I do not pretend to undertake the defence of the Queen's imputed faults--

yet I think there are some at least which one may be very fairly

permitted to doubt. Compassion should not make me an advocate for guilt

--but I may, without sacrificing morals to pity, venture to observe, that

the many scandalous histories circulated to her prejudice took their rise

at the birth of the Dauphin,* which formed so insurmountable a bar to the

views of the Duke of Orleans.--

* Nearly at the same time, and on the same occasion, there were

literary partizans of the Duke of Orleans, who endeavoured to

persuade the people that the man with the iron mask, who had so long

excited curiosity and eluded conjecture, was the real son of Louis

XIII.--and Louis XIV. in consequence, supposititious, and only the

illegitimate offspring of Cardinal Mazarin and Anne of Austria--that

the spirit of ambition and intrigue which characterized this

Minister had suggested this substitution to the lawful heir, and

that the fears of the Queen and confusion of the times had obliged

her to acquiesce:

"Cette opinion ridicule, et dont les dates connues de l'histoire

demontrent l'absurdite, avoit eu des partisans en France--elle

tendoit a avilir la maison regnante, et a persuader au peuple que le

trone n'appartient pas aux descendans de Louis XIV. prince

furtivement sutstitue, mais a la posterite du second fils de Louis

XIII. qui est la tige de la branche d'Orleans, et qui est reconnue

comme descendant legitimement, et sans objection, du Roi Louis

XIII."

--Nouvelles Considerations sur la Masque de Fer, Memoirs de

Richelieu.

"This ridiculous opinion, the absurdity of which is demonstrated by

historical dates, had not been without its partizans in France.--It

tended to degrade the reigning family, and to make the people

believe that the throne did not of right belong to the descendants

of Louis XIV. (a prince surreptitiously intruded) but to the

posterity of the second son of Louis XIII. from whom is derived the

branch of Orleans, and who was, without dispute, the legitimate and

unobjectionable offspring of Louis XIII."

--New Considerations on the Iron Mask.--Memoirs of the Duc de

Richelieu.

The author of the above Memoirs adds, that after the taking of the

Bastille, new attempts were made to propagate this opinion, and that he

himself had refuted it to many people, by producing original letters and

papers, sufficiently demonstrative of its absurdity.

--He might hope, by popularity, to supersede the children of the Count

d'Artois, who was hated; but an immediate heir to the Crown could be

removed only by throwing suspicions on his legitimacy. These

pretensions, it is true, were so absurd, and even incredible, that had

they been urged at the time, no inference in the Queen's favour would

have been admitted from them; but as the existence of such projects,

however absurd and iniquitous, has since been demonstrated, one may now,

with great appearance of reason, allow them some weight in her

justification.

The affair of the necklace was of infinite disservice to the Queen's

reputation; yet it is remarkable, that the most furious of the Jacobins

are silent on this head as far as it regarded her, and always mention the

Cardinal de Rohan in terms that suppose him to be the culpable party:

but, "whatever her faults, her woes deserve compassion;" and perhaps the

moralist, who is not too severe, may find some excuse for a Princess,

who, at the age of sixteen, possibly without one real friend or

disinterested adviser, became the unrestrained idol of the most

licentious Court in Europe. Even her enemies do not pretend that her

fate was so much a merited punishment as a political measure: they

alledge, that while her life was yet spared, the valour of their troops

was checked by the possibility of negotiation; and that being no more,

neither the people nor armies expecting any thing but execration or

revenge, they will be more ready to proceed to the most desperate

extremities.--This you will think a barbarous sort of policy, and

considering it as national, it appears no less absurd than barbarous; but

for the Convention, whose views perhaps extend little farther than to

saving their heads, peculating, and receiving their eighteen livres a

day, such measures, and such a principle of action, are neither unwise

nor unaccountable: "for the wisdom of civilized nations is not their

wisdom, nor the ways of civilized people their ways."*--

* I have been informed, by a gentleman who saw the Queen pass in her

way to execution, that the short white bed gown and the cap which

she wore were discoloured by smoke, and that her whole appearance

seemed to have been intended, if possible, to degrade her in the

eyes of the multitude. The benevolent mind will recollect with

pleasure, that even the Queen's enemies allow her a fortitude and

energy of character which must have counteracted this paltry malice,

and rendered it incapable of producing any emotion but contempt. On

her first being removed to the Conciergerie, she applied for some

necessaries; but the humane municipality of Paris refused them,

under pretext that the demand was contrary to the system of _la

sainte elagite_--"holy equality."

--It was reported that the Queen was offered her life, and the liberty to

retire to St. Cloud, her favourite residence, if she would engage the

enemy to raise the siege of Maubeuge and withdraw; but that she refused

to interfere.

Arras, 1793.

For some days previous to the battle by which Maubeuge was relieved, we

had very gloomy apprehensions, and had the French army been unsuccessful

and forced to fall back, it is not improbable but the lives of those

detained in the _Maison d'Arret_ [House of detention.] might have been

sacrificed under pretext of appeasing the people, and to give some credit

to the suspicions so industriously inculcated that all their defeats are

occasioned by internal enemies. My first care, as soon as I was able to

go down stairs, was to examine if the house offered any means of escape

in case of danger, and I believe, if we could preserve our recollection,

it might be practicable; but I can so little depend on my strength and

spirits, should such a necessity occur, that perhaps the consolation of

knowing I have a resource is the only benefit I should ever derive from

it.

Oct. 21.

I have this day made a discovery of a very unpleasant nature, which Mad.

de ____ had hitherto cautiously concealed from me. All the English, and

other foreigners placed under similar circumstances, are now, without

exception, arrested, and the confiscation of their property is decreed.

It is uncertain if the law is to extend to wearing apparel, but I find

that on this ground the Committee of Peronne persist in refusing to take

the seals off my effects, or to permit my being supplied with any

necessaries whatsoever. In other places they have put two, four, and, I

am told, even to the number of six guards, in houses belonging to the

English; and these guards, exclusive of being paid each two shillings per

day, burn the wood, regale on the wine, and pillage in detail all they

can find, while the unfortunate owner is starving in a Maison d'Arret,

and cannot obtain permission to withdraw a single article for his own

use.--The plea for this paltry measure is, that, according to the report

of a deserter escaped from Toulon, Lord Hood has hanged one Beauvais, a

member of the Convention. I have no doubt but the report is false, and,

most likely, fabricated by the Comite de Salut Public, in order to

palliate an act of injustice previously meditated.

It is needless to expatiate on the atrocity of making individuals, living

here under the faith of the nation, responsible for the events of the

war, and it is whispered that even the people are a little ashamed of it;

yet the government are not satisfied with making us accountable for what

really does happen, but they attribute acts of cruelty to our countrymen,

in order to excuse those they commit themselves, and retaliate imagined

injuries by substantial vengeance.--Legendre, a member of the Convention,

has proposed, with a most benevolent ingenuity, that the manes of the

aforesaid Beauvais should be appeased by exhibiting Mr. Luttrell in an

iron cage for a convenient time, and then hanging him.

A gentleman from Amiens, lately arrested while happening to be here on

business, informs me, that Mr. Luttrell is now in the common gaol of that

place, lodged with three other persons in a miserable apartment, so

small, that there is not room to pass between their beds. I understand

he was advised to petition Dumont for his removal to a Maison d'Arret,

where he would have more external convenience; but he rejected this

counsel, no doubt from a disdain which did him honour, and preferred to

suffer all that the mean malice of these wretches would inflict, rather

than ask any accommodation as a favour.--The distinguishing Mr. Luttrell

from any other English gentleman is as much a proof of ignorance as of

baseness; but in this, as in every thing else, the present French

government is still more wicked than absurd, and our ridicule is

suppressed by our detestation.

Oct. 22.

Mad. de ____'s _homme d'affaires_ [Agent] has been here to-day, but no

news from Amiens. I know not what to conjecture. My patience is almost

exhausted, and my spirits are fatigued. Were I not just now relieved by

a distant prospect of some change for the better, my situation would be

insupportable.--"Oh world! oh world! but that thy strange mutations make

us wait thee, life would not yield to age." We should die before our

time, even of moral diseases, unaided by physical ones; but the

uncertainty of human events, which is the "worm i'the bud" of happiness,

is to the miserable a cheering and consolatory reflection. Thus have I

dragged on for some weeks, postponing, as it were, my existence, without

any resource, save the homely philosophy of _"nous verrons demain."_

["We shall see to-morrow."]

At length our hopes and expectations are become less general, and if we

do not obtain our liberty, we may be able at least to procure a more

eligible prison. I confess, the source of our hopes, and the protector

we have found, are not of a dignity to be ushered to your notice by

citations of blank verse, or scraps of sentiment; for though the top of

the ladder is not quite so high, the first rounds are as low as that of

Ben Bowling's.

Mad. de ____'s confidential servant, who came here to-day, has learned,

by accident, that a man, who formerly worked with the Marquis's tailor,

having (in consequence, I suppose of a political vocation,) quitted the

selling of old clothes, in which he had acquired some eminence, has

become a leading patriot, and is one of Le Bon's, the Representative's,

privy counsellors. Fleury has renewed his acquaintance with this man,

has consulted him upon our situation, and obtained a promise that he will

use his interest with Le Bon in our behalf. Under this splendid

patronage, it is not unlikely but we may get an order to be transferred

to Amiens, or, perhaps, procure our entire liberation. We have already

written to Le Bon on the subject, and Fleury is to have a conference with

our friend the tailor in a few days to learn the success of his

mediation; so that, I trust, the business will not be long in suspense.

