Metz i6i 



good sense in half an hour in England than in half a year in France 

 — Government! Again: — all — all — is government. — 15 miles. 



14th. They have a cabinet literaire at Metz, something like 

 that I described at Nantes, but not on so great a plan; and they 

 admit any person to read or go in and out for a day on pajang 

 4 sous. To this I eagerly resorted, and the news from Paris, 

 both in the public prints and by the information of a gentleman. 

 I found to be interesting. Versailles and Paris are surrounded 

 by troops: 35,000 men are assembled, and 20,000 more on the 

 road, large trains of artillery collected, and all the preparations 

 of war. The assembling of such a number of troops has added 

 to the scarcity of bread : and the magazines that have been made 

 for their support are not easily by the people distinguished 

 from those they suspect of being collected by monopolists. This 

 has aggravated their evils almost to madness; so that the 

 confusion and tumult of the capital are extreme. A gentleman 

 of an excellent understanding, and apparently of consideration, 

 from the attention paid him, with whom I had some conversation 

 on the subject, lamented in the most pathetic terms the situa- 

 tion of his country: he considers a civil war as impossible to be 

 avoided. There is not, he added, a doubt but the court, finding 

 it impossible to bring the National Assembly to terms, will get 

 rid of them: a bankruptcy at the same moment is inevitable: 

 the union of such confusion must be a civil war; and it is now 

 only by torrents of blood that we have any hope of establishing 

 a freer constitution: yet it must be established; for the old 

 government is riveted to abuses that are insupportable. He 

 agreed with me entirely, that the propositions of the seance 

 royale. though certainly not sufficiently satisfactory, yet were 

 the ground for a negotiation that would have secured by degrees 

 all even that the sword can give us, let it be as successful as it will. 

 The purse — the power of the purse is everything ; skilfully managed, 

 zoith so necessitous a government as ours, it would, one after another, 

 have gained all we wished. As to a war, Heaven knows the event ; 

 and if we have success, success itself may ruin us ; France may 

 have a Cromwell in its bosom, as well as England. Metz is, with- 

 out exception, the cheapest town I have been in. The table 

 d'hote is 36 sous a head, plenty of good wine included. We 

 were ten, and had two courses and a dessert of ten dishes each, 

 and those courses plentiful. The supper is the same; I had 

 mine, of a pint of wine and a large plate of chaudies, in my 

 chamber, for 10 sous ; a horse, hay, and corn 25 sous, and nothing 

 for the apartment ; my expense was therefore 7 1 sous a day, or 



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