very ill received by his colleagues, but every where else it is read with
avidity and applause; for, exclusive of its merit as a composition, the
subject is of general interest, and there are few who do not wish to have
the present puerile imitations of Paganism replaced by Christianity. The
Assembly listened to this tolerating oration with impatience, passed to
the order of the day, and called loudly for Decades, with celebrations in
honour of "the liberty of the world, posterity, stoicism, the republic,
and the hatred of tyrants!" But the people, who understand nothing of
this new worship, languish after the saints of their ancestors, and think
St. Francois d'Assise, or St. Francois de Sales, at least as likely to
afford them spiritual consolation, as Carmagnoles, political homilies, or
pasteboard goddesses of liberty.

The failure of Gregoire is far from operating as a discouragement to this
mode of thinking; for such has been the intolerance of the last year,
that his having even ventured to suggest a declaration in favour of free
worship, is deemed a sort of triumph to the pious which has revived their
hopes. Nothing is talked of but the restoration of churches, and
reinstalment of priests--the shops are already open on the Decade, and
the decrees of the Convention, which make a principal part of the
republican service, are now read only to a few idle children or bare
walls. [When the bell toll'd on the Decade, the people used to say it was
for La messe du Diable--The Devil's mass.]--My maid told me this morning,
as a secret of too much importance for her to retain, that she had the
promise of being introduced to a good priest, (un bon pretre, for so the
people entitle those who have never conformed,) to receive her confession
at Easter; and the fetes of the new calendar are now jested on publicly
with very little reverence.

The Convention have very lately decreed themselves an increase of pay,