“Oh!” says he, “what a pity people should be so prejudiced!” One of the
most extraordinary properties belonging to Mr. Paine is the power of
retaining everything he has written during his life. He can repeat word
for word every sentence in his “Common Sense”--“Rights of Man”--“Age
of Reason” and others. This I attribute first to the unparalleled
slowness with which he composes every passage he writes, and secondly
to his dislike of reading other books than his own. Wonderful and
productive as his mechanical genius is, he assured me he never has read
anything on this subject. This he told me when showing me one day the
beautiful models of two bridges he had devised. These models exhibit an
extraordinary degree of skill and taste. They are wrought with extreme
delicacy, entirely by his own hands. The longest is nearly four feet
long, the iron work, the chains and every other article belonging to
it were forged and manufactured by himself. It is intended to be a
model for a bridge to span the Delaware extending 480 feet, with a
single arch. The other is to be erected over a lesser river (whose name
indeed I have forgotten), and is likewise a single arch of his own
workmanship, excepting the chains, which instead of iron are cut out
of paste-board, by the fair hands of his correspondent, “Little Corner
of the World.” He was offered £3000 sterling for those models, but has
refused it. He intends to dispose of them to the American Government.
The iron bars, I noticed in the corner of his room, are also forged
by himself, and as the model of a new description of crane. He put
them together and exhibited to me the power of a lever in a surprising
degree.
It would require the leisure and the memory of James Boswell himself
to relate in detail the conversations I had while in Paris with Thomas
Paine, or the opinions and anecdotes he recounted. I shall therefore
only conclude this account of him with a few words, respecting his
acquaintance with Bonaparte.
When the hero of Italy had returned to Paris, in order to take the
command of that “_Army of England_” (whose left wing he afterwards
conducted to the burning sands of Egypt instead of the Valley of
Thames) he called on Mr. Paine and invited him to dinner.
In the course of his rapturous ecstasies, he declared that a statue of
gold ought to be erected to him _in every city in the universe_;
he also assured Paine that he (Bonaparte) always slept with a copy of
the “Rights of Man” under his pillow, and conjured him to honour him
with his counsel and advice.
[Sidenote: BONAPARTE AND PAINE]
When the Military Council of Paris, who then directed the movements
of Bonaparte, came to a serious consultation about the invasion of
England, Mr. Paine was at the sitting by special invitation. After they
had ransacked all the plans, charts and projects of the Monarchical
Government, Bonaparte submitted to them that they should hear what
Citizen Paine had to say on the matter. They were, however, already
all of opinion that the measure was impracticable and dangerous in
idea, much more in attempt. General d’Arcor, a celebrated engineer
(who directed the siege of Gibraltar during the American War), was
one of this Council. He laughed at the project, and said there was
no Prince Charlie nowadays, and that they might as well attempt to
invade the moon as England, considering her superior fleet at sea.
“Ah! but,” exclaimed Bonaparte, “there will be a fog.” “Yes,” replied
d’Arcor, “but there will be an English fleet in that fog.” “Cannot we
pass?” said Bonaparte. “Doubtless,” answered the other, “if you dive
below twenty fathoms of water.” Then, looking steadfastly at the hero,
“General,” he continued, “the earth is ours, but _not_ the sea; we
must recruit our fleets before we can hope to make any impression on
England, and even then the enterprise would be fraught with perdition,
unless we could raise a diversion among the people.”
Then Bonaparte rose and said with dignity and emphasis: “That is the
very point I mean--here is Citizen Paine, who will tell you that the
whole English nation, except the Royal Family and the Hanoverians, who
have been created Peers of the Realm and absorb the landed property,
are ardently burning for fraternisation.”
Paine being called upon said: “It is now many years since I have been
in England, and therefore I can judge of it by what I knew when I was
there. I think the people are very disaffected, but I am sorry to add
that if the expedition should escape the fleet, I think the army would
be cut to pieces. The only way to kill England is to annihilate her
commerce.” This opinion was backed by all the Council, and Bonaparte,
turning to Paine, asked him how long it would take to annihilate
British commerce? Paine answered that everything depended on a Peace.
From that hour Bonaparte has never spoken to him again, and when he
returned from finishing his adventures in Egypt, he passed by him at a
grand dinner given to the Generals of the Republic a short time before
his usurpation, staring him in the face and then remarking in a loud
voice to General Lasnes, “The English are all alike, in every country
they are rascals” (_canailles_).
Mr. Paine thinks the Directorate determined upon the Egyptian
expedition in consequence of the rejection of the project to invade
England by the Council. The popularity of Bonaparte was so excessive
and his inflammatory and determined character so great that they
were glad to get rid of him in any way they could. Paine detests and
despises Bonaparte, and declares he is the completest charlatan that
ever existed.
