"حياة ومراسلات اللواء السير جون مالكوم، قائد فرسان وسام الطُهر، المبعوث السابق إلى بلاد فارس وحاكم بومباي؛ من رسائل ومذكرات غير منشورة. في مجلّدين. المجلد II." [‎١‎١‎٩] (٦٥٤/١٣٦)

/JitlMl.i
conveesations with the duke of wellington. 119
o-arden, who were evidently meant to suppress the slightest
tumult. I met Walter Scott, with whom I after wards went to
see a woman of thirty-four, seven feet high, and a girl of ten, nine
feet round.
August 31.—Went this evening to see Monsieur Chunzy,
and found him among his oriental MSS. He was translating a
Sanscrit MS., and told me it was his intention to publish an
abstract of the contents of the Ramayan. He appears an indus
trious man.
I dined with the Duke of ellington, and had a long and
interesting conversation on the state of France. Ho thinks, and
I am of this opinion, that the King has a good chance of main
taining his throne. But I was glad to find him satisfied with the
policy, and, indeed, the necessity, of quitting Paris, where ho
is exposed to have his actions hourly pronounced upon by a licen
tious and unsettled rabble, and where he is in danger of being the
sacrifice of a sudden impulse of treason. Envy of his government
might involve this city in the crime of his murder, without
having five thousand of its inhabitants in favor of such an act.
The Duke, I was glad to find, had no dreams about the causes of
the late revolution. It began with riots in Paris, brought about
by the money of Orleans and the dreams of Philosophers, and
aided by the weakness of an embarrassed Government. The
mania spread. The people everywhere rose to get rid of the
powers by which they were governed. The authorities eveiy-
where took alarm, and a great part of the degenerate and dissi
pated nobility fled in all directions from the country. A few of
the boldest villains seized the Roi, and by introducing a national
uniform and cockade (1791) gave a substance and form (the first
it had) to the great change. After that, Force in its most terrible
shape was the engine. A subordinate assembly existed in every
city, which acted under the orders of the parent at Paris. Its
means were confiscations, resignations, and conscriptions. Its
servant was the guillotine. When this assembly was suspected,
a Commission from the capital was sent io apply the instrument to
it by which it managed others. Since this period to the present,
Force alone has managed France. There has been no movement
whatever of the people; and the public voice, as it is called, as
perhaps, for the last twenty years, had less influence in France
than any country in the world.
i