Nov. 20.
Besides the gentry and clergy of this department, we have likewise for companions a number of inhabitants of Lisle, arrested under circumstances singularly atrocious, even where atrocity is the characteristic of almost every proceeding.—In the month of August a decree was passed to oblige all the nobility, clergy, and their servants, as well as all those persons who had been in the service of emigrants, to depart from Lisle in eight-and-forty hours, and prohibiting their residence within twenty leagues from the frontiers. Thus banished from their own habitations, they took refuge in different towns, at the prescribed distance; but, almost as soon as they were arrived, and had been at the expence of settling themselves, they were arrested as strangers,* and conducted to prison.
* I have before, I believe, noticed that the term estranger at this time did not exclusively apply to foreigners, but to such as had come from one town to another, who were at inns or on a visit to their friends.
* I have before, I believe, noticed that the term estranger at this time did not exclusively apply to foreigners, but to such as had come from one town to another, who were at inns or on a visit to their friends.
* I have before, I believe, noticed that the term estranger at this time did not exclusively apply to foreigners, but to such as had come from one town to another, who were at inns or on a visit to their friends.
* I have before, I believe, noticed that the term estranger at this time did not exclusively apply to foreigners, but to such as had come from one town to another, who were at inns or on a visit to their friends.
* I have before, I believe, noticed that the term estranger at this time did not exclusively apply to foreigners, but to such as had come from one town to another, who were at inns or on a visit to their friends.
It will not be improper to notice here the conduct of the government towards the towns that have been besieged. Thionville,* to whose gallant defence in 1792 France owed the retreat of the Prussians and the safety of Paris, was afterwards continually reproached with aristocracy; and when the inhabitants sent a deputation to solicit an indemnity for the damage the town had sustained during the bombardment a member of the Convention threatened them from the tribune with "indemnities a coup de baton!" that is, in our vernacular tongue, with a good thrashing.
* Wimpsen, who commanded there, and whose conduct at the time was enthusiastically admired, was driven, most probably by the ingratitude and ill treatment of the Convention, to head a party of the Foederalists.—These legislators perpetually boast of imitating and surpassing the Romans, and it is certain, that their ingratitude has made more than one Coriolanus. The difference is, that they are not jealous for the liberty of the country, but for their own personal safety.