I subjoin an extract from a newspaper, w_A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Complete Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners

*Extract from _The Courier de l'Egalite,_ November, 1792:

"There are discontented people who still venture to obtrude their

sentiments on the public. One of them, in a public print, thus

expresses himself--

'I assert, that the newspapers are sold and devoted to falsehood.

At this price they purchase the liberty of appearing; and the

exclusive privilege they enjoy, as well as the contradictory and

lying assertions they all contain, prove the truth of what I

advance. They are all preachers of liberty, yet never was liberty

so shamefully outraged--of respect for property, and property was at

no time so little held sacred--of personal security, yet when were

there committed so many massacres? and, at the very moment I am

writing, new ones are premeditated. They call vehemently for

submission, and obedience to the laws, but the laws had never less

influence; and while our compliance with such as we are even

ignorant of is exacted, it is accounted a crime to execute those in

force. Every municipality has its own arbitrary code--every

battalion, every private soldier, exercises a sovereignty, a most

absolute despotism; and yet the Gazettes do not cease to boast the

excellence of such a government. They have, one and all, attributed

the massacres of the tenth of August and the second of September,

and the days following each, to a popular fermentation. The

monsters! they have been careful not to tell us, that each of these

horrid scenes (at the prisons, at La Force, at the Abbaye, &c. &c.)

was presided by municipal officers in their scarfs, who pointed out

the victims, and gave the signal for the assassination. It was

(continue the Journals) the error of an irritated people--and yet

their magistrates were at the head of it: it was a momentary error;

yet this error of a moment continued during six whole days of the

coolest reflection--it was only at the close of the seventh that

Petion made his appearance, and affected to persuade the people to

desist. The assassins left off only from fatigue, and at this

moment they are preparing to begin again. The Journals do not tell

us that the chief of these _Scelerats_ [We have no term in the

English language that conveys an adequate meaning for this word--it

seems to express the extreme of human wickedness and atrocity.]

employed subordinate assassins, whom they caused to be clandestinely

murdered in their turn, as though they hoped to destroy the proof of

their crime, and escape the vengeance that awaits them. But the

people themselves were accomplices in the deed, for the Garde

Nationale gave their assistance,'" &c. &c.

In spite of the murder of so many journalists, and the destruction of the

printing-offices, it treats the September business so freely, that the

editor will doubtless soon be silenced. Admitting these accusations to

be unfounded, what ideas must the people have of their magistrates, when

they are credited? It is the prepossession of the hearer that gives

authenticity to fiction; and such atrocities would neither be imputed to,

nor believed of, men not already bad.--Yours, &c.

December, 1792.

Dear Brother,

All the public prints still continue strongly to insinuate, that England

is prepared for an insurrection, and Scotland already in actual

rebellion: but I know the character of our countrymen too well to be

persuaded that they have adopted new principles as easily as they would

adopt a new mode, or that the visionary anarchists of the French

government can have made many proselytes among an humane and rational

people. For many years we were content to let France remain the

arbitress of the lighter departments of taste: lately she has ceded this

province to us, and England has dictated with uncontested superiority.

This I cannot think very strange; for the eye in time becomes fatigued by

elaborate finery, and requires only the introduction of simple elegance

to be attracted by it. But if, while we export fashions to this country,

we should receive in exchange her republican systems, it would be a

strange revolution indeed; and I think, in such a commerce, we should be

far from finding the balance in our favour. I have, in fact, little

solicitude about these diurnal falsehoods, though I am not altogether

free from alarm as to their tendency. I cannot help suspecting it is to

influence the people to a belief that such dispositions exist in England

as preclude the danger of a war, in case it should be thought necessary

to sacrifice the King.

I am more confirmed in this opinion, from the recent discovery, with the

circumstances attending it, of a secret iron chest at the Tuilleries.

The man who had been employed to construct this recess, informs the

minister, Rolland; who, instead of communicating the matter to the

Convention, as it was very natural he should do on an occasion of so much

importance, and requiring it to be opened in the presence of proper

witnesses, goes privately himself, takes the papers found into his own

possession, and then makes an application for a committee to examine

them. Under these suspicious and mysterious appearances, we are told

that many letters, &c. are found, which inculpate the King; and perhaps

the fate of this unfortunate Monarch is to be decided by evidence not

admissible with justice in the case of the obscurest malefactor. Yet

Rolland is the hero of a party who call him, par excellence, the virtuous

Rolland! Perhaps you will think, with me, that this epithet is

misapplied to a man who has risen, from an obscure situation to that of

first Minister, without being possessed of talents of that brilliant or

prominent class which sometimes force themselves into notice, without the

aid of wealth or the support of patronage.

Rolland was inspector of manufactories in this place, and afterwards at

Lyons; and I do not go too far in advancing, that a man of very rigid

virtue could not, from such a station, have attained so suddenly the one

he now possesses. Virtue is of an unvarying and inflexible nature: it

disdains as much to be the flatterer of mobs, as the adulator of Princes:

yet how often must he, who rises so far above his equals, have stooped

below them? How often must he have sacrificed both his reason and his

principles? How often have yielded to the little, and opposed the great,

not from conviction, but interest? For in this the meanest of mankind

resemble the most exalted; he bestows not his confidence on him who

resists his will, nor subscribes to the advancement of one whom he does

not hope to influence.--I may almost venture to add, that more

dissimulation, meaner concessions, and more tortuous policy, are

requisite to become the idol of the people, than are practised to acquire

and preserve the favour of the most potent Monarch in Europe. The

French, however, do not argue in this manner, and Rolland is at present

very popular, and his popularity is said to be greatly supported by the

literary talents of his wife.

I know not if you rightly understand these party distinctions among a set

of men whom you must regard as united in the common cause of establishing

a republic in France, but you have sometimes had occasion to remark in

England, that many may amicably concur in the accomplishment of a work,

who differ extremely about the participation of its advantages; and this

is already the case with the Convention. Those who at present possess

all the power, and are infinitely the strongest, are wits, moralists, and

philosophers by profession, having Brissot, Rolland, Petion, Concorcet,

&c. at their head; their opponents are adventurers of a more desperate

cast, who make up by violence what they want in numbers, and are led by

Robespierre, Danton, Chabot, &c. &c. The only distinction of these

parties is, I believe, that the first are vain and systematical

hypocrites, who have originally corrupted the minds of the people by

visionary and insidious doctrines, and now maintain their superiority by

artifice and intrigue: their opponents, equally wicked, and more daring,

justify that turpitude which the others seek to disguise, and appear

almost as bad as they are. The credulous people are duped by both; while

the cunning of the one, and the vehemence of the other, alternately

prevail.--But something too much of politics, as my design is in general

rather to mark their effect on the people, than to enter on more

immediate discussions.

Having been at the Criminal Tribunal to-day, I now recollect that I have

never yet described to you the costume of the French Judges.--Perhaps

when I have before had occasion to speak of it, your imagination may have

glided to Westminster Hall, and depicted to you the scarlet robes and

voluminous wigs of its respectable magistrates: but if you would form an

idea of a magistrate here, you must bring your mind to the abstraction of

Crambo, and figure to yourself a Judge without either gown, wig, or any

of those venerable appendages. Nothing indeed can be more becoming or

gallant, than this judicial accoutrement--it is black, with a silk cloak

of the same colour, in the Spanish form, and a round hat, turned up

before, with a large plume of black feathers. This, when the magistrate

happens to be young, has a very theatrical and romantic appearance; but

when it is worn by a figure a little Esopian, or with a large bushy

perriwig, as I have sometimes seen it, the effect is still less awful;

and a stranger, on seeing such an apparition in the street, is tempted to

suppose it a period of jubilee, and that the inhabitants are in

masquerade.

It is now the custom for all people to address each other by the

appellation of Citizen; and whether you are a citizen or not--whether you

inhabit Paris, or are a native of Peru--still it is an indication of

aristocracy, either to exact, or to use, any other title. This is all

congruous with the system of the day: the abuses are real, the reform is

imaginary. The people are flattered with sounds, while they are losing

in essentials. And the permission to apply the appellation of Citizen to

its members, is but a poor compensation for the despotism of a department

or a municipality.

In vain are the people flattered with a chimerical equality--it cannot

exist in a civilized state, and if it could exist any where, it would not

be in France. The French are habituated to subordination--they naturally

look up to something superior--and when one class is degraded, it is only

to give place to another.

--The pride of the noblesse is succeeded by the pride of the merchant--

the influence of wealth is again realized by cheap purchases of the

national domains--the abandoned abbey becomes the delight of the opulent

trader, and replaces the demolished chateau of the feudal institution.

Full of the importance which the commercial interest is to acquire under

a republic, the wealthy man of business is easily reconciled to the

oppression of the superior classes, and enjoys, with great dignity, his

new elevation. The counting-house of a manufacturer of woollen cloth is

as inaccessible as the boudoir of a Marquis; while the flowered brocade

gown and well-powdered curls of the former offer a much more imposing

exterior than the chintz robe de chambre and dishevelled locks of the

more affable man of fashion.

I have read, in some French author, a maxim to this effect:--"Act with

your friends as though they should one day be your enemies;" and the

existing government seems amply to have profited by the admonition of

their country-man: for notwithstanding they affirm, that all France

supports, and all England admires them, this does not prevent their

exercising a most vigilant inquisition over the inhabitants of both

countries.--It is already sagaciously hinted, that Mr. Thomas Paine may

be a spy, and every householder who receives a lodger or visitor, and

every proprietor who lets a house, is obliged to register the names of

those he entertains, or who are his tenants, and to become responsible

for their conduct. This is done at the municipality, and all who thus

venture to change their residence, of whatever age, sex, or condition,

must present themselves, and submit to an examination. The power of the

municipalities is indeed very great; and as they are chiefly selected

from the lower class of shop-keepers, you may conclude that their

authority is not exercised with much politeness or moderation.

