distinguished the Queen under her misfortunes, accord but ill with the
vices imputed to her; and were not such imputations encouraged to serve
the cause of faction, rather than that of morality, these inconsistencies
would have been interpreted in her favour, and candour have palliated or
forgotten the levities of her youth, and remembered only the sorrows and
the virtues by which they were succeeded.
I had, in compliance with your request on my first arrival in France,
made a collection of prints of all the most conspicuous actors in the
revolution; but as they could not be secreted so easily as other papers,
my fears overcame my desire of obliging you, and I destroyed them
successively, as the originals became proscribed or were sacrificed.
Desirous of repairing my loss, I persuaded some friends to accompany me
to a shop, kept by a man of whom they frequently purchased, and whom, as
his principles were known to them, I might safely ask for the articles I
wanted. He shook his head, while he ran over my list, and then told me,
that having preferred his safety to his property, he had disposed of his
prints in the same way I had disposed of mine. "At the accession of a
new party, (continued he,) I always prepare for a domiciliary visit,
clear my windows and shelves of the exploded heads, and replace them by
those of their rivals. Nay, I assure you, since the revolution, our
trade is become as precarious as that of a gamester. The
Constitutionalists, indeed, held out pretty well, but then I was half
ruined by the fall of the Brissotins; and, before I could retrieve a
little by the Hebertists and Dantonists, the too were out of fashion."--
"Well, but the Robespierrians--you must have gained by them?"--"Why,
true; Robespierre and Marat, and Chalier, answered well enough, because
the royalists generally placed them in their houses to give themselves an
air of patriotism, yet they are gone after the rest.--Here, however,
(says he, taking down an engraving of the Abbe Sieyes,) is a piece of
merchandize that I have kept through all parties, religions, and
constitutions--_et le voila encore a la mode,_ ["And now you see him in
fashion again."] mounted on the wrecks, and supported by the remnants of
both his friends and enemies. _Ah! c'est un fin matois."_ ["Ah! He's a
knowing one."]
This conversation passed in a gay tone, though the man added, very
seriously, that the instability of popular factions, and their
intolerance towards each other, had obliged him to destroy to the amount
of some thousand livres, and that he intended, if affairs did not change,
to quit business.
Of all the prints I enquired for, I only got Barrere, Sieyes, and a few
others of less note. Your last commissions I have executed more
successfully, for though the necessaries of life are almost
unpurchaseable, articles of taste, books, perfumery, &c. are cheaper than
ever. This is unfortunately the reverse of what ought to be the case,
but the augmentation in the price of provisions is to be accounted for in
various ways, and that things of the description I allude to do not bear
a price in proportion is doubtless to be attributed to the present
poverty of those who used to be the purchasers of them; while the people
who are become rich under the new government are of a description to seek
for more substantial luxuries than books and essences.--I should however
observe, that the venders of any thing not perishable, and who are not
forced to sell for their daily subsistence, are solicitous to evade every
demand for any article which is to be paid for in assignats.
I was looking at some trinkets in a shop at the Palais Royal, and on my
asking the mistress of it if the ornaments were silver, she smiled
significantly, and replied, she had nothing silver nor gold in the shop,
but if I chose to purchase _en espece,_ she would show me whatever I
desired: _"Mais pour le papier nous n'en avons que trop."_ ["In coin, but
for paper we have already too much of it."]
Many of the old shops are nearly empty, and the little trade which yet
exists is carried on by a sort of adventurers who, without being bred to
any one trade, set up half a dozen, and perhaps disappear three months
afterwards. They are, I believe, chiefly men who have speculated on the
assignats, and as soon as they have turned their capital in a mercantile
way a short time, become apprehensive of the paper, realize it, and
retire; or, becoming bankrupts by some unlucky monopoly, begin a new
career of patriotism.
There is, properly speaking, no money in circulation, yet a vast quantity
is bought and sold. Annuitants, possessors of moderate landed property,
&c., finding it impossible to subsist on their incomes, are forced to
have recourse to the little specie they have reserved, and exchange it
for paper. Immense sums in coin are purchased by the government, to make
good the balance of their trade with the neutral countries for
provisions, so that I should suppose, if this continue a few months, very
little will be left in the country.
One might be tempted to fancy there is something in the atmosphere of
Paris which adapts the minds of its inhabitants to their political
situation. They talk of the day appointed for a revolt a fortnight
before, as though it were a fete, and the most timid begin to be inured
to a state of agitation and apprehension, and to consider it as a natural
vicissitude that their lives should be endangered periodically.
A commission has been employed for some time in devising another new
constitution, which is to be proposed to the Assembly on the thirteenth
of this month; and on that day, it is said, an effort is to be made by
the royalists. They are certainly very numerous, and the interest taken
in the young King is universal. In vain have the journalists been
forbidden to cherish these sentiments, by publishing details concerning
him: whatever escapes the walls of his prison is circulated in impatient
whispers, and requires neither printing nor gazettes a la main to give it
publicity.*
* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence
which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written
gazettes.--I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them
at present.
