It was common at this time to insult women in the streets if dressed too well, or in colours the people chose to call aristocratic.  I was myself nearly thrown down for having on a straw bonnet with green ribbons.

Our embarrassment for small change is renewed:  many of the communes who had issued bills of five, ten, and fifteen sols, repayable in assignats, are become bankrupts, which circumstance has thrown such a discredit on all this kind of nominal money, that the bills of one town will not pass at another.  The original creation of these bills was so limited, that no town had half the number requisite for the circulation of its neighbourhood; and this decrease, with the distrust that arises from the occasion of it, greatly adds to the general inconvenience.

The retreat of the Prussian army excites more surprize than interest, and the people talk of it with as much indifference as they would of an event that had happened beyond the Ganges.  The siege of Lisle takes off all attention from the relief of Thionville—­not on account of its importance, but on account of its novelty.—­I remain, Yours, &c.

Abbeville, September, 1792.

We left Amiens early yesterday morning, but were so much delayed by the number of volunteers on the road, that it was late before we reached Abbeville.  I was at first somewhat alarmed at finding ourselves surrounded by so formidable a cortege; they however only exacted a declaration of our political principles, and we purchased our safety by a few smiles, and exclamations of vive la nation!  There were some hundreds of these recruits much under twenty; but the poor fellows, exhilarated by their new uniform and large pay, were going gaily to decide their fate by that hazard which puts youth and age on a level, and scatters with indiscriminating hand the cypress and the laurel.

At Abbeville all the former precautions were renewed—­we underwent another solemn identification of our persons at the Hotel de Ville, and an abstract of our history was again enregistered at the inn.  One would really suppose that the town was under apprehensions of a siege, or, at least, of the plague.  My “paper face” was examined as suspiciously as though I had had the appearance of a travestied Achilles; and M____’s, which has as little expression as a Chinese painting, was elaborately scrutinized by a Dogberry in spectacles, who, perhaps, fancied she had the features of a female Machiavel.  All this was done with an air of importance sufficiently ludicrous, when contrasted with the object; but we met with no incivility, and had nothing to complain of but a little additional fatigue, and the delay of our dinner.