The timid or indolent inhabitant of London, whose head has been filled

with the Bastilles and police of the ancient government, and who would as

soon have ventured to Constantinople as to Paris, reads, in the debates

of the Convention, that France is now the freeest country in the world,

and that strangers from all corners of it flock to offer their adorations

in this new Temple of Liberty. Allured by these descriptions, he

resolves on the journey, willing, for once in his life, to enjoy a taste

of the blessing in sublimate, which he now learns has hitherto been

allowed him only in the gross element.--He experiences a thousand

impositions on landing with his baggage at Calais, but he submits to them

without murmuring, because his countrymen at Dover had, on his

embarkation, already kindly initiated him into this science of taxing the

inquisitive spirit of travellers. After inscribing his name, and

rewarding the custom-house officers for rummaging his portmanteau, he

determines to amuse himself with a walk about the town. The first

centinel he encounters stops him, because he has no cockade: he purchases

one at the next shop, (paying according to the exigency of the case,) and

is suffered to pass on. When he has settled his bill at the Auberge "a

l'Angloise," and emagines he has nothing to do but to pursue his journey,

he finds he has yet to procure himself a passport. He waits an hour and

an half for an officer, who at length appears, and with a rule in one

hand, and a pen in the other, begins to measure the height, and take an

inventory of the features of the astonished stranger. By the time this

ceremony is finished, the gates are shut, and he can proceed no farther,

till the morrow. He departs early, and is awakened twice on the road to

Boulogne to produce his passport: still, however, he keeps his temper,

concluding, that the new light has not yet made its way to the frontiers,

and that these troublesome precautions may be necessary near a port. He

continues his route, and, by degrees, becomes habituated to this regimen

of liberty; till, perhaps, on the second day, the validity of his

passport is disputed, the municipality who granted it have the reputation

of aristocracy, or the whole is informal, and he must be content to wait

while a messenger is dispatched to have it rectified, and the officers

establish the severity of their patriotism at the expence of the

stranger.

Our traveller, at length, permitted to depart, feels his patience

wonderfully diminished, execrates the regulations of the coast, and the

ignorance of small towns, and determines to stop a few days and observe

the progress of freedom at Ameins. Being a large commercial place, he

here expects to behold all the happy effects of the new constitution; he

congratulates himself on travelling at a period when he can procure

information, and discuss his political opinions, unannoyed by fears of

state prisons, and spies of the police. His landlord, however, acquaints

him, that his appearance at the Town House cannot be dispensed with--he

attends three or four different hours of appointment, and is each time

sent away, (after waiting half an hour with the valets de ville in the

antichamber,) and told that the municipal officers are engaged. As an

Englishman, he has little relish for these subordinate sovereigns, and

difficult audiences--he hints at the next coffee-house that he had

imagined a stranger might have rested two days in a free country, without

being measured, and questioned, and without detailing his history, as

though he were suspected of desertion; and ventures on some implied

comparison between the ancient "Monsieur le Commandant," and the modern

"Citoyen Maire."--To his utter astonishment he finds, that though there

are no longer emissaries of the police, there are Jacobin informers; his

discourse is reported to the municipality, his business in the town

becomes the subject of conjecture, he is concluded to be _"un homme sans

aveu,"_ [One that can't give a good account of himself.] and arrested as

"suspect;" and it is not without the interference of the people to whom

he may have been recommended at Paris, that he is released, and enabled

to continue his journey.

At Paris he lives in perpetual alarm. One night he is disturbed by a

visite domiciliaire, another by a riot--one day the people are in

insurrection for bread, and the next murdering each other at a public

festival; and our country-man, even after making every allowance for the

confusion of a recent change, thinks himself very fortunate if he reaches

England in safety, and will, for the rest of his life, be satisfied with

such a degree of liberty as is secured to him by the constitution of his

own country.

You see I have no design of tempting you to pay us a visit; and, to speak

the truth, I think those who are in England will show their wisdom by

remaining there. Nothing but the state of Mrs. D____'s health, and her

dread of the sea at this time of the year, detains us; for every day

subtracts from my courage, and adds to my apprehensions.

--Yours, &c.

1793

Amiens, January, 1793.

Vanity, I believe, my dear brother, is not so innoxious a quality as we

are desirous of supposing. As it is the most general of all human

failings, so is it regarded with the most indulgence: a latent

consciousness averts the censure of the weak; and the wise, who flatter

themselves with being exempt from it, plead in its favour, by ranking it

as a foible too light for serious condemnation, or too inoffensive for

punishment. Yet, if vanity be not an actual vice, it is certainly a

potential one--it often leads us to seek reputation rather than virtue,

to substitute appearances for realities, and to prefer the eulogiums of

the world to the approbation of our own minds. When it takes possession

of an uninformed or an ill-constituted mind, it becomes the source of a

thousand errors, and a thousand absurdities. Hence, youth seeks a

preeminence in vice, and age in folly; hence, many boast of errors they

would not commit, or claim distinction by investing themselves with an

imputation of excess in some popular absurdity--duels are courted by the

daring, and vaunted by the coward--he who trembles at the idea of death

and a future state when alone, proclaims himself an atheist or a

free-thinker in public--the water-drinker, who suffers the penitence of

a week for a supernumerary glass, recounts the wonders of his

intemperance--and he who does not mount the gentlest animal without

trepidation, plumes himself on breaking down horses, and his perils in

the chace. In short, whatever order of mankind we contemplate, we shall

perceive that the portion of vanity allotted us by nature, when it is

not corrected by a sound judgement, and rendered subservient to useful

purposes, is sure either to degrade or mislead us.

I was led into this train of reflection by the conduct of our

Anglo-Gallican legislator, Mr. Thomas Paine. He has lately composed a

speech, which was translated and read in his presence, (doubtless to his

great satisfaction,) in which he insists with much vehemence on the

necessity of trying the King; and he even, with little credit to his

humanity, gives intimations of presumed guilt. Yet I do not suspect Mr.

Paine to be of a cruel or unmerciful nature; and, most probably, vanity

alone has instigated him to a proceeding which, one would wish to

believe, his heart disapproves. Tired of the part he was playing, and

which, it must be confessed, was not calculated to flatter the censurer

of Kings and the reformer of constitutions, he determined to sit no

longer for whole hours in colloquy with his interpreter, or in mute

contemplation, like the Chancellor in the Critic; and the speech to

which I have alluded was composed. Knowing that lenient opinions would

meet no applause from the tribunes, he inlists himself on the side of

severity, accuses all the Princes in the world as the accomplices of

Louis the Sixteenth, expresses his desire for an universal revolution,

and, after previously assuring the Convention the King is guilty,

recommends that they may instantly proceed to his trial. But, after all

this tremendous eloquence, perhaps Mr. Paine had no malice in his heart:

he may only be solicitous to preserve his reputation from decay, and to

indulge his self-importance by assisting at the trial of a Monarch whom

he may not wish to suffer.--I think, therefore, I am not wrong in

asserting, that Vanity is a very mischievous counsellor.

The little distresses I formerly complained of, as arising from the paper

currency, are nearly removed by a plentiful emission of small assignats,

and we have now pompous assignments on the national domains for ten sols:

we have, likewise, pieces coined from the church bells in circulation,

but most of these disappear as soon as issued. You would scarcely

imagine that this copper is deemed worthy to be hoarded; yet such is the

people's aversion from the paper, and such their mistrust of the

government, that not an housewife will part with one of these pieces

while she has an assignat in her possession; and those who are rich

enough to keep a few livres by them, amass and bury this copper treasure

with the utmost solicitude and secresy.

A tolerably accurate scale of the national confidence might be made, by

marking the progress of these suspicious interments. Under the first

Assembly, people began to hide their gold; during the reign of the second

they took the same affectionate care of their silver; and, since the

meeting of the Convention, they seem equally anxious to hide any metal

they can get. If one were to describe the present age, one might, as far

as regards France, call it, both literally and metaphorically, the Iron

Age; for it is certain, the character of the times would justify the

metaphoric application, and the disappearance of every other metal the

literal one. As the French are fond of classic examples, I shall not be

surprized to see an iron coinage, in imitation of Sparta, though they

seem in the way of having one reason less for such a measure than the

Spartans had, for they are already in a state to defy corruption; and if

they were not, I think a war with England would secure the purity of

their morals from being endangered by too much commercial intercourse.

I cannot be displeased with the civil things you say of my letters, nor

at your valuing them so much as to preserve them; though, I assure you,

this fraternal gallantry is not necessary, on the account you intimate,

nor will our countrymen suffer, in my opinion, by any comparisons I can

make here. Your ideas of French gallantry are, indeed, very erroneous--

it may differ in the manner from that practised in England, but is far

from having any claim to superiority. Perhaps I cannot define the

pretensions of the two nations in this respect better than by saying,

that the gallantry of an Englishman is a sentiment--that of a Frenchman a

system. The first, if a lady happen to be old or plain, or indifferent

to him, is apt to limit his attentions to respect, or utility--now the

latter never troubles himself with these distinctions: he is repulsed by

no extremity of years, nor deformity of feature; he adores, with equal

ardour, both young and old, nor is either often shocked by his visible

preference of the other. I have seen a youthful beau kiss, with perfect

devotion, a ball of cotton dropped from the hand of a lady who was

knitting stockings for her grand-children. Another pays his court to a

belle in her climacteric, by bringing _gimblettes_ [A sort of

gingerbread.] to the favourite lap-dog, or attending, with great

assiduity, the egresses and regresses of her angola, who paces slowly out

of the room ten times in an hour, while the door is held open by the

complaisant Frenchman with a most respectful gravity.

