At one of these routs I saw a specimen of genuine democratic manners, which all who aim to become great men in the state affect to imitate. The commissary of prisoners, a man allied to nobility, liberally educated, and once an Abbé, bolted into the room where the company were assembled, humming the _Carmagnole_, with his hat on, which was adorned with a red, a white, and a blue feather, and his hands stuck in his breeches, _not pockets_. In this attitude he stood all the evening, and thrusting himself among the ladies, had the impudence to enter into familiar conversation with the Marchioness de Ploeuc, and other women of rank and delicacy, with all the airs which conscious superiority of power can instil into a reptile. This brutal manner of mingling in society, and addressing women, has become, since the revolution, the _ton_ of republican coxcombs, and during the reign of Robespierre set decorum and the restraints of civilized life at defiance. It is now on the decline, except with those who still court the applause of the dregs of that faction. A courtier of Versailles at his toilet, surrounded by paints, patches, and perfumery, was, in the eye of reason, a ridiculous and contemptible animal; but the most effeminate essenced _marquis_, that ever consulted a looking-glass, was surely preferable to this indecent blockhead. In frequenting these little circles, I see many victims of the tyranny of the government, and hear such anecdotes of it related, as make me shudder. The marchioness has been stripped of two estates, and the best house in this town, which is converted into a prison. Two ladies, who reside in our house, are but just liberated from a close confinement, under which, with many more of their sex, they languished for fourteen months. During their imprisonment, in return for the sequestration of their property, they were allowed _twenty sols_ a day, out of which they were compelled to pay two for _house-rent_. Monsieur Brimaudiere, brother of the lady of this house, was _capitaine des gens d’armes_ of this district, a post of trust and power. When the party of Brissot fell, he was seized, sent to Paris, and imprisoned for fifteen months in the _Conciergerie_. During the whole of his confinement he was kept in the same room, and saw, during that period, 167 persons go out of it to the guillotine, every day expecting himself to be added to the number. His fate was close at hand when Robespierre was overturned, and soon after the death of the tyrant he was liberated, and sent back hither, to resume his former situation, which he now fills. He describes almost the whole of this assembly of victims to have been so conscious of their innocence, and so reconciled to their lot, from the daily exits of their friends, that nothing but resignation, indifference, or levity, prevailed throughout the prison, death having ceased, from its familiarity, to terrify. It was customary to warn, on the preceding