A RESIDENCE IN FRANCE

January 6, 1794.

If I had undertaken to follow the French revolution through all its

absurdities and iniquities, my indolence would long since have taken the

alarm, and I should have relinquished a task become too difficult and too

laborious. Events are now too numerous and too complicated to be

described by occasional remarks; and a narrator of no more pretensions

than myself may be allowed to shrink from an abundance of matter which

will hereafter perplex the choice and excite the wonder of the

historian.--Removed from the great scene of intrigues, we are little

acquainted with them--we begin to suffer almost before we begin to

conjecture, and our solicitude to examine causes is lost in the rapidity

with which we feel their effects.

Amidst the more mischievous changes of a philosophic revolution, you will

have learned from the newspapers, that the French have adopted a new aera

and a new calendar, the one dating from the foundation of their republic,

and other descriptive of the climate of Paris, and the productions of the

French territory. I doubt, however, if these new almanack-makers will

create so much confusion as might be supposed, or as they may desire, for

I do not find as yet that their system has made its way beyond the public

offices, and the country people are particularly refractory, for they

persist in holding their fairs, markets, &c. as usual, without any regard

to the hallowed decade of their legislators. As it is to be presumed

that the French do not wish to relinquish all commercial intercourse with

other nations, they mean possibly to tack the republican calendar to the

rights of man, and send their armies to propagate them together;

otherwise the correspondence of a Frenchman will be as difficult to

interpret with mercantile exactness as the characters of the Chinese.

The vanity of these philosophers would, doubtless, be gratified by

forcing the rest of Europe and the civilized world to adopt their useless

and chimerical innovations, and they might think it a triumph to see the

inhabitant of the Hebrides date _"Vendemiaire,"_ [Alluding to the

vintage.] or the parched West-Indian _"Nivose;"_ but vanity is not on

this, as it is on many other occasions, the leading principle.--It was

hoped that a new arrangement of the year, and a different nomenclature of

the months, so as to banish all the commemorations of Christianity, might

prepare the way for abolishing religion itself, and, if it were possible

to impose the use of the new calendar so far as to exclude the old one,

this might certainly assist their more serious atheistical operations;

but as the success of such an introduction might depend on the will of

the people, and is not within the competence of the bayonet, the old year

will maintain its ground, and these pedantic triflers find that they have

laboured to no more extensive a purpose, than to furnish a date to the

newspapers, or to their own decrees, which no one will take the pains to

understand.

Mankind are in general more attached to customs than principles. The

useful despotism of Peter, which subdued so many of the prejudices of his

countrymen, could not achieve the curtailment of their beards; and you

must not imagine that, with all the endurance of the French, these

continual attempts at innovation pass without murmurs: partial revolts

happen very frequently; but, as they are the spontaneous effect of

personal suffering, not of political manoeuvre, they are without concert

or union, of course easily quelled, and only serve to strengthen the

government.--The people of Amiens have lately, in one of these sudden

effusions of discontent, burnt the tree of liberty, and even the

representative, Dumont, has been menaced; but these are only the blows of

a coward who is alarmed at his own temerity, and dreads the chastisement

of it.*

* The whole town of Bedouin, in the south of France, was burnt

pursuant to a decree of the convention, to expiate the imprudence of

some of its inhabitants in having cut down a dead tree of liberty.

Above sixty people were guillotined as accomplices, and their bodies

thrown into pits, dug by order of the representative, Magnet, (then

on mission,) before their death. These executions were succeeded by

a conflagration of all the houses, and the imprisonment or

dispersion of their possessors. It is likewise worthy of remark,

that many of these last were obliged, by express order of Maignet,

to be spectators of the murder of their friends and relations.

This crime in the revolutionary code is of a very serious nature; and

however trifling it may appear to you, it depends only on the will of

Dumont to sacrifice many lives on the occasion. But Dumont, though

erected by circumstances into a tyrant, is not sanguinary--he is by

nature and education passionate and gross, and in other times might only

have been a good natured Polisson. Hitherto he has contented himself

with alarming, and making people tired of their lives, but I do not

believe he has been the direct or intentional cause of anyone's death.

He has so often been the hero of my adventures, that I mention him

familiarly to you, without reflecting, that though the delegate of more

than monarchical power here, he is too insignificant of himself to be

known in England. But the history of Dumont is that of two-thirds of the

Convention. He was originally clerk to an attorney at Abbeville, and

afterwards set up for himself in a neighbouring village. His youth

having been marked by some digressions from the "'haviour of reputation,"

his profession was far from affording him a subsistence; and the

revolution, which seems to have called forth all that was turbulent,

unprincipled, or necessitous in the country, naturally found a partizan

in an attorney without practice.--At the election of 1792, when the

King's fall and the domination of the Jacobins had spread so general a

terror that no man of character could be prevailed upon to be a candidate

for a public situation, Dumont availed himself of this timidity and

supineness in those who ought to have become the representatives of the

people; and, by a talent for intrigue, and a coarse facility of

phrase-making, (for he has no pretensions to eloquence,) prevailed on

the mob to elect him. His local knowledge, active disposition, and

subservient industry, render him an useful kind of drudge to any

prevailing party, and, since the overthrow of the Brissotines, he has

been entrusted with the government of this and some of the neighbouring

departments. He professes himself a zealous republican, and an apostle

of the doctrine of universal equality, yet unites in his person all the

attributes of despotism, and lives with more luxury and expence than

most of the _ci-devant_ gentry. His former habitation at Oisemont is not

much better than a good barn; but patriotism is more profitable here

than in England, and he has lately purchased a large mansion belonging

to an emigrant.

* "Britain no longer pays her patriots with her spoils:" and perhaps

it is matter of congratulation to a country, when the profession of

patriotism is not lucrative. Many agreeable inferences may be made

from it--the sentiment may have become too general for reward,

Ministers too virtuous to fear, or even the people too enlightened

to be deceived.

--His mode of travelling, which used at best to be in the _coche d'eau_

[Passage-boat.] or the diligence, is now in a coach and four, very

frequently accompanied by a led horse, and a party of dragoons. I fear

some of your patriots behold this with envy, and it is not to be wondered

at that they should wish to see a similar revolution in England. What a

seducing prospect for the assertors of liberty, to have the power of

imprisoning and guillotining all their countrymen! What halcyon days,

when the aristocratic palaces* shall be purified by solacing the fatigues

of republican virtue, and the levellers of all distinction travel with

four horses and a military escort!--But, as Robespierre observes, you are

two centuries behind the French in patriotism and information; and I

doubt if English republicanism will ever go beyond a dinner, and toasting

the manes of Hampden and Sydney. I would, therefore, seriously advise

any of my compatriots who may be enamoured of a government founded on the

rights of man, to quit an ungrateful country which seems so little

disposed to reward their labours, and enjoy the supreme delight of men a

systeme, that of seeing their theories in action.

* Many of the emigrants' houses were bought by members of the

Convention, or people in office. At Paris, crouds of inferior

clerks, who could not purchase, found means to get lodged in the

most superb national edifices: Monceaux was the villa of

Robespierre--St. Just occasionally amused himself at Raincy--Couthon

succeed the Comte d'Artois at Bagatelle-and Vliatte, a juryman of

the Revolutionary Tribunal, was lodged at the pavillion of Flora, in

the Tuilleries, which he seems to have occupied as a sort of Maitre

d'Hotel to the Comite de Salut Public.

_A propos_--a decree of the Convention has lately passed to secure the

person of Mr. Thomas Paine, and place seals on his papers. I hope,

however, as he has been installed in all the rights of a French citizen,

in addition to his representative inviolability, that nothing more than a

temporary retreat is intended for him. Perhaps even his personal

sufferings may prove a benefit to mankind. He may, like Raleigh, "in his

prison hours enrich the world," and add new proselytes to the cause of

freedom. Besides, human evils are often only blessings in a questionable

form--Mr. Paine's persecutions in England made him a legislator in

France. Who knows but his persecutions in France may lead to some new

advancement, or at least add another line to the already crouded

title-pages that announce his literary and political distinctions!

--Yours.

January, 1794.

The total suppression of all religious worship in this country is an

event of too singular and important a nature not to have been commented

upon largely by the English papers; but, though I have little new to add

on the subject, my own reflections have been too much occupied in

consequence for me to pass it over in silence.

I am yet in the first emotions of wonder: the vast edifice which had been

raised by the blended efforts of religion and superstition, which had

been consecrated by time, endeared by national taste, and become

necessary by habit, has now disappeared, and scarcely left a vestige of

its ruins. To those who revert only to the genius of the Catholic

religion, and to former periods of the history of France, this event must

seem incredible; and nothing but constant opportunities of marking its

gradual approach can reconcile it to probability. The pious christian

and the insidious philosopher have equally contributed to the general

effect, though with very different intentions: the one, consulting only

his reason, wished to establish a pure and simple mode of worship, which,

divested of the allurements of splendid processions and imposing

ceremonies, should teach the people their duty, without captivating their

senses; the other, better acquainted with French character, knew how

little these views were compatible with it, and hoped, under the specious

pretext of banishing the too numerous ornaments of the Catholic practice,

to shake the foundations of Christianity itself. Thus united in their

efforts, though dissimilar in their motives, all parties were eager at

the beginning of the revolution for a reform in the Church: the wealth of

the Clergy, the monastic establishments, the supernumerary saints, were

devoted and attacked without pity, and without regret; and, in the zeal

and hurry of innovation, the decisive measure, which reduced

ecclesiastics to small pensions dependent on the state, was carried,

before those who really meant well were aware of its consequences. The

next step was, to make the receiving these pensions subject to an oath,

which the selfish philosopher, who can coldly calculate on, and triumph

in, the weakness of human nature, foresaw would be a brand of discord,

certain to destroy the sole force which the Clergy yet possessed--their

union, and the public opinion.

Unfortunately, these views were not disappointed: conviction, interest,

or fear, prevailed on many to take the oath; while doubt, worldly

improvidence, or a scrupulous piety, deterred others. A schism took

place between the jurors and nonjurors--the people became equally

divided, and adhered either to the one or the other, as their habits or

prepossessions directed them. Neither party, as it may be imagined,

could see themselves deprived of any portion of the public esteem,

without concern, perhaps without rancour; and their mutual animosity, far

from gaining proselytes to either, contributed only to the immediate

degradation and future ruin of both. Those, however, who had not taken

the prescribed oath, were in general more popular than what were called

the constitutionalists, and the influence they were supposed to exert in

alienating the minds of their followers from the new form of government,

supplied the republican party with a pretext for proposing their

banishment.*

*The King's exertion of the power vested in him by the constitution,

by putting a temporary negative on this decree, it is well known,

was one of the pretexts for dethroning him.

At the King's deposition this decree took place, and such of the

nonjuring priests as were not massacred in the prisons, or escaped the

search, were to be embarked for Guiana. The wiser and better part of

those whose compliances entitled them to remain, were, I believe, far

from considering this persecution of their opponents as a triumph--to

those who did, it was of short duration. The Convention, which had

hitherto attempted to disguise its hatred of the profession by censure

and abuse of a part of its members, began now to ridicule the profession

itself: some represented it as useless--others as pernicious and

irreconcileable with political freedom; and a discourse* was printed,

under the sanction of the Assembly, to prove, that the only feasible

republic must be supported by pure atheism.

* Extracts from the Report of Anacharsis Cloots, member of the

Committee of Public Instruction, printed by order of the National

Convention:

"Our _Sans-culottes_ want no other sermon but the rights of man, no

other doctrine but the constitutional precepts and practice, nor any

other church than where the section or the club hold their meetings,

&c.

