informed us Monsieur was dressing, but that if we would walk in, he would
let Monsieur know we were there. We passed through a dining parlour,
where we saw the remains of a dessert, coffee, &c. and were assailed by
the odours of a plentiful repast. As we entered the saloon, we heard the
servant call at the door of an adjoining parlour, _"Monsieur, voici deux
Citoyennes et un Citoyen qui vous demandent."_ ["Sir, here are two female
citizens and one male citizen enquiring for you."] When Monsieur
appeared, he apologized with an air of graciousness for the impossibility
he had been under of getting my friend's affairs arranged--protested he
was _accable_ [Oppressed..]--that he had scarcely an instant at his own
disposal--that _enfin_ the responsibility of people in office was so
terrible, and the fatigue so _assommante,_ [Overpowering.] that nothing
but the purest _civism,_ and a heart _penetre de l'amour de la patrie,_
[Penetrated with the love of his country.] could enable him to persevere
in the task imposed on him. As for the papers we required, he would
endeavour to find them, though his cabinet was really so filled with
petitions and certificates of all sorts, _que des malheureux lui avoient
addresses,_ [Addressed to him by unfortunate people.] that it would not
be very easy to find them at present; and, with this answer, which we
should have smiled at from M. de Choiseul or Sartine, we were obliged to
be satisfied. We then talked of the news of the day, and he lamented
that the aristocrats were still restless and increasing in number, and
that notwithstanding the efforts of the Convention to diffuse a spirit of
philosophy, it was too evident there was yet much fanaticism among the
people.
As we rose to depart, Madame entered, dressed for visiting, and decorated
with bracelets on her wrists and above her elbows, medallions on her
waists and neck, and, indeed, finery wherever it could possibly be
bestowed. We observed her primitive condition of a waiting-woman still
operated, and that far from affecting the language of her husband, she
retained a great deference for rank, and was solicitous to insinuate that
she was secretly of a superior way of thinking. As we left the room
together, she made advances to an acquaintance with my companions (who
were people of condition); and having occasion to speak to a person at
the door, as she uttered the word _Citoyen_ she looked at us with an
expression which she intended should imply the contempt and reluctance
with which she made use of it.
I have in general remarked, that the republicans are either of the
species I have just been describing, waiters, jockies, gamblers,
bankrupts, and low scribblers, living in great splendour, or men taken
from laborious professions, more sincere in their principles, more
ignorant and brutal--and who dissipate what they have gained in gross
luxury, because they have been told that elegance and delicacy are worthy
only of Sybarites, and that the Greeks and Romans despised both. These
patriots are not, however, so uninformed, nor so disinterested, as to
suppose they are to serve their country without serving themselves; and
they perfectly understand, that the rich are their legal patrimony, and
that it is enjoined them by their mission to pillage royalists and
aristocrats.*
--Yours.
* Garat observes, it was a maxim of Danton, _"Que ceux qui fesaient
les affaires de la republique devaient aussi faireles leurs,"_ that
who undertook the care of the republic should also take care of
themselves. This tenet, however, seems common to the friends of
both.
Paris, June 6, 1795.
I had scarcely concluded my last, when I received advice of the death of
Madame de la F--------; and though I have, almost from the time we
quitted the Providence, thought she was declining, and that such an event
was probable, it has, nevertheless, both shocked and grieved me.
Exclusively of her many good and engaging qualities, which were
reasonable objects of attachment, Madame de la F-------- was endeared to
me by those habits of intimacy that often supply the want of merit, and
make us adhere to our early friendships, even when not sanctioned by our
maturer judgment. Madame de la F-------- never became entirely divested
of the effects of a convent education; but if she retained a love of
trifling amusements, and a sort of infantine gaiety, she likewise
continued pious, charitable, and strictly attentive not only to the
duties, but to the decorum, essential in the female character and merits
of this sort are, I believe, now more rare than those in which she might
be deemed deficient.
