submission of the people.  Money is distributed amongst the idle and indigent, and agents are nightly employed in the public houses to comment on newspapers, written for the purpose to blacken the King and exalt the patriotism of the party who have dethroned him.  Much use has likewise been made of the advances of the Prussians towards Champagne, and the usual mummery of ceremony has not been wanting.  Robespierre, in a burst of extemporary energy, previously studied, has declared the country in danger.  The declaration has been echoed by all the departments, and proclaimed to the people with much solemnity.  We were not behind hand in the ceremonial of the business, though, somehow, the effect was not so serious and imposing as one could have wished on such an occasion.  A smart flag, with the words “Citizens, the country is in danger,” was prepared; the judges and the municipality were in their costume, the troops and Garde Nationale under arms, and an orator, surrounded by his cortege, harangued in the principal parts of the town on the text of the banner which waved before him.

All this was very well; but, unfortunately, in order to distinguish the orator amidst the croud, it was determined he should harangue on horseback.  Now here arose a difficulty which all the ardour of patriotism was not able to surmount.  The French are in general but indifferent equestrians; and it so happened that, in our municipality, those who could speak could not ride, and those who could ride could not speak.  At length, however, after much debating, it was determined that arms should yield to the gown, or rather, the horse to the orator—­with this precaution, that the monture should be properly secured, by an attendant to hold the bridle.  Under this safeguard, the rhetorician issued forth, and the first part of the speech was performed without accident; but when, by way of relieving the declaimer, the whole military band began to flourish ca ira, the horse, even more patriotic than his rider, curvetted and twisted with so much animation, that however the spectators might be delighted, the orator was far from participating in their satisfaction.  After all this, the speech was to be finished, and the silence of the music did not immediately tranquillize the animal.  The orator’s eye wandered from the paper that contained his speech, with wistful glances toward the mane; the fervor of his indignation against the Austrians was frequently calmed by the involuntary strikings he was obliged to submit to; and at the very crisis of the emphatic declaration, he seemed much less occupied by his country’s danger than his own.  The people, who were highly amused, I dare say, conceived the whole ceremony to be a rejoicing, and at every repetition that the country was in danger, joined with great glee in the chorus of ca ira.*