happiness of others. The Convention are more original, and, not
satisfied with having reduced the people to the most abject slavery,
they exact a semblance of content, and dictate at stated periods the
chastisement which awaits those who refuse to smile.

The splendid ceremonies at Paris, which pass for popular rejoicings,
merit that appellation less than an auto de fe. Every movement is
previously regulated by a Commissioner appointed for the purpose,
(to whom en passant these fetes are very lucrative jobs,) a plan of the
whole is distributed, in which is prescribed with great exactness, that
at such and such parts the people are to "melt into tears," at others
they are to be seized with a holy enthusiasm, and at the conclusion of
the whole they are to rend the air with the cry of "Vive la Convention!"
--These celebrations are always attended by a military force, sufficient
to ensure their observance, besides a plentiful mixture of spies to
notice refractory countenances or faint acclamations.

The departments which cannot imitate the magnificence of Paris, are
obliged, nevertheless, to manifest their satisfaction. At every occasion
on which a rejoicing is ordered, the same kind of discipline is
preserved; and the aristocrats, whose fears in general overcome their
principles, are often not the least zealous attendants.

At the retaking of Toulon, when abandoned by our countrymen, the National
Guards were every where assembled to participate in the festivity, under
a menace of three days imprisonment. Those persons who did not
illuminate their houses were to be considered as suspicious, and treated
as such: yet, even with all these precautions, I am informed the business
was universally cold, and the balls thinly attended, except by
aristocrats and relations of emigrants, who, in some places, with a