VISIT TO PARIS.
1792-1793.
The "Vindication of the Rights of Women" made Mary still more generally
known. Its fame spread far and wide, not only at home but abroad, where
it was translated into German and French. Like Paine's "Rights of Man,"
or Malthus' "Essay on the Theory of Population," it advanced new
doctrines which threatened to overturn existing social relations, and it
consequently struck men with fear and wonder, and evoked more censure
than praise. To-day, after many years' agitation, the question of women's
rights still creates contention. The excitement caused by the first word
in its favor may, therefore, be easily imagined. If one of the bondsmen
helping to drag stones for the pyramids, or one of the many thousand
slaves in Athens, had claimed independence, Egyptians or Greeks could not
have been more surprised than Englishmen were at a woman's assertion
that, mentally, she was man's equal. Some were disgusted with such a bold
breaking of conventional chains; a few were startled into admiration.
Much of the public amazement was due not only to the principles of the
book, but to its warmth and earnestness. As Miss Thackeray says, the
English authoresses of those days "kept their readers carefully at pen's
length, and seemed for the most part to be so conscious of their
surprising achievement in the way of literature, as never to forget for a
single minute that they were in print." But here was a woman who wrote
eloquently from her heart, who told people boldly what she thought upon
subjects of which her sex, as a rule, pretended to know nothing, and who
forgot herself in her interest in her work. It was natural that curiosity
was felt as to what manner of being she was, and that curiosity changed
into surprise when, instead of the virago expected, she was found to be,
to use Godwin's words, "lovely in her person, and, in the best and most
engaging sense, feminine in her manners." The fable was in this case
reversed. It was the sheep who had appeared in wolf's clothing.
In her own circle of friends and acquaintances she was lionized. Some of
her readers were converted into enthusiasts. One of these--a Mr. John
Henry Colls--a few years later addressed a poem to her. However, his
admiration unfortunately did not teach him justly to appreciate its
object, nor to write good poetry, and his verses have been deservedly
forgotten. The reputation she had won by her answer to Burke was now
firmly established. She was respected as an independent thinker and a
bold dealer with social problems. The "Analytical Review" praised her in
a long and leading criticism.
"The lesser wits," her critic writes, "will probably affect to make
themselves merry at the title and apparent object of this
publication; but we have no doubt, if even her contemporaries
should fail to do her justice, posterity will compensate the
defect; and have no hesitation in declaring that if the bulk of
the great truths which this publication contains were reduced to
practice, the nation would be better, wiser, and happier than it is
upon the wretched, trifling, useless, and absurd system of
education which is now prevalent."
But the conservative avoided her and her book as moral plagues. Many
people would not even look at what she had written. Satisfied with the
old-fashioned way of treating the subjects therein discussed, they would
not run the risk of finding out that they were wrong. Their attitude in
this respect was much the same as that of Cowper when he refused to read
Paine's "Rights of Man." "No man," he said, "shall convince me that I am
improperly governed, while I feel the contrary."
Women then, even the cleverest and most liberal, bowed to the decrees of
custom with a submission as servile as that of the Hindu to the laws of
caste. Like the latter, they were contented with their lot and had no
desire to change it. They dreaded the increase of knowledge which would
bring with it greater sorrow. Mrs. Barbauld, eloquent in her defence of
men's rights, could conceive no higher aim for women than the attainment
of sufficient knowledge to make them _agreeable_ companions to their
husbands and brothers. Should there be any deviation from the methods of
education which insured this end, they would, she feared, become like the
_Precieuses_ or _Femmes Savantes_ of Moliere. Mary's vigorous appeal for
improvement could, therefore, have no meaning for her. Hannah More,
enthusiastic in her denunciations of slavery, but unconscious that her
liberty was in the least restricted, did not hesitate to form an opinion
of the "Rights of Women" without examining it, thus necessarily missing
its true significance. In this she doubtless represented a large majority
of her sex. She wrote to Horace Walpole in 1793:--
"I have been much pestered to read the 'Rights of Women,' but am
invincibly resolved not to do it. Of all jargon, I hate
metaphysical jargon; beside, there is something fantastic and
absurd in the very title. How many ways there are of being
ridiculous! I am sure I have as much liberty as I can make a good
use of, now I am an old maid; and when I was a young one I had, I
dare say, more than was good for me. If I were still young, perhaps
I should not make this confession; but so many women are fond of
government, I suppose, because they are not fit for it. To be
unstable and capricious, I really think, is but too characteristic
of our sex; and there is, perhaps, no animal so much indebted to
subordination for its good behavior as woman. I have soberly and
uniformly maintained this doctrine ever since I have been capable
of observation, and I used horridly to provoke some of my female
friends--_maitresses femmes_--by it, especially such heroic spirits
as poor Mrs. Walsingham."
