nothing at all. Having written to them, by order of the King, on the
subject of the veto, before it was decided, they refused to let his
letter be read. Again, lately, when they desired the sanction of the
King to their proceedings of the fourth of August, he wrote in the
King's name a letter to them, remonstrating against an immediate sanction
to the whole; but they persisted, and the sanction was given. His
disgust at this want of influence, together with the great difficulties
of his situation, make it believed that he is desirous of resigning. The
public stocks were extremely low the day before yesterday. The _caisse
d'escompte_ at three thousand six hundred and forty, and the loan of
one hundred and twenty-five millions, of 1784, was at fifteen per
cent. loss. Yesterday they rose a little. The sloth of the assembly
(unavoidable from their number) has done the most sensible injury to the
public cause. The patience of a people, who have less of that quality
than any other nation in the world, is worn thread-bare. Time has been
given to the aristocrats to recover from their panic, to cabal, to
sow dissensions in the Assembly, and distrust out of it. It has been a
misfortune, that the King and aristocracy together have not been able
to make a sufficient resistance, to hoop the patriots in a compact body.
Having no common enemy of such force as to render their union necessary,
they have suffered themselves to divide. The Assembly now consists of
four distinct parties. 1. The aristocrats, comprehending the higher
members of the clergy, military, nobility, and the parliaments of
the whole kingdom. This forms a head without a body. 2. The moderate
royalists, who wish for a constitution nearly similar to that of
England. 3. The republicans, who are willing to let their first
magistracy be hereditary, but to make it very subordinate to the
legislature, and to have that legislature consist of a single chamber.
4. The faction of Orleans. The second and third descriptions are
composed of honest, well meaning men, differing in opinion only, but