A RESIDENCE IN FRANCE,
DURING THE YEARS
1792, 1793, 1794, AND 1795;
DESCRIBED IN A SERIES OF LETTERS
FROM AN ENGLISH LADY;
With General And Incidental Remarks
On The French Character And Manners.
Prepared for the Press
By John Gifford, Esq.
Author of the History of France, Letter to Lord
Lauderdale, Letter to the Hon. T. Erskine, &c.
Second Edition.
_Plus je vis l'Etranger plus j'aimai ma Patrie._
--Du Belloy.
London: Printed for T. N. Longman, Paternoster Row. 1797.
1794
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.