[Sidenote: JOEL BARLOW]
Mr. Joel Barlow lives at No. 50, Rue Vaugirard, one of the finest
houses in Paris. As he was not at home when I first called, I inquired
of the servant if any one lived there besides Mr. Barlow, and was
answered that it was his own house and he had purchased it (it was
confiscated property and sold much below its value). The next day Mr.
Barlow called on me and invited us to visit him, when he received us
with great cordiality and showed us over his magnificent hotel. It
was however, wholly destitute of furniture, excepting four rooms,
occupied by himself and his family. He explained he had bought the
house some years previously, purely as a speculation, with the idea
that at the return of Peace he might sell it to some English ambassador
or nobleman, who should choose to reside in Paris, when he hoped to
get £6000 sterling instead of the 6000 livres Français he originally
gave for it. It certainly would suit an ambassador in point of
accommodation, and its situation is desirable. The lawn at the back,
consisting of two acres of pleasure ground, bordered by a shrubbery,
is bordered by fruit trees, but it is far from the centre of the city,
and I doubt he will get the price he asks, notwithstanding the influx
of strangers. He informed me that the instant he had disposed of this
property he intended to return to America with Mrs. Barlow. Of the
Republic and its rulers he entertains a profound contempt. Respecting
the English Government and its rulers, he said very little, but that
little was in their favour. He confessed his utter astonishment at the
exertions we had made during the War, and avowed that he had entirely
mistaken the financial resources and patriotic spirit of Great Britain.
“I have been calculating,” he said, “year by year the downfall of
the Government, and could not conceive it possible you could stand
up another year. Whenever I took up a paper and saw the Committee of
Ways and Means and read of your subsidies, I looked for a national
bankruptcy in the course of the ensuing twelve months. But when Mr.
Pitt came forward with the Income Tax, all the wise heads of this
metropolis (Paris) gave you over as lost, and I pronounced you saved.
When I saw the nation cheerfully submit to it, I was convinced you
might carry on the war for fifty years.” He spoke of Mr. Pitt in terms
which surprised me, and declared he believed in his conscience, if he
had dared to execute to the full extent of what he thought, he would
have succeeded in changing the face of Europe. “At all events,” said
he, “it cannot be denied that he has the merit of having saved the old
fabric (meaning the Constitution), if it be worth saving.”
On my asking what he thought of the Peace and our present situation,
he said that he saw nothing censurable in it, but had cut out plenty
of work for the French which he was sure they would never finish.
“If they do, woe betide you!” I asked for an explanation, and he
replied, “If the French Government are intent on Peace they will
set themselves seriously to work on their colonies; and such is the
activity of the French that they will soon repair their losses, create
a vast commerce, which their local possessions and influences will
facilitate, and they will end with a powerful navy.” On my noticing
that they had already excluded our commerce, he answered: “That will
just give you an idea what a set of fools they are. This false step
at the first start is a convincing proof they don’t know how to go to
work. The prohibition of your manufactories has created an avidity
for them. They should have opened a _free trade_ with you and
gradually cozened away your industry and mechanics. But this Government
is in such a confounded hurry that instead of sticking to any given
point, it attempts five hundred different projects and only succeeds in
one, enslaving the people!”
He thought the Peace might be permanent if any change took place in
the Government; but with Bonaparte at its head he was convinced it
could not be of long duration. For the First Consul is essentially
the creature of the army, and hungry generals and soldiers are hourly
importuning him. Unless he could find them employment they would employ
him.
I asked if he thought Bonaparte secure. He replied: “Not more so than
any of his predecessors; they are satisfied and grateful because he
does not use the guillotine, but we have not yet got to the end of the
third act of the Revolution. It is impossible to tell, but my guess is
it will end either in the complete subjugation of Europe or in a bloody
civil war between rival Generals, Republicans, Jacobins and Royalists,
and bring back out of its confusion a Royal establishment.”
The Abbé Costi is a phenomenon; he is eighty-four years of age, and
as frolicsome as a boy of eighteen. His reputation as the first poet
of Italy has long been established, and it is certain he would be now
Laureate to the First Consul had it not been for his enthusiastic
admiration for the principle of true liberty. We have frequently been
in his company, and have always found him in the same lively humour,
but it is rather unpleasant to hear him speak, as he has lost the
roof of his mouth. He is endeavouring to procure a subscription for a
splendid edition of his works, and proposes visiting England for that
purpose.
[Sidenote: DR. SUEDAEUR]
Dr. Suedaeur intended to have gone to Naples and established himself
there as a physician, but the sbirri of the Committee of Public Safety
arrested him as he was leaving France on foot and in disguise. They
gave him his choice--to go to prison and appear a day or two later
before the Revolutionary Tribunal, or to be a Director of a public
establishment in which some chemical operations were being carried out
for the use of the armies. The doctor naturally accepted the latter.