I was speaking of her this morning to a lady of our acquaintance, who
acquiesced in my friendly eulogiums, but added, in a tone of superiority,
_"C'etoit pourtant une petite femme bien minutieuse_--she always put me
out of patience with her birds and her flowers, her levees of poor
people, and her persevering industry in frivolous projects." My friend
was, indeed, the most feminine creature in the world, and this is a
flippant literary lady, who talks in raptures of the Greeks and Romans,
calls Rousseau familiarly Jean Jaques, frisks through the whole circle of
science at the Lyceum, and has an utter contempt both for personal
neatness and domestic oeconomy. How would Madame de Sevigne wonder,
could she behold one of these modern belles esprits, with which her
country, as well as England, abounds? In our zeal for reforming the
irregular orthography and housewifely penmanship of the last century, we
are all become readers, and authors, and critics. I do not assert, that
the female mind is too much cultivated, but that it is too generally so;
and that we encourage a taste for attainments not always compatible with
the duties and occupations of domestic life. No age has, I believe,
produced so many literary ladies as the present;* yet I cannot learn that
we are at all improved in morals, or that domestic happiness is more
universal than when, instead of writing sonnets to dew-drops or
daisies,** we copied prayers and recipes, in spelling similar to that of
Stowe or Hollingshed.
* Let me not be supposed to undervalue the female authors of the
present day. There are some who, uniting great talents with
personal worth, are justly entitled to our respect and admiration.
The authoress of "Cecilia," or the Miss Lees, cannot be confounded
with the proprietors of all the Castles, Forests, Groves, Woods,
Cottages, and Caverns, which are so alluring in the catalogue of a
circulating library.
** Mrs. Smith's beautiful Sonnets have produced sonnetteers for
every object in nature, visible or invisible; and her elegant
translations of Petrarch have procured the Italian bard many an
English dress that he would have been ashamed to appear in.
--We seem industrious to make every branch of education a vehicle for
inspiring a premature taste for literary amusements; and our old
fashioned moral adages in writing-books are replaced by scraps from
"Elegant Extracts," while print-work and embroidery represent scenes from
poems or novels. I allow, that the subjects formerly pourtrayed by the
needle were not pictoresque, yet, the tendency considered, young ladies
might as well employ their silk or pencils in exhibiting Daniel in the
lions' den, or Joseph and his brethren, as Sterne's Maria, or Charlotte
and Werter.
You will forgive this digression, which I have been led into on hearing
the character of Madame de la F-------- depreciated, because she was only
gentle and amiable, and did not read Plutarch, nor hold literary
assemblies. It is, in truth, a little amende I owe her memory, for I may
myself have sometimes estimated her too lightly, and concluded my own
pursuits more rational than hers, when possibly they were only different.
Her death has left an impression on my mind, which the turbulence of
Paris is not calculated to soothe; but the short time we have to stay,
and the number of people I must see, oblige me to conquer both my regret
and my indolence, and to pass a great part of the day in running from
place to place.
I have been employed all this morning in executing some female
commissions, which, of course, led me to milliners, mantua-makers, &c.
These people now recommend fashions by saying one thing is invented by
Tallien's wife, and another by Merlin de Thionville, or some other
Deputy's mistress; and the genius of these elegantes has contrived, by a
mode of dressing the hair which lengthens the neck, and by robes with an
inch of waist, to give their countrywomen an appearance not much unlike
that of a Bar Gander.
I saw yesterday a relation of Madame de la F--------, who is in the army,
and whom I formerly mentioned as having met when we passed through
Dourlens. He was for some months suspended, and in confinement, but is
now restored to his rank, and ordered on service. He asked me if I ever
intended to visit France again. I told him I had so little reason to be
satisfied with my treatment, that I did not imagine I should.--"Yes,
(returned he,) but if the republic should conquer Italy, and bring all
its treasures to Paris, as has lately been suggested in the Convention,
we shall tempt you to return, in spite of yourself."*
*The project of pillaging Italy of its most valuable works of art
was suggested by the philosophic Abbe Gregoire, a constitutional
Bishop, as early as September 1794, because, as he alledged, the
chefs d'ouvres of the Greek republic ought not to embellish a
country of slaves.
