I wish, therefore, our representatives may not, in return for this
admonitory portrait of their latter end, draw down some vengeance on the
town, not easily to be appeased. I am no astrologer, but in our
sublunary world the conjunction of an attorney and a renegade monk cannot
present a fortunate aspect; and I am truly anxious to find myself once
again under the more benign influence of your English hemisphere.--Yours.
Peronne, July 29, 1793.
Every attempt to obtain passports has been fruitless, and, with that sort
of discontented resignation which is the effect of necessity, I now look
upon myself as fixed here till the peace. I left Mr. and Mrs. D____
yesterday morning, the disappointment operating upon them in full force.
The former takes longer walks than usual, breaks out in philippics
against tyrannies of all kinds, and swears ten times a day that the
French are the most noisy people upon earth--the latter is vexed, and,
for that reason, fancies she is ill, and calculates, with great
ingenuity, all the hazard and inconvenience we may be liable to by
remaining here. I hope, on my return, to find them more reconciled.
At Villars de Bretonne, on my road hither, some people told me, with
great gaiety, that the English had made a descent on the coast of
Picardy. Such a report (for I did not suppose it possible) during the
last war would have made me tremble, but I heard this without alarm,
having, in no instance, seen the people take that kind of interest in
public events which formerly made a residence in France unpleasant to an
individual of an hostile nation.
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