A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795 Part 33

The Convention, aware of these attempts, now employed against its ancient accomplices the same arts that had proved so fatal to all those whom it had considered as its enemies. A correspondence was "opportunely"

intercepted between the Jacobins and the Emigrants in Switzerland, while emissaries insinuated themselves into the Clubs, for the purpose of exciting desperate motions; or, dispersed in public places, contrived, by a.s.suming the Jacobin costume, to throw on the faction the odium of those seditious exclamations which they were employed to vociferate.

There is little doubt that the designs of the Jacobins were nearly such as have been imputed to them. They had, however, become more politic than to act thus openly, without being prepared to repel their enemies, or to support their friends; and there is every appearance that the Swiss plots, and the insurrections of the _Palais Egalite,_ were the devices of the government, to give a pretext for shutting up the Club altogether, and to avert the real dangers with which it was menaced, by spreading an alarm of fict.i.tious ones. A few idle people a.s.sembled (probably on purpose) about the _Palais Egalite,_ and the place where the Jacobins held their meetings, and the exclamation of "Down with the Convention!" served as the signal for hostilities. The aristocrats joined the partizans of the Convention, the Jacobins were attacked in their hall, and an affray ensued, in which several persons on each side were wounded. Both parties accused each other of being the aggressor, and a report of the business was made to the a.s.sembly; but the a.s.sembly had already decided--and, on the ninth of November, while the Jacobins were endeavouring to raise the storm by a recapitulation of the rights of man, a decree was pa.s.sed, prohibiting their debates, and ordering the national seal to be put on their doors and papers. The society were not in force to make resistance, and the decree was carried into execution as quietly as though it had been levelled against the hotel of some devoted aristocrat.

When the news of this event reached the departments, it occasioned an universal rejoicing--not such a rejoicing as is ordered for the successes of the French arms, (which always seems to be a matter of great indifference,) but a chearfulness of heart and of countenance; and many persons whom I do not remember to have ever seen in the least degree moved by political events, appeared sincerely delighted at this--

"And those smile now, who never smil'd before, "And those who always smil'd, now smile the more."

Parnell's Claudian.

The armies might proceed to Vienna, pillage the Escurial, or subjugate all Europe, and I am convinced no emotion of pleasure would be excited equal to that manifested at the downfall of the Jacobins of Paris.

Since this disgrace of the parent society, the Clubs in the departments have, for the most part, dissolved themselves, or dwindled into peaceable a.s.semblies to hear the news read, and applaud the convention.--The few Jacobin emblems which were yet remaining have totally disappeared, and no vestige of Jacobinism is left, but the graves of its victims, and the desolation of the country.

The profligate, the turbulent, the idle, and needy, of various countries in Europe, have been tempted by the successes of the French Jacobins to endeavour to establish similar inst.i.tutions; but the same successes have operated as a warning to people of a different description, and the fall of these societies has drawn two confessions from their original partizans, which ought never to be forgotten--namely, that they were formed for the purpose of subverting the monarchy, and that their existence is incompatible with regular government of any kind.--"While the monarchy still existed, (says the most philosophic Lequinio, with whose scheme of reforming La Vendee you are already acquainted,) it was politic and necessary to encourage popular societies, as the most efficacious means of operating its destruction; but now we have effected a revolution, and have only to consolidate it by mild and philosophic laws, these societies are dangerous, because they can produce only confusion and disorder."--This is also the language of Brissot, who admires the Jacobins from their origin till the end of 1792, but after that period he admits they were only the instruments of faction, and destructive of all property and order.*

* The period of the Jacobin annals so much admired by Brissot, comprises the dethronement of the King, the ma.s.sacres of the prisons, the banishment of the priests, &c. That which he reprobates begins precisely at the period when the Jacobins disputed the claims of himself and his party to the exclusive direction of the government.--See Brissot's Address to his Const.i.tuents.

--We learn therefore, not from the abuses alone, but from the praises bestowed on the Jacobins, how much such combinations are to be dreaded.

Their merit, it appears, consisted in the subversion of the monarchical government, and their crime in ceasing to be useful as agents of tyranny, the moment they ceased to be princ.i.p.als.

I am still sceptical as to the conversion of the a.s.sembly, and little disposed to expect good from it; yet whatever it may attempt in future, or however its real principles may take an ascendant, this fortunate concurrence of personal interests, coalition of aristocrats and democrats, and political rivalry, have likewise secured France from a return of that excess of despotism which could have been exercised only by such means. It is true, the spirit of the nation is so much depressed, that an effort to revive these Clubs might meet no resistance; but the ridicule and opprobrium to which they have latterly been subject, and finally the manner of their being sacrificed by that very Convention, of which they were the sole creators and support, will, I think, cool the zeal, and diminish the numbers of their partizans too much for them ever again to become formidable.

