If, however, the French government confined itself to these petty acts of despotism, I would endeavour to be reconciled to it; but I really begin to have serious apprehensions, not so much for our safety as our tranquillity, and if I considered only myself, I should not hesitate to return to England.  Mrs. D____ is too ill to travel far at present, and her dread of crossing the sea makes her less disposed to think our situation here hazardous or ineligible.  Mr. D____, too, who, without being a republican or a partizan of the present system, has always been a friend to the first revolution, is unwilling to believe the Convention so bad as there is every reason to suppose it.  I therefore let my judgement yield to my friendship, and, as I cannot prevail on them to depart, the danger which may attend our remaining is an additional reason for my not quitting them.

The national perfidy which has always distinguished France among the other countries of Europe, seems now not to be more a diplomatic principle, than a rule of domestic government.  It is so extended and generalized, that an individual is as much liable to be deceived and betrayed by confiding in a decree, as a foreign power would be by relying on the faith of a treaty.—­An hundred and twenty priests, above sixty years of age, who had not taken the oaths, but who were allowed to remain by the same law that banished those who were younger, have been lately arrested, and are confined together in a house which was once a college.  The people did not behold this act of cruelty with indifference, but, awed by an armed force, and the presence of the Commissioners of the Convention, they could only follow the priests to their prison with silent regret and internal horror.  They, however, venture even now to mark their attachment, by taking all opportunities of seeing them, and supplying them with necessaries, which it is not very difficult to do, as they are guarded by the Bourgeois, who are generally inclined to favour them.  I asked a woman to-day if she still contrived to have access to the priests, and she replied, "Ah, oui, il y a encore de la facilite, par ce que l’on ne trouve pas des gardes ici qui ne sont pas pour eux."*

     * “Yes, yes, we still contive it, because there are no guards to be
     found here who don’t befriend them.”

Thus, even the most minute and best organized tyranny may be eluded; and, indeed, if all the agents of this government acted in the spirit of its decrees, it would be insupportable even to a native of Turkey or Japan.  But if some have still a remnant of humanity left, there are a sufficient number who execute the laws as unfeelingly as they are conceived.