--The child is reported to be ill, and in a kind of stupefaction, so as
to sit whole days without speaking or moving: this is not natural at his
age, and must be the consequence of neglect, or barbarous treatment.
The Committees of Government, and indeed most of the Convention who have
occasionally appeared to give tacit indications of favouring the
royalists, in order to secure their support against the Jacobins, having
now crushed the latter, begin to be seriously alarmed at the projects of
the former.--Sevestre, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety,
has announced that a formidable insurrection may be expected on the
twenty-fifth of Prairial, (thirteenth June,) the Deputies on mission are
ordered to return, and the Assembly propose to die under the ruins of the
republic. They have, notwithstanding, judged it expedient to fortify
these heroic dispositions by the aid of a military force, and a large
number of regular troops are in Paris and the environs. We shall
certainly depart before this menacing epoch: the application for our
passports was made on our first arrival, and Citizen Liebault, Principal
of the Office for Foreign Affairs, who is really very civil, has promised
them in a day or two.
Our journey here was, in fact, unnecessary; but we have few republican
acquaintance, and those who are called aristocrats do not execute
commission of this kind zealously, nor without some apprehensions of
committing themselves.--You will wonder that I find time to write to you,
nor do I pretend to assume much merit from it. We have not often courage
to frequent public places in the evening, and, when we do, I continually
dread some unlucky accident: either a riot between the Terrorists and
Muscadins, within, or a military investment without. The last time we
were at the theatre, a French gentleman, who was our escort, entered into
a trifling altercation with a rude vulgar-looking man, in the box, who
seemed to speak in a very authoritative tone, and I know not how the
matter might have ended, had not a friend in the next box silenced our
companion, by conveying a penciled card, which informed him the person he
was disputing with was a Deputy of the Convention. We took an early
opportunity of retreating, not perfectly at ease about the consequences
which might ensue from Mr. -------- having ventured to differ in opinion
from a Member of the Republican Legislature. Since that time we have
passed our evenings in private societies, or at home; and while Mr.
D-------- devours new pamphlets, and Mrs. D-------- and the lady we lodge
with recount their mutual sufferings at Arras and St. Pelagie, I take the
opportunity of writing.
--Adieu.
Paris, June 12, 1795.
The hopes and fears, plots and counterplots, of both royalists and
republicans, are now suspended by the death of the young King. This
event was announced on Tuesday last, and since that time the minds and
conversation of the public have been entirely occupied by it. Latent
suspicion, and regret unwillingly suppressed, are every where visible;
and, in the fond interest taken in this child's life, it seems to be
forgotten that it is the lot of man "to pass through nature to eternity,"
and that it was possible for him to die without being sacrificed by human
malice.
All that has been said and written on original equality has not yet
persuaded the people that the fate of Kings is regulated only by the
ordinary dispensations of Providence; and they seem to persist in
believing, that royalty, if it has not a more fortunate pre-eminence, is
at least distinguished by an unusual portion of calamities.
When we recollect the various and absurd stories which have been
propagated and believed at the death of Monarchs or their offspring,
without even a single ground either political or physical to justify
them, we cannot now wonder, when so many circumstances of every kind tend
to excite suspicion, that the public opinion should be influenced, and
attribute the death of the King to poison. The child is allowed to have
been of a lively disposition, and, even long after his seclusion from his
family, to have frequently amused himself by singing at the window of his
prison, until the interest he was observed to create in those who
listened under it, occasioned an order to prevent him. It is therefore
extraordinary, that he should lately have appeared in a state of
stupefaction, which is by no means a symptom of the disorder he is
alledged to have died of, but a very common one of opiates improperly
administered.*
* In order to account in some way for the state in which the young
King had lately appeared, it was reported that he had been in the
habit of drinking strong liquors to excess. Admitting this to be
true, they must have been furnished for him, for he could have no
means of procuring them.--It is not inapposite to record, that on a
petition being formerly presented to the legislature from the
Jacobin societies, praying that the "son of the tyrant" might be put
to death, an honourable mention in the national bulletin was
unanimously decreed!!!
