fare at the Gamelle, [Mess.] and an ode on the republican victory at Fleurus—­the last written under the hourly expectation of being sent off with the next fournee (batch) of pretended conspirators, yet breathing the most ardent attachment to the convention, and terminated by a full sounding line about tyrants and liberty.—­This may appear strange, but the Poets were, for the most part, in durance, and the Muses must sing, though in a cage:  hope and fear too both inspire prescriptively, and freedom might be obtained or death averted by these effusions of a devotion so profound as not to be alienated by the sufferings of imprisonment, or the menace of destruction.  Whole volumes of little jeux d’esprit, written under these circumstances, might be collected from the different prisons; and, I believe, it is only in France that such a collection could have been furnished.*

* Many of these poetical trifles have been published—­some written even the night before their authors were executed.  There are several of great poetical merit, and, when considered relatively, are wonderful.—­Among the various poets imprisoned, was one we should scarcely have expected—­Rouget Delille, author of the Marseillois Hymn, who, while his muse was rouzing the citizens from one end of the republic to the other to arm against tyrants, was himself languishing obscurely a victim to the worst of all tyrannies.

Mr. D____, though he writes and speaks French admirably, does not love
French verses; and I found he could not depend on the government of his
features, while a French poet was reciting his own, but kept his eyes
fixed on a dried apple, which he pared very curiously, and when that was
atchieved, betook himself to breaking pralines, and extracting the
almonds with equal application.   We, however, complimented Monsieur’s
poetry; and when we had taken our coffee, and the servants were entirely
withdrawn, he read us some trifles more agreeable to our principles, if
not to our taste, and in which the Convention was treated with more
sincerity than complaisance.   It seems the poet’s zeal for the republic
had vanished at his departure from the Luxembourg, and that his wrath
against coalesced despots, and his passion for liberty, had entirely
evaporated.   In the evening we played a party of reversi with republican
cards,* and heard the children sing “Mourrons pour la Patrie.”

     * The four Kings are replaced by four Genii, the Queens by four
     sorts of liberty, and the Knaves by four descriptions of equality.

—­After these civic amusements, we closed our chairs round the fire, conjecturing how long the republic might last, or whether we should all pass another twelve months in prison, and, agreeing that both our fate and that of the republic were very precarious, adjourned to rest.