a toute epreuve, mais prenez donc ta citrouille," ["My civism is unquestionable; but here take your pumpkin.”] take it then.” "Ah, te voila bonne republicaine, ["Ah!  Now I see you are a good republican.”] says the beggar, carrying off her bargain; while the old woman muttered, "Oui, oui, l’on a beau etre republicaine tandis qu’on n’a pas de pain a manger." ["Yes, in troth, it’s a fine thing to be a republican, and have no bread to eat.”]

I hear little of the positive merits of the convention, but the hope is general that they will soon suppress the Jacobin clubs; yet their attacks continue so cold and cautious, that their intentions are at least doubtful:  they know the voice of the nation at large would be in favour of such a measure, and they might, if sincere, act more decisively, without risk to themselves.—­The truth is, they would willingly proscribe the persons of the Jacobins, while they cling to their principles, and still hesitate whether they shall confide in a people whose resentment they have so much deserved, and have so much reason to dread.  Conscious guilt appears to shackle all their proceedings, and though the punishment of some subordinate agents cannot, in the present state of things, be dispensed with, yet the Assembly unveil the register of their crimes very reluctantly, as if each member expected to see his own name inscribed on it.  Thus, even delinquents, who would otherwise be sacrificed voluntarily to public justice, are in a manner protected by delays and chicane, because an investigation might implicate the Convention as the example and authoriser of their enormities.—­Fouquier Tinville devoted a thousand innocent people to death in less time than it has already taken to bring him to a trial, where he will benefit by all those judicial forms which he has so often refused to others.  This man, who is much the subject of conversation at present, was Public Accuser to the Revolutionary Tribunal—­an office which, at best, in this instance, only served to give an air of regularity to assassination:  but, by a sort of genius in turpitude, he contrived to render it odious beyond its original perversion, in giving to the most elaborate and revolting cruelties a turn of spontaneous pleasantry, or legal procedure.—­The prisoners were insulted with sarcasms, intimidated by threats, and still oftener silenced by arbitrary declarations, that they were not entitled to speak; and those who were taken to the scaffold, after no other ceremony than calling over their names, had less reason to complain, than if they had previously been exposed to the barbarities of such trials.—­Yet this wretch might, for a time at least, have escaped punishment, had he not, in defending himself, criminated the remains of the Committee, whom it was intended to screen.  When he appeared at the bar of the Convention, every word he uttered seemed to fill its members with alarm, and he was ordered away before he could finish his declaration.  It must be acknowledged, that, however he may be condemned by justice and humanity, nothing could legally attach to him:  he was only the agent of the Convention, and the utmost horrors of the Tribunal were not merely sanctioned, but enjoined by specific decrees.