Shall I add another truth?  I have been so disgusted and fatigued by hearing of nothing but French massacres, etc. and found it so impossible to shift conversation to any other topic, that before I had been a month in town, I wished Miss Gunning would revive, that people might have at least one other subject to interest the ears and tongues of the public.  But no wonder universal attention is engrossed by the present portentous scene!  It seems to draw to a question, whether Europe or France is to be depopulated; whether civilization can be recovered, or the republic of Chaos can be supported by assassination.  We have heard of the golden, silver, and iron ages; the brazen one existed while the French were only predominantly insolent.  What the present age will be denominated, I cannot guess’.  Though the paper age would be characteristic, it is not emphatic enough, nor specifies the enormous sins of the fiends that are the agents.  I think it may be styled the diabolical age -. the Duke of Orleans has dethroned Satan, who since his fall has never instigated such crimes as Orleans has perpetrated.(846)

Let me soften my tone a little, and harmonize your poor mind by sweeter accents.  In this deluge of triumphant enormities, what trails of the sublime and beautiful may be gleaned!  Did you hear of Madame Elizabeth, the King’s sister? a saint like yourself.  She doted on her brother, for she certainly knew his soul.  In the tumult in July, hearing the populace and the poissardes had broken into the palace, she flew to the King, and by embracing him tried to shield his person.  The populace took her for the Queen, cried out “Voil`a cette chienne, cette Autrichienne!” and were proceeding to violence.  Somebody to save her, screamed “Ce n’est pas la Reine, c’est—­”
              The Princess said, “Ah! mon Dieu! ne les d`etrompez
pas.”  If that was not the most sublime instance of perfect innocence ready prepared for death, I know not where to find one.  Sublime indeed, too, was the sentence of good Father Edgeworth, the King’s confessor, who, thinking his royal penitent a little dismayed just before the fatal stroke, cried out “Montez, digne fils de St. Louis!  Le ciel vous est ouvert.”  The holy martyr’s countenance brightened up, and he submitted at once.  Such victims, such confessors as those, and Monsieur do Malesherbes, repair some of the breaches in human nature made by Orleans, Condorcet, Santerre, and a legion of evil spirits.

The tide of horrors has hurried me much too far, before I have vented a note of my most sincere concern for your bad account of your health.  I feel for it heartily, and wish your frame were as sound as your soul and understanding.  What can I recommend?  I am no physician but for my own flimsy texture; which by studying, and by contradicting all advice, I have drawn to this great age.  Patience, temperance, nay, abstinence, are already yours; in short, you