The person from whom I received this account, informed me, that he knew these gentlemen very well, and that they had been resettled in Toulon about two years.
The wretch who had thus directed the ruthless vengeance of a revolutionary banditti, against the breasts of his fellow citizens, was, at this time, in Paris, soliciting, from the present government, from a total misconception of its nature, those remunerations which had been promised, but never realized by his barbarous employers.
I need scarcely add, that although he had been in the capital several months, he had not been able to gain access to the minister's secretary.
The time of terror was over--the murderer's occupation was gone--the guillotine, with unsatiated hunger, after having gorged the food which was thrown to it, had devoured its feeder.
I must leave it to the ingenuity of my reader, to connect the observation with which I shall close this chapter, with the preceding story, for I am only enabled to do so, by observing, that an impressive instance of the subject of it, occurred immediately after my mind had been harrowed up, by the narrative which I have just related. The married women of France feel no compunctious visitings of conscience, in cherishing about them a circle of lovers, amongst whom their husbands are _merely_ more favoured than the rest. I hope I shall not be considered as an apologist, for an indulgence which, in France, excites no jealousy in _one_, and no surprise amongst the many, when I declare, that I confidently believe, in most instances, it commences, and guiltlessly terminates in the love of admiration. I know, and visited in Paris, a most lovely and accomplished young woman, who had been married about two years. She admitted the visits of men, whom she knew were passionately fond of her. Sometimes she received them in the presence, and sometimes in the absence of her husband, as accident, not arrangement, directed. They approached her with all the agitation and tenderness of the most ardent lovers. Amongst the number, was a certain celebrated orator. This man was her abject slave. A glance from her expressive eye raised him to the summit of bliss, or rendered his night sleepless. The complacent husband of Madame G----regarded these men as his most beloved friends, because they enlarged the happiness of his wife; and, strange as it may appear, I believe that he had as little cause to complain as Othello, and therefore never permitted his repose to be disturbed by those suspicions which preyed upon the vitals of the hapless moor. The french Benedict might truly exclaim,