The failure of Gregoire is far from operating as a discouragement to this mode of thinking; for such has been the intolerance of the last year, that his having even ventured to suggest a declaration in favour of free worship, is deemed a sort of triumph to the pious which has revived their hopes.  Nothing is talked of but the restoration of churches, and reinstalment of priests—­the shops are already open on the Decade, and the decrees of the Convention, which make a principal part of the republican service, are now read only to a few idle children or bare walls. [When the bell toll’d on the Decade, the people used to say it was for La messe du Diable—­The Devil’s mass.]—­My maid told me this morning, as a secret of too much importance for her to retain, that she had the promise of being introduced to a good priest, (un bon pretre, for so the people entitle those who have never conformed,) to receive her confession at Easter; and the fetes of the new calendar are now jested on publicly with very little reverence.

The Convention have very lately decreed themselves an increase of pay, from eighteen to thirty-six livres.  This, according to the comparative value of assignats, is very trifling:  but the people, who have so long been flattered with the ideas of partition and equality, and are now starving, consider it as a great deal, and much discontent is excited, which however evaporates, as usual, in the national talent for bon mots.  The augmentation, though an object of popular jealousy, is most likely valued by the leading members only as it procures them an ostensible means of living; for all who have been on missions, or had any share in the government, have, like Falstaff, “hid their honour in their necessities,” and have now resources they desire to profit by, but cannot decently avow.

The Jacobin party have in general opposed this additional eighteen livres, with the hope of casting an odium on their adversaries; but the people, though they murmur, still prefer the Moderates, even at the expence of paying the difference.  The policy of some Deputies who have acquired too much, or the malice of others who have acquired nothing, has frequently proposed, that every member of the Convention should publish an account of his fortune before and since the revolution.  An enthusiastic and acclamatory decree of assent has always insued; but somehow prudence has hitherto cooled this warmth before the subsequent debate, and the resolution has never yet been carried into effect.

The crimes of Maignet, though they appear to occasion but little regret in his colleagues, have been the source of considerable embarrassment to them.  When he was on mission in the department of Vaucluse, besides numberless other enormities, he caused the whole town of Bedouin to be burnt, a part of its inhabitants to be guillotined, and the rest dispersed, because the tree of liberty was cut down one dark night, while they were asleep.*