The conduct of Carrier has been examined according to the new forms, and he is now on his trial--though not till the delays of the Convention had given rise to a general suspicion that they intended either to exonerate or afford him an opportunity of escaping; and the people were at last so highly exasperated, that six thousand troops were added to the military force of Paris, and an insurrection was seriously apprehended. This stimulated the diligence, or relaxed the indulgence, of the commission appointed to make the report on Carrier's conduct; and it being decided that there was room for accusation, the a.s.sembly confirmed the decision, and he was ordered into custody, to be tried along with the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes which had been the instrument of his crimes.

It is a circ.u.mstance worth noting, that most of the Deputies who explained the motives on which they thought Carrier guilty, were silent on the subject of his drowning, shooting, and guillotining so many thousands of innocent people, and only declared him guilty, as having been wanting in respect towards Trehouard, one of his colleagues, and of injuring the republican cause by his atrocities.

The fate of this monster exhibits a practical exposition of the enormous absurdity of such a government. He is himself tried for the exercise of a power declared to be unbounded when entrusted to him. The men tried with him as his accomplices were obliged by the laws to obey him; and the acts of which they are all accused were known, applauded, and held out for imitation, by the Convention, who now declare those very acts to be criminal!--There is certainly no way of reconciling justice but by punishing both chiefs and subordinates, and the hour for this will yet come.--Adieu.

Amiens. [No date given.]

I do not yet venture to correspond with my Paris friends by the post, but whenever the opportunity of private conveyance occurs, I receive long and circ.u.mstantial letters, as well as packets, of all the publications most read, and the theatrical pieces most applauded. I have lately drudged through great numbers of these last, and bestowed on them an attention they did not in themselves deserve, because I considered it as one means of judging both of the spirit of the government and the morals of the people.

The dramas produced at the beginning of the revolution were in general calculated to corrupt the national taste and morals, and many of them were written with skill enough to answer the purpose for which they were intended; but those that have appeared during the last two years, are so stupid and so depraved, that the circ.u.mstance of their being tolerated even for a moment implies an extinction both of taste and of morals.*

* _"Dans l'es.p.a.ce d'un an ils ont failli detruire le produit de plusieurs siecles de civilization."_--("In the s.p.a.ce of a year they nearly destroyed the fruits of several ages of civilization.")

The princ.i.p.al cause of this is the despotism of the government in making the stage a mere political engine, and suffering the performance of such pieces only as a man of honesty or genius would not submit to write.*

* The tragedy of Brutus was interdicted on account of these two lines:

_"Arreter un romain sur de simple soupcons, "C'est agir en tyrans, nous qui les punissons."_

That of Mahomet for the following:

_"Exterminez, grands dieux, de la terre ou nous sommes "Quiconque avec plaisir repand le sang des hommes."_

It is to be remarked, that the last lines are only a simple axiom of humanity, and could not have been considered as implying a censure on any government except that of the French republic.

--Hence a croud of scribblers, without shame or talents, have become the exclusive directors of public amus.e.m.e.nts, and, as far as the noise of a theatre const.i.tutes success, are perhaps more successful than ever was Racine or Moliere. Immorality and dulness have an infallible resource against public disapprobation in the abuse of monarchy and religion, or a niche for Mr. Pitt; and an indignant or impatient audience, losing their other feelings in their fears, are glad to purchase the reputation of patriotism by applauding trash they find it difficult to endure. The theatres swarm with spies, and to censure a revolutionary piece, however detestable even as a composition, is dangerous, and few have courage to be the critics of an author who is patronized by the superintendants of the guillotine, or who may retaliate a comment on his poetry by the significant prose of a mandat d'arret.

Men of literature, therefore, have wisely preferred the conservation of their freedom to the vindication of their taste, and have deemed it better to applaud at the Theatre de la Republique, than lodge at St.

Lazare or Duplessis.--Thus political slavery has a.s.sisted moral depravation: the writer who is the advocate of despotism, may be dull and licentious by privilege, and is alone exempt from the laws of Parna.s.sus and of decency.--One Sylvan Marechal, author of a work he calls philosophie, has written a sort of farce, which has been performed very generally, where all the Kings in Europe are brought together as so many monsters; and when the King of France is enquired after as not being among them, a Frenchman answers,--"Oh, he is not here--we have guillotined him--we have cut off his head according to law."--In one piece, the hero is a felon escaped from the galleys, and is represented as a patriot of the most sublime principles; in another, he is the virtuous conductor of a gang of banditti; and the princ.i.p.al character in a third, is a ploughman turned deist and politician.

