I was looking at some trinkets in a shop at the Palais Royal, and on my asking the mistress of it if the ornaments were silver, she smiled significantly, and replied, she had nothing silver nor gold in the shop, but if I chose to purchase en espece, she would show me whatever I desired: "Mais pour le papier nous n'en avons que trop." ["In coin, but for paper we have already too much of it.">[
Many of the old shops are nearly empty, and the little trade which yet exists is carried on by a sort of adventurers who, without being bred to any one trade, set up half a dozen, and perhaps disappear three months afterwards. They are, I believe, chiefly men who have speculated on the assignats, and as soon as they have turned their capital in a mercantile way a short time, become apprehensive of the paper, realize it, and retire; or, becoming bankrupts by some unlucky monopoly, begin a new career of patriotism.
There is, properly speaking, no money in circulation, yet a vast quantity is bought and sold. Annuitants, possessors of moderate landed property, &c., finding it impossible to subsist on their incomes, are forced to have recourse to the little specie they have reserved, and exchange it for paper. Immense sums in coin are purchased by the government, to make good the balance of their trade with the neutral countries for provisions, so that I should suppose, if this continue a few months, very little will be left in the country.
One might be tempted to fancy there is something in the atmosphere of Paris which adapts the minds of its inhabitants to their political situation. They talk of the day appointed for a revolt a fortnight before, as though it were a fete, and the most timid begin to be inured to a state of agitation and apprehension, and to consider it as a natural vicissitude that their lives should be endangered periodically.
A commission has been employed for some time in devising another new constitution, which is to be proposed to the Assembly on the thirteenth of this month; and on that day, it is said, an effort is to be made by the royalists. They are certainly very numerous, and the interest taken in the young King is universal. In vain have the journalists been forbidden to cherish these sentiments, by publishing details concerning him: whatever escapes the walls of his prison is circulated in impatient whispers, and requires neither printing nor gazettes a la main to give it publicity.*
* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written gazettes.—I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them at present.
* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written gazettes.—I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them at present.
* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written gazettes.—I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them at present.
* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written gazettes.—I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them at present.
* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written gazettes.—I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them at present.