had passed for arresting all natives of the countries with which France
is at war, and who had not constantly resided there since 1789.--This
intelligence, as you will conceive, sufficiently alarmed me, and I lost
no time in consulting Mad. de ____'s friends on the subject, who were
generally of opinion that the decree was merely a menace, and that it was
too unjust to be put in execution. As some days elapsed and no steps
were taken in consequence, I began to think they were right, and my
spirits were somewhat revived; when one evening, as I was preparing to go
to bed, my maid suddenly entered the room, and, before she could give me
any previous explanation, the apartment was filled with armed men. As
soon as I was collected enough to enquire the object of this unseasonable
visit, I learned that all this military apparel was to put the seals on
my papers, and convey my person to the Hotel de Ville!--I knew it would
be vain to remonstrated, and therefore made an effort to recover my
spirits and submit. The business, however, was not yet terminated, my
papers were to be sealed--and though they were not very voluminous, the
process was more difficult than you would imagine, none of the company
having been employed on affairs of the kind before. A debate ensued on
the manner in which it should be done, and, after a very tumultuous
discussion, it was sagaciously concluded to seal up the doors and windows
of all the apartments appropriated to my use. They then discovered that
they had no seal fit for the purpose, and a new consultation was holden
on the propriety of affixing a cypher which was offered them by one of
the Garde Nationale.
This weighty matter being at length decided, the doors of my bedchamber,
dressing-room, and of the apartments with which they communicated, were
carefully fastened up, though not without an observation on my part that
I was only a guest at Mad. de ____'s, and that an order to seize my
papers or person was not a mandate for rendering a part of her home
useless. But there was no reasoning with ignorance and a score of
bayonets, nor could I obtain permission even to take some linen out of my
drawers. On going down stairs, I found the court and avenues to the
garden amply guarded, and with this numerous escort, and accompanied by
Mad. de ____, I was conducted to the Hotel de Ville. I know not what
resistance they might expect from a single female, but, to judge by their
precautions, they must have deemed the adventure a very perilous one.
When we arrived at the Hotel de Ville, it was near eleven o'clock: the
hall was crouded, and a young man, in a dirty linen jacket and trowsers
and dirty linen, with the air of a Polisson and the countenance of an
assassin, was haranguing with great vehemence against the English, who,
he asserted, were all agents of Pitt, (especially the women,) and were to
set fire to the corn, and corrupt the garrisons of the fortified towns.--
The people listened to these terrible projects with a stupid sort of
surprize, and, for the most part, seemed either very careless or very
incredulous. As soon as this inflammatory piece of eloquence was
finished, I was presented to the ill-looking orator, who, I learned, was
a representant du peuple. It was very easy to perceive that my spirits
were quite overpowered, and that I could with difficulty support myself;
but this did not prevent the representant du peuple from treating me with
that inconsiderable brutality which is commonly the effect of a sudden
accession of power on narrow and vulgar minds. After a variety of
impertinent questions, menaces of a prison for myself, and exclamations
of hatred and vengeance against my country, on producing some friends of
Mad. de ____, who were to be answerable for me, I was released, and
returned home more dead than alive.
You must not infer, from what I have related, that I was particularly
distinguished on this occasion, for though I have no acquaintance with
the English here, I understand they had all been treated much in the same
manner.--As soon as the representant had left the town, by dint of
solicitation we prevailed on the municipality to take the seal off the
rooms, and content themselves with selecting and securing my papers,
which was done yesterday by a commission, formally appointed for the
purpose. I know not the quality of the good citizens to whom this
important charge was entrusted, but I concluded from their costume that
they had been more usefully employed the preceding part of the day at the
anvil and last. It is certain, however, they had undertaken a business
greatly beyond their powers. They indeed turned over all my trunks and
drawers, and dived to the bottom of water-jugs and flower-jars with great
zeal, but neglected to search a large portfolio that lay on the table,
probably from not knowing the use of it; and my servant conveyed away
some letters, while I amused them with the sight of a blue-bottle fly
through a microscope. They were at first much puzzled to know whether
books and music were included under the article of papers, and were very
desirous of burning a history of France, because they discovered, by the
title-plate, that it was "about Kings;" but the most difficult part of
this momentous transaction was taking an account of it in writing.
