by accident, that a man, who formerly worked with the Marquis's tailor,
having (in consequence, I suppose of a political vocation,) quitted the
selling of old clothes, in which he had acquired some eminence, has
become a leading patriot, and is one of Le Bon's, the Representative's,
privy counsellors. Fleury has renewed his acquaintance with this man,
has consulted him upon our situation, and obtained a promise that he will
use his interest with Le Bon in our behalf. Under this splendid
patronage, it is not unlikely but we may get an order to be transferred
to Amiens, or, perhaps, procure our entire liberation. We have already
written to Le Bon on the subject, and Fleury is to have a conference with
our friend the tailor in a few days to learn the success of his
mediation; so that, I trust, the business will not be long in suspense.
We have had a most indulgent guard to-day, who, by suffering the servant
to enter a few paces within the gate, afforded us an opportunity of
hearing this agreeable intelligence; as also, by way of episode, that
boots being wanted for the cavalry, all the boots in the town were last
night put in requisition, and as Fleury was unluckily gone to bed before
the search was made at his inn, he found himself this morning very
unceremoniously left bootless. He was once a famous patriot, and the
oracle of Mad. de ____'s household; but our confinement had already
shaken his principles, and this seizure of his "superb English boots"
has, I believe, completed his defection.
Oct. 25.
I have discontinued my journal for three days to attend my friend, Mad.
de ____, who has been ill. Uneasiness, and want of air and exercise, had
brought on a little fever, which, by the usual mode of treatment in this
country, has been considerably increased. Her disorder did not indeed
much alarm me, but I cannot say as much of her medical assistants, and it
seems to me to be almost supernatural that she has escaped the jeopardy
of their prescriptions. In my own illness I had trusted to nature, and
my recollection of what had been ordered me on similar occasions; but for
Mad. de ____ I was less confident, and desirous of having better advice,
begged a physician might be immediately sent for. Had her disorder been
an apoplexy, she must infallibly have died, for as no person, not even
the faculty, can enter, without an order from the municipal Divan, half a
day elapsed before this order could be procured. At length the physician
and surgeon arrived, and I know not why the learned professions should
impose on us more by one exterior than another; but I own, when I saw the
physician appear in a white camblet coat, lined with rose colour, and the
surgeon with dirty linen, and a gold button and loop to his hat, I began
to tremble for my friend. My feminine prejudices did not, however, in
this instance, deceive me. After the usual questions, the patient was
declared in a fever, and condemned to cathartics, bleeding, and "bon
bouillons;" that is to say, greasy beef soup, in which there is never an
oeconomy of onions.--When they were departed, I could not help expressing
my surprize that people's lives should be entrusted to such hands,
observing, at the same time, to the Baron de L____, (who is lodged in the
same apartment with Mad. de ____,) that the French must never expect men,
whose education fitted them for the profession, would become physicians,
while they continued to be paid at the rate of twenty-pence per visit.--
Yet, replied the Baron, if they make twenty visits a day, they gain forty
livres--_"et c'est de quoi vivre."_ [It is a living.] It is undeniably
_de quoi vivre,_ but as long as a mere subsistence is the only prospect
of a physician, the French must be content to have their fevers cured by
"drastics, phlebotomy, and beef soup."
They tell me we have now more than five hundred detenus in this single
house. How so many have been wedged in I can scarcely conceive, but it
seems our keeper has the art of calculating with great nicety the space
requisite for a given number of bodies, and their being able to respire
freely is not his affair. Those who can afford it have their dinners,
with all the appurtenances, brought from the inns or traiteurs; and the
poor cook, sleep, and eat, by scores, in the same room. I have persuaded
my friend to sup as I do, upon tea; but our associates, for the most
part, finding it inconvenient to have suppers brought at night, and being
unwilling to submit to the same privations, regale themselves with the
remains of their dinner, re-cooked in their apartments, and thus go to
sleep, amidst the fumes of _perdrix a l'onion, oeufs a la tripe,_
[Partridge a l'onion--eggs a la tripe.] and all the produce of a French
kitchen.