Men, on the other hand, thought Mary was unsexing herself by her
arguments, which seemed to interfere with _their_ rights,--an
interference they could not brook. To the Tories the fact that she
sympathized with the Reformers was enough to damn her. Walpole, when he
answered the letter from which the above extract is taken, wrote with
warmth:--
"... It is better to thank Providence for the tranquillity and
happiness we enjoy in this country, in spite of the philosophizing
serpents we have in our bosom, the Paines, the Tookes, and the
Wollstonecrafts. I am glad you have not read the tract of the
last-mentioned writer. I would not look at it, though assured it
contains neither metaphysics nor politics; but as she entered the
lists of the latter, and borrowed her title from the demon's book
which aimed at spreading the _wrongs_ of men, she is excommunicated
from the pale of my library. We have had enough of new systems, and
the world a great deal too much already."
Walpole may be accepted as the typical Tory, and to all his party Mary
probably appeared as the "philosophizing serpent." She seems always to
have incurred his deepest scorn and wrath. He could not speak of her
without calling her names. A year or two later, when she had published
her book on the French Revolution, writing again to Hannah More, he thus
concludes his letter:--
"Adieu, thou excellent woman! thou reverse of that hyena in
petticoats, Mrs. Wollstonecraft, who to this day discharges her ink
and gall on Marie Antoinette, whose unparalleled sufferings have
not yet stanched that Alecto's blazing ferocity."
There was at least one man in London whose opinion was worth having who,
it is known, treated the book with indifference, and he, by a strange
caprice of fate, was William Godwin. It was at this time, when she was in
the fulness of her fame, that Mary first met him. She was dining at
Johnson's with Paine and Shovet, and Godwin had come purposely to meet
the American philosopher and to hear him talk. But Paine was at best a
silent man; and Mary, it seems, monopolized the conversation. Godwin was
disappointed, and consequently the impression she made upon him was not
pleasing. He afterwards wrote an account of this first meeting, which is
interesting because of the closer relationship to which an acquaintance
so unpropitiously begun was to lead.
"The interview was not fortunate," he says. "Mary and myself parted
mutually displeased with each other. I had not read her 'Rights of
Women.' I had barely looked into her answer to Burke, and been
displeased, as literary men are apt to be, with a few offences
against grammar and other minute points of composition. I had
therefore little curiosity to see Mrs. Wollstonecraft, and a very
great curiosity to see Thomas Paine. Paine, in his general habits,
is no great talker; and, though he threw in occasionally some
shrewd and striking remarks, the conversation lay principally
between me and Mary. I, of consequence, heard her very frequently
when I wished to hear Paine.
"We touched on a considerable variety of topics and particularly on
the character and habits of certain eminent men. Mary, as has
already been observed, had acquired, in a very blamable degree, the
practice of seeing everything on the gloomy side, and bestowing
censure with a plentiful hand, where circumstances were in any
degree doubtful. I, on the contrary, had a strong propensity to
favorable construction, and, particularly where I found unequivocal
marks of genius, strongly to incline to the supposition of generous
and manly virtue. We ventilated in this way the character of
Voltaire and others, who have obtained from some individuals an
ardent admiration, while the greater number have treated them with
extreme moral severity. Mary was at last provoked to tell me that
praise, lavished in the way that I lavished it, could do no credit
either to the commended or the commender. We discussed some
questions on the subject of religion, in which her opinions
approached much nearer to the received ones than mine. As the
conversation proceeded, I became dissatisfied with the tone of my
own share in it. We touched upon all topics without treating
forcibly and connectedly upon any. Meanwhile, I did her the
justice, in giving an account of the conversation to a party in
which I supped, though I was not sparing of my blame, to yield her
the praise of a person of active and independent thinking. On her
side, she did me no part of what perhaps I considered as justice.
"We met two or three times in the course of the following year, but
made a very small degree of progress towards a cordial
acquaintance."
Not until Mary had lived through the tragedy of her life were they
destined to become more to each other than mere fellow mortals. There was
much to be learned, and much to be forgotten, before the time came for
her to give herself into his keeping.
Her family were naturally interested in her book from personal motives;
but Eliza and Everina heartily disapproved of it, and their feelings for
their eldest sister became, from this period, less and less friendly.
However, as Kegan Paul says, their small spite points to envy and
jealousy rather than to honest indignation.
