Paris, Dec. 18th, 1796.
MY LORD,
Your Lordship, I trust, is aware of my motives for not having
written to you since I left England; I shall, therefore, make no
apologies for my neglect; but I must beg leave to assure your
Lordship that I am, notwithstanding the urgency of my reasons, so
much ashamed of the omission, that I now feel much embarrassed in
taking up my pen.
The only letters I have hitherto sent to England have been to Lord
Grenville, in answer to those he has done me the honour to write;
and to Mr. B. Taylor, his secretary, for some articles which I
stood in need of.
Your Lordship has without doubt received much better accounts of
the appearance and state of things in this country than it is in my
power to communicate; however, I will attempt a description of what
has struck me as worthy of notice, and rely upon your kind
indulgence for my errors.
Our first entrance into France was certainly not attended with the
reception which might have been expected, under the particular
circumstances in which we came. It is true a good many people of
all sorts were upon the quay at Calais when we arrived, but they
showed no signs of joy or any other feeling more than the arrival
of an indifferent vessel would have occasioned; and very shortly
after we had landed, and gone to the inn, the crowd was dispersed,
and everything seemed as silent as if nothing had happened. Indeed,
all those we conversed with expressed their happiness at seeing us,
and wished success to the negotiation; and all the principal
officers of the Government stationed there waited upon Lord
Malmesbury with the utmost civility; but the bulk of the
inhabitants--whether they were ignorant of the arrival of an envoy
to propose peace, or whether they were afraid to express their
satisfaction in any public manner, I cannot say--manifested not the
least sign of rejoicing.
Nothing very material occurred between this place and Paris. The
aubergistes and post-masters were almost the only persons with whom
we had any conversation, and their language uniformly was that
France was most anxiously desirous for the restoration of peace;
that their sufferings had been more than they could describe, but
that latterly their situation was much mended by the diminution in
the price of provisions. But I was not inclined to give much credit
to them, imagining that this language was intended to flatter us,
and coming from those who had suffered more than any of their
description in France, from the intercourse between the two
countries being stopped. It must, however, be allowed that a
general gloom seemed to prevail; and very little of that gaiety for
which this nation was formerly remarkable was to be observed. At
Amiens, I remember, the people of the inn where we supped entered
more fully and with less reserve into the detail of their
calamities. There had been a considerable manufacture of woollen
cloths in this town, in which at this time no more than two hundred
people were employed.
I profited of the opportunity which the changing horses afforded me
to see the Chateau of Chantilly. I found it totally stripped of its
furniture, and every decoration that bore the smallest reference to
armorial bearings was defaced; but otherwise the building has not
suffered much injury. The statue of the great Conde on the
principal staircase remains, but the head is cut off. The
barbarians were not content with beheading the statues of men, but
they have likewise done so to all the busts of stags placed over
the stalls in the stables. The chateau was used as a prison in the
time of Robespierre, and almost all the apartments continue still
divided into small spaces for that purpose. The gardens are totally
destroyed, but the park has met with no injury further than the
almost total destruction of the game. There is a keeper appointed
by the nation for the protection of the wood. The timber on the
opposite side of the river is chiefly cut down, the land having
been sold.
The adjacent chateau of the Duc d'Angouleme, his son, as far as the
walls, remains perfect; I had not time to see the inside of it. The
care of the chateau has lately been given in charge to one of the
former servants of the Prince de Conde.
The roads were in general in excellent condition, and the
post-horses tolerably good; but we were in several places kept some
time waiting for them. This is not to be wondered at, if we
consider how little they have been accustomed to travellers for
some years past.
A great number of the best houses by the roadside and in the towns
were shut up, and seemed to be abandoned. Very few of the churches
appeared to be open, many of them were pulled down, and none that
were not considerably damaged; but the country was throughout in a
state of high cultivation, although there was apparently a scarcity
of men at work. This is to be accounted for by the encouragement
which the late dearness of bread has given to the farmers, who are
become, by a variety of circumstances, extremely wealthy. They are
one of the very few descriptions of people who have profited by the
Revolution. Very many of them have purchased lands, and this they
were enabled to do almost for nothing by the depreciation of
assignats, for an enormous nominal value of which they sold the
produce of their farms; and this paper was received from them for
the sum it represented, in payment for the estates of the
_ci-devant_ seigneurs and other confiscated property. I am told
there have been repeated instances of the basest ingratitude on
their part, in denouncing their landlords; and, on the contrary,
that many of them have given proofs of the strongest attachment to
them.
Provisions are in abundance, and at a very moderate price. Common
bread is little more than two sous, and butchers' meat from five to
eight sous the pound.
I have not observed any want of specie in circulation; never yet
have I found any difficulty in getting change upon the purchase of
any article, nor any such thing as paper money produced in such
transactions. The exhausted state and the degree of distress which
I could discover in this country, I must confess, fell short of the
expectation which the various species of plunder, exaction, and
cruelty, which it has for several years submitted to, had impressed
upon my mind.
Between Calais and Paris, scarcely any troops were to be met with.
