Brissot de Warville had begun an acquaintance with Dr. Burney upon
meeting with him at the apartment of the famous Linguet, during the
residence in England of that eloquent, powerful, unfortunate victim of
parts too strong for his judgment, and of impulses too imperious for
his safety.
At this time, 1783, Brissot de Warville announced himself as a member
of a French committee employed to select subjects in foreign countries,
for adding to the national stock of worthies of his own soil, who were
destined to immortality, by having their portraits, busts, or statues,
elevated in the Paris Pantheon. And, as such, he addressed a letter to
Dr. Burney. He had been directed, he said, to choose, in England, a
female for this high honour; and he wrote to Dr. Burney to say, that
the gentlewoman upon whom it had pleased him to fix—was no other than
a daughter of the Doctor’s![66]
At that astonished daughter’s earnest supplication, the Doctor, with
proper acknowledgments, declined accepting this towering compliment.
M. Brissot employed his highest pains of flattery to conquer this
repugnance; but head, heart, and taste were in opposition to his
pleadings, and he had no chance of success.
Speedily after, M. Brissot earnestly besought permission to introduce
to _l’Hôtel du Grand Newton_ his newly-married wife; and a day was
appointed on which he brought thither his blooming young bride, who
had been English Reader, he said, to her Serene Highness Mademoiselle
d’Orleans,[67] under the auspices of the celebrated Comtesse de
Genlis.[68]
Madame Brissot was pretty, and gentle, and had a striking air of
youthful innocence. They seemed to live together in tender amity,
perfectly satisfied in following literary pursuits. But it has since
appeared that Brissot was here upon some deep political projects, of
which he afterwards extended the practice to America. He had by no
means, at that time, assumed the dogmatizing dialect, or betrayed the
revolutionary principles, which, afterwards, contributed to hurl the
monarchy, the religion, and the happiness of France into that murderous
abyss of anarchy into which, ill-foreseen! he was himself amongst the
earliest to be precipitated.
This single visit began and ended the Brissot commerce with St.
Martin’s-street. M. Brissot had a certain low-bred fullness and
forwardness of look, even in the midst of professions of humility and
respect, that were by no means attractive to Dr. Burney; by whom this
latent demagogue, who made sundry attempts to enter into a bookish
intimacy in St. Martin’s-street, was so completely shirked, that
nothing more was there seen or known of him, till his jacobinical
harangues and proceedings, five years later, were blazoned to the world
by the republican gazettes.
What became of his pretty wife in aftertimes; whether she were involved
in his destruction, or sunk his name to save her life, has not been
recorded. Dr. Burney heard of her no more; and always regretted that
he had been deluded into shewing even the smallest token of hospitality
to her intriguing husband: yet great was his thankfulness, that the
delusion had not been of such strength, as to induce him to enrol
a representation of his daughter in a selection made by a man of
principles and conduct so opposite to his own; however, individually,
the collection might have been as flattering to his parental pride,
as her undue entrance into such a circle would have been painfully
ostentatious to the insufficient and unambitious object of M. Brissot’s
choice.