Mad. de ____ has a most extensive acquaintance, and, as we are situated
on one of the roads from Paris to the northern army, notwithstanding the
cautious policy of the moment, we are tolerably well informed of what
passes in most parts of France; and I cannot but be astonished, when I
combine all I hear, that the government is able to sustain itself.   Want,
discord, and rebellion, assail it within—­defeats and losses from
without.   Perhaps the solution of this political problem can only be
found in the selfishness of the French character, and the want of
connection between the different departments.   Thus one part of the
country is subdued by means of another:  the inhabitants of the South take
up arms in defence of their freedom and their commerce, while those of
the North refuse to countenance or assist them, and wait in selfish
tranquillity till the same oppression is extended to themselves.   The
majority of the people have no point of union nor mode of communication,
while the Jacobins, whose numbers are comparatively insignificant, are
strong, by means of their general correspondence, their common center at
Paris, and the exclusive direction of all the public prints.   But,
whatever are the causes, it is certain that the government is at once
powerful and detested—­almost without apparent support, yet difficult to
overthrow; and the submission of Rome to a dotard and a boy can no longer
excite the wonder of any one who reflects on what passes in France.

After various decrees to effect the levee en masse, the Convention have discovered that this sublime and undefined project was not calculated for the present exhausted state of martial ardour.  They therefore no longer presume on any movement of enthusiasm, but have made a positive and specific requisition of all the male inhabitants of France between eighteen and twenty-five years of age.  This, as might be expected, has been more effectual, because it interests those that are exempt to force the compliance of those who are not.  Our young men here were like children with a medicine—­they proposed first one form of taking this military potion, then another, and finding them all equally unpalatable, would not, but for a little salutary force, have decided at all.

A new law has been passed for arresting all the English who cannot produce two witnesses of their civisme, and those whose conduct is thus guaranteed are to receive tickets of hospitality, which they are to wear as a protection.  This decree has not yet been carried into effect at Peronne, nor am I much disturbed about it.  Few of our countrymen will find the matter very difficult to arrange, and I believe they have all a better protection in the disposition of the people towards them, than any that can be assured them by decrees of the Convention.