Both were now in good situations. Mary felt free, therefore, to consider
her own comforts a little. Besides, she had attained a position which it
became her to sustain with dignity. She was now known as _Mrs._
Wollstonecraft, and was a prominent figure in the literary world. Shortly
after the publication of the "Rights of Women" she moved from the modest
lodgings on George Street, to larger, finer rooms on Store Street,
Bedford Square, and these she furnished comfortably. Necessity was no
longer her only standard. She also gave more care to her dress. Her stern
apprenticeship was over. She had so successfully trampled upon the
thorns in her path that she could pause to enjoy the flowers. To modern
readers her new furniture and gowns are welcome signs of the awakening of
the springtime in her cold and wintry life. But her sisters resented
them, particularly because, while they, needing less, received less from
her bounty, Charles, waiting for a good opening in America, was living at
her expense. He, with thoughtless ingratitude, sent them semi-satirical
accounts of her new mode of living, and thus unconsciously kindled their
jealousy into a fierce flame. When the extent of Mary's kindness and
self-sacrifice in their regard is remembered, the petty ill-nature of
brother and sisters, as expressed in the following letter from Mrs.
Bishop to Everina, is unpardonable:--
UPTON CASTLE, July 3, 1792.
... He [Charles] informs me too that _Mrs. Wollstonecraft_ is grown
quite handsome; he adds likewise that, being conscious she is on
the wrong side of thirty, she now endeavors to set off those charms
she once despised, to the best advantage. This, _entre nous_, for
he is delighted with her affection and kindness to him.
So the author of "The Rights of Women" is going to France! I dare
say her chief motive is to promote poor Bess's comfort, or thine,
my girl, or at least I think she will so reason. Well, in spite of
reason, when Mrs. W. reaches the Continent she will be but a woman!
I cannot help painting her in the height of all her wishes, at the
very summit of happiness, for will not ambition fill every chink of
her great soul (for such I really think hers) that is not occupied
by love? After having drawn this sketch, you can hardly suppose me
so sanguine as to expect my pretty face will be thought of when
matters of State are in agitation, yet I know you think such a
miracle not impossible. I wish I could think it at all probable,
but, alas! it has so much the appearance of castle-building that I
think it will soon disappear like the "baseless fabric of a vision,
and leave not a wrack behind."
And you actually have the vanity to imagine that in the National
Assembly, personages like M. and F.[useli] will bestow a thought on
two females whom nature meant to "suckle fools and chronicle small
beer."
But a few days before Mary had written to Everina to discuss with her a
matter relative to Mrs. Bishop's prospects. This letter explains the
allusions of the latter to Mary's proposed trip to France, and shows how
little reason she had for her ill-natured conclusions:--
LONDON, June 20, 1792.
... I have been considering what you say respecting Eliza's
residence in France. For some time past Mr. and Mrs. Fuseli, Mr.
Johnson, and myself have talked of a summer excursion to Paris; it
is now determined on, and we think of going in about six weeks. I
shall be introduced to many people. My book has been translated,
and praised in some popular prints, and Mr. Fuseli of course is
well known; it is then very probable that I shall hear of some
situation for Eliza, and I shall be on the watch. We intend to be
absent only six weeks; if then I fix on an eligible situation for
her she may avoid the Welsh winter. This journey will not lead me
into any extraordinary expense, or I should put it off to a more
convenient season, for I am not, as you may suppose, very flush of
money, and Charles is wearing out the clothes which were provided
for his voyage. Still, I am glad he has acquired a little practical
knowledge of farming....
The French trip was, however, put off until the following December; and
when the time came for her departure, neither Mr. Johnson nor the
Fuselis accompanied her. Since the disaffection of the latter has been
construed in a way which reflects upon her character, it is necessary to
pause here to consider the nature of the friendship which existed between
them. The slightest shadow unfairly cast upon her reputation must be
dissipated.
Mary valued Fuseli as one of her dearest friends. He, like her, was an
enthusiast. He was a warm partisan of justice and a rebel against
established institutions. He would take any steps to see that the rights
of the individual were respected. His interference in a case where men in
subordinate positions were defrauded by those in authority, but which did
not affect him personally, was the cause of his being compelled to leave
Zurich, his home, and thus eventually of his coming to England. Besides
their unity of thought and feeling, their work often lay in the same
direction. Fuseli, as well as Mary, translated for Johnson, and
contributed to the "Analytical Review." He was an intimate friend of
Lavater, whose work on Physiognomy Mary had translated with the liveliest
interest. There was thus a strong bond of sympathy between them, and many
ways in which they could help and consult with each other in their
literary tasks. Mary was devoid of the coquetry which is so strong with
some women that they carry it even into their friendships. She never
attempted to conceal her liking for Fuseli. His sex was no drawback. Why
should it be? It had not interfered with her warm feelings for George
Blood and Mr. Johnson. She was the last person in the world to be
deterred from what she thought was right for the sake of appearances.
However, another construction was given to her friendly demonstrations.
