To-morrow we go to Lisle, notwithstanding the report that it has already
been summoned to surrender. You will scarcely suppose it possible, yet
we find it difficult to learn the certainty of this, at the distance of
only thirty miles: but communication is much less frequent and easy here
than in England. I am not one of those "unfortunate women who delight in
war;" and, perhaps, the sight of this place, so famous for its
fortifications, will not be very amusing to me, nor furnish much matter
of communication for my friends; but I shall write, if it be only to
assure you that I am not made prize of by the Austrians. Yours, &c.




Lisle, August, 1792.

You restless islanders, who are continually racking imagination to
perfect the art of moving from one place to another, and who can drop
asleep in a carriage and wake at an hundred mile distance, have no notion
of all the difficulties of a day's journey here. In the first place, all
the horses of private persons have been taken for the use of the army,
and those for hire are constantly employed in going to the camp--hence,
there is a difficulty in procuring horses. Then a French carriage is
never in order, and in France a job is not to be done just when you want
it--so that there is often a difficulty in finding vehicles. Then there
is the difficulty of passports, and the difficulty of gates, if you want
to depart early. Then the difficulties of patching harness on the road,
and, above all, the inflexible _sang froid_ of drivers. All these things
considered, you will not wonder that we came here a day after we
intended, and arrived at night, when we ought to have arrived at noon.