After having, more than once, in the following Letters, expressed
opinions decidedly unfavourable to female authorship, when not justified
by superior talents, I may, by now producing them to the public, subject
myself to the imputation either of vanity or inconsistency; and I
acknowledge that a great share of candour and indulgence must be
possessed by readers who attend to the apologies usually made on such
occasions: yet I may with the strictest truth alledge, that I should
never have ventured to offer any production of mine to the world, had I
not conceived it possible that information and reflections collected and
made on the spot, during a period when France exhibited a state, of which
there is no example in the annals of mankind, might gratify curiosity
without the aid of literary embellishment; and an adherence to truth, I
flattered myself, might, on a subject of this nature, be more acceptable
than brilliancy of thought, or elegance of language. The eruption of a
volcano may be more scientifically described and accounted for by the
philosopher; but the relation of the illiterate peasant who beheld it,
and suffered from its effects, may not be less interesting to the common
hearer.
Above all, I was actuated by the desire of conveying to my countrymen a
just idea of that revolution which they have been incited to imitate, and
of that government by which it has been proposed to model our own.
Since these pages were written, the Convention has nominally been
dissolved, and a new constitution and government have succeeded, but no
real change of principle or actors has taken place; and the system, of
which I have endeavoured to trace the progress, must still be considered
as existing, with no other variations than such as have been necessarily
produced by the difference of time and circumstances. The people grew
tired of massacres en masse, and executions en detail: even the national
fickleness operated in favour of humanity; and it was also discovered,
that however a spirit of royalism might be subdued to temporary inaction,
it was not to be eradicated, and that the sufferings of its martyrs only
tended to propagate and confirm it. Hence the scaffolds flow less
frequently with blood, and the barbarous prudence of CAMILLE DESMOULINS'
guillotine economique has been adopted. But exaction and oppression are
still practised in every shape, and justice is not less violated, nor is
property more secure, than when the former was administered by
revolutionary tribunals, and the latter was at the disposition of
revolutionary armies.
The error of supposing that the various parties which have usurped the
government of France have differed essentially from each other is pretty
general; and it is common enough to hear the revolutionary tyranny
exclusively associated with the person of ROBESPIERRE, and the
thirty-first of May, 1793, considered as the epoch of its introduction.
Yet whoever examines attentively the situation and politics of France,
from the subversion of the Monarchy, will be convinced that all the
principles of this monstrous government were established during the
administration of the Brissotins, and that the factions which succeeded,
from Danton and Robespierre to Sieyes and Barras, have only developed
them, and reduced them to practice. The revolution of the thirty-first
of May, 1793, was not a contest for system but for power--that of July
the twenty-eighth, 1794, (9th Thermidor,) was merely a struggle which of
two parties should sacrifice the other--that of October the fifth, 1795,
(13th Vendemiaire,) a war of the government against the people. But in
all these convulsions, the primitive doctrines of tyranny and injustice
were watched like the sacred fire, and have never for a moment been
suffered to languish.
It may appear incredible to those who have not personally witnessed this
phoenomenon, that a government detested and despised by an immense
majority of the nation, should have been able not only to resist the
efforts of so many powers combined against it, but even to proceed from
defence to conquest, and to mingle surprize and terror with those
sentiments of contempt and abhorrence which it originally excited.
That wisdom or talents are not the sources of this success, may be
deduced from the situation of France itself. The armies of the republic
have, indeed, invaded the territories of its enemies, but the desolation
of their own country seems to increase with every triumph--the genius of
the French government appears powerful only in destruction, and inventive
only in oppression--and, while it is endowed with the faculty of
spreading universal ruin, it is incapable of promoting the happiness of
the smallest district under its protection. The unrestrained pillage of
the conquered countries has not saved France from multiplied
bankruptcies, nor her state-creditors from dying through want; and
the French, in the midst of their external prosperity, are often
distinguished from the people whom their armies have been subjugated,
only by a superior degree of wretchedness, and a more irregular
despotism.
With a power excessive and unlimited, and surpassing what has hitherto
been possessed by any Sovereign, it would be difficult to prove that
these democratic despots have effected any thing either useful or
beneficent. Whatever has the appearance of being so will be found, on
examination, to have for its object some purpose of individual interest
or personal vanity. They manage the armies, they embellish Paris, they
purchase the friendship of some states and the neutrality of others; but
if there be any real patriots in France, how little do they appreciate
these useless triumphs, these pilfered museums, and these fallacious
negotiations, when they behold the population of their country
diminished, its commerce annihilated, its wealth dissipated, its morals
corrupted, and its liberty destroyed--
"Thus, on deceitful Aetna's Flow'ry side
Unfading verdure glads the roving eye,
While secret flames with unextinguish'd rage
Insatiate on her wafted entrails prey,
And melt her treach'rous beauties into ruin."