However, as only one of the company could write, there was no disputing
as to the scribe, though there was much about the manner of execution. I
did not see the composition, but I could hear that it stated "comme
quoi," they had found the seals unbroken, "comme quoi," they had taken
them off, and divers "as hows" of the same kind. The whole being
concluded, and my papers deposited in a box, I was at length freed from
my guests, and left in possession of my apartments.
It is impossible to account for this treatment of the English by any mode
of reasoning that does not exclude both justice and policy; and viewing
it only as a symptom of that desperate wickedness which commits evil, not
as a means, but an end, I am extremely alarmed for our situation. At
this moment the whole of French politics seems to center in an endeavour
to render the English odious both as a nation and as individuals. The
Convention, the clubs, and the streets of Paris, resound with low abuse
of this tendency; and a motion was made in the former, by one Garnier, to
procure the assassination of Mr. Pitt. Couthon, a member of the Comite
de Salut Publique, has proposed and carried a decree to declare him the
enemy of mankind; and the citizens of Paris are stunned by the hawkers of
Mr. Pitt's plots with the Queen to "starve all France," and "massacre all
the patriots."--Amidst so many efforts* to provoke the destruction of the
English, it is wonderful, when we consider the sanguinary character which
the French people have lately evinced, that we are yet safe, and it is in
effect only to be accounted for by their disinclination to take any part
in the animosities of their government.
* When our representative appeared at Abbeville with an intention of
arresting the English and other foreigners, the people, to whom
these missionaries with unlimited powers were yet new, took the
alarm, and became very apprehensive that he was come likewise to
disarm their Garde Nationale. The streets were crouded, the town
house was beset, and Citizen Dumout found it necessary to quiet the
town's people by the following proclamation. One part of his
purpose, that of insuring his personal safety, was answered by it;
but that of exciting the people against the English, failed--
insomuch, that I was told even the lowest classes, so far from
giving credit to the malignant calumnies propagated against the
English, openly regretted their arrestation.
"Citizens,
"On my arrival amongst you, I little thought that malevolence would
be so far successful as to alarm you on the motives of my visit.
Could the aristocrates, then, flatter themselves with the hope of
making you believe I had the intention of disarming you? Be deaf, I
beseech you, to so absurd a calumny, and seize on those who
propagate it. I came here to fraternize with you, and to assist you
in getting rid of those malcontents and foreigners, who are striving
to destroy the republic by the most infernal manoeuvres.--An
horrible plot has been conceived. Our harvests are to be fired by
means of phosphoric matches, and all the patriots assassinated.
Women, priests, and foreigners, are the instruments employed by the
coalesced despots, and by England above all, to accomplish these
criminal designs.--A law of the first of this month orders the
arrest of all foreigners born in the countries with which the
republic is at war, and not settled in France before the month of
July, 1789. In execution of this law I have required domiciliary
visits to be made. I have urged the preservation of the public
tranquillity. I have therefore done my duty, and only what all good
citizens must approve."
I have just received a few lines from Mrs. D____, written in French, and
put in the post without sealing. I perceive, by the contents, though she
enters into no details, that circumstances similar to those I have
described have likewise taken place at Amiens. In addition to my other
anxieties, I have the prospect of a long separation from my friends; for
though I am not in confinement, I cannot, while the decree which arrested
me remains in force, quit the town of Peronne. I have not often looked
forward with so little hope, or so little certainty, and though a
first-rate philosopher might make up his mind to a particular event, yet
to be prepared for any thing, and all things, is a more difficult
matter.
