A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795 Part 7

--The Convention decreed, amidst the wildest enthusiasm of applause, that Lisle had deserved well of the country.

--Forty-two thousand five hundred b.a.l.l.s were fired, and the damages were estimated at forty millions of livres.

The French, indeed, never refuse to rejoice when they are ordered; but as these festivities are not spontaneous effusions, but official ordinances, and regulated with the same method as a tax or recruitment, they are of course languid and uninteresting. The whole of their hilarity seems to consist in the movement of the dance, in which they are by not means animated; and I have seen, even among the common people, a cotillion performed as gravely and as mechanically as the ceremonies of a Chinese court.--I have always thought, with Sterne, that we were mistaken in supposing the French a gay nation. It is true, they laugh much, have great gesticulation, and are extravagantly fond of dancing: but the laugh is the effect of habit, and not of a risible sensation; the gesture is not the agitation of the mind operating upon the body, but const.i.tutional volatility; and their love of dancing is merely the effect of a happy climate, (which, though mild, does not enervate,) and that love of action which usually accompanies mental vacancy, when it is not counteracted by heat, or other physical causes.

I know such an opinion, if publicly avowed, would be combated as false and singular; yet I appeal to those who have at all studied the French character, not as travellers, but by a residence amongst them, for the support of my opinion. Every one who understands the language, and has mixed much in society, must have made the same observations.--See two Frenchmen at a distance, and the vehemence of their action, and the expression of their features, shall make you conclude they are discussing some subject, which not only interests, but delights them. Enquire, and you will find they were talking of the weather, or the price of a waistcoat!--In England you would be tempted to call in a peace-officer at the loud tone and menacing att.i.tudes with which two people here very amicably adjust a bargain for five livres.--In short, we mistake that for a mental quality which, in fact, is but a corporeal one; and, though the French may have many good and agreeable points of character, I do not include gaiety among the number.

I doubt very much of my friends will approve of their habitation. I confess I am by no means satisfied with it myself; and, with regard to pecuniary consideration, my engagement is not an advantageous one.

--Madame Dorval, of whom I have taken the house, is a character very common in France, and over which I was little calculated to have the ascendant. Officiously polite in her manners, and inflexibly attentive to her interest, she seemingly acquiesces in every thing you propose.

You would even fancy she was solicitous to serve you; yet, after a thousand gracious sentiments, and as many implied eulogiums on her liberality and generosity, you find her return, with unrelenting perseverance, to some paltry proposition, by which she is to gain a few livres; and all this so civilly, so sentimentally, and so determinedly, that you find yourself obliged to yield, and are duped without being deceived.

The lower cla.s.s have here, as well as on your side of the water, the custom of attributing to Ministers and Governments some connection with, or controul over, the operations of nature. I remarked to a woman who brings me fruit, that the grapes were bad and dear this year--_"Ah! mon Dieu, oui, ils ne murrissent pas. Il me semble que tout va mal depuis qu'on a invente la nation."_ ["Ah! Lord, they don't ripen now.--For my part, I think nothing has gone well since the nation was first invented."]

I cannot, like the imitators of Sterne, translate a chapter of sentiment from every incident that occurs, or from every physiognomy I encounter; yet, in circ.u.mstances like the present, the mind, not usually observing, is tempted to comment.--I was in a milliner's shop to-day, and took notice on my entering, that its mistress was, whilst at her work, learning the _Ma.r.s.eillois_ Hymn. [A patriotic air, at this time highly popular.] Before I had concluded my purchase, an officer came in to prepare her for the reception of four volunteers, whom she was to lodge the two ensuing nights. She a.s.sented, indeed, very graciously, (for a French woman never loses the command of her features,) but a moment after, the Ma.r.s.eillois, which lay on the counter, was thrown aside in a pet, and I dare say she will not resume her patriotic taste, nor be reconciled to the revolution, until some days after the volunteers shall have changed their quarters.

This quartering of troops in private houses appears to me the most grievous and impolitic of all taxes; it adds embarra.s.sment to expence, invades domestic comfort, and conveys such an idea of military subjection, that I wonder any people ever submits to it, or any government ever ventures to impose it.