--I told him, I neither doubted their intending such a scheme, nor the
possibility of its success, though it was not altogether worthy of
philosophers and republicans to wage war for Venus's and Appollos, and to
sacrifice the lives of one part of their fellow-citizens, that the rest
might be amused with pictures and statues.--"That's not our affair (says
Monsieur de --------). Soldiers do not reason. And if the Convention
should have a fancy to pillage the Emperor of China's palace, I see no
remedy but to set sail with the first fair wind,"--"I wish, (said his
sister, who was the only person present,) instead of being under such
orders, you had escaped from the service." "Yes, (returned the General
quickly,) and wander about Europe like Dumouriez, suspected and despised
by all parties." I observed, Dumouriez was an adventurer, and that on
many accounts it was necessary to guard against him. He said, he did not
dispute the necessity or even the justice of the conduct observed towards
him, but that nevertheless I might be assured it had operated as an
effectual check to those who might, otherwise, have been tempted to
follow Dumouriez's example; "And we have now (added he, in a tone between
gaiety and despair,) no alternative but obedience or the guillotine."--I
have transcribed the substance of this conversation, as it confirms what
I have frequently been told, that the fate of Dumouriez, however merited,
is one great cause why no desertion of importance has since taken place.
I was just now interrupted by a noise and shouting near my window, and
could plainly distinguish the words Scipio and Solon uttered in a tone of
taunt and reproach. Not immediately comprehending how Solon or Scipio
could be introduced in a fray at Paris, I dispatched Angelique to make
enquiry; and at her return I learned that a croud of boys were following
a shoemaker of the neighbourhood, who, while he was member of a
revolutionary Committee, had chosen to unite in his person the glories of
both Rome and Greece, of the sword and gown, and had taken unto himself
the name of Scipio Solon. A decree of the Convention some weeks since
enjoined all such heroes and sages to resume their original appellations,
and forbade any person, however ardent his patriotism, to distinguish
himself by the name of Brutus, Timoleon, or any other but that which he
derived from his Christian parents. The people, it seems, are not so
obedient to the decree as those whom it more immediately concerns; and as
the above-mentioned Scipio Solon had been detected in various larcenies,
he is not allowed to quit his shop without being reproached with his
thefts, and his Greek and Roman appellations.
--I am, &c.
Paris, June 8, 1795.
Yesterday being Sunday, and to-day the Decade, we have had two holidays
successively, though, since the people have been more at liberty to
manifest their opinions, they give a decided preference to the Christian
festival over that of the republic.*
* This was only at Paris, where the people, from their number, are
less manageable, and of course more courageous. In the departments,
the same cautious timidity prevailed, and appeared likely to
continue.
--They observe the former from inclination, and the latter from
necessity; so that between the performance of their religious duties, and
the sacrifice to their political fears, a larger portion of time will be
deducted from industry than was gained by the suppression of the Saints'
days. The Parisians, however, seem to acquiesce very readily in this
compromise, and the philosophers of the Convention, who have so often
declaimed against the idleness occasioned by the numerous fetes of the
old calendar, obstinately persist in the adoption of a new one, which
increases the evil they pretend to remedy.
If the people are to be taken from their labour for such a number of
days, it might as well be in the name of St. Genevieve or St. Denis, as
of the Decade, and the Saints'-days have at least this advantage, that
the forenoons are passed in churches; whereas the republican festivals,
dedicated one to love, another to stoicism, and so forth, not conveying
any very determinate idea, are interpreted to mean only an obligation to
do nothing, or to pass some supernumerary hours at the cabaret.
[Alehouse.]
I noticed with extreme pleasure yesterday, that as many of the places of
public worship as are permitted to be open were much crouded, and that
religion appears to have survived the loss of those exterior allurements
which might be supposed to have rendered it peculiarly attractive to the
Parisians. The churches at present, far from being splendid, are not
even decent, the walls and windows still bear traces of the Goths (or, if
you will, the philosophers,) and in some places service is celebrated
amidst piles of farage, sacks, casks, or lumber appertaining to the
government--who, though they have by their own confession the disposal of
half the metropolis, choose the churches in preference for such
purposes.*
* It has frequently been asserted in the Convention, that by
emigrations, banishments, and executions, half Paris had become the
property of the public.
