Peronne, July 29, 1793.

Every attempt to obtain passports has been fruitless, and, with that sort of discontented resignation which is the effect of necessity, I now look upon myself as fixed here till the peace.  I left Mr. and Mrs. D____ yesterday morning, the disappointment operating upon them in full force.  The former takes longer walks than usual, breaks out in philippics against tyrannies of all kinds, and swears ten times a day that the French are the most noisy people upon earth—­the latter is vexed, and, for that reason, fancies she is ill, and calculates, with great ingenuity, all the hazard and inconvenience we may be liable to by remaining here.  I hope, on my return, to find them more reconciled.

At Villars de Bretonne, on my road hither, some people told me, with great gaiety, that the English had made a descent on the coast of Picardy.  Such a report (for I did not suppose it possible) during the last war would have made me tremble, but I heard this without alarm, having, in no instance, seen the people take that kind of interest in public events which formerly made a residence in France unpleasant to an individual of an hostile nation.  It is not that they are become more liberal, or better informed—­no change of this kind has been discovered even by the warmest advocates of the revolution; but they are more indifferent, and those who are not decidedly the enemies of the present government, for the most part concern themselves as little about the events of the war, as though it were carried on in the South Sea.

I fear I should risk an imputation on my veracity, were I to describe the extreme ignorance and inattention of the French with respect to public men and measures.  They draw no conclusions from the past, form no conjectures for the future, and, after exclaiming “Il ne peut pas durer comme cela,” they, with a resignation which is certainly neither pious nor philosophic, leave the rest to the agency of Providence.—­Even those who are more informed so bewilder themselves in the politics of Greece and Rome, that they do not perceive how little these are applicable to their own country.  Indeed, it should seem that no modern age or people is worthy the knowledge of a Frenchman.—­I have often remarked, in the course of our correspondence, how little they are acquainted with what regards England or the English; and scarcely a day passes that I have not occasion to make the same observation.