The histories of Greece and Rome have long constituted the grand
resources of French eloquence, and it is not till within a few days that
an orator has discovered all this good learning to be of no use--not, as
you might imagine, because the moral character and political situation of
the French differ from those of the Greeks and Romans, but because they
are superior to all the people who ever existed, and ought to be cited as
models, instead of descending to become copyists. "Therefore, continues
this Jacobin sage, (whose name is Henriot, and who is highly popular,)
let us burn all the libraries and all the antiquities, and have no guide
but ourselves--let us cut off the heads of all the Deputies who have not
voted according to our principles, banish or imprison all the gentry and
the clergy, and guillotine the Queen and General Custine!"
These are the usual subjects of discussion at the clubs, and the
Convention itself is not much more decent. I tremble when I recollect
that I am in a country where a member of the legislature proposes rewards
for assassination, and the leader of a society, that pretends to inform
and instruct the people, argues in favour of burning all the books. The
French are on the eve of exhibiting the singular spectacle of a nation
enlightened by science, accustomed to the benefit of laws and the
enjoyment of arts, suddenly becoming barbarous by system, and sinking
into ignorance from choice.--When the Goths shared the most curious
antiques by weight, were they not more civilized than the Parisian of
1793, who disturbs the ashes of Henry the Fourth, or destroys the
monument of Turenne, by a decree?--I have myself been forced to an act
very much in the spirit of the times, but I could not, without risking my
own safety, do otherwise; and I sat up late last night for the purpose of
burning Burke, which I had brought with me, but had fortunately so well
concealed, that it escaped the late inquisition. I indeed made this
sacrifice to prudence with great unwillingness--every day, by confirming
Mr. Burke's assertions, or fulfilling his predictions, had so increased
my reverence for the work, that I regarded it as a kind of political
oracle. I did not, however, destroy it without an apologetic apostrophe
to the author's benevolence, which I am sure would suffer, were he to be
the occasion, though involuntarily, of conducting a female to a prison or
the Guillotine.
"How chances mock, and changes fill the cup of alteration up with divers
liquors."--On the same hearth, and in a mingled flame, was consumed the
very constitution of 1789, on which Mr. Burke's book was a censure, and
which would now expose me to equal danger were it to be found in my
possession. In collecting the ashes of these two compositions, the
tendency of which is so different, (for such is the complexion of the
moment, that I would not have even the servant suspect I had been burning
a quantity of papers,) I could not but moralize on the mutability of
popular opinion. Mr. Burke's Gallic adversaries are now most of them
proscribed and anathematized more than himself. Perhaps another year may
see his bust erected on the piedestal which now supports that of Brutus
or Le Pelletier.
The letters I have written to you since the communication was
interrupted, with some other papers that I am solicitous to preserve,
I have hitherto always carried about me, and I know not if any danger,
merely probable, will induce me to part with them. You will not, I
think, suspect me of attaching any consequence to my scribblings from
vanity; and if I run some personal risk in keeping them, it is because
the situation of this country is so singular, and the events which occur
almost daily so important, that the remarks of any one who is unlucky
enough to be a spectator, may interest, without the advantage of literary
talents.--Yours.
Peronne, August 24, 1793.
I have been out to-day for the first time since the arrest of the
English, and, though I have few acquaintances here, my adventure at the
Hotel de Ville has gained me a sort of popularity. I was saluted by many
people I did not know, and overwhelmed with expressions of regret for
what had happened, or congratulations on my having escaped so well.
The French are not commonly very much alive to the sufferings of others,
and it is some mortification to my vanity that I cannot, but at the
expence of a reproaching conscience, ascribe the civilities I have
experienced on this occasion to my personal merit. It would doubtless
have been highly flattering to me to relate the tender and general
interest I had excited even among this cold-hearted people, who scarcely
feel for themselves: but the truth is, they are disposed to take the part
of any one whom they think persecuted by their government; and their
representative, Dumont, is so much despised in his private character, and
detested in his public one, that it suffices to have been ill treated by
him, to ensure one a considerable portion of the public good will.
