things which they have it in their power to ascertain. The seventy-three
owe a great part of the interest they have excited to a persuasion of
their having voted either for a mild sentence on the King, or an appeal
to the nation: yet this is so far from being true, that many of them were
unfavourable to him on every question. But supposing it to have been
otherwise, their merit is in reality little enhanced: they all voted him
guilty, without examining whether he was so or not; and in affecting
mercy while they refused justice, they only aimed at conciliating their
present views with their future safety.
The whole claim of this party, who are now the Moderates of the
Convention, is reducible to their having opposed the commission of crimes
which were intended to serve their adversaries, rather than themselves.
To effect the dethronement of the King, and the destruction of those
obnoxious to them, they approved of popular insurrections; but expected
that the people whom they had rendered proficients in cruelty, should
become gentle and obedient when urged to resist their own authority; yet
they now come forth as victims of their patriotism, and call the heads of
the faction who are fallen--martyrs to liberty! But if they are victims,
it is to their folly or wickedness in becoming members of such an
assembly; and if their chiefs were martyrs, it was to the principles they
inculcated.
The trial of the Brissotins was justice, compared with that of the King.
If the former were condemned without proof, their partizans should
remember, that the revolutionary jury pretended to be influenced by the
same moral evidence they had themselves urged as the ground on which they
condemned the King; and if the people beheld with applause or
indifference the execution of their once-popular idols, they only put in
practice the barbarous lessons which those idols had taught them;--they
were forbidden to lament the fate of their Sovereign, and they rejoiced
in that of Brissot and his confederates.--These men, then, only found the
just retribution of their own guilt; and though it may be politic to
forget that their survivors were also their accomplices, they are not
objects of esteem--and the contemporary popularity, which a long
seclusion has obtained for them, will vanish, if their future conduct
should be directed by their original principles.*
* Louvet's pamphlet had not at this time appeared, and the
subsequent events proved, that the interest taken in these Deputies
was founded on a supposition they had changed their principles; for
before the close of the Convention they were as much objects of
hatred and contempt as their colleagues.
Some of these Deputies were the hirelings of the Duke of Orleans, and
most of them are individuals of no better reputation than the rest of the
Assembly. Lanjuinais has the merit of having acted with great courage in
defence of himself and his party on the thirty-first of May 1792; but the
following anecdote, recited by Gregoire* in the Convention a few days ago
will sufficiently explain both his character and Gregoire's, who are now,
however, looked up to as royalists, and as men comparatively honest.
* Gregoire is one of the constitutional Clergy, and, from the habit
of comparing bad with worse, is more esteemed than many of his
colleagues; yet, in his report on the progress of Vandalism, he
expresses himself with sanguinary indecency--"They have torn (says
he) the prints which represented the execution of Charles the first,
because there were coats of arms on them. Ah, would to god we could
behold, engraved in the same manner, the heads of all Kings, done
from nature! We might then reconcile ourselves to seeing a
ridiculous embellishment of heraldry accompany them."
--"When I first arrived at Versailles, (says Gregoire,) as member of the
Constituent Assembly, (in 1789,) I met with Lanjuinais, and we took an
oath in concert to dethrone the King and abolish Nobility." Now, this
was before the alledged provocations of the King and Nobility--before the
constitution was framed--before the flight of the royal family to
Varennes--and before the war. But almost daily confessions of this sort
escape, which at once justify the King, and establish the infamy of the
revolutionists.
These are circumstances not to be forgotten, did not the sad science of
discriminating the shades of wickedness, in which (as I have before
noticed) the French have been rendered such adepts, oblige them at
present to fix their hopes--not according to the degree of merit, but by
that of guilt. They are reduced to distinguish between those who
sanction murders, and those who perpetrated them--between the sacrificer
of one thousand victims, and that of ten--between those who assassinate,
and those who only reward the assassin.*
* Tallien is supposed, as agent of the municipality of paris, to
have paid a million and a half of livres to the Septembrisers or
assassins of the prisons! I know not whether the sum was in
assignats or specie.--If in the former, it was, according to the
exchange then, about two and thirty thousand pounds sterling: but if
estimated in proportion to what might be purchased with it, near
fifty thousand. Tallien has never denied the payment of the money--
we may, therefore, conclude the charge to be true.