We have had a most indulgent guard to-day, who, by suffering the servant

to enter a few paces within the gate, afforded us an opportunity of

hearing this agreeable intelligence; as also, by way of episode, that

boots being wanted for the cavalry, all the boots in the town were last

night put in requisition, and as Fleury was unluckily gone to bed before

the search was made at his inn, he found himself this morning very

unceremoniously left bootless. He was once a famous patriot, and the

oracle of Mad. de ____'s household; but our confinement had already

shaken his principles, and this seizure of his "superb English boots"

has, I believe, completed his defection.

Oct. 25.

I have discontinued my journal for three days to attend my friend, Mad.

de ____, who has been ill. Uneasiness, and want of air and exercise, had

brought on a little fever, which, by the usual mode of treatment in this

country, has been considerably increased. Her disorder did not indeed

much alarm me, but I cannot say as much of her medical assistants, and it

seems to me to be almost supernatural that she has escaped the jeopardy

of their prescriptions. In my own illness I had trusted to nature, and

my recollection of what had been ordered me on similar occasions; but for

Mad. de ____ I was less confident, and desirous of having better advice,

begged a physician might be immediately sent for. Had her disorder been

an apoplexy, she must infallibly have died, for as no person, not even

the faculty, can enter, without an order from the municipal Divan, half a

day elapsed before this order could be procured. At length the physician

and surgeon arrived, and I know not why the learned professions should

impose on us more by one exterior than another; but I own, when I saw the

physician appear in a white camblet coat, lined with rose colour, and the

surgeon with dirty linen, and a gold button and loop to his hat, I began

to tremble for my friend. My feminine prejudices did not, however, in

this instance, deceive me. After the usual questions, the patient was

declared in a fever, and condemned to cathartics, bleeding, and "bon

bouillons;" that is to say, greasy beef soup, in which there is never an

oeconomy of onions.--When they were departed, I could not help expressing

my surprize that people's lives should be entrusted to such hands,

observing, at the same time, to the Baron de L____, (who is lodged in the

same apartment with Mad. de ____,) that the French must never expect men,

whose education fitted them for the profession, would become physicians,

while they continued to be paid at the rate of twenty-pence per visit.--

Yet, replied the Baron, if they make twenty visits a day, they gain forty

livres--_"et c'est de quoi vivre."_ [It is a living.] It is undeniably

_de quoi vivre,_ but as long as a mere subsistence is the only prospect

of a physician, the French must be content to have their fevers cured by

"drastics, phlebotomy, and beef soup."

They tell me we have now more than five hundred detenus in this single

house. How so many have been wedged in I can scarcely conceive, but it

seems our keeper has the art of calculating with great nicety the space

requisite for a given number of bodies, and their being able to respire

freely is not his affair. Those who can afford it have their dinners,

with all the appurtenances, brought from the inns or traiteurs; and the

poor cook, sleep, and eat, by scores, in the same room. I have persuaded

my friend to sup as I do, upon tea; but our associates, for the most

part, finding it inconvenient to have suppers brought at night, and being

unwilling to submit to the same privations, regale themselves with the

remains of their dinner, re-cooked in their apartments, and thus go to

sleep, amidst the fumes of _perdrix a l'onion, oeufs a la tripe,_

[Partridge a l'onion--eggs a la tripe.] and all the produce of a French

kitchen.

It is not, as you may imagine, the Bourgeois, and less distinguished

prisoners only, who indulge in these highly-seasoned repasts, at the

expence of inhaling the savoury atmosphere they leave behind them: the

beaux and petites mistresses, among the ci-devant, have not less exigent

appetites, nor more delicate nerves; and the ragout is produced at night,

in spite of the odours and disorder that remain till the morrow.

I conclude, notwithstanding your English prejudices, that there is

nothing unwholesome in filth, for if it were otherwise, I cannot account

for our being alive. Five hundred bodies, in a state of coacervation,

without even a preference for cleanliness, "think of that Master Brook."

All the forenoon the court is a receptacle for cabbage leaves, fish

scales, leeks, &c. &c.--and as a French chambermaid usually prefers the

direct road to circumambulation, the refuse of the kitchen is then washed

away by plentiful inundations from the dressing-room--the passages are

blockaded by foul plates, fragments, and bones; to which if you add the

smell exhaling from hoarded apples and gruyere cheese, you may form some

notion of the sufferings of those whose olfactory nerves are not robust.

Yet this is not all--nearly every female in the house, except myself, is

accompanied even here by her lap-dog, who sleeps in her room, and, not

unfrequently, on her bed; and these Lesbias and Lindamiras increase the

insalubrity of the air, and colonize one's stockings by sending forth

daily emigrations of fleas. For my own part, a few close November days

will make me as captious and splenetic as Matthew Bramble himself.

Nothing keeps me in tolerable good humour at present, but a clear frosty

morning, or a high wind.

Oct. 27.

I thought, when I wrote the above, that the house was really so full as

to be incapable of containing more; but I did not do justice to the

talents of our keeper. The last two nights have brought us an addition

of several waggon loads of nuns, farmers, shopkeepers, &c. from the

neighbouring towns, which he has still contrived to lodge, though much in

the way that he would pack goods in bales. Should another convoy arrive,

it is certain that we must sleep perpendicularly, for even now, when the

beds are all arranged and occupied for the night, no one can make a

diagonal movement without disturbing his neighbour.--This very sociable

manner of sleeping is very far, I assure you, from promoting the harmony

of the day; and I am frequently witness to the reproaches and

recriminations occasioned by nocturnal misdemeanours. Sometimes the

lap-dog of one dowager is accused of hostilities against that of

another, and thereby producing a general chorus of the rest--then a

four-footed favourite strays from the bed of his mistress, and takes

possession of a General's uniform--and there are female somnambules, who

alarm the modesty of a pair of Bishops, and suspended officers, that,

like Richard, warring in their dreams, cry "to arms," to the great

annoyance of those who are more inclined to sleep in peace. But, I

understand, the great disturbers of the room where Mad. de ____ sleeps

are two chanoines, whose noses are so sonorous and so untuneable as to

produce a sort of duet absolutely incompatible with sleep; and one of

the company is often deputed to interrupt the serenade by manual

application _mais tout en badinant et avec politesse_ [But all in

pleasantry, and with politeness.] to the offending parties.

All this, my dear brother, is only ludicrous in the relation; yet for so

many people to be thus huddled together without distinction of age, sex,

or condition, is truly miserable.--Mad. De ____ is still indisposed, and

while she is thus suffocated by bad air, and distracted by the various

noises of the house, I see no prospect of her recovery.

Arras is the common prison of the department, and, besides, there are a

number of other houses and convents in the town appropriated to the same

use, and all equally full. God knows when these iniquities are to

terminate! So far from having any hopes at present, the rage for

arresting seems, I think, rather to increase than subside. It is

supposed there are now more than three hundred thousand people in France

confined under the simple imputation of being what is called "gens

suspect:" but as this generic term is new to you, I will, by way of

explanation, particularize the several species as classed by the

Convention, and then described by Chaumette, solicitor for the City of

Paris;*--

* Decree concerning suspected people:

"Art. I. Immediately after the promulgation of the present decree,

all suspected persons that are found on the territory of the

republic, and who are still at large, shall be put under arrest.

"II. Those are deemed suspicious, who by their connections, their

conversation, or their writings, declare themselves partizans of

tyranny or foederation, and enemies to liberty--Those who have not

demonstrated their means of living or the performance of their civic

duties, in the manner prescribed by the law of March last--Those

who, having been suspended from public employments by the Convention

or its Commissioners, are not reinstated therein--Those of the

ci-devant noblesse, who have not invariably manifested their

attachment to the revolution, and, in general, all the fathers,

mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and agents of

emigrants--All who have emigrated between the 1st of July, 1789,

and 8th of April, 1792.

"III. The execution of the decree is confided to the Committee of

Inspection. The individuals arrested shall be taken to the houses

of confinement appointed for their reception. They are allowed to

take with them such only of their effects as are strictly necessary,

the guards set upon them shall be paid at their expence, and they

shall be kept in confinement until the peace.--The Committees of

Inspection shall, without delay, transmit to the Committee of

General Safety an account of the persons arrested, with the motives

of their arrest. [If this were observed (which I doubt much) it was

but a mockery, few persons ever knew the precise reason of their

confinement.]--The civil and criminal tribunals are empowered, when

they deem it necessary, to detain and imprison, as suspected

persons, those who being accused of crimes have nevertheless had no

bill found against them, (lieu a accusation,) or who have even been

tried and acquitted."

Indications that may serve to distinguish suspicious persons, and those

to whom it will be proper to refuse certificates of civism:

"I. Those who in popular assemblies check the ardour of the people

by artful speeches, by violent exclamations or threats.

"II. Those who with more caution speak in a mysterious way of the

public misfortunes, who appear to pity the lot of the people, and

are ever ready to spread bad news with an affectation of concern.

"III. Those who adapt their conduct and language to the

circumstances of the moment--who, in order to be taken for

republicans, put on a studied austerity of manners, and exclaim with

vehemence against the most trifling error in a patriot, but mollify

when the crimes of an Aristocrate or a Moderee are the subject of

complaint. [These trifling events were, being concerned in the

massacres of September, 1792--public peculations--occasional, and

even habitual robbery, forgeries, &c. &c. &c.--The second, fourth,

fifth, sixth, and seventh classes, were particularly numerous,

insomuch that I doubt whether they would not have included

nineteen-twentieths of all the people in France who were honest

or at all capable of reflection.]

"IV. Those who pity avaricious farmers and shopkeepers, against

whom the laws have been necessarily directed.

"V. Those who with the words liberty, country, republic, &c.

constantly in their mouths, hold intercourse with ci-devant Nobles,

Contre-revolutionnaires, Priests, Aristocrates, Feuillans, &c. and

take an interest in their concerns.

"VI. Those who not having borne an active part in the revolution,

endeavour to excuse themselves by urging the regular payment of

their taxes, their patriotic gifts, and their service in the Garde

National by substitute or otherwise.

