National Gazette

Paris, Dec. 31. It is remarkable, that the French peasantry are much better clad of late than heretofore. This change may be variously accounted for. 1. The peasants are a class of people who have gained most by the revolution, the legislature being now more engaged in promoting the happiness of the peasantry, than any other denomination of people, the soldiery excepted. 2. The fear of being over-taxed no longer prevents them from dressing according to their real abilities—under the old government, which was in fact worse than the Turkish, they found it necessary to conceal their hard-earned pittance of treasure with as much care as if it had been stolen. 3. Freemen will naturally habit themselves with more neatness than slaves. The celebrated Diderot, when in Russia, expressed his surprise to the empress, that her subjects in general were so miserably ragged and ill-clad—The empress answered the philosopher thus—Why would you have these wretches to pay any regard to a body which does not belong to them?