home to die. Her health was perfectly good when we were first arrested,
though vexation, more than confinement, has contributed to undermine it.
The revolution had, in various ways, diminished her property; but this
she would have endured with patience, had not the law of successions
involved her in difficulties which appeared every day more interminable,
and perplexed her mind by the prospect of a life of litigation and
uncertainty. By this law, all inheritances, donations, or bequests,
since the fourteenth of July 1789, are annulled and subjected to a
general partition among the nearest relatives. In consequence, a large
estate of the Marquise's, as well as another already sold, are to be
accounted for, and divided between a variety of claimants. Two of the
number being emigrants, the republic is also to share; and as the live
stock, furniture, farming utensils, and arrears, are included in this
absurd and iniquitous regulation, the confusion and embarrassment which
it has occasioned are indescribable.
Though an unlucky combination of circumstances has rendered such a law
particularly oppressive to Madame de la F--------, she is only one of an
infinite number who are affected by it, and many of whom may perhaps be
still greater sufferers than herself. The Constituent Assembly had
attempted to form a code that might counteract the spirit of legal
disputation, for which the French are so remarkable; but this single
decree will give birth to more processes than all the _pandects, canons,_
and _droits feodaux,_ accumulated since the days of Charlemagne; and I
doubt, though one half the nation were lawyers, whether they might not
find sufficient employment in demalgamating the property of the other
half.
This mode of partition, in itself ill calculated for a rich and
commercial people, and better adapted to the republic of St. Marino than
to that of France, was introduced under pretext of favouring the system
of equality; and its transition from absurdity to injustice, by giving it
a retroactive effect, was promoted to accommodate the "virtuous" Herault
de Sechelles, who acquired a considerable addition of fortune by it. The
Convention are daily beset with petitions from all parts on this subject;
but their followers and themselves being somewhat in the style of
Falstaff's regiment--"younger sons of younger brothers," they seem
determined, as they usually are, to square their notions of justice by
what is most conducive to their own interest.
An apprehension of some attempt from the Jacobins, and the discontents
which the scarcity of bread give rise to among the people, have produced
a private order from the Committees of government for arming and
re-organizing the National Guard.*
* Though I have often had occasion to use the term National Guard,
it is to be understood only as citizens armed for some temporary
purpose, whose arms were taken from them as soon as that service was
performed. The _Garde Nationale,_ as a regular institution, had
been in a great measure suppressed since the summer of 1793, and
those who composed it gradually disarmed. The usual service of
mounting guard was still continued, but the citizens, with very few
exceptions, were armed only with pikes, and even those were not
entrusted to their own care, each delivering up his arms when he
retired more exactly than if it were an article of capitulation with
a successful enemy.
--I remember, in 1789 and 1790, when this popular militia was first
instituted, every one, either from policy or inclination, appeared eager
to promote it; and nothing was discussed but military fetes, balls,
exercise, and uniforms. These patriotic levities have now entirely
vanished, and the business proceeds with languor and difficulty. One
dreads the present expence, another future persecution, and all are
solicitous to find cause for exemption.
This reluctance, though perhaps to be regretted, is in a great measure
justifiable. Where the lives and fortunes of a whole nation are
dependent on the changes of party, obscurity becomes the surest
protection, and those who are zealous now, may be the first sacrifices
hereafter. Nor is it encouraging to arm for the defence of the
Convention, which is despised, or to oppose the violence of a populace,
who, however misguided, are more objects of compassion than of
punishment.
Fouquier Tinville, with sixteen revolutionary Judges and Jurymen, have
been tried and executed, at the moment when the instigators of their
crimes, Billaud-Varennes, Collot, &c. were sentenced by the Convention to
a banishment, which is probably the object of their wishes. This
Tinville and his accomplices, who condemned thousands with such ferocious
gaiety, beheld the approach of death themselves with a mixture of rage
and terror, that even cowardice and guilt do not always exhibit. It
seems an awful dispensation of Providence, that they who were inhuman
enough to wish to deprive their victims of the courage which enabled them
to submit to their fate with resignation, should in their last moments
want that courage, and die despairing, furious, and uttering
imprecations, which were returned by the enraged multitude.*
--Yours, &c.