I know not if the English are conscious of their own importance at this moment, but it is certain they are the centre of the hopes and fears of all parties, I might say of all Europe. The aristocrates wait with anxiety and solicitude a declaration of war, whilst their opponents regard such an event as pregnant with distress, and even as the signal of their ruin. The body of the people of both parties are averse from increasing the number of their enemies; but as the Convention may be directed by other motives than the public wish, it is impossible to form any conclusion on the subject. I am, of course, desirous of peace, and should be so from selfishness, if I were not from philanthropy, as a cessation of it at this time would disconcert all our plans, and oblige us to seek refuge at ____, which has just all that is necessary for our happiness, except what is most desirable--a mild and dry atmosphere.-- Yours, &c.

Amiens, November, 1792.

The arrival of my friends has occasioned a short suspension of my correspondence: but though I have been negligent, I a.s.sure you, my dear brother, I have not been forgetful; and this temporary preference of the ties of friendship to those of nature, will be excused, when you consider our long separation.

My intimacy with Mrs. D____ began when I first came to this country, and at every subsequent visit to the continent it has been renewed and increased into that rational kind of attachment, which your s.e.x seldom allow in ours, though you yourselves do not abound in examples of it.

Mrs. D____ is one of those characters which are oftener loved than admired--more agreeable than handsome--good-natured, humane, and una.s.suming--and with no mental pretensions beyond common sense tolerably well cultivated. The shades of this portraiture are an extreme of delicacy, bordering on fastidiousness--a trifle of hauteur, not in manners, but disposition--and, perhaps, a tincture of affectation. These foibles are, however, in a great degree, const.i.tutional: she is more an invalid than myself; and ill health naturally increases irritability, and renders the mind less disposed to bear with inconveniencies; we avoid company at first, through a sense of our infirmities, till this timidity becomes habitual, and settles almost into aversion.--The valetudinarian, who is obliged to fly the world, in time fancies herself above it, and ends by supposing there is some superiority in differing from other people. Mr. D____ is one of the best men existing--well bred and well informed; yet, without its appearing to the common observer, he is of a very singular and original turn of mind. He is most exceedingly nervous, and this effect of his physical construction has rendered him so susceptible, that he is continually agitated and hurt by circ.u.mstances which others pa.s.s by unnoticed. In other respects he is a great lover of exercise, fond of domestic life, reads much, and has an aversion from bustle of all kind.

The banishment of the Priests, which in many instances was attended with circ.u.mstances of peculiar atrocity, has not yet produced those effects which were expected from it, and which the promoters of the measure employed as a pretext for its adoption. There are indeed now no ma.s.ses said but by the Const.i.tutional Clergy; but as the people are usually as ingenious in evading laws as legislators are in forming them, many persons, instead of attending the churches, which they think profaned by priests who have taken the oaths, flock to church-yards, chapels, or other places, once appropriated to religious worship, but in disuse since the revolution, and of course not violated by const.i.tutional ma.s.ses. The cemetery of St. Denis, at Amiens, though large, is on Sundays and holidays so crouded, that it is almost difficult to enter it. Here the devotees flock in all weathers, say their ma.s.s, and return with the double satisfaction of having preserved their allegiance to the Pope, and risked persecution in a cause they deem meritorious. To say truth, it is not very surprizing that numbers should be prejudiced against the const.i.tutional clergy. Many of them are, I doubt not, liberal and well-meaning men, who have preferred peace and submission to theological warfare, and who might not think themselves justified in opposing their opinion to a national decision: yet are there also many of profligate lives, who were never educated for the profession, and whom the circ.u.mstances of the times have tempted to embrace it as a trade, which offered subsistence without labour, and influence without wealth, and which at once supplied a veil for licentiousness, and the means of practising it. Such pastors, it must be confessed, have little claim to the confidence or respect of the people; and that there are such, I do not a.s.sert, but on the most credible information. I will only cite two instances out of many within my own knowledge.

P____n, bishop of St. Omer, was originally a priest of Arras, of vicious character, and many of his ordinations have been such as might be expected from such a patron.--A man of Arras, who was only known for his vicious pursuits, and who had the reputation of having accelerated the death of his wife by ill treatment, applied to P____n to marry him a second time. The good Bishop, preferring the interest of his friend to the salvation of his flock, advised him to relinquish the project of taking a wife, and offered to give him a cure. The proposal was accepted on the spot, and this pious a.s.sociate of the Reverend P____n was immediately invested with the direction of the consciences, and the care of the morals, of an extensive parish.

