It
originates in that distrust of government which reconciles one part of
the community to starving the other, under the idea of self-preservation.
While every individual persists in establishing it as a maxim, that any
thing is better than assignats, we must expect that all things will be
difficult to procure, and will, of course, bear a high price. I fear,
all the empyricism of the legislature cannot produce a nostrum for this
want of faith. Dragoons and penal laws only "linger, and linger it out;"
the disease is incurable.
My friends, Mons. and Mad. de B____, by way of consolation for their
imprisonment, now find themselves on the list of emigrants, though they
have never been a single day absent from their own province, or from
places of residence where they are well known. But that they may not
murmur at this injustice, the municipality have accompanied their names
with those of others who have not even been absent from the town, and of
one gentleman in particular, who I believe may have been seen on the
ramparts every day for these seven years.--This may appear to you only
very absurd, and you may imagine the consequences easily obviated; yet
these mistakes are the effect of private malice, and subject the persons
affected by them to an infinity of expence and trouble. They are
obliged, in order to avert the confiscation of their property, to appear,
in every part of the republic where they have possessions, with
attestations of their constant residence in France, and perhaps suffer a
thousand mortifications from the official ignorance and brutality of the
persons to whom they apply.
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