nakedness of their shame? The shop ought to be known; it will soon have
a good trade. Were the dresses of the ministers of those lately called
potentates, who attended on that occasion, taken from the wardrobe of
that property-man at the opera, from whence my old acquaintance,
Anacharsis Clootz, some years ago equipped a body of ambassadors, whom
he conducted, as from all the nations of the world, to the bar of what
was called the Constituent Assembly? Among those mock ministers, one of
the most conspicuous figures was the representative of the British
nation, who unluckily was wanting at the late ceremony. In the face of
all the real ambassadors of the sovereigns of Europe was this ludicrous
representation of their several subjects, under the name of _oppressed
sovereigns_,[10] exhibited to the Assembly. That Assembly received an
harangue, in the name of those sovereigns, against their kings,
delivered by this Clootz, actually a subject of Prussia, under the name
of Ambassador of the Human Race. At that time there was only a feeble
reclamation from one of the ambassadors of these tyrants and oppressors.
A most gracious answer was given to the ministers of the oppressed
sovereigns; and they went so far on that occasion as to assign them, in
that assumed character, a box at one of their festivals.

I was willing to indulge myself in an hope that this second appearance
of ambassadors was only an insolent mummery of the same kind; but, alas!
Anacharsis himself, all fanatic as he was, could not have imagined that
his opera procession should have been the prototype of the real
appearance of the representatives of all the sovereigns of Europe
themselves, to make the same prostration that was made by those who
dared to represent their people in a complaint against them. But in this
the French Republic has followed, as they always affect to do, and have
hitherto done with success, the example of the ancient Romans, who shook
all governments by listening to the complaints of their subjects, and