to a shop, kept by a man of whom they frequently purchased, and whom, as
his principles were known to them, I might safely ask for the articles I
wanted. He shook his head, while he ran over my list, and then told me,
that having preferred his safety to his property, he had disposed of his
prints in the same way I had disposed of mine. "At the accession of a
new party, (continued he,) I always prepare for a domiciliary visit,
clear my windows and shelves of the exploded heads, and replace them by
those of their rivals. Nay, I assure you, since the revolution, our
trade is become as precarious as that of a gamester. The
Constitutionalists, indeed, held out pretty well, but then I was half
ruined by the fall of the Brissotins; and, before I could retrieve a
little by the Hebertists and Dantonists, the too were out of fashion."--
"Well, but the Robespierrians--you must have gained by them?"--"Why,
true; Robespierre and Marat, and Chalier, answered well enough, because
the royalists generally placed them in their houses to give themselves an
air of patriotism, yet they are gone after the rest.--Here, however,
(says he, taking down an engraving of the Abbe Sieyes,) is a piece of
merchandize that I have kept through all parties, religions, and
constitutions--_et le voila encore a la mode,_ ["And now you see him in
fashion again."] mounted on the wrecks, and supported by the remnants of
both his friends and enemies. _Ah! c'est un fin matois."_ ["Ah! He's a
knowing one."]

This conversation passed in a gay tone, though the man added, very
seriously, that the instability of popular factions, and their
intolerance towards each other, had obliged him to destroy to the amount
of some thousand livres, and that he intended, if affairs did not change,
to quit business.

Of all the prints I enquired for, I only got Barrere, Sieyes, and a few