Chapter XI: Part 11

All this, my dear brother, is only ludicrous in the relation; yet for so many people to be thus huddled together without distinction of age, sex, or condition, is truly miserable.--Mad. De ____ is still indisposed, and while she is thus suffocated by bad air, and distracted by the various noises of the house, I see no prospect of her recovery.

Arras is the common prison of the department, and, besides, there are a number of other houses and convents in the town appropriated to the same use, and all equally full. God knows when these iniquities are to terminate! So far from having any hopes at present, the rage for arresting seems, I think, rather to increase than subside. It is supposed there are now more than three hundred thousand people in France confined under the simple imputation of being what is called "gens suspect:" but as this generic term is new to you, I will, by way of explanation, particularize the several species as classed by the Convention, and then described by Chaumette, solicitor for the City of Paris;*--

* Decree concerning suspected people:

"Art. I. Immediately after the promulgation of the present decree,
all suspected persons that are found on the territory of the
republic, and who are still at large, shall be put under arrest.

"II. Those are deemed suspicious, who by their connections, their
conversation, or their writings, declare themselves partizans of
tyranny or foederation, and enemies to liberty--Those who have not
demonstrated their means of living or the performance of their civic
duties, in the manner prescribed by the law of March last--Those
who, having been suspended from public employments by the Convention
or its Commissioners, are not reinstated therein--Those of the
ci-devant noblesse, who have not invariably manifested their
attachment to the revolution, and, in general, all the fathers,
mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and agents of
emigrants--All who have emigrated between the 1st of July, 1789,
and 8th of April, 1792.

"III. The execution of the decree is confided to the Committee of
Inspection. The individuals arrested shall be taken to the houses
of confinement appointed for their reception. They are allowed to
take with them such only of their effects as are strictly necessary,
the guards set upon them shall be paid at their expence, and they
shall be kept in confinement until the peace.--The Committees of
Inspection shall, without delay, transmit to the Committee of
General Safety an account of the persons arrested, with the motives
of their arrest. [If this were observed (which I doubt much) it was
but a mockery, few persons ever knew the precise reason of their
confinement.]--The civil and criminal tribunals are empowered, when
they deem it necessary, to detain and imprison, as suspected
persons, those who being accused of crimes have nevertheless had no
bill found against them, (lieu a accusation,) or who have even been
tried and acquitted."

Indications that may serve to distinguish suspicious persons, and those to whom it will be proper to refuse certificates of civism:

"I. Those who in popular assemblies check the ardour of the people
by artful speeches, by violent exclamations or threats.

"II. Those who with more caution speak in a mysterious way of the
public misfortunes, who appear to pity the lot of the people, and
are ever ready to spread bad news with an affectation of concern.

"III. Those who adapt their conduct and language to the
circumstances of the moment--who, in order to be taken for
republicans, put on a studied austerity of manners, and exclaim with
vehemence against the most trifling error in a patriot, but mollify
when the crimes of an Aristocrate or a Moderee are the subject of
complaint. [These trifling events were, being concerned in the
massacres of September, 1792--public peculations--occasional, and
even habitual robbery, forgeries, &c. &c. &c.--The second, fourth,
fifth, sixth, and seventh classes, were particularly numerous,
insomuch that I doubt whether they would not have included
nineteen-twentieths of all the people in France who were honest
or at all capable of reflection.]

"IV. Those who pity avaricious farmers and shopkeepers, against
whom the laws have been necessarily directed.

"V. Those who with the words liberty, country, republic, &c.
constantly in their mouths, hold intercourse with ci-devant Nobles,
Contre-revolutionnaires, Priests, Aristocrates, Feuillans, &c. and
take an interest in their concerns.

"VI. Those who not having borne an active part in the revolution,
endeavour to excuse themselves by urging the regular payment of
their taxes, their patriotic gifts, and their service in the Garde
National by substitute or otherwise.

"VII. Those who received the republican constitution with coolness,
or who intimated their pretended apprehensions for its establishment
and duration.

"VIII. Those who, having done nothing against liberty, have done as
little for it.