Thus, you see, France is to the old what a masquerade is to the ugly

--the one confounds the disparity of age as the other does that of

person; but indiscriminate adoration is no compliment to youth, nor is a

mask any privilege to beauty. We may therefore conclude, that though

France may be the Elysium of old women, England is that of the young.

When I first came into this country, it reminded me of an island I had

read of in the Arabian Tales, where the ladies were not deemed in their

bloom till they verged towards seventy; and I conceived the project of

inviting all the belles, who had been half a century out of fashion in

England, to cross the Channel, and begin a new career of admiration!--

Yours, &c.

Amiens, 1793.

Dear Brother,

I have thought it hitherto a self evident proposition--that of all the

principles which can be inculcated in the human mind, that of liberty is

least susceptible of propagation by force. Yet a Council of Philosophers

(disciples of Rousseau and Voltaire) have sent forth Dumouriez, at the

head of an hundred thousand men, to instruct the people of Flanders in

the doctrine of freedom. Such a missionary is indeed invincible, and the

defenceless towns of the Low Countries have been converted and pillaged

[By the civil agents of the executive power.] by a benevolent crusade of

the philanthropic assertors of the rights of man. These warlike

Propagandistes, however, do not always convince without experiencing

resistance, and ignorance sometimes opposes, with great obstinacy, the

progress of truth. The logic of Dumouriez did not enforce conviction at

Gemappe, but at the expence of fifteen thousand of his own army, and,

doubtless, a proportionate number of the unconverted.

Here let me forbear every expression tending to levity: the heart recoils

at such a slaughter of human victims; and, if a momentary smile be

excited by these Quixotisms, it is checked by horror at their

consequences!--Humanity will lament such destruction; but it will

likewise be indignant to learn, that, in the official account of this

battle, the killed were estimated at three hundred, and the wounded at

six!--But, if the people be sacrificed, they are not deceived. The

disabled sufferers, who are returning to their homes in different parts

of the republic, betray the turpitude of the government, and expose the

fallacy of these bloodless victories of the gazettes. The pedants of the

Convention are not unlearned in the history of the Praetorian Bands and

the omnipotence of armies; and an offensive war is undertaken to give

occupation to the soldiers, whose inactivity might produce reflection, or

whose discontent might prove fatal to the new order of things.--Attempts

are made to divert the public mind from the real misery experienced at

home, by relations of useless conquests abroad; the substantial losses,

which are the price of these imaginary benefits, are palliated or

concealed; and the circumstances of an engagement is known but by

individual communication, and when subsequent events have nearly effaced

the remembrance of it.--By these artifices, and from motives at least not

better, and, perhaps, worse than those I have mentioned, will population

be diminished, and agriculture impeded: France will be involved in

present distress, and consigned to future want; and the deluded people be

punished in the miseries of their own country, because their unprincipled

rulers have judged it expedient to carry war and devastation into

another.

One of the distinguishing features in the French character is _sang froid_

--scarcely a day passes that it does not force itself on one's

observation. It is not confined to the thinking part of the people, who

know that passion and irritability avail nothing; nor to those who, not

thinking at all, are, of course, not moved by any thing: but is equally

possessed by every rank and condition, whether you class them by their

mental endowments, or their temporal possessions. They not only (as, it

must be confessed, is too commonly the case in all countries,) bear the

calamities of their friends with great philosophy, but are nearly as

reasonable under the pressure of their own. The grief of a Frenchman,

at least, partakes of his imputed national complaisance, and, far from

intruding itself on society, is always ready to accept of consolation,

and join in amusement. If you say your wife or relations are dead, they

replay coldly, _"Il faut se consoler:"_ or if they visit you in an

illness, _"Il faut prendre patience."_ Or tell them you are ruined, and

their features then become something more attenuated, the shoulders

something more elevated, and a more commiserating tone confesses, _"C'est

bien mal beureux--Mai enfin que voulez vous?"_ ["It's unlucky, but what

can be said in such cases?"] and in the same instant they ill recount

some good fortune at a card party, or expatiate on the excellence of a

ragout.--Yet, to do them justice, they only offer for your comfort the

same arguments they would have found efficacious in promoting their own.

This disposition, which preserves the tranquillity of the rich, indurates

the sense of wretchedness in the poor; it supplies the place of fortitude

in the one, and that of patience in the other; and, while it enables both

to endure their own particular distresses, it makes them submit quietly

to a weight and excess of public evils, which any nation but their own

would sink under, or resist. Amongst shopkeepers, servants, &c. without

incurring personal odium, it has the effect of what would be deemed in

England impenetrable assurance. It forces pertinaceously an article not

wanted, and preserves the inflexibility of the features at a detected

imposition: it inspires servants with arguments in defence of every

misdemeanour in the whole domestic catalogue; it renders them insensible

either of their negligences or the consequences of them; and endows them

with a happy facility of contradicting with the most obsequious

politeness.

A gentleman of our acquaintances dined at a table d'Hote, where the

company were annoyed by a very uncommon and offensive smell. On cutting

up a fowl, they discovered the smell to have been occasioned by its being

dressed with out any other preparation than that of depluming. They

immediately sent for the host, and told him, that the fowl had been

dressed without having been drawn: but, far from appearing disconcerted,

as one might expect, he only replied, _"Cela se pourroit bien,

Monsieur."_ ["'Tis very possible, Sir."] Now an English Boniface, even

though he had already made his fortune, would have been mortified at such

an incident, and all his eloquence would scarcely have produced an

unfaultering apology.

Whether this national indifference originate in a physical or a moral

cause, from an obtuseness in their corporeal formation or a perfection in

their intellectual one, I do not pretend to decide; but whatever be the

cause, the effect is enjoyed with great modesty. So little do the French

pique themselves on this valuable stoicism, that they acknowledge being

more subject to that human weakness called feeling, than any other people

in the world. All their writers abound in pathetic exclamations,

sentimental phrases, and allusions to "la sensibilite Francaise," as

though they imagined it proverbial. You can scarcely hold a conversation

with a Frenchman without hearing him detail, with an expression of

feature not always analogous, many very affecting sentences. He is

_desole, desespere, or afflige_--he has _le coeur trop sensible, le coeur

serre, or le coeur navre;_ [Afflicted--in despair--too feeling a heart--

his heart is wrung or wounded.] and the well-placing of these dolorous

assertions depends rather upon the judgement and eloquence of the

speaker, than the seriousness of the case which gives rise to them. For

instance, the despair and desolation of him who has lost his money, and

of him whose head is ill drest, are of different degrees, but the

expressions are usually the same. The debates of the Convention, the

debates of the Jacobins, and all the public prints, are fraught with

proofs of this appropriated susceptibility, and it is often attributed to

persons and occasions where we should not much expect to find it. A

quarrel between the legislators as to who was most concerned in promoting

the massacres of September, is reconciled with a "sweet and enthusiastic

excess of fraternal tenderness." When the clubs dispute on the

expediency of an insurrection, or the necessity of a more frequent

employment of the guillotine, the debate terminates by overflowing of

sensibility from all the members who have engaged in it!

At the assassinations in one of the prisons, when all the other miserable

victims had perished, the mob discovered one Jonneau, a member of the

Assembly, who had been confined for kicking another member named

Grangeneuve.* As the massacrers probably had no orders on the subject,

he was brought forth, from amidst heaps of murdered companions, and a

messenger dispatched to the Assembly, (which during these scenes met as

usual,) to enquire if they acknowledged Jonneau as a member. A decree

was passed in the affirmative, and Jonneau brought by the assassins, with

the decree fastened on his breast, in triumph to his colleagues, who, we

are told, at this instance of respect for themselves, shed tears of

tenderness and admiration at the conduct of monsters, the sight of whom

should seem revolting to human nature.

* When the massacres began, the wife and friends of Jonneau

petitioned Grangeneuve on their knees to consent to his enlargement;

but Grangeneuve was implacable, and Jonneau continued in prison till

released by the means above mentioned. It is observable, that at

this dreadful moment the utmost strictness was observed, and every

form literally enforced in granting the discharge of a prisoner. A

suspension of all laws, human and divine, was allowed to the

assassins, while those only that secured them their victims were

rigidly adhered to.

Perhaps the real sang froid I have before noticed, and these pretensions

to sensibility, are a natural consequence one or the other. It is the

history of the beast's confession--we have only to be particularly

deficient in any quality, to make us solicitous for the reputation of it;

and after a long habit of deceiving others we finish by deceiving

ourselves. He who feels no compassion for the distresses of his

neighbour, knows that such indifference is not very estimable; he

therefore studies to disguise the coldness of his heart by the

exaggeration of his language, and supplies, by an affected excess of

sentiment, the total absence of it.--The gods have not (as you know) made

me poetical, nor do I often tax your patience with a simile, but I think

this French sensibility is to genuine feeling, what their paste is to the

diamond--it gratifies the vanity of the wearer, and deceives the eye of

the superficial observer, but is of little use or value, and when tried

by the fire of adversity quickly disappears.

You are not much obliged to me for this long letter, as I own I have

scribbled rather for my own amusement than with a view to yours.--

Contrary to our expectation, the trial of the King has begun; and, though

I cannot properly be said to have any real interest in the affairs of

this country, I take a very sincere one in the fate of its unfortunate

Monarch--indeed our whole house has worn an appearance of dejection since

the commencement of the business. Most people seem to expect it will

terminate favourably, and, I believe, there are few who do not wish it.

Even the Convention seem at present disposed to be merciful; and as they

judge now, so may they be judged hereafter!

