| Description | ("No. 5.")
No. 5.
Paris, March 3d, 1791.
Dear Sir!
The aristocratic party have formed a new project to excite a rebellion at Paris, and at the same time to gain the confidence of the King. The Committee des Reserches having got knowledge of these secret machinations about two months ago, Mr. Bailly and Fayette were of consequence instructed in time, and thus the whole scheme was happily frustrated.
They have distributed a large sum of money amongst the poorest and lowest class of people, who in consequence on Monday last formed themselves into a large party to go and pull down the Chateau de Vincennes, which is for the time converted into a prison. They broke down a wall and burnt a few blankets, when the Guard Nationale forced them to retreat; some were taken prisoners and the rest quietly dispersed. While this happened at Vincennes, an other large party went to the Thuillers with no other view than to intimidate the King, while the aristocrats in number of 2 or 300, who were properly the instigators of all this disturbance, went into the palace and offered the King their services in that horrid and desolate situation, as they called it. The King being previously instructed of the whole project, and the Guard Nationale trippled in number for that day, he answered them that he had not asked them any assistance and that, if they really wished and came for this purpose, it was not in the dress and manner in which they presented themselves (being mostly dressed in black, armed with pocket pistols and daggers or stilletos), they were to put on the national uniform and serve him as a guard with the National Guard. A number of their party were deprived of their arms, others were put in prison, and the mob was easily, without any bloodshed, dispersed; and the whole party, instead of gaining what they intended, probably lost for ever the little confidence which the King perhaps had in them.
Bertholet['s] book, containing the principles on dying, is nearly finished; the last sheet will go to the press this week. Kirwan wrote him a few days ago that he is now compleatly convinced of the new theory, and that he intends to publish a book containing a full and compleat refutation of his own treatise on Phlogiston.
I wished you would write me the place where the terra ponderosa aërata, as well as the piece of iron-ore from Scotland, is taken from. I beg you will . . . the enclosed letter by the . . .
Best compliments to all our friends and your family, being as always your sincerely,
F. Swediaur
[There follows a passage written with sympathetic ink, which has not yet been transcribed.] |