"The propagation of the rights of man ought to be presented to the

astonished world pure and without stain. It is not by offering

strange gods to our neighbours that we shall operate their

conversion. We can never raise them from their abject state by

erecting one altar in opposition to another. A trifling heresy is

infinitely more revolting than having no religion at all. Nature,

like the sun, diffuses her light without the assistance of priests

and vestals. While we were constitutional heretics, we maintained

an army of an hundred thousand priests, who waged war equally with

the Pope and the disciples of Calvin. We crushed the old priesthood

by means of the new, and while we compelled every sect to contribute

to the payment of a pretended national religion, we became at once

the abhorrence of all the Catholics and Protestants in Europe. The

repulsion of our religious belief counteracted the attraction of our

political principles.--But truth is at length triumphant, and all

the ill-intentioned shall no more be able to detach our neighbours

from the dominion of the rights of man, under pretext of a religious

dominion which no longer exists.--The purpose of religion is no how

so well answered as by presenting carte blanche to the abused world.

Every one will then be at liberty to form his spiritual regimen to

his own taste, till in the end the invincible ascendant of reason

shall teach him that the Supreme Being, the Eternal Being, is no

other than Nature uncreated and uncreatable; and that the only

Providence is the association of mankind in freedom and equality!--

This sovereign providence affords comfort to the afflicted, rewards

the good, and punishes the wicked. It exercises no unjust

partialities, like the providence of knaves and fools. Man, when

free, wants no other divinity than himself. This god will not cost

us a single farthing, not a single tear, nor a drop of blood. From

the summit of our mountain he hath promulgated his laws, traced in

evident characters on the tables of nature. From the East to the

West they will be understood without the aid of interpreters,

comments, or miracles. Every other ritual will be torn in pieces at

the appearance of that of reason. Reason dethrones both the Kings

of the earth, and the Kings of heaven.--No monarch above, if we wish

to preserve our republic below.

"Volumes have been written to determine whether or no a republic of

Atheists could exist. I maintain that every other republic is a

chimera. If you once admit the existence of a heavenly Sovereign,

you introduce the wooden horse within your walls!--What you adore by

day will be your destruction at night.

"A people of theists necessarily become revelationists, that is to

say, slaves of priests, who are but religious go-betweens, and

physicians of damned souls.

"If I were a scoundrel, I should make a point of exclaiming against

atheism, for a religious mask is very convenient to a traitor.

"The intolerance of truth will one day proscribe the very name of

temple 'fanum,' the etymology of fanaticism.

"We shall instantly see the monarchy of heaven condemned in its turn

by the revolutionary tribunal of victorious Reason; for Truth,

exalted on the throne of Nature, is sovereignly intolerant.

"The republic of the rights of man is, properly speaking, neither

theistical nor atheistical--it is nihilistical."

Many of the most eminent conforming Prelates and Clergy were arrested,

and even individuals, who had the reputation of being particularly

devout, were marked as objects of persecution. A new calendar was

devised, which excluded the ancient festivals, and limited public worship

to the decade, or tenth day, and all observance of the Sabbath was

interdicted. The prisons were crouded with sufferers in the cause of

religion, and all who had not the zeal or the courage of martyrs,

abstained from manifesting any attachment to the Christian faith.

While this consternation was yet recent, the Deputies on mission in the

departments shut up the churches entirely: the refuse of low clubs were

paid and encouraged to break the windows and destroy the monuments; and

these outrages, which, it was previously concerted, should at first

assume the appearance of popular tumult, were soon regulated and directed

by the mandates of the Convention themselves. The churches were again

opened, an atheistic ritual, and licentious homilies,* were substituted

for the proscribed service--and an absurd and ludicrous imitation of the

Greek mythology was exhibited, under the title of the Religion of

Reason.--

* I have read a discourse pronounced in a church at Paris, on the

decade, so indecent and profane, that the most humble audience of a

country-puppet show in England would not have tolerated it.

On the principal church of every town was inscribed, "The Temple of

Reason;" and a tutelary goddess was installed with a ceremony equally

pedantic, ridiculous, and profane.*

* At Havre, the goddess of Reason was drawn on a car by four

cart-horses, and as it was judged necessary, to prevent accidents,

that the horses should be conducted by those they were accustomed

to, the carters were likewise put in requisition and furnished with

cuirasses a l'antique from the theatre. The men, it seems, being

neither martial nor learned, were not au fait at this equipment,

and concluding it was only a waistcoat of ceremony, invested

themselves with the front behind, and the back part laced before,

to the great amusement of the few who were sensible of the mistake.

Yet the philosophers did not on this occasion disdain those adventitious

aids, the use of which they had so much declaimed against while they were

the auxiliaries of Christianity.*

* Mr. Gibbon reproaches the Christians with their adoption of the

allurements of the Greek mythology.--The Catholics have been more

hostilely despoiled by their modern persecutors, and may retort that

the religion of reason is a more gross appeal to the senses than the

darkest ages of superstition would have ventured on.

Music, processions, and decorations, which had been banished from the

ancient worship, were introduced in the new one, and the philosophical

reformer, even in the very attempt to establish a religion purely

metaphysical, found himself obliged to inculcate it by a gross and

material idolatry.*--

* The French do not yet annex any other idea to the religion of

reason than that of the female who performs the part of the goddess.

Thus, by submitting his abstractions to the genius of the people, and the

imperfections of our nature, perhaps the best apology was offered for the

errors of that worship which had been proscribed, persecuted, and

ridiculed.

Previous to the tenth day, on which a celebration of this kind was to

take place, a Deputy arrived, accompanied by the female goddess:* that

is, (if the town itself did not produce one for the purpose,) a Roman

dress of white satin was hired from the theatre, with which she was

invested--her head covered with a red cap, ornamented with oak leaves--

one arm was reclined on a plough, the other grasped a spear--and her feet

were supported by a globe, and environed by mutilated emblems of

seodality. [It is not possible to explain this costume as appropriate.]

* The females who personated the new divinity were usually selected

from amongst those who "might make sectaries of whom they bid but

follow," but who were more conspicuous for beauty than any other

celestial attribute.--The itinerant goddess of the principal towns

in the department de la Somme was the mistress of one Taillefer, a

republican General, brother to the Deputy of the same name.--I know

not, in this military government, whether the General's services on

the occasion were included in his other appointments. At Amiens, he

not only provided the deity, but commanded the detachment that

secured her a submissive adoration.

Thus equipped, the divinity and her appendages were borne on the

shoulders of Jacobins "en bonnet rouge," and escorted by the National

Guard, Mayor, Judges, and all the constituted authorities, who, whether

diverted or indignant, were obliged to preserve a respectful gravity of

exterior. When the whole cavalcade arrived at the place appointed, the

goddess was placed on an altar erected for the occasion, from whence she

harangued the people, who, in return, proffered their adoration, and sung

the Carmagnole, and other republican hymns of the same kind. They then

proceeded in the same order to the principal church, in the choir of

which the same ceremonies were renewed: a priest was procured to abjure

his faith and avow the whole of Christianity an imposture;* and the

festival concluded with the burning of prayer-books, saints,

confessionals, and every thing appropriated to the use of public

worship.**--

*It must be observed, in justice to the French Clergy, that it was

seldom possible to procure any who would consent to this infamy. In

such cases, the part was exhibited by a man hired and dressed for

the purpose.--The end of degrading the profession in the eyes of the

people was equally answered.

** In many places, valuable paintings and statues were burnt or

disfigured. The communion cups, and other church plate, were, after

being exorcised in Jacobin revels, sent to the Convention, and the

gold and silver, (as the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman

Empire invidiously expresses himself,) the pearls and jewels, were

wickedly converted to the service of mankind; as if any thing whose

value is merely fictitious, could render more service to mankind

than when dedicated to an use which is equally the solace of the

rich and the poor--which gratifies the eye without exciting

cupidity, soothes the bed of sickness, and heals the wounds of

conscience. Yet I am no advocate for the profuse decorations of

Catholic churches; and if I seem to plead in their behalf, it is

that I recollect no instance where the depredators of them have

appropriated the spoil to more laudable purposes.

The greater part of the attendants looked on in silent terror and

astonishment; whilst others, intoxicated, or probably paid to act this

scandalous farce, danced round the flames with an appearance of frantic

and savage mirth.--It is not to be forgotten, that representatives of the

people often presided as the high priests of these rites; and their

official dispatches to the convention, in which these ceremonies were

minutely described, were always heard with bursts of applause, and

sanctioned by decrees of insertion in the bulletin.*

* A kind of official newspaper distributed periodically at the

expence of Government in large towns, and pasted up in public

places--it contained such news as the convention chose to impart,

which was given with the exact measure of truth or falsehood that

suited the purpose of the day.

I have now conducted you to the period in which I am contemplating France

in possession of all the advantages which a total dereliction of

religious establishments can bestow--at that consummation to which the

labours of modern philosophers have so long tended.

Ye Shaftesburys, Bolingbrokes, Voltaires, and must I add the name of

Gibbon,* behold yourselves inscribed on the registers of fame with a

Laplanche, a Chenier, an Andre Dumont, or a Fouche!**--

* The elegant satirist of Christianity will smile at the presumption

of so humble a censurer.--It is certain, the misapplication only of

such splendid talents could embolden me to mention the name of the

possessor with diminished respect.

** These are names too contemptible for notice, but for the mischief

to which they were instrumental--they were among the first and most

remarkable persecutors of religion.

Do not blush at the association; your views have been the same; and the

subtle underminer of man's best comfort in the principles of his

religion, is even more criminal than him who prohibits the external

exercise of it. Ridicule of the sacred writings is more dangerous than

burning them, and a sneer at the miracles of the gospel more mischievous

than disfiguring the statues of the evangelists; and it must be confessed

that these Anti-christian Iconoclasts themselves might probably have been

content to "believe and say their prayers," had not the intolerance of

philosophy made them atheists and persecutors.--The coarse legend of

"death is the sleep of eternity,"* is only a compendium of the fine-drawn

theories of the more elaborate materialist, and the depositaries of the

dead will not corrupt more by the exhibition of this desolating standard,

than the libraries of the living by the volumes which hold out the same

oblivion to vice, and discouragement to virtue.--

* Posts, bearing the inscription "la mort est un sommeil eternel,"

were erected in many public burying-grounds.--No other ceremony is

observed with the dead than enclosing the body in some rough boards,

and sending it off by a couple of porters, (in their usual garb,)

attended by a municipal officer. The latter inscribes on a register

the name of the deceased, who is thrown into a grave generally

prepared for half a score, and the whole business is finished.

The great experiment of governing a civilized people without religion

will now be made; and should the morals, the manners, or happiness of the

French, be improved by it, the sectaries of modern philosophy may

triumph. Should it happen otherwise, the Christian will have an

additional motive for cherishing his faith: but even the afflictions of

humanity will not, I fear, produce either regret or conviction in his

adversary; for the prejudices of philosophers and systemists are

incorrigible.*

* _"Ce ne sont point les philosophes qui connoissent le mieux les

hommes. Ils ne les voient qu'a travers les prejuges, et je ne fache

aucun etat ou l'on en ait tant."_--J. J. Rousseau. ["It is not among

philosophers that we are to look for the most perfect knowledge of

human nature.--They view it only through the prejudices of

philosophy, and I know of no profession where prejudices are more

abundant."]

Providence, Jan. 29.

We are now quite domesticated here, though in a very miserable way,

without fire, and with our mattresses, on the boards; but we nevertheless

adopt the spirit of the country, and a total absence of comfort does not

prevent us from amusing ourselves. My friend knits, and draws landscapes

on the backs of cards; and I have established a correspondence with an

old bookseller, who sends me treatises of chemistry and fortifications,

instead of poetry and memoirs. I endeavoured at first to borrow books of

our companions, but this resource was soon exhausted, and the whole

prison supplied little more than a novel of Florian's, _Le Voyage du jeune

Anarcharsis,_ and some of the philosophical romances of Voltaire.--They

say it ennuyes them to read; and I observe, that those who read at all,

take their books into the garden, and prefer the most crowded walks.

These studious persons, who seem to surpass Crambe himself in the faculty

of abstraction, smile and bow at every comma, without any appearance of

derangement from such frequent interruptions.

