"Just half the land would buy, and half be sold,"
is more than applicable here; for if we may credit the French themselves, the buyers are by no means so well proportioned to the sellers.
As I have no new political intelligence to comment upon, I shall finish my letter with a domestic adventure of the morning.—Our house was yesterday assigned as the quarters of some officers, who, with part of a regiment, were passing this way to join the Northern army. As they spent the evening out, we saw nothing of them, but finding one was a Colonel, and the other a Captain, though we knew what republican colonels and captains might be, we thought it civil, or rather necessary, to send them an invitation to breakfast. We therefore ordered some milk coffee early, (for Frenchmen seldom take tea,) and were all assembled before the usual time to receive our military guests. As they did not, however, appear, we were ringing to enquire for them, when Mr. D____ entered from his morning walk, and desired us to be at ease on their account, for that in passing the kitchen, he had perceived the Captain fraternizing over some onions, bread, and beer, with our man; while the Colonel was in close conference with the cook, and watching a pan of soup, which was warming for his breakfast. We have learned since, that these heroes were very willing to accept of any thing the servants offered them, but could not be prevailed upon to approach us; though, you are to understand, this was not occasioned either by timidity or incivility, but by mere ignorance. —Mr. D____ says, the Marquise and I have not divested ourselves of aristocratic associations with our ideas of the military, and that our deshabilles this morning were unusually coquetish. Our projects of conquest were, however, all frustrated by the unlucky intervention of Bernardine's soupe aux choux, [Cabbage-soup.] and Eustace's regale of cheese and onions.
"And with such beaux 'tis vain to be a belle."
Yours, &c.
Amiens, Dec. 10, 1794.
Your American friend passed through here yesterday, and delivered me the two parcels. As marks of your attention, they were very acceptable; but on any other account, I assure you, I should have preferred a present of a few pecks of wheat to all your fineries.
I have been used to conclude, when I saw such strange and unaccountable absurdities given in the French papers as extracts from the debates in either of your Houses of Parliament, that they were probably fabricated here to serve the designs of the reigning factions: yet I perceive, by some old papers which came with the muslins, that there are really members so ill-informed or so unprincipled, as to use the language attributed to them, and who assert that the French are attached to their government, and call France "a land of republicans."
When it is said that a people are republicans, we must suppose they are either partial to republicanism as a system, or that they prefer it in practice. A little retrospection, perhaps, will determine both these points better than the eloquence of your orators.