170 Travels in France 



speaks English, there. This has been a refreshing day; the 

 society of well-informed people, liberal, polite, and communica- 

 tive, has been a contrast to the sombre stupidity of table d" botes. 

 i^: 24/A. To Isenheim, by Colmar. The country is in general 

 a dead level, with the Voge mountains very near to the right; 

 those of Suabia to the left; and there is another range very 

 distant that appears in the opening to the south. The news 

 at the table d'hote at Colmar curious, that the queen had a plot, 

 nearly on the point of execution, to blow up the National 

 Assembly by a mine, and to march the army instantly to 

 massacre all Paris. A French officer present presumed but to 

 doubt of the truth of it, and was immediately overpowered with 

 numbers of tongues. A deputy had written it, they had seen 

 the letter, and not a hesitation could be admitted : I strenuously 

 contended that it was folly and nonsense at the first blush, a 

 mere invention to render persons odious who, for what I knew, 

 might deserve to be so, but certainly not by such means; if the 

 angel Gabriel had descended and taken a chair at table to 

 convince them, it would not have shaken their faith. Thus it is 

 in revolutions, one rascal writes and a hundred thousand fools 

 beheve. — 25 miles. 



25//:. From Isenheim, the country changes from the dead 

 flat to pleasant views and inequalities, improving all the way 

 to Befort, but neither scattered houses nor enclosures. Great 

 riots at Befort: — last night a body of mob and peasants de- 

 manded of the magistrates the arms in the magazine, to the 

 amount of three or four thousand stand ; being refused, they 

 grew riotous and threatened to set fire to the town, on which 

 the gates were shut; and to-day the regiment of Bourgogne 

 arrived for their protection. Monsieur Necker passed here 

 to-day in his way from Basle to Paris, escorted by fifty bour- 

 geois horsemen, and through the town by the music of all the 

 troops. But the most brilliant period of his life is past; from 

 the moment of his reinstatement in power to the assembling of 

 the states, the fate of France, and of the Bourbons, was then in 

 his hands ; and whatever may be the result of the present con- 

 fusions they will, by posterity, be attributed to his conduct, 

 since he had unquestionably the power of assembling the states 

 in whatever form he pleased: he might have had two chambers, 

 three, or one; he might have given what would unavoidably 

 have slid into the constitution of England ; all was in his hands; 

 he had the greatest opportunity of political architecture that 

 ever was in the power of man : the great legislators of antiquity 