Acts of this nature, it is to be imagined, were pursued by censure and ridicule; but the latter was not often more successful than on the following occasion:--Two young men, whose persons were unknown to the bishop, one day procured an audience, and requested he would recommend them to some employment that would procure them the means of subsistence.

This was just a time when the numerous vacancies that had taken place were not yet supplied, and many livings were unfilled for want of candidates. The Bishop, who was unwilling that the nonjuring priests should have the triumph of seeing their benefices remain vacant, fell into the snare, and proposed their taking orders. The young men expressed their joy at the offer; but, after looking confusedly on each other, with some difficulty and diffidence, confessed their lives had been such as to preclude them from the profession, which, but for this impediment, would have satisfied them beyond their hopes. The Bishop very complaisantly endeavoured to obviate thesse objections, while they continued to accuse themselves of all the sins in the decalogue; but the Prelate at length observing he had ordained many worse, the young men smiled contemptuously, and, turning on their heels, replied, that if priests were made of worse men than they had described themselves to be, they begged to be excused from a.s.sociating with such company.

Dumouriez, Custine, Biron, Dillon, &c. are doing wonders, in spite of the season; but the laurel is an ever-green, and these heroes gather it equally among the snows of the Alps, and the fogs of Belgium. If we may credit the French papers too, what they call the cause of liberty is not less successfully propagated by the pen than the sword. England is said to be on the eve of a revolution, and all its inhabitants, except the King and Mr. Pitt, become Jacobins. If I did not believe "the wish was father to the thought," I should read these a.s.sertions with much inquietude, as I have not yet discovered the excellencies of a republican form of government sufficiently to make me wish it subst.i.tuted for our own.--It should seem that the Temple of Liberty, as well as the Temple of Virtue, is placed on an ascent, and that as many inflexions and retrogradations occur in endeavouring to attain it. In the ardour of reaching these difficult acclivities, a fall sometimes leaves us lower than the situation we first set out from; or, to speak without a figure, so much power is exercised by our leaders, and so much submission exacted from the people, that the French are in danger of becoming habituated to a despotism which almost sanctifies the errors of their ancient monarchy, while they suppose themselves in the pursuit of a degree of freedom more sublime and more absolute than has been enjoyed by any other nation.-- Attempts at political as well as moral perfection, when carried beyond the limits compatible with a social state, or the weakness of our natures, are likely to end in a depravity which moderate governments and rational ethics would have prevented.

The debates of the Convention are violent and acrimonious. Robespierre has been accused of aspiring to the Dictatorship, and his defence was by no means calculated to exonerate him from the charge. All the chiefs reproach each other with being the authors of the late ma.s.sacres, and each succeeds better in fixing the imputation on his neighbour, than in removing it from himself. General reprobation, personal invectives, and long speeches, are not wanting; but every thing which tends to examination and enquiry is treated with much more delicacy and composure: so that I fear these first legislators of the republic must, for the present, be content with the reputation they have a.s.signed each other, and rank amongst those who have all the guilt, but want the courage, of a.s.sa.s.sins.

I subjoin an extract from a newspaper, which has lately appeared.*

*Extract from _The Courier de l'Egalite,_ November, 1792:

"There are discontented people who still venture to obtrude their sentiments on the public. One of them, in a public print, thus expresses himself--

'I a.s.sert, that the newspapers are sold and devoted to falsehood.

At this price they purchase the liberty of appearing; and the exclusive privilege they enjoy, as well as the contradictory and lying a.s.sertions they all contain, prove the truth of what I advance. They are all preachers of liberty, yet never was liberty so shamefully outraged--of respect for property, and property was at no time so little held sacred--of personal security, yet when were there committed so many ma.s.sacres? and, at the very moment I am writing, new ones are premeditated. They call vehemently for submission, and obedience to the laws, but the laws had never less influence; and while our compliance with such as we are even ignorant of is exacted, it is accounted a crime to execute those in force. Every munic.i.p.ality has its own arbitrary code--every battalion, every private soldier, exercises a sovereignty, a most absolute despotism; and yet the Gazettes do not cease to boast the excellence of such a government. They have, one and all, attributed the ma.s.sacres of the tenth of August and the second of September, and the days following each, to a popular fermentation. The monsters! they have been careful not to tell us, that each of these horrid scenes (at the prisons, at La Force, at the Abbaye, &c. &c.) was presided by munic.i.p.al officers in their scarfs, who pointed out the victims, and gave the signal for the a.s.sa.s.sination. It was (continue the Journals) the error of an irritated people--and yet their magistrates were at the head of it: it was a momentary error; yet this error of a moment continued during six whole days of the coolest reflection--it was only at the close of the seventh that Petion made his appearance, and affected to persuade the people to desist. The a.s.sa.s.sins left off only from fatigue, and at this moment they are preparing to begin again. The Journals do not tell us that the chief of these _Scelerats_ [We have no term in the English language that conveys an adequate meaning for this word--it seems to express the extreme of human wickedness and atrocity.]

