I acknowledge that the chief source of these useless excesses is famine, and that it is for the most part the lower classes only who promote them; but the same cause and the same description of people were made the instruments for bringing about the revolution, and the poor seek now, as they did in 1789, a remedy for their accumulated sufferings in a change of government.  The mass of mankind are ever more readily deluded by hope than benefited by experience; and the French, being taught by the revolutionists to look for that relief from changes of government which such changes cannot afford, now expect that the restoration of the monarchy will produce plenty, as they were before persuaded that the first efforts to subvert it would banish want.

We are now tolerably quiet, and should seriously think of going to Paris, were we not apprehensive that some attempt from the Jacobins to rescue their chiefs, may create new disturbances.  The late affair appears to have been only a retaliation of the thirty-first of May, 1792; and the remains of the Girondists have now proscribed the leaders of the Mountaineers, much in the same way as they were then proscribed themselves.—­Yours.

Amiens, May 9, 1795.

Whilst all Europe is probably watching with solicitude the progress of the French arms, and the variations of their government, the French themselves, almost indifferent to war and politics, think only of averting the horrors of famine.  The important news of the day is the portion of bread which is to be distributed; and the siege of Mentz, or the treaty with the King of Prussia, are almost forgotten, amidst enquiries about the arrival of corn, and anxiety for the approach of harvest.  The same paper that announces the surrender of towns, and the success of battles, tells us that the poor die in the streets of Paris, or are driven to commit suicide, through want.  We have no longer to contend with avaricious speculations, but a real scarcity; and detachments of the National Guard, reinforced by cannon, often search the adjacent villages several days successively without finding a single septier of corn.  The farmers who have yet been able to conceal any, refuse to dispose of it for assignats; and the poor, who have neither plate nor money, exchange their best clothes or linen for a loaf, or a small quantity of flour.  Our gates are sometimes assailed by twenty or thirty people, not to beg money, but bread; and I am frequently accosted in the street by women of decent appearance, who, when I offer them assignats, refuse them, saying, “We have enough of this sorry paper—­it is bread we want.”—­If you are asked to dine, you take your bread with you; and you travel as though you were going a voyage—­for there are not many inns on the road where you can expect to find bread, or indeed provisions of any kind.