*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 assert, 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 assertions 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 massacres? 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 municipality 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 massacres 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 municipal officers in their scarfs, who pointed out
the victims, and gave the signal for the assassination. 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 assassins 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 assassins, 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 assistance,'" &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
circumstances 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 class 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 participation 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 title. 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 municipality.
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 class is degraded, it is only
to give place to another.
--The pride of the noblesse 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 institution.
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 classes, 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 municipality, and all who thus
venture to change their residence, of whatever age, sex, or condition,
must present themselves, and submit to an examination. The power of the
municipalities is indeed very great; and as they are chiefly selected
from the lower class 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 hitherto 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 cockade: he purchases
one at the next shop, (paying according to the exigency of the case,) and
is suffered to pass 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 passport. 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 passport: 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
passport is disputed, the municipality 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 constitution; 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 municipal 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 municipality, 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 constitution 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.