The story told both by Knowles, the biographer of Fuseli, and by Godwin,
is that Mary was in love with the artist; and that the necessity of
suppressing, even if she could not destroy, her passion--hopeless since
its object was a married man--was the immediate reason of her going to
France alone. But they interpret the circumstances very differently. The
incidents, as given by Godwin, are in nowise to Mary's discredit, though
his account of them was later twisted and distorted by Dr. Beloe in his
"Sexagenarian." The latter, however, is so prejudiced a writer that his
words have but little value. Godwin, in his Memoirs, after demonstrating
the strength of the intimacy between Mary and Fuseli, says:--
"Notwithstanding the inequality of their years, Mary was not of a
temper to live upon terms of so much intimacy with a man of merit
and genius without loving him. The delight she enjoyed in his
society, she transferred by association to his person. What she
experienced in this respect was no doubt heightened by the state of
celibacy and restraint in which she had hitherto lived, and to
which the rules of polished society condemn an unmarried woman. She
conceived a personal and ardent affection for him. Mr. Fuseli was a
married man, and his wife the acquaintance of Mary. She readily
perceived the restrictions which this circumstance seemed to impose
upon her; but she made light of any difficulty that might arise out
of them. Not that she was insensible to the value of domestic
endearments between persons of an opposite sex, but that she
scorned to suppose that she could feel a struggle in conforming to
the laws she should lay down to her conduct.
"... There is no reason to doubt that if Mr. Fuseli had been
disengaged at the period of their acquaintance, he would have been
the man of her choice.
"... One of her principal inducements to this step, [her visit to
France] related, I believe, to Mr. Fuseli. She had at first
considered it as reasonable and judicious to cultivate what I may
be permitted to call a platonic affection for him; but she did not,
in the sequel, find all the satisfaction in this plan which she had
originally expected from it. It was in vain that she enjoyed much
pleasure in his society, and that she enjoyed it frequently. Her
ardent imagination was continually conjuring up pictures of the
happiness she should have found if fortune had favored their more
intimate union. She felt herself formed for domestic affection, and
all those tender charities which men of sensibility have constantly
treated as the dearest bond of human society. General conversation
and society could not satisfy her. She felt herself alone, as it
were, in the great mass of her species, and she repined when she
reflected that the best years of her life were spent in this
comfortless solitude. These ideas made the cordial intercourse of
Mr. Fuseli, which had at first been one of her greatest pleasures,
a source of perpetual torment to her. She conceived it necessary to
snap the chain of this association in her mind; and, for that
purpose, determined to seek a new climate, and mingle in different
scenes."
Knowles, on the other hand, represents her as importunate with her love
as a Phaedra, as consumed with passion as a Faustina. He states as a fact
that it was for Fuseli's sake that she changed her mode of life and
adopted a new elegance in dress and manners. He declares that when the
latter made no return to her advances, she pursued him so persistently
that on receiving her letters, he thrust them unopened out of sight, so
sure was he that they contained nothing but protestations of regard and
complaints of neglect; that, finally, she became so ill and miserable and
unfitted for work that, despite Fuseli's arguments against such a step,
she went boldly to Mrs. Fuseli and asked to be admitted into her house as
a member of the family, declaring that she could not live without daily
seeing the man she loved; and that, thereupon, Mrs. Fuseli grew
righteously wrathful and forbade her ever to cross her threshold again.
He furthermore affirms that she considered her love for Fuseli strictly
within the bounds of modesty and reason, that she encouraged it without
scruple, and that she made every effort to win his heart. These proving
futile, he concludes: "No resource was now left for Mrs. Wollstonecraft
but to fly from the object which she regarded; her determination was
instantly fixed; she wrote a letter to Fuseli, in which she begged pardon
'for having disturbed the quiet tenor of his life,' and on the 8th of
December left London for France."
An anonymous writer who in 1803 published a "Defence of the Character of
the Late Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin," repeats the story, but a little
more kindly, declaring that Mary's discovery of an unconsciously nurtured
passion for a married man, and her determination to flee temptation, were
the cause of her leaving England. That there was during her life-time
some idle gossip about her relations to Fuseli is shown in the references
to it in Eliza's ill-natured letter. This counts for little, however. It
was simply impossible for the woman who had written in defiance of social
laws and restrictions, to escape having scandals attached to her name.
Kegan Paul, Mary's able defender of modern times, denies the whole
story. He writes in his Prefatory Memoir to her "Letters to Imlay:"--
"... Godwin knew extremely little of his wife's earlier life, nor
was this a subject on which he had sought enlightenment from
herself. I can only here say that I fail to find any confirmation
whatever of this preposterous story, as told in Knowles's 'Life of
Fuseli,' or in any other form, while I find much which makes
directly against it, the strongest fact being that Mary remained to
the end the correspondent and close friend of Mrs. Fuseli."
