It was a strange world into which misfortune had introduced Paine. There
was in prison a select and rather philosophical society, mainly persons
of refinement, more or less released from conventional habit by the
strange conditions under which they found themselves. There were
gentlemen and ladies, no attempt being made to separate them until some
scandal was reported. The Luxembourg was a special prison for the French
nobility and the English, who had a good opportunity for cultivating
democratic ideas. The gaoler, Benoit, was good-natured, and cherished
his unwilling guests as his children, according to a witness.
Paine might even have been happy there but for the ever recurring
tragedies--the cries of those led forth to death. He was now and then in
strange juxtapositions. One day Deforgues came to join him, he who had
conspired with Morris. Instead of receiving for his crime diplomatic
security in America he found himself beside his victim. Perhaps if
Deforgues and Paine had known each other's language a confession might
have passed There were horrors on horrors. Paine's old friend, Herault
de Sechelles, was imprisoned for having humanely concealed in his house
a poor officer who was hunted by the police; he parted from Paine for
the scaffold. So also he parted from the brilliant Camille Desmoulins,
and the fine dreamer, Anacharsis Clootz. One day came Danton, who,
taking Paine's hand, said: "That which you did for the happiness and
liberty of your country, I tried in vain to do for mine. I have been
less fortunate, but not less innocent. They will send me to the
scaffold; very well, my friends, I shall go gaily." Even so did Danton
meet his doom.*
All of the English prisoners became Paine's friends. Among these was
General O'Hara,--that same general who had fired the American heart at
Yorktown by offering the surrendered sword of Cornwallis to
Rochambeau instead of Washington. O'Hara's captured suite included two
physicians--Bond and Graham--who attended Paine during an illness, as he
gratefully records. What money Paine had when arrested does not appear
to have been taken from him, and he was able to assist General O'Hara
with L200 to return to his country; though by this and similar charities
he was left without means when his own unexpected deliverance came.**
The first part of "The Age of Reason" was sent out with final revision
at the close of January.
* "Memoires sur les prisons," t. ii., p. 153.
** Among the anecdotes told of O'Hara in prison, one is related of an
argument he held with a Frenchman, on the relative degrees of liberty
in England and France. "In England," he said, "we are perfectly free to
write and print, George is a good King; but you--why you are not even
Permitted to write, Robespierre is a tiger!"
In the second edition appeared the following inscription:
"TO MY FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.--I put the
following work under your protection. It contains my opinion upon
Religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always
strenuously supported the Right of every man to his opinion, however
different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this
right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he
precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon
against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and
I trust I never shall.--Your affectionate friend and fellow citizen,
"Thomas Paine."
This dedication is dated, "Luxembourg (Paris), 8th Pluviose, Second year
of the French Republic, one and indivisible. January 27, O. S. 1794."
Paine now addressed himself to the second part of "The Age of Reason,"
concerning which the following anecdote is told in the manuscript
memoranda of Thomas Rickman:
"Paine, while in the Luxembourg prison and expecting to die hourly, read
to Mr. Bond (surgeon of Brighton, from whom this anecdote came) parts
of his _Age of Reason_; and every night, when Mr. Bond left him, to
be separately locked up, and expecting not to see Paine alive in the
morning, he [Paine] always expressed his firm belief in the principles
of that book, and begged Mr. Bond should tell the world such were his
dying sentiments. Paine further said, if he lived he should further
prosecute the work and print it. Bond added, Paine was the most
conscientious man he ever knew."
In after years, when Paine was undergoing persecution for "infidelity,"
he reminded the zealots that they would have to "accuse Providence of
infidelity," for having "protected him in all his dangers." Incidentally
he gives reminiscences of his imprisonment.
"I was one of the nine members that composed the first Committee of
Constitution. Six of them have been destroyed. Sieyes and myself have
survived--he by bending with the times, and I by not bending. The other
survivor [Barrere] joined Robespierre; he was seized and imprisoned in
his turn, and sentenced to transportation. He has since apologized to me
for having signed the warrant, by saying he felt himself in danger
and was obliged to do it. Herault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr.
