their owners are wandering over the world, or have expired on the
scaffold. Public places are not less numerous, nor less frequented; but,
far from inspiring gaiety, we behold them with regret and disgust, as
proofs of the national levity and want of feeling.

I could almost wish, for the credit of the French character, to have
found some indications that the past was not so soon consigned to
oblivion. It is true, the reign of Robespierre and his sanguinary
tribunal are execrated in studied phrases; yet is it enough to adopt
humanity as a mode, to sing the _Revel du Peuple_ in preference to the
_Marseillois,_ or to go to a theatre with a well-powdered head, instead
of cropped locks a la Jacobin? But the people forget, that while they
permitted, and even applauded, the past horrors, they were also accessary
to them, and if they rejoice at their termination, their sensibility does
not extend to compunction; they cast their sorrows away, and think it
sufficient to exhibit their reformation in dressing and dancing--

"Yet hearts refin'd their sadden'd tint retain,
"The sigh is pleasure, and the jest is pain."
Sheridan.

French refinements are not, however, of this poetical kind.*

* This too great facility of the Parisians has been commented upon
by an anonymous writer in the following terms:

"At Paris, where more than fifty victims were dragged daily to the
scaffold, the theatres never failed to overflow, and that on the
Place de la Revolution was not the least frequented. The public, in
their way every evening to the Champs Ellisees, continued