Her character is the best refutation of Knowles's charges. She was too
proud to demean herself to any man. She was too sensitive to slights to
risk the repulses he says she accepted. And since always before and after
this period she had nothing more at heart than the happiness of others,
it is not likely that she would have deliberately tried to step in
between Fuseli and his wife, and gain at the latter's expense her own
ends. She could not have changed her character in a day. She never played
fast and loose with her principles. These were in many ways contrary to
the standard of the rest of mankind, but they were also equally opposed
to the conduct imputed to her. The testimony of her actions is her
acquittal. That she did not for a year produce any work of importance is
no argument against her. It was only after three years of uninterrupted
industry that she found time to write the "Rights of Women." On account
of the urgency of her every-day needs, she had no leisure for work whose
financial success was uncertain. Knowles's story is too absurdly out of
keeping with her character to be believed for a moment.
The other version of this affair is not so inconceivable. That her
affection may in the end have developed into a warmer feeling, and that
she would have married Fuseli had he been free, is just possible.
Allusions in her first letters to Imlay to a late "hapless love," and to
trouble, seem to confirm Godwin's statement. But it is quite as likely
that Fuseli, whose heart was, as his biographer admits, very susceptible,
felt for her a passion which as a married man he had no right to give,
and that she fled to France for his sake rather than for her own. In
either of these cases, she would deserve admiration and respect. But the
insufficiency of evidence reduces everything except the fact of her
friendship for him to mere surmise.
However this may have been, it is certain that Mr. Johnson and the
Fuselis decided to remain at home when Mary in December started for
Paris.
The excitement in the French capital was then at fever heat. But the
outside world hardly comprehended how serious the troubles were. Princes
and their adherents trembled at the blow given to royalty in the person
of Louis XVI. Liberals rejoiced at the successful revolt against
monarchical tyranny. But neither one party nor the other for a moment
foresaw what a terrible weapon reform was to become in the hands of the
excitable French people. If, in the city where the tragedy was being
enacted, the customary baking and brewing, the promenading under the
trees, and the dog-dancing and the shoe-blacking on the _Pont-Neuf_ could
still continue, it is not strange that those who watched it from afar
mistook its real weight.
The terrible night of the 10th of August had come and gone. The September
massacres, the details of which had not yet reached England, were over.
The Girondists were in the ascendency and had restored order. There were
fierce contentions in the National Convention, but, on the whole, its
attitude was one to inspire confidence. The English, who saw in the
arrest of the king, and in the popular feeling against him, just such a
crisis as their nation had passed through once or twice, were not
deterred from visiting the country by its unsettled state. The French
prejudice against England, it is true, was strong. Lafayette had some
time before publicly expressed his belief that she was secretly
conspiring against the peace of France. But his imputation had been
vigorously denied, and nominally the two governments were friendly.
English citizens had no reason to suppose they would not be safe in
Paris, and those among them whose opinions brought them _en rapport_ with
the French Republicans felt doubly secure. Consequently Mary's departure
for that capital, alone and unprotected, did not seem so hazardous then
as it does now that the true condition of affairs is better understood.
She knew in Paris a Madame Filiettaz, daughter of the Madame Bregantz at
whose school in Putney Eliza and Everina had been teachers, and to her
house she went, by invitation. Monsieur and Madame Filiettaz were absent,
and she was for some little time its sole occupant save the servants. The
object of her visit was twofold. She wished to study French, for though
she could read and translate this language fluently, from want of
practice she could neither speak nor understand it when it was spoken;
and she also desired to watch for herself the development of the cause of
freedom. Their love of liberty had made the French, as a nation,
peculiarly attractive to her. She had long since openly avowed her
sympathy by her indignant reply to Burke's outcry against them. It was
now a great satisfaction to be where she could follow day by day the
progress of their struggle. She had excellent opportunities not only to
see what was on the surface of society, which is all visitors to a
strange land can usually do, but to study the actual forces at work in
the movement. Thomas Paine was then in Paris. He was a member of the
National Convention, and was on terms of intimacy with Condorcet,
Brissot, Madame Roland, and other Republican leaders. Mary had known him
well in London. She now renewed the acquaintance, and was always welcomed
to his house near the Rue de Richelieu. Later, when, worn out by his
numerous visitors, he retired to the Faubourg St. Denis, to a hotel where
Madame de Pompadour had once lived, and allowed it to be generally
believed that he had gone into the country for his health, Mary was one
of the few favored friends who knew of his whereabouts. She thus, through
him, was brought into close contact with the leading spirits of the day.