--Before the revolution, they would not have known how to select, where
all were objects of abhorrence; but now the most ignorant are casuists in
the gradations of turpitude, and prefer Tallien to Le Bon, and the Abbe
Sieyes to Barrere.
The crimes of Carrier have been terminated, not punished, by death. He
met his fate with a courage which, when the effect of innocence, is
glorious to the sufferer, and consoling to humanity; but a career like
his, so ended, was only the confirmation of a brutal and ferocious mind.*
* When Carrier was arrested, he attempted to shoot himself, and, on
being prevented by the Gens-d'armes, he told them there were members
of the Convention who would not forgive their having prevented his
purpose--implying, that they apprehended the discoveries he might
make on his trial. While he was dressing himself, (for they took
him in bed,) he added, "_Les Scelerats!_ (Meaning his more
particular accomplices, who, he was told, had voted against him,)
they deserved that I should be as dastardly as themselves." He
rested his defence entirely on the decrees of the Convention.
--Of thirty who were tried with him as his agents, and convicted of
assisting at the drownings, shootings, &c. two only were executed, the
rest were acquitted; because, though the facts were proved, the moral
latitude of the Revolutionary Jury* did not find the guilt of the
intention--that is, the culprits were indisputably the murderers of
several thousand people, but, according to the words of the verdict, they
did not act with a counter-revolutionary intention.
* An English reader may be deceived by the name of Jury. The
Revolutionary Jury was not only instituted, but even appointed by
the Convention.--The following is a literal translation of some of
the verdicts given on this occasion:
"That O'Sulivan is author and accomplice of several noyades
(drownings) and unheard-of cruelties towards the victims delivered
to the waves.
"That Lefevre is proved to have ordered and caused to be executed a
noyade of men, women, and children, and to have committed various
arbitrary acts.
"That General Heron is proved to have assassinated children, and
worn publicly in his hat the ear of a man he had murdered. That he
also killed two children who were peaceably watching sheep.
"That Bachelier is author and accomplice of the operations at
Nantes, in signing arbitrary mandates of arrest, imposing vexatious
taxes, and taking for himself plate, &c. found at the houses of
citizens arrested on suspicion.
"That Joly is guilty, &c. in executing the arbitrary orders of the
Revolutionary Committee, of tying together the victims destined to
be drowned or shot."
There are thirty-one articles conceived nearly in the same terms,
and which conclude thus--"All convicted as above, but not having
acted with criminal or counter-revolutionary intentions, the
Tribunal acquits and sets them at liberty."
All France was indignant at those verdicts, and the people of Paris
were so enraged, that the Convention ordered the acquitted culprits
to be arrested again, perhaps rather for protection than punishment.
They were sent from Paris, and I never heard the result; but I have
seen the name of General Heron as being at large.
The Convention were certainly desirous that the atrocities of these men
(all zealous republicans) should be forgotten; for, independently of the
disgrace which their trial has brought on the cause, the sacrifice of
such agents might create a dangerous timidity in future, and deprive the
government of valuable partizans, who would fear to be the instruments of
crimes for which, after such a precedent, they might become responsible.
But the evil, which was unavoidable, has been palliated by the tenderness
or gratitude of a jury chosen by the Convention, who, by sacrificing two
only of this mass of monsters, and protecting the rest, hope to
consecrate the useful principle of indulgence for every act, whatever its
enormity, which has been the consequence of zeal or obedience to the
government.
It is among the dreadful singularities of the revolution, that the
greatest crimes which have been committed were all in strict observance
of the laws. Hence the Convention are perpetually embarrassed by
interest or shame, when it becomes necessary to punish them. We have
only to compare the conduct of Carrier, le Bon, Maignet, &c. with the
decrees under which they acted, to be convinced that their chief guilt
lies in having been capable of obeying: and the convention, coldly
issuing forth their rescripts of extermination and conflagration, will
not, in the opinion of the moralist, be favorably distinguished from
those who carried these mandates into execution.