Time passes sorrowly, rather than slowly; and my thoughts, without being

amused, are employed. The novelty of our situation, the past, the

future, all offer so many subjects of reflection, that my mind has more

occasion for repose than amusement. My only external resource is

conversing with our fellow-prisoners, and learning the causes of their

detention. These relations furnish me with a sort of "abstract of the

times," and mark the character of the government better than

circumstances of more apparent consequence; for what are battles, sieges,

and political machinations, but as they ultimately affect the happiness

of society? And when I learn that the lives, the liberty, and property

of no class are secure from violation, it is not necessary one should be

at Paris to form an opinion of this period of the revolution, and of

those who conduct it.

The persecution which has hitherto been chiefly directed against the

Noblesse, has now a little subsided, and seems turned against religion

and commerce. People are daily arrested for assisting at private masses,

concealing images, or even for being possessors of religious books.

Merchants are sent here as monopolizers, and retailers, under various

pretexts, in order to give the committees an opportunity of pillaging

their shops. It is not uncommon to see people of the town who are our

guards one day, become our fellow-prisoners the next; and a few weeks

since, the son of an old gentleman who has been some time here, after

being on guard the whole day, instead of being relieved at the usual

hour, was joined by his wife and children, under the escort of a couple

of dragoons, who delivered the whole family into the custody of our

keeper; and this appears to have happened without any other motive than

his having presented a petition to Dumont in behalf of his father.

An old man was lately taken from his house in the night, and brought

here, because he was said to have worn the cross of St. Louis.--The fact

is, however, that he never did wear this obnoxious distinction; and

though his daughter has proved this incontrovertibly to Dumont, she

cannot obtain his liberty: and the poor young woman, after making two or

three fruitless journeys to Paris, is obliged to content herself with

seeing her father occasionally at the gate.

The refectory of the convent is inhabited by hospital nuns. Many of the

hospitals in France had a sort of religious order annexed to them, whose

business it was to attend the sick; and habit, perhaps too the

association of the offices of humanity with the duties of religion, had

made them so useful in their profession, that they were suffered to

remain, even after the abolition of the regular monasteries. But the

devastating torrent of the revolution at length reached them: they were

accused of bestowing a more tender solicitude on their aristocratic

patients than on the wounded volunteers and republicans; and, upon these

curious charges, they have been heaped into carts, without a single

necessary, almost without covering, sent from one department to another,

and distributed in different prisons, where they are perishing with cold,

sickness, and want! Some people are here only because they happened to

be accidentally at a house when the owner was arrested;* and we have one

family who were taken at dinner, with their guests, and the plate they

were using!

* It was not uncommon for a mandate of arrest to direct the taking

"Citizen Such-a-one, and all persons found in his house."

A grand-daughter of the celebrated De Witt, who resided thirty leagues

from hence, was arrested in the night, put in an open cart, without any

regard to her age, her sex, or her infirmities, though the rain fell in

torrents; and, after sleeping on straw in different prisons on the road,

was deposited here. As a Fleming, the law places her in the same

predicament with a very pretty young woman who has lived some months at

Amiens; but Dumont, who is at once the maker, the interpreter, and

executor of the laws, has exempted the latter from the general

proscription, and appears daily with her in public; whereas poor Madame

De Witt is excluded from such indulgence, being above seventy years old--

and is accused, moreover, of having been most exemplarily charitable,

and, what is still worse, very religious.--I have given these instances

not as any way remarkable, and only that you may form some idea of the

pretexts which have served to cover France with prisons, and to conduct

so many of its inhabitants to the scaffold.

It is impossible to reflect on a country in such a situation, without

abhorring the authors of it, and dreading the propagation of their

doctrines. I hope they neither have imitators nor admirers in England;

yet the convention in their debates, the Jacobins, and all the French

newspapers, seem so sanguine in their expectation, and so positive in

their assertions of an English revolution, that I occasionally, and in

spite of myself, feel a vague but serious solicitude, which I should not

have supposed the apprehension of any political evil could inspre. I

know the good sense and information of my countrymen offer a powerful

resource against the love of change and metaphysical subtilties; but, it

is certain, the French government have much depended on the spirit of

party, and the zeal of their propagandistes. They talk of a British

convention, of a conventional army, and, in short, all France seem

prepared to see their neighbours involved in the same disastrous system

with themselves. The people are not a little supported in this error by

the extracts that are given them from your orators in the House of

Commons, which teem with nothing but complaints against the oppression of

their own country, and enthusiastic admiration of French liberty. We

read and wonder--collate the Bill of Rights with the Code

Revolutionnaire, and again fear what we cannot give credit to.

Since the reports I allude to have gained ground, I have been forcibly

stricken by a difference in the character of the two nations. At the

prospect of a revolution, all the French who could conveniently leave the

country, fled; and those that remained (except adventurers and the

banditti that were their accomplices) studiously avoided taking any part.

But so little are our countrymen affected with this selfish apathy, that

I am told there is scarcely one here who, amidst all his present

sufferings, does not seem to regret his absence from England, more on

account of not being able to oppose this threatened attack on our

constitution, than for any personal motive.--The example before them

must, doubtless, tend to increase this sentiment of genuine patriotism;

for whoever came to France with but a single grain of it in his

composition, must return with more than enough to constitute an hundred

patriots, whose hatred of despotism is only a principle, and who have

never felt its effects.--Adieu.

February 2, 1794.

The factions which have chosen to give France the appellation of a

republic, seem to have judged, and with some reason, that though it might

answer their purpose to amuse the people with specious theories of

freedom, their habits and ideas were far from requiring that these fine

schemes should be carried into practice. I know of no example equal to

the submission of the French at this moment; and if "departed spirits

were permitted to review the world," the shades of Richelieu or Louvois

might hover with envy round the Committee of Public Welfare, and regret

the undaring moderation of their own politics.

How shall I explain to an Englishman the doctrine of universal

requisition? I rejoice that you can imagine nothing like it.--After

establishing, as a general principle, that the whole country is at the

disposal of government, succeeding decrees have made specific claims on

almost every body, and every thing. The tailors, shoemakers,* bakers,

smiths, sadlers, and many other trades, are all in requisition--carts,

horses, and carriages of every kind, are in requisition--the stables and

cellars are put in requisition for the extraction of saltpetre, and the

houses to lodge soldiers, or to be converted into prisons.

* In order to prevent frauds, the shoemakers were obliged to make

only square-toed shoes, and every person not in the army was

forbidden to wear them of this form. Indeed, people of any

pretentions to patriotism (that is to say, who were much afraid) did

not venture to wear any thing but wooden shoes; as it had been

declared anti-civique, if not suspicious, to walk in leather.

--Sometimes shopkeepers are forbidden to sell their cloth, nails, wine,

bread, meat, &c. There are instances where whole towns have been kept

without the necessaries of life for several days together, in consequence

of these interdictions; and I have known it proclaimed by beat of drum,

that whoever possessed two uniforms, two hats, or two pair of shoes,

should relinquish one for the use of the army! Yet with all these

efforts of despotism, the republican troops are in many respects ill

supplied, the produce being too often converted to the use of the agents

of government, who are all Jacobins, and whose peculations are suffered

with impunity, because they are too necessary, or perhaps too formidable

for punishment.

These proceedings, which are not the less mischievous for being absurd,

must end in a total destruction of commerce: the merchant will not import

what he may be obliged to sell exclusively to government at an arbitrary

and inadequate valuation.--Those who are not imprisoned, and have it in

their power, are for the most part retired from business, or at least

avoid all foreign speculations; so that France may in a few months depend

only on her internal resources. The same measures which ruin one class,

serve as a pretext to oppress and levy contributions on the rest.--In

order to make this right of seizure still more productive, almost every

village has its spies, and the domiciliary visits are become so frequent,

that a man is less secure in his own house, than in a desert amidst

Arabs. On these occasions, a band of Jacobins, with a municipal officer

at their head, enter sans ceremonie, over-run your apartments, and if

they find a few pounds of sugar, soap, or any other article which they

choose to judge more than sufficient for immediate consumption, they take

possession of the whole as a monopoly, which they claim for the use of

the republic, and the terrified owner, far from expostulating, thinks

himself happy if he escapes so well.--But this is mere vulgar tyranny:

a less powerful despotism might invade the security of social life, and

banish its comforts. We are prone to suffer, and it requires often

little more than the will to do evil to give us a command over the

happiness of others. The Convention are more original, and, not

satisfied with having reduced the people to the most abject slavery,

they exact a semblance of content, and dictate at stated periods the

chastisement which awaits those who refuse to smile.

The splendid ceremonies at Paris, which pass for popular rejoicings,

merit that appellation less than an auto de fe. Every movement is

previously regulated by a Commissioner appointed for the purpose,

(to whom en passant these fetes are very lucrative jobs,) a plan of the

whole is distributed, in which is prescribed with great exactness, that

at such and such parts the people are to "melt into tears," at others

they are to be seized with a holy enthusiasm, and at the conclusion of

the whole they are to rend the air with the cry of "Vive la Convention!"

--These celebrations are always attended by a military force, sufficient

to ensure their observance, besides a plentiful mixture of spies to

notice refractory countenances or faint acclamations.

The departments which cannot imitate the magnificence of Paris, are

obliged, nevertheless, to manifest their satisfaction. At every occasion

on which a rejoicing is ordered, the same kind of discipline is

preserved; and the aristocrats, whose fears in general overcome their

principles, are often not the least zealous attendants.

At the retaking of Toulon, when abandoned by our countrymen, the National

Guards were every where assembled to participate in the festivity, under

a menace of three days imprisonment. Those persons who did not

illuminate their houses were to be considered as suspicious, and treated

as such: yet, even with all these precautions, I am informed the business

was universally cold, and the balls thinly attended, except by

aristocrats and relations of emigrants, who, in some places, with a

baseness not excused even by their terrors, exhibited themselves as a

public spectacle, and sang the defeats of that country which was armed in

their defence.

I must here remark to you a circumstance which does still less honour to

the French character; and which you will be unwilling to believe. In

several towns the officers and others, under whose care the English were

placed during their confinement, were desirous sometimes on account of

the peculiar hardship of their situation as foreigners, to grant them

little indulgences, and even more liberty than to the French prisoners;

and in this they were justified on several considerations, as well as

that of humanity.--They knew an Englishman could not escape, whatever

facility might be given him, without being immediately retaken; and that

if his imprisonment were made severe, he had fewer external resources and

alleviations than the natives of the country: but these favourable

dispositions were of no avail--for whenever any of our countrymen

obtained an accommodation, the jealousy of the French took umbrage, and

they were obliged to relinquish it, or hazard the drawing embarrassment

on the individual who had served them.

You are to notice, that the people in general, far from being averse to

seeing the English treated with a comparative indulgence, were even

pleased at it; and the invidious comparisons and complaints which

prevented it, proceeded from the gentry, from the families of those who

had found refuge in England, and who were involved in the common

persecution.--I have, more than once, been reproached by a female

aristocrat with the ill success of the English army; and many, with whom

I formerly lived on terms of intimacy, would refuse me now the most

trifling service.--I have heard of a lady, whose husband and brother are

both in London, who amuses herself in teaching a bird to repeat abuse of

the English.

It has been said, that the day a man becomes a slave, he loses half his

virtue; and if this be true as to personal slavery, judging from the

examples before me, I conclude it equally so of political bondage.--The

extreme despotism of the government seems to have confounded every

principle of right and wrong, every distinction of honour and dishonour

and the individual, of whatever class, alive only to the sense of

personal danger, embraces without reluctance meanness or disgrace, if it

insure his safety.--A tailor or shoemaker, whose reputation perhaps is

too bad to gain him a livelihood by any trade but that of a patriot,

shall be besieged by the flatteries of people of rank, and have levees as

numerous as Choiseul or Calonne in their meridian of power.