--Yours.

Amiens, January 1793.

I do all possible justice to the liberality of my countrymen, who are

become such passionate admirers of the French; and I cannot but lament

their having been so unfortunate in the choice of the aera from whence

they date this new friendship. It is, however, a proof, that their

regards are not much the effect of that kind of vanity which esteems

objects in proportion as they are esteemed by the rest of the world; and

the sincerity of an attachment cannot be better evinced than by its

surviving irretrievable disgrace and universal abhorrence. Many will

swell the triumph of a hero, or add a trophy to his tomb; but he who

exhibits himself with a culprit at the gallows, or decorates the gibbet

with a wreath, is a friend indeed.

If ever the character of a people were repugnant to amity, or inimical to

connection, it is that of the French for the last three years.--*

* The editor of the _Courier de l'Egalite,_ a most decided patriot,

thus expresses himself on the injuries and insults received by the

King from the Parisians, and their municipality, previous to his

trial:

"I know that Louis is guilty--but are we to double his punishment

before it is pronounced by the law? Indeed one is tempted to say

that, instead of being guided by the humanity and philosophy which

dictated the revolution, we have taken lessons of barbarity from the

most ferocious savages! Let us be virtuous if we would be

republicans; if we go on as we do, we never shall, and must have

recourse to a despot: for of two evils it is better to choose the

least."

The editor, whose opinion of the present politics is thus expressed, is

so truly a revolutionist, and so confidential a patriot, that, in August

last, when almost all the journalists were murdered, his paper was the

only one that, for some time, was allowed to reach the departments.

In this short space they have formed a compendium of all the vices which

have marked as many preceding ages:--the cruelty and treachery of the

league--the sedition, levity, and intrigue of the _Fronde_ [A name given

to the party in opposition to the court during Cardinal Mazarin's

ministry.--See the origin of it in the Memoirs of that period.] with the

licentiousness and political corruption of more modern epochs. Whether

you examine the conduct of the nation at large, or that of its chiefs and

leaders, your feelings revolt at the one, and your integrity despises the

other. You see the idols erected by Folly, degraded by Caprice;--the

authority obtained by Intrigue, bartered by Profligacy;--and the perfidy

and corruption of one side so balanced by the barbarity and levity of the

other, that the mind, unable to decide on the preference of contending

vices, is obliged to find repose, though with regret and disgust, in

acknowledging the general depravity.

La Fayette, without very extraordinary pretensions, became the hero of

the revolution. He dictated laws in the Assembly, and prescribed oaths

to the Garde Nationale--and, more than once, insulted, by the triumph of

ostentatious popularity, the humiliation and distress of a persecuted

Sovereign. Yet when La Fayette made an effort to maintain the

constitution to which he owed his fame and influence, he was abandoned

with the same levity with which he had been adopted, and sunk, in an

instant, from a dictator to a fugitive!

Neckar was an idol of another description. He had already departed for

his own country, when he was hurried back precipitately, amidst universal

acclamations. All were full of projects either of honour or recompence--

one was for decreeing him a statue, another proposed him a pension, and a

third hailed him the father of the country. But Mr. Neckar knew the

French character, and very wisely declined these pompous offers; for

before he could have received the first quarter of his pension, or the

statue could have been modelled, he was glad to escape, probably not

without some apprehensions for his head!

The reign of Mirabeau was something longer. He lived with popularity,

was fortunate enough to die before his reputation was exhausted, was

deposited in the Pantheon, apotheosised in form, and his bust placed as a

companion to that of Brutus, the tutelary genius of the Assembly.--Here,

one might have expected, he would have been quit for this world at least;

but the fame of a patriot is not secured by his death, nor can the gods

of the French be called immortal: the deification of Mirabeau is

suspended, his memory put in sequestration, and a committee appointed to

enquire, whether a profligate, expensive, and necessitous character was

likely to be corruptible. The Convention, too, seem highly indignant

that a man, remarkable only for vice and atrocity, should make no

conscience of betraying those who were as bad as himself; and that, after

having prostituted his talents from the moment he was conscious of them,

he should not, when associated with such immaculate colleagues, become

pure and disinterested. It is very probable that Mirabeau, whose only

aim was power, might rather be willing to share it with the King, as

Minister, than with so many competitors, and only as Prime Speechmaker to

the Assembly: and as he had no reason for suspecting the patriotism of

others to be more inflexible than his own, he might think it not

impolitic to anticipate a little the common course of things, and betray

his companions, before they had time to stipulate for felling him. He

might, too, think himself more justified in disposing of them in the

gross, because he did not thereby deprive them of their right of

bargaining for themselves, and for each other in detail.--*

* La Porte, Steward of the Household, in a letter to Duquesnoy, [Not

the brutal Dusquenoy hereafter mentioned.] dated February, 1791,

informs him that Barrere, Chairman of the Committee of Domains, is

in the best disposition possible.--A letter of Talon, (then

minister,) with remarks in the margin by the King, says, that

"Sixteen of the most violent members on the patriotic side may be

brought over to the court, and that the expence will not exceed two

millions of livres: that fifteen thousand will be sufficient for the

first payment; and only a Yes or No from his Majesty will fix these

members in his interest, and direct their future conduct."--It

likewise observes, that these two millions will cost the King

nothing, as the affair is already arranged with the

Liquidator-General.

Extract of a letter from Chambonas to the King, dated June 18, 1792:

"Sire,

"I inform your Majesty, that my agents are now in motion. I have

just been converting an evil spirit. I cannot hope that I have made

him good, but I believe I have neutralized him.--To-night we shall

make a strong effort to gain Santerre, (Commandant of the Garde

Nationale,) and I have ordered myself to be awakened to hear the

result. I shall take care to humour the different interests as well

as I can.--The Secretary of the Cordeliers club is now secured.--All

these people are to be bought, but not one of them can be hired.--I

have had with me one Mollet a physician. Perhaps your Majesty may

have heard of him. He is an outrageous Jacobin, and very difficult,

for he will receive nothing. He insists, previous to coming to any

definitive treaty, on being named Physician to the Army. I have

promised him, on condition that Paris is kept quiet for fifteen

days. He is now gone to exert himself in our favour. He has great

credit at the Caffe de Procope, where all the journalists and

'enragis' of the Fauxbourg St. Germain assemble. I hope he will

keep his word.--The orator of the people, the noted Le Maire, a

clerk at the Post-office, has promised tranquility for a week, and

he is to be rewarded.

"A new Gladiator has appeared lately on the scene, one Ronedie

Breton, arrived from England. He has already been exciting the

whole quarter of the Poisonnerie in favour of the Jacobins, but I

shall have him laid siege to.--Petion is to come to-morrow for

fifteen thousand livres, [This sum was probably only to propitiate

the Mayor; and if Chambonas, as he proposed, refused farther

payment, we may account for Petion's subsequent conduct.] on account

of thirty thousand per month which he received under the

administration of Dumouriez, for the secret service of the police.--

I know not in virtue of what law this was done, and it will be the

last he shall receive from me. Your Majesty will, I doubt not,

understand me, and approve of what I suggest.

(Signed) "Chambonas."

Extract from the Papers found at the Thuilleries.

It is impossible to warrant the authenticity of these Papers; on

their credibility, however, rests the whole proof of the most

weighty charges brought against the King. So that it must be

admitted, that either all the first patriots of the revolution, and

many of those still in repute, are corrupt, or that the King was

condemned on forged evidence.

The King might also be solicitous to purchase safety and peace at any

rate; and it is unfortunate for himself and the country that he had not

recourse to the only effectual means till it was too late. But all this

rests on no better evidence than the papers found at the Thuilleries; and

as something of this kind was necessary to nourish the exhausted fury of

the populace, I can easily conceive that it was thought more prudent to

sacrifice the dead, than the living; and the fame of Mirabeau being less

valuable than the safety of those who survived him, there would be no

great harm in attributing to him what he was very likely to have done.--

The corruption of a notorious courtier would have made no impression: the

King had already been overwhelmed with such accusations, and they had

lost their effect: but to have seduced the virtuous Mirabeau, the very

Confucius of the revolution, was a kind of profanation of the holy fire,

well calculated to revive the languid rage, and extinguish the small

remains of humanity yet left among the people.

It is sufficiently remarkable, that notwithstanding the court must have

seen the necessity of gaining over the party now in power, no vestige of

any attempt of this kind has been discovered; and every criminating

negotiation is ascribed to the dead, the absent, or the insignificant. I

do not, however, presume to decide in a case so very delicate; their

panegyrists in England may adjust the claims of Mirabeau's integrity, and

that of his accusers, at their leisure.

Another patriot of "distinguished note," and more peculiarly interesting

to our countrymen, because he has laboured much for their conversion, is

Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun.--He was in England some time as

Plenipotentiary from the Jacobins, charged with establishing treaties

between the clubs, publishing seditious manifestoes, contracting friendly

alliances with discontented scribblers, and gaining over neutral or

hostile newspapers.--But, besides his political and ecclesiastical

occupations, and that of writing letters to the Constitutional Society,

it seems this industrious Prelate had likewise a correspondence with the

Agents of the Court, which, though he was too modest to surcharge his

fame by publishing it, was, nevertheless, very profitable.

I am sorry his friends in England are mostly averse from episcopacy,

otherwise they might have provided for him, as I imagine he will have no

objection to relinquish his claims on the see of Autun. He is not under

accusation, and, were he to return, he would not find the laws quite so

ceremonious here as in England. After labouring with impunity for months

together to promote an insurrection with you, a small private barter of

his talents would here cost him his head; and I appeal to the Bishop's

friends in England, whether there can be a proper degree of freedom in a

country where a man is refused the privilege of disposing of himself to

the best advantage.