"VII. Those who received the republican constitution with coolness,

or who intimated their pretended apprehensions for its establishment

and duration.

"VIII. Those who, having done nothing against liberty, have done as

little for it.

"IX. Those who do not frequent the assembly of their section, and

offer, for excuse, that they are no orators, or have no time to

spare from their own business.

"X. Those who speak with contempt of the constituted authorities,

of the rigour of the laws, of the popular societies, and the

defenders of liberty.

"XI. Those who have signed anti-revolutionary petitions, or any

time frequented unpatriotic clubs, or were known as partizans of La

Fayette, and accomplices in the affair of the Champ de Mars."

--and it must be allowed by all who reside in France at this moment, and

are capable of observing the various forms under which hatred for the

government shelters itself, that the latter is a chef d'oeuvre in its

kind.

Now, exclusive of the above legal and moral indications of people to be

suspected, there are also outward and visible signs which we are told

from the tribune of the Convention, and the Jacobins, are not much less

infallible--such as _Gens a bas de soie rayes mouchetes--a chapeau rond--

habit carre--culotte pincee etroite--a bottes cirees--les muscadins--

Freloquets--Robinets, &c._ [People that wear spotted or striped silk

stockings--round hats--small coats--tight breeches--blacked boots--

perfumes--coxcombs--sprigs of the law, &c.] The consequence of making

the cut of a man's coat, or the shape of his hat, a test of his political

opinions, has been the transformation of the whole country into

republicans, at least as far as depends on the costume; and where, as is

natural, there exists a consciousness of inveterate aristocracy, the

external is more elaborately "a la Jacobin." The equipment, indeed, of a

French patriot of the latest date is as singular as his manners, and in

both he is highly distinguishable from the inhabitants of any other

country: from those of civilized nations, because he is gross and

ferocious--from those of barbarous ones, because his grossness is often

affected, and his ferocity a matter of principle and preference.

A man who would not be reckoned suspect now arrays himself in a jacket

and trowsers (a Carmagnole) of striped cotton or coarse cloth, a

neckcloth of gaudy cotton, wadded like a horse-collar, and projecting

considerably beyond his chin, a cap of red and blue cloth, embroidered in

front and made much in the form of that worn by the Pierrot of a

pantomime, with one, or sometimes a pair, of ear-rings, about the size of

a large curtain-ring! Finally, he crops his hair, and carefully

encourages the growth of an enormous pair of whiskers, which he does not

fail to perfume with volumes of tobacco smoke. He, however, who is

ambitious of still greater eminence, disdains these fopperies, and

affects an appearance of filth and rags, which he dignifies with the

appellation of stern republicanism and virtuous poverty; and thus, by

means of a thread-bare coat out at elbows, wooden shoes, and a red

woollen cap, the rich hope to secure their wealth, and the covetous and

intriguing to acquire lucrative employment.--Rolland, I think, was the

founder of these modern Franciscans, and with this miserable affectation

he machinated the death of the King, and, during some months, procured

for himself the exclusive direction of the government.

All these patriots by prescription and system have likewise a peculiar

and appropriated dialect--they address every one by the title of Citizen,

thee and thou indistinctly, and talk of nothing but the agents of Pitt

and Cobourg, the coalesced tyrants, royal ogres, satellites of the

despots, automaton slaves, and anthropophagi; and if they revert to their

own prosperous state, and this very happy country, it is, _un peuple

libre, en peuple heureux, and par excellence la terre de la liberte._

["A free people--a happy people--and, above all others, the land of

liberty."]--It is to be observed, that those with whom these pompous

expressions are most familiar, are officers employed in the war-like

service of mutilating the wooden saints in churches, and arresting old

women whom they encounter without national cockades; or members of the

municipalities, now reduced to execute the offices of constables, and

whose chief functions are to hunt out suspected people, or make

domiciliary visits in quest of concealed eggs and butter. But, above

all, this democratic oratory is used by tailors, shoemakers, &c.* of the

Committees of Inspection, to whom the Representatives on mission have

delegated their unlimited powers, who arrest much on the principle of

Jack Cade, and with whom it is a crime to read and write, or to appear

decently dressed.

* For some months the departments were infested by people of this

description--corrupt, ignorant, and insolent. Their motives of

arrest were usually the hope of plunder, or the desire of

distressing those whom they had been used to look upon as their

superiors.--At Arras it sufficed even to have disobliged the wives

of these miscreants to become the object of persecution. In some

places they arrested with the most barbarous caprice, even without

the shadow of a reason. At Hesden, a small town in Artois, Dumont

left the Mayor carte blanche, and in one night two hundred people

were thrown into prison. Every where these low and obscure

dominators reigned without controul, and so much were the people

intimidated, that instead of daring to complain, they treated their

new tyrants with the most servile adulation.--I have seen a

ci-devant Comtesse coquetting with all her might a Jacobin tailor,

and the richest merchants of a town soliciting very humbly the good

offices of a dealer in old clothes.

These ridiculous accoutrements, and this magnificent phraseology, are in

themselves very harmless; but the ascendancy which such a class of people

are taking has become a subject of just alarm.--The whole administration

of the country is now in the hands of uninformed and necessitous

profligates, swindlers, men already condemned by the laws, and who, if

the revolution had not given them "place and office," would have been at

the galleys, or in prison.*

* One of the administrators of the department de la Somme (which,

however, was more decently composed than many others,) was, before

the revolution, convicted of house-breaking, and another of forgery;

and it has since been proved on various occasions, particularly on

the trial of the ninety-four Nantais, that the revolutionary

Committees were, for the most part, composed of the very refuse of

society--adventurers, thieves, and even assassins; and it would be

difficult to imagine a crime that did not there find reward and

protection.--In vain were the privileges of the nobility abolished,

and religion proscribed. A new privileged order arose in the

Jacobins, and guilt of every kind, without the semblance of

penitence, found an asylum in these Committees, and an inviolability

more sacred than that afforded by the demolished altars.

To these may be added a few men of weak character, and unsteady

principles, who remain in office because they fear to resign; with a few,

and but very few, ignorant fanatics, who really imagine they are free

because they can molest and destroy with impunity all they have hitherto

been taught to respect, and drink treble the quantity they did formerly.

Oct. 30.

For some days the guards have been so untractable, and the croud at the

door has been so great, that Fleury was obliged to make various efforts

before he could communicate the result of his negotiation. He has at

length found means to inform us, that his friend the tailor had exerted

all his interest in our favour, but that Dumont and Le Bon (as often

happens between neighbouring potentates) are at war, and their enmity

being in some degree subject to their mutual fears, neither will venture

to liberate any prisoner arrested by the other, lest such a disposition

to clemency should be seized on by his rival as a ground of accusation.*

* But if they did not free the enemies of each other, they revenged

themselves by throwing into prison all their mutual friends--for the

temper of the times was such, that, though these Representatives

were expressly invested with unlimited powers, they did not venture

to set any one at liberty without a multitude of forms and a long

attendance: on the contrary, they arrested without any form at all,

and allowed their myrmidons to harrass and confine the persons and

sequester the property of all whom they judged proper.--It seemed to

have been an elementary principle with those employed by the

government at this time, that they risked nothing in doing all the

mischief they could, and that they erred only in not doing enough.

--All, therefore, that can be obtained is, a promise to have us removed

to Amiens in a short time; and I understand the detenus are there treated

with consideration, and that no tribunal revolutionnaire has yet been

established.

My mind will be considerably more at ease if this removal can be

effected. Perhaps we may not be in more real danger here than at any

other place, but it is not realities that constitute the misery of life;

and situated as we are, that imagination must be phlegmatic indeed, which

does not create and exaggerate enough to prevent the possibility of

ease.--We are, as I before observed, placed as it were within the

jurisdiction of the guillotine; and I have learned "a secret of our

prison-house" to-day which Mad. de ____ had hitherto concealed from me,

and which has rendered me still more anxious to quit it. Several of our

fellow prisoners, whom I supposed only transferred to other houses, have

been taken away to undergo the ceremony of a trial, and from thence to

the scaffold. These judicial massacres are now become common, and the

repetition of them has destroyed at once the feeling of humanity and the

sense of justice. Familiarized to executions, the thoughtless and

sanguinary people behold with equal indifference the guilty or innocent

victim; and the Guillotine has not only ceased to be an object of horror,

but is become almost a source of amusement.

* At Arras this horrid instrument of death was what they called en

permanence, (stationary,) and so little regard was paid to the

morals of the people, (I say the morals, because every thing which

tends to destroy their humanity renders them vicious,) that it was

often left from one execution to another with the ensanguined traces

of the last victim but too evident.--Children were taught to amuse

themselves by making models of the Guillotine, with which they

destroyed flies, and even animals. On the Pontneuf, at Paris, a

sort of puppet-show was exhibited daily, whose boast it was to give

a very exact imitation of a guillotinage; and the burthen of a

popular song current for some months was _"Dansons la Guillotine."_

--On the 21st of January, 1794, the anniversary of the King's death,

the Convention were invited to celebrate it on the "Place de la

Revolution," where, during the ceremony, and in presence of the

whole legislative body, several people were executed. It is true,

Bourdon, one of the Deputies, complained of this indecency; but not

so much on account of the circumstance itself, as because it gave

some of the people an opportunity of telling him, in a sort of way

he might probably deem prophetic, that one of the victims was a

Representative of the People. The Convention pretended to order

that some enquiry should be made why at such a moment such a place

was chosen; but the enquiry came to nothing, and I have no doubt but

the executions were purposely intended as analogous to the

ceremony.--It was proved that Le Bon, on an occasion when he chose

to be a spectator of some executions he had been the cause of,

suspended the operation while he read the newspaper aloud, in order,

as he said, that the aristocrates might go out of the world with the

additional mortification of learning the success of the republican

arms in their last moments.

