the ancient system. But are the people so changed? Or is this a vote of the soldiery, or of mercenary officers? and this brilliant exhibition constrained and hypocritical, while the heart is sad and agonized at the unhappy termination of the Revolution?

This morning two women, the most active and ferocious of those called Poissardaise, (for so all the market-women are termed, for the occupation of men is exercised by women in France,) called to present Lady-----with a nose-gay? they said, they were the ringleaders of the populace that went to Versailles to bring the royal family to Paris; and they offered this testimony of their respect to the people of a country, who had always been celebrated for their fondness of liberty. These women bear marks of fea

ture, that seemed to render them sufficiently

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adapted for the terrible task of which they boast; but how little did they understand the present condition of England, and how it had degenerated in the last century! And how little do they comprehend the actual state of France, crowded with soldiery in every department, and the Temple hourly filling with prisoners, who are hardy enough to speak their discontent!

Who will explain the contradictory qualities of the French? such weakness! such tergiversation! such folly! such energy! such knowledge! such magnanimity! Can we say, they are not brave? they are not wise? they are not eloquent? They are all these. Can we say, what we used to say, that they are superficial? Read their works; read their speeches in the Convention: as exact as Hume; as profound as Bacon! And yet these people; who in their delirium destroyed all the Royal Family, and every

prop that supported Royalty, maintain a government as unfavorable to democracy as that which they annihilated! ·

All

What theatres! what a Palais d'Egalité! I look for the people I once saw, and can tracè no countenance I knew before! guillotined or massacred, and a new generation taken place! No more gentry! the riches of the nobility transferred to the sword, and scarcely any class, but officers, opulent. How shall I judge of a people who rose in a mass one day to obtain an object, and again next day to abolish it?

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