To the eternal obloquy of France, I must conclude, in the list of those

once popular, the ci-devant Duke of Orleans. But it was an unnatural

popularity, unaided by a single talent, or a single virtue, supported

only by the venal efforts of those who were almost his equals in vice,

though not in wealth, and who found a grateful exercise for their

abilities in at once profiting by the weak ambition of a bad man, and

corrupting the public morals in his favour. The unrighteous compact is

now dissolved; those whom he ruined himself to bribe have already

forsaken him, and perhaps may endeavour to palliate the disgrace of

having been called his friends, by becoming his persecutors.--Thus, many

of the primitive patriots are dead, or fugitives, or abandoned, or

treacherous; and I am not without fear lest the new race should prove as

evanescent as the old.

The virtuous Rolland,* whose first resignation was so instrumental in

dethroning the King, has now been obliged to resign a second time,

charged with want of capacity, and suspected of malversation; and this

virtue, which was so irreproachable, which it would have been so

dangerous to dispute while it served the purposes of party, is become

hypocrisy, and Rolland will be fortunate if he return to obscurity with

only the loss of his gains and his reputation.

* In the beginning of December, the Council-General of the

municipality of Paris opened a register, and appointed a Committee

to receive all accusations and complaints whatever against Rolland,

who, in return, summoned them to deliver in their accounts to him as

Minister of the interior, and accused them, at the same time, of the

most scandalous peculations.

The credit of Brissot and the Philosophers is declining fast--the clubs

are unpropitious, and no party long survives this formidable omen; so

that, like Macbeth, they will have waded from one crime to another, only

to obtain a short-lived dominion, at the expence of eternal infamy, and

an unlamented fall.

Dumouriez is still a successful General, but he is denounced by one

faction, insulted by another, insidiously praised by a third, and, if he

should persevere in serving them, he has more disinterested rectitude

than I suspect him of, or than they merit. This is another of that

Jacobin ministry which proved so fatal to the King; and it is evident

that, had he been permitted to entertain the same opinion of all these

people as they now profess to have of each other, he would have been

still living, and secure on his throne.

After so many mutual infidelities, it might be expected that one party

would grow indifferent, and the other suspicious; but the French never

despair: new hordes of patriots prepare to possess themselves of the

places they are forcing the old ones to abandon, and the people, eager

for change, are ready to receive them with the momentary and fallacious

enthusiasm which ever precedes disgrace; while those who are thus

intriguing for power and influence, are, perhaps, secretly devising how

it may be made most subservient to their personal advantage.

Yet, perhaps, these amiable levities may not be displeasing to the

Constitutional Society and the revolutionists of England; and, as the

very faults of our friends are often endearing to us, they may extend

their indulgence to the "humane" and "liberal" precepts of the Jacobins,

and the massacres of September.--To confess the truth, I am not a little

ashamed for my country when I see addresses from England to a Convention,

the members of which have just been accusing each other of assassination

and robbery, or, in the ardour of a debate, threatening, cuffing, and

knocking each other down. Exclusive of their moral character, considered

only as it appears from their reciprocal criminations, they have so

little pretension to dignity, or even decency, that it seems a mockery to

address them as the political representatives of a powerful nation

deliberating upon important affairs.

If a bearer of one of these congratulatory compliments were not apprized

of the forms of the House, he would be rather astonished, at his

introduction, to see one member in a menacing attitude, and another

denying his veracity in terms perfectly explicit, though not very civil.

Perhaps, in two minutes, the partizans of each opponent all rise and

clamour, as if preparing for a combat--the President puts on his hat as

the signal of a storm--the subordinate disputants are appeased--and the

revilings of the principal ones renewed; till, after torrents of indecent

language, the quarrel is terminated by a fraternal embrace.*--I think,

after such a scene, an addresser must feel a little humiliated, and would

return without finding his pride greatly increased by his mission.

* I do not make any assertions of this nature from conjecture or

partial evidence. The journals of the time attest that the scenes I

describe occur almost in every debate.--As a proof, I subjoin some

extracts taken nearly at hazard:

"January 7th, Convention Nationale, Presidence de Treilhard.--The

debate was opened by an address from the department of Finisterre,

expressing their wishes, and adding, that these were likewise the

wishes of the nation at large--that Marat, Robespierre, Bazire,

Chabot, Merlin, Danton, and their accomplices, might be expelled the

Convention as caballers and intriguers paid by the tyrants at war

with France."

The account of this debate is thus continued--"The almost daily

troubles which arise in the Convention were on the point of being

renewed, when a member, a friend to order, spoke as follows, and, it

is remarked, was quietly listened to:

"'Citizens,

"'If three months of uninterrupted silence has given me any claim to

your attention, I now ask it in the name of our afflicted country.

Were I to continue silent any longer, I should render myself as

culpable as those who never hold their tongues. I see we are all

sensible of the painfulness of our situation. Every day

dissatisfied with ourselves, we come to the debate with the

intention of doing something, and every day we return without having

done any thing. The people expect from us wise laws, and not storms

and tumults. How are we to make these wise laws, and keep

twenty-five millions of people quiet, when we, who are only seven

hundred and fifty individuals, give an example of perpetual riot and

disorder? What signifies our preaching the unity and indivisibility

of the republic, when we cannot maintain peace and union amongst

ourselves? What good can we expect to do amidst such scandalous

disturbances, and while we spend our time in attending to

informations, accusations, and inculpations, for the most part

utterly unfounded? For my part, I see but one means of attaining

any thing like dignity and tranquillity, and that is, by submitting

ourselves to coercive regulations.'"

Here follow some proposals, tending to establish a little decency in

their proceedings for the future; but the account from whence this

extract is taken proceeds to remark, that this invitation to peace

was no sooner finished, than a new scene of disturbance took place,

to the great loss of their time, and the scandal of all good

citizens. One should imagine, that if ever the Convention could

think it necessary to assume an appearance of dignity, or at least

of seriousness and order, it would be in giving their judgement

relative to the King. Yet, in determining how a series of questions

should be discussed, on the arrangement of which his fate seems much

to have depended, the solemnity of the occasion appears to have had

no weight. It was proposed to begin by that of the appeal to the

people. This was so violently combated, that the Convention would

hear neither party, and were a long time without debating at all.

Petion mounted the tribune, and attempted to restore order; but the

noise was too great for him to be heard. He at length, however,

obtained silence enough to make a motion. Again the murmurs

recommenced. Rabaud de St. Etienne made another attempt, but was

equally unsuccessful. Those that were of an opposite opinion

refused to hear him, and both parties rose up and rushed together to

the middle of the Hall. The most dreadful tumult took place, and

the President, with great difficulty, procured a calm. Again the

storm began, and a member told them, that if they voted in the

affirmative, those on the left side (Robespierre, &c.) would not

wait the result, but have the King assassinated. "Yes! Yes!

(resounded from all parts) the Scelerats of Paris will murder him!"

--Another violent disorder ensuing, it was thought no decree could

be passed, and, at length, amidst this scene of riot and confusion,

the order of questions was arranged, and in such a manner as to

decide the fate of the King.--It was determined, that the question

of his guilt should precede that of the appeal to the people. Had

the order of the questions been changed, the King might have been

saved, for many would have voted for the appeal in the first

instance who did not dare do it when they found the majority

resolved to pronounce him guilty.

It is very remarkable, that, on the same day on which the friends of

liberty and equality of Manchester signalized themselves by a most

patriotic compliment to the Convention, beginning with _"Francais, vous

etes libres,"_ ["Frenchmen, you are free."] they were, at that very

moment, employed in discussing a petition from numbers of Parisians who

had been thrown into prison without knowing either their crime or their

accusers, and were still detained under the same arbitrary

circumstances.--The law of the constitution is, that every person

arrested shall be interrogated within twenty-four hours; but as these

imprisonments were the work of the republican Ministers, the Convention

seemed to think it indelicate to interpose, and these citizens of a

country whose freedom is so much envied by the Manchester Society, will

most likely remain in durance as long as their confinement shall be

convenient to those who have placed them there.--A short time after,

Villette, who is a news-writer and deputy, was cited to appear before the

municipality of Paris, under the charge of having inserted in his paper

"equivocal phrases and anti-civic expressions, tending to diminish the

confidence due to the municipality."--Villette, as being a member of the

Convention, obtained redress; but had he been only a journalist, the

liberty of the press would not have rescued him.--On the same day,

complaint was made in the Assembly, that one man had been arrested

instead of another, and confined for some weeks, and it was agreed

unanimously, (a thing that does not often occur,) that the powers

exercised by the Committee of Inspection [Surveillance.--See Debates,

December.] were incompatible with liberty.

The patriots of Belfast were not more fortunate in the adaption of their

civilities--they addressed the Convention, in a strain of great piety, to

congratulate them on the success of their arms in the "cause of civil and

religious liberty."*

* At this time the municipalities were empowered to search all

houses by night or day; but their visites domiciliaires, as they are

called, being made chiefly in the night, a decree has since ordained

that they shall take place only during the day. Perhaps an

Englishman may think the latter quite sufficient, considering that

France is the freeest country in the world, and, above all, a

republic.

The harangue was interrupted by the _mal-a-propos_ entrance of two

deputies, who complained of having been beaten, almost hanged, and half

drowned, by the people of Chartres, for belonging, as they were told, to

an assembly of atheistical persecutors of religion; and this Convention,

whom the Society of Belfast admire for propagating "religious liberty" in

other countries, were in a few days humbly petitioned, from various

departments, not to destroy it in their own. I cannot, indeed, suppose

they have really such a design; but the contempt with which they treat

religion has occasioned an alarm, and given the French an idea of their

piety very different from that so kindly conceived by the patriots of

Belfast.