"IX. Those who do not frequent the assembly of their section, and
offer, for excuse, that they are no orators, or have no time to
spare from their own business.

"X. Those who speak with contempt of the constituted authorities,
of the rigour of the laws, of the popular societies, and the
defenders of liberty.

"XI. Those who have signed anti-revolutionary petitions, or any
time frequented unpatriotic clubs, or were known as partizans of La
Fayette, and accomplices in the affair of the Champ de Mars."

--and it must be allowed by all who reside in France at this moment, and are capable of observing the various forms under which hatred for the government shelters itself, that the latter is a chef d'oeuvre in its kind.

Now, exclusive of the above legal and moral indications of people to be suspected, there are also outward and visible signs which we are told from the tribune of the Convention, and the Jacobins, are not much less infallible--such as _Gens a bas de soie rayes mouchetes--a chapeau rond-- habit carre--culotte pincee etroite--a bottes cirees--les muscadins-- Freloquets--Robinets, &c._ [People that wear spotted or striped silk stockings--round hats--small coats--tight breeches--blacked boots-- perfumes--coxcombs--sprigs of the law, &c.] The consequence of making the cut of a man's coat, or the shape of his hat, a test of his political opinions, has been the transformation of the whole country into republicans, at least as far as depends on the costume; and where, as is natural, there exists a consciousness of inveterate aristocracy, the external is more elaborately "a la Jacobin." The equipment, indeed, of a French patriot of the latest date is as singular as his manners, and in both he is highly distinguishable from the inhabitants of any other country: from those of civilized nations, because he is gross and ferocious--from those of barbarous ones, because his grossness is often affected, and his ferocity a matter of principle and preference.

A man who would not be reckoned suspect now arrays himself in a jacket and trowsers (a Carmagnole) of striped cotton or coarse cloth, a neckcloth of gaudy cotton, wadded like a horse-collar, and projecting considerably beyond his chin, a cap of red and blue cloth, embroidered in front and made much in the form of that worn by the Pierrot of a pantomime, with one, or sometimes a pair, of ear-rings, about the size of a large curtain-ring! Finally, he crops his hair, and carefully encourages the growth of an enormous pair of whiskers, which he does not fail to perfume with volumes of tobacco smoke. He, however, who is ambitious of still greater eminence, disdains these fopperies, and affects an appearance of filth and rags, which he dignifies with the appellation of stern republicanism and virtuous poverty; and thus, by means of a thread-bare coat out at elbows, wooden shoes, and a red woollen cap, the rich hope to secure their wealth, and the covetous and intriguing to acquire lucrative employment.--Rolland, I think, was the founder of these modern Franciscans, and with this miserable affectation he machinated the death of the King, and, during some months, procured for himself the exclusive direction of the government.

All these patriots by prescription and system have likewise a peculiar and appropriated dialect--they address every one by the title of Citizen, thee and thou indistinctly, and talk of nothing but the agents of Pitt and Cobourg, the coalesced tyrants, royal ogres, satellites of the despots, automaton slaves, and anthropophagi; and if they revert to their own prosperous state, and this very happy country, it is, _un peuple libre, en peuple heureux, and par excellence la terre de la liberte._ ["A free people--a happy people--and, above all others, the land of liberty."]--It is to be observed, that those with whom these pompous expressions are most familiar, are officers employed in the war-like service of mutilating the wooden saints in churches, and arresting old women whom they encounter without national cockades; or members of the municipalities, now reduced to execute the offices of constables, and whose chief functions are to hunt out suspected people, or make domiciliary visits in quest of concealed eggs and butter. But, above all, this democratic oratory is used by tailors, shoemakers, &c.* of the Committees of Inspection, to whom the Representatives on mission have delegated their unlimited powers, who arrest much on the principle of Jack Cade, and with whom it is a crime to read and write, or to appear decently dressed.