December 24, 1794.
I am now at a village a few miles from Amiens, where, upon giving
security in the usual form, we have been permitted to come for a few days
on a visit to some relations of my friend Mad. de ____. On our arrival,
we found the lady of the house in a nankeen pierrot, knitting grey thread
stockings for herself, and the gentleman in a thick woollen jacket and
pantaloons, at work in the fields, and really labouring as hard as his
men.--They hope, by thus taking up the occupation and assuming the
appearance of farmers, to escape farther persecution; and this policy may
be available to those who have little to lose: but property is now a more
dangerous distinction than birth, and whoever possesses it, will always
be considered as the enemies of the republic, and treated accordingly.
We have been so much confined the last twelve months, that we were glad
to ride yesterday in spite of the cold; and our hosts having procured
asses for the females of the party, accompanied us themselves on foot.--
During our ramble, we entered into conversation with two old men and a
boy, who were at work in an open field near the road. They told us, they
had not strength to labour, because they had not their usual quantity of
bread--that their good lady, whose chateau we saw at a distance, had been
guillotined, or else they should have wanted for nothing--_"Et ste pauvre
Javotte la n'auroit pas travaille quant elle est qualsiment prete a
mourir."_ ["And our poor Javotte there would not have had to work when she
is almost in her grave."]--_"Mon dieu,"_ (says one of the old men, who had
not yet spoke,) _"Je donnerais bien ma portion de sa terre pour la ravoir
notre bonne dame."_ ["God knows, I would willingly give up my share of
her estate to have our good lady amongst us again."]--_"Ah pour ca oui,"_
(returned the other,) _"mais j'crois que nous n'aurons ni l'une l'autre,
voila ste maudite nation qui s'empare de tout."_ ["Ah truly, but I fancy
we shall have neither one nor the other, for this cursed nation gets hold
of every thing."]
While they were going on in this style, a berline and four cabriolets,
with three-coloured flags at the windows, and a whole troop of national
guard, passed along the road. _"Vive la Republique!"_--"Vive la Nation!"
cried our peasants, in an instant; and as soon as the cavalcade was out
of sight, _"Voyez ste gueusaille la, quel train, c'est vraiment quelque
depute de la Convention--ces brigands la, ils ne manquent de rien, ils
vivent comme des rois, et nous autres nous sommes cent sois plus
miserables que jamais."_ ["See there what a figure they make, those
beggarly fellows--it's some deputy of the convention I take it. The
thieves want for nothing, they live like so many kings, and we are all a
hundred times worse off than ever."]--_"Tais toi, tais tois,"_ ["Be quiet,
I tell you."] (says the old man, who seemed the least garrulous of the
two.)--_"Ne crains rien,_ ["Never fear."] (replied the first,) _c'est de
braves gens;_ these ladies and gentlemen I'm sure are good people; they
have not the look of patriots."--And with this compliment to ourselves,
and the externals of patriotism, we took our leave of them.
I found, however, by this little conversation, that some of the peasants
still believe they are to have the lands of the gentry divided amongst
them, according to a decree for that purpose. The lady, whom they
lamented, and whose estate they expected to share, was the Marquise de
B____, who had really left the country before the revolution, and had
gone to drink some of the German mineral waters, but not returning within
the time afterwards prescribed, was declared an emigrant. By means of a
friend, she got an application made to Chabot, (then in high popularity,)
who for an hundred thousand livres procured a passport from the Executive
Council to enter France. Upon the faith of this she ventured to return,
and was in consequence, notwithstanding her passport, executed as an
emigrant.
Mrs. D____, who is not yet well enough for such an expedition, and is,
besides, unaccustomed to our montures, remained at home. We found she
had been much alarmed during our absence, every house in the village
having been searched, by order of the district, for corn, and two of the
horses taken to the next post to convey the retinue of the Deputy we had
seen in the morning. Every thing, however, was tranquil on our arrival,
and rejoicing it was no worse, though Mons. ____ seemed to be under great
apprehension for his horses, we sat down to what in France is called a
late dinner.