I entrust this to our friend Mrs. ____, who is leaving France in a few

days; and as we are now on the eve of a war, it will be the last letter

you will receive, except a few lines occasionally on our private affairs,

or to inform you of my health. As we cannot, in the state Mrs. D____ is

in, think of returning to England at present, we must trust ourselves to

the hospitality of the French for at least a few weeks, and I certainly

will not abuse it, by sending any remarks on their political affairs out

of the country. But as I know you interest yourself much in the subject,

and read with partiality my attempts to amuse you, I will continue to

throw my observations on paper as regularly as I have been accustomed to

do, and I hope, ere long, to be the bearer of the packets myself. I here

also renew my injunction, that no part of my correspondence that relates

to French politics be communicated to any one, not even my mother. What

I have written has been merely to gratify your own curiosity, and I

should be extremely mortified if my opinions were repeated even in the

little circle of our private acquaintance. I deem myself perfectly

justifiable in imparting my reflections to you, but I have a sort of

delicacy that revolts at the thought of being, in the remotest degree,

accessary to conveying intelligence from a country in which I reside,

and which is so peculiarly situated as France is at this moment. My

feelings, my humanity, are averse from those who govern, but I should

regret to be the means of injuring them. You cannot mistake my

intentions, and I conclude by seriously reminding you of the promise I

exacted previous to any political discussion.--Adieu.

Amiens, February 15, 1793.

I did not, as I promised, write immediately on my return from Chantilly;

the person by whom I intended to send my letter having already set out

for England, and the rule I have observed for the last three months of

entrusting nothing to the post but what relates to our family affairs,

is now more than ever necessary. I have before requested, and I must now

insist, that you make no allusion to any political matter whatever, nor

even mention the name of any political person. Do not imagine that you

are qualified to judge of what is prudent, or what may be written with

safety--I repeat, no one in England can form an idea of the suspicion

that pervades every part of the French government.

I cannot venture to answer decisively your question respecting the King--

indeed the subject is so painful to me, that I have hitherto avoided

reverting to it. There certainly was, as you observe, some sudden

alteration in the dispositions of the Assembly between the end of the

trial and the final judgement. The causes were most probably various,

and must be sought for in the worst vices of our nature--cruelty,

avarice, and cowardice. Many, I doubt not, were guided only by the

natural malignity of their hearts; many acted from fear, and expected to

purchase impunity for former compliances with the court by this popular

expiation; a large number are also supposed to have been paid by the Duke

of Orleans--whether for the gratification of malice or ambition, time

must develope.--But, whatever were the motives, the result was an

iniquitous combination of the worst of a set of men, before selected from

all that was bad in the nation, to profane the name of justice--to

sacrifice an unfortunate, but not a guilty Prince--and to fix an

indelible stain on the country.

Among those who gave their opinion at large, you will observe Paine: and,

as I intimated in a former letter, it seems he was at that time rather

allured by the vanity of making a speech that should be applauded, than

by any real desire of injuring the King. Such vanity, however, is not

pardonable: a man has a right to ruin himself, or to make himself

ridiculous; but when his vanity becomes baneful to others, as it has all

the effect, so does it merit the punishment, of vice.

Of all the rest, Condorcet has most powerfully disgusted me. The avowed

wickedness of Thuriot or Marat inspires one with horror; but this cold

philosophic hypocrite excites contempt as well as detestation. He seems

to have wavered between a desire to preserve the reputation of humanity,

which he has affected, and that of gratifying the real depravity of his

mind. Would one have expected, that a speech full of benevolent systems,

mild sentiments, and aversion from the effusion of human blood, was to

end in a vote for, and recommendation of, the immediate execution of his

sovereign?--But such a conduct is worthy of him, who has repaid the

benefits of his patron and friend [The Duke de la Rochefaucault.] by a

persecution which ended in his murder.

You will have seen, that the King made some trifling requests to be

granted after his decease, and that the Convention ordered him to be

told, that the nation, "always great, always just," accorded them in

part. Yet this just and magnanimous people refused him a preparation of

only three days, and allowed him but a few hours--suffered his remains to

be treated with the most scandalous indecency--and debated seriously,

whether or no the Queen should receive some little tokens of affection he

had left for her.

The King's enemies had so far succeeded in depreciating his personal

courage, that even his friends were apprehensive he might not sustain his

last moments with dignity. The event proves how much injustice has been

done him in this respect, as well as in many others. His behaviour was

that of a man who derived his fortitude from religion--it was that of

pious resignation, not ostentatious courage; it was marked by none of

those instances of levity and indifference which, at such a time, are

rather symptoms of distraction than resolution; he exhibited the

composure of an innocent mind, and the seriousness that became the

occasion; he seemed to be occupied in preparing for death, but not to

fear it.--I doubt not but the time will come, when those who have

sacrificed him may envy the last moments of Louis the Sixteenth!

That the King was not guilty of the principal charges brought against

him, has been proved indubitably--not altogether by the assertions of

those who favour him, but by the confession of his enemies. He was, for

example, accused of planning the insurrection of the tenth of August; yet

not a day passes that both parties in the Convention are not disputing

the priority of their efforts to dethrone him, and to erect a republic;

and they date their machinations long before the period on which they

attribute the first aggression to the King.--Mr. Sourdat, and several

other writers, have very ably demonstrated the falsehood of these

charges; but the circulation of such pamphlets was dangerous--of course,

secret and limited; while those which tended to deceive and prejudice the

people were dispersed with profusion, at the expence of the government.*

* Postscript of the Courier de l'Egalite, Sept. 29:

"The present minister (Rolland) takes every possible means in his

power to enlighten and inform the people in whatever concerns their

real interests. For this purpose he has caused to be printed and

distributed, in abundance, the accounts and papers relative to the

events of the tenth of August. We have yet at our office a small

number of these publications, which we have distributed to our

subscribers, and we still give them to any of our fellow-citizens

who have opportunities of circulating them."

I have seen one of these written in coarse language, and replete with

vulgar abuse, purposely calculated for the lower classes in the country,

who are more open to gross impositions than those of the same rank in

towns; yet I have no doubt, in my own mind, that all these artifices

would have proved unavailing, had the decision been left to the nation at

large: but they were intimidated, if not convinced; and the mandate of

the Convention, which forbids this sovereign people to exercise their

judgement, was obeyed with as much submission, and perhaps more

reluctance, than an edict of Louis the fourteenth.*

* The King appealed, by his counsel, to the People; but the

convention, by a decree, declared his appeal of no validity, and

forbade all persons to pay attention to it, under the severest

penalties.

The French seem to have no energy but to destroy, and to resist nothing

but gentleness or infancy. They bend under a firm or oppressive

administration, but become restless and turbulent under a mild Prince or

a minority.

The fate of this unfortunate Monarch has made me reflect, with great

seriousness, on the conduct of our opposition-writers in England. The

literary banditti who now govern France began their operations by

ridiculing the King's private character--from ridicule they proceeded to

calumny, and from calumny to treason; and perhaps the first libel that

degraded him in the eyes of his subjects opened the path from the palace

to the scaffold.--I do not mean to attribute the same pernicious

intentions to the authors on your side the Channel, as I believe them,

for the most part, to be only mercenary, and that they would write

panegyrics as soon as satires, were they equally profitable. I know too,

that there is no danger of their producing revolutions in England--we do

not suffer our principles to be corrupted by a man because he has the art

of rhyming nothings into consequence, nor suffer another to overturn the

government because he is an orator. Yet, though these men may not be

very mischievous, they are very reprehensible; and, in a moment like the

present, contempt and neglect should supply the place of that punishment

against which our liberty of the press secures them.

It is not for a person no better informed than myself to pronounce on

systems of government--still less do I affect to have more enlarged

notions than the generality of mankind; but I may, without risking those

imputations, venture to say, I have no childish or irrational deference

for the persons of Kings. I know they are not, by nature, better than

other men, and a neglected or vicious education may often render them

worse. This does not, however, make me less respect the office. I

respect it as the means chosen by the people to preserve internal peace

and order--to banish corruption and petty tyrants ["And fly from petty

tyrants to the throne."--Goldsmith]--and give vigour to the execution of

the laws.

Regarded in this point of view, I cannot but lament the mode which has

lately prevailed of endeavouring to alienate the consideration due to our

King's public character, by personal ridicule. If an individual were

attacked in this manner, his house beset with spies, his conversation

with his family listened to, and the most trifling actions of his life

recorded, it would be deemed unfair and illiberal, and he who should

practice such meanness would be thought worthy of no punishment more

respectful than what might be inflicted by an oaken censor, or an

admonitory heel.--But it will be said, a King is not an individual, and

that such a habit, or such an amusement, is beneath the dignity of his

character. Yet would it be but consistent in those who labour to prove,

by the public acts of Kings, that they are less than men, not to exact,

that, in their private lives, they should be more.--The great prototype

of modern satyrists, Junius, does not allow that any credit should be

given a Monarch for his domestic virtues; is he then to be reduced to an

individual, only to scrutinize his foibles, and is his station to serve

only as the medium of their publicity? Are these literary miners to

penetrate the recesses of private life, only to bring to light the dross?

Do they analyse only to discover poisons? Such employments may be

congenial to their natures, but have little claim to public remuneration.