* For some months the departments were infested by people of this
description--corrupt, ignorant, and insolent. Their motives of
arrest were usually the hope of plunder, or the desire of
distressing those whom they had been used to look upon as their
superiors.--At Arras it sufficed even to have disobliged the wives
of these miscreants to become the object of persecution. In some
places they arrested with the most barbarous caprice, even without
the shadow of a reason. At Hesden, a small town in Artois, Dumont
left the Mayor carte blanche, and in one night two hundred people
were thrown into prison. Every where these low and obscure
dominators reigned without controul, and so much were the people
intimidated, that instead of daring to complain, they treated their
new tyrants with the most servile adulation.--I have seen a
ci-devant Comtesse coquetting with all her might a Jacobin tailor,
and the richest merchants of a town soliciting very humbly the good
offices of a dealer in old clothes.

These ridiculous accoutrements, and this magnificent phraseology, are in themselves very harmless; but the ascendancy which such a class of people are taking has become a subject of just alarm.--The whole administration of the country is now in the hands of uninformed and necessitous profligates, swindlers, men already condemned by the laws, and who, if the revolution had not given them "place and office," would have been at the galleys, or in prison.*

* One of the administrators of the department de la Somme (which,
however, was more decently composed than many others,) was, before
the revolution, convicted of house-breaking, and another of forgery;
and it has since been proved on various occasions, particularly on
the trial of the ninety-four Nantais, that the revolutionary
Committees were, for the most part, composed of the very refuse of
society--adventurers, thieves, and even assassins; and it would be
difficult to imagine a crime that did not there find reward and
protection.--In vain were the privileges of the nobility abolished,
and religion proscribed. A new privileged order arose in the
Jacobins, and guilt of every kind, without the semblance of
penitence, found an asylum in these Committees, and an inviolability
more sacred than that afforded by the demolished altars.

To these may be added a few men of weak character, and unsteady principles, who remain in office because they fear to resign; with a few, and but very few, ignorant fanatics, who really imagine they are free because they can molest and destroy with impunity all they have hitherto been taught to respect, and drink treble the quantity they did formerly.

Oct. 30.

For some days the guards have been so untractable, and the croud at the door has been so great, that Fleury was obliged to make various efforts before he could communicate the result of his negotiation. He has at length found means to inform us, that his friend the tailor had exerted all his interest in our favour, but that Dumont and Le Bon (as often happens between neighbouring potentates) are at war, and their enmity being in some degree subject to their mutual fears, neither will venture to liberate any prisoner arrested by the other, lest such a disposition to clemency should be seized on by his rival as a ground of accusation.*

* But if they did not free the enemies of each other, they revenged
themselves by throwing into prison all their mutual friends--for the
temper of the times was such, that, though these Representatives
were expressly invested with unlimited powers, they did not venture
to set any one at liberty without a multitude of forms and a long
attendance: on the contrary, they arrested without any form at all,
and allowed their myrmidons to harrass and confine the persons and
sequester the property of all whom they judged proper.--It seemed to
have been an elementary principle with those employed by the
government at this time, that they risked nothing in doing all the
mischief they could, and that they erred only in not doing enough.

--All, therefore, that can be obtained is, a promise to have us removed to Amiens in a short time; and I understand the detenus are there treated with consideration, and that no tribunal revolutionnaire has yet been established.

My mind will be considerably more at ease if this removal can be effected. Perhaps we may not be in more real danger here than at any other place, but it is not realities that constitute the misery of life; and situated as we are, that imagination must be phlegmatic indeed, which does not create and exaggerate enough to prevent the possibility of ease.--We are, as I before observed, placed as it were within the jurisdiction of the guillotine; and I have learned "a secret of our prison-house" to-day which Mad. de ____ had hitherto concealed from me, and which has rendered me still more anxious to quit it. Several of our fellow prisoners, whom I supposed only transferred to other houses, have been taken away to undergo the ceremony of a trial, and from thence to the scaffold. These judicial massacres are now become common, and the repetition of them has destroyed at once the feeling of humanity and the sense of justice. Familiarized to executions, the thoughtless and sanguinary people behold with equal indifference the guilty or innocent victim; and the Guillotine has not only ceased to be an object of horror, but is become almost a source of amusement.