When a Deputy of the Convention is sent to a town on mission, sadness

takes possession of every heart, and gaiety of every countenance. He is

beset with adulatory petitions, and propitiating gifts; the Noblesse who

have escaped confinement form a sort of court about his person; and

thrice happy is the owner of that habitation at which he condescends to

reside.--*

* When a Deputy arrives, the gentry of the town contend with jealous

rivalship for the honour of lodging him; and the most eloquent

eulogist of republican simplicity in the Convention does not fail to

prefer a large house and a good table, even though the unhallowed

property of an aristocrat.--It is to be observed, that these

Missionaries travel in a very patriarchal style, accompanied by

their wives, children, and a numerous train of followers, who are

not delicate in availing themselves of this hospitality, and are

sometimes accused of carrying off the linen, or any thing else

portable--even the most decent behave on these occasions as though

they were at an inn.

--A Representative of gallantry has no reason to envy either the

authority of the Grand Signor, or the licence of his seraglio--he is

arbiter of the fate of every woman that pleases him; and, it is supposed,

that many a fair captive has owed her liberty to her charms, and that the

philosophy of a French husband has sometimes opened the doors of his

prison.

Dumont, who is married, and has besides the countenance of a white Negro,

never visits us without occasioning a general commotion amongst all the

females, especially those who are young and pretty. As soon as it is

known that he is expected, the toilettes are all in activity, a

renovation of rouge and an adjustment of curls take place, and, though

performed with more haste, not with less solicitude, than the preparatory

splendour of a first introduction.--When the great man arrives, he finds

the court by which he enters crowded by these formidable prisoners, and

each with a petition in her hand endeavours, with the insidious coquetry

of plaintive smiles and judicious tears, that brighten the eye without

deranging the features, to attract his notice and conciliate his favour.

Happy those who obtain a promise, a look of complacence, or even of

curiosity!--But the attention of this apostle of republicanism is not

often bestowed, except on high rank, or beauty; and a woman who is old,

or ill dressed, that ventures to approach him, is usually repulsed with

vulgar brutality--while the very sight of a male suppliant renders him

furious. The first half hour he walks about, surrounded by his fair

cortege, and is tolerably civil; but at length, fatigued, I suppose by

continual importunity, he loses his temper, departs, and throws all the

petitions he has received unopened into the fire.

Adieu--the subject is too humiliating to dwell on. I feel for myself, I

feel for human nature, when I see the fastidiousness of wealth, the more

liberal pride of birth, and the yet more allowable pretensions of beauty,

degraded into the most abject submission to such a being as Dumont. Are

our principles every where the mere children of circumstance, or is it in

this country only that nothing is stable? For my own part I love

inflexibility of character; and pride, even when ill founded, seems more

respectable while it sustains itself, than concessions which, refused to

the suggestions of reason, are yielded to the dictates of fear.--Yours.

February 12, 1794.

I was too much occupied by my personal distresses to make any remarks on

the revolutionary government at the time of its adoption. The text of

this political phoenomenon must be well known in England--I shall,

therefore, confine myself to giving you a general idea of its spirit and

tendency,--It is, compared to regular government, what force is to

mechanism, or the usual and peaceful operations of nature to the ravages

of a storm--it substitutes violence for conciliation, and sweeps with

precipitate fury all that opposes its devastating progress. It refers

every thing to a single principle, which is in itself not susceptible of

definition, and, like all undefined power, is continually vibrating

between despotism and anarchy. It is the execrable shape of Milton's

Death, "which shape hath none," and which can be described only by its

effects.--For instance, the revolutionary tribunal condemns without

evidence, the revolutionary committees imprison without a charge, and

whatever assumes the title of revolutionary is exonerated from all

subjection to humanity, decency, reason, or justice.--Drowning the

insurgents, their wives and children, by boatloads, is called, in the

dispatch to the Convention, a revolutionary measure--*

* The detail of the horrors committed in La Vendee and at Nantes

were not at this time fully known. Carrier had, however,

acknowledged, in a report read to the Convention, that a boat-load

of refractory priests had been drowned, and children of twelve years

old condemned by a military commission! One Fabre Marat, a

republican General, wrote, about the same period, I think from

Angers, that the Guillotine was too slow, and powder scarce, so that

it was concluded more expedient to drown the rebels, which he calls

a patriotic baptism!--The following is a copy of a letter addressed

to the Mayor of Paris by a Commissary of the Government:

"You will give us pleasure by transmitting the details of your fete at

Paris last decade, with the hymns that were sung. Here we all cried

_"Vive la Republique!"_ as we ever do, when our holy mother Guillotine

is at work. Within these three days she has shaved eleven priests, one

_ci-devant_ noble, a nun, a general, and a superb Englishman, six feet

high, and as he was too tall by a head, we have put that into the sack!

At the same time eight hundred rebels were shot at the Pont du Ce, and

their carcases thrown into the Loire!--I understand the army is on the

track of the runaways. All we overtake we shoot on the spot, and in

such numbers that the ways are heaped with them!"

--At Lyons, it is revolutionary to chain three hundred victims together

before the mouths of loaded cannon, and massacre those who escape the

discharge with clubs and bayonets;* and at Paris, revolutionary juries

guillotine all who come before them.--**

* The Convention formally voted their approbation of this measure,

and Collot d'Herbois, in a report on the subject, makes a kind of

apostrophical panegyric on the humanity of his colleagues. "Which

of you, Citizens, (says he,) would not have fired the cannon? Which

of you would not joyfully have destroyed all these traitors at a

blow?"

** About this time a woman who sold newspapers, and the printer of

them, were guillotined for paragraphs deemed incivique.

--Yet this government is not more terrible than it is minutely vexations.

One's property is as little secure as one's existence. Revolutionary

committees every where sequestrate in the gross, in order to plunder in

detail.*

* The revolutionary committees, when they arrested any one,

pretended to affix seals in form. The seal was often, however, no

other than the private one of some individual employed--sometimes

only a button or a halfpenny, which was broken as often as the

Committee wanted access to the wine or other effects. Camille

Desmoulins, in an address to Freron, his fellow-deputy, describes

with some humour the mode of proceeding of these revolutionary

pilferers:

_"Avant hier, deux Commissaires de la section de Mutius Scaevola, montent

chez lui--ils trouvent dans la bibliotheque des livres de droit; et

non-obstant le decret qui porte qu'on ne touchera point Domat ni a Charles

Dumoulin, bien qu'ils traitent de matieres feodales, ils sont main basse

sur la moitie de la bibliotheque, et chargent deux Chrocheteurs des

livres paternels. Ils trouvent une pendule, don't la pointe de Paiguille

etoit, comme la plupart des pointes d'aiguilles, terminee en trefle: il

leur semble que cette pointe a quelque chose d'approchant d'une fleur de

lys; et non-obstant le decret qui ordonne de respecter les monumens des

arts, il confisquent la pendule.--Notez bien qu'il y avoit a cote une

malle sur laquelle etoit l'adresse fleurdelisee du marchand.--Ici il n'y

avoit pas moyen de aier que ce fut une belle et bonne fleur de lys; mais

comme la malle ne valoit pas un corset, les Commissaires se contentent de

rayer les lys, au lieu que la malheureuse pendule, qui vaut bien 1200

livres, est, malgre son trefle, emportee par eux-memes, qui ne se fioient

pas aux Chrocheteurs d'un poid si precieux--et ce, en vertu du droit que

Barrere a appelle si heureusement le droit de prehension, quoique le

decret s'opposat, dans l'espece, a l'application de ce droit.--Enfin,

notre decemvirat sectionnaire, qui se mettoit ainsi au-dessus des

decrets, trouve le brevet de pension de mon beau-pere, qui, comme tous

les brevets de pension, n'etant pas de nature a etre porte sur le grand

livre de la republique, etoit demeure dans le porte-feuille, et qui,

comme tous les brevets de pension possibles, commencoit par ce protocole;

Louis, &c. Ciel! s'ecrient les Commissaires, le nom du tyran!--Et apres

avoir retrouve leur haleine, suffoquee d'abord par l'indignation, ils

mettent en poche le brevet de pension, c'est a dire 1000 livres de rente,

et emportent la marmite. Autre crime, le Citoyen Duplessis, qui etoit

premier commis des finances, sous Clugny, avoit conserve, comme c'etoit

l'usage, la cachet du controle general d'alors--un vieux porte-feuille de

commis, qui etoit au rebut, ouble au dessus d'une armoire, dans un tas de

poussiere, et auquel il n'avoit pas touche ne meme pense depuis dix ans

peutetre, et sur le quel on parvint a decouvrir l'empreinte de quelques

fleurs de lys, sous deux doigts de crasse, acheva de completer la preuve

que le Citoyen Duplessis etoit suspect--et la voila, lui, enferme jusqu'a

la paix, et le scelle mis sur toutes les portes de cette campagne, ou, tu

te souviens, mon cher Freroa--que, decretes tous deux de prise de corps,

apres le massacre du Champ de Mars, nous trouvions un asyle que le tyran

n'osoit violer."_

"The day before yesterday, two Commissaries belonging to the section of

Mutius Scaevola, entered my father-in-law's apartments; they found some

law-books in the library, and, notwithstanding the decree which exempts

from seizure the works of Domat and Charles Dumouin, (although they treat

of feudal matters,) they proceeded to lay violent hands on one half of

the collection, and loaded two porters with paternal spoils. The next

object that attracted their attention was a clock, the hand of which,

like the hands of most other clocks, terminated in a point, in the form

of a trefoil, which seemed to them to bear some resemblance to a fleur de

lys; and, notwithstanding the decree which ordains that the monuments of

the arts shall be respected, they immediately passed sentence of

confiscation on the clock. I should observe to you, that hard by lay a

portmanteau, having on it the maker's address, encircled with lilies.--

Here there was no disputing the fact, but as the trunk was not worth five

livres, the Commissaries contented themselves with erasing the lilies;

but the unfortunate clock, being worth twelve hundred, was,

notwithstanding its trefoil, carried off by themselves, for they would

not trust the porters with so precious a load.--And all this was done in

virtue of the law, which Barrere aptly denominated the law of prehension,

and which, according to the terms of the decree itself, was not

applicable to the case in question.

"At length our sectionary decemvirs, who thus placed themselves above the

law, discovered the grant of my father-in-law's pension, which, like all

similar grants, being excluded from the privilege of inscription on the

great register of public debts, had been left in his port-folio; and

which began, as all such grants necessarily must, with the words, Louis,

&c. "Heaven!" exclaimed the Commissaries, "here is the very name of the

tyrant!" And, as soon as they recovered their breaths, which had been

nearly stopped by the violence of the indignation, they coolly pocketed

the grant, that is to say, an annuity of one thousand livres, and sent

off the porridge-pot. Nor did these constitute all the crimes of Citizen

Duplessis, who, having served as first clerk of the revenue board under

Clugny, had, as was usual, kept the official seal of that day. An old

port-folio, which had been thrown aside, and long forgotten, under a

wardrobe, where it was buried in dust, and had, in all probability, not

been touched for ten years, but, which with much difficulty, was

discovered to bear the impression of a fleur de lys, completed the proof

that Citizen Duplessis was a suspicious character. And now behold him

shut up in a prison until peace shall be concluded, and the seals put

upon all the doors of that country seat, where, you may remember, my dear

Freron, that at the time when warrants were issued for apprehending us

both, after the massacre in the Champ de Mars, we found an asylum which

the tyrant did not dare to violate."

--In a word, you must generally understand, that the revolutionary system

supersedes law, religion, and morality; and that it invests the

Committees of Public Welfare and General Safety, their agents, the

Jacobin clubs, and subsidiary banditti, with the disposal of the whole

country and its inhabitants.

This gloomy aera of the revolution has its frivolities as well as the

less disastrous periods, and the barbarism of the moment is rendered

additionally disgusting by a mixture of levity and pedantry.--It is a

fashion for people at present to abandon their baptismal and family

names, and to assume that of some Greek or Roman, which the debates of

the Convention have made familiar.--France swarms with Gracchus's and

Publicolas, who by imaginary assimilations of acts, which a change of

manners has rendered different, fancy themselves more than equal to their

prototypes.*

* The vicissitudes of the revolution, and the vengeance of party,

have brought half the sages of Greece, and patriots of Rome, to the

Guillotine or the pillory. The Newgate Calendar of Paris contains

as many illustrious names as the index to Plutarch's Lives; and I

believe there are now many Brutus's and Gracchus's in durance vile,

besides a Mutius Scaevola condemned to twenty years imprisonment for

an unskilful theft.--A man of Amiens, whose name is Le Roy,

signified to the public, through the channel of a newspaper, that he

had adopted that of Republic.

