young men had been persecuted by their relations, and banished the society of their acquaintance; and their political opinions had acted as an universal proscription.  There were even some against whom the doors of the parental habitation were shut.—­These party violences are terrible; and I was happy to perceive that the reciprocal claims of duty and affection were not diminished by them, either in M. de ____, or his son.  He, however, at first refused to come to A____, because he suspected the patriotism of our society.  I pleaded, as an inducement, the beauty of Mad.  G____, but he told me she was an aristocrate.  It was at length, however, determined, that he should dine with us last Sunday, and that all visitors should be excluded.  He was prevented coming by being ordered out with a party the day we left him; and he has written to us in high spirits, to say, that, besides fulfilling his object, he had returned with fifty prisoners.

We had a very narrow escape in coming home—­the Hulans were at the
village of ____, an hour after we passed through it, and treated the poor
inhabitants, as they usually do, with great inhumanity.—­Nothing has
alienated the minds of the people so much as the cruelties of these
troops—­they plunder and ill treat all they encounter; and their avarice
is even less insatiable than their barbarity.   How hard is it, that the
ambition of the Chiefs, and the wickedness of faction, should thus fall
upon the innocent cottager, who perhaps is equally a stranger to the
names of the one, and the principles of the other!

The public papers will now inform you, that the French are at liberty to obtain a divorce on almost any pretext, or even on no pretext at all, except what many may think a very good one—­mutual agreement.  A lady of our acquaintance here is become a republican in consequence of the decree, and probably will very soon avail herself of it; but this conduct, I conceive, will not be very general.

Much has been said of the gallantry of the French ladies, and not entirely without reason; yet, though sometimes inconstant wives, they are, for the most part, faithful friends—­they sacrifice the husband without forsaking him, and their common interest is always promoted with as much zeal as the most inviolable attachment could inspire.  Mad. de C____, whom we often meet in company, is the wife of an emigrant, and is said not to be absolutely disconsolate at his absence; yet she is indefatigable in her efforts to supply him with money:  she even risks her safety by her solicitude, and has just now prevailed on her favourite admirer to hasten his departure for the frontiers, in order to convey a sum she has with much difficulty been raising.  Such instances are, I believe, not very rare; and as a Frenchman usually prefers his interest to every thing else, and is not quite so unaccommodating as an Englishman, an amicable arrangement takes place, and one seldom hears of a separation.