employed subordinate a.s.sa.s.sins, whom they caused to be clandestinely murdered in their turn, as though they hoped to destroy the proof of their crime, and escape the vengeance that awaits them. But the people themselves were accomplices in the deed, for the Garde Nationale gave their a.s.sistance,'" &c. &c.

In spite of the murder of so many journalists, and the destruction of the printing-offices, it treats the September business so freely, that the editor will doubtless soon be silenced. Admitting these accusations to be unfounded, what ideas must the people have of their magistrates, when they are credited? It is the prepossession of the hearer that gives authenticity to fiction; and such atrocities would neither be imputed to, nor believed of, men not already bad.--Yours, &c.

December, 1792.

Dear Brother,

All the public prints still continue strongly to insinuate, that England is prepared for an insurrection, and Scotland already in actual rebellion: but I know the character of our countrymen too well to be persuaded that they have adopted new principles as easily as they would adopt a new mode, or that the visionary anarchists of the French government can have made many proselytes among an humane and rational people. For many years we were content to let France remain the arbitress of the lighter departments of taste: lately she has ceded this province to us, and England has dictated with uncontested superiority.

This I cannot think very strange; for the eye in time becomes fatigued by elaborate finery, and requires only the introduction of simple elegance to be attracted by it. But if, while we export fashions to this country, we should receive in exchange her republican systems, it would be a strange revolution indeed; and I think, in such a commerce, we should be far from finding the balance in our favour. I have, in fact, little solicitude about these diurnal falsehoods, though I am not altogether free from alarm as to their tendency. I cannot help suspecting it is to influence the people to a belief that such dispositions exist in England as preclude the danger of a war, in case it should be thought necessary to sacrifice the King.

I am more confirmed in this opinion, from the recent discovery, with the circ.u.mstances attending it, of a secret iron chest at the Tuilleries.

The man who had been employed to construct this recess, informs the minister, Rolland; who, instead of communicating the matter to the Convention, as it was very natural he should do on an occasion of so much importance, and requiring it to be opened in the presence of proper witnesses, goes privately himself, takes the papers found into his own possession, and then makes an application for a committee to examine them. Under these suspicious and mysterious appearances, we are told that many letters, &c. are found, which inculpate the King; and perhaps the fate of this unfortunate Monarch is to be decided by evidence not admissible with justice in the case of the obscurest malefactor. Yet Rolland is the hero of a party who call him, par excellence, the virtuous Rolland! Perhaps you will think, with me, that this epithet is misapplied to a man who has risen, from an obscure situation to that of first Minister, without being possessed of talents of that brilliant or prominent cla.s.s which sometimes force themselves into notice, without the aid of wealth or the support of patronage.

Rolland was inspector of manufactories in this place, and afterwards at Lyons; and I do not go too far in advancing, that a man of very rigid virtue could not, from such a station, have attained so suddenly the one he now possesses. Virtue is of an unvarying and inflexible nature: it disdains as much to be the flatterer of mobs, as the adulator of Princes: yet how often must he, who rises so far above his equals, have stooped below them? How often must he have sacrificed both his reason and his principles? How often have yielded to the little, and opposed the great, not from conviction, but interest? For in this the meanest of mankind resemble the most exalted; he bestows not his confidence on him who resists his will, nor subscribes to the advancement of one whom he does not hope to influence.--I may almost venture to add, that more dissimulation, meaner concessions, and more tortuous policy, are requisite to become the idol of the people, than are practised to acquire and preserve the favour of the most potent Monarch in Europe. The French, however, do not argue in this manner, and Rolland is at present very popular, and his popularity is said to be greatly supported by the literary talents of his wife.