Jefferson, and a good patriot, was my _suppleant_ as member of the
Committee of Constitution.... He was imprisoned in the Luxembourg with
me, was taken to the tribunal and guillotined, and I, his principal,
left. There were two foreigners in the Convention, Anacharsis Clootz
and myself. We were both put out of the Convention by the same vote,
arrested by the same order, and carried to prison together the same
night. He was taken to the guillotine, and I was again left.... Joseph
Lebon, one of the vilest characters that ever existed, and who made the
streets of Arras run with blood, was my _suppleant_ as member of the
Convention for the Pas de Calais. When I was put out of the Convention
he came and took my place. When I was liberated from prison and voted
again into the Convention, he was sent to the same prison and took
my place there, and he was sent to the guillotine instead of me. He
supplied my place all the way through.
"One hundred and sixty-eight persons were taken out of the Luxembourg
in one night, and a hundred and sixty of them guillotined next day,
of which I knew I was to be one; and the manner I escaped that fate is
curious, and has all the appearance of accident. The room in which I
lodged was on the ground floor, and one of a long range of rooms under a
gallery, and the door of it opened outward and flat against the wall; so
that when it was open the inside of the door appeared outward, and the
contrary when it was shut. I had three comrades, fellow prisoners with
me, Joseph Vanhuile of Bruges, since president of the municipality of
that town, Michael and Robbins Bastini of Louvain. When persons by
scores and by hundreds were to be taken out of the prison for the
guillotine it was always done in the night, and those who performed that
office had a private mark or signal by which they knew what rooms to go
to, and what number to take. We, as I have-said, were four, and the door
of our room was marked, unobserved by us, with that number in chalk; but
it happened, if happening is the proper word, that the mark was put on
when the door was open and flat against the wall, and thereby came on
the inside when we shut it at night; and the destroying angel passed by
it."
Paine did not hear of this chalk mark until afterwards. In his letter to
Washington he says:
"I had been imprisoned seven months, and the silence of the executive
part of the government of America (Mr. Washington) upon the case, and
upon every thing respecting me, was explanation enough to Robespierre
that he might proceed to extremities. A violent fever which had nearly
terminated my existence was, I believe, the circumstance that preserved
it. I was not in a condition to be removed, or to know of what was
passing, or of what had passed, for more than a month. It makes a blank
in my remembrance of life. The first thing I was informed of was the
fall of Robespierre."
The probabilities are that the prison physician Marhaski, whom Paine
mentions with gratitude, was with him when the chalk mark was made,
and that there was some connivance in the matter. In the same letter he
says:
"From about the middle of March (1794) to the fall of Robespierre,
July 29, (9th of Thermidor,) the state of things in the prisons was a
continued scene of horror. No man could count upon life for twenty-four
hours. To such a pitch of rage and suspicion were Robespierre and his
committee arrived, that it seemed as if they feared to leave a man to
live. Scarcely a night passed in which ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty
or more were not taken out of the prison, carried before a pretended
tribunal in the morning, and guillotined before night. One hundred and
sixty-nine were taken out of the Luxembourg one night in the month
of July, and one hundred and sixty of them guillotined. A list of two
hundred more, according to the report in the prison, was preparing a few
days before Robespierre fell. In this last list I have good reason to
believe I was included."
To this Paine adds the memorandum for his accusation found in
Robespierre's note-book. Of course it was natural, especially with the
memorandum, to accept the Robespierre mythology of the time without
criticism. The massacres of July were not due to Robespierre, who during
that time was battling with the Committee of Public Safety, at whose
hands he fell on the 29th. At the close of June there was an alarm at
preparations for an insurrection in Luxembourg prison, which caused a
union of the Committee of Public Safety and the police, resulting in
indiscriminate slaughter of prisoners.
But Paine was discriminated. Barrere, long after, apologized to him for
having signed "the warrant," by saying he felt himself in danger and
was obliged to do it Paine accepted the apology, and when Barrere
had returned to France, after banishment, Paine introduced him to the
English author, Lewis Goldsmith.* As Barrere did not sign the warrant
for Paine's imprisonment, it must have been a warrant for his death, or
for accusation at a moment when it was equivalent to a death sentence.
Whatever danger Barrere had to fear, so great as to cause him to
sacrifice Paine, it was not from Robespierre; else it would not have
continued to keep Paine in prison three months after Robespierre's
death.
* "Memoires de B. Barrere," t. i., p. 80. Lewis Goldsmith was
the author of "Crimes of the Cabinets."
As Robespierre's memorandum was for a "decree of accusation" against
Paine, separately, which might not have gone against him, but possibly
have dragged to light the conspiracy against him, there would seem to be
no ground for connecting that "demand" with the warrant signed by a
Committee he did not attend.