The People of Brest were suffered to behold, I had almost said to be

amused with (for if those who order such spectacles are detestable,

the people that permit them are not free from blame,) the sight of

twenty-five heads ranged in a line, and still convulsed with the

agonies of death.--The cant word for the Guillotine was "our holy

mother;" and verdicts of condemnation were called prizes in the

Sainte Lotterie--"holy lottery."

The dark and ferocious character of Le Bon developes itself hourly: the

whole department trembles before him; and those who have least merited

persecution are, with reason, the most apprehensive. The most cautious

prudence of conduct, the most undeviating rectitude in those who are by

their fortune or rank obnoxious to the tyrant, far from contributing to

their security, only mark them out for a more early sacrifice. What is

still worse, these horrors are not likely to terminate, because he is

allowed to pay out of the treasury of the department the mob that are

employed to popularize and applaud them.--I hope, in a few days, we shall

receive our permission to depart. My impatience is a malady, and, for

nearly the first time in my life, I am sensible of ennui; not the ennui

occasioned by want of amusement, but that which is the effect of unquiet

expectation, and which makes both the mind and body restless and

incapable of attending to any thing. I am incessantly haunted by the

idea that the companion of to-day may to-morrow expire under the

Guillotine, that the common acts of social intercourse may be explained

into intimacy, intimacy into the participation of imputed treasons, and

the fate of those with whom we are associated become our own. It appears

both useless and cruel to have brought us here, nor do I yet know any

reason why we were not all removed to Amiens, except it was to avoid

exposing to the eyes of the people in the places through which we must

pass too large a number of victims at once.--The cause of our being

removed from Peronne is indeed avowed, as it is at present a rule not to

confine people at the place of their residence, lest they should have too

much facility or communication with, or assistance from, their friends.*

* In some departments the nobles and priests arrested were removed

from ten to twenty leagues distant from their homes; and if they

happened to have relations living at the places where they were

confined, these last were forbidden to reside there, or even to

travel that way.

We should doubtless have remained at Arras until some change in public

affairs had procured our release, but for the fortunate discovery of the

man I have mentioned; and the trifling favour of removal from one prison

to another has been obtained only by certain arrangements which Fleury

has made with this subordinate agent of tyranny, and in which justice or

consideration for us had no share. Alas! are we not miserable? is not

the country miserable, when our only resource is in the vices of those

who govern?--It is uncertain when we shall be ordered from hence--it may

happen when we least expect it, even in the night, so that I shall not

attempt to write again till we have changed our situation. The risk is

at present too serious, and you must allow my desire of amusing you to

give way to my solicitude for my own preservation.

Bicetre at Amiens, Nov. 18, 1793.

_Nous voila donc encore, logees a la nation;_ that is to say, the common

prison of the department, amidst the thieves, vagabonds, maniacs, &c.

confined by the old police, and the gens suspects recently arrested by

the new.--I write from the end of a sort of elevated barn, sixty or

seventy feet long, where the interstices of the tiles admit the wind from

all quarters, and scarcely exclude the rain, and where an old screen and

some curtains only separate Mad. de ____, myself, and our servants, from

sixty priests, most of them old, sick, and as wretched as men can be, who

are pious and resigned. Yet even here I feel comparatively at ease, and

an escape from the jurisdiction of Le Bon and his merciless tribunal

seems cheaply purchased by the sacrifice of our personal convenience. I

do not pretend to philosophize or stoicize, or to any thing else which

implies a contempt of life--I have, on the contrary, a most unheroic

solicitude about my existence, and consider my removal to a place where I

think we are safe, as a very fortunate aera of our captivity.

After many delays and disappointments, Fleury at length procured an

order, signed by the Representative, for our being transferred to Amiens,

under the care of two _Gardes Nationalaux,_ and, of course, at our

expence.--Every thing in this country wears the aspect of despotism. At

twelve o'clock at night we were awakened by the officer on guard, and

informed we were to depart on the morrow; and, notwithstanding the

difficulty of procuring horses and carriages, it was specified, that if

we did not go on the day appointed, we were not to go at all. It was, or

course, late before we could surmount the various obstacles to our

journey, and procure two crazy cabriolets, and a cart for the guards,

ourselves, and baggage. The days being short, we were obliged to sleep

at Dourlens; and, on our arrival at the castle, which is now, as it

always has been, a state-prison, we were told it was so full, that it was

absolutely impossible to lodge us, and that we had better apply to the

Governor, for permission to sleep at an inn. We then drove to the

Governor's* house, who received us very civilly, and with very little

persuasion agreed to our request. At the best of the miserable inns in

the town we were informed they had no room, and that they could not

accommodate us in any way whatever, except a sick officer then in the

house would permit us to occupy one of two beds in his apartment.

* The Commandant had been originally a private soldier in the

regiment of Dillon.--I know not how he had obtained his advancement,

but, however obtained, it proved fatal to him: he was, a very short

time after I saw him, guillotined at Arras, for having borrowed

money of a prisoner. His real crime was, probably, treating the

prisoners in general with too much consideration and indulgence; and

at this period every suspicion of the kind was fatal.

In England it would not be very decent to make such a request, or to

accept such an accommodation. In France, neither the one nor the other

is unusual, and we had suffered lately so many embarrassments of the

kind, that we were, if not reconciled, at least inured to them. Before,

however, we could determine, the gentleman had been informed of our

situation, and came to offer his services. You may judge of our surprize

when we found in the stranger, who had his head bound up and his arm in a

sling, General ____, a relation of Mad. de ____. We had now, therefore,

less scruple in sharing his room, though we agreed, notwithstanding, only

to repose a few hours in our clothes.

After taking some tea, the remainder of the evening was dedicated to

reciprocal conversation of all kinds; and our guards having acquaintance

in the town, and knowing it was impossible for us to escape, even were we

so inclined, very civilly left us to ourselves. We found the General had

been wounded at Maubeuge, and was now absent on conge for the recovery of

his health. He talked of the present state of public affairs like a

military man who is attached to his profession, and who thinks it his

duty to fight at all events, whatever the rights or merits of those that

employ him. He confessed, indeed, that they were repulsing their

external enemies, only to confirm the power of those who were infinitely

more to be dreaded at home, and that the condition of a General was more

to be commiserated at this time than any other: if he miscarry, disgrace

and the Guillotine await him--if he be successful, he gains little

honour, becomes an object of jealousy, and assists in rivetting the

chains of his country. He said, the armies were for the most part

licentious and insubordinate, but that the political discipline was

terrible--the soldiers are allowed to drink, pillage, and insult their

officers with impunity, but all combinations are rigorously suppressed,

the slightest murmur against the Representative on mission is treason,

and to disapprove of a decree of the convention, death--that every man of

any note in the army is beset with spies, and if they leave the camp on

any occasion, it is more necessary to be on their guard against these

wretches than against an ambuscade of the enemy; and he related a

circumstance which happened to himself, as an example of what he

mentioned, and which will give you a tolerable idea of the present system

of government.--After the relief of Dunkirk, being quartered in the

neighbourhood of St. Omer, he occasionally went to the town on his

private concerns. One day, while he was waiting at the inn where he

intended to dine, two young men accosted him, and after engaging him in a

general conversation for some time, began to talk with great freedom,

though with an affected caution of public men and measures, of the

banditti who governed, the tyranny that was exercised, and the supineness

of the people: in short, of all those too poignant truths which

constitute the leze nation of the day. Mons. de ____ was not at first

very attentive, but finding their discourse become still more liberal, it

excited his suspicions, and casting his eyes on a glass opposite to where

they were conversing, he perceived a sort of intelligence between them,

which immediately suggested to him the profession of his companions; and

calling to a couple of dragoons who had attended him, ordered them to

arrest the two gentlemen as artistocrates, and convey them without

ceremony to prison. They submitted, seemingly more surprized than

alarmed, and in two hours the General received a note from a higher

power, desiring him to set them at liberty, as they were agents of the

republic.

Duquesnoy, one of the Representatives now with the Northern army, is

ignorant and brutal in the extreme. He has made his brother (who, as

well as himself, used to retail hops in the streets of St. Pol,) a

General; and in order to deliver him from rivals and critics, he breaks,

suspends, arrests, and sends to the Guillotine every officer of any merit

that comes in his way. After the battle of Maubeuge, he arrested a

General Bardell, [The Generals Bardell and D'Avesnes, and several others,

were afterwards guillotined at Paris.] for accommodating a wounded

prisoner of distinction (I think a relation of the Prince of Cobourg)

with a bed, and tore with his own hands the epaulette from the shoulders

of those Generals whose divisions had not sustained the combat so well as

the others. His temper, naturally savage and choleric, is irritated to

fury by the habit of drinking large quantities of strong liquors; and

Mad. de ___'s relation assured us, that he had himself seen him take the

Mayor of Avesnes (a venerable old man, who was presenting some petition

to him that regarded the town,) by the hair and throw him on the ground,

with the gestures of an enraged cannibal. He also confined one of his

own fellow deputies in the tower of Guise, upon a very frivolous pretext,

and merely on his own authority. In fact, I scarcely remember half the

horrors told us of this man; and I shall only remind you, that he has an

unlimited controul over the civil constitution of the Northern army, and

over the whole department of the North.

You, I suppose, will be better informed of military events than we are,

and I mention our friend's conjecture, that (besides an enormous number

of killed) the wounded at Maubeuge amounted to twelve or fourteen

thousand, only to remark the deception which is still practised on the

people; for no published account ever allowed the number to be more than

a few hundreds.--Besides these professional details, the General gave us

some very unpleasant family ones. On returning to his father's chateau,

where he hoped to be taken care of while his wounds were curing, he found

every room in it under seals, three guards in possession, his two sisters

arrested at St. Omer, where they happened to be on a visit, and his

father and mother confined in separate houses of detention at Arras.