--A man who solicits to be the executioner of his own brother ycleps

himself Brutus, and a zealous preacher of the right of universal pillage

cites the Agrarian law, and signs himself Lycurgus. Some of the Deputies

have discovered, that the French mode of dressing is not characteristic

of republicanism, and a project is now in agitation to drill the whole

country into the use of a Roman costume.--You may perhaps suspect, that

the Romans had at least more bodily sedateness than their imitators, and

that the shrugs, jerks, and carracoles of a French petit maitre, however

republicanized, will not assort with the grave drapery of the toga. But

on your side of the water you have a habit of reasoning and deliberating

--here they have that of talking and obeying.

Our whole community are in despair to-day. Dumont has been here, and

those who accosted him, as well as those who only ventured to interpret

his looks, all agree in their reports that he is in a "bad humour."--The

brightest eyes in France have supplicated in vain--not one grace of any

sort has been accorded--and we begin to cherish even our present

situation, in the apprehension that it may become worse.--Alas! you know

not of what evil portent is the "bad humour" of a Representant. We are

half of us now, like the Persian Lord, feeling if our heads are still on

our shoulders.--I could add much to the conclusion of one of my last

letters. Surely this incessant solicitude for mere existence debilitates

the mind, and impairs even its passive faculty of suffering. We intrigue

for the favour of the keeper, smile complacently at the gross

pleasantries of a Jacobin, and tremble at the frown of a Dumont.--I am

ashamed to be the chronicler of such humiliation: but, "tush, Hal; men,

mortal men!" I can add no better apology, and quit you to moralize on

it.--Yours.

[No date given.]

Were I a mere spectator, without fear for myself or compassion for

others, the situation of this country would be sufficiently amusing. The

effects produced (many perhaps unavoidably) by a state of revolution--the

strange remedies devised to obviate them--the alternate neglect and

severity with which the laws are executed--the mixture of want and

profusion that distinguish the lower classes of people--and the distress

and humiliation of the higher; all offer scenes so new and unaccountable,

as not to be imagined by a person who has lived only under a regular

government, where the limits of authority are defined, the necessaries of

life plentiful, and the people rational and subordinate. The

consequences of a general spirit of monopoly, which I formerly described,

have lately been so oppressive, that the Convention thought it necessary

to interfere, and in so extraordinary a way, that I doubt if (as usual)

"the distemper of their remedies" will not make us regret the original

disease. Almost every article, by having passed through a variety of

hands, had become enormously dear; which, operating with a real scarcity

of many things, occasioned by the war, had excited universal murmurings

and inquietude. The Convention, who know the real source of the evil

(the discredit of assignats) to be unattainable, and who are more

solicitous to divert the clamours of the people, than to supply their

wants, have adopted a measure which, according to the present

appearances, will ruin one half of the nation, and starve the other. A

maximum, or highest price, beyond which nothing is to be sold, is now

promulgated under very severe penalties for all who shall infringe it.

Such a regulation as this, must, in its nature, be highly complex, and,

by way of simplifying it, the price of every kind of merchandise is fixed

at a third above what it bore in 1791: but as no distinction is made

between the produce of the country, and articles imported--between the

small retailer, who has purchased perhaps at double the rate he is

allowed to sell at, and the wholesale speculator, this very

simplification renders the whole absurd and inexecutable.--The result was

such as might have been expected; previous to the day on which the decree

was to take place, shopkeepers secreted as many of their goods as they

could; and, when the day arrived, the people laid siege to them in

crowds, some buying at the maximum, others less ceremonious, and in a few

hours little remained in the shop beyond the fixtures. The farmers have

since brought neither butter nor eggs to market, the butchers refuse to

kill as usual, and, in short, nothing is to be purchased openly. The

country people, instead of selling provisions publicly, take them to

private houses; and, in addition to the former exorbitant prices, we are

taxed for the risk that is incurred by evading the law. A dozen of eggs,

or a leg of mutton, are now conveyed from house to house with as much

mystery, as a case of fire-arms, or a treasonable correspondence; the

whole republic is in a sort of training like the Spartan youth; and we

are obliged to have recourse to dexterity and intrigue to procure us a

dinner.

Our legislators, aware of what they term the "aristocratie marchande,"--

that is to say, that tradesmen would naturally shut up their shops when

nothing was to be gained--provided, by a clause in the above law, that no

one should do this in less time than a year; but as the injunction only

obliged them to keep the shops open, and not to have goods to sell, every

demand is at first always answered in the negative, till a sort of

intelligence becomes established betwixt the buyer and seller, when the

former, if he may be trusted, is informed in a low key, that certain

articles may be had, but not au maximum.--Thus even the rich cannot

obtain the necessaries of life without difficulty and submitting to

imposition--and the decent poor, who will not pillage nor intimidate the

tradesmen, are more embarrassed than ever.

The above species of contraband commerce is carried on, indeed, with

great circumspection, and no avowed hostilities are attempted in the

towns. The great war of the maximum was waged with the farmers and

higlers, as soon as it was discovered that they took their commodities

privily to such people as they knew would buy at any price, rather than

not be supplied. In consequence, the guards were ordered to stop all

refractory butter-women at the gates, and conduct them to the town-house,

where their merchandize was distributed, without pity or appeal, au

maximum, to those of the populace who could clamour loudest.

These proceedings alarmed the peasants, and our markets became deserted.

New stratagems, on one side, new attacks on the other. The servants were

forced to supply themselves at private rendezvous in the night, until

some were fined, and others arrested; and the searching all comers from

the country became more intolerable than the vexations of the ancient

Gabelle.--Detachments of dragoons are sent to scour the farm-yards,

arrest the farmers, and bring off in triumph whatever the restive

housewives have amassed, to be more profitably disposed of.

In this situation we remain, and I suppose shall remain, while the law of

the maximum continues in force. The principle of it was certainly good,

but it is found impossible to reduce it to practice so equitably as to

affect all alike: and as laws which are not executed are for the most

part rather pernicious than nugatory, informations, arrests, imposition,

and scarcity are the only ends which this measure seems to have answered.

The houses of detention, before insupportable, are now yet more crouded

with farmers and shopkeepers suspected of opposing the law.--Many of the

former are so ignorant, as not to conceive that any circumstances ought

to deprive them of the right to sell the produce of their farms at the

highest price they can get, and regard the maximum much in the same light

as they would a law to authorize robbing or housebreaking: as for the

latter, they are chiefly small dealers, who bought dearer than they have

sold, and are now imprisoned for not selling articles which they have not

got. An informer by trade, or a personal enemy, lodges an accusation

against a particular tradesman for concealing goods, or not selling au

maximum; and whether the accusation be true or false, if the accused is

not in office, or a Jacobin, he has very little chance of escaping

imprisonment.--It is certain, that if the persecution of these classes of

people continue, and commerce (already nearly annihilated by the war) be

thus shackled, an absolute want of various articles of primary

consumption must ensue; but if Paris and the armies can be supplied, the

starving the departments will be a mere pleasurable experiment to their

humane representatives!

March 1, 1794.

The freedom of the press is so perfectly well regulated, that it is not

surprizing we are indulged with the permission of seeing the public

papers: yet this indulgence is often, I assure you, a source of much

perplexity to me--our more intimate associates know that I am a native of

England, and as often as any debates of our House of Commons are

published, they apply to me for explanations which it is not always in my

power to give them. I have in vain endeavoured to make them comprehend

the nature of an opposition from system, so that when they see any thing

advanced by a member exactly the reverse of truth, they are wondering how

he can be so ill informed, and never suspect him of saying what he does

not believe himself. It must be confessed, however, that our extracts

from the English papers often form so complete a contrast with facts,

that a foreigner unacquainted with the tactics of professional

patriotism, may very naturally read them with some surprize. A noble

Peer, for example, (whose wisdom is not to be disputed, since the Abbe

Mably calls him the English Socrates,*) asserts that the French troops

are the best clothed in Europe; yet letters, of nearly the same date with

the Earl's speech, from two Generals and a Deputy at the head of

different armies intreat a supply of covering for their denudated

legions, and add, that they are obliged to march in wooden shoes!**

* It is surely a reflection on the English discernment not to have

adopted this happy appellation, in which, however, as well as in

many other parts of "the rights of Man and the Citizen," the Abbe

seems to have consulted his own zeal, rather than the noble Peer's

modesty.

** If the French troops are now better clothed, it is the effect of

requisitions and pre-emptions, which have ruined the manufacturers.

--Patriots of the North, would you wish to see our soldiers clothed

by the same means?

--On another occasion, your British Sage describes, with great eloquence,

the enthusiasm with which the youth of France "start to arms at the call

of the Convention;" while the peaceful citizen anticipates, with equal

eagerness, the less glorious injunction to extract saltpetre.--The

revolts, and the coercion, necessary to enforce the departure of the

first levies (however fear, shame, and discipline, may have since made

them soldiers, though not republicans) might have corrected the ardour of

the orator's inventive talents; and the zeal of the French in

manufacturing salpetre, has been of so slow a growth, that any reference

to it is peculiarly unlucky. For several months the Convention has

recommended, invited, intreated, and ordered the whole country to occupy

themselves in the process necessary for obtaining nitre; but the

republican enthusiasm was so tardy, that scarcely an ounce appeared, till

a long list of sound penal laws, with fines and imprisonments in every

line, roused the public spirit more effectually.*

* Two years imprisonment was the punishment assigned to a Citizen

who should be found to obstruct in any way the fabricating

saltpetre. If you had a house that was adjudged to contain the

materials required, and expostulated against pulling it down, the

penalty was incurred.--I believe something of this kind existed

under the old government, the abuses of which are the only parts the

republic seems to have preserved.

--Another cause also has much favoured the extension of this manufacture:

the necessity of procuring gunpowder at any rate has secured an exemption

from serving in the army to those who shall be employed in making it.--*

* Many, under this pretext, even procured their discharge from the

army; and it was eventually found requisite to stop this commutation

of service by a decree.

--On this account vast numbers of young men, whose martial propensities

are not too vehement for calculation, considering the extraction of

saltpetre as more safe than the use of it, have seriously devoted

themselves to the business. Thus, between fear of the Convention and of

the enemy, has been produced that enthusiasm which seems so grateful to

Lord S____. Yet, if the French are struck by the dissimilitude of facts

with the language of your English patriots, there are other circumstances

which appear still more unaccountable to them. I acknowledge the word

patriotism is not perfectly understood any where in France, nor do my

prison-associates abound in it; but still they find it difficult to

reconcile the love of their country, so exclusively boasted by certain

senators, with their eulogiums on a government, and on men who avow an

implacable hatred to it, and are the professed agents of its future

destruction. The Houses of Lords and Commons resound with panegyrics on

France; the Convention with _"delenda est Carthate"--"ces vils

Insulaires"--"de peuple marchand, boutiquier"--"ces laches Anglois"--_ &c.

&c. ("Carthage must be destroyed"--"those vile Islanders"--"that nation

of shopkeepers"--"those cowardly Englishmen"--&c.)

The efforts of the English patriots overtly tend to the consolidation of

the French republic, while the demagogues of France are yet more

strenuous for the abolition of monarchy in England. The virtues of

certain people called Muir and Palmer,* are at once the theme of Mr. Fox

and Robespierre,** of Mr. Grey and Barrere,***, of Collot d'Herbois****

and Mr. Sheridan; and their fate is lamented as much at the Jacobins as

at St. Stephen's.*****

* If I have not mentioned these gentlemen with the respect due to

their celebrity, their friends must pardon me. To say truth, I did

not at this time think of them with much complacence, as I had heard

of them only from the Jacobins, by whom they were represented as the

leaders of a Convention, which was to arm ninety thousand men, for

the establishment of a system similar to that existing in France.