* At Arras this horrid instrument of death was what they called en
permanence, (stationary,) and so little regard was paid to the
morals of the people, (I say the morals, because every thing which
tends to destroy their humanity renders them vicious,) that it was
often left from one execution to another with the ensanguined traces
of the last victim but too evident.--Children were taught to amuse
themselves by making models of the Guillotine, with which they
destroyed flies, and even animals. On the Pontneuf, at Paris, a
sort of puppet-show was exhibited daily, whose boast it was to give
a very exact imitation of a guillotinage; and the burthen of a
popular song current for some months was _"Dansons la Guillotine."_
--On the 21st of January, 1794, the anniversary of the King's death,
the Convention were invited to celebrate it on the "Place de la
Revolution," where, during the ceremony, and in presence of the
whole legislative body, several people were executed. It is true,
Bourdon, one of the Deputies, complained of this indecency; but not
so much on account of the circumstance itself, as because it gave
some of the people an opportunity of telling him, in a sort of way
he might probably deem prophetic, that one of the victims was a
Representative of the People. The Convention pretended to order
that some enquiry should be made why at such a moment such a place
was chosen; but the enquiry came to nothing, and I have no doubt but
the executions were purposely intended as analogous to the
ceremony.--It was proved that Le Bon, on an occasion when he chose
to be a spectator of some executions he had been the cause of,
suspended the operation while he read the newspaper aloud, in order,
as he said, that the aristocrates might go out of the world with the
additional mortification of learning the success of the republican
arms in their last moments.

The People of Brest were suffered to behold, I had almost said to be
amused with (for if those who order such spectacles are detestable,
the people that permit them are not free from blame,) the sight of
twenty-five heads ranged in a line, and still convulsed with the
agonies of death.--The cant word for the Guillotine was "our holy
mother;" and verdicts of condemnation were called prizes in the
Sainte Lotterie--"holy lottery."

The dark and ferocious character of Le Bon developes itself hourly: the whole department trembles before him; and those who have least merited persecution are, with reason, the most apprehensive. The most cautious prudence of conduct, the most undeviating rectitude in those who are by their fortune or rank obnoxious to the tyrant, far from contributing to their security, only mark them out for a more early sacrifice. What is still worse, these horrors are not likely to terminate, because he is allowed to pay out of the treasury of the department the mob that are employed to popularize and applaud them.--I hope, in a few days, we shall receive our permission to depart. My impatience is a malady, and, for nearly the first time in my life, I am sensible of ennui; not the ennui occasioned by want of amusement, but that which is the effect of unquiet expectation, and which makes both the mind and body restless and incapable of attending to any thing. I am incessantly haunted by the idea that the companion of to-day may to-morrow expire under the Guillotine, that the common acts of social intercourse may be explained into intimacy, intimacy into the participation of imputed treasons, and the fate of those with whom we are associated become our own. It appears both useless and cruel to have brought us here, nor do I yet know any reason why we were not all removed to Amiens, except it was to avoid exposing to the eyes of the people in the places through which we must pass too large a number of victims at once.--The cause of our being removed from Peronne is indeed avowed, as it is at present a rule not to confine people at the place of their residence, lest they should have too much facility or communication with, or assistance from, their friends.*

* In some departments the nobles and priests arrested were removed
from ten to twenty leagues distant from their homes; and if they
happened to have relations living at the places where they were
confined, these last were forbidden to reside there, or even to
travel that way.

We should doubtless have remained at Arras until some change in public affairs had procured our release, but for the fortunate discovery of the man I have mentioned; and the trifling favour of removal from one prison to another has been obtained only by certain arrangements which Fleury has made with this subordinate agent of tyranny, and in which justice or consideration for us had no share. Alas! are we not miserable? is not the country miserable, when our only resource is in the vices of those who govern?--It is uncertain when we shall be ordered from hence--it may happen when we least expect it, even in the night, so that I shall not attempt to write again till we have changed our situation. The risk is at present too serious, and you must allow my desire of amusing you to give way to my solicitude for my own preservation.

Bicetre at Amiens, Nov. 18, 1793.