Paine had good cause for writing as he did in praise of "Forgetfulness."
During the period in which he was unconscious with fever the horrors of
the prison reached their apogee. On June 19th the kindly gaoler, Benoit,
was removed and tried; he was acquitted but not restored. His place was
given to a cruel fellow named Gayard, who instituted a reign of terror
in the prison.
There are many evidences that the good Benoit, so warmly remembered
by Paine, evaded the rigid police regulations as to communications of
prisoners with their friends outside, no doubt with precaution against
those of a political character. It is pleasant to record an instance
of this which was the means of bringing beautiful rays of light into
Paine's cell. Shortly before his arrest an English lady had called on
him, at his house in the Faubourg St. Denis, to ask his intervention in
behalf of an Englishman of rank who had been arrested. Paine had now,
however, fallen from power, and could not render the requested service.
This lady was the last visitor who preceded the officers who
arrested him. But while he was in prison there was brought to him a
communication, in a lady's handwriting, signed "A little corner of the
World." So far as can be gathered, this letter was of a poetical
character, perhaps tinged with romance. It was followed by others, all
evidently meant to beguile the weary and fearful hours of a prisoner
whom she had little expectation of ever meeting again. Paine, by the aid
of Benoit, managed to answer his "contemplative correspondent," as he
called her, signing, "The Castle in the Air." These letters have never
seen the light, but the sweetness of this sympathy did, for many an
hour, bring into Paine's _oubliette_ the oblivion of grief described in
the letter on "Forgetfulness," sent to the lady after his liberation.
"Memory, like a beauty that is always present to hear herself
flattered, is flattered by every one. But the absent and silent goddess,
Forgetfulness, has no votaries, and is never thought of: yet we owe her
much. She is the goddess of ease, though not of pleasure. When the mind
is like a room hung with black, and every corner of it crowded with the
most horrid images imagination can create, this kind, speechless maid,
Forgetfulness, is following us night and day with her opium wand, and
gently touching first one and then another, benumbs them into rest, and
then glides away with the silence of a departing shadow."
Paine was not forgotten by his old friends in France. So soon as the
excitement attending Robespierre's execution had calmed a little,
Lan-thenas (August 7th) sent Merlin de Thionville a copy of the "Age of
Reason," which he had translated, and made his appeal.
"I think it would be in the well-considered interest of the Republic,
since the fall of the tyrants we have overthrown, to re-examine the
motives of Thomas Paine's imprisonment. That re-examination is suggested
by too many and sensible grounds to be related in detail. Every friend
of liberty familiar with the history of our Revolution, and feeling the
necessity of repelling the slanders with which despots are loading it in
the eyes of nations, misleading them against us, will understand these
grounds. Should the Committee of Public Safety, having before it no
founded charge or suspicion against Thomas Paine, retain any scruples,
and think that from my occasional conversation with that foreigner, whom
the people's suffrage called to the national representation, and some
acquaintance with his language, I might perhaps throw light upon their
doubt, I would readily communicate to them all that I know about him. I
request Merlin de Thionville to submit these considerations to the
Committee."
Merlin was now a leading member of the Committee. On the following day
Paine sent (in French) the following letters:
"Citizens, Representatives, and Members of the Committee of Public
Safety: I address you a copy of a letter which I have to-day written to
the Convention. The singular situation in which I find myself determines
me to address myself to the whole Convention, of which you are a part
"Thomas Paine. Maison d'Arret du Luxembourg, Le 19 Thermidor, l'an 2 de
la Republique, une et indivisible."
"Citizen Representatives: If I should not express myself with the energy
I used formerly to do, you will attribute it to the very dangerous
illness I have suffered in the prison of the Luxembourg. For several
days I was insensible of my own existence; and though I am much
recovered, it is with exceeding great difficulty that I find power to
write you this letter.
"But before I proceed further, I request the Convention to observe: that
this is the first line that has come from me, either to the Convention,
or to any of the Committees, since my imprisonment,--which is
approaching to Eight months.--Ah, my friends, eight months' loss of
Liberty seems almost a life-time to a man who has been, as I have been,
the unceasing defender of Liberty for twenty years.