**The French were so much misled by the eloquence of these gentlemen

in their favour, that they were all exhibited on the stage in red

caps and cropped heads, welcoming the arrival of their Gallic

friends in England, and triumphing in the overthrow of the British

constitution, and the dethronement of the King.

*** If we may credit the assertions of Barrere, the friendship of

the Committee of Public Welfare was not merely verbal. He says, the

secret register of the Committee furnishes proofs of their having

sent three frigates to intercept these distinguished victims, whom

their ungrateful country had so ignominiously banished.

**** This humane and ingenious gentleman, by profession a player, is

known likewise as the author of several farces and vaudevilles, and

of the executions at Lyons.--It is asserted, that many of the

inhabitants of this unfortunate city expiated under the Guillotine

the crime of having formerly hissed Collot's successful attempts on

the stage.

***** The printing of a particular speech was interdicted on account

of its containing allusions to certain circumstances, the knowledge

of which might be of disservice to their unfortunate friends during

their trial.

--The conduct of Mr. Pitt is not more acrimoniously discussed at the

Palais National than by a part of his colleagues; and the censure of the

British government, which is now the order of the day at the Jacobins, is

nearly the echo of your parliamentary debates.*

* Allowing for the difference of education in the orators, a

journeyman shoemaker was, I think, as eloquent, and not more

abusive, than the facetious _ci-devant_ protege of Lord T____d.

--All this, however, does not appear to me out of the natural order of

things; it is the sorry history of opposition for a century and an half,

and our political rectitude, I fear, is not increasing: but the French,

who are in their way the most corrupt people in Europe, have not

hitherto, from the nature of their government, been familiar with this

particular mode of provoking corruption, nor are they at present likely

to become so. Indeed, I must here observe, that your English Jacobins,

if they are wise, should not attempt to introduce the revolutionary

system; for though the total possession of such a government is very

alluring, yet the prudence, which looks to futurity, and the incertitude

of sublunary events, must acknowledge it is "Caesar or nothing;" and that

it offers no resource in case of those segregations, which the jealousy

of power, or the appropriation of spoil, may occasion, even amongst the

most virtuous associates.--The eloquence of a discontented orator is here

silenced, not by a pension, but by a mandat d'arret; and the obstinate

patriotism, which with you could not be softened with less than a

participation of authority, is more cheaply secured by the Guillotine. A

menace is more efficacious than a bribe, and in this respect I agree with

Mr. Thomas Paine,* that a republic is undoubtedly more oeconomical than a

monarchy; besides, that being conducted on such principles, it has the

advantage of simplifying the science of government, as it consults

neither the interests nor weaknesses of mankind; and, disdaining to

administer either to avarice or vanity, subdues its enemies by the sole

influence of terror.--*

* This gentleman's fate is truly to be pitied. After rejecting, as

his friends assert, two hundred a year from the English Ministry, he

is obliged now to be silent gratis, with the additional desagrement

of occupying a corner in the Luxembourg.

--Adieu!--Heaven knows how often I may have to repeat the word thus

unmeaningly. I sit here, like Pope's bard "lulled by soft zephyrs

through the broken pane," and scribbling high-sounding phrases of

monarchy, patriotism, and republics, while I forget the humbler subject

of our wants and embarrassments. We can scarcely procure either bread,

meat, or any thing else: the house is crouded by an importation of

prisoners from Abbeville, and we are more strictly guarded than ever. My

friend ennuyes as usual, and I grow impatient, not having sang froid

enough for a true French ennuie in a situation that would tempt one to

hang one's self.

March, 1794.

The aspect of the times promises no change in our favour; on the

contrary, every day seems to bring its attendant evil. The gentry who

had escaped the comprehensive decree against suspected people, are now

swept away in this and the three neighbouring departments by a private

order of the representatives, St. Just, Lebas, and Dumont.*

* The order was to arrest, without exception, all the ci-devant

Noblessse, men, women, and children, in the departments of the

Somme, North, and Pas de Calais, and to exclude them rigourously

from all external communication--(mettre au secret).

--A severer regimen is to be adopted in the prisons, and husbands are

already separated from their wives, and fathers from their daughters, for

the purpose, as it is alledged, of preserving good morals. Both this

place and the Bicetre being too full to admit of more inhabitants, two

large buildings in the town are now appropriated to the male prisoners.--

My friends continue at Arras, and, I fear, in extreme distress. I

understand they have been plundered of what things they had with them,

and the little supply I was able to send them was intercepted by some of

the harpies of the prisons. Mrs. D____'s health has not been able to

sustain these accumulated misfortunes, and she is at present at the

hospital. All this is far from enlivening, even had I a larger share of

the national philosophy; and did I not oftener make what I observe, than

what I suffer, the subject of my letters, I should tax your patience as

much by repetition, as I may by dullness.

When I enumerated in my last letters a few of the obligations the French

have to their friends in England, I ought also to have observed, with how

little gratitude they behave to those who are here. Without mentioning

Mr. Thomas Paine, whose persecution will doubtless be recorded by abler

pens, nothing, I assure you, can be more unpleasant than the situation of

one of these Anglo-Gallican patriots. The republicans, supposing that an

Englishman who affects a partiality for them can be only a spy, execute

all the laws, which concern foreigners, upon him with additional rigour;*

and when an English Jacobin arrives in prison, far from meeting with

consolation or sympathy, his distresses are beheld with triumph, and his

person avoided with abhorrence. They talk much here of a gentleman, of

very democratic principles, who left the prison before I came. It seems,

that, notwithstanding Dumont condescended to visit at his house, and was

on terms of intimacy with him, he was arrested, and not distinguished

from the rest of his countrymen, except by being more harshly treated.

The case of this unfortunate gentleman was rendered peculiarly amusing to

his companions, and mortifying to himself, by his having a very pretty

mistress, who had sufficient influence over Dumont to obtain any thing

but the liberation of her protector. The Deputy was on this head

inflexible; doubtless, as a proof of his impartial observance of the

laws, and to show that, like the just man in Horace, he despised the

clamour of the vulgar, who did not scruple to hint, that the crime of our

countryman was rather of a moral than a political nature--that he was

unaccommodating, and recalcitrant--addicted to suspicions and jealousies,

which it was thought charitable to cure him of, by a little wholesome

seclusion. In fact, the summary of this gentleman's history is not

calculated to tempt his fellow societists on your side of the water to

imitate his example.--After taking refuge in France from the tyranny and

disappointments he experienced in England, and purchasing a large

national property to secure himself the rights of a citizen, he is

awakened from his dream of freedom, to find himself lodged in a prison,

his estate under sequestration, and his mistress in requisition.--Let us

leave this Coriolanus among the Volscians--it is a persecution to make

converts, rather than martyrs, and

_"Quand le malheur ne seroit bon,

"Qu'a mettre un sot a la raison,

"Toujours seroit-ce a juste cause

"Qu'on le dit bon a quelque chose."_*

* If calamity were only good to restore a fool to his senses, still

we might justly say, "that it was good for some thing."

Yours, &c.

March 5, 1794.

Of what strange influence is this word revolution, that it should thus,

like a talisman of romance, keep inchained, as it were, the reasoning

faculties of twenty millions of people! France is at this moment looking

for the decision of its fate in the quarrels of two miserable clubs,

composed of individuals who are either despised or detested. The

municipality of Paris favours the Cordeliers, the Convention the

Jacobins; and it is easy to perceive, that in this cafe the auxiliaries

are principals, and must shortly come to such an open rupture, as will

end in the destruction of either one or the other. The world would be

uninhabitable, could the combinations of the wicked be permanent; and it

is fortunate for the tranquil and upright part of mankind, that the

attainment of the purposes for which such combinations are formed, is

usually the signal of their dissolution.

The municipality of Paris had been the iniquitous drudges of the Jacobin

party in the legislative assembly--they were made the instruments of

massacring the prisoners,* of dethroning and executing the king,** and

successively of destroying the Brissotine faction,*** filling the prisons

with all who were obnoxious to the republicans,**** and of involving a

repentant nation in the irremidiable guilt of the Queen's death.--*****

* It is well known that the assassins were hired and paid by the

municipality, and that some of the members presided at these horrors

in their scarfs of office.

** The whole of what is called the revolution of the 10th of August

may very justly be ascribed to the municipality of Paris--I mean the

active part of it. The planning and political part has been so

often disputed by different members of the Convention, that it is

not easy to decide on any thing, except that the very terms of these

disputes fully evince, that the people at large, and more

particularly the departments, were both innocent, and, until it took

place, ignorant of an event which has plunged the country into so

many crimes and calamities.

*** A former imprisonment of Hebert formed a principal charge

against the Brissotines, and, indeed, the one that was most insisted

on at their trial, if we except that of having precipitated France

into a war with England.--It must be difficult for the English

Jacobins to decide on this occasion between the virtues of their

dead friends and those of their living ones.

**** The famous definition of suspected persons originated with the

municipality of Paris.

***** It is certain that those who, deceived by the calumnies of

faction, permitted, if not assented to, the King's death, at this

time regretted it; and I believe I have before observed, that one of

the reasons urged in support of the expediency of putting the Queen

to death, was, that it would make the army and people decisive, by

banishing all hope of peace or accommodation. See the _Moniteur_ of

that time, which, as I have elsewhere observed, may be always

considered as official.

--These services being too great for adequate reward, were not rewarded

at all; and the municipality, tired of the odium of crime, without the

participation of power, has seized on its portion of tyranny; while the

convention, at once jealous and timid, exasperated and doubtful, yet

menaces with the trepidation of a rival, rather than with the security of

a conqueror.

Hebert, the Deputy-solicitor for the commune of Paris, appears on this

occasion as the opponent of the whole legislature; and all the

temporizing eloquence of Barrere, and the mysterious phraseology of

Robespierre, are employed to decry his morals, and to reproach the

ministers with the sums which have been the price of his labours.--*

* Five thousand pounds, two thousand pounds, and other considerable

sums, were paid to Hebert for supplying the army with his paper,

called "La Pere Duchene." Let whoever has read one of them,

conceive the nature of a government to which such support was

necessary, which supposed its interests promoted by a total

extinction of morals, decency, and religion. I could almost wish,

for the sake of exhibiting vice under its most odious colours, that

my sex and my country permitted me to quote one.

--Virtuous republicans! the morals of Hebert were pure when he outraged

humanity in his accusations of the Queen--they were pure when he

prostrated the stupid multitude at the feet of a Goddess of Reason;* they

were pure while his execrable paper served to corrupt the army, and to

eradicate every principle which yet distinguished the French as a

civilized people.

* Madame Momoro, the unfortunate woman who exposed herself in this

pageant, was guillotined as an accomplice of Hebert, together with

the wives of Hebert and Camille Desmoulins.

--Yet, atrocious as his crimes are, they form half the Magna Charta of

the republic,* and the authority of the Convention is still supported by

them.

* What are the death of the King, and the murders of August and

September, 1792, but the Magna Charta of the republicans?

--It is his person, not his guilt, that is proscribed; and if the one be

threatened with the scaffold, the fruits of the other are held sacred.

He will fall a sacrifice--not to offended religion or morality, but to

the fears and resentment of his accomplices!

Amidst the dissentions of two parties, between which neither reason nor

humanity can discover a preference, a third seems to have formed itself,

equally inimical to, and hated by both. At the head of it are Danton,

Camille Desmoulins, Philipeaux, &c.--I own I have no better opinion of

the integrity of these, than of the rest; but they profess themselves the

advocates of a system of mildness and moderation, and, situated as this

country is at present, even the affectation of virtue is captivating.--

As far as they dare, the people are partial to them: bending beneath the

weight of a sanguinary and turbulent despotism, if they sigh not for

freedom, they do for repose; and the harassed mind, bereft of its own

energy, looks up with indolent hope for relief from a change of factions.

They forget that Danton is actuated by ambitious jealousy, that Camille

Desmoulins is hacknied in the atrocities of the revolution, and that

their partizans are adventurers, with neither honour nor morals. Yet,

after all, if they will destroy a few of the guillotines, open our

bastilles, and give us at least the security of servitude, we shall be

content to leave these retrospections to posterity, and be thankful that

in this our day the wicked sometimes perceive it their interest to do

good.