_Nous voila donc encore, logees a la nation;_ that is to say, the common prison of the department, amidst the thieves, vagabonds, maniacs, &c. confined by the old police, and the gens suspects recently arrested by the new.--I write from the end of a sort of elevated barn, sixty or seventy feet long, where the interstices of the tiles admit the wind from all quarters, and scarcely exclude the rain, and where an old screen and some curtains only separate Mad. de ____, myself, and our servants, from sixty priests, most of them old, sick, and as wretched as men can be, who are pious and resigned. Yet even here I feel comparatively at ease, and an escape from the jurisdiction of Le Bon and his merciless tribunal seems cheaply purchased by the sacrifice of our personal convenience. I do not pretend to philosophize or stoicize, or to any thing else which implies a contempt of life--I have, on the contrary, a most unheroic solicitude about my existence, and consider my removal to a place where I think we are safe, as a very fortunate aera of our captivity.

After many delays and disappointments, Fleury at length procured an order, signed by the Representative, for our being transferred to Amiens, under the care of two _Gardes Nationalaux,_ and, of course, at our expence.--Every thing in this country wears the aspect of despotism. At twelve o'clock at night we were awakened by the officer on guard, and informed we were to depart on the morrow; and, notwithstanding the difficulty of procuring horses and carriages, it was specified, that if we did not go on the day appointed, we were not to go at all. It was, or course, late before we could surmount the various obstacles to our journey, and procure two crazy cabriolets, and a cart for the guards, ourselves, and baggage. The days being short, we were obliged to sleep at Dourlens; and, on our arrival at the castle, which is now, as it always has been, a state-prison, we were told it was so full, that it was absolutely impossible to lodge us, and that we had better apply to the Governor, for permission to sleep at an inn. We then drove to the Governor's* house, who received us very civilly, and with very little persuasion agreed to our request. At the best of the miserable inns in the town we were informed they had no room, and that they could not accommodate us in any way whatever, except a sick officer then in the house would permit us to occupy one of two beds in his apartment.

* The Commandant had been originally a private soldier in the
regiment of Dillon.--I know not how he had obtained his advancement,
but, however obtained, it proved fatal to him: he was, a very short
time after I saw him, guillotined at Arras, for having borrowed
money of a prisoner. His real crime was, probably, treating the
prisoners in general with too much consideration and indulgence; and
at this period every suspicion of the kind was fatal.

In England it would not be very decent to make such a request, or to accept such an accommodation. In France, neither the one nor the other is unusual, and we had suffered lately so many embarrassments of the kind, that we were, if not reconciled, at least inured to them. Before, however, we could determine, the gentleman had been informed of our situation, and came to offer his services. You may judge of our surprize when we found in the stranger, who had his head bound up and his arm in a sling, General ____, a relation of Mad. de ____. We had now, therefore, less scruple in sharing his room, though we agreed, notwithstanding, only to repose a few hours in our clothes.

After taking some tea, the remainder of the evening was dedicated to reciprocal conversation of all kinds; and our guards having acquaintance in the town, and knowing it was impossible for us to escape, even were we so inclined, very civilly left us to ourselves. We found the General had been wounded at Maubeuge, and was now absent on conge for the recovery of his health. He talked of the present state of public affairs like a military man who is attached to his profession, and who thinks it his duty to fight at all events, whatever the rights or merits of those that employ him. He confessed, indeed, that they were repulsing their external enemies, only to confirm the power of those who were infinitely more to be dreaded at home, and that the condition of a General was more to be commiserated at this time than any other: if he miscarry, disgrace and the Guillotine await him--if he be successful, he gains little honour, becomes an object of jealousy, and assists in rivetting the chains of his country. He said, the armies were for the most part licentious and insubordinate, but that the political discipline was terrible--the soldiers are allowed to drink, pillage, and insult their officers with impunity, but all combinations are rigorously suppressed, the slightest murmur against the Representative on mission is treason, and to disapprove of a decree of the convention, death--that every man of any note in the army is beset with spies, and if they leave the camp on any occasion, it is more necessary to be on their guard against these wretches than against an ambuscade of the enemy; and he related a circumstance which happened to himself, as an example of what he mentioned, and which will give you a tolerable idea of the present system of government.--After the relief of Dunkirk, being quartered in the neighbourhood of St. Omer, he occasionally went to the town on his private concerns. One day, while he was waiting at the inn where he intended to dine, two young men accosted him, and after engaging him in a general conversation for some time, began to talk with great freedom, though with an affected caution of public men and measures, of the banditti who governed, the tyranny that was exercised, and the supineness of the people: in short, of all those too poignant truths which constitute the leze nation of the day. Mons. de ____ was not at first very attentive, but finding their discourse become still more liberal, it excited his suspicions, and casting his eyes on a glass opposite to where they were conversing, he perceived a sort of intelligence between them, which immediately suggested to him the profession of his companions; and calling to a couple of dragoons who had attended him, ordered them to arrest the two gentlemen as artistocrates, and convey them without ceremony to prison. They submitted, seemingly more surprized than alarmed, and in two hours the General received a note from a higher power, desiring him to set them at liberty, as they were agents of the republic.