Those efforts which the partizans of republicanism admire, and which even
well-disposed persons regard as prodigies, are the simple and natural
result of an unprincipled despotism, acting upon, and disposing of, all
the resources of a rich, populous, and enslaved nation. _"Il devient aise
d'etre habile lorsqu'on s'est delivre des scrupules et des loix, de tout
honneur et de toute justice, des droits de ses semblables, et des devoirs
de l'autorite--a ce degre d'independence la plupart des obstacles qui
modifient l'activite humaine disparaissent; l'on parait avoir du talent
lorsqu'on n'a que de l'impudence, et l'abus de la force passe pour
energie._*"
* "Exertions of ability become easy, when men have released
themselves from the scruples of conscience, the restraints of law,
the ties of honour, the bonds of justice, the claims of their fellow
creatures, and obedience to their superiors:--at this point of
independence, most of the obstacles which modify human activity
disappear; impudence is mistaken for talents; and the abuse of power
passes for energy."
The operations of all other governments must, in a great measure, be
restrained by the will of the people, and by established laws; with them,
physical and political force are necessarily separate considerations:
they have not only to calculate what can be borne, but what will be
submitted to; and perhaps France is the first country that has been
compelled to an exertion of its whole strength, without regard to any
obstacle, natural, moral, or divine. It is for want of sufficiently
investigating and allowing for this moral and political latitudinarianism
of our enemies, that we are apt to be too precipitate in censuring the
conduct of the war; and, in our estimation of what has been done, we pay
too little regard to the principles by which we have been directed. An
honest man could scarcely imagine the means we have had to oppose, and an
Englishman still less conceive that they would have been submitted to:
for the same reason that the Romans had no law against parricide, till
experience had evinced the possibility of the crime.
In a war like the present, advantage is not altogether to be appreciated
by military superiority. If, as there is just ground for believing, our
external hostilities have averted an internal revolution, what we have
escaped is of infinitely more importance to us than what we could
acquire. Commerce and conquest, compared to this, are secondary objects;
and the preservation of our liberties and our constitution
is a more solid blessing than the commerce of both the Indies, or the
conquest of nations.
Should the following pages contribute to impress this salutary truth on
my countrymen, my utmost ambition will be gratified; persuaded, that a
sense of the miseries they have avoided, and of the happiness they enjoy,
will be their best incentive, whether they may have to oppose the arms of
the enemy in a continuance of the war, or their more dangerous
machinations on the restoration of peace.
I cannot conclude without noticing my obligations to the Gentleman whose
name is prefixed to these volumes; and I think it at the same time
incumbent on me to avow, that, in having assisted the author, he must not
be considered as sanctioning the literary imperfections of the work.
When the subject was first mentioned to him, he did me the justice of
supposing, that I was not likely to have written any thing, the general
tendency of which he might disapprove; and when, on perusing the
manuscript, he found it contain sentiments dissimilar to his own, he was
too liberal to require a sacrifice of them as the condition of his
services.--I confess that previous to my arrival in France in 1792, I
entertained opinions somewhat more favourable to the principle of the
revolution than those which I was led to adopt at a subsequent period.
Accustomed to regard with great justice the British constitution as the
standard of known political excellence, I hardly conceived it possible
that freedom or happiness could exist under any other: and I am not
singular in having suffered this prepossession to invalidate even the
evidence of my senses. I was, therefore, naturally partial to whatever
professed to approach the object of my veneration. I forgot that
governments are not to be founded on imitations or theories, and that
they are perfect only as adapted to the genius, manners, and disposition
of the people who are subject to them. Experience and maturer judgement
have corrected my error, and I am perfectly convinced, that the old
monarchical constitution of France, with very slight meliorations, was
every way better calculated for the national character than a more
popular form of government.
A critic, though not very severe, will discover many faults of style,
even where the matter may not be exceptionable. Besides my other
deficiencies, the habit of writing is not easily supplied, and, as I
despaired of attaining excellence, and was not solicitous about degrees
of mediocrity, I determined on conveying to the public such information
as I was possessed of, without alteration or ornament. Most of these
Letters were written exactly in the situation they describe, and remain
in their original state; the rest were arranged according as
opportunities were favourable, from notes and diaries kept when "the
times were hot and feverish," and when it would have been dangerous to
attempt more method. I forbear to describe how they were concealed
either in France or at my departure, because I might give rise to the
persecution and oppression of others. But, that I may not attribute to
myself courage which I do not possess, nor create doubts of my veracity,
I must observe, that I seldom ventured to write till I was assured of
some certain means of conveying my papers to a person who could safely
dispose of them.
As a considerable period has elapsed since my return, it may not be
improper to add, that I took some steps for the publication of these
Letters so early as July, 1795. Certain difficulties, however, arising,
of which I was not aware, I relinquished my design, and should not have
been tempted to resume it, but for the kindness of the Gentleman whose
name appears as the Editor.
Sept. 12, 1796.