The merit of a detractor is not much superior to that of a flatterer; nor

is a Prince more likely to be amended by imputed follies, than by

undeserved panegyrics. If any man wished to represent his King

advantageously, it could not be done better than by remarking, that,

after all the watchings of assiduous necessity, and the laborious

researches of interested curiosity, it appears, that his private life

affords no other subjects of ridicule than, that he is temperate,

domestic, and oeconomical, and, as is natural to an active mind, wishes

to be informed of whatever happens not to be familiar to him. It were to

be desired that some of these accusations were applicable to those who

are so much scandalized at them: but they are not littlenesses--the

littleness is in him who condescends to report them; and I have often

wondered that men of genius should make a traffic of gleaning from the

refuse of anti-chambers, and retailing the anecdotes of pages and

footmen!

You will perceive the kind of publications I allude to; and I hope the

situation of France, and the fate of its Monarch, may suggest to the

authors a more worthy employ of their talents, than that of degrading the

executive power in the eyes of the people.

Amiens, Feb. 25, 1793.

I told you, I believe, in a former letter, that the people of Amiens were

all aristocrates: they have, nevertheless, two extremely popular

qualifications--I mean filth and incivility. I am, however, far from

imputing either of them to the revolution. This grossness of behavior

has long existed under the palliating description of _"la franchise

Picarde,"_ ["Picardy frankness."] and the floors and stairs of many

houses will attest their preeminence in filth to be of a date much

anterior to the revolution.--If you purchase to the amount of an hundred

livres, there are many shopkeepers who will not send your purchases home;

and if the articles they show you do not answer your purpose, they are

mostly sullen, and often rude. No appearance of fatigue or infirmity

suggests to them the idea of offering you a seat; they contradict you

with impertinence, address you with freedom, and conclude with cheating

you if they can. It was certainly on this account that Sterne would not

agree to die at the inn at Amiens. He might, with equal justice, have

objected to any other house; and I am sure if he thought them an

unpleasant people to die amongst, he would have found them still worse to

live with.--My observation as to the civility of aristocrates does not

hold good here--indeed I only meant that those who ever had any, and were

aristocrates, still preserved it.

Amiens has always been a commercial town, inhabited by very few of the

higher noblesse; and the mere gentry of a French province are not very

much calculated to give a tone of softness and respect to those who

imitate them. You may, perhaps, be surprized that I should express

myself with little consideration for a class which, in England, is so

highly respectable: there gentlemen of merely independent circumstances

are not often distinguishable in their manners from those of superior

fortune or rank. But, in France, it is different: the inferior noblesse

are stiff, ceremonious, and ostentatious; while the higher ranks were

always polite to strangers, and affable to their dependents. When you

visit some of the former, you go through as many ceremonies as though you

were to be invested with an order, and rise up and sit down so many

times, that you return more fatigued than you would from a cricket match;

while with the latter you are just as much at your ease as is consistent

with good breeding and propriety, and a whole circle is never put in

commotion at the entrance and exit of every individual who makes part of

it. Any one not prepared for these formalities, and who, for the first

time, saw an assembly of twenty people all rising from their seats at the

entrance of a single beau, would suppose they were preparing for a dance,

and that the new comer was a musician. For my part I always find it an

oeconomy of strength (when the locality makes it practicable) to take

possession of a window, and continue standing in readiness until the hour

of visiting is over, and calm is established by the arrangement of the

card tables.--The revolution has not annihilated the difference of rank;

though it has effected the abolition of titles; and I counsel all who

have remains of the gout or inflexible joints, not to frequent the houses

of ladies whose husbands have been ennobled only by their offices, of

those whose genealogies are modern, or of the collaterals of ancient

families, whose claims are so far removed as to be doubtful. The society

of all these is very exigent, and to be avoided by the infirm or

indolent.

I send you with this a little collection of airs which I think you will

find very agreeable. The French music has not, perhaps, all the

reputation it is entitled to. Rousseau has declared it to be nothing but

doleful psalmodies; Gray calls a French concert "Une tintamarre de

diable:" and the prejudices inspired by these great names are not easily

obliterated. We submit our judgement to theirs, even when our taste is

refractory.--The French composers seem to excel in marches, in lively

airs that abound in striking passages calculated for the popular taste,

and yet more particularly in those simple melodies they call romances:

they are often in a very charming and singular style, without being

either so delicate or affecting as the Italian. They have an expression

of plaintive tenderness, which makes one tranquil rather than melancholy;

and which, though it be more soothing than interesting, is very

delightful.--Yours, &c.

Amiens, 1793.

I have been to-day to take a last view of the convents: they are now

advertised for sale, and will probably soon be demolished. You know my

opinion is not, on the whole, favourable to these institutions, and that

I thought the decree which extinguishes them, but which secured to the

religious already profest the undisturbed possession of their habitations

during life, was both politic and humane. Yet I could not see the

present state of these buildings without pain--they are now inhabited by

volunteers, who are passing a novitiate of intemperance and idleness,

previous to their reception in the army; and those who recollect the

peace and order that once reigned within the walls of a monastery, cannot

but be stricken with the contrast. I felt both for the expelled and

present possessors, and, perhaps, gave a mental preference to the

superstition which founded such establishments, over the persecution that

destroys them.

The resigned and pious votaries, who once supposed themselves secure from

all the vicissitudes of fortune, and whose union seemed dissoluble only

by the common lot of mortality, are now many of them dispersed,

wandering, friendless, and miserable. The religion which they cherished

as a comfort, and practised as a duty, is now pursued as a crime; and it

is not yet certain that they will not have to choose between an

abjuration of their principles, and the relinquishment of the means of

existence.--The military occupiers offered nothing very alleviating to

such unpleasant reflections; and I beheld with as much regret the

collection of these scattered individuals, as the separation of those

whose habitations they fill. They are most of them extremely young,

taken from villages and the service of agriculture, and are going to risk

their lives in a cause detested perhaps by more than three parts of the

nation, and only to secure impunity to its oppressors.

It has usually been a maxim in all civilized states, that when the

general welfare necessitates some act of partial injustice, it shall be

done with the utmost consideration for the sufferer, and that the

required sacrifice of moral to political expediency shall be palliated,

as much as the circumstances will admit, by the manner of carrying it

into execution. But the French legislators, in this respect, as in most

others, truly original, disdain all imitation, and are rarely guided by

such confined motives. With them, private rights are frequently

violated, only to facilitate the means of public oppressions--and cruel

and iniquitous decrees are rendered still more so by the mode of

enforcing them.

I have met with no person who could conceive the necessity of expelling

the female religious from their convents. It was, however, done, and

that with a mixture of meanness and barbarity which at once excites

contempt and detestation. The ostensible, reasons were, that these

communities afforded an asylum to the superstitious, and that by their

entire suppression, a sale of the houses would enable the nation to

afford the religious a more liberal support than had been assigned them

by the Constituent Assembly. But they are shallow politicians who expect

to destroy superstition by persecuting those who practise it: and so far

from adding, as the decree insinuates, to the pensions of the nuns, they

have now subjected them to an oath which, to those at least whose

consciences are timid, will act as a prohibition to their receiving what

they were before entitled to.

The real intention of the legislature in thus entirely dispersing the

female religious, besides the general hatred of every thing connected

with religion, is, to possess itself of an additional resource in the

buildings and effects, and, as is imagined by some, to procure numerous

and convenient state prisons. But, I believe, the latter is only an

aristocratic apprehension, suggested by the appropriation of the convents

to this use in a few places, where the ancient prisons are full.--

Whatever purpose it is intended to answer, it has been effected in a way

disgraceful to any national body, except such a body as the Convention;

and, though it be easy to perceive the cruelty of such a measure, yet as,

perhaps, its injustice may not strike you so forcibly as if you had had

the same opportunities of investigating it as I have, I will endeavour to

explain, as well as I can, the circumstances that render it so peculiarly

aggravated.

I need not remind you, that no order is of very modern foundation, nor

that the present century has, in a great degree, exploded the fashion of

compounding for sins by endowing religious institutions. Thus,

necessarily, by the great change which has taken place in the expence of

living, many establishments that were poorly endowed must have become

unable to support themselves, but for the efforts of those who were

attached to them. It is true, that the rent of land has increased as its

produce became more valuable; but every one knows that the lands

dependent on religious houses have always been let on such moderate

terms, as by no means to bear a proportion to the necessities they were

intended to supply; and as the monastic vows have long ceased to be the

frequent choice of the rich, little increase has been made to the

original stock by the accession of new votaries:--yet, under all these

disadvantages, many societies have been able to rebuild their houses,

embellish their churches, purchase plate, &c. &c. The love of their

order, that spirit of oeconomy for which they are remarkable, and a

persevering industry, had their usual effects, and not only banished

poverty, but became a source of wealth. An indefatigable labour at such

works as could be profitably disposed of, the education of children, and

the admission of boarders, were the means of enriching a number of

convents, whose proper revenues would not have afforded them even a

subsistence.

But the fruits of active toil or voluntary privation, have been

confounded with those of expiatory bequest and mistaken devotion, and

have alike become the prey of a rapacious and unfeeling government. Many

communities are driven from habitations built absolutely with the produce

of their own labour. In some places they were refused even their beds

and linen; and the stock of wood, corn, &c. provided out of the savings

of their pensions, (understood to be at their own disposal,) have been

seized, and sold, without making them the smallest compensation.

Thus deprived of every thing, they are sent into the world with a

prohibition either to live several of them together, wear their habits,*

or practise their religion; yet their pensions** are too small for them

to live upon, except in society, or to pay the usual expence of boarding:

many of them have no other means of procuring secular dresses, and still

more will imagine themselves criminal in abstaining from the mode of

worship they have been taught to think salutary.

* Two religious, who boarded with a lady I had occasion to see

sometimes, told me, that they had been strictly enjoined not to

dress like each other in any way.

** The pensions are from about seventeen to twenty-five pounds

sterling per annum.--At the time I am writing, the necessaries of

life are increased in price nearly two-fifths of what they bore

formerly, and are daily becoming dearer. The Convention are not

always insensible to this--the pay of the foot soldier is more than

doubled.