I know not if you rightly understand these party distinctions among a set of men whom you must regard as united in the common cause of establishing a republic in France, but you have sometimes had occasion to remark in England, that many may amicably concur in the accomplishment of a work, who differ extremely about the partic.i.p.ation of its advantages; and this is already the case with the Convention. Those who at present possess all the power, and are infinitely the strongest, are wits, moralists, and philosophers by profession, having Brissot, Rolland, Petion, Concorcet, &c. at their head; their opponents are adventurers of a more desperate cast, who make up by violence what they want in numbers, and are led by Robespierre, Danton, Chabot, &c. &c. The only distinction of these parties is, I believe, that the first are vain and systematical hypocrites, who have originally corrupted the minds of the people by visionary and insidious doctrines, and now maintain their superiority by artifice and intrigue: their opponents, equally wicked, and more daring, justify that turpitude which the others seek to disguise, and appear almost as bad as they are. The credulous people are duped by both; while the cunning of the one, and the vehemence of the other, alternately prevail.--But something too much of politics, as my design is in general rather to mark their effect on the people, than to enter on more immediate discussions.

Having been at the Criminal Tribunal to-day, I now recollect that I have never yet described to you the costume of the French Judges.--Perhaps when I have before had occasion to speak of it, your imagination may have glided to Westminster Hall, and depicted to you the scarlet robes and voluminous wigs of its respectable magistrates: but if you would form an idea of a magistrate here, you must bring your mind to the abstraction of Crambo, and figure to yourself a Judge without either gown, wig, or any of those venerable appendages. Nothing indeed can be more becoming or gallant, than this judicial accoutrement--it is black, with a silk cloak of the same colour, in the Spanish form, and a round hat, turned up before, with a large plume of black feathers. This, when the magistrate happens to be young, has a very theatrical and romantic appearance; but when it is worn by a figure a little Esopian, or with a large bushy perriwig, as I have sometimes seen it, the effect is still less awful; and a stranger, on seeing such an apparition in the street, is tempted to suppose it a period of jubilee, and that the inhabitants are in masquerade.

It is now the custom for all people to address each other by the appellation of Citizen; and whether you are a citizen or not--whether you inhabit Paris, or are a native of Peru--still it is an indication of aristocracy, either to exact, or to use, any other t.i.tle. This is all congruous with the system of the day: the abuses are real, the reform is imaginary. The people are flattered with sounds, while they are losing in essentials. And the permission to apply the appellation of Citizen to its members, is but a poor compensation for the despotism of a department or a munic.i.p.ality.

In vain are the people flattered with a chimerical equality--it cannot exist in a civilized state, and if it could exist any where, it would not be in France. The French are habituated to subordination--they naturally look up to something superior--and when one cla.s.s is degraded, it is only to give place to another.

--The pride of the n.o.blesse is succeeded by the pride of the merchant-- the influence of wealth is again realized by cheap purchases of the national domains--the abandoned abbey becomes the delight of the opulent trader, and replaces the demolished chateau of the feudal inst.i.tution.

Full of the importance which the commercial interest is to acquire under a republic, the wealthy man of business is easily reconciled to the oppression of the superior cla.s.ses, and enjoys, with great dignity, his new elevation. The counting-house of a manufacturer of woollen cloth is as inaccessible as the boudoir of a Marquis; while the flowered brocade gown and well-powdered curls of the former offer a much more imposing exterior than the chintz robe de chambre and dishevelled locks of the more affable man of fashion.

I have read, in some French author, a maxim to this effect:--"Act with your friends as though they should one day be your enemies;" and the existing government seems amply to have profited by the admonition of their country-man: for notwithstanding they affirm, that all France supports, and all England admires them, this does not prevent their exercising a most vigilant inquisition over the inhabitants of both countries.--It is already sagaciously hinted, that Mr. Thomas Paine may be a spy, and every householder who receives a lodger or visitor, and every proprietor who lets a house, is obliged to register the names of those he entertains, or who are his tenants, and to become responsible for their conduct. This is done at the munic.i.p.ality, and all who thus venture to change their residence, of whatever age, s.e.x, or condition, must present themselves, and submit to an examination. The power of the munic.i.p.alities is indeed very great; and as they are chiefly selected from the lower cla.s.s of shop-keepers, you may conclude that their authority is not exercised with much politeness or moderation.

