Dijon 179 



mit only their own sentiments and opinions? in order that no 

 man in the nation, arranged under the same standard of reason- 

 ing, may want the facts thiit are necessary to govern his argu- 

 mentS; and the conclusions that great talents have drawn from 

 those ifacts. The king has been advised to take several steps of 

 authority against the states, but none of his ministers have 

 advised the establishment of journals, and their speedy circulation, 

 that should undeceive the people in those points his enemies 

 have misrepresented. When numerous papers are published in 

 opposition to each other, the people take pains to sift into and 

 examine the truth; and that inquisitiveness alone — the very act 

 of searching — enlightens them; they become informed, and it is 

 no longer easy to deceive them. At the table d'hote only three, 

 myself and two noblemen driven from their estates, as I con- 

 jecture by their conversation, but they did not hint at anything 

 like their houses being burnt. Their description of the state of 

 that part of the province they come from, in the road from 

 Langres to Gray, is terrible ; the number of chateaus burnt not 

 considerable, but three in five plundered, and the possessors 

 driven out of the country, and glad to save their lives. One 

 of these gentlemen is a very sensible well-informed man ; he con- 

 siders all rank, and all the rights annexed to rank, as destroyed 

 in fact in France ; and that the leaders of the National Assembly 

 having no property, or very little themselves, are determined 

 to attack that also and attempt an equal division. The expecta- 

 tion is got among many of the people: but whether it takes 

 place or not, he considers France as absohiiely mined. That, I 

 replied, was going too far, for the destruction of rank did not 

 imply ruin. " I call nothing ruin," he replied, " but a general 

 and confirmed civil war, or dismemberment of the kingdom; 

 in my opinion, both are inevitable; not perhaps this year, or the 

 next, or the year after that, but whatever government is built 

 on the foundation now laying in France cannot stand any rude 

 shocks ; and unsuccessful or a successful war will equally destroy 

 it." — He spoke with great knowledge of historical events, and 

 drew his political conclusions with much acumen. I have met 

 ven,' few such men at table d'hotes. It may be believed I did 

 not forget M. de Morveau's appointment. He was as good as 

 his word; Madame Picardet is as agreeable in conversation as 

 she is learned in the closet ; a very pleasing unaffected woman : 

 she has translated Scheele from the German, and a part of Mr. 

 Kirwan from the English; a treasure to M. de Morveau, for she 

 is able and willing to converse with him on chemical subjects^ 



