--Madame Tallien, who is supposed occasionally to dictate decrees to the
Convention, presides with a more avowed and certain sway over the realms
of fashion; and the Turkish draperies that may float very gracefully on a
form like hers, are imitated by rotund sesquipedal Fatimas, who make one
regret even the tight lacings and unnatural diminishings of our
grandmothers.

I came to Beauvais a fortnight ago with the Marquise. Her long
confinement has totally ruined her health, and I much fear she will not
recover. She has an aunt lives here, and we flattered ourselves she
might benefit by change of air--but, on the contrary, she seems worse,
and we propose to return in the course of a week to Amiens.

I had a good deal of altercation with the municipality about obtaining a
passport; and when they at last consented, they gave me to understand I
was still a prisoner in the eye of the law, and that I was indebted to
them for all the freedom I enjoyed. This is but too true; for the decree
constituting the English hostages for the Deputies at Toulon has never
been repealed--

"Ah, what avails it that from slavery far,
"I drew the breath of life in English air?"
Johnson.

Yet is it a consolation, that the title by which I was made an object of
mean vengeance is the one I most value.*

* An English gentleman, who was asked by a republican Commissary,
employed in examining the prisons, why he was there, replied,