* Among others, a decree which gave all illegitimate children a
     claim to an equal participation in the property of the father to
     whom they should (at the discretion of the mother) be attributed.

—­The evil propensities of our nature, which penal laws and moralists vainly contend against, were fostered by praise, and stimulated by reward—­all the established distinctions of right and wrong confounded—­ and a system of revolutionary ethics adopted, not less incompatible with the happiness of mankind than revolutionary politics.

Thus, all the purposes for which this general demoralization was promoted, being at length attained, those who were rich having been pillaged, those who were feared massacred, and a croud of needy and desperate adventurers attached to the fate of the revolution, the expediency of a reform has lately been suggested.  But the mischief is already irreparable.  Whatever was good in the national character is vitiated; and I do not scruple to assert, that the revolution has both destroyed the morals of the people, and rendered their condition less happy*—­that they are not only removed to a greater distance from the possession of rational liberty, but are become more unfit for it than ever.

* It has been asserted, with a view to serve the purposes of party, that the condition of the lower classes in France was mended by the revolution.  If those who advance this were not either partial or ill-informed, they would observe that the largesses of the Convention are always intended to palliate some misery, the consequence of the revolution, and not to banish what is said to have existed before.  For the most part, these philanthropic projects are never carried into effect, and when they are, it is to answer political purposes.—­For instance, many idle people are kept in pay to applaud at the debates and executions, and assignats are distributed to those who have sons serving in the army.  The tendency of both these donations needs no comment.  The last, which is the most specious, only affords a means of temporary profusion to people whose children are no incumbrance to them, while such as have numerous and helpless families, are left without assistance.  Even the poorest people now regard the national paper with contempt; and, persuaded it must soon be of no value, they eagerly squander whatever they receive, without care for the future.

As I have frequently, in the course of these letters, had occasion to quote from the debates of the Convention, and other recent publications, I ought to observe that the French language, like every thing else in the country, has been a subject of innovation—­new words have been invented, the meaning of old ones has been changed, and a sort of jargon, compounded of the appropriate terms of various arts and sciences, introduced, which habit alone can render intelligible.  There is scarcely a report read in the Convention that does not exhibit every possible example of the Bathos, together with more conceits than are to be found in a writer of the sixteenth century; and I doubt whether any of their projects of legislation or finance would be understood by Montesquieu or Colbert.