Duquesnoy, one of the Representatives now with the Northern army, is ignorant and brutal in the extreme. He has made his brother (who, as well as himself, used to retail hops in the streets of St. Pol,) a General; and in order to deliver him from rivals and critics, he breaks, suspends, arrests, and sends to the Guillotine every officer of any merit that comes in his way. After the battle of Maubeuge, he arrested a General Bardell, [The Generals Bardell and D'Avesnes, and several others, were afterwards guillotined at Paris.] for accommodating a wounded prisoner of distinction (I think a relation of the Prince of Cobourg) with a bed, and tore with his own hands the epaulette from the shoulders of those Generals whose divisions had not sustained the combat so well as the others. His temper, naturally savage and choleric, is irritated to fury by the habit of drinking large quantities of strong liquors; and Mad. de ___'s relation assured us, that he had himself seen him take the Mayor of Avesnes (a venerable old man, who was presenting some petition to him that regarded the town,) by the hair and throw him on the ground, with the gestures of an enraged cannibal. He also confined one of his own fellow deputies in the tower of Guise, upon a very frivolous pretext, and merely on his own authority. In fact, I scarcely remember half the horrors told us of this man; and I shall only remind you, that he has an unlimited controul over the civil constitution of the Northern army, and over the whole department of the North.

You, I suppose, will be better informed of military events than we are, and I mention our friend's conjecture, that (besides an enormous number of killed) the wounded at Maubeuge amounted to twelve or fourteen thousand, only to remark the deception which is still practised on the people; for no published account ever allowed the number to be more than a few hundreds.--Besides these professional details, the General gave us some very unpleasant family ones. On returning to his father's chateau, where he hoped to be taken care of while his wounds were curing, he found every room in it under seals, three guards in possession, his two sisters arrested at St. Omer, where they happened to be on a visit, and his father and mother confined in separate houses of detention at Arras. After visiting them, and making some ineffectual applications for their relief, he came to the neighbourhood of Dourlens, expecting to find an asylum with an uncle, who had hitherto escaped the general persecution of the gentry. Here again his disappointment and chagrin were renewed: his uncle had been carried off to Amiens the morning of his arrival, and the house rendered inaccessible, by the usual affixture of seals, and an attendant pair of myrmidons to guard them from infraction. Thus excluded from all his family habitations, he had taken up his residence for a day or two at the inn where we met him, his intention being to return to Arras.

