The Austrians are daily expected to besiege this place, and they may destroy, but they will not take it.  I do not, as you may suppose, venture to speak so decisively in a military point of view—­I know as little as possible of the excellencies of Vauban, or the adequacy of the garrison; but I draw my inference from the spirit of enthusiasm which prevails among the inhabitants of every class—­every individual seems to partake of it:  the streets resound with patriotic acclamations, patriotic songs, war, and defiance.—­Nothing can be more animating than the theatre.  Every allusion to the Austrians, every song or sentence, expressive of determined resistance, is followed by bursts of assent, easily distinguishable not to be the effort of party, but the sentiment of the people in general.  There are, doubtless, here, as in all other places, party dissensions; but the threatened siege seems at least to have united all for their common defence:  they know that a bomb makes no distinction between Feuillans, Jacobins, or Aristocrates, and neither are so anxious to destroy the other, when it is only to be done at such a risk to themselves.  I am even willing to hope that something better than mere selfishness has a share in their uniting to preserve one of the finest, and, in every sense, one of the most interesting, towns in France.

Lisle, Saturday.

We are just on our departure for Arras, where, I fear, we shall scarcely arrive before the gates are shut.  We have been detained here much beyond our time, by a circumstance infinitely shocking, though, in fact, not properly a subject of regret.  One of the assassins of General Dillon was this morning guillotined before the hotel where we are lodged.—­I did not, as you will conclude, see the operation; but the mere circumstance of knowing the moment it was performed, and being so near it, has much unhinged me.  The man, however, deserved his fate, and such an example was particularly necessary at this time, when we are without a government, and the laws are relaxed.  The mere privation of life is, perhaps, more quickly effected by this instrument than by any other means; but when we recollect that the preparation for, and apprehension of, death, constitute its greatest terrors; that a human hand must give motion to the Guillotine as well as to the axe; and that either accustoms a people, already sanguinary, to the sight of blood, I think little is gained by the invention.  It was imagined by a Mons. Guillotin, a physician of Paris, and member of the Constituent Assembly.  The original design seems not so much to spare pain to the criminal, as obloquy to the executioner.  I, however, perceive little difference between a man’s directing a Guillotine, or tying a rope; and I believe the people are of the same opinion.  They will never see any thing but a bourreau [executioner] in the man whose province it is to execute the sentence of the laws, whatever name he may be called by, or whatever instrument he may make use of.—­I have concluded this letter with a very unpleasant subject, but my pen is guided by circumstances, and I do not invent, but communicate.—­Adieu.  Yours, &c.