In this state of seclusion, when I remark to you the temper of the public

at any important crisis, you are, perhaps, curious to know my sources of

intelligence; but such details are unnecessary. I might, indeed, write

you a manuel des prisons, and, like Trenck or Latude, by a vain display

of ingenuity, deprive some future victim of a resource. It is enough,

that Providence itself seems to aid our invention, when its object is to

elude tyranny; besides that a constant accession of prisoners from all

parts, who are too numerous to be kept separate, necessarily circulates

among us whatever passes in the world.

The Convention has lately made a sort of _pas retrogade_ [Retrogade

movement.] in the doctrine of holy equality, by decreeing, that every

officer who has a command shall be able to read and write, though it

cannot be denied that their reasons for this lese democratie are of some

weight. All gentlemen, or, as it is expressed here, noblesse, have been

recalled from the army, and replaced by officers chosen by the soldiers

themselves, [Under the rank of field-officers.] whose affections are

often conciliated by qualities not essentially military, though sometimes

professional. A buffoon, or a pot-companion, is, of course, often more

popular than a disciplinarian; and the brightest talents lose their

influence when put in competition with a head that can bear a greater

number of bottles.*

* Hence it happened, that a post was sometimes confided to one who

could not read the parole and countersign; expeditions failed,

because commanding officers mistook on the map a river for a road,

or woods for mountains; and the most secret orders were betrayed

through the inability of those to whom they were entrusted to read

them.

--Yet this reading and writing are a sort of aristocratic distinctions,

and not among the primeval rights of man; so that it is possible your

English patriots will not approve of any regulations founded on them.

But this is not the only point on which there is an apparent discordance

between them and their friends here--the severity of Messrs. Muir and

Palmer's sentence is pathetically lamented in the House of Commons, while

the Tribunal Revolutionnaire (in obedience to private orders) is

petitioning, that any disrespect towards the convention shall be punished

with death. In England, it is asserted, that the people have a right to

decide on the continuation of the war--here it is proposed to declare

suspicious, and treat accordingly, all who shall dare talk of peace.--Mr.

Fox and Robespierre must settle these trifling variations at the general

congress of republicans, when the latter shall (as they profess) have

dethroned all the potentates in Europe!

Do you not read of cart-loads of patriotic gifts,* bales of lint and

bandages, and stockings, knit by the hands of fair citizens, for the use

of the soldiers?

* A sum of money was at this time publicly offered to the Convention

for defraying the expences and repairs of the guillotine.--I know

not if it were intended patriotically or correctionally; but the

legislative delicacy was hurt, and the bearer of the gift ordered

for examination to the Committee of General Safety, who most

probably sent him to expiate either his patriotism or his pleasantry

in a prison.

--Do you not read, and call me calumniator, and ask if these are proofs

that there is no public spirit in France? Yes, the public spirit of an

eastern tributary, who offers, with apprehensive devotion, a part of the

wealth which he fears the hand of despotism may ravish entirely.--The

wives and daughters of husbands and fathers, who are pining in arbitrary

confinement, are employed in these feeble efforts, to deprecate the

malice of their persecutors; and these voluntary tributes are but too

often proportioned, not to the abilities, but the miseries of the donor.*

* A lady, confined in one of the state prisons, made an offering,

through the hands of a Deputy, of ten thousand livres; but the

Convention observed, that this could not properly be deemed a gift--

for, as she was doubtless a suspicious person, all she had belonged

of right to the republic:

_"Elle doit etre a moi, dit il, et la raison,

"C'est que je m'appelle Lion

"A cela l'on n'a rien a dire."_

-- La Fontaine.

Sometimes these _dons patriotiques_ were collected by a band of

Jacobins, at others regularly assessed by a Representative on

mission; but on all occasions the aristocrats were most assiduous

and most liberal:

"Urg'd by th' imperious soldier's fierce command,

"The groaning Greeks break up their golden caverns,

"The accumulated wealth of toiling ages;

. . . . . . . .

"That wealth, too sacred for their country's use;

"That wealth, too pleasing to be lost for freedom,

"That wealth, which, granted to their weeping Prince,

"Had rang'd embattled nations at their gates."

-- Johnson.

Or, what is still better, have relieved the exigencies of the state,

without offering a pretext for the horrors of a revolution.--O

selfish luxury, impolitic avarice, how are ye punished? robbed of

your enjoyments and your wealth--glad even to commute both for a

painful existence!

--The most splendid sacrifices that fill the bulletin of the Convention,

and claim an honourable mention in their registers, are made by the

enemies of the republican government--by those who have already been the

objects of persecution, or are fearful of becoming such.--Ah, your prison

and guillotine are able financiers: they raise, feed, and clothe an army,

in less time than you can procure a tardy vote from the most complaisant

House of Commons!--Your, &c.

March 17, 1794.

After some days of agitation and suspense, we learn that the popularity

of Robespierre is victorious, and that Hebert and his partizans are

arrested. Were the intrinsic claims of either party considered, without

regard to the circumstances of the moment, it might seem strange I should

express myself as though the result of a contest between such men could

excite a general interest: yet a people sadly skilled in the gradations

of evil, and inured to a choice only of what is bad, learn to prefer

comparatively, with no other view than that of adopting what may be least

injurious to themselves; and the merit of the object is out of the

question. Hence it is, that the public wish was in favour of

Robespierre; for, besides that his cautious character has given him an

advantage over the undisguised profligacy of Hebert, it is conjectured by

many, that the more merciful politics professed by Camille Desmoulins,

are secretly suggested, or, at least assented to, by the former.*

* This was the opinion of many.--The Convention and the Jacobins had

taken alarm at a paper called "The Old Cordelier," written by

Camille Desmoulins, apparently with a view to introduce a milder

system of government. The author had been censured at the one,

expelled the other, and defended by Robespierre, who seems not to

have abandoned him until he found the Convention resolved to persist

in the sanguinary plan they had adopted. Robespierre afterwards

sacrificed his friends to retrieve his influence; but could his

views have been answered by humane measures, as certainly as by

cruel ones, I think he would have preferred the first; for I repeat,

that the Convention at large were averse from any thing like reason

or justice, and Robespierre more than once risked his popularity by

professions of moderation.--The most eloquent speech I have seen of

his was previous to the death of Danton, and it seems evidently

intended to sound the principles of his colleagues as to a change of

system.--Camille Desmoulins has excited some interest, and has been

deemed a kind of martyr to humanity. Perhaps nothing marks the

horrors of the time more than such a partiality.--Camille

Desmoulins, under an appearance of simplicity, was an adventurer,

whose pen had been employed to mislead the people from the beginning

of the revolution. He had been very active on the 10th of August;

and even in the papers which have given him a comparative

reputation, he is the panegyrist of Marat, and recommends "une

Guillotine economique;" that is, a discrimination in favour of

himself and his party, who now began to fear they might themselves

be sacrificed by the Convention and deserted by Robespierre--after

being the accomplices and tools of both.

The vicissitudes of the revolution have hitherto offered nothing but a

change of vices and of parties; nor can I regard this defeat of the

municipality of Paris as any thing more: the event is, however,

important, and will probably have great influence on the future.

After having so long authorized, and profited by, the crimes of those

they have now sacrificed, the Convention are willing to have it supposed

they were themselves held in subjection by Hebert and the other

representatives of the Parisian mob.--Admitting this to be true, having

regained their independence, we ought naturally to expect a more rational

and humane system will take place; but this is a mere hope, and the

present occurrences are far from justifying it. We hear much of the

guilt of the fallen party, and little of remedying its effects--much of

punishment, and little of reform; and the people are excited to

vengeance, without being permitted to claim redress. In the meanwhile,

fearful of trusting to the cold preference which they owe to a superior

abhorrence of their adversaries, the Convention have ordered their

colleagues on mission to glean the few arms still remaining in the hands

of the National Guard, and to arrest all who may be suspected of

connection with the adverse party.--Dumont has performed this service

here very diligently; and, by way of supererogation, has sent the

Commandant of Amiens to the Bicetre, his wife, who was ill, to the

hospital, and two young children to this place.

As usual, these proceedings excite secret murmurs, but are nevertheless

yielded to with perfect submission.

One can never, on these occasions, cease admiring the endurance of the

French character. In other countries, at every change of party, the

people are flattered with the prospect of advantage, or conciliated by

indulgences; but here they gain nothing by change, except an accumulation

of oppression--and the success of a new party is always the harbinger of

some new tyranny. While the fall of Hebert is proclaimed as the triumph

of freedom, all the citizens are disarmed by way of collateral security;

and at the instant he is accused by the Convention of atheism and

immorality,* a militant police is sent forth to devastate the churches,

and punish those who are detected in observing the Sabbath--_"mais plutot

souffrir que mourir, c'est la devise des Francois."_ ["To suffer rather

than die is the motto of Frenchmen."]

* It is remarkable, that the persecution of religion was never more

violent than at the time when the Convention were anathematizing

Hebert and his party for athiesm.

--Brissot and his companions died singing a paraphrase of my quotation:

_"Plutot la mort que l'esclavage,

"C'est la devise des Francois."_

["Death before slavery, is the Frenchman's motto."]

--Let those who reflect on what France has submitted to under them and

their successors decide, whether the original be not more apposite.

I hope the act of accusation against Chabot has been published in

England, for the benefit of your English patriots: I do not mean by way

of warning, but example. It appears, that the said Chabot, and four or

five of his colleagues in the Convention, had been bribed to serve a

stock-jobbing business at a stipulated sum,* and that the money was to be

divided amongst them.

* Chabot, Fabre d'Eglantine, (author of "l'Intrigue Epistolaire,"

and several other admired dramatic pieces,) Delaunay d'Angers,

Julien de Toulouse, and Bazire, were bribed to procure the passing

certain decrees, tending to enrich particular people, by defrauding

the East India Company.--Delaunay and Julien (both re-elected into

the present Assembly) escaped by flight, the rest were guillotined.

--It is probable, that these little peculations might have passed

unnoticed in patriots of such note, but that the intrigues and

popular character of Chabot made it necessary to dispose of him, and

his accomplices suffered to give a countenance to the measure.

--Chabot, with great reason, insisted on his claim to an extra share, on

account, as he expressed it, of having the reputation of one of the first

patriots in Europe. Now this I look upon to be a very useful hint, as it

tends to establish a tariff of reputations, rather than of talents. In

England, you distinguish too much in favour of the latter; and, in a

question of purchase, a Minister often prefers a "commodity" of

rhetoricians, to one of "good names."--I confess, I am of Chabot's

opinion; and think a vote from a member who has some reputation for

honesty, ought to be better paid for than the eloquence which, weakened

by the vices of the orator, ceases to persuade. How it is that the

patriotic harangues at St. Stephen's serve only to amuse the auditors,

who identify the sentiments they express as little with the speaker, as

they would those of Cato's soliloquy with the actor who personates the

character for the night? I fear the people reason like Chabot, and are

"fools to fame." Perhaps it is fortunate for England, that those whose

talents and principles would make them most dangerous, are become least

so, because both are counteracted by the public contempt. Ought it not

to humble the pride, and correct the errors, which too often accompany

great genius, that the meanest capacity can distinguish between talents

and virtue; and that even in the moment our wonder is excited by the one,

a sort of intrinsic preference is given to the other?--Yours, &c.

Providence, April 15, 1794.

"The friendship of bad men turns to fear:" and in this single phrase of

our popular bard is comprized the history of all the parties who have

succeeded each other during the revolution.--Danton has been sacrificed

to Robespierre's jealousy,* and Camille Desmoulins to support his

popularity;** and both, after sharing in the crimes, and contributing to

the punishment, of Hebert and his associates, have followed them to the

same scaffold.

