Our journey here was, in fact, unnecessary; but we have few republican acquaintance, and those who are called aristocrats do not execute commission of this kind zealously, nor without some apprehensions of committing themselves.—­You will wonder that I find time to write to you, nor do I pretend to assume much merit from it.  We have not often courage to frequent public places in the evening, and, when we do, I continually dread some unlucky accident:  either a riot between the Terrorists and Muscadins, within, or a military investment without.  The last time we were at the theatre, a French gentleman, who was our escort, entered into a trifling altercation with a rude vulgar-looking man, in the box, who seemed to speak in a very authoritative tone, and I know not how the matter might have ended, had not a friend in the next box silenced our companion, by conveying a penciled card, which informed him the person he was disputing with was a Deputy of the Convention.  We took an early opportunity of retreating, not perfectly at ease about the consequences which might ensue from Mr. -------- having ventured to differ in opinion from a Member of the Republican Legislature.  Since that time we have passed our evenings in private societies, or at home; and while Mr. D-------- devours new pamphlets, and Mrs. D-------- and the lady we lodge with recount their mutual sufferings at Arras and St. Pelagie, I take the opportunity of writing.

—­Adieu.

Paris, June 12, 1795.

The hopes and fears, plots and counterplots, of both royalists and republicans, are now suspended by the death of the young King.  This event was announced on Tuesday last, and since that time the minds and conversation of the public have been entirely occupied by it.  Latent suspicion, and regret unwillingly suppressed, are every where visible; and, in the fond interest taken in this child’s life, it seems to be forgotten that it is the lot of man “to pass through nature to eternity,” and that it was possible for him to die without being sacrificed by human malice.

All that has been said and written on original equality has not yet persuaded the people that the fate of Kings is regulated only by the ordinary dispensations of Providence; and they seem to persist in believing, that royalty, if it has not a more fortunate pre-eminence, is at least distinguished by an unusual portion of calamities.

When we recollect the various and absurd stories which have been propagated and believed at the death of Monarchs or their offspring, without even a single ground either political or physical to justify them, we cannot now wonder, when so many circumstances of every kind tend to excite suspicion, that the public opinion should be influenced, and attribute the death of the King to poison.  The child is allowed to have been of a lively disposition, and, even long after his seclusion from his family, to have frequently amused himself by singing at the window of his prison, until the interest he was observed to create in those who listened under it, occasioned an order to prevent him.  It is therefore extraordinary, that he should lately have appeared in a state of stupefaction, which is by no means a symptom of the disorder he is alledged to have died of, but a very common one of opiates improperly administered.*