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.