It is not, as you may imagine, the Bourgeois, and less distinguished
prisoners only, who indulge in these highly-seasoned repasts, at the
expence of inhaling the savoury atmosphere they leave behind them: the
beaux and petites mistresses, among the ci-devant, have not less exigent
appetites, nor more delicate nerves; and the ragout is produced at night,
in spite of the odours and disorder that remain till the morrow.
I conclude, notwithstanding your English prejudices, that there is
nothing unwholesome in filth, for if it were otherwise, I cannot account
for our being alive. Five hundred bodies, in a state of coacervation,
without even a preference for cleanliness, "think of that Master Brook."
All the forenoon the court is a receptacle for cabbage leaves, fish
scales, leeks, &c. &c.--and as a French chambermaid usually prefers the
direct road to circumambulation, the refuse of the kitchen is then washed
away by plentiful inundations from the dressing-room--the passages are
blockaded by foul plates, fragments, and bones; to which if you add the
smell exhaling from hoarded apples and gruyere cheese, you may form some
notion of the sufferings of those whose olfactory nerves are not robust.
Yet this is not all--nearly every female in the house, except myself, is
accompanied even here by her lap-dog, who sleeps in her room, and, not
unfrequently, on her bed; and these Lesbias and Lindamiras increase the
insalubrity of the air, and colonize one's stockings by sending forth
daily emigrations of fleas. For my own part, a few close November days
will make me as captious and splenetic as Matthew Bramble himself.
Nothing keeps me in tolerable good humour at present, but a clear frosty
morning, or a high wind.
Oct. 27.
I thought, when I wrote the above, that the house was really so full as
to be incapable of containing more; but I did not do justice to the
talents of our keeper. The last two nights have brought us an addition
of several waggon loads of nuns, farmers, shopkeepers, &c. from the
neighbouring towns, which he has still contrived to lodge, though much in
the way that he would pack goods in bales. Should another convoy arrive,
it is certain that we must sleep perpendicularly, for even now, when the
beds are all arranged and occupied for the night, no one can make a
diagonal movement without disturbing his neighbour.--This very sociable
manner of sleeping is very far, I assure you, from promoting the harmony
of the day; and I am frequently witness to the reproaches and
recriminations occasioned by nocturnal misdemeanours. Sometimes the
lap-dog of one dowager is accused of hostilities against that of
another, and thereby producing a general chorus of the rest--then a
four-footed favourite strays from the bed of his mistress, and takes
possession of a General's uniform--and there are female somnambules, who
alarm the modesty of a pair of Bishops, and suspended officers, that,
like Richard, warring in their dreams, cry "to arms," to the great
annoyance of those who are more inclined to sleep in peace. But, I
understand, the great disturbers of the room where Mad. de ____ sleeps
are two chanoines, whose noses are so sonorous and so untuneable as to
produce a sort of duet absolutely incompatible with sleep; and one of
the company is often deputed to interrupt the serenade by manual
application _mais tout en badinant et avec politesse_ [But all in
pleasantry, and with politeness.] to the offending parties.
All this, my dear brother, is only ludicrous in the relation; yet for so
many people to be thus huddled together without distinction of age, sex,
or condition, is truly miserable.--Mad. De ____ is still indisposed, and
while she is thus suffocated by bad air, and distracted by the various
noises of the house, I see no prospect of her recovery.
Arras is the common prison of the department, and, besides, there are a
number of other houses and convents in the town appropriated to the same
use, and all equally full. God knows when these iniquities are to
terminate! So far from having any hopes at present, the rage for
arresting seems, I think, rather to increase than subside. It is
supposed there are now more than three hundred thousand people in France
confined under the simple imputation of being what is called "gens
suspect:" but as this generic term is new to you, I will, by way of
explanation, particularize the several species as classed by the
Convention, and then described by Chaumette, solicitor for the City of
Paris;*--
* Decree concerning suspected people:
"Art. I. Immediately after the promulgation of the present decree,
all suspected persons that are found on the territory of the
republic, and who are still at large, shall be put under arrest.