This disposition is not a little consolatory, at a time when the whole
rage of an oligarchical tyranny, though impotent against the English as a
nation, meanly exhausts itself on the few helpless individuals within its
power. Embarrassments accumulate and if Mr. Pitt's agents did not most
obligingly write letters, and these letters happen to be intercepted just
when they are most necessary, the Comite de Salut Publique would be at a
loss how to account for them.
Assignats have fallen into a discredit beyond example, an hundred and
thirty livres having been given for one Louis-d'or; and, as if this were
not the natural result of circumstances like the present, a
correspondence between two Englishmen informs us, that it is the work of
Mr. Pitt, who, with an unparalleled ingenuity, has contrived to send
couriers to every town in France, to concert measures with the bankers
for this purpose. But if we may believe Barrere, one of the members of
the Committee, this atrocious policy of Mr. Pitt will not be unrevenged,
for another intercepted letter contains assurances that an hundred
thousand men have taken up arms in England, and are preparing to march
against the iniquitous metropolis that gives this obnoxious Minister
shelter.
My situation is still the same--I have no hope of returning to Amiens,
and have just reason to be apprehensive for my tranquillity here. I had
a long conversation this morning with two people whom Dumont has left
here to keep the town in order during his absence. The subject was to
prevail on them to give me a permission to leave Peronne, but I could not
succeed. They were not, I believe, indisposed to gratify me, but were
afraid of involving themselves. One of them expressed much partiality
for the English, but was very vehement in his disapprobation of their
form of government, which he said was "detestable." My cowardice did not
permit me to argue much in its behalf, (for I look upon these people as
more dangerous than the spies of the old police,) and I only ventured to
observe, with great diffidence, that though the English government was
monarchical, yet the power of the Crown was very much limited; and that
as the chief subjects of our complaints at present were not our
institutions, but certain practical errors, they might be remedied
without any violent or radical changes; and that our nobility were
neither numerous nor privileged, and by no means obnoxious to the
majority of the people.--_"Ah, vous avez donc de la noblesse blesse en
Angleterre, ce sont peut-etre les milords,"_ ["What, you have nobility in
England then? The milords, I suppose."] exclaimed our republican, and it
operated on my whole system of defence like my uncle Toby's smoke-jack,
for there was certainly no discussing the English constitution with a
political critic, who I found was ignorant even of the existence of a
third branch of it; yet this reformer of governments and abhorrer of
Kings has power delegated to him more extensive than those of an English
Sovereign, though I doubt if he can write his own language; and his moral
reputation is still less in his favour than his ignorance--for, previous
to the revolution, he was known only as a kind of swindler, and has more
than once been nearly convicted of forgery.--This is, however, the
description of people now chiefly employed, for no honest man would
accept of such commissions, nor perform the services annexed to them.
Bread continues very scarce, and the populace of Paris are, as usual,
very turbulent; so that the neighbouring departments are deprived of
their subsistence to satisfy the wants of a metropolis that has no claim
to an exemption from the general distress, but that which arises from the
fears of the Convention. As far as I have opportunity of learning or
observing, this part of France is in that state of tranquillity which is
not the effect of content but supineness; the people do not love their
government, but they submit to it, and their utmost exertions amount only
to a little occasional obstinacy, which a few dragoons always reduce to
compliance. We are sometimes alarmed by reports that parties of the
enemy are approaching the town, when the gates are shut, and the great
bell is toll'd; but I do not perceive that the people are violently
apprehensive about the matter. Their fears are, I believe, for the most
part, rather personal than political--they do not dread submission to the
Austrians, but military licentiousness.