Our host's brother, who left the army at the general exclusion of the
Noblesse, and was in confinement at the Luxembourg until after the death
of Robespierre, is a professed wit, writes couplets to popular airs, and
has dramatized one of Plutarch's Lives. While we were at the desert, he
amused us with some of his compositions in prison, such as an epigram on
the Guillotine, half a dozen calembours on the bad fare at the _Gamelle,_
[Mess.] and an ode on the republican victory at Fleurus--the last written
under the hourly expectation of being sent off with the next _fournee_
(batch) of pretended conspirators, yet breathing the most ardent
attachment to the convention, and terminated by a full sounding line
about tyrants and liberty.--This may appear strange, but the Poets were,
for the most part, in durance, and the Muses must sing, though in a cage:
hope and fear too both inspire prescriptively, and freedom might be
obtained or death averted by these effusions of a devotion so profound as
not to be alienated by the sufferings of imprisonment, or the menace of
destruction. Whole volumes of little jeux d'esprit, written under these
circumstances, might be collected from the different prisons; and, I
believe, it is only in France that such a collection could have been
furnished.*
* Many of these poetical trifles have been published--some written
even the night before their authors were executed. There are
several of great poetical merit, and, when considered relatively,
are wonderful.--Among the various poets imprisoned, was one we
should scarcely have expected--Rouget Delille, author of the
Marseillois Hymn, who, while his muse was rouzing the citizens from
one end of the republic to the other to arm against tyrants, was
himself languishing obscurely a victim to the worst of all
tyrannies.
Mr. D____, though he writes and speaks French admirably, does not love
French verses; and I found he could not depend on the government of his
features, while a French poet was reciting his own, but kept his eyes
fixed on a dried apple, which he pared very curiously, and when that was
atchieved, betook himself to breaking pralines, and extracting the
almonds with equal application. We, however, complimented Monsieur's
poetry; and when we had taken our coffee, and the servants were entirely
withdrawn, he read us some trifles more agreeable to our principles, if
not to our taste, and in which the Convention was treated with more
sincerity than complaisance. It seems the poet's zeal for the republic
had vanished at his departure from the Luxembourg, and that his wrath
against coalesced despots, and his passion for liberty, had entirely
evaporated. In the evening we played a party of reversi with republican
cards,* and heard the children sing "Mourrons pour la Patrie."
* The four Kings are replaced by four Genii, the Queens by four
sorts of liberty, and the Knaves by four descriptions of equality.
--After these civic amusements, we closed our chairs round the fire,
conjecturing how long the republic might last, or whether we should all
pass another twelve months in prison, and, agreeing that both our fate
and that of the republic were very precarious, adjourned to rest.
While I was undressing, I observed Angelique looked extremely
discontented, and on my enquiring what was the matter, she answered,
_"C'est que je m'ennuie beaucoup ici,"_ ["I am quite tired of this
place."] "Mademoiselle," (for no state or calling is here exempt from this
polite sensation.) "And why, pray?"--_"Ah quelle triste societe, tout le
monde est d'un patriotisme insoutenable, la maison est remplie d'images
republicaines, des Marat, des Voltaire, des Pelletier, que sais-moi? et
voila jusqu'au garcon de l'ecurie qui me traite de citoyenne."_ ["Oh,
they are a sad set--every body is so insufferably patriotic. The house
is full from top to bottom of republican images, Marats, and Voltaires,
and Pelletiers, and I don't know who--and I am called Citizen even by the
stable boy."] I did not think it right to satisfy her as to the real
principles of our friends, and went to bed ruminating on the improvements
which the revolution must have occasioned in the art of dissimulation.
Terror has drilled people of the most opposite sentiments into such an
uniformity of manner and expression, that an aristocrat who is ruined and
persecuted by the government is not distinguishable from the Jacobin who
has made his fortune under it.