The scene being so perfectly new to me, and having little or no
intercourse with any one here, except our own society, I was some
time in Paris before I could form any opinion of the state of
affairs, and the sentiments of the people. The streets seemed
crowded, the shops tolerably well supplied, the theatres well
attended, some private and a great number of public carriages to be
met with; all this brought to my reflection how very difficult a
matter it must be to destroy a great country, considering that all
the pains which have been taken to ruin this have left so much
undone. But the first fortnight we lived in the most populous part
of the town, near the Palais Royal, and therefore the last place
where distress would be evident.
There are few parts of Paris I have not since been in, and I find
in many of them, the outlets particularly, the greatest
wretchedness to prevail, and to be very thin of inhabitants. A
great part of the Faubourg St. Germain, near the Boulevards, is in
a great measure deserted; but this quarter was formerly inhabited
principally by the noblesse. There is scarcely a street in Paris
where there are not several houses written upon, _Propriete
nationale a vendre_, and sometimes in addition, _ou a louer_; and
in many places a great part of the street is in the same manner
advertised for sale.
The names of many of the streets are, as your Lordship must know,
entirely changed; but where they are not, and began with _Saint_,
that word is invariably defaced, and the remainder of the name is
left untouched. But, notwithstanding that, most places are commonly
called as formerly; and this practice is becoming more general
every day.
The hotels of many of the _ci-devant_ noblesse are inhabited by the
Ministers and other members of the Government. Many of them are
converted into public offices and others of them into _hotels
garnis_, &c.; besides, a prodigious number of them remain
unoccupied, and offered for sale by the nation.
The Luxembourg is divided into five separate habitations for the
Directory, besides the apartments that are used for their sittings,
audiences, and other public business.
The Council of Ancients hold their sittings in the Palace of the
Tuileries, and the Council of Five Hundred meet in what was
formerly the riding-house of the King; but this is considered as
merely a temporary chamber for this last body, until the Palais
Bourbon, which is now undergoing great alterations and additions,
is ready for their reception. This building is in the Faubourg St.
Germain, in front of the new bridge called Pont de la Revolution. I
shall take an opportunity hereafter of giving your Lordship a
description of the interior of these several places.
The scene of any great revolutionary event continues still
decorated with the national flag and other emblems of their
_glorious_ Revolution, accompanied with an inscription; that where
the Bastille stood is, _14 Juillet 1789, la Bastille detruite, et
elle ne se relevera jamais_; and that in the Place du Carrousel,
opposite the Tuileries, is, _10 Aout 1792, La Royaute francaise est
abolie, et elle ne se relevera jamais_. There are several marks of
cannon-balls, but they have made but little impression on this
front of the Tuileries; and under each of them is written, _10 Aout
1792_.
The garden of the Tuileries is, I am told, kept as well as ever it
was; some of the largest trees in it, however, have been cut down
since our arrival, but they were chiefly decayed. Of the Bastille
nothing remains, except a very small part of the foundations; and
near it is a newly-erected powder magazine, and much of the
remainder of the space is a depot for firewood.
The churches are many of them open, and have Divine service
performed in them without restraint; but a great many more of them
are shut, and some used as _casernes_, storehouses, &c.; but they
have all been stripped of every internal decoration, and nothing
suffered to remain but the bare walls. Sometimes, indeed--and it
appears to be by an oversight--a piece of painting, or perhaps a
little image, may have escaped injury; but such a thing is a
curiosity, and to be found in a situation not readily to be
observed, or difficult to be reached. The favourite mode of
mutilating a statue seems to have been to break off the head. In
the church of St. Sulpice there is a tolerably good statue of a
Virgin and Child remaining, but of this the Child's head is taken
off, and that of the Virgin seems to have met with the same fate,
but to have been restored. It is wonderful the industry that has
been used in the destruction of everything in the way of
inscription, of sculpture, or coats of arms, which could possibly
remind the people of the _ancien regime_; and I cannot help being
much surprised that all this was done with so much care as to
remove merely these particular objects of their enmity, without in
the least damaging the adjacent parts. In defacing armorial
bearings and things of this sort, the reformers have been at the
trouble of cutting them away, so as to leave the shield quite
plain, although they were carved in stone. I should have supposed
that mischief done in the moment of frenzy would not have been so
methodical.
Upon all the public buildings, the public offices, and many others,
is written in large characters--_Unite indivisibilite de la
republique, liberte, egalite, fraternite, ou la mort_; but in
general the last word is rubbed out. The nation took it into their
heads not to like death upon the downfall of Robespierre. Upon many
of the churches is this inscription--_Le peuple francais reconnait
l'etre supreme et l'immortalite de l'ame._ This was a decree of the
Convention for the people at large, and your Lordship will allow
that this must have a ridiculous effect upon the walls of a church
entirely in ruins, as is often the case. Another modern inscription
is--_Citoyens, respectez le bien d'autrui, c'est le fruit de son
travail et de son industrie_; and perhaps close by it you may read
_propriete nationale a vendre_, in direct violation of the other,
offering to sell property of which some unfortunate person has been
robbed by the very preachers of this doctrine.
I am obliged to break off suddenly, for reasons which will be very
soon known to your Lordship.
I have the honour to be your Lordship's most obedient, faithful,
humble servant,