I resume my pen after a sleepless night, and with an oppression of mind not to be described.  Paris is the scene of proscription and massacres.  The prisoners, the clergy, the noblesse, all that are supposed inimical to public faction, or the objects of private revenge, are sacrificed without mercy.  We are here in the utmost terror and consternation—­we know not the end nor the extent of these horrors, and every one is anxious for himself or his friends.  Our society consists mostly of females, and we do not venture out, but hover together like the fowls of heaven, when warned by a vague yet instinctive dread of the approaching storm.  We tremble at the sound of voices in the street, and cry, with the agitation of Macbeth, “there’s knocking at the gate.”  I do not indeed envy, but I most sincerely regret, the peace and safety of England.—­I have no courage to add more, but will enclose a hasty translation of the letter we received from M. P____, by last night’s post.  Humanity cannot comment upon it without shuddering.—­Ever Yours, &c.

“Rue St. Honore, Sept. 2, 1792.

“In a moment like this, I should be easily excused a breach of promise in not writing; yet when I recollect the apprehension which the kindness of my amiable friends will feel on my account, I determine, even amidst the danger and desolation that surround me, to relieve them.—­Would to Heaven I had nothing more alarming to communicate than my own situation!  I may indeed suffer by accident; but thousands of wretched victims are at this moment marked for sacrifice, and are massacred with an execrable imitation of rule and order:  a ferocious and cruel multitude, headed by chosen assassins, are attacking the prisons, forcing the houses of the noblesse and priests, and, after a horrid mockery of judicial condemnation, execute them on the spot.  The tocsin is rung, alarm guns are fired, the streets resound with fearful shrieks, and an undefinable sensation of terror seizes on one’s heart.  I feel that I have committed an imprudence in venturing to Paris; but the barriers are now shut, and I must abide the event.  I know not to what these proscriptions tend, or if all who are not their advocates are to be their victims; but an ungovernable rage animates the people:  many of them have papers in their hands that seem to direct them to their objects, to whom they hurry in crouds with an eager and savage fury.—­I have just been obliged to quit my pen.  A cart had stopped near my lodgings, and my ears were assailed by the groans of anguish, and the shouts of frantic exultation.  Uncertain whether to descend or remain, I, after a moment’s deliberation, concluded it would be better to have shown myself than to have appeared to avoid it, in case the people should enter the house, and therefore went down with the best show of courage I could assume.—­I will draw a veil over the scene that presented itself—­nature revolts, and my fair friends would shudder at the