* This infamous calumny (originally fabricated by Lecointre the linen draper, then an officer of the National Guard, now a member of the council of 500) was amply confuted by M. Mounier, who was President of the States-General at the time, in a publication intitled “Expose de ma Conduite,” which appeared soon after the event—­in the autumn of 1789.—­Editor.

But this, as well as the taking of the Bastille, and other revolutionary falsehoods, will, I trust, be elucidated.  The people are now undeceived only by their calamities—­the time may come, when it will be safe to produce their conviction by truth.  Heroes of the fourteenth of July, and patriots of the tenth of August, how will ye shrink from it!—­Yours, &c.

Amiens, Nov. 2, 1794.

Every post now brings me letters from England; but I perceive, by the suppressed congratulations of my friends, that, though they rejoice to find I am still alive, they are far from thinking me in a state of security.  You, my dear Brother, must more particularly have lamented the tedious confinement I have endured, and the inconveniencies to which I have been subjected; I am, however, persuaded that you would not wish me to have been exempt from a persecution in which all the natives of England, who are not a disgrace to their country, as well as some that are so, have shared.  Such an exemption would now be deemed a reproach; for, though it must be confessed that few of us have been voluntary sufferers, we still claim the honour of martyrdom, and are not very tolerant towards those who, exposed by their situation, may be supposed to have owed their protection to their principles.

There are, indeed, many known revolutionists and republicans, who, from party disputes, personal jealousies, or from being comprised in some general measure, have undergone a short imprisonment; and these men now wish to be confounded with their companions who are of a different description.  But such persons are carefully distinguished;* and the aristocrats have, in their turn, a catalogue of suspicious people—­that is, of people suspected of not having been suspicious.

* Mr. Thomas Paine, for instance, notwithstanding his sufferings, is still thought more worthy of a seat in the Convention or the Jacobins, than of an apartment in the Luxembourg.—­Indeed I have generally remarked, that the French of all parties hold an English republican in peculiar abhorrence.

It is now the fashion to talk of a sojourn in a maison d’arret with triumph; and the more decent people, who from prudence or fear had been forced to seek refuge in the Jacobin clubs, are now solicitous to proclaim their real motives.  The red cap no longer “rears its hideous front” by day, but is modestly converted into a night-cap; and the bearer of a diplome de Jacobin, instead of swinging along, to the annoyance of all the passengers he meets, paces soberly with a diminished height, and an air not unlike