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.*