"I have now to inform the Convention of the reason of my not having
written before. It is a year ago that I had strong reason to believe
that Robespierre was my inveterate enemy, as he was the enemy of every
man of virtue and humanity. The address that was sent to the Convention
some time about last August from Arras, the native town of Robespierre,
I have always been informed was the work of that hypocrite and the
partizans he had in the place. The intention of that address was to
prepare the way for destroying me, by making the People declare (though
without assigning any reason) that I had lost their confidence; the
Address, however, failed of success, as it was immediately opposed by
a counter-address from St. Omer which declared the direct contrary. But
the strange power that Robespierre, by the most consummate hypocrisy
and the most hardened cruelties, had obtained rendered any attempt on
my part to obtain justice not only useless but even dangerous; for it
is the nature of Tyranny always to strike a deeper blow when any attempt
has been made to repel a former one. This being my situation I submitted
with patience to the hardness of my fate and waited the event of
brighter days. I hope they are now arrived to the nation and to me.
"Citizens, when I left the United States in the year 1787, I promised to
all my friends that I would return to them the next year; but the hope
of seeing a Revolution happily established in France, that might serve
as a model to the rest of Europe, and the earnest and disinterested
desire of rendering every service in my power to promote it, induced me
to defer my return to that country, and to the society of my friends,
for more than seven years. This long sacrifice of private tranquillity,
especially after having gone through the fatigues and dangers of the
American Revolution which continued almost eight years, deserved a
better fate than the long imprisonment I have silently suffered. But it
is not the nation but a faction that has done me this injustice, and it
is to the national representation that I appeal against that injustice.
Parties and Factions, various and numerous as they have been, I have
always avoided. My heart was devoted to all France, and the object to
which I applied myself was the Constitution. The Plan which I proposed
to the Committee, of which I was a member, is now in the hands of
Barrere, and it will speak for itself.
"It is perhaps proper that I inform you of the cause assigned in the
order for my imprisonment It is that I am 'a Foreigner'; whereas, the
_Foreigner_ thus imprisoned was invited into France by a decree of the
late national Assembly, and that in the hour of her greatest danger,
when invaded by Austrians and Prussians. He was, moreover, a citizen of
the United States of America, an ally of France, and not a subject of
any country in Europe, and consequently not within the intentions of
any of the decrees concerning Foreigners. But any excuse can be made to
serve the purpose of malignity when it is in power.
"I will not intrude on your time by offering any apology for the broken
and imperfect manner in which I have expressed myself. I request you to
accept it with the sincerity with which it comes from my heart; and I
conclude with wishing Fraternity and prosperity to France, and union and
happiness to her representatives.
"Citizens, I have now stated to you my situation, and I can have no
doubt but your justice will restore me to the Liberty of which I have
been deprived.
"Thomas Paine.
"Luxembourg, Thermidor 19th, 2d year of the French Republic, one and
indivisible."
No doubt this touching letter would have been effectual had it reached
the Convention. But the Committee of Public Safety took care that no
whisper even of its existence should be heard. Paine's participation in
their fostered dogma, that _Robespierre le veut_ explained all crimes,
probably cost him three more months in prison. The lamb had confided its
appeal to the wolf. Barrere, Bil-laud-Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois,
by skilful use of the dead scapegoat, maintained their places on the
Committee until September 1st, and after that influenced its counsels.
At the same time Morris, as we shall see, was keeping Monroe out of his
place. There might have been a serious reckoning for these men had Paine
been set free, or his case inquired into by the Convention. And Thuriot
was now on the Committee of Public Safety; he was eager to lay his own
crimes on Robespierre, and to conceal those of the Committee. Paine's
old friend, Achille Audibert, unsuspicious as himself of the real
facts, sent an appeal (August 20th) to "Citizen Thuriot, member of the
Committee of Public Safety."
"Representative:--A friend of mankind is groaning in chains,--Thomas
Paine, who was not so politic as to remain silent in regard to a man
unlike himself, but dared to say that Robespierre was a monster to be
erased from the list of men. From that moment he became a criminal;
the despot marked him as his victim, put him into prison, and doubtless
prepared the way to the scaffold for him, as for others who knew him and
were courageous enough to speak out.*
* It most be remembered that at this time it seemed the
strongest recommendation of any one to public favor to
describe him as a victim of Robespierre; and Paine's friends
could conceive no other cause for the detention of a man
they knew to be innocent.