The timid or indolent inhabitant of London, whose head has been filled with the Bastilles and police of the ancient government, and who would as soon have ventured to Constantinople as to Paris, reads, in the debates of the Convention, that France is now the freeest country in the world, and that strangers from all corners of it flock to offer their adorations in this new Temple of Liberty. Allured by these descriptions, he resolves on the journey, willing, for once in his life, to enjoy a taste of the blessing in sublimate, which he now learns has. .h.i.therto been allowed him only in the gross element.--He experiences a thousand impositions on landing with his baggage at Calais, but he submits to them without murmuring, because his countrymen at Dover had, on his embarkation, already kindly initiated him into this science of taxing the inquisitive spirit of travellers. After inscribing his name, and rewarding the custom-house officers for rummaging his portmanteau, he determines to amuse himself with a walk about the town. The first centinel he encounters stops him, because he has no c.o.c.kade: he purchases one at the next shop, (paying according to the exigency of the case,) and is suffered to pa.s.s on. When he has settled his bill at the Auberge "a l'Angloise," and emagines he has nothing to do but to pursue his journey, he finds he has yet to procure himself a pa.s.sport. He waits an hour and an half for an officer, who at length appears, and with a rule in one hand, and a pen in the other, begins to measure the height, and take an inventory of the features of the astonished stranger. By the time this ceremony is finished, the gates are shut, and he can proceed no farther, till the morrow. He departs early, and is awakened twice on the road to Boulogne to produce his pa.s.sport: still, however, he keeps his temper, concluding, that the new light has not yet made its way to the frontiers, and that these troublesome precautions may be necessary near a port. He continues his route, and, by degrees, becomes habituated to this regimen of liberty; till, perhaps, on the second day, the validity of his pa.s.sport is disputed, the munic.i.p.ality who granted it have the reputation of aristocracy, or the whole is informal, and he must be content to wait while a messenger is dispatched to have it rectified, and the officers establish the severity of their patriotism at the expence of the stranger.

Our traveller, at length, permitted to depart, feels his patience wonderfully diminished, execrates the regulations of the coast, and the ignorance of small towns, and determines to stop a few days and observe the progress of freedom at Ameins. Being a large commercial place, he here expects to behold all the happy effects of the new const.i.tution; he congratulates himself on travelling at a period when he can procure information, and discuss his political opinions, unannoyed by fears of state prisons, and spies of the police. His landlord, however, acquaints him, that his appearance at the Town House cannot be dispensed with--he attends three or four different hours of appointment, and is each time sent away, (after waiting half an hour with the valets de ville in the antichamber,) and told that the munic.i.p.al officers are engaged. As an Englishman, he has little relish for these subordinate sovereigns, and difficult audiences--he hints at the next coffee-house that he had imagined a stranger might have rested two days in a free country, without being measured, and questioned, and without detailing his history, as though he were suspected of desertion; and ventures on some implied comparison between the ancient "Monsieur le Commandant," and the modern "Citoyen Maire."--To his utter astonishment he finds, that though there are no longer emissaries of the police, there are Jacobin informers; his discourse is reported to the munic.i.p.ality, his business in the town becomes the subject of conjecture, he is concluded to be _"un homme sans aveu,"_ [One that can't give a good account of himself.] and arrested as "suspect;" and it is not without the interference of the people to whom he may have been recommended at Paris, that he is released, and enabled to continue his journey.

At Paris he lives in perpetual alarm. One night he is disturbed by a visite domiciliaire, another by a riot--one day the people are in insurrection for bread, and the next murdering each other at a public festival; and our country-man, even after making every allowance for the confusion of a recent change, thinks himself very fortunate if he reaches England in safety, and will, for the rest of his life, be satisfied with such a degree of liberty as is secured to him by the const.i.tution of his own country.

You see I have no design of tempting you to pay us a visit; and, to speak the truth, I think those who are in England will show their wisdom by remaining there. Nothing but the state of Mrs. D____'s health, and her dread of the sea at this time of the year, detains us; for every day subtracts from my courage, and adds to my apprehensions.

--Yours, &c.

1793

Amiens, January, 1793.