* A collection of addresses, presented to the Convention at various periods, might form a curious history of the progress of despotism.  These effusions of zeal were not, however, all in the “sublime” style:  the legislative dignity sometimes condescended to unbend itself, and listen to metrical compositions, enlivened by the accompaniment of fiddles; but the manly and ferocious Danton, to whom such sprightly interruptions were not congenial, proposed a decree, that the citizens should, in future, express their adorations in plain prose, and without any musical accessories.

Billaud Varennes, Collot, and other members of the old Committee, view these innovations with sullen acquiescence; but Barrere, whose frivolous and facile spirit is incapable of consistency, even in wickedness, perseveres and flourishes at the tribune as gaily as ever.—­Unabashed by detection, insensible to contempt, he details his epigrams and antitheses against Catilines and Cromwells with as much self-sufficiency as when, in the same tinsel eloquence, he promulgated the murderous edicts of Robespierre.

Many of the prisoners at Paris continue daily to obtain their release, and, by the exertions of his personal enemies, particularly of our quondam sovereign, Andre Dumont, (now a member of the Committee of General Safety,) an examination into the atrocities committed by Le Bon is decreed.—­But, amidst these appearances of justice, a versatility of principle, or rather an evident tendency to the decried system, is perceptible.  Upon the slightest allusion to the revolutionary government, the whole Convention rise in a mass to vociferate their adherence to it:* the tribunal, which was its offspring and support, is anxiously reinstalled; and the low insolence with which Barrere announces their victories in the Netherlands, is, as usual, loudly applauded.

* The most moderate, as well as the most violent, were always united on the subject of this irrational tyranny.—­"Toujours en menageant, comme la prunelle de ses yeux, le gouvernement revolutionnaire."—­ “Careful always of the revolutionary government, as of the apple of their eye.” Fragment pour servir a l’Hist. de la Convention, par J. J. Dussault.

The brothers of Cecile Renaud, who were sent for by Robespierre from the army to Paris, in order to follow her to the scaffold, did not arrive until their persecutor was no more, and a change of government was avowed.  They have presented themselves at the bar of the Convention, to entreat a revisal of their father’s sentence, and some compensation for his property, so unjustly confiscated.—­You will, perhaps, imagine, that, at the name of these unfortunate young men, every heart anticipated a consent to their claims, even before the mind could examine the justice of them, and that one of those bursts of sensibility for which this legislature is so remarkable instantaneously accorded the petition.  Alas! this was not an