In the morning we made our adieus and pursued our journey; but, tenacious of this comparative liberty and the enjoyment of pure air, we prevailed on our conductors to let us dine on the road, so that we lingered with the unwillingness of truant children, and did not reach Amiens until dark. When we arrived at the Hotel de Ville, one of the guards enquired how we were to be disposed of. Unfortunately for us, Dumont happened to be there himself, and on hearing we were sent from Arras by order of Le Bon, declared most furiously (for our Representative is subject to choler since his accession to greatness) that he would have no prisoners received from Arras, and that we should sleep at the Conciergerie, and be conveyed back again on the morrow. Terrified at this menace, we persuaded the guard to represent to Dumont that we had been sent to Amiens at our own instance, and that we had been originally arrested by himself, and were therefore desirous of returning to the department where he was on mission, and where we had more reason to expect justice than at Arras. Mollified, perhaps, by this implied preference of his authority, he consented that we should remain for the present at Amiens, and ordered us to be taken to the Bicetre. Whoever has been used to connect with the word Bicetre the idea of the prison so named at Paris, must recoil with horror upon hearing they are destined to such a abode. Mad. de ___, yet weak from the remains of her illness, laid hold of me in a transport of grief; but, far from being able to calm or console her, my thoughts were so bewildered that I did not, till we alighted at the gate, begin to be really sensible of our situation. The night was dark and dreary, and our first entrance was into a kitchen, such as my imagination had pictured the subterraneous one of the robbers in Gil Blas. Here we underwent the ceremony of having our pocket-books searched for papers and letters, and our trunks rummaged for knives and fire-arms. This done, we were shown to the lodging I have described, and the poor priests, already insufferably crouded, were obliged almost to join their beds in order to make room for us.--I will not pain you by a recital of all the embarrassments and distresses we had to surmount before we could even rest ourselves. We were in want of every thing, and the rules of the prison such, that it was nearly impossible, for some time, to procure any thing: but the human mind is more flexible than we are often disposed to imagine it; and in two days we were able to see our situation in this best point of view, (that is, as an escape from Arras,) and the affair of submitting our bodies to our minds must be atchieved by time.--We have now been here a week. We have sounded the very depth of humiliation, taken our daily allowance of bread with the rest of the prisoners, and contracted a most friendly intimacy with the gaoler.

I have discovered since our arrival, that the order for transferring us hither described me as a native of the Low Countries. I know not how this happened, but my friend has insisted on my not rectifying the mistake, for as the French talk continually of re-conquering Brabant, she persuades herself such an event would procure me my liberty. I neither desire the one nor expect the other; but, to indulge her, I speak no English, and avoid two or three of my countrymen who I am told are here. There have been also some English families who were lately removed, but the French pronounce our names so strangely, that I have not been able to learn who they were.

November 19, 1793.

The English in general, especially of late years, have been taught to entertain very formidable notions of the Bastille and other state prisons of the ancient government, and they were, no doubt, horrid enough; yet I have not hitherto been able to discover that those of the new republic are any way preferable. The only difference is, that the great number of prisoners which, for want of room, are obliged to be heaped together, makes it impossible to exclude them as formerly from communication, and, instead of being maintained at the public expence, they now, with great difficulty, are able to procure wherewithal to eat at their own. Our present habitation is an immense building, about a quarter of a mile from the town, intended originally for the common gaol of the province. The situation is damp and unwholesome, and the water so bad, that I should suppose a long continuance here of such a number of prisoners must be productive of endemical disorders. Every avenue to the house is guarded, and no one is permitted to stop and look up at the windows, under pain of becoming a resident. We are strictly prohibited from all external intercourse, except by writing; and every scrap of paper, though but an order for a dinner, passes the inquisition of three different people before it reaches its destination, and, of course, many letters and notes are mislaid, and never sent at all.--There is no court or garden in which the prisoners are allowed to walk, and the only exercise they can take is in damp passages, or a small yard, (perhaps thirty feet square,) which often smells so detestably, that the atmosphere of the house itself is less mephitic.

Our fellow-captives are a motley collection of the victims of nature, of justice, and of tyranny--of lunatics who are insensible of their situation, of thieves who deserve it, and of political criminals whose guilt is the accident of birth, the imputation of wealth, or the profession of a clergyman. Among the latter is the Bishop of Amiens, whom I recollect to have mentioned in a former letter. You will wonder why a constitutional Bishop, once popular with the democratic party, should be thus treated. The real motive was, probably, to degrade in his person a minister of religion--the ostensible one, a dispute with Dumont at the Jacobin club. As the times grew alarming, the Bishop, perhaps, thought it politic to appear at the club, and the Representative meeting him there one evening, began to interrogate him very rudely with regard to his opinion of the marriage of priests. M. Dubois replied, that when it was officially incumbent on him to explain himself, he would do so, but that he did not think the club a place for such discussions, or something to this purpose. _"Tu prevariques donc!--Je t'arrete sur le champ:"_ ["What, you prevaricate!--I arrest you instantly."] the Bishop was accordingly arrested at the instant, and conducted to the Bicetre, without even being suffered to go home and furnish himself with necessaries; and the seals being immediately put on his effects, he has never been able to obtain a change of linen and clothes, or any thing else--this too at a time when the pensions of the clergy are ill paid, and every article of clothing so dear as to be almost unpurchaseable by moderate fortunes, and when those who might otherwise be disposed to aid or accommodate their friends, abandon them through fear of being implicated in their misfortunes.