* Some of the Jurymen were in the habit of taking caricatures of the
prisoners while they condemned them. Among the papers of the
Revolutionary Tribunal were found blank sentences, which were
occasionally sent to the Committee of Public Safety, to be filled up
with the names of those intended to be sacrificed.--The name of one
of the Jurymen executed on this occasion was Leroi, but being a very
ardent republican, he had changed it for that of Citizen Tenth of
August.
Amiens, May 26, 1795.
Our journey to Paris has been postponed by the insurrection which
occurred on the first and second of Prairial, (20th and 21st of May,) and
which was not like that of Germinal, fabricated--but a real and violent
attempt of the Jacobins to regain their power. Of this event it is to be
remarked, that the people of Paris were at first merely spectators, and
that the Convention were at length defended by the very classes which
they have so long oppressed under the denomination of aristocrats. For
several hours the Assembly was surrounded, and in the power of its
enemies; the head of Ferraud, a deputy, was borne in triumph to the
hall;* and but for the impolitic precipitation of the Jacobins, the
present government might have been destroyed.
* The head of Ferraud was placed on a pole, and, after being paraded
about the Hall, stationed opposite the President. It is impossible
to execrate sufficiently this savage triumph; but similar scenes had
been applauded on the fourteenth of July and the fifth and sixth of
October 1789; and the Parisians had learned, from the example of the
Convention themselves, that to rejoice in the daily sacrifice of
fifty or sixty people, was an act of patriotism. As to the epithets
of Coquin, Scelerats, Voleurs, &c. which were now bestowed on the
Assembly, they were only what the members were in the constant habit
of applying to each other.
The assassin of Ferraud being afterwards taken and sentenced to the
Guillotine, was rescued by the mob at the place of execution, and
the inhabitants of the Fauxbourg St. Antoine were in revolt for two
days on this occasion, nor would they give him up until abandoned by
the cannoneers of their party.--It is singular, and does no honour
to the revolutionary school, or the people of Paris, that Madame
Elizabeth, Malsherbes, Cecile Renaud, and thousands of others,
should perish innocently, and that the only effort of this kind
should be exerted in favour of a murderer who deserved even a worse
death.
The contest began, as usual, by an assemblage of females, who forced
themselves into the national palace, and loudly clamoured for immediate
supplies of bread. They then proceeded to reproach the Convention with
having robbed them of their liberty, plundered the public treasure, and
finally reduced the country to a state of famine.*
* People.--_"Nous vous demandons ce que vous avez fait de nos
tresors et de notre liberte?"_--"We want to know what you have done
with our treasure and our liberty?"
President.--_"Citoyens, vous etes dans le sein de la Convention
Nationale."_--"Citizens, I must remind you that you are in the
presence of the National Convention."
People.--_"Du pain, du pain, Coquin--Qu'as tu fait de notre argent?
Pas tant de belles phrases, mais du pain, du pain, il n'y a point
ici de conspirateurs--nous demandons du pain parceque nous avons
saim."_--"Bread, bread, rogue!--what have you done with our money?--
Fine speeches won't do--'tis bread we want.--There are no
conspirators among us--we only ask for bread, because we are
hungry."
See Debates of the Convention.
--It was not easy either to produce bread, or refute these charges, and
the Deputies of the moderate party remained silent and overpowered, while
the Jacobins encouraged the mob, and began to head them openly. The
Parisians, however interested in the result of this struggle, appeared to
behold it with indifference, or at least with inactivity. Ferraud had
already been massacred in endeavouring to repel the croud, and the
Convention was abandoned to outrage and insult; yet no effectual attempt
had been made in their defence, until the Deputies of the Mountain
prematurely avowed their designs, and moved for a repeal of all the
doctrines since the death of Robespierre--for the reincarceration of
suspected persons--and, in fine, for an absolute revival of the whole
revolutionary system.