As soon as he had taken up his position in his new residence an order
came that he was _never_ to go out of the house on pain of being
instantly sent to prison. This was a cruel joke, as the doctor was of
course virtually a close prisoner during the eighteen months he was
superintending this factory. At length he was allowed to breathe the
fresh air, attended by a guard, and to visit certain patients; but
the guard attended him even into the chambers of the sick, even under
circumstances of peculiar delicacy. Upon his presenting a remonstrance
against this indecorum, he was sent straight to prison, with a promise
that he should be tried with the next batch of prisoners for conspiring
against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. After keeping
him in jail for some time, he was taken out of his bed at midnight,
put into a hackney coach and brought back to his lodging in the
Governmental establishment. The next morning, just as he was putting
things there a little in order, he was again arrested and carried
before the Committee of General Vigilance, of which the painter David
was a present member, who, giving him one of his snarling tiger grins,
asked him how he dared as a foreigner have his name inscribed at his
Section. While the doctor was endeavouring to explain, David accused
him of being an agent of Pitt, and he was remanded to prison. Two days
later a guard took him once more to the Committee of Public Safety, who
told him there had been a mistake in his affair.
It was a lucky thing the mistake was discovered, as on that very
morning all his fellow-prisoners were tried and found guilty of
conspiring against the Republic and summarily executed.
He was once again remanded to his Directorship and forbidden to leave
his lodgings.
At last an end came to those days of blood and peril, and the doctor
was liberated, after being duly ruined. Thrown upon the wide world at
his age, when something like comfort and ease had become necessary, he
found he had to beat up again his learning through life.
Sometimes he thought of going to America or England. A mere accident
repaired his fortunes. A female personage of high consequence was
suddenly taken ill in her husband’s absence. Suedaeur attended and
cured her. He was thenceforward recommended and pushed among the
Governmental people. He now keeps his carriage, and makes, as he tells
me, over 50,000 livres (£2000 sterling) per annum.
The effect of his sufferings is, however, very apparent. He looks older
than his years. He has lost his vivacity and his tongue is sealed on
politics, in which he declares he will never more have any concern.
But he told us many histories of the Terror, and one which struck me
as peculiarly sad and horrible I will relate, because it concerns an
Englishman.
Young L---- (whose mother is still alive and resides in London) was
sent to Paris in order to polish and keep him out of harm’s way. I
remember him well; he was a good-natured lad, very incautious, and
possessed of great simplicity of manners. He was a most impassioned
English patriot, and openly cursed the French and their measures,
for which indiscretion Suedaeur remonstrated with him in vain. The
Committee of Public Safety, wanting some English heads for exhibition,
ordered his arrestation. Suedaeur visited him in prison. He was always
merry, full of the heyday of youth, and continued to _blaspheme_
the French Republic. “Rule Britannia” and “God Save the King” were the
favourite songs with which he made his prison walls resound. But these
very songs proved him to be a “serf” of King George and an agent of
Pitt. It was evident, said Fouquier-Tainville, the Public Accuser, that
he was engaged in a conspiracy to destroy the unity and indivisibility
of the Republic. Accordingly he was brought before the Revolutionary
Tribunal, with a vast number of other persons of both sexes, among whom
was Colonel Newton, who was sentenced to death for playing at cards.[14]
[Sidenote: EXECUTION OF COLONEL NEWTON]
As the poor youth knew scarcely anything of the French language, he
was quite unaware of what passed. They asked him no questions, merely
sentenced him to die. When he returned to prison he was as unconcerned
and gay as ever, for he had not the most distant idea he had ever been
tried. The next morning he was led down into the courtyard, where the
fatal cart, attended by gens-d’armes awaited him. At the same instant
Dr. Suedaeur entered the prison to take a last adieu of him and
Colonel Newton. Colonel Newton was seated in the cart already, bound
and looking very dejected. The spectacle of Newton bound and in that
situation surprised and startled the young man, who inquired where they
were going to take him. He could not make himself understood, as he
did not speak French. At that instant Suedaeur overwhelmed with grief,
came up to him. He asked hastily, “Dr. Suedaeur! what are they going
to do with me?” “My poor lost boy,” said Suedaeur, quite overcome and
bursting into tears, “you are going to instant death!” “To death!” he
cried, “I have not been tried!” Then wringing his hands, he exclaimed,
“Oh God! Oh God!” and swooned away in the arms of the doctor. While
in this condition he was flung into the cart. He recovered before he
reached the scaffold, and cried more bitterly. Colonel Newton (who
had long served under Suwarroff, and received twelve wounds at the
storming of Ishmael, and was colonel of the Regiment of Dragoons which
guarded the King to the scaffold), pitying the distress of the youth,
employed the last moments of his existence in administering comfort
to him. But Nature was uppermost, the misery of his afflicted mother
rushed into his mind, and he did not cease to exclaim: “My poor mother!
my poor mother!” until the fatal axe closed his eyes upon this world.
His person was extremely prepossessing, and the sight of his unaltered
countenance was enough to wring a tear from a heart of stone. He was
but eighteen years of age, and the only child of his widowed mother.