"Thomas Paine is an acknowledged citizen of the United States. He was
the secretary of the Congress for the department of foreign affairs
during the Revolution. He has made himself known in Europe by his
writings, and especially by his 'Rights of Man.' The electoral
assembly of the department of Pas-de-Calais elected him one of its
representatives to the Convention, and commissioned me to go to London,
inform him of his election, and bring him to France. I hardly escaped
being a victim to the English Government with which he was at open war;
I performed my mission; and ever since friendship has attached me to
Paine. This is my apology for soliciting you for his liberation.
"I can assure you, Representative, that America was by no means
satisfied with the imprisonment of a strong column of its Revolution.
Please to take my prayer into consideration. But for Robespierre's
villainy this friend of man would now be free. Do not permit liberty
longer to see in prison a victim of the wretch who lives no more but by
his crimes; and you will add to the esteem and veneration I feel for
a man who did so much to save the country amidst the most tremendous
crisis of our Revolution.
"Greeting, respect, and brotherhood,
"Achille Audibert, of Calais.
"No. 216 Rue de Bellechase, Fauborg St Germaine."
Audibert's letter, of course, sank under the burden of its Robespierre
myth to a century's sleep beside Paine's, in the Committee's closet.
Meanwhile, the regulation against any communication of prisoners with
the outside world remaining in force, it was some time before Paine
could know that his letter had been suppressed on its way to the
Convention. He was thus late in discovering his actual enemies.
An interesting page in the annals of diplomacy remains to be written
on the closing weeks of Morris in France. On August 14th he writes to
Robert Morris: "I am preparing for my departure, but as yet can take no
step, as there is a kind of interregnum in the government and Mr. Monroe
is not yet received, at which he grows somewhat impatient." There was
no such interregnum, and no such explanation was given to Monroe, who
writes:
"I presented my credentials to the commissary of foreign affairs soon
after my arrival [August 2d]; but more than a week had elapsed, and I
had obtained no answer, when or whether I should be received. A delay
beyond a few days surprised me, because I could discern no adequate or
rational motive for it."*
* "View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign
Affairs of the United States," by James Monroe, p. 7.
It is plain that the statement of Paine, who was certainly in
communication with the Committees a year later, is true, that Morris was
in danger on account of the interception of compromising letters written
by him. He needed time to dispose of his house and horses, and ship his
wines, and felt it important to retain his protecting credentials. At
any moment his friends might be expelled from the Committee, and their
papers be examined. While the arrangements for Monroe's reception rested
with Morris and this unaltered Committee, there was little prospect
of Monroe's being installed at all. The new Minister was therefore
compelled, as other Americans had been, to appeal directly to the
Convention. That assembly responded at once, and he was received
(August 28th) with highest honors. Morris had nothing to do with
the arrangement. The historian Frederic Masson, alluding to the
"unprecedented" irregularity of Morris in not delivering or receiving
letters of recall, adds that Monroe found it important to state that he
had acted without consultation with his predecessor.* This was necessary
for a cordial reception by the Convention, but it invoked the cordial
hatred of Morris, who marked him for his peculiar guillotine set up in
Philadelphia.
* "Le Departement des Affaires Etrangeres," etc., p. 345.
So completely had America and Congress been left in the dark about Paine
that Monroe was surprised to find him a prisoner. When at length the new
Minister was in a position to consult the French Minister about Paine,
he found the knots so tightly tied around this particular victim--almost
the only one left in the Luxembourg of those imprisoned during the
Terror--that it was difficult to untie them. The Minister of Foreign
Affairs was now M. Bouchot, a weak creature who, as Morris said, would
not wipe his nose without permission of the Committee of Public Safety.
When Monroe opened Paine's case he was asked whether he had brought
instructions. Of course he had none, for the administration had no
suspicion that Morris had not, as he said, attended to the case.
When Paine recovered from his fever he heard that Monroe had superseded
Morris.
"As soon as I was able to write a note legible enough to be read,
I found a way to convey one to him [Monroe] by means of the man who
lighted the lamps in the prison, and whose unabated friendship to me,
from whom he never received any service, and with difficulty accepted
any recompense, puts the character of Mr. Washington to shame. In a few
days I received a message from Mr. Monroe, conveyed in a note from an
intermediate person, with assurance of his friendship, and expressing
a desire that I should rest the case in his hands. After a fortnight
or more had passed, and hearing nothing farther, I wrote to a friend
[Whiteside], a citizen of Philadelphia, requesting him to inform me what
was the true situation of things with respect to me. I was sure
that something was the matter; I began to have hard thoughts of Mr.