--Yet these unseemly and desolate appearances do not prevent the
attendance of congregations more numerous, and, I think, more fervent,
than were usual when the altars shone with the offerings of wealth, and
the walls were covered with the more interesting decorations of pictures
and tapestry.
This it is not difficult to account for. Many who used to perform these
religious duties with negligence, or indifference, are now become pious,
and even enthusiastic--and this not from hypocrisy or political
contradiction, but from a real sense of the evils of irreligion, produced
by the examples and conduct of those in whom such a tendency has been
most remarkable.--It must, indeed, be acknowledged, that did Christianity
require an advocate, a more powerful one need not be found, than in a
retrospect of the crimes and sufferings of the French since its
abolition.
Those who have made fortunes by the revolution (for very few have been
able to preserve them) now begin to exhibit equipages; and they hope to
render the people blind to this departure from their visionary systems of
equality, by foregoing the use of arms and liveries--as if the real
difference between the rich and the poor was not constituted rather by
essential accommodation, than extrinsic embellishments, which perhaps do
not gratify the eyes of the possessor a second time, and are, probably of
all branches of luxury, the most useful. The livery of servants can be
of very little importance, whether morally or politically considered--it
is the act of maintaining men in idleness, who might be more profitably
employed, that makes the keeping a great number exceptionable; nor is a
man more degraded by going behind a carriage with a hat and feather, than
with a bonnet de police, or a plain beaver; but he eats just as much, and
earns just as little, equipped as a Carmagnole, as though glittering in
the most superb gala suit.*
* In their zeal to imitate the Roman republicans, the French seem to
forget that a political consideration very different from the love
of simplicity, or an idea of the dignity of man, made the Romans
averse from distinguishing their slaves by any external indication.
They were so numerous that it was thought impolitic to furnish them
with such means of knowing their own strength in case of a revolt.
The marks of service cannot be more degrading than service itself; and it
is the mere chicane of philosophy to extend reform only to cuffs and
collars, while we do not dispense with the services annexed to them. A
valet who walks the street in his powdering jacket, disdains a livery as
much as the fiercest republican, and with as much reason--for there is no
more difference between domestic occupation performed in one coat or
another, than there is between the party-coloured habit and the jacket.
If the luxury of carriages be an evil, it must be because the horses
employed in them consume the produce of land which might be more
beneficially cultivated: but the gilding, fringe, salamanders, and lions,
in all their heraldic positions, afford an easy livelihood to
manufacturers and artisans, who might not be capable of more laborious
occupations.
I believe it will generally be found, that most of the republican reforms
are of this description--calculated only to impose on the people, and
disguising, by frivolous prohibitions, their real inutility. The
affectation of simplicity in a nation already familiarized with luxury,
only tends to divert the wealth of the rich to purposes which render it
more destructive. Vanity and ostentation, when they are excluded from
one means of gratification, will always seek another; and those who,
having the means, cannot distinguish themselves by ostensible splendour,
will often do so by domestic profusion.*
* "Sectaries (says Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting, speaking of
the republicans under Cromwell) have no ostensible enjoyments; their
pleasures are private, comfortable and gross. The arts of civilized
society are not calculated for men who mean to rise on the ruins of
established order." Judging by comparison, I am persuaded these
observations are yet more applicable to the political, than the
religious opinions of the English republicans of that period; for,
in these respects, there is no difference between them and the
French of the present day, though there is a wide one between an
Anabaptist and the disciples of Boulanger and Voltaire.
--Nor can it well be disputed, that a gross luxury is more pernicious
than an elegant one; for the former consumes the necessaries of life
wantonly, while the latter maintains numerous hands in rendering things
valuable by the workmanship which are little so in themselves.
