I am once more in Paris. A thousand painful recollections obtrude themselves on my mind, and I am almost afraid to inquire after my former acquaintances. I know not where I shall address myself for information, or where I shall first set my foot. When I reflect upon the strange vicissitudes of fortune I have experienced; when I recall the whirlpool of danger I have passed, and the proscription which, with some mean and pusillanimous minds, is still considered to hang over me, I am doubtful whether I am prudent to venture again into the source of all my injuries. The motive that brought me from England, the desire of ascertaining the fate of a relative, so dearly beloved and so long lost, gives strength to my resolution and dissipates my personal anxieties. But I am both low and dejected in mind and spirits. [Sidenote: A DESCRIPTION OF THE _MODE_] I will attempt to give a faithful account of this capital, which may be considered as the manufactory whence all the horrors and changes of the _Revolution_ have originated. France as a country should not be judged by the dissolute principles of the inhabitants of her metropolis. In the provinces remote from the centre of government as much character and simplicity exist as in the best regulated empires. The _Revolution_ may in _some_ degree have changed the innocence of the peasantry, and corrupted the primitive integrity of their character. The cause of this may be traced to the artifices of demagogues and atheists. In the mountains of the Vosges, in La Vendée and in the South-Western parts of the Republic, the people of both town and country possess an originality of character founded on sentiments of generosity and virtue. But in many Departments of the Republic, particularly the Department of the Seine, every principle of Society is inverted, and Society itself is loathsome, abhorrent, corrupt, poisoned and poisonous. My first duty was to visit those old friends who had survived the general wreck of moral order. From them I hoped to learn the history of those who had perished. With an anxious mind I hastened after dinner to the Rue Jacob, in the Faubourg S. Germain, to see if my old friend M. Suédaeur was alive. I inquired if the doctor resided there; the answer was affirmative, but he was not at home. I proceeded to the Rue Niçoise and found M. de la Metherie in perfect health and better spirits than on that gloomy night in 1793 when we last parted. From him I learnt the fatal end of many of my acquaintance, but he mentioned several who were not only in existence but prosperous, and gave me considerable encouragement in what was the main object of my journey to Paris.