Washington, but I was unwilling to encourage them. In about ten days I
received an answer to my letter, in which the writer says: 'Mr. Monroe
told me he had no order (meaning from the president, Mr. Washington)
respecting you, but that he (Mr. Monroe) will do everything in his
power to liberate you, but, from what I learn from the Americans
lately arrived in Paris, you are not considered, either by the American
government or by individuals, as an American citizen.'"
As the American government did regard Paine as an American citizen,
and approved Monroe's demanding him as such, there is no difficulty in
recognizing the source from which these statements were diffused among
Paine's newly arriving countrymen. Morris was still in Paris.
On the receipt of Whiteside's note, Paine wrote a Memorial to Monroe,
of which important parts--amounting to eight printed pages--are omitted
from American and English editions of his works. In quoting this
Memorial, I select mainly the omitted portions.*
* The whole is published in French: "Memoire de Thomas
Payne, autographe et signe de sa main: addresse a M. Monroe,
ministre des Etats-unis en France, pour reclamer sa mise en
liberte comme Citoyen Americain, zo Septembre, 1794.
Villeneuve."
Paine says that before leaving London for the Convention, he consulted
Minister Pinckney, who agreed with him that "it was for the interest of
America that the system of European governments should be changed and
placed on the same principle with her own"; and adds: "I have wished to
see America the mother church of government, and I have done my utmost
to exalt her character and her condition." He points out that he had not
accepted any title or office under a foreign government, within the
meaning of the United States Constitution, because there was no
government in France, the Convention being assembled to frame one; that
he was a citizen of France only in the honorary sense in which others in
Europe and America were declared such; that no oath of allegiance was
required or given. The following paragraphs are from various parts of
the Memorial.
"They who propagate the report of my not being considered as a citizen
of America by government, do it to the prolongation of my imprisonment,
and without authority; for Congress, as a government, has neither
decided upon it, nor yet taken the matter into consideration; and I
request you to caution such persons against spreading such reports....
"I know not what opinions have been circulated in America. It may have
been supposed there, that I had voluntarily and intentionally abandoned
America, and that my citizenship had ceased by my own choice. I can
easily conceive that there are those in that Country who would take such
a proceeding on my part somewhat in disgust. The idea of forsaking
old friendships for new acquaintances is not agreeable. I am a little
warranted in making this supposition by a letter I received some time
ago from the wife of one of the Georgia delegates, in which she says,
'your friends on this side the water cannot be reconciled to the idea
of your abandoning America.' I have never abandoned America in thought,
word, or deed, and I feel it incumbent upon me to give this assurance
to the friends I have in that country, and with whom I have always
intended, and am determined, if the possibility exists, to close the
scene of my life. It is there that I have made myself a home. It is
there that I have given the services of my best days. America never
saw me flinch from her cause in the most gloomy and perilous of her
situations: and I know there are those in that Country who will not
flinch from me. If I have Enemies (and every man has some) I leave them
to the enjoyment of their ingratitude....
"It is somewhat extraordinary, that the Idea of my not being a Citizen
of America should have arisen only at the time that I am imprisoned
in France because, or on the pretence that, I am a foreigner. The case
involves a strange contradiction of Ideas. None of the Americans who
came to France whilst I was in liberty, had conceived any such idea or
circulated any such opinion; and why it should arise now is a matter
yet to be explained. However discordant the late American Minister,
Gouverneur Morris, and the late French Committee of Public Safety were,
it suited the purpose of both that I should be continued in arrestation.
The former wished to prevent my return to America, that I should not
expose his misconduct; and the latter, lest I should publish to the
world the history of its wickedness. Whilst that Minister and that
Committee continued, I had no expectation of liberty. I speak here of
the Committee of which Robespierre was a member....
"I here close my Memorial and proceed to offer to you a proposal, that
appears to me suited to all the circumstances of the case; which is,
that you reclaim me conditionally, until the opinion of Congress can
be obtained upon the subject of my Citizenship of America, and that I
remain in liberty under your protection during that time. I found this
proposal upon the following grounds:
"First, you say you have no orders respecting me; consequently you
have no orders _not_ to reclaim me; and in this case you are left
discretionary judge whether to reclaim or not. My proposal therefore
unites a consideration of your situation with my own.