Every one who has been a reflecting spectator of the revolution will
acknowledge the justice of these observations. The agents and retainers
of government are the general monopolizers of the markets, and these men,
who are enriched by peculation, and are on all occasions retailing the
cant phrases of the Convention, on the _purete des moeurs republicains,
et la luxe de la ci-devant Noblesse,_ [The purity of republican manners,
and the luxury of the ci-devant Noblesse.] exhibit scandalous exceptions
to the national habits of oeconomy, at a time too when others more
deserving are often compelled to sacrifice even their essential
accommodations to a more rigid compliance with them.*
* Lindet, in a report on the situation of the republic, declares,
that since the revolution the consumption of wines and every article
of luxury has been such, that very little has been left for
exportation. I have selected the following specimens of republican
manners, from many others equally authentic, as they may be of some
utility to those who would wish to estimate what the French have
gained in this respect by a change of government.
"In the name of the French people the Representatives sent to
Commune Affranchie (Lyons) to promote the felicity of its
inhabitants, order the Committee of Sequestration to send them
immediately two hundred bottles of the best wine that can be
procured, also five hundred bottles of claret, of prime quality, for
their own table. For this purpose the commission are authorized to
take of the sequestration, wherever the above wine can be found.
Done at Commune Affranchie, thirteenth Nivose, second year.
(Signed) "Albitte,
"Fouche,
"Deputies of the National Convention."
Extract of a denunciation of Citizen Boismartin against Citizen
Laplanche, member of the National Convention:
"The twenty-fourth of Brumaire, in the second year of the republic,
the Administrators of the district of St. Lo gave orders to the
municipality over which I at that time presided, to lodge the
Representative of the people, Laplanche, and General Siphert, in the
house of Citizen Lemonnier, who was then under arrest at Thorigni.
In introducing one of the founders of the republic, and a French
General, into this hospitable mansion, we thought to put the
property of our fellow-citizen under the safeguard of all the
virtues; but, alas, how were we mistaken! They had no sooner
entered the house, than the provisions of every sort, the linen,
clothes, furniture, trinkets, books, plate, carriages, and even
title-deeds, all disappeared; and, as if they purposely insulted our
wretchedness, while we were reduced to the sad necessity of
distributing with a parsimonious hand a few ounces of black bread to
our fellow-citizens, the best bread, pillaged from Citizen
Lemonnier, was lavished by buckets full to the horses of General
Siphert, and the Representative Laplanche.--The Citizen Lemonnier,
who is seventy years of age, having now recovered his liberty, which
he never deserved to lose, finds himself so entirely despoiled, that
he is at present obliged to live at an inn; and, of property to the
amount of sixty thousand livres, he has nothing left but a single
spoon, which he took with him when carried to one of the Bastilles
in the department de la Manche."
The chief defence of Laplanche consisted in allegations that the
said Citizen Lemonnier was rich, and a royalist, and that he had
found emblems of royalism and fanaticism about the house.
At the house of one of our common friends, I met --------, and so little
did I imagine that he had escaped all the revolutionary perils to which
he had been exposed, that I could almost have supposed myself in the
regions of the dead, or that he had been permitted to quit them, for his
being alive scarcely seemed less miraculous or incredible. As I had not
seen him since 1792, he gave me a very interesting detail of his
adventures, and his testimony corroborates the opinion generally
entertained by those who knew the late King, that he had much personal
courage, and that he lost his crown and his life by political indecision,
and an humane, but ill-judged, unwillingness to reduce his enemies by
force. He assured me, the Queen might have been conveyed out of France
previous to the tenth of August, if she would have agreed to leave the
King and her children behind; that she had twice consulted him on the
subject; but, persisting in her resolution not to depart unaccompanied by
her family, nothing practicable could be devised, and she determined to
share their fate.*
* The gentleman here alluded to has great talents, and is
particularly well acquainted with some of the most obscure and
disastrous periods of the French revolution. I have reason to
believe, whenever it is consistent with his own safety, he will, by
a genuine relation, expose many of the popular falsehoods by which
the public have been misled.