* Mr. Thomas Paine, for instance, notwithstanding his sufferings, is
still thought more worthy of a seat in the Convention or the
Jacobins, than of an apartment in the Luxembourg.--Indeed I have
generally remarked, that the French of all parties hold an English
republican in peculiar abhorrence.
It is now the fashion to talk of a sojourn in a maison d'arret with
triumph; and the more decent people, who from prudence or fear had been
forced to seek refuge in the Jacobin clubs, are now solicitous to
proclaim their real motives. The red cap no longer "rears its hideous
front" by day, but is modestly converted into a night-cap; and the bearer
of a diplome de Jacobin, instead of swinging along, to the annoyance of
all the passengers he meets, paces soberly with a diminished height, and
an air not unlike what in England we call sneaking. The bonnet rouge
begins likewise to be effaced from flags at the doors; and, as though
this emblem of liberty were a very bad neighbour to property, its
relegation seems to encourage the re-appearance of silver forks and
spoons, which are gradually drawn forth from their hiding-places, and
resume their stations at table. The Jacobins represent themselves as
being under the most cruel oppression, declare that the members of the
Convention are aristocrats and royalists, and lament bitterly, that,
instead of fish-women, or female patriots of republican external, the
galleries are filled with auditors in flounces and anti-civic top-knots,
femmes a fontanges.
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