* The ferocious courage of Danton had, on the 10th of August, the 2d

of September, the 31st of May, and other occasions, been the ductile

instrument of Robespierre; but, in the course of their iniquitous

connection, it should seem, they had committed themselves too much

to each other. Danton had betrayed a desire of more exclusively

profiting by his crimes; and Robespierre's views been equally

ambitious, though less daring, their mutual jealousies had risen to

a height which rendered the sacrifice of one party necessary--and

Robespierre had the address to secure himself, by striking the first

blow. They had supped in the country, and returned together to

Paris, on the night Danton was arrested; and, it may be supposed,

that in this interview, which was intended to produce a

reconciliation, they had been convinced that neither was to be

trusted by the other.

** There can be no doubt but Robespierre had encouraged Camille

Desmoulins to publish his paper, intitled "The Old Cordelier," in

which some translations from Tacitus, descriptive of every kind of

tyranny, were applied to the times, and a change of system

indirectly proposed. The publication became highly popular, except

with the Convention and the Jacobins; these, however, it was

requisite for Robespierre to conciliate; and Camille Desmoulins was

sacrificed, to prove that he did not favour the obnoxious moderation

of his friend.

I know not if one's heart gain any thing by this habitual contemplation

of successive victims, who ought not to inspire pity, and whom justice

and humanity forbid one to regret.--How many parties have fallen, who

seem to have laboured only to transmit a dear-bought tyranny, which they

had not time to enjoy themselves, to their successors: The French

revolutionists may, indeed, adopt the motto of Virgil's Bees, "Not for

ourselves, but for you." The monstrous powers claimed for the Convention

by the Brissotines,* with the hope of exclusively exercising them, were

fatal to themselves--the party that overthrew the Brissotines in its turn

became insignificant--and a small number of them only, under the

description of Committees of Public Welfare and General Safety, gradually

usurped the whole authority.

* The victorious Brissotines, after the 10th of August, availing

themselves of the stupor of one part of the people, and the

fanaticism of the other, required that the new Convention might be

entrusted with unlimited powers. Not a thousandth portion of those

who elected the members, perhaps, comprehended the dreadful extent

of such a demand, as absurd as it has proved fatal.--_"Tout pouvoir

sans bornes ne fauroit etre legitime, parce qu'il n'a jamais pu

avoir d'origine legitime, car nous ne pouvons pas donner a un autre

plus de pouvoir sur nous que nous n'en avons nous-memes"_

[Montesquieu.]:--that is, the power which we accord to others, or

which we have over ourselves, cannot exceed the bounds prescribed by

the immutable laws of truth and justice. The united voice of the

whole French nation could not bestow on their representatives a

right to murder or oppress one innocent man.

--Even of these, several have already perished; and in the hands of

Robespierre, and half a dozen others of equal talents and equal atrocity,

but less cunning, center at present all the fruits of so many miseries,

and so many crimes.

In all these conflicts of party, the victory seems hitherto to have

remained with the most artful, rather than the most able; and it is under

the former title that Robespierre, and his colleagues in the Committee of

Public Welfare, are now left inheritors of a power more despotic than

that exercised in Japan.--Robespierre is certainly not deficient in

abilities, but they are not great in proportion to the influence they

have acquired him. They may, perhaps, be more properly called singular

than great, and consist in the art of appropriating to his own advantage

both the events of chance and the labours of others, and of captivating

the people by an exterior of severe virtue, which a cold heart enables

him to assume, and which a profligacy, not the effect of strong passions,

but of system, is easily subjected to. He is not eloquent, nor are his

speeches, as compositions,* equal to those of Collot d'Herbais, Barrere,

or Billaud Varennes; but, by contriving to reserve himself for

extraordinary occasions, such as announcing plots, victories, and systems

of government, he is heard with an interest which finally becomes

transferred from his subject to himself.**

* The most celebrated members of the Convention are only readers of

speeches, composed with great labour, either by themselves or

others; and I think it is distinguishable, that many are

manufactured by the same hand. The style and spirit of Lindet,

Barrere, and Carnot, seem to be in common.

** The following passages, from a speech of Dubois Crance, who may

be supposed a competent judge, at once furnish an idea of

Robespierre's oratory, exhibit a leading feature in his character,

and expose some of the arts by which the revolutionary despotism was

maintained:

_"Rapportant tout a lui seul, jusqu'a la patrie, il n'en parla

jamais que pour s'en designer comme l'unique defenseur: otez de ses

longs discours tout ce qui n'a rapport qu'a son personnel, vous n'y

trouverez plus que de seches applications de prinipes connus, et

surtout de phrases preparees pour amener encore son eloge. Vous

l'avez juge timide, parce que son imagination, que l'on croyait

ardente, qui n'etait que feroce, parassait exagerer souvent les maux

de son pays. C'etait une jonglerie: il ne croyait ni aux

conspirations don't il faisait tant d'etalage, ni aux poignards

aux-quels il feignoit de sse devouer; mais il vouloit que les

citoyens fusssent constamment en defiance l'un de l'autre," &c._

"Affecting to consider all things, even the fate of the country, as

depending on himself alone, he never spoke of it but with a view to

point himself out its principal defender.--If you take away from his

long harangues all that regards him personally, you will find only

dry applications of familiar principles, and, above all, those

studied turns, which were artfully prepared to introduce his own

eternal panegyric.--You supposed him timid because his imagination

(which was not merely ardent, as was supposed, but ferocious) seemed

often to exaggerate the misfortunes of his country.--This was a mere

trick: he believed neither in the conspiracies he made so great a

parade of, nor in the poignards to which he pretended to devote

himself as a victim.--His real design was to infuse into the minds

of all men an unceasing diffidence of each other."

One cannot study the characters of these men, and the revolution, without

wonder; and, after an hour of such scribbling, I wake to the scene around

me, and my wonder is not a little increased, at the idea that the fate of

such an individual as myself should be at all dependent on either.--My

friend Mad. de ____ is ill,* and taken to the hospital, so that having no

longer the care of dissipating her ennui, I am at full liberty to indulge

my own.

* I have generally made use of the titles and distinctions by which

the people I mention were known before the revolution; for, besides

that I found it difficult to habituate my pen to the republican

system of levelling, the person to whom these letters were addressed

would not have known who was meant by the new appellations. It is,

however, to be observed, that, except in private aristocratic

intercourse, the word Citizen was in general use; and that those who

had titles relinquished them and assumed their family names.

--Yet I know not how it is, but, as I have before observed to you, I do

not ennuye--my mind is constantly occupied, though my heart is vacant--

curiosity serves instead of interest, and I really find it sufficiently

amusing to conjecture how long my head may remain on my shoulders.--You

will, I dare say, agree with me that any doubts on such a subject are

very well calculated to remove the tranquil sort of indifference which

produces ennui; though, to judge by the greater part of my

fellow-prisoners, one would not think so.--There is something surely in

the character of the French, which makes them differ both in prosperity

and adversity from other people. Here are many amongst us who see

little more in the loss of their liberty than a privation of their usual

amusements; and I have known some who had the good fortune to obtain

their release at noon, exhibit themselves at the theatre at night.--God

knows how such minds are constituted: for my part, when some consolatory

illusion restores me to freedom, I associate with it no idea of positive

pleasure, but long for a sort of intermediate state, which may repose my

harassed faculties, and in which mere comfort and security are portrayed

as luxuries. After being so long deprived of the decent accommodations

of life, secluded from the intercourse which constitutes its best

enjoyments, trembling for my own fate, and hourly lamenting that of my

friends, the very thoughts of tumult or gaiety seem oppressive, and the

desire of peace, for the moment, banishes every other. One must have no

heart, after so many sufferings, not to prefer the castle of Indolence

to the palace of Armida.

The coarse organs of an Argus at the door, who is all day employed in

calling to my high-born companions by the republican appellations of

_"Citoyen,"_ and _"Citoyenne,"_ has just interrupted me by a summons to

receive a letter from my unfortunate friends at Arras.--It was given me

open;* of course they say nothing of their situation, though I have

reason to believe it is dreadful.

* The opening of letters was now so generally avowed, that people

who corresponded on business, and were desirous their letters should

be delivered, put them in the post without sealing; otherwise they

were often torn in opening, thrown aside, or detained, to save the

trouble of perusing.

--They have now written to me for assistance, which I have not the means

of affording them. Every thing I have is under sequestration; and the

difficulty which attends the negociating any drafts drawn upon England,

has made it nearly impossible to procure money in the usual way, even if

I were not confined. The friendship of Mad. de ____ will be little

available to me. Her extensive fortune, before frittered to mere

competency by the extortions of the revolution, now scarcely supplies her

own wants; and her tenants humanely take the opportunity of her present

distress to avoid paying their rent.*

* In some instances servants or tenants have been known to seize on

portions of land for their own use--in others the country

municipalities exacted as the price of a certificate of civism,

(without which no release from prison could be obtained,) such

leases, lands, or privileges, as they thought the embarrassments of

their landlords would induce them to grant. Almost every where the

houses of persons arrested were pilfered either by their own

servants or the agents of the republic. I have known an elegant

house put in requisition to erect blacksmiths' forges in for the use

of the army, and another filled with tailors employed in making

soldiers' clothes.--Houses were likewise not unfrequently abandoned

by the servants through fear of sharing the fate of their masters,

and sometimes exposed equally by the arrest of those who had been

left in charge, in order to extort discoveries of plate, money, &c.

the concealment of which they might be supposed privy to.

--So that I have no resource, either for myself or Mrs. D____, but the

sale of a few trinkets, which I had fortunately secreted on my first

arrest. How are we to exist, and what an existence to be solicitous

about! In gayer moments, and, perhaps, a little tinctured by romantic

refinement, I have thought Dr. Johnson made poverty too exclusively the

subject of compassion: indeed I believe he used to say, it was the only

evil he really felt for. This, to one who has known only mental

suffering, appears the notion of a coarse mind; but I doubt whether, the

first time we are alarmed by the fear of want, the dread of dependence

does not render us in part his converts. The opinion of our English sage

is more natural than we may at first imagine; or why is it that we are

affected by the simple distresses of Jane Shore, beyond those of any

other heroine?--Yours.

April 22, 1794.

Our abode becomes daily more crouded; and I observe, that the greater

part of those now arrested are farmers. This appears strange enough,

when we consider how much the revolutionary persecution has hitherto

spared this class of people; and you will naturally enquire why it has at

length reached them.

It has been often observed, that the two extremes of society are nearly

the same in all countries; the great resemble each other from education,

the little from nature. Comparisons, therefore, of morals and manners

should be drawn from the intervening classes; yet from this comparison

also I believe we must exclude farmers, who are every where the same, and

who seem always more marked by professional similitude than national

distinction.

The French farmer exhibits the same acuteness in all that regards his own

interest, and the same stupidity on most other occasions, as the mere

English one; and the same objects which enlarge the understanding and

dilate the heart of other people, seem to have a contrary effect on both.

They contemplate the objects of nature as the stock-jobber does the

vicissitudes of the public funds: "the dews of heaven," and the

enlivening orb by which they are dispelled, are to the farmer only

objects of avaricious speculation; and the scarcity, which is partially

profitable, is but too often more welcome than a general abundance.--They

consider nothing beyond the limits of their own farms, except for the

purpose of making envious comparisons with those of their neighbours; and

being fed and clothed almost without intermediate commerce, they have

little necessity for communication, and are nearly as isolated a part of

society as sailors themselves.

The French revolutionists have not been unobserving of these

circumstances, nor scrupulous of profiting by them: they knew they might

have discussed for ever their metaphysical definitions of the rights of

man, without reaching the comprehension, or exciting the interest, of the

country people; but that if they would not understand the propagation of

the rights of man, they would very easily comprehend an abolition of the

rights of their landlords. Accordingly, the first principle of liberty

they were taught from the new code was, that they had a right to assemble

in arms, to force the surrender of title-deeds; and their first

revolutionary notions of equality and property seem to have been

manifested by the burning of chateaux, and refusing to pay their rents.

They were permitted to intimidate their landlords, in order to force them

to emigration, and either to sell their estates at a low price, or leave

them to the mercy of the tenants.