occupation to the soldiers, whose inactivity might produce reflection, or
whose discontent might prove fatal to the new order of things.--Attempts
are made to divert the public mind from the real misery experienced at
home, by relations of useless conquests abroad; the substantial losses,
which are the price of these imaginary benefits, are palliated or
concealed; and the circumstances of an engagement is known but by
individual communication, and when subsequent events have nearly effaced
the remembrance of it.--By these artifices, and from motives at least not
better, and, perhaps, worse than those I have mentioned, will population
be diminished, and agriculture impeded: France will be involved in
present distress, and consigned to future want; and the deluded people be
punished in the miseries of their own country, because their unprincipled
rulers have judged it expedient to carry war and devastation into
another.

One of the distinguishing features in the French character is _sang froid_
--scarcely a day passes that it does not force itself on one's
observation. It is not confined to the thinking part of the people, who
know that passion and irritability avail nothing; nor to those who, not
thinking at all, are, of course, not moved by any thing: but is equally
possessed by every rank and condition, whether you class them by their
mental endowments, or their temporal possessions. They not only (as, it
must be confessed, is too commonly the case in all countries,) bear the
calamities of their friends with great philosophy, but are nearly as
reasonable under the pressure of their own. The grief of a Frenchman,
at least, partakes of his imputed national complaisance, and, far from
intruding itself on society, is always ready to accept of consolation,
and join in amusement. If you say your wife or relations are dead, they
replay coldly, _"Il faut se consoler:"_ or if they visit you in an
illness, _"Il faut prendre patience."_ Or tell them you are ruined, and