"II. Those are deemed suspicious, who by their connections, their
conversation, or their writings, declare themselves partizans of
tyranny or foederation, and enemies to liberty--Those who have not
demonstrated their means of living or the performance of their civic
duties, in the manner prescribed by the law of March last--Those
who, having been suspended from public employments by the Convention
or its Commissioners, are not reinstated therein--Those of the
ci-devant noblesse, who have not invariably manifested their
attachment to the revolution, and, in general, all the fathers,
mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and agents of
emigrants--All who have emigrated between the 1st of July, 1789,
and 8th of April, 1792.
"III. The execution of the decree is confided to the Committee of
Inspection. The individuals arrested shall be taken to the houses
of confinement appointed for their reception. They are allowed to
take with them such only of their effects as are strictly necessary,
the guards set upon them shall be paid at their expence, and they
shall be kept in confinement until the peace.--The Committees of
Inspection shall, without delay, transmit to the Committee of
General Safety an account of the persons arrested, with the motives
of their arrest. [If this were observed (which I doubt much) it was
but a mockery, few persons ever knew the precise reason of their
confinement.]--The civil and criminal tribunals are empowered, when
they deem it necessary, to detain and imprison, as suspected
persons, those who being accused of crimes have nevertheless had no
bill found against them, (lieu a accusation,) or who have even been
tried and acquitted."
Indications that may serve to distinguish suspicious persons, and those
to whom it will be proper to refuse certificates of civism:
"I. Those who in popular assemblies check the ardour of the people
by artful speeches, by violent exclamations or threats.
"II. Those who with more caution speak in a mysterious way of the
public misfortunes, who appear to pity the lot of the people, and
are ever ready to spread bad news with an affectation of concern.
"III. Those who adapt their conduct and language to the
circumstances of the moment--who, in order to be taken for
republicans, put on a studied austerity of manners, and exclaim with
vehemence against the most trifling error in a patriot, but mollify
when the crimes of an Aristocrate or a Moderee are the subject of
complaint. [These trifling events were, being concerned in the
massacres of September, 1792--public peculations--occasional, and
even habitual robbery, forgeries, &c. &c. &c.--The second, fourth,
fifth, sixth, and seventh classes, were particularly numerous,
insomuch that I doubt whether they would not have included
nineteen-twentieths of all the people in France who were honest
or at all capable of reflection.]
"IV. Those who pity avaricious farmers and shopkeepers, against
whom the laws have been necessarily directed.
"V. Those who with the words liberty, country, republic, &c.
constantly in their mouths, hold intercourse with ci-devant Nobles,
Contre-revolutionnaires, Priests, Aristocrates, Feuillans, &c. and
take an interest in their concerns.
"VI. Those who not having borne an active part in the revolution,
endeavour to excuse themselves by urging the regular payment of
their taxes, their patriotic gifts, and their service in the Garde
National by substitute or otherwise.
"VII. Those who received the republican constitution with coolness,
or who intimated their pretended apprehensions for its establishment
and duration.
"VIII. Those who, having done nothing against liberty, have done as
little for it.
"IX. Those who do not frequent the assembly of their section, and
offer, for excuse, that they are no orators, or have no time to
spare from their own business.
"X. Those who speak with contempt of the constituted authorities,
of the rigour of the laws, of the popular societies, and the
defenders of liberty.
"XI. Those who have signed anti-revolutionary petitions, or any
time frequented unpatriotic clubs, or were known as partizans of La
Fayette, and accomplices in the affair of the Champ de Mars."