Yet, while these malevolent and mercenary scribblers are ransacking past ages for the crimes of Kings or the abuses of religion, and imputing to both many that never existed, they forget that neither their books nor their imagination are able to furnish scenes of guilt and misery equal to those which have been presented daily by republicans and philosophers.

What horror can their mock-tragedies excite in those who have contemplated the Place de la Revolution? or who can smile at a farce in ridicule of monarchy, that beholds the Convention, and knows the characters of the men who compose it?--But in most of these wretched productions the absurdity is luckily not less conspicuous than the immoral intention: their Princes, their Priests, their n.o.bles, are all tyrannical, vicious, and miserable; yet the common people, living under these same vicious tyrants, are described as models of virtue, hospitality, and happiness. If, then, the auditors of such edifying dramas were in the habit of reasoning, they might very justly conclude, that the ignorance which republicanism is to banish is desirable, and that the diffusion of riches with which they have been flattered, will only increase their vices, and subtract from their felicity.

There are, however, some patriotic spirits, who, not insensible to this degeneracy of the French theatre, and lamenting the evil, have lately exercised much ingenuity in developing the cause. They have at length discovered, that all the republican tragedies, flat farces, and heavy comedies, are attributable to Mr. Pitt, who has thought proper to corrupt the authors, with a view to deprave the public taste. There is, certainly, no combating this charge; for as, according to the a.s.sertions of the Convention, Mr. Pitt has succeeded in bribing nearly every other description of men in the republic, we may suppose the consciences of such scribblers not less flexible. Mr. Pitt, indeed, stands accused, sometimes in conjunction with the Prince of Cobourg, and sometimes on his own account, of successively corrupting the officers of the fleet and army, all the bankers and all the farmers, the priests who say ma.s.ses, and the people who attend them, the chiefs of the aristocrats, and the leaders of the Jacobins. The bakers who refuse to bake when they have no flour, and the populace who murmur when they have no bread, besides the merchants and shopkeepers who prefer coin to a.s.signats, are notoriously pensioned by him: and even a part of the Representatives, and all the frail beauties, are said to be enlisted in his service.--These multifarious charges will be found on the journals of the a.s.sembly, and we must of course infer, that Mr. Pitt is the ablest statesman, or the French the most corrupt nation, existing.

But it is not only Barrere and his colleagues who suppose the whole country bribeable--the notion is common to the French in general; and vanity adding to the omnipotence of gold, whenever they speak of a battle lost, or a town taken, they conclude it impossible to have occurred but through the venal treachery of their officers.--The English, I have observed, always judge differently, and would not think the national honour sustained by a supposition that their commanders were vulnerable only in the hand. If a general or an admiral happen to be unfortunate, it would be with the utmost reluctance that we should think of attributing his mischance to a cause so degrading; yet whoever has been used to French society will acknowledge, that the first suggestion on such events is _"nos officiers ont ete gagnes,"_ [Our officers were bought.] or _"sans la trahison ce ne seroit pas arrive."_ [This could not have happened without treachery.]--Pope's hyperbole of

"Just half the land would buy, and half be sold,"

is more than applicable here; for if we may credit the French themselves, the buyers are by no means so well proportioned to the sellers.

As I have no new political intelligence to comment upon, I shall finish my letter with a domestic adventure of the morning.--Our house was yesterday a.s.signed as the quarters of some officers, who, with part of a regiment, were pa.s.sing this way to join the Northern army. As they spent the evening out, we saw nothing of them, but finding one was a Colonel, and the other a Captain, though we knew what republican colonels and captains might be, we thought it civil, or rather necessary, to send them an invitation to breakfast. We therefore ordered some milk coffee early, (for Frenchmen seldom take tea,) and were all a.s.sembled before the usual time to receive our military guests. As they did not, however, appear, we were ringing to enquire for them, when Mr. D____ entered from his morning walk, and desired us to be at ease on their account, for that in pa.s.sing the kitchen, he had perceived the Captain fraternizing over some onions, bread, and beer, with our man; while the Colonel was in close conference with the cook, and watching a pan of soup, which was warming for his breakfast. We have learned since, that these heroes were very willing to accept of any thing the servants offered them, but could not be prevailed upon to approach us; though, you are to understand, this was not occasioned either by timidity or incivility, but by mere ignorance.

--Mr. D____ says, the Marquise and I have not divested ourselves of aristocratic a.s.sociations with our ideas of the military, and that our deshabilles this morning were unusually coquetish. Our projects of conquest were, however, all frustrated by the unlucky intervention of Bernardine's _soupe aux choux,_ [Cabbage-soup.] and Eustace's regale of cheese and onions.