"Secondly, I am put in arrestation because I am a foreigner. It is
therefore necessary to determine to what Country I belong. The right of
determining this question cannot appertain exclusively to the committee
of public safety or general surety; because I appear to the Minister of
the United States, and shew that my citizenship of that Country is good
and valid, referring at the same time, through the agency of the
Minister, my claim of Right to the opinion of Congress,--it being a
matter between two governments.
"Thirdly, France does not claim me for a citizen; neither do I set up
any claim of citizenship in France. The question is simply, whether I am
or am not a citizen of America. I am imprisoned here on the decree for
imprisoning Foreigners, because, say they, I was born in England. I
say in answer, that, though born in England, I am not a subject of the
English Government any more than any other American is who was born, as
they all were, under the same government, or that the citizens of France
are subjects of the French monarchy, under which they were born. I have
twice taken the oath of abjuration to the British king and government,
and of Allegiance to America. Once as a citizen of the State of
Pennsylvania in 1776; and again before Congress, administered to me by
the President, Mr. Hancock, when I was appointed Secretary in the office
of foreign affairs in 1777....
"Painful as the want of liberty may be, it is a consolation to me to
believe that my imprisonment proves to the world that I had no share in
the murderous system that then reigned. That I was an enemy to it, both
morally and politically, is known to all who had any knowledge of
me; and could I have written French as well as I can English, I would
publicly have exposed its wickedness, and shown the ruin with which it
was pregnant. They who have esteemed me on former occasions, whether
in America or England, will, I know, feel no cause to abate that esteem
when they reflect, that imprisonment with preservation of character, is
preferable to liberty with disgrace."
In a postscript Paine adds that "as Gouverneur Morris could not inform
Congress of the cause of my arrestation, as he knew it not himself, it
is to be supposed that Congress was not enough acquainted with the case
to give any directions respecting me when you left." Which to the reader
of the preceding pages will appear sufficiently naive.
To this Monroe responded (September 18th) with a letter of warm
sympathy, worthy of the high-minded gentleman that he was. After
ascribing the notion that Paine was not an American to mental confusion,
and affirming his determination to maintain his rights as a citizen of
the United States, Monroe says:
"It is unnecessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen, I
speak of the great mass of the people, are interested in your welfare.
They have not forgotten the history of their own revolution, and the
difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its
several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the
merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. The
crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain,
our national character. You are considered by them, as not only having
rendered important services in our own revolution, but as being on a
more extensive scale, the friend of human rights, and a distinguished
and able advocate in favor of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas
Paine the Americans are not and cannot be indifferent. Of the sense
which the President has always entertained of your merits, and of his
friendly disposition towards you, you are too well assured to require
any declaration of it from me. That I forward his wishes in seeking your
safety is what I well know; and this will form an additional obligation
on me to perform what I should otherwise consider as a duty.
"You are, in my opinion, menaced by no kind of danger. To liberate you,
will be an object of my endeavors, and as soon as possible. But you
must, until that event shall be accomplished, face your situation with
patience and fortitude; you will likewise have the justice to recollect,
that I am placed here upon a difficult theatre, many important objects
to attend to, and with few to consult. It becomes me in pursuit of
those, to regulate my conduct in respect to each, as to the manner and
the time, as will, in my judgment, be best calculated to accomplish the
whole.
"With great esteem and respect consider me personally your friend,
"James Monroe."
Monroe was indeed "placed upon a difficult theatre." Morris was showing
a fresh letter from the President expressing unabated confidence in him,
apologizing for his recall; he still had friends in the Committee of
Public Safety, to which Monroe had appealed in vain. The continued dread
the conspirators had of Paine's liberation appears in the fact that
Monroe's letter, written September 18th, did not reach Paine until
October 18th, when Morris had reached the boundary line of Switzerland,
which he entered on the 19th. He had left Paris (Sainport) October 14th,
when Barrere, Billaud-Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois, no longer on
the Committee, were under accusation, and their papers under
investigation,--a search that resulted in their exile. Morris got across
the line on an irregular passport.
While Monroe's reassuring letter to Paine was taking a month to
penetrate his prison walls, he vainly grappled with the subtle
obstacles. All manner of delays impeded the correspondence, the
principal one being that he could present no instructions from the
President concerning Paine. Of course he was fighting in the dark,
having no suspicion that the imprisonment was due to his predecessor.