Though this presumption, if supported by the evidence of external
appearances, may seem but of little weight; when combined with others, of
a moral and political nature, it becomes of considerable importance. The
people, long amused by a supposed design of the Convention to place the
Dauphin on the throne, were now become impatient to see their wishes
realized; or, they hoped that a renewal of the representative body,
which, if conducted with freedom, must infallibly lead to the
accomplishment of this object, would at least deliver them from an
Assembly which they considered as exhausted in talents and degraded in
reputation.--These dispositions were not attempted to be concealed; they
were manifested on all occasions: and a general and successful effort in
favour of the Royal Prisoner was expected to take place on the
thirteenth.*
* That there were such designs, and such expectations on the part of
the people, is indubitable. The following extract, written and
signed by one of the editors of the _Moniteur,_ is sufficiently
expressive of the temper of the public at this period; and I must
observe here, that the _Moniteur_ is to be considered as nearly
equivalent to an official paper, and is always supposed to express
the sense of government, by whom it is supported and paid, whatever
party or system may happen to prevail:
_"Les esperances les plus folles se manifestent de toutes parts.--
C'est a qui jettera plus promptement le masque--on dirait, a lire
les ecrits qui paraissent, a entendre les conversations des gens qui
se croient dans les confidences, que c'en est fait de la republique:
la Convention, secondee, poussee meme par le zele et l'energie des
bons citoyens a remporte une grande victoire sur les Terroristes,
sur les successeurs de Robespierre, il semble qu'elle n'ait plus
qu'a proclamer la royaute. Ce qui donne lieu a toutes les
conjectures plus ou moins absurdes aux quelles chacun se livre,
c'est l'approche du 25 Prairial."_ (13th June, the day on which the
new constitution was to be presented).
"The most extravagant hopes, and a general impatience to throw off
the mask are manifested on all sides.--To witness the publications
that appear, and to hear what is said by those who believe
themselves in the secret, one would suppose that it was all over
with the republic.--The Convention seconded, impelled even, by the
good citizens, has gained a victory over the Terrorists and the
successors of Robespierre, and now it should seem that nothing
remained to be done by to proclaim royalty--what particularly gives
rise to these absurdities, which exist more or less in the minds of
all, is the approach of the 25th Prairial."
_Moniteur,_ June 6, 1795.
Perhaps the majority of the Convention, under the hope of securing
impunity for their past crimes, might have yielded to the popular
impulse; but the government is no longer in the hands of those men who,
having shared the power of Robespierre before they succeeded him, might,
as Rabaut St. Etienne expressed himself, "be wearied of their portion of
tyranny."*
* -"Je suis las de la portion de tyrannie que j'exerce."---"I am
weary of the portion of tyranny which I exercise."
Rabaut de St. Etienne
--The remains of the Brissotins, with their newly-acquired authority,
have vanity, interest, and revenge, to satiate; and there is no reason to
suppose that a crime, which should favour these views, would, in their
estimation, be considered otherwise than venial. To these are added
Sieyes, Louvet, &c. men not only eager to retain their power, but known
to have been of the Orleans faction, and who, if they are royalists, are
not loyalists, and the last persons to whose care a son of Louis the
Sixteenth ought to have been intrusted.
At this crisis, then, when the Convention could no longer temporize with
the expectations it raised--when the government was divided between one
party who had deposed the King to gratify their own ambition, and another
who had lent their assistance in order to facilitate the pretensions of
an usurper--and when the hopes of the country were anxiously fixed on
him, died Louis the Seventeenth. At an age which, in common life, is
perhaps the only portion of our existence unalloyed by misery, this
innocent child had suffered more than is often the lot of extended years
and mature guilt. He lived to see his father sent to the scaffold--to be
torn from his mother and family--to drudge in the service of brutality
and insolence--and to want those cares and necessaries which are not
refused even to the infant mendicant, whose wretchedness contributes to
the support of his parents.*
* It is unnecessary to remind the reader, that the Dauphin had been
under the care of one Simon, a shoemaker, who employed him to clean
his (Simon's) shoes, and in any other drudgery of which his close
confinement admitted.
--When his death was announced to the Convention, Sevestre, the reporter,
acknowledged that Dessault, the surgeon, had some time since declared the
case to be dangerous; yet, notwithstanding policy as well as humanity
required that every appearance of mystery and harshness should, on such
an occasion, be avoided, the poor child continued to be secluded with the
same barbarous jealousy--nor was the Princess, his sister, whose evidence
on the subject would have been so conclusive, ever suffered to approach
him.
No report of Dessault's opinion had till now been made public; and
Dessault himself, who was an honest man, died of an inflammatory disorder
four days before the Dauphin.--It is possible, he might have expressed
himself too freely, respecting his patient, to those who employed him--
his future discretion might be doubted--or, perhaps, he was only called
in at first, that his character might give a sanction to the future
operations of those who were more confided in. But whether this event is
to be ascribed to natural causes, or to that of opiates, the times and
circumstances render it peculiarly liable to suspicions, and the
reputation of those who are involved, is not calculated to repel them.