But the Bishop, yet in the vigour of life, is better capable of enduring these hardships than most of the poor priests with whom he is associated: the greater number of them are very old men, with venerable grey locks-- and their tattered clerical habits, scanty meals, and wretched beds, give me many an heart-ache. God send the constant sight of so much misery may not render me callous!--It is certain, there are people here, who, whatever their feelings might have been on this occasion at first, seem now little affected by it. Those who are too much familiarized with scenes of wretchedness, as well as those to whom they are unknown, are not often very susceptible; and I am sometimes disposed to cavil with our natures, that the sufferings which ought to excite our benevolence, and the prosperity that enables us to relieve them, should ever have a contrary effect. Yet this is so true, that I have scarcely ever observed even the poor considerate towards each other--and the rich, if they are frequently charitable, are not always compassionate.*

* Our situation at the Bicetre, though terrible for people unused to
hardships or confinement, and in fact, wretched as personal
inconvenience could make it, was yet Elysium, compared to the
prisons of other departments. At St. Omer, the prisoners were
frequently disturbed at midnight by the entrance of men into their
apartments, who, with the detestable ensign of their order, (red
caps,) and pipes in their mouths, came by way of frolic to search
their pockets, trunks, &c.--At Montreuil, the Maisons d'Arret were
under the direction of a Commissary, whose behaviour to the female
prisoners was too atrocious for recital--two young women, in
particular, who refused to purchase milder treatment, were locked up
in a room for seventeen days.--Soon after I left Arras, every prison
became a den of horror. The miserable inhabitants were subject to
the agents of Le Bon, whose avarice, cruelty, and licentiousness,
were beyond any thing a humane mind can imagine. Sometimes the
houses were suddenly surrounded by an armed force, the prisoners
turned out in the depth of winter for several hours into an open
court, during the operation of robbing them of their pocket-books,
buckles, ear-rings, or whatever article of value they had about
them. At other times they were visited by the same military array,
and deprived of their linen and clothes. Their wine and provisions
were likewise taken from them in the same manner--wives were
separated from their husbands, parents from their children, old men
treated with the most savage barbarity, and young women with an
indecency still more abominable. All communication, either by
writing or otherwise, was often prohibited for many days together,
and an order was once given to prevent even the entry of provisions,
which was not revoked till the prisoners became absolutely
distressed. At the Hotel Dieu they were forbidden to draw more than
a single jug of water in twenty-four hours. At the Providence, the
well was left three days without a cord, and when the unfortunate
females confined there procured people to beg water of the
neighbours, they were refused, "because it was for prisoners, and if
Le Bon heard of it he might be displeased!" Windows were blocked
up, not to prevent escape, but to exclude air; and when the general
scarcity rendered it impossible for the prisoners to procure
sufficient food for their support, their small portions were
diminished at the gate, under pretext of searching for letters, &c.
--People, respectable both for their rank and character, were
employed to clean the prisons and privies, while their low and
insolent tyrants looked on and insulted them. On an occasion when
one of the Maisons d'Arrets was on fire, guards were planted round,
with orders to fire upon those that should attempt to escape.--My
memory has but too faithfully recorded these and still greater
horrors; but curiosity would be gratified but too dearly by the
relation. I added the above note some months after writing the
letter to which it is annexed.

Nov. 20.

Besides the gentry and clergy of this department, we have likewise for companions a number of inhabitants of Lisle, arrested under circumstances singularly atrocious, even where atrocity is the characteristic of almost every proceeding.--In the month of August a decree was passed to oblige all the nobility, clergy, and their servants, as well as all those persons who had been in the service of emigrants, to depart from Lisle in eight-and-forty hours, