May 10, 1792.

I am every day more confirmed in the opinion I communicated to you on my
arrival, that the first ardour of the revolution is abated.--The bridal
days are indeed past, and I think I perceive something like indifference
approaching. Perhaps the French themselves are not sensible of this
change; but I who have been absent two years, and have made as it were a
sudden transition from enthusiasm to coldness, without passing through
the intermediate gradations, am forcibly struck with it. When I was here
in 1790, parties could be scarcely said to exist--the popular triumph was
too complete and too recent for intolerance and persecution, and the
Noblesse and Clergy either submitted in silence, or appeared to rejoice
in their own defeat. In fact, it was the confusion of a decisive
conquest--the victors and the vanquished were mingled together; and the
one had not leisure to exercise cruelty, nor the other to meditate
revenge. Politics had not yet divided society; nor the weakness and
pride of the great, with the malice and insolence of the little, thinned
the public places. The politics of the women went no farther than a few
couplets in praise of liberty, and the patriotism of the men was confined
to an habit de garde nationale, the device of a button, or a nocturnal
revel, which they called mounting guard.--Money was yet plenty, at least
silver, (for the gold had already begun to disappear,) commerce in its
usual train, and, in short, to one who observes no deeper than myself,
every thing seemed gay and flourishing--the people were persuaded they
were happier; and, amidst such an appearance of content, one must have
been a cold politician to have examined too strictly into the future.
But all this, my good brother, is in a great measure subsided; and the
disparity is so evident, that I almost imagine myself one of the seven
sleepers--and, like them too, the coin I offer is become rare, and