* Two religious, who boarded with a lady I had occasion to see
     sometimes, told me, that they had been strictly enjoined not to
     dress like each other in any way.

** The pensions are from about seventeen to twenty-five pounds sterling per annum.—­At the time I am writing, the necessaries of life are increased in price nearly two-fifths of what they bore formerly, and are daily becoming dearer.  The Convention are not always insensible to this—­the pay of the foot soldier is more than doubled.

It is also to be remembered, that women of small fortune in France often embraced the monastic life as a frugal retirement, and, by sinking the whole they were possessed of in this way, they expected to secure a certain provision, and to place themselves beyond the reach of future vicissitudes:  yet, though the sums paid on these occasions can be easily ascertained, no indemnity has been made; and many will be obliged to violate their principles, in order to receive a trifling pension, perhaps much less than the interest of their money would have produced without loss of the principal.

But the views of these legislating philosophers are too sublimely extensive to take in the wrongs or sufferings of contemporary individuals; and not being able to disguise, even to themselves, that they create much misery at present, they promise incalculable advantages to those who shall happen to be alive some centuries hence!  Most of these poor nuns are, however, of an age to preclude them from the hope of enjoying this Millennium; and they would have been content en attendant these glorious times, not to be deprived of the necessaries of life, or marked out as objects of persecution.

The private distresses occasioned by the dissolution of the convents are not the only consequences to be regretted—­for a time, at least, the loss must certainly be a public one.  There will now be no means of instruction for females, nor any refuge for those who are without friends or relations:  thousands of orphans must be thrown unprotected on the world, and guardians, or single men, left with the care of children, have no way to dispose of them properly.  I do not contend that the education of a convent is the best possible:  yet are there many advantages attending it; and I believe it will readily be granted, that an education not quite perfect is better than no education at all.  It would not be very difficult to prove, that the systems of education, both in England and France, are extremely defective; and if the characters of women are generally better formed in one than the other, it is not owing to the superiority of boarding-schools over convents, but to the difference of our national manners, which tend to produce qualities not necessary, or not valued, in France.