The avowal of these projects created an immediate alarm among those on
whom the massacre of Ferraud, and the dangers to which the Assembly was
exposed, had made no impression. The dismay became general; and in a few
hours the aristocrats themselves collected together a force sufficient to
liberate the Assembly,* and wrest the government from the hands of the
Jacobins.--
* This is stated as a ground of reproach by the Jacobins, and is
admitted by the Convention. Andre Dumont, who had taken so active a
part in supporting Robespierre's government, was yet on this
occasion defended and protected the whole day by a young man whose
father had been guillotined.
--This defeat ended in the arrest of all who had taken a part against the
now triumphant majority; and there are, I believe, near fifty of them in
custody, besides numbers who contrived to escape.*
* Among those implicated in this attempt to revive the revolutionary
government was Carnot, and the decree of arrest would have been
carried against him, had it not been suggested that his talents were
necessary in the military department. All that remained of
Robespierre's Committees, Jean Bon St. Andre, Robert Lindet, and
Prieur, were arrested. Carnot alone was excepted; and it was not
disguised that his utility, more than any supposed integrity,
procured him the exemption.
That the efforts of this more sanguinary faction have been checked, is
doubtless a temporary advantage; yet those who calculate beyond the
moment see only the perpetuation of anarchy, in a habit of expelling one
part of the legislature to secure the government of the other; nor can it
be denied, that the freedom of the representative body has been as much
violated by the Moderates in the recent transactions, as by the Jacobins
on the thirty-first of May 1793. The Deputies of the Mountain have been
proscribed and imprisoned, rather as partizans than criminals; and it is
the opinion of many, that these measures, which deprive the Convention of
such a portion of its members, attach as much illegality to the
proceedings of the rest, as the former violences of Robespierre and his
faction.*
* The decrees passed by the Jacobin members during their few hours
triumph cannot be defended; but the whole Convention had long
acquiesced in them, and the precise time when they were to cease was
certainly a matter of opinion. The greater part of these members
were accused of no active violence, nor could they have been
arrested on any principles but that of being rivals to a faction
stronger than themselves.
--It is true, the reigning party may plead in their justification that
they only inflict what they would themselves have suffered, had the
Jacobins prevailed; and this is an additional proof of the weakness and
instability of a form of government which is incapable of resisting
opposition, and which knows no medium between yielding to its
adversaries, and destroying them.
In a well organized constitution, it is supposed that a liberal spirit of
party is salutary. Here they dispute the alternatives of power and
emolument, or prisons and guillotines; and the sole result to the people
is the certainty of being sacrificed to the fears, and plundered by the
rapacity of either faction which may chance to acquire the superiority.--
Had the government any permanent or inherent strength, a party watching
its errors, and eager to attack them, might, in time, by these perpetual
collisions, give birth to some principles of liberty and order. But, as
I have often had occasion to notice, this species of republicanism is in
itself so weak, that it cannot exist except by a constant recurrence to
the very despotism it professes to exclude. Hence it is jealous and
suspicious, and all opposition to it is fatal; so that, to use an
argument somewhat similar to Hume's on the liberty of the press in
republics, the French possess a sort of freedom which does not admit of
enjoyment; and, in order to boast that they have a popular constitution,
are obliged to support every kind of tyranny.*
* Hume observes, that absolute monarchies and republics nearly
approach; for the excess of liberty in the latter renders such
restraints necessary as to make them in practice resemble the
former.
The provinces take much less interest in this event, than in one of a
more general and personal effect, though not apparently of equal
importance. A very few weeks ago, the Convention asseverated, in the
usual acclamatory style, that they would never even listen to a proposal
for diminishing the value, or stopping the currency, of any description
of assignats. Their oaths are not, indeed, in great repute, yet many
people were so far deceived, as to imagine that at least the credit of
the paper would not be formally destroyed by those who had forced its
circulation. All of a sudden, and without any previous notice, a decree
was issued to suppress the corsets, (or assignats of five livres,)
bearing the King's image;* and as these were very numerous, and chiefly
in the hands of the lower order of people, the consternation produced by
this measure was serious and unusual.--
* The opinion that prevailed at this time that a restoration of the
monarchy was intended by the Convention, had rendered every one
solicitous to amass assignats issued during the late King's reign.