--and it must be allowed by all who reside in France at this moment, and
are capable of observing the various forms under which hatred for the
government shelters itself, that the latter is a chef d'oeuvre in its
kind.
Now, exclusive of the above legal and moral indications of people to be
suspected, there are also outward and visible signs which we are told
from the tribune of the Convention, and the Jacobins, are not much less
infallible--such as _Gens a bas de soie rayes mouchetes--a chapeau rond--
habit carre--culotte pincee etroite--a bottes cirees--les muscadins--
Freloquets--Robinets, &c._ [People that wear spotted or striped silk
stockings--round hats--small coats--tight breeches--blacked boots--
perfumes--coxcombs--sprigs of the law, &c.] The consequence of making
the cut of a man's coat, or the shape of his hat, a test of his political
opinions, has been the transformation of the whole country into
republicans, at least as far as depends on the costume; and where, as is
natural, there exists a consciousness of inveterate aristocracy, the
external is more elaborately "a la Jacobin." The equipment, indeed, of a
French patriot of the latest date is as singular as his manners, and in
both he is highly distinguishable from the inhabitants of any other
country: from those of civilized nations, because he is gross and
ferocious--from those of barbarous ones, because his grossness is often
affected, and his ferocity a matter of principle and preference.
A man who would not be reckoned suspect now arrays himself in a jacket
and trowsers (a Carmagnole) of striped cotton or coarse cloth, a
neckcloth of gaudy cotton, wadded like a horse-collar, and projecting
considerably beyond his chin, a cap of red and blue cloth, embroidered in
front and made much in the form of that worn by the Pierrot of a
pantomime, with one, or sometimes a pair, of ear-rings, about the size of
a large curtain-ring! Finally, he crops his hair, and carefully
encourages the growth of an enormous pair of whiskers, which he does not
fail to perfume with volumes of tobacco smoke. He, however, who is
ambitious of still greater eminence, disdains these fopperies, and
affects an appearance of filth and rags, which he dignifies with the
appellation of stern republicanism and virtuous poverty; and thus, by
means of a thread-bare coat out at elbows, wooden shoes, and a red
woollen cap, the rich hope to secure their wealth, and the covetous and
intriguing to acquire lucrative employment.--Rolland, I think, was the
founder of these modern Franciscans, and with this miserable affectation
he machinated the death of the King, and, during some months, procured
for himself the exclusive direction of the government.
All these patriots by prescription and system have likewise a peculiar
and appropriated dialect--they address every one by the title of Citizen,
thee and thou indistinctly, and talk of nothing but the agents of Pitt
and Cobourg, the coalesced tyrants, royal ogres, satellites of the
despots, automaton slaves, and anthropophagi; and if they revert to their
own prosperous state, and this very happy country, it is, _un peuple
libre, en peuple heureux, and par excellence la terre de la liberte._
["A free people--a happy people--and, above all others, the land of
liberty."]--It is to be observed, that those with whom these pompous
expressions are most familiar, are officers employed in the war-like
service of mutilating the wooden saints in churches, and arresting old
women whom they encounter without national cockades; or members of the
municipalities, now reduced to execute the offices of constables, and
whose chief functions are to hunt out suspected people, or make
domiciliary visits in quest of concealed eggs and butter. But, above
all, this democratic oratory is used by tailors, shoemakers, &c.* of the
Committees of Inspection, to whom the Representatives on mission have
delegated their unlimited powers, who arrest much on the principle of
Jack Cade, and with whom it is a crime to read and write, or to appear
decently dressed.
* For some months the departments were infested by people of this
description--corrupt, ignorant, and insolent. Their motives of
arrest were usually the hope of plunder, or the desire of
distressing those whom they had been used to look upon as their
superiors.--At Arras it sufficed even to have disobliged the wives
of these miscreants to become the object of persecution. In some
places they arrested with the most barbarous caprice, even without
the shadow of a reason. At Hesden, a small town in Artois, Dumont
left the Mayor carte blanche, and in one night two hundred people
were thrown into prison. Every where these low and obscure
dominators reigned without controul, and so much were the people
intimidated, that instead of daring to complain, they treated their
new tyrants with the most servile adulation.--I have seen a
ci-devant Comtesse coquetting with all her might a Jacobin tailor,
and the richest merchants of a town soliciting very humbly the good
offices of a dealer in old clothes.