She also saw much of Helen Maria Williams, the poetess, already notorious
for her extreme liberalism, and who had numerous friends and
acquaintances among the Revolutionary party in Paris. Mrs. Christie was
still another friend of this period. Her husband's business having kept
them in France, they had become thoroughly nationalized. At their house
many Americans congregated, among others a Captain Gilbert Imlay, of whom
more hereafter. In addition to these English friends, Mary had letters of
introduction to several prominent French citizens.
She arrived in Paris just before Louis XVI.'s trial. The city was
comparatively quiet, but there was in the air an oppression which
betokened the coming storm. She felt the people's suspense as if she too
had been personally interested. Between her studies and her efforts to
obtain the proper clew by which she could in her own mind reduce the
present political chaos to order, she found more than enough wherewith to
fill her days. As always happened with her, the mental strain reacted
upon her physical health, and her old enemies, depression of spirits and
headaches, returned to harass her.
She wrote to Everina on the 24th of December:
To-morrow I expect to see Aline [Madame Filiettaz]. During her
absence the servants endeavored to render the house, a most
excellent one, comfortable to me; but as I wish to acquire the
language as fast as I can, I was sorry to be obliged to remain so
much alone. I apply so closely to the language, and labor so
continually to understand what I hear, that I never go to bed
without a headache, and my spirits are fatigued with endeavoring to
form a just opinion of public affairs. The day after to-morrow I
expect to see the King at the bar, and the consequences that will
follow I am almost afraid to anticipate.
I have seen very little of Paris, the streets are so dirty; and I
wait till I can make myself understood before I call upon Madame
Laurent, etc. Miss Williams has behaved very civilly to me, and I
shall visit her frequently because I _rather_ like her, and I meet
French company at her house. Her manners are affected, yet the
simple goodness of her heart continually breaks through the
varnish, so that one would be more inclined, at least I should, to
love than admire her. Authorship is a heavy weight for female
shoulders, especially in the sunshine of prosperity. Of the French
I will not speak till I know more of them. They seem the people of
all others for a stranger to come amongst, yet sometimes when I
have given a commission, which was eagerly asked for, it has not
been executed, and when I ask for an explanation,--I allude to the
servant-maid, a quick girl, who, an't please you, has been a
teacher in an English boarding-school,--dust is thrown up with a
self-sufficient air, and I am obliged to appear to see her meaning
clearly, though she puzzles herself, that I may not make her feel
her ignorance; but you must have experienced the same thing. I will
write to you soon again. Meantime, let me hear from you, and
believe me yours sincerely and affectionately,
M. W.
When the dreaded 26th came, there was no one in Paris more excited and
interested than Mary. From her window she saw the King as, seemingly
forgetting the history he was making for future historians to discuss, he
rode by with calm dignity to his trial. Throughout the entire day she
waited anxiously, uncertain as to what would be the effects of the
morning's proceedings. Then, when evening came, and all continued quiet
and the danger was over, she grew nervous and fearful, as she had that
other memorable night when she kept her vigil in the little room at
Hackney. She was absolutely alone with her thoughts, and it was a relief
to write to Mr. Johnson. It gave her a sense of companionship. This
"hyena in petticoats," this "philosophizing serpent," was at heart as
feminine as Hannah More or any other "excellent woman."
PARIS, Dec. 26, 1792.
I should immediately on the receipt of your letter, my dear friend,
have thanked you for your punctuality, for it highly gratified me,
had I not wished to wait till I could tell you that this day was
not stained with blood. Indeed, the prudent precautions taken by
the National Convention to prevent a tumult made me suppose that
the dogs of faction would not dare to bark, much less to bite,
however true to their scent; and I was not mistaken; for the
citizens, who were all called out, are returning home with composed
countenances, shouldering their arms. About nine o'clock this
morning the King passed by my window, moving silently along,
excepting now and then a few strokes on the drum which rendered the
stillness more awful, through empty streets, surrounded by the
National Guards, who, clustering round the carriage, seemed to
deserve their name. The inhabitants flocked to their windows, but
the casements were all shut; not a voice was heard, nor did I see
anything like an insulting gesture. For the first time since I
entered France I bowed to the majesty of the people, and respected
the propriety of behavior, so perfectly in unison with my own
feelings. I can scarcely tell you why, but an association of ideas
made the tears flow insensibly from my eyes, when I saw Louis
sitting, with more dignity than I expected from his character, in a
hackney-coach, going to meet death where so many of his race have
triumphed. My fancy instantly brought Louis XIV. before me,
entering the capital with all his pomp, after one of the victories
most flattering to his pride, only to see the sunshine of
prosperity overshadowed by the sublime gloom of misery. I have been
alone ever since; and though my mind is calm, I cannot dismiss the
lively images that have filled my imagination all the day. Nay, do
not smile, but pity me, for once or twice, lifting my eyes from the
paper, I have seen eyes glare through a glass door opposite my
chair, and bloody hands shook at me. Not the distant sound of a
footstep can I hear. My apartments are remote from those of the
servants, the only persons who sleep with me in an immense hotel,
one folding-door opening after another. I wish I had even kept the
cat with me! I want to see something alive, death in so many
frightful shapes has taken hold of my fancy. I am going to bed, and
for the first time in my life I cannot put out the candle.
