But another question, which involves more important consequences than at first appear, _viz._ Whether the leaders of the ancient committee of public safety, Barrere, Collot d’Herbois, and Billaud de Varennes (Vadier having escaped) shall be tried, or not? has during the last six weeks almost absorbed every other consideration. It was, in fact, an experiment of the strength of the two parties, the moderates and terrorists, which divide the convention. The latter are generally supposed to be completely overthrown; but, in my opinion, the middle step, of inflicting, without a trial, the punishment of exile (some say to Cayenne, others to an island on the coast of Brittany) upon culprits whose crimes exceed credibility, is not only unjust, but evinces something like a compromise. The royalists, the Brissotines, and all others who have been lately freed from confinement, greatly dreaded the escape of these monsters, in the consequent triumph of their party. Poor Madame Kérvélligan, while it was pending, did us the honour, with some more ladies, to dine with us. You cannot picture to yourself terror like her’s, lest the moderates should be defeated. She took from her pocket a paper, and read to us from it, with great encomiums, the speeches in the convention of Legendre, Isnard, and others who had declaimed against the _prevenus_; while she was enraged in an equal degree against those who had defended them, and resisted the return of the proscribed deputies (her husband is of the number) into the bosom of the convention, until they should be purified by trial. Lecointre of Versailles was not spared upon this occasion. Mr. Kérvélligan is now in Paris; and who can wonder at her perturbation? Of the seventeen months which he lay concealed, she was shut up eleven a close prisoner in the château of Brest. If she do not hear from him by every post, she is miserable; not knowing, in the present temper of the times, who may be spared in a popular commotion. She and others declared to me, while the struggle lasted, that so exasperated were the two parties against each other, that they should not be surprized to hear, that they had had recourse to arms, and butchered one another in the senate-house. The days and nights of the 12th and 13th of _Germinal_ were particularly terrible. The convention during the whole of them remained at its post, most of the members being armed with pistols to prevent assassination. In this commotion, of which part of a narrative, written by one who was on the spot, has been read to me, the cry of “_Vive Louis dix-sept!_” was once or twice heard, but it was faintly uttered, whilst “_Vive la republique_, and give us a constitution!” resounded on every side.