It is also to be remembered, that women of small fortune in France often

embraced the monastic life as a frugal retirement, and, by sinking the

whole they were possessed of in this way, they expected to secure a

certain provision, and to place themselves beyond the reach of future

vicissitudes: yet, though the sums paid on these occasions can be easily

ascertained, no indemnity has been made; and many will be obliged to

violate their principles, in order to receive a trifling pension, perhaps

much less than the interest of their money would have produced without

loss of the principal.

But the views of these legislating philosophers are too sublimely

extensive to take in the wrongs or sufferings of contemporary

individuals; and not being able to disguise, even to themselves, that

they create much misery at present, they promise incalculable advantages

to those who shall happen to be alive some centuries hence! Most of

these poor nuns are, however, of an age to preclude them from the hope of

enjoying this Millennium; and they would have been content en attendant

these glorious times, not to be deprived of the necessaries of life, or

marked out as objects of persecution.

The private distresses occasioned by the dissolution of the convents are

not the only consequences to be regretted--for a time, at least, the loss

must certainly be a public one. There will now be no means of

instruction for females, nor any refuge for those who are without friends

or relations: thousands of orphans must be thrown unprotected on the

world, and guardians, or single men, left with the care of children, have

no way to dispose of them properly. I do not contend that the education

of a convent is the best possible: yet are there many advantages

attending it; and I believe it will readily be granted, that an education

not quite perfect is better than no education at all. It would not be

very difficult to prove, that the systems of education, both in England

and France, are extremely defective; and if the characters of women are

generally better formed in one than the other, it is not owing to the

superiority of boarding-schools over convents, but to the difference of

our national manners, which tend to produce qualities not necessary, or

not valued, in France.

The most distinguished female excellencies in England are an attachment

to domestic life, an attention to its oeconomies, and a cultivated

understanding. Here, any thing like house-wifery is not expected but

from the lower classes, and reading or information is confined chiefly to

professed wits. Yet the qualities so much esteemed in England are not

the effect of education: few domestic accomplishments, and little useful

knowledge, are acquired at a boarding-school; but finally the national

character asserts its empire, and the female who has gone through a

course of frivolities from six to sixteen, who has been taught that the

first "human principle" should be to give an elegant tournure to her

person, after a few years' dissipation, becomes a good wife and mother,

and a rational companion.

In France, young women are kept in great seclusion: religion and oeconomy

form a principal part of conventual acquirements, and the natural vanity

of the sex is left to develope itself without the aid of authority, or

instillation by precept--yet, when released from this sober tuition,

manners take the ascendant here as in England, and a woman commences at

her marriage the aera of coquetry, idleness, freedom, and rouge.--We may

therefore, I think, venture to conclude, that the education of a

boarding-school is better calculated for the rich, that of a convent for

the middle classes and the poor; and, consequently, that the suppression

of this last in France will principally affect those to whom it was most

beneficial, and to whom the want of it will be most dangerous.

A committee of wise men are now forming a plan of public instruction,

which is to excel every thing ever adopted in any age or country; and we

may therefore hope that the defects which have hitherto prevailed, both

in theirs and our own, will be remedied. All we have to apprehend is,

that, amidst so many wise heads, more than one wise plan may be produced,

and a difficulty of choice keep the rising generation in a sort of

abeyance, so that they must remain sterile, or may become vitiated, while

it is determining in what manner they shall be cultivated.

It is almost a phrase to say, the resources of France are wonderful, and

this is no less true than generally admitted. Whatever be the want or

loss, it is no sooner known than supplied, and the imagination of the

legislature seems to become fertile in proportion to the exigence of the

moment.--I was in some pain at the disgrace of Mirabeau, lest this new

kind of retrospective judgement should depopulate the Pantheon of the few

divinities that remained; more especially when I considered that

Voltaire, notwithstanding his merits as an enemy to revelation, had been

already accused of aristocracy, and even Rousseau himself might not be

found impeccable. His Contrat Social might not, perhaps, in the eyes of

a committee of philosophical Rhadmanthus's, atone for his occasional

admiration of christianity: and thus some crime, either of church or

state, disfranchise the whole race of immortals, and their fame scarcely

outlast the dispute about their earthly remains.*

* Alluding to the disputes between the Convention and the person who

claimed the exclusive right to the remains of Rousseau.

My concern, on this account, was the more justifiable, because the great

fallibility which prevailed among the patriots, and the very delicate

state of the reputation of those who retained their political existence,

afforded no hope that they could ever fill the vacancies in the

Pantheon.--But my fears were very superfluous--France will never want

subjects for an apotheosis, and if one divinity be dethroned, "another

and another still succeeds," all equally worthy as long as they continue

in fashion.--The phrenzy of despair has supplied a successor to Mirabeau,

in Le Pelletier. [De St. Fargeau.] The latter had hitherto been little

heard of, but his death offered an occasion for exciting the people too

favourable to be neglected: his patriotism and his virtues immediately

increased in a ratio to the use which might be made of them;* a dying

speech proper for the purpose was composed, and it was decreed

unanimously, that he should be installed in all the rights, privileges,

and immortalities of the degraded Riquetti.--

* At the first intelligence of his death, a member of the

Convention, who was with him, and had not yet had time to study a

speech, confessed his last words to have been, "Jai froid."--"I am

cold." This, however, would nave made no figure on the banners of a

funeral procession; and Le Pelletier was made to die, like the hero

of a tragedy, uttering blank verse.

The funeral that preceded these divine awards was a farce, which tended

more to provoke a massacre of the living, than to honour the dead; and

the Convention, who vowed to sacrifice their animosities on his tomb, do

so little credit to the conciliating influence of St. Fargeau's virtues,

that they now dispute with more acrimony than ever.

The departments, who begin to be extremely submissive to Paris, thought

it incumbent on them to imitate this ceremony; but as it was rather an

act of fear than of patriotism, it was performed here with so much

oeconomy, and so little inclination, that the whole was cold and paltry.

--An altar was erected on the great market-place, and so little were the

people affected by the catastrophe of a patriot whom they were informed

had sacrificed* his life in their cause, that the only part of the

business which seemed to interest them was the extravagant gestures of a

woman in a dirty white dress, hired to act the part of a "pleureuse," or

mourner, and whose sorrow appeared to divert them infinitely.--

* There is every reason to believe that Le Pelletier was not singled

out for his patriotism.--It is said, and with much appearance of

probability, that he had promised PARIS, with whom he had been

intimate, not to vote for the death of the King; and, on his

breaking his word, PARIS, who seems to have not been perfectly in

his senses, assassinated him.--PARIS had been in the Garde du Corps,

and, like most of his brethren, was strongly attached to the King's

person. Rage and despair prompted him to the commission of an act,

which can never be excused, however the perpetrator may imagine

himself the mere instrument of Divine vengeance.--Notwithstanding

the most vigilant research, he escaped for some time, and wandered

as far as Forges d'Eaux, a little town in Normandy. At the inn

where he lodged, the extravagance of his manner giving suspicions

that he was insane, the municipality were applied to, to secure him.

An officer entered his room while he was in bed, and intimated the

purpose he was come for. PARIS affected to comply, and, turning,

drew a pistol from under the clothes, and shot himself.--Among the

papers found upon him were some affecting lines, expressive of his

contempt for life, and adding, that the influence of his example was

not to be dreaded, since he left none behind him that deserved the

name of Frenchmen!--_"Qu'on n'inquiete personne! personne n'a ete

mon complice dans la mort heureuse de Scelerat St. Fargeau. Si Je

ne l'eusse pas rencontre sous ma main, Je purgeois la France du

regicide, du parricide, du patricide D'Orleans. Qu'on n'inquiete

personne. Tous les Francois sont des laches auxquelles Je dis--

"Peuple, dont les forfaits jettent partout l'effroi,

"Avec calme et plaisir J'abandonne la vie

"Ce n'est que par la mort qu'on peut fuir l'infamie,

"Qu'imprime sur nos fronts le sang de notre Roi."_

"Let no man be molested on my account: I had no accomplice in the

fortunate death of the miscreant St. Fargeau. If he had not fallen

in my way, I should have purged France of the regicide, parricide,

patricide D'Orleans. Let no man be molested. All the French are

cowards, to whom I say--'People, whose crimes inspire universal

horror, I quit life with tranquility and pleasure. By death alone

can we fly from that infamy which the blood of our King has marked

upon our foreheads!'"--This paper was entitled "My Brevet of

Honour."

It will ever be so where the people are not left to consult their own

feelings. The mandate that orders them to assemble may be obeyed, but

"that which passeth show" is not to be enforced. It is a limit

prescribed by Nature herself to authority, and such is the aversion of

the human mind from dictature and restraint, that here an official

rejoicing is often more serious than these political exactions of regret

levied in favour of the dead.--Yours, &c. &c.

March 23, 1793.

The partizans of the French in England alledge, that the revolution, by

giving them a government founded on principles of moderation and

rectitude, will be advantageous to all Europe, and more especially to

Great Britain, which has so often suffered by wars, the fruit of their

intrigues.--This reasoning would be unanswerable could the character of

the people be changed with the form of their government: but, I believe,

whoever examines its administration, whether as it relates to foreign

powers or internal policy, will find that the same spirit of intrigue,

fraud, deception, and want of faith, which dictated in the cabinet of

Mazarine or Louvois, has been transfused, with the addition of meanness

and ignorance,* into a Constitutional Ministry, or the Republican

Executive Council.

A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Complete Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners · 第 8 / 18 题

I subjoin an extract from a newspaper, which has lately appeared.*