should not be mentally quoting Shakespeare. I have just now been
whispering the above, as I passed the altar of liberty, which still
remains on the Grande Place. But "a month, a little month," ago, on this
altar the French swore to maintain the constitution, and to be faithful
to the law and the King; yet this constitution is no more, the laws are
violated, the King is dethroned, and the altar is now only a monument of
levity and perjury, which they have not feeling enough to remove.

The Austrians are daily expected to besiege this place, and they may
destroy, but they will not take it. I do not, as you may suppose,
venture to speak so decisively in a military point of view--I know as
little as possible of the excellencies of Vauban, or the adequacy of the
garrison; but I draw my inference from the spirit of enthusiasm which
prevails among the inhabitants of every class--every individual seems to
partake of it: the streets resound with patriotic acclamations, patriotic
songs, war, and defiance.--Nothing can be more animating than the
theatre. Every allusion to the Austrians, every song or sentence,
expressive of determined resistance, is followed by bursts of assent,
easily distinguishable not to be the effort of party, but the sentiment
of the people in general. There are, doubtless, here, as in all other
places, party dissensions; but the threatened siege seems at least to
have united all for their common defence: they know that a bomb makes no
distinction between Feuillans, Jacobins, or Aristocrates, and neither are
so anxious to destroy the other, when it is only to be done at such a
risk to themselves. I am even willing to hope that something better than
mere selfishness has a share in their uniting to preserve one of the
finest, and, in every sense, one of the most interesting, towns in
France.