The workmen employed here are only twelve in number, and the quantity of salt-petre made is about fifty pounds a day, which, according to their account, costs only four livres and a half a pound; but this must not be depended upon, for they did not know the quantity of wood consumed. The wages of these people are inconceivably low, only 50 sols a day, and a ration of bread. Until lately they were paid only 35 sols, the addition having been made in consequence of the increasing dearness of the necessaries of life: even now 50 sols will scarcely buy a pound of the worst veal brought to market. They complained of its insufficiency, and told us, that manufacturers in England were paid as much for two hours work; “but, nevertheless, it is for the republic.” Either from this conjecture of the liberality of our country, or from some other cause, they treated us with particular respect, and answered all our questions with the most ready civility: not an interested civility, for they neither received, nor gave us room to suppose that they expected, any gratuity. I quitted the place with strange sensations. The process which I had witnessed was whimsically shocking. When I saw amidst the earth the bones tossed about, “mine ached at the remembrance.” This earth, said I to myself, once, perhaps, belonged to men whom these houses sheltered, and against whose descendants in La Vendée it may, when fabricated into the _breath of destruction_, volly forth, in the shape of bullets, the coffins which once enclosed their forefathers. There is certainly no discovery which entitles to higher admiration the inventive genius of man, than that of artillery, in all its wonderful combinations; but, at the same time, it must be confessed, that no stronger proof of our miserable degeneracy and infatuation can be produced, than our application of it.