The satin hangings of my room, framed on canvas, wave with the gales lodged behind them every second.  A pair of “silver cupids, nicely poised on their brands,” support a wood fire, which it is an occupation to keep from extinguishing; and all the illusion of a gay orange-grove pourtrayed on the tapestry at my feet, is dissipated by a villainous chasm of about half an inch between the floor and the skirting-boards.  Then we have so many corresponding windows, supernumerary doors, “and passages that lead to nothing,” that all our English ingenuity in comfortable arrangement is baffled.—­When the cold first became so insupportable, we attempted to live entirely in the eating-room, which is warmed by a poele, or German stove, but the kind of heat it emits is so depressive and relaxing to those who are not inured to it, that we are again returned to our large chimney and wood-fire.—­The French depend more on the warmth of their clothing, than the comfort of their houses.  They are all wadded and furred as though they were going on a sledge party, and the men, in this respect, are more delicate than the ladies:  but whether it be the consequence of these precautions, or from any other cause, I observe they are, in general, without excepting even the natives of the Southern provinces, less sensible of cold than the English.

Amiens, Jan. 30, 1795.

Delacroix, author of "Les Constitutions Politiques de l’Europe," [The Political Constitutions of Europe.] has lately published a work much read, and which has excited the displeasure of the Assembly so highly, that the writer, by way of preliminary criticism, has been arrested.  The book is intitled "Le Spectateur Francais pendant la Revolution." [The French Spectator during the Revolution.] It contains many truths, and some speculations very unfavourable both to republicanism and its founders.  It ventures to doubt the free acceptance of the democratic constitution, proposes indirectly the restoration of the monarchy, and dilates with great composure on a plan for transporting to America all the Deputies who voted for the King’s death.  The popularity of the work, still more than its principles, has contributed to exasperate the Assembly; and serious apprehensions are entertained for the fate of Delacroix, who is ordered for trial to the Revolutionary Tribunal.

It would astonish a superficial observer to see with what avidity all forbidden doctrines are read.  Under the Church and Monarchy, a deistical or republican author might sometimes acquire proselytes, or become the favourite amusement of fashionable or literary people; but the circulation of such works could be only partial, and amongst a particular class of readers:  whereas the treason of the day, which comprises whatever favours Kings or religion, is understood by the meanest individual, and the temptation to these prohibited enjoyments is assisted both by affection and prejudice.—­An almanack, with a pleasantry on the Convention, or a couplet in behalf of royalism, is handed mysteriously through half a town, and a brochure [A pamphlet.] of higher pretensions, though on the same principles, is the very bonne bouche of our political gourmands. [Gluttons.]