At length, however, he received from Secretary Randolph a letter (dated
July 30th), from which, though Paine was not among its specifications,
he could select a sentence as basis of action: "We have heard with
regret that several of our citizens have been thrown into prison in
France, from a suspicion of criminal attempts against the government. If
they are guilty we are extremely sorry for it; if innocent we must
protect them." What Paine had said in his Memorial of collusion between
Morris and the Committee of Public Safety probably determined Monroe to
apply no more in that quarter; so he wrote (November 2d) to the
Committee of General Surety. After stating the general principles and
limitations of ministerial protection to an imprisoned countryman, he
adds:
"The citizens of the United States cannot look back upon the time of
their own revolution without recollecting among the names of their most
distinguished patriots that of Thomas Paine; the services he rendered to
his country in its struggle for freedom have implanted in the hearts of
his countrymen a sense of gratitude never to be effaced as long as they
shall deserve the title of a just and generous people.
"The above-named citizen is at this moment languishing in prison,
affected with a disease growing more intense from his confinement. I
beg, therefore, to call your attention to his condition and to request
you to hasten the moment when the law shall decide his fate, in case of
any accusation against him, and if none, to restore him to liberty.
"Greeting and fraternity,
"Monroe."
At this the first positive assertion of Paine's American citizenship the
prison door flew open. He had been kept there solely "pour les interets
de l'Amerique," as embodied in Morris, and two days after Monroe
undertook, without instructions, to affirm the real interests of America
in Paine he was liberated.
"Brumaire, 13th. Third year of the French Republic.--The Committee of
General Surety orders that the Citizen Thomas Paine be set at liberty,
and the seals taken from his papers, on sight of these presents.
"Members of the Committee (signed): Clauzel, Lesage, Senault, Bentabole,
Reverchon, Goupilleau de Fontenai, Rewbell.
"Delivered to Clauzel, as Commissioner."*
There are several interesting points about this little decree. It
is signed by Bentabole, who had moved Paine's expulsion from the
Convention. It orders that the seals be removed from Paine's papers,
whereas none had been placed on them, the officers reporting them
innocent. This same authority, which had ordered Paine's arrest, now,
in ordering his liberation, shows that the imprisonment had never been
a subject of French inquiry. It had ordered the seals but did not know
whether they were on the papers or not. It was no concern of France,
but only of the American Minister. It is thus further evident that when
Monroe invited a trial of Paine there was not the least trace of any
charge against him. And there was precisely the same absence of any
accusation against Paine in the new Committee of Public Safety, to which
Monroe's letter was communicated the same day.
Writing to Secretary Randolph (November 7th) Monroe says:
"He was actually a citizen of the United States, and of the United
States only; for the Revolution which parted us from Great Britain broke
the allegiance which was before due to the Crown, of all who took our
side. He was, of course, not a British subject; nor was he strictly a
citizen of France, for he came by invitation for the temporary purpose
of assisting in the formation of their government only, and meant to
withdraw to America when that should be completed. And what confirms
this is the act of the Convention itself arresting him, by which he is
declared a foreigner. Mr. Paine pressed my interference.
"I told him I had hoped getting him enlarged without it; but, if I did
interfere, it could only be by requesting that he be tried, in case
there was any charge against him, and liberated in case there was
not. This was admitted. His correspondence with me is lengthy and
interesting, and I may probably be able hereafter to send you a copy
of it. After some time had elapsed, without producing any change in his
favor, I finally resolved to address the Committee of General Surety in
his behalf, resting my application on the above principle. My letter was
delivered by my Secretary in the Committee to the president, who assured
him he would communicate its contents immediately to the Committee of
Public Safety, and give me an answer as soon as possible. The conference
took place accordingly between the two Committees, and, as I presume,
on that night, or on the succeeding day; for on the morning of the day
after, which was yesterday, I was presented by the Secretary of the
Committee of General Surety with an order for his enlargement. I
forwarded it immediately to the Luxembourg, and had it carried into
effect; and have the pleasure now to add that he is not only released to
the enjoyment of liberty, but is in good spirits."
In reply, the Secretary of State (Randolph) in a letter to Monroe of
March 8, 1795, says: "Your observations on our commercial relations
to France, and your conduct as to Mr. Gardoqui's letter, prove your
judgment and assiduity. Nor are your measures as to Mr. Paine, and the
lady of our friend [Lafayette] less approved."
Thus, after an imprisonment of ten months and nine days, Thomas Paine
was liberated from the prison into which he had been cast by a Minister
of the United States.