M. W.
These imaginary terrors gave way to real ones soon enough. The execution
of Louis was followed by the declaration of war between France and
England and the complete demoralization of the French people, especially
of the Parisians. The feeling against England grew daily more bitter, and
the position of English residents in Paris more precarious. It was next
to impossible for them to send letters home, and therefore their danger
was not realized by their countrymen on the other side of the Channel.
Mrs. Bishop, in the faraway Welsh castle, grew impatient at Mary's
silence. Politics was a subject dear to her heart, but one tabooed at
Upton. At her first word upon the topic the family, her employers, left
the room, and she was consequently obliged to ignore it when she was with
them. But when, some months later on, two or three French refugees came
to Pembroke, she was quick to go to them, ostensibly for French lessons,
but in reality to hear their accounts of the scenes through which they
had passed. Forced to live in quiet, remote places, she longed for the
excitement only to be had in the large centres of action, and at one
time, in her discontent, began to make plans to join her sister in
France. While Eliza was thus contemplating a journey to Paris, Mary was
wondering how it would be possible either to continue living there or to
leave the country. It was equally out of the question to obtain fresh
supplies of money from England or a passport to carry her safely back.
She had, when she left London, only intended to be absent for a few
weeks, and had not even given up her rooms in George Street. But the
weeks had lengthened into months, and now her return was an
impossibility.
For motives of economy she left the large Filiettaz mansion. At first she
thought of making a trip to Switzerland, but this plan had to be
abandoned because of the difficulty in procuring a passport. She
therefore went to Neuilly, where, her ready money wellnigh exhausted, she
lived as simply as she could. Economy was doubly necessary at a time when
heavy taxes were sending a hungry multitude into the streets, clamoring
for bread. She was now more alone than ever. Her sole attendant was an
old man, a gardener. He became her warm friend, succumbing completely to
her power of attraction. With the gallantry of his race he could not do
enough for Madame. He waited upon her with unremitting attention; he even
disputed for the honor of making her bed. He served up at her table,
unasked, the grapes from his garden which he absolutely refused to give
to her guests. He objected to her English independence; her lonely walks
through the woods of Neuilly met with his serious disapproval, and he
besought her to allow him the privilege of accompanying her, painting in
awful colors the robbers and other dangers with which the place abounded.
But Mary persisted in going alone; and when, evening after evening, she
returned unharmed, it must have seemed to him as if she bore a charmed
life. Such incidents as these show, better than volumes of praise, the
true kindliness of her nature which was not influenced by distinctions of
rank.
Those who knew her but by name, however, dealt with her in less gentle
fashion. Her fame had been carried even into Pembroke; and while she was
living her solitary and inoffensive life in Paris, Mrs. Bishop was
writing to Everina: "The conversation [at Upton Castle] turns on Murphy,
on Irish potatoes, or Tommy Paine, whose effigy they burnt at Pembroke
the other day. Nay, they talk of immortalizing Miss Wollstonecraft in
like manner, but all end in damning all politics: What good will they do
men? and what rights have men that three meals a day will not supply?"
After all, perhaps they were wise, these Welshmen. Were not their
brethren in France purchasing their rights literally at the price of
their three meals a day?
Sometimes, perhaps to please her friend, the gardener, instead of her
rambles through the woods, Mary walked towards and even into Paris, and
then she saw sights which made Pembroke logic seem true wisdom, and
freedom a farce. Once, in so doing, she passed by chance a place of
execution, just at the close of one of its too frequent tragic scenes.
The blood was still fresh upon the pavement; the crowd of lookers-on not
yet dispersed. She heard them as they stood there rehearsing the day's
horror, and she chafed against the cruelty and inhumanity of the deed. In
a moment--her French so improved that she could make herself
understood--she was telling the people near her something of what she
thought of their new tyrants. Those were dangerous times for freedom of
speech. So far the champions of liberty had proved themselves more
inexorable masters than the Bourbons. Some of the bystanders, who, though
they dared not speak their minds, sympathized with Mary's indignation,
warned her of her danger and hurried her away from the spot. Horror at
the ferocity of men's passions, wrath at injustices committed in the name
of freedom, and impatience at her own helplessness to right the evils by
which she was surrounded, no doubt inspired her, as saddened and sobered
she walked back alone to Neuilly.