"And with such beaux 'tis vain to be a belle."

Yours, &c.

Amiens, Dec. 10, 1794.

Your American friend pa.s.sed through here yesterday, and delivered me the two parcels. As marks of your attention, they were very acceptable; but on any other account, I a.s.sure you, I should have preferred a present of a few pecks of wheat to all your fineries.

I have been used to conclude, when I saw such strange and unaccountable absurdities given in the French papers as extracts from the debates in either of your Houses of Parliament, that they were probably fabricated here to serve the designs of the reigning factions: yet I perceive, by some old papers which came with the muslins, that there are really members so ill-informed or so unprincipled, as to use the language attributed to them, and who a.s.sert that the French are attached to their government, and call France "a land of republicans."

When it is said that a people are republicans, we must suppose they are either partial to republicanism as a system, or that they prefer it in practice. A little retrospection, perhaps, will determine both these points better than the eloquence of your orators.

A few men, of philosophic or restless minds, have, in various ages and countries, endeavoured to enlighten or disturb the world by examinations and disputes on forms of government; yet the best heads and the best hearts have remained divided on the subject, and I never heard that any writer was able to produce more than a partial conviction, even in the most limited circle. Whence, then, did it happen in France, where information was avowedly confined, and where such discussions could not have been general, that the people became suddenly inspired with this political sagacity, which made them in one day the judges and converts of a system they could scarcely have known before, even by name?--At the deposition of the King, the French, (speaking at large,) had as perspicuous a notion of republics, as they may be supposed to have of mathematics, and would have understood Euclid's Elements as well as the Social Contract. Yet an a.s.semblage of the worst and most daring men from every faction, elected amidst ma.s.sacres and proscription, the moment they are collected together, declare, on the proposal of Collot d'Herbois, a profligate strolling player, that France shall be a republic.--Admitting that the French were desirous of altering their form of government, I believe no one will venture to say such an inclination was ever manifested, or that the Convention were elected in a manner to render them competent to such a decision. They were not the choice of the people, but chiefly emissaries imposed on the departments by the Jacobins and the munic.i.p.ality of Paris; and let those who are not acquainted with the means by which the elections were obtained, examine the composition of the a.s.sembly itself, and then decide whether any people being free could have selected such men as Petion, Tallien, Robespierre, Brissot, Carrier, Taillefer, &c. &c. from the whole nation to be their Representatives.--There must, in all large a.s.sociations, be a mixture of good and bad; but when it is incontrovertible that the princ.i.p.al members of the Convention are monsters, who, we hope, are not to be paralleled-- that the rest are inferior rather in talents than wickedness, or cowards and ideots, who have supported and applauded crimes they only wanted opportunity to commit--it is not possible to conceive, that any people in the world could make a similar choice. Yet if the French were absolutely unbia.s.sed, and of their own free will made this collection, who would, after such an example, be the advocates of general suffrage and popular representation?--But, I repeat, the people were not free. They were not, indeed, influenced by bribes--they were intimidated by the horrors of the moment; and along with the regulations for the new elections, were every where circulated details of the a.s.sa.s.sinations of August and September.*

* The influence of the munic.i.p.ality of Paris on the new elections is well known. The following letter will show what instruments were employed, and the description of Representatives likely to be chosen under such auspices.

"Circular letter, written by the Committee of Inspection of the munic.i.p.ality of Paris to all the departments of the republic, dated the third of September, the second day of the ma.s.sacres:

"The munic.i.p.ality of Paris is impatient to inform their brethren of the departments, that a part of the ferocious conspirators detained in the prisons have been put to death by the people: an act of justice which appeared to them indispensable, to restrain by terror those legions of traitors whom they must have left behind when they departed for the army. There is no doubt but the whole nation, after such multiplied treasons, will hasten to adopt the same salutary measure!"--Signed by the Commune of Paris and the Minister of Justice.

Who, after this mandate, would venture to oppose a member recommended by the Commune of Paris?

--The French, then, neither chose the republican form of government, nor the men who adopted it; and are, therefore, not republicans on principle.--Let us now consider whether, not being republicans on principle, experience may have rendered them such.

The first effects of the new system were an universal consternation, the disappearance of all the specie, an extravagant rise in the price of provisions, and many indications of scarcity. The scandalous quarrels of the legislature shocked the national vanity, by making France the ridicule of all Europe, until ridicule was suppressed by detestation at the subsequent murder of the King. This was followed by the efforts of one faction to strengthen itself against another, by means of a general war--the leaders of the former presuming, that they alone were capable of conducting it.