Royal assignats of five livres were exchanged for six, seven, and
eight livres of the republican paper.
--There cannot be a stronger proof of the tyranny of the government, or
of the national propensity to submission, than the circumstance of making
it penal to refuse one day, what, by the same authority, is rendered
valueless the next--and that notwithstanding this, the remaining
assignats are still received under all the probability of their
experiencing a similar fate.
Paris now offers an interval of tranquillity which we mean to avail
ourselves of, and shall, in a day or two, leave this place with the hope
of procuring passports for England. The Convention affect great
moderation and gratitude for their late rescue; and the people, persuaded
in general that the victorious party are royalists, wait with impatience
some important change, and expect, if not an immediate restoration of the
monarchy, at least a free election of new Representatives, which must
infallibly lead to it. With this hope, which is the first that has long
presented itself to this harassed country, I shall probably bid it adieu;
but a visit to the metropolis will be too interesting for me to conclude
these papers, without giving you the result of my observations.
--Yours. &c.
Paris, June 3, 1795.
We arrived here early on Saturday, and as no stranger coming to Paris,
whether a native of France, or a foreigner, is suffered to remain longer
than three days without a particular permission, our first care was to
present ourselves to the Committee of the section where we lodge, and, on
giving proper security for our good conduct, we have had this permission
extended to a Decade.
I approached Paris with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension, as
though I expected the scenes which had passed in it, and the moral
changes it had undergone, would be every where visible; but the gloomy
ideas produced by a visit to this metropolis, are rather the effect of
mental association than external objects. Palaces and public buildings
still remain; but we recollect that they are become the prisons of
misfortune, or the rewards of baseness. We see the same hotels, but
their owners are wandering over the world, or have expired on the
scaffold. Public places are not less numerous, nor less frequented; but,
far from inspiring gaiety, we behold them with regret and disgust, as
proofs of the national levity and want of feeling.
I could almost wish, for the credit of the French character, to have
found some indications that the past was not so soon consigned to
oblivion. It is true, the reign of Robespierre and his sanguinary
tribunal are execrated in studied phrases; yet is it enough to adopt
humanity as a mode, to sing the _Revel du Peuple_ in preference to the
_Marseillois,_ or to go to a theatre with a well-powdered head, instead
of cropped locks a la Jacobin? But the people forget, that while they
permitted, and even applauded, the past horrors, they were also accessary
to them, and if they rejoice at their termination, their sensibility does
not extend to compunction; they cast their sorrows away, and think it
sufficient to exhibit their reformation in dressing and dancing--
"Yet hearts refin'd their sadden'd tint retain,
"The sigh is pleasure, and the jest is pain."
Sheridan.
French refinements are not, however, of this poetical kind.*
* This too great facility of the Parisians has been commented upon
by an anonymous writer in the following terms:
"At Paris, where more than fifty victims were dragged daily to the
scaffold, the theatres never failed to overflow, and that on the
Place de la Revolution was not the least frequented. The public, in
their way every evening to the Champs Ellisees, continued
uninterruptedly to cross the stream of blood that deluged this fatal
spot with the most dreadful indifference; and now, though these days
of horror are scarcely passed over our heads, one would suppose them
ages removed--so little are we sensible that we are dancing, as it
were, on a platform of dead bodies. Well may we say, respecting
those events which have not reached ourselves--
_'Le malheur Qui n'est plus, n'a jamais existe.'_
But if we desire earnestly that the same misfortunes should not
return, we must keep them always present in our recollection."
The practice of the government appears to depart every day more widely
from its professions; and the moderate harangues of the tribune are often
succeeded by measures as arbitrary as those which are said to be
exploded.--Perhaps the Convention begin to perceive their mistake in
supposing that they can maintain a government against the inclination of
the people, without the aid of tyranny. They expected at the same time
that they decried Robespierre, to retain all the power he possessed.
Hence, their assumed principles and their conduct are generally at
variance; and, divided between despotism and weakness, they arrest the
printers of pamphlets and newspapers one day, and are obliged to liberate
them the next.--They exclaim publicly against the system of terror, yet
secretly court the assistance of its agents.--They affect to respect the
liberty of the press, yet every new publication has to defend itself
against the whole force of the government, if it happen to censure a
single member of the reigning party.--Thus, the _Memoirs of Dumouriez_
had circulated nearly through all Europe, yet it was not without much
risk, and after a long warfare, that they were printed in France.*
*On this subject the government appears sometimes to have adopted
the maxim--that prevention is better than punishment; for, in
several instances, they seized on manuscripts, and laid embargoes on
the printers' presses, where they only suspected that a work which
they might disapprove was intended to be published.
I know not if it be attributable to these political inconsistencies that
the calm which has succeeded the late disorders is little more than
external. The minds of the people are uncommonly agitated, and every one
expresses either hope or apprehension of some impending event. The
royalists, amidst their ostensible persecutions, are particularly elated;
and I have been told, that many conspicuous revolutionists already talk
of emigration.
I am just returned from a day's ramble, during which I have met with
various subjects of unpleasant meditation. About dinner-time I called on
an old Chevalier de St. Louis and his lady, who live in the Fauxbourg
St. Germain. When I knew them formerly, they had a handsome annuity on
the Hotel de Ville, and were in possession of all the comforts necessary
to their declining years. To-day the door was opened by a girl of dirty
appearance, the house looked miserable, the furniture worn, and I found
the old couple over a slender meal of soup maigre and eggs, without wine
or bread. Our revolutionary adventures, as is usual on all meetings of
this kind, were soon communicated; and I learned, that almost before they
knew what was passing around them, Monsieur du G--------'s forty years'
service, and his croix, had rendered him suspected, and that he and his
wife were taken from their beds at midnight and carried to prison. Here
they consumed their stock of ready money, while a guard, placed in their
house, pillaged what was moveable, and spoiled what could not be
pillaged. Soon after the ninth of Thermidor they were released, but they
returned to bare walls, and their annuity, being paid in assignats, now
scarcely affords them a subsistence.--Monsieur du G-------- is near
seventy, and Madame is become helpless from a nervous complaint, the
effect of fear and confinement; and if this depreciation of the paper
should continue, these poor people may probably die of absolute want.
I dined with a relation of the Marquise's, and in the afternoon we called
by appointment on a person who is employed by the Committee of National
Domains, and who has long promised my friend to facilitate the adjustment
of some of the various claims which the government has on her property.
This man was originally a valet to the brother of the Marquise: at the
revolution he set up a shop, became a bankrupt, and a furious Jacobin,
and, in the end, a member of a Revolutionary Committee. In the last
capacity he found means to enrich himself, and intimidate his creditors
so as to obtain a discharge of his debts, without the trouble of paying
them.*
* "It was common for men in debt to procure themselves to be made
members of a revolutionary committee, and then force their creditors
to give them a receipt in full, under the fear of being imprisoned."
Clauzel's Report, Oct. 13, 1794.
I am myself acquainted with an old lady, who was confined four
months, for having asked one of these patriots for three hundred
livres which he owed her.
--Since the dissolution of the Committees, he has contrived to obtain the
situation I have mentioned, and now occupies superb apartments in an
hotel, amply furnished with the proofs of his official dexterity, and the
perquisites of patriotism.
The humiliating vicissitudes occasioned by the revolution induced Madame
de la F-------- to apply to this democratic _parvenu,_ [Upstart.] whose
office at present gives him the power, and whose former obligations to
her family (by whom he was brought up) she hoped would add the
disposition, to serve her.--The gratitude she expected has, however,
ended only in delays and disappointments, and the sole object of my
commission was to get some papers which she had entrusted to him out of
his possession.