These ridiculous accoutrements, and this magnificent phraseology, are in
themselves very harmless; but the ascendancy which such a class of people
are taking has become a subject of just alarm.--The whole administration
of the country is now in the hands of uninformed and necessitous
profligates, swindlers, men already condemned by the laws, and who, if
the revolution had not given them "place and office," would have been at
the galleys, or in prison.*
* One of the administrators of the department de la Somme (which,
however, was more decently composed than many others,) was, before
the revolution, convicted of house-breaking, and another of forgery;
and it has since been proved on various occasions, particularly on
the trial of the ninety-four Nantais, that the revolutionary
Committees were, for the most part, composed of the very refuse of
society--adventurers, thieves, and even assassins; and it would be
difficult to imagine a crime that did not there find reward and
protection.--In vain were the privileges of the nobility abolished,
and religion proscribed. A new privileged order arose in the
Jacobins, and guilt of every kind, without the semblance of
penitence, found an asylum in these Committees, and an inviolability
more sacred than that afforded by the demolished altars.
To these may be added a few men of weak character, and unsteady
principles, who remain in office because they fear to resign; with a few,
and but very few, ignorant fanatics, who really imagine they are free
because they can molest and destroy with impunity all they have hitherto
been taught to respect, and drink treble the quantity they did formerly.
Oct. 30.
For some days the guards have been so untractable, and the croud at the
door has been so great, that Fleury was obliged to make various efforts
before he could communicate the result of his negotiation. He has at
length found means to inform us, that his friend the tailor had exerted
all his interest in our favour, but that Dumont and Le Bon (as often
happens between neighbouring potentates) are at war, and their enmity
being in some degree subject to their mutual fears, neither will venture
to liberate any prisoner arrested by the other, lest such a disposition
to clemency should be seized on by his rival as a ground of accusation.*
* But if they did not free the enemies of each other, they revenged
themselves by throwing into prison all their mutual friends--for the
temper of the times was such, that, though these Representatives
were expressly invested with unlimited powers, they did not venture
to set any one at liberty without a multitude of forms and a long
attendance: on the contrary, they arrested without any form at all,
and allowed their myrmidons to harrass and confine the persons and
sequester the property of all whom they judged proper.--It seemed to
have been an elementary principle with those employed by the
government at this time, that they risked nothing in doing all the
mischief they could, and that they erred only in not doing enough.
--All, therefore, that can be obtained is, a promise to have us removed
to Amiens in a short time; and I understand the detenus are there treated
with consideration, and that no tribunal revolutionnaire has yet been
established.
My mind will be considerably more at ease if this removal can be
effected. Perhaps we may not be in more real danger here than at any
other place, but it is not realities that constitute the misery of life;
and situated as we are, that imagination must be phlegmatic indeed, which
does not create and exaggerate enough to prevent the possibility of
ease.--We are, as I before observed, placed as it were within the
jurisdiction of the guillotine; and I have learned "a secret of our
prison-house" to-day which Mad. de ____ had hitherto concealed from me,
and which has rendered me still more anxious to quit it. Several of our
fellow prisoners, whom I supposed only transferred to other houses, have
been taken away to undergo the ceremony of a trial, and from thence to
the scaffold. These judicial massacres are now become common, and the
repetition of them has destroyed at once the feeling of humanity and the
sense of justice. Familiarized to executions, the thoughtless and
sanguinary people behold with equal indifference the guilty or innocent
victim; and the Guillotine has not only ceased to be an object of horror,
but is become almost a source of amusement.