I have been reading this afternoon Lord Orrery's definition of the male
Cecisbeo, and it reminds me that I have not yet noticed to you a very
important class of females in France, who may not improperly be
denominated female Cecisbeos. Under the old system, when the rank of a
woman of fashion had enabled her to preserve a degree of reputation and
influence, in spite of the gallantries of her youth and the decline of
her charms, she adopted the equivocal character I here allude to, and,
relinquishing the adorations claimed by beauty, and the respect due to
age, charitably devoted herself to the instruction and advancement of
some young man of personal qualifications and uncertain fortune. She
presented him to the world, panegyrized him into fashion, and insured his
consequence with one set of females, by hinting his successes with
another. By her exertions he was promoted in the army or distinguished
at the levee, and a career begun under such auspices often terminated in
a brilliant establishment.--In the less elevated circle, a female
Cecisbeo is usually of a certain age, of an active disposition, and great
volubility, and her functions are more numerous and less dignified. Here
the grand objects are not to besiege Ministers, nor give a "ton" to the
protege at a fashionable ruelle, but to obtain for him the solid
advantages of what she calls _"un bon parti."_ [A good match.] To this
end she frequents the houses of widows and heiresses, vaunts the docility
of his temper, and the greatness of his expectations, enlarges on the
solitude of widowhood, or the dependence and insignificance of a
spinster; and these prefatory encomiums usually end in the concerted
introduction of the Platonic "ami."
But besides these principal and important cares, a female Cecisbeo of the
middle rank has various subordinate ones--such as buying linen, choosing
the colour of a coat, or the pattern of a waistcoat, with all the
minutiae of the favourite's dress, in which she is always consulted at
least, if she has not the whole direction.
It is not only in the first or intermediate classes that these useful
females abound, they are equally common in more humble situations, and
only differ in their employments, not in their principles. A woman in
France, whatever be her condition, cannot be persuaded to resign her
influence with her youth; and the bourgeoise who has no pretensions to
court favour or the disposal of wealthy heiresses, attaches her eleve by
knitting him stockings, forcing him with bons morceaux till he has an
indigestion, and frequent regales of coffee and liqueur.
You must not conclude from all this that there is any gallantry implied,
or any scandal excited--the return for all these services is only a
little flattery, a philosophic endurance of the card-table, and some
skill in the disorders of lap-dogs. I know there are in England, as well
as in France, many notable females of a certain age, who delight in what
they call managing, and who are zealous in promoting, matches among the
young people of their acquaintance; but for one that you meet with in
England there are fifty here.
I doubt much if, upon the whole, the morals of the English women are not
superior to those of the French; but however the question may be decided
as to morals, I believe their superiority in decency of manners is
indisputable--and this superiority is, perhaps, more conspicuous in women
of a certain age, than in the younger part of the sex. We have a sort of
national regard for propriety, which deters a female from lingering on
the confines of gallantry, when age has warned her to withdraw; and an
old woman that should take a passionate and exclusive interest about a
young man not related to her, would become at least an object of
ridicule, if not of censure:--yet in France nothing is more common; every
old woman appropriates some youthful dangler, and, what is extraordinary,
his attentions are not distinguishable from those he would pay to a
younger object.--I should remark, however, as some apology for these
juvenile gallants, that there are very few of what we call Tabbies in
France; that is, females of severe principles and contracted features, in
whose apparel every pin has its destination with mathematical exactness,
who are the very watch-towers of a neighbourhood, and who give the alarm
on the first appearance of incipient frailty. Here, antique dowagers and
faded spinsters are all gay, laughing, rouged, and indulgent--so that
'bating the subtraction of teeth and addition of wrinkles, the disparity
between one score and four is not so great:
"Gay rainbow silks their mellow charms enfold,
Nought of these beauties but themselves is old."
I know if I venture to add a word in defence of Tabbyhood, I shall be
engaged in a war with yourself and all our young acquaintance; yet in
this age, which so liberally "softens, and blends, and weakens, and
dilutes" away all distinctions, I own I am not without some partiality
for strong lines of demarcation; and, perhaps, when fifty retrogrades
into fifteen, it makes a worse confusion in society than the toe of the
peasant treading on the heel of the courtier.--But, adieu: I am not gay,
though I trifle. I have learnt something by my residence in France, and
can be, as you see, frivolous under circumstances that ought to make me
grave.--Yours.
Peronne, August 29, 1793.