During all this time she continued her literary work. She proposed to
write a series of letters upon the present character of the French
nation, and with this end in view she silently studied the people and the
course of political action. She was quick and observant, and nothing
escaped her notice. She came to Paris prepared to continue a firm
partisan of the French Revolution; but she could not be blind to the
national defects. She saw the frivolity and sensuality of the people,
their hunger for all things sweet, and the unrestrained passions of the
greater number of the Republican leaders, which made them love liberty
more than law itself. She valued their cause, but she despised the means
by which they sought to gain it. Thus, in laboring to grasp the meaning
of the movement, not as it appeared to petty factions, but as it was as a
whole, she was confronted by the greatest of all mysteries, the relation
of good and evil. Again, as when she had analyzed the rights of women,
she recognized evil to be a power which eventually works for
righteousness, thereby proving the clearness of her mental vision. Only
one of these letters, however, was written and published. It is dated
Feb. 15, 1793, so that the opinions therein expressed were not hastily
formed. As its style is that of a familiar letter, and as it gives a good
idea of the thoroughness with which she had applied herself to her task,
it may appropriately be quoted here.
"... The whole mode of life here," she writes, "tends indeed to
render the people frivolous, and, to borrow their favorite epithet,
amiable. Ever on the wing, they are always sipping the sparkling
joy on the brim of the cup, leaving satiety in the bottom for those
who venture to drink deep. On all sides they trip along, buoyed up
by animal spirits, and seemingly so void of care that often, when I
am walking on the Boulevards, it occurs to me that they alone
understand the full import of the term leisure; and they trifle
their time away with such an air of contentment, I know not how to
wish them wiser at the expense of gayety. They play before me like
motes in a sunbeam, enjoying the passing ray; whilst an English
head, searching for more solid happiness, loses in the analysis of
pleasure the volatile sweets of the moment. Their chief enjoyment,
it is true, rises from vanity; but it is not the vanity that
engenders vexation of spirit: on the contrary, it lightens the
heavy burden of life, which reason too often weighs, merely to
shift from one shoulder to the other....
"I would I could first inform you that out of the chaos of vices
and follies, prejudices and virtues, rudely jumbled together, I saw
the fair form of Liberty slowly rising, and Virtue, expanding her
wings to shelter all her children! I should then hear the account
of the barbarities that have rent the bosom of France patiently,
and bless the firm hand that lopt off the rotten limbs. But if the
aristocracy of birth is levelled with the ground, only to make
room for that of riches, I am afraid that the morals of the people
will not be much improved by the change, or the government rendered
less venial. Still it is not just to dwell on the misery produced
by the present struggle without adverting to the standing evils of
the old system. I am grieved, sorely grieved, when I think of the
blood that has stained the cause of freedom at Paris; but I also
hear the same live stream cry aloud from the highways through which
the retreating armies passed with famine and death in their rear,
and I hide my face with awe before the inscrutable ways of
Providence, sweeping in such various directions the besom of
destruction over the sons of men.
"Before I came to France, I cherished, you know, an opinion that
strong virtues might exist with the polished manners produced by
the progress of civilization; and I even anticipated the epoch,
when, in the course of improvement, men would labor to become
virtuous, without being goaded on by misery. But now the
perspective of the golden age, fading before the attentive eye of
observation, almost eludes my sight; and, losing thus in part my
theory of a more perfect state, start not, my friend, if I bring
forward an opinion which, at the first glance, seems to be levelled
against the existence of God! I am not become an atheist, I assure
you, by residing at Paris; yet I begin to fear that vice or, if you
will, evil is the grand mobile of action, and that, when the
passions are justly poised, we become harmless, and in the same
proportion useless....
"You may think it too soon to form an opinion of the future
government, yet it is impossible to avoid hazarding some
conjectures, when everything whispers me that names, not
principles, are changed, and when I see that the turn of the tide
has left the dregs of the old system to corrupt the new. For the
same pride of office, the same desire of power, are still visible;
with this aggravation, that, fearing to return to obscurity after
having but just acquired a relish for distinction, each hero or
philosopher, for all are dubbed with these new titles, endeavors to
make hay while the sun shines; and every petty municipal officer,
become the idol, or rather the tyrant of the day, stalks like a
cock on a dunghill."
The letters were discontinued, probably because Mary thought
letter-writing too easy and familiar a style in which to treat so weighty
a subject. She only gave up the one work, however, to undertake another
still more ambitious. At Neuilly she began, and wrote almost all that was
ever finished, of her "Historical and Moral View of the French
Revolution."
While she was thus living the quiet life of a student in the midst of
excitement, her own affairs, as well as those of France, were hastening
to a crisis.