In the morning Angelique's countenance was brightened, and I found she
had slept in the same room with Madame's _femme de chambre,_ when an
explanation of their political creeds had taken place, so that she now
assured me Mad. Augustine was _"fort honnete dans le fond,"_ [A very good
girl at heart.] though she was obliged to affect republicanism.--"All the
world's a stage," says our great dramatic moralist. France is certainly
so at present, and we are not only necessitated to act a part, but a
sorry one too; for we have no choice but to exhibit in farce, or suffer
in tragedy.--Yours, &c.
December 27, 1794.
I took the opportunity of my being here to go about four leagues farther
to see an old convent acquaintance lately come to this part of the
country, and whom I have not met since I was at Orleans in 1789.
The time has been when I should have thought such a history as this
lady's a romance, but tales of woe are now become familiar to us, and, if
they create sympathy, they no longer excite surprize, and we hear of them
as the natural effects of the revolution.
Madame de St. E__m__d is the daughter of a gentleman whose fortune was
inadequate both to his rank and manner of living, and he gladly embraced
the offer of Monsieur de St. E__m__d to marry her at sixteen, and to
relinquish the fortune allotted her to her two younger sisters. Monsieur
de St. E__m__d, being a dissipated man, soon grew weary of any sort of
domestic life, and placing his wife with her father, in less than a year
after their marriage departed for Italy.--Madame de St. E__m__d, thus
left in a situation both delicate and dangerous for a young and pretty
woman, became unfortunately attached to a gentleman who was her distant
relation: yet, far from adopting the immoral principles not unjustly
ascribed to your country, she conducted herself with a prudence and
reserve, which even in France made her an object of general respect.
About three years after her husband's departure the revolution took
place, and not returning, he was of course put on the list of emigrants.
In 1792, when the law passed which sanctioned and facilitated divorces,
her friends all earnestly persuaded her to avail herself of it, but she
could not be prevailed upon to consider the step as justifiable; for
though Monsieur de St. E__m__d neglected her, he had, in other respects,
treated her with generosity and kindness. She, therefore, persisted in
her refusal, and her lover, in despair, joined the republican army.
At the general arrest of the Noblesse, Madame de St. E__m__d and her
sisters were confined in the town where they resided, but their father
was sent to Paris; and a letter from one of his female relations, who had
emigrated, being found among his papers, he was executed without being
able to see or write to his children. Madame de St. E__m__d's husband had
returned about the same time to France, in the disguise of a post-boy,
was discovered, and shared the same fate. These events reached her love,
still at the army, but it was impossible for him to quit his post, and in
a few days after, being mortally wounded, he died,* recommending Eugenie
de St. E__m__d to the protection of his father.--
* This young man, who died gallantly fighting in the cause of the
republic, was no republican: but this does not render the murder of
his father, a deaf [There were people both deaf and dumb in the
prisons as conspirators.] and inoffensive man, less abominable.--The
case of General Moreau's father, though somewhat similar, is yet
more characteristic of the revolution. Mons. Moreau was persuaded,
by a man who had some interest in the business, to pay a debt which
he owed an emigrant, to an individual, instead of paying it, as the
law directed, to the use of the republic. The same man afterwards
denounced him, and he was thrown into prison. At nine o'clock on
the night preceding his trial, his act of accusation was brought
him, and before he had time to sketch out a few lines for his
defence, the light by which he wrote was taken away. In the morning
he was tried, the man who had informed against him sitting as one of
his judges, and he was condemned and executed the very day on which
his son took the Fort de l'Ecluse!--Mons. Moreau had four sons,
besides the General in the army, and two daughters, all left
destitute by the confiscation of his property.
--A brother officer, who engaged to execute this commission, wrote
immediately to the old man, to inform him of his loss, and of his son's
last request. It was too late, the father having been arrested on
suspicion, and afterwards guillotined, with many other persons, for a
pretended conspiracy in prison, the very day on which his son had fallen
in the performance of an act of uncommon bravery.