Indeed, so conscious are the advocates of government, that the imputation
cannot be obviated by pleading the integrity of the parties, that they
seem to rest their sole defence on the inutility of a murder, which only
transfers whatever rights the House of Bourbon may be supposed to
possess, from one branch of it to another. Yet those who make use of
this argument are well aware of its fallaciousness: the shades of
political opinion in France are extremely diversified, and a considerable
part of the Royalists are also Constitutionalists, whom it will require
time and necessity to reconcile to the emigrant Princes. But the young
King had neither enemies nor errors--and his claims would have united the
efforts and affections of all parties, from the friends of the monarchy,
as it existed under Louis the Fourteenth, down to the converted
Republican, who compromises with his principles, and stipulates for the
title of Perpetual President.
That the removal of this child has been fortunate for those who govern,
is proved by the effect: insurrections are no longer talked of, the
royalists are confounded, the point of interest is no more, and a sort of
despondency and confusion prevails, which is highly favourable to a
continuance of the present system.--There is no doubt, but that when
men's minds become more settled, the advantage of having a Prince who is
capable of acting, and whose success will not be accompanied by a long
minority, will conciliate all the reflecting part of the constitutional
royalists, in spite of their political objections. But the people who
are more under the influence of their feelings, and yield less to
expediency, may not, till urged by distress and anarchy, be brought to
take the same interest in the absent claimant of the throne, that they
did in their infant Prince.
It is to be regretted, that an habitual and unconquerable deference for
the law which excludes females from the Crown of France, should have
survived monarchy itself; otherwise the tender compassion excited by the
youth, beauty and sufferings of the Princess, might yet have been the
means of procuring peace to this distracted country. But the French
admire, lament, and leave her to her fate--
"O, shame of Gallia, in one sullen tower
"She wets with royal tears her daily cell;
"She finds keen anguish every rose devour,
"They spring, they bloom, then bid the world farewell.
"Illustrious mourner! will no gallant mind
"The cause of love, the cause of justice own?
"Such claims! such charms! And is no life resign'd
"To see them sparkle from their parent throne?"
How inconsistent do we often become through prejudices! The French are
at this moment governed by adventurers and courtezans--by whatever is
base, degraded, or mean, in both sexes; yet, perhaps, would they blush to
see enrolled among their Sovereigns an innocent and beautiful Princess,
the descendant of Henry the Fourth.
Nothing since our arrival at Paris has seemed more strange than the
eagerness with which every one recounts some atrocity, either committed
or suffered by his fellow-citizens; and all seem to conclude, that the
guilt or shame of these scenes is so divided by being general, that no
share of either attaches to any individual. They are never tired of the
details of popular or judicial massacres; and so zealous are they to do
the honours of the place, that I might, but for disinclination on my
part, pass half my time in visiting the spots where they were
perpetrated. It was but to-day I was requested to go and examine a kind
of sewer, lately described by Louvet, in the Convention, where the blood
of those who suffered at the Guillotine was daily carried in buckets, by
men employed for the purpose.*
* "At the gate of St. Antoine an immense aqueduct had been
constructed for the purpose of carrying off the blood that was shed
at the executions, and every day four men were employed in taking it
up in buckets, and conveying it to this horrid reservoir of
butchery."
Louvet's Report, 2d May.
--These barbarous propensities have long been the theme of French
satyrists; and though I do not pretend to infer that they are national,
yet certainly the revolution has produced instances of ferocity not to be
paralleled in any country that ever had been civilized, and still less in
one that had not.*
* It would be too shocking, both to decency and humanity, to recite
the more serious enormities alluded to; and I only add, to those I
have formerly mentioned, a few examples which particularly describe
the manners of the revolution.--
At Metz, the heads of the guillotined were placed on the tops of
their own houses. The Guillotine was stationary, fronting the
Town-house, for months; and whoever was observed to pass it with
looks of disapprobation, was marked as an object of suspicion. A
popular Commission, instituted for receiving the revolutionary tax
at this place, held their meetings in a room hung with stripes of
red and black, lighted only with sepulchral lamps; and on the desk
was placed a small Guillotine, surrounded by daggers and swords. In
this vault, and amidst this gloomy apparatus, the inhabitants of
Metz brought their patriotic gifts, (that is, the arbitrary and
exorbitant contributions to which they were condemned,) and laid
them on the altar of the Guillotine, like the sacrifice of fear to
the infernal deities; and, that the keeping of the whole business
might be preserved, the receipts were signed with red ink, avowedly
intended as expressive of the reigning system.
At Cahors, the deputy, Taillefer, after making a triumphal entry
with several waggons full of people whom he had arrested, ordered a
Guillotine to be erected in the square, and some of the prisoners to
be brought forth and decorated in a mock costume representing Kings,
Queens, and Nobility. He then obliged them successively to pay
homage to the Guillotine, as though it had been a throne, the
executioner manoeuvring the instrument all the while, and exciting
the people to call for the heads of those who were forced to act in
this horrid farce. The attempt, however, did not succeed, and the
spectators retired in silent indignation.