After visiting them, and making some ineffectual applications for their

relief, he came to the neighbourhood of Dourlens, expecting to find an

asylum with an uncle, who had hitherto escaped the general persecution of

the gentry. Here again his disappointment and chagrin were renewed: his

uncle had been carried off to Amiens the morning of his arrival, and the

house rendered inaccessible, by the usual affixture of seals, and an

attendant pair of myrmidons to guard them from infraction. Thus excluded

from all his family habitations, he had taken up his residence for a day

or two at the inn where we met him, his intention being to return to

Arras.

In the morning we made our adieus and pursued our journey; but, tenacious

of this comparative liberty and the enjoyment of pure air, we prevailed

on our conductors to let us dine on the road, so that we lingered with

the unwillingness of truant children, and did not reach Amiens until

dark. When we arrived at the Hotel de Ville, one of the guards enquired

how we were to be disposed of. Unfortunately for us, Dumont happened to

be there himself, and on hearing we were sent from Arras by order of Le

Bon, declared most furiously (for our Representative is subject to choler

since his accession to greatness) that he would have no prisoners

received from Arras, and that we should sleep at the Conciergerie, and be

conveyed back again on the morrow. Terrified at this menace, we

persuaded the guard to represent to Dumont that we had been sent to

Amiens at our own instance, and that we had been originally arrested by

himself, and were therefore desirous of returning to the department where

he was on mission, and where we had more reason to expect justice than at

Arras. Mollified, perhaps, by this implied preference of his authority,

he consented that we should remain for the present at Amiens, and ordered

us to be taken to the Bicetre. Whoever has been used to connect with the

word Bicetre the idea of the prison so named at Paris, must recoil with

horror upon hearing they are destined to such a abode. Mad. de ___, yet

weak from the remains of her illness, laid hold of me in a transport of

grief; but, far from being able to calm or console her, my thoughts were

so bewildered that I did not, till we alighted at the gate, begin to be

really sensible of our situation. The night was dark and dreary, and our

first entrance was into a kitchen, such as my imagination had pictured

the subterraneous one of the robbers in Gil Blas. Here we underwent the

ceremony of having our pocket-books searched for papers and letters, and

our trunks rummaged for knives and fire-arms. This done, we were shown

to the lodging I have described, and the poor priests, already

insufferably crouded, were obliged almost to join their beds in order to

make room for us.--I will not pain you by a recital of all the

embarrassments and distresses we had to surmount before we could even

rest ourselves. We were in want of every thing, and the rules of the

prison such, that it was nearly impossible, for some time, to procure any

thing: but the human mind is more flexible than we are often disposed to

imagine it; and in two days we were able to see our situation in this

best point of view, (that is, as an escape from Arras,) and the affair of

submitting our bodies to our minds must be atchieved by time.--We have

now been here a week. We have sounded the very depth of humiliation,

taken our daily allowance of bread with the rest of the prisoners, and

contracted a most friendly intimacy with the gaoler.

I have discovered since our arrival, that the order for transferring us

hither described me as a native of the Low Countries. I know not how

this happened, but my friend has insisted on my not rectifying the

mistake, for as the French talk continually of re-conquering Brabant, she

persuades herself such an event would procure me my liberty. I neither

desire the one nor expect the other; but, to indulge her, I speak no

English, and avoid two or three of my countrymen who I am told are here.

There have been also some English families who were lately removed, but

the French pronounce our names so strangely, that I have not been able to

learn who they were.

November 19, 1793.

The English in general, especially of late years, have been taught to

entertain very formidable notions of the Bastille and other state prisons

of the ancient government, and they were, no doubt, horrid enough; yet I

have not hitherto been able to discover that those of the new republic

are any way preferable. The only difference is, that the great number of

prisoners which, for want of room, are obliged to be heaped together,

makes it impossible to exclude them as formerly from communication, and,

instead of being maintained at the public expence, they now, with great

difficulty, are able to procure wherewithal to eat at their own. Our

present habitation is an immense building, about a quarter of a mile from

the town, intended originally for the common gaol of the province. The

situation is damp and unwholesome, and the water so bad, that I should

suppose a long continuance here of such a number of prisoners must be

productive of endemical disorders. Every avenue to the house is guarded,

and no one is permitted to stop and look up at the windows, under pain of

becoming a resident. We are strictly prohibited from all external

intercourse, except by writing; and every scrap of paper, though but an

order for a dinner, passes the inquisition of three different people

before it reaches its destination, and, of course, many letters and notes

are mislaid, and never sent at all.--There is no court or garden in which

the prisoners are allowed to walk, and the only exercise they can take is

in damp passages, or a small yard, (perhaps thirty feet square,) which

often smells so detestably, that the atmosphere of the house itself is

less mephitic.

Our fellow-captives are a motley collection of the victims of nature,

of justice, and of tyranny--of lunatics who are insensible of their

situation, of thieves who deserve it, and of political criminals whose

guilt is the accident of birth, the imputation of wealth, or the

profession of a clergyman. Among the latter is the Bishop of Amiens,

whom I recollect to have mentioned in a former letter. You will wonder

why a constitutional Bishop, once popular with the democratic party,

should be thus treated. The real motive was, probably, to degrade in his

person a minister of religion--the ostensible one, a dispute with Dumont

at the Jacobin club. As the times grew alarming, the Bishop, perhaps,

thought it politic to appear at the club, and the Representative meeting

him there one evening, began to interrogate him very rudely with regard

to his opinion of the marriage of priests. M. Dubois replied, that when

it was officially incumbent on him to explain himself, he would do so,

but that he did not think the club a place for such discussions, or

something to this purpose. _"Tu prevariques donc!--Je t'arrete sur le

champ:"_ ["What, you prevaricate!--I arrest you instantly."] the Bishop

was accordingly arrested at the instant, and conducted to the Bicetre,

without even being suffered to go home and furnish himself with

necessaries; and the seals being immediately put on his effects, he has

never been able to obtain a change of linen and clothes, or any thing

else--this too at a time when the pensions of the clergy are ill paid,

and every article of clothing so dear as to be almost unpurchaseable by

moderate fortunes, and when those who might otherwise be disposed to aid

or accommodate their friends, abandon them through fear of being

implicated in their misfortunes.

But the Bishop, yet in the vigour of life, is better capable of enduring

these hardships than most of the poor priests with whom he is associated:

the greater number of them are very old men, with venerable grey locks--

and their tattered clerical habits, scanty meals, and wretched beds, give

me many an heart-ache. God send the constant sight of so much misery may

not render me callous!--It is certain, there are people here, who,

whatever their feelings might have been on this occasion at first, seem

now little affected by it. Those who are too much familiarized with

scenes of wretchedness, as well as those to whom they are unknown, are

not often very susceptible; and I am sometimes disposed to cavil with our

natures, that the sufferings which ought to excite our benevolence, and

the prosperity that enables us to relieve them, should ever have a

contrary effect. Yet this is so true, that I have scarcely ever observed

even the poor considerate towards each other--and the rich, if they are

frequently charitable, are not always compassionate.*

* Our situation at the Bicetre, though terrible for people unused to

hardships or confinement, and in fact, wretched as personal

inconvenience could make it, was yet Elysium, compared to the

prisons of other departments. At St. Omer, the prisoners were

frequently disturbed at midnight by the entrance of men into their

apartments, who, with the detestable ensign of their order, (red

caps,) and pipes in their mouths, came by way of frolic to search

their pockets, trunks, &c.--At Montreuil, the Maisons d'Arret were

under the direction of a Commissary, whose behaviour to the female

prisoners was too atrocious for recital--two young women, in

particular, who refused to purchase milder treatment, were locked up

in a room for seventeen days.--Soon after I left Arras, every prison

became a den of horror. The miserable inhabitants were subject to

the agents of Le Bon, whose avarice, cruelty, and licentiousness,

were beyond any thing a humane mind can imagine. Sometimes the

houses were suddenly surrounded by an armed force, the prisoners

turned out in the depth of winter for several hours into an open

court, during the operation of robbing them of their pocket-books,

buckles, ear-rings, or whatever article of value they had about

them. At other times they were visited by the same military array,

and deprived of their linen and clothes. Their wine and provisions

were likewise taken from them in the same manner--wives were

separated from their husbands, parents from their children, old men

treated with the most savage barbarity, and young women with an

indecency still more abominable. All communication, either by

writing or otherwise, was often prohibited for many days together,

and an order was once given to prevent even the entry of provisions,

which was not revoked till the prisoners became absolutely

distressed. At the Hotel Dieu they were forbidden to draw more than

a single jug of water in twenty-four hours. At the Providence, the

well was left three days without a cord, and when the unfortunate

females confined there procured people to beg water of the

neighbours, they were refused, "because it was for prisoners, and if

Le Bon heard of it he might be displeased!" Windows were blocked

up, not to prevent escape, but to exclude air; and when the general

scarcity rendered it impossible for the prisoners to procure

sufficient food for their support, their small portions were

diminished at the gate, under pretext of searching for letters, &c.

--People, respectable both for their rank and character, were

employed to clean the prisons and privies, while their low and

insolent tyrants looked on and insulted them. On an occasion when

one of the Maisons d'Arrets was on fire, guards were planted round,

with orders to fire upon those that should attempt to escape.--My

memory has but too faithfully recorded these and still greater

horrors; but curiosity would be gratified but too dearly by the

relation. I added the above note some months after writing the

letter to which it is annexed.

Nov. 20.

Besides the gentry and clergy of this department, we have likewise for

companions a number of inhabitants of Lisle, arrested under circumstances

singularly atrocious, even where atrocity is the characteristic of almost

every proceeding.--In the month of August a decree was passed to oblige

all the nobility, clergy, and their servants, as well as all those

persons who had been in the service of emigrants, to depart from Lisle in

eight-and-forty hours, and prohibiting their residence within twenty

leagues from the frontiers. Thus banished from their own habitations,

they took refuge in different towns, at the prescribed distance; but,

almost as soon as they were arrived, and had been at the expence of

settling themselves, they were arrested as strangers,* and conducted to

prison.

* I have before, I believe, noticed that the term estranger at this

time did not exclusively apply to foreigners, but to such as had

come from one town to another, who were at inns or on a visit to

their friends.

It will not be improper to notice here the conduct of the government

towards the towns that have been besieged. Thionville,* to whose gallant

defence in 1792 France owed the retreat of the Prussians and the safety

of Paris, was afterwards continually reproached with aristocracy; and

when the inhabitants sent a deputation to solicit an indemnity for the

damage the town had sustained during the bombardment a member of the

Convention threatened them from the tribune with "indemnities a coup de

baton!" that is, in our vernacular tongue, with a good thrashing.

* Wimpsen, who commanded there, and whose conduct at the time was

enthusiastically admired, was driven, most probably by the

ingratitude and ill treatment of the Convention, to head a party of

the Foederalists.--These legislators perpetually boast of imitating

and surpassing the Romans, and it is certain, that their ingratitude

has made more than one Coriolanus. The difference is, that they are

not jealous for the liberty of the country, but for their own

personal safety.

The inhabitants of Lisle, who had been equally serviceable in stopping

the progress of the Austrians, for a long time petitioned without effect

to obtain the sums already voted for their relief. The noblesse, and

others from thence who have been arrested, as soon as it was known that

they were Lillois, were treated with peculiar rigour;* and an _armee

revolutionnaire,_** with the Guillotine for a standard, has lately

harrassed the town and environs of Lisle, as though it were a conquered

country.

* The Commandant of Lisle, on his arrival at the Bicetre, was

stripped of a considerable sum of money, and a quantity of plate he

had unluckily brought with him by way of security. Out of this he

is to be supplied with fifty livres at a time in paper, which,

according to the exchange and the price of every thing, is, I

suppose, about half a guinea.

** The armee revolutionnaire was first raised by order of the

Jacobins, for the purpose of searching the countries for provisions,

and conducting them to Paris. Under this pretext, a levy was made

of all the most desperate ruffians that could be collected together.

They were divided into companies, each with its attendant

Guillotine, and then distributed in the different departments:

they had extraordinary pay, and seem to have been subject to no

discipline. Many of them were distinguished by the representation

of a Guillotine in miniature, and a head just severed, on their

cartouch-boxes. It would be impossible to describe half the

enormities committed by these banditti: wherever they went they were

regarded as a scourge, and every heart shrunk at their approach.

Lecointre, of Versailles, a member of the Convention, complained

that a band of these wretches entered the house of a farmer, one of

his tenants, by night, and, after binding the family hand and foot,

and helping themselves to whatever they could find, they placed the

farmer with his bare feet on the chaffing-dish of hot ashes, by way

of forcing him to discover where he had secreted his plate and

money, which having secured, they set all the vessels of liquor

running, and then retired.

You are not to suppose this a robbery, and the actors common thieves; all

was in the usual form--"au nom de la loi," and for the service of the

republic; and I do not mention this instance as remarkable, otherwise

than as having been noticed in the Convention. A thousand events of this

kind, even still more atrocious, have happened; but the sufferers who had

not the means of defence as well as of complaint, were obliged, through

policy, to be silent.

--The garrison and national guard, indignant at the horrors they

committed, obliged them to decamp. Even the people of Dunkirk, whose

resistance to the English, while the French army was collecting together

for their relief, was perhaps of more consequence than ten victories,

have been since intimidated with Commissioners, and Tribunals, and

Guillotines, as much as if they had been convicted of selling the town.

In short, under this philanthropic republic, persecution seems to be very

exactly proportioned to the services rendered. A jealous and suspicious

government does not forget, that the same energy of character which has

enabled a people to defend themselves against an external enemy, may also

make them less submissive to domestic oppression; and, far from repaying

them with the gratitude to which they have a claim, it treats them, on

all occasions, as opponents, whom it both fears and hates.

Nov. 22. We have been walking in the yard to-day with General Laveneur,

who, for an act which in any other country would have gained him credit,

is in this suspended from his command.--When Custine, a few weeks before

his death, left the army to visit some of the neighbouring towns, the

command devolved on Laveneur, who received, along with other official

papers, a list of countersigns, which, having probably been made some

time, and not altered conformably to the changes of the day, contained,

among others, the words Condorcet--Constitution; and these were in their

turn given out. On Custine's trial, this was made a part of his

accusation. Laveneur, recollecting that the circumstance had happened in

the absence of Custine, thought it incumbent on him to take the blame, if

there were any, on himself, and wrote to Paris to explain the matter as

it really stood; but his candour, without availing Custine, drew

persecution on himself, and the only notice taken of his letter was an

order to arrest him. After being dragged from one town to another, like

a criminal, and often lodged in dungeons and common prisons, he was at

length deposited here.

I know not if the General's principles are republican, but he has a very

democratic pair of whiskers, which he occasionally strokes, and seems to

cherish with much affection. He is, however, a gentleman-like man, and

expresses such anxiety for the fate of his wife and children, who are now

at Paris, that one cannot but be interested in his favour.--As the agents

of the republic never err on the side of omission, they arrested Mons.

Laveneur's aid-de-camp with him; and another officer of his acquaintance,

who was suspended, and living at Amiens, has shared the same fate, only

for endeavouring to procure him a trifling accommodation. This gentleman

called on Dumont, to beg that General Laveneur's servant might be

permitted to go in and out of the prison on his master's errands. After

breakfasting together, and conversing on very civil terms, Dumont told

him, that as he concerned himself so much in behalf of his friend, he

would send him to keep the latter company, and at the conclusion of his

visit he was sent prisoner to the Bicetre.

Perhaps the greater part of between three and four hundred thousand

people, now imprisoned on suspicion, have been arrested for reasons as

little substantial.

--I begin to fear my health will not resist the hardship of a long

continuance here. We have no fire-place, and are sometimes starved

with partial winds from the doors and roof; at others faint and heartsick

with the unhealthy air produced by so many living bodies. The water we

drink is not preferable to the air we breathe; the bread (which is now

every where scarce and bad) contains such a mixture of barley, rye,

damaged wheat, and trash of all kinds, that, far from being nourished by

it, I lose both my strength and appetite daily.--Yet these are not the

worst of our sufferings. Shut out from all society, victims of a

despotic and unprincipled government capable of every thing, and ignorant

of the fate which may await us, we are occasionally oppressed by a

thousand melancholy apprehensions. I might, indeed, have boasted of my

fortitude, and have made myself an heroine on paper at as small an

expence of words as it has cost me to record my cowardice: but I am of an

unlucky conformation, and think either too much or too little (I know not

which) for a female philosopher; besides, philosophy is getting into such

ill repute, that not possessing the reality, the name of it is not worth

assuming.

A poor old priest told me just now, (while Angelique was mending his

black coat with white thread,) that they had left at the place where they

were last confined a large quantity of linen, and other necessaries; but,

by the express orders of Dumont, they were not allowed to bring a single

article away with them. The keeper, too, it seems, was threatened with

dismission, for supplying one of them with a shirt.--In England, where,

I believe, you ally political expediency as much as you can with justice

and humanity, these cruelties, at once little and refined, will appear

incredible; and the French themselves, who are at least ashamed of, if

they are not pained by, them, are obliged to seek refuge in the fancied

palliative of a "state of revolution."--Yet, admitting the necessity of

confining the persons of these old men, there can be none for heaping

them together in filth and misery, and adding to the sufferings of years

and infirmity by those of cold and want. If, indeed, a state of

revolution require such deeds, and imply an apology for them, I cannot

but wish the French had remained as they were, for I know of no political

changes that can compensate for turning a civilized nation into a people

of savages. It is not surely the eating acorns or ragouts, a

well-powdered head, or one decorated with red feathers, that constitutes

the difference between barbarism and civilization; and, I fear, if the

French proceed as they have begun, the advantage of morals will be

considerably on the side of the unrefined savages.

The conversation of the prison has been much engaged by the fate of an

English gentleman, who lately destroyed himself in a Maison d'Arret at

Amiens. His confinement had at first deeply affected his spirits, and

his melancholy increasing at the prospect of a long detention, terminated

in deranging his mind, and occasioned this last act of despair.--I never

hear of suicide without a compassion mingled with terror, for, perhaps,

simple pity is too light an emotion to be excited by an event which

reminds us, that we are susceptible of a degree of misery too great to be

borne--too strong for the efforts of instinct, reflection, and religion.

--I could moralize on the necessity of habitual patience, and the benefit

of preparing the mind for great evils by a philosophic endurance of

little ones; but I am at the Bicetre--the winds whistle round me--I am

beset by petty distresses, and we do not expatiate to advantage on

endurance while we have any thing to endure.--Seneca's contempt for the

things of this world was doubtless suggested in the palace of Nero. He

would not have treated the subject so well in disgrace and poverty. Do

not suppose I am affecting to be pleasant, for I write in the sober

sadness of conviction, that human fortitude is often no better than a

pompous theory, founded on self-love and self-deception.

I was surprized at meeting among our fellow-prisoners a number of Dutch

officers. I find they had been some time in the town on their parole,

and were sent here by Dumont, for refusing to permit their men to work on

the fortifications.--The French government and its agents despise the

laws of war hitherto observed; they consider them as a sort of

aristocratie militaire, and they pretend, on the same principle, to be

enfranchised from the law of nations.--An orator of the convention lately

boasted, that he felt himself infinitely superior to the prejudices of

Grotius, Puffendorff, and Vatel, which he calls "l'aristocratie

diplomatique."--Such sublime spirits think, because they differ from the

rest of mankind, that they surpass them. Like Icarus, they attempt to

fly, and are perpetually struggling in the mire.--Plain common sense has

long pointed out a rule of action, from which all deviation is fatal,

both to nations and individuals. England, as well as France, has

furnished its examples; and the annals of genius in all countries are

replete with the miseries of eccentricity.--Whoever has followed the

course of the French revolution, will, I believe, be convinced, that the

greatest evils attending on it have been occasioned by an affected

contempt for received maxims. A common banditti, acting only from the

desire of plunder, or men, erring only through ignorance, could not have

subjugated an whole people, had they not been assisted by narrow-minded

philosophers, who were eager to sacrifice their country to the vanity of

making experiments, and were little solicitous whether their systems were

good or bad, provided they were celebrated as the authors of them. Yet,

where are they now? Wandering, proscribed, and trembling at the fate of

their followers and accomplices.--The Brissotins, sacrificed by a party

even worse than themselves, have died without exciting either pity or

admiration. Their fall was considered as the natural consequence of

their exaltation, and the courage with which they met death obtained no

tribute but a cold and simple comment, undistinguished from the news of

the day, and ending with it.

December.

Last night, after we had been asleep about an hour, (for habit, that

"lulls the wet sea-boy on the high and giddy mast," has reconciled us to

sleep even here,) we were alarmed by the trampling of feet, and sudden

unlocking of our door. Our apprehensions gave us no time for conjecture

--in a moment an ill-looking fellow entered the room with a lantern, two

soldiers holding drawn swords, and a large dog! The whole company walked

as it were processionally to the end of the apartment, and, after

observing in silence the beds on each side, left us. It would not be

easy to describe what we suffered at this moment: for my own part, I

thought only of the massacres of September, and the frequent proposals at

the Jacobins and the Convention for dispatching the _"gens suspect,"_

and really concluded I was going to terminate my existence

_"revolutionnairement."_ I do not now know the purport of these visits,

but I find they are not unusual, and most probably intended to alarm the

prisoners.

After many enquiries and messages, I have had the mortification of

hearing that Mr. and Mrs. D____ were taken to Arras, and were there even

before I left it. The letters sent to and from the different prisons are

read by so many people, and pass through so many hands, that it is not

surprizing we have not heard from each other. As far as I can learn,

they had obtained leave, after their first arrest, to remove to a house

in the vicinity of Dourlens for a few days, on account of Mrs. D____'s

health, which had suffered by passing the summer in the town, and that at

the taking of Toulon they were again arrested while on a visit, and

conveyed to a _Maison d'Arret_ at Arras. I am the more anxious for them,

as it seems they were unprepared for such an event; and as the seals were

put upon their effects, I fear they must be in want of every thing. I

might, perhaps, have succeeded in getting them removed here, but Fleury's

Arras friend, it seems, did not think, when the Convention had abolished

every other part of Christianity, that they intended still to exact a

partial observance of the eighth article of the decalogue; and having, in

the sense of Antient Pistol, "conveyed" a little too notoriously, Le Bon

has, by way of securing him from notice or pursuit, sent him to the

frontiers in the capacity of Commissary.

The prison, considering how many French inhabitants it contains, is

tolerably quiet--to say the truth, we are not very sociable, and still

less gay. Common interest establishes a sort of intimacy between those

of the same apartment; but the rest of the house pass each other, without

farther intercourse than silent though significant civility. Sometimes

you see a pair of unfortunate aristocrates talking politics at the end of

a passage, or on a landing-place; and here and there a bevy of females,

en deshabille, recounting altogether the subject of their arrest. One's

ear occasionally catches a few half-suppressed notes of a proscribed

aire, but the unhallowed sounds of the Carmagnole and Marseillois are

never heard, and would be thought more dissonant here than the war-whoop.

In fact, the only appearance of gaiety is among the ideots and lunatics.

--_"Je m'ennuye furieusement,"_ is the general exclamation.--An Englishman

confined at the Bicetre would express himself more forcibly, but, it is

certain, the want of knowing how to employ themselves does not form a

small part of the distresses of our fellow-prisoners; and when they tell

us they are _"ennuyes,"_ they say, perhaps, nearly as much as they feel--

for, as far as I can observe, the loss of liberty has not the same effect

on a Frenchman as an Englishman. Whether this arises from political

causes, or the natural indifference of the French character, I am not

qualified to determine; probably from both: yet when I observe this

facility of mind general, and by no means peculiar to the higher classes,

I cannot myself but be of opinion, that it is more an effect of their

original disposition than of their form of government; for though in

England we were accustomed from our childhood to consider every man in

France as liable to wake and find himself in the Bastille, or at Mont St.

Michel, this formidable despotism existed more in theory than in

practice; and if courtiers and men of letters were intimidated by it,

the mass of the people troubled themselves very little about Lettres de

Cachet. The revenge or suspicion of Ministers might sometimes pursue

those who aimed at their power, or assailed their reputation; but the

lesser gentry, the merchants, or the shopkeepers, were very seldom

victims of arbitrary imprisonment--and I believe, amongst the evils which

it was the object of the revolution to redress, this (except on the

principle) was far from being of the first magnitude. I am not likely,

under my present circumstances, to be an advocate for the despotism of

any form of government; and I only give it as a matter of opinion, that

the civil liberty of the French was not so often and generally violated,*

as to influence their character in such a degree as to render them

insensible of its loss. At any rate, we must rank it among the

_bizarreries_ [Unaccountable whimsical events.] of this world, that the

French should have been prepared, by the theory of oppression under their

old system, for enduring the practice of it under the new one; and that

what during the monarchy was only possible to a few, is, under the

republic, almost certain to all.

* I remember in 1789, after the destruction of the Bastille, our

compassionate countrymen were taught to believe that this tremendous

prison was peopled with victims, and that even the dungeons were

inhabited; yet the truth is, though it would not have told so

pathetically, or have produced so much theatrical effect, there were

only seven persons confined in the whole building, and certainly not

one in the dungeons.

Amiens, Providence, Dec. 10, 1793.

We have again, as you will perceive, changed our abode, and that too

without expecting, and almost without desiring it. In my moments of

sullenness and despondency, I was not very solicitous about the

modifications of our confinement, and little disposed to be better

satisfied with one prison than another: but, heroics apart, external

comforts are of some importance, and we have, in many respects, gained by

our removal.

Our present habitation is a spacious building, lately a convent, and

though now crouded with more prisoners by two or three hundred than it

will hold conveniently, yet we are better lodged than at the Bicetre, and

we have also a large garden, good water, and, what above all is

desirable, the liberty of delivering our letters or messages ourselves

(in presence of the guard) to any one who will venture to approach us.

Mad. de ____ and myself have a small cell, where we have just room to

place our beds, but we have no fire-place, and the maids are obliged to

sleep in an adjoining passage.

A few evenings ago, while we were at the Bicetre, we were suddenly

informed by the keeper that Dumont had sent some soldiers with an order

to convey us that night to the Providence. We were at first rather

surprized than pleased, and reluctantly gathered our baggage together

with as much expedition as we could, while the men who were to escort us

were exclaiming "a la Francaise" at the trifling delay this occasioned.

When we had passed the gate, we found Fleury, with some porters, ready to

receive our beds, and overjoyed at having procured us a more decent

prison, for, it seems, he could by no means reconcile himself to the name

of Bicetre. We had about half a mile to walk, and on the road he

contrived to acquaint us with the means by which he had solicited this

favour of Dumont. After advising with all Mad. de ____'s friends who

were yet at liberty, and finding no one willing to make an effort in her

behalf, for fear of involving themselves, he discovered an old

acquaintance in the "femme de chambre" of one of Fleury's mistresses.--

This, for one of Fleury's sagacity, was a spring to have set the whole

Convention in a ferment; and in a few days he profited so well by this

female patronage, as to obtain an order for transferring us hither. On

our arrival, we were informed, as usual, that the house was already full,

and that there was no possibility of admitting us. We however, set up

all night in the keeper's room with some other people newly arrived like

ourselves, and in the morning, after a little disputing and a pretty

general derangement of the more ancient inhabitants, we were "nichees,"

as I have described to you.

We have not yet quitted our room much, but I observe that every one

appears more chearful, and more studied in their toilette, than at the

Bicetre, and I am willing to infer from thence that confinement here is

less insupportable.--I have been employed two days in enlarging the notes

I had made in our last prison, and in making them more legible, for I

ventured no farther than just to scribble with a pencil in a kind of

short-hand of my own invention, and not even that without a variety of

precautions. I shall be here less liable either to surprize or

observation, and as soon as I have secured what I have already noted,

(which I intend to do to-night,) I shall continue my remarks in the usual

form. You will find even more than my customary incorrectness and want

of method since we left Peronne; but I shall not allow your competency as

a critic, until you have been a prisoner in the hands of French

republicans.

It will not be improper to notice to you a very ingenious decree of

Gaston, (a member of the Convention,) who lately proposed to embark all

the English now in France at Brest, and then to sink the ships.--Perhaps

the Committee of Public Welfare are now in a sort of benevolent

indecision, whether this, or Collot d'Herbois' gunpowder scheme, shall

have the preference. Legendre's iron cage and simple hanging will,

doubtless, be rejected, as too slow and formal. The mode of the day is

"les grandes mesures." If I be not seriously alarmed at these

propositions, it is not that life is indifferent to me, or that I think

the government too humane to adopt them. My tranquillity arises from

reflecting that such measures would be of no political use, and that we

shall most likely be soon forgotten in the multitude of more important

concerns. Those, however, whom I endeavour to console by this reasoning,

tell me it is nothing less than infallible, that the inutility of a crime

is here no security against its perpetration, and that any project which

tends to evil will sooner be remembered than one of humanity or justice.

[End of Vol. I. The Printed Books]

[Beginning of Volume II. Of The Printed Books]

Providence, Dec. 20, 1793.

"All places that are visited by the eye of Heaven, are to the wise man

happy havens." If Shakspeare's philosophy be orthodox, the French have,

it must be confessed, many claims to the reputation of a wise people; and

though you know I always disputed their pretensions to general gaiety,

yet I acknowledge that misfortune does not deprive them of the share they

possess, and, if one may judge by appearances, they have at least the

habit, more than any other nation, of finding content under situations

with which it should seem incompatible. We are here between six and

seven hundred, of all ages and of all ranks, taken from our homes, and

from all that usually makes the comfort of life, and crowded together

under many of the inflictions that constitute its misery; yet, in the

midst of all this, we fiddle, dress, rhyme, and visit as ceremoniously as

though we had nothing to disturb us. Our beaux, after being correctly

frizz'd and powdered behind some door, compliment the belle just escaped

from a toilet, performed amidst the apparatus of the kitchen; three or

four beds are piled one upon another to make room for as many

card-tables; and the wits of the prison, who are all the morning

employed in writing doleful placets to obtain their liberty, in the

evening celebrate the loss of it in bout-rimees and acrostics.

I saw an ass at the _Corps de Garde_ this morning laden with violins and

music, and a female prisoner seldom arrives without her complement of

bandboxes.--Embarrassed, stifled as we are by our numbers, it does not

prevent a daily importation of lap-dogs, who form as consequential a part

of the community in a prison, as in the most superb hotel. The faithful

valet, who has followed the fortunes of his master, does not so much

share his distresses as contribute to his pleasure by adorning his

person, or, rather, his head, for, excepting the article of

hair-dressing, the beaux here are not elaborate. In short, there is an

indifference, a frivolity, in the French character, which, in

circumstances like the present, appears unaccountable. But man is not

always consistent with himself, and there are occasions in which the

French are nothing less than philosophers. Under all these externals of

levity, they are a very prudent people, and though they seem to bear

with infinite fortitude many of the evils of life, there are some in

which their sensibility is not to be questioned. At the death of a

relation, or the loss of liberty, I have observed that a few hours

suffice, _pour prendre son parti;_ [To make up his mind.] but on any

occasion where his fortune has suffered, the liveliest Frenchman is _au

desespoir_ for whole days. Whenever any thing is to be lost or gained,

all his characteristic indifference vanishes, and his attention becomes

mentally concentrated, without dissipating the habitual smile of his

countenance. He may sometimes be deceived through deficiency of

judgment, but I believe not often by unguardedness; and, in a matter of

interest, a _petit maitre_ of five-and-twenty might _tout en badinage_

[All in the way of pleasantry.] maintain his ground against a whole

synagogue.--This disposition is not remarkable only in affairs that may

be supposed to require it, but extends to the minutest objects; and the

same oeconomy which watches over the mass of a Frenchman's estate,

guards with equal solicitude the menu property of a log of wood, or a

hen's nest.

There is at this moment a general scarcity of provisions, and we who are

confined are, of course, particularly inconvenienced by it; we do not

even get bread that is eatable, and it is curious to observe with what

circumspection every one talks of his resources. The possessor of a few

eggs takes care not to expose them to the eye of his neighbour; and a

slice of white bread is a donation of so much consequence, that those who

procure any for themselves do not often put their friends to the pain

either of accepting or refusing it.

Mad. de ____ has been unwell for some days, and I could not help giving a

hint to a relation of her's whom we found here, and who has frequent

supplies of bread from the country, that the bread we eat was peculiarly

inimical to her; but I gained only a look of repulsive apprehension, and

a cold remark that it was very difficult to get good bread--_"et que

c'etoit bien malheureux."_ [And that it certainly was very unfortunate.]

I own this kind of selfishness is increased by a situation where our

wants are numerous, and our enjoyments few; and the great distinctions of

meum and tuum, which at all times have occasioned so much bad fellowship

in the world, are here perhaps more rigidly observed than any where else;

yet, in my opinion, a close-hearted consideration has always formed an

essential and a predominant quality in the French character.

People here do not ruin themselves, as with us, by hospitality; and

examples of that thoughtless profusion which we censure and regret,

without being able entirely to condemn, are very rare indeed. In France

it is not uncommon to see a man apparently dissipated in his conduct, and

licentious in his morals, yet regular, even to parsimony, in his

pecuniary concerns.--He oeconomizes with his vices, and indulges in all

the excesses of fashionable life, with the same system of order that

accumulates the fortune of a Dutch miser. Lord Chesterfield was

doubtless satisfied, that while his son remained in France, his precepts

would have all the benefit of living illustration; yet it is not certain

that this cautious and reflecting licentiousness has any merit over the

more imprudent irregularity of an English spendthrift: the one is,

however, likely to be more durable than the other; and, in fact, the

character of an old libertine is more frequent in France than in England.

If oeconomy preside even over the vices of the rich and fashionable, you

may conclude that the habits of the middling ranks of people of small

fortunes are still more scrupulously subjected to its influence. A

French _menage_ [Household.] is a practical treatise on the art of

saving--a spirit of oeconomy pervades and directs every part of it, and

that so uniformly, so generally, and so consistently, as not to make the

same impression on a stranger as would a single instance where the whole

was not conducted on the same principle. A traveller is not so forcibly

stricken by this part of the French character, because it is more real

than apparent, and does not seem the effect of reasoning or effort, which

is never consequential, but rather that of inclination and the natural

course of things.

A degree of parsimony, which an Englishman, who does not affect the

reputation of a Codrus, could not acquire without many self-combats,

appears in a Frenchman a matter of preference and convenience, and till

one has lived long and familiarly in the country, one is apt to mistake

principles for customs, and character for manners, and to attribute many

things to local which have their real source in moral causes.--The

traveller who sees nothing but gay furniture, and gay clothes, and

partakes on invitation of splendid repasts, returns to England the

enamoured panegyrist of French hospitality.--On a longer residence and

more domestic intercourse, all this is discoverable to be merely the

sacrifice of parsimony to vanity--the solid comforts of life are unknown,

and hospitality seldom extends beyond an occasional and ostentatious

reception. The gilding, painting, glasses, and silk hangings of a French

apartment, are only a gay disguise; and a house, which to the eye may be

attractive even to splendour, often has not one room that an Englishman

would find tolerably convenient. Every thing intended for use rather

than shew is scanty and sordid--all is _beau, magnifique, gentil,_ or

_superb,_ [Fine magnificent, genteel, or superb.] and nothing

comfortable. The French have not the word, or its synonime, in their

language.

In France, clothes are almost as durable as furniture, and the gaiety

which twenty or thirty years ago we were complaisant enough to admire is

far from being expensive. People are not more than five or six hours a

day in their gala habits, and the whole of this period is judiciously

chosen between the hours of repast, so that no risk in incurred by

accidents at table. Then the caprices of fashion, which in England are

so various and despotic, have here a more limited influence: the form of

a dress changes as long as the material is convertible, and when it has

outlasted the possibility of adaptation to a reigning mode, it is not on

that account rejected, but is generally worn in some way or other till

banished by the more rational motive of its decay. All the expences of

tea-visits, breakfast-loungings, and chance-dinners, are avoided--an

evening visit is passed entirely at cards, a breakfast in form even for

the family is unusual, and there are very few houses where you could dine

without being previously engaged. I am, indeed, certain, that (unless in

large establishments) the calculation for diurnal supply is so exact,

that the intrusion of a stranger would be felt by the whole family. I

must, however, do them the justice to say, that on such occasions, and

where they find the thing to be inevitable, they put the best face

possible on it, and the guest is entertained, if not plentifully, and

with a very sincere welcome, at least with smiles and compliments. The

French, indeed, allow, that they live less hospitably than the English:

but then they say they are not so rich; and it is true, property is not

so general, nor so much diffused, as with us. This is, however, only

relative, and you will not suspect me of being so uncandid as to make

comparisons without allowing for every difference which is the effect of

necessity. All my remarks of this kind are made after an unprejudiced

comparison of the people of the same rank or fortune in the two

countries;--yet even the most liberal examination must end by concluding,

that the oeconomy of the French too nearly approaches to meanness, and

that their civility is ostentatious, perhaps often either interested, or

even verbal.

You already exclaim, why, in the year 1793, you are characterizing a

nation in the style of Salmon! and implying a panegyric on the moral of

the School for Scandal! I plead to the first part of the charge, and

shall hereafter defend my opinion against the more polished writers who

have succeeded Salmon. For the moral of the School for Scandal, I have

always considered it as the seal of humanity on a comedy which would

otherwise be perfection.

It is not the oeconomy of the French that I am censuring, but their

vanity, which, engrossing all their means of expence, prefers show to

accommodation, and the parade of a sumptuous repast three or four times a

year to a plainer but more frequent hospitality.--I am far from being the

advocate of extravagance, or the enemy of domestic order; and the

liberality which is circumscribed only by prudence shall not find in me a

censurer.

My ideas on the French character and manner of living may not be unuseful

to such of my countrymen as come to France with the project of retrieving

their affairs; for it is very necessary they should be informed, that it

is not so much the difference in the price of things, which makes a

residence here oeconomical, as a conformity to the habits of the country;

and if they were not deterred by a false shame from a temporary adoption

of the same system in England, their object might often be obtained

without leaving it. For this reason it may be remarked, that the English

who bring English servants, and persist in their English mode of living,

do not often derive very solid advantages from their exile, and their

abode in France is rather a retreat from their creditors than the means

of paying their debts.

Adieu.--You will not be sorry that I have been able for a moment to

forget our personal sufferings, and the miserable politics of the

country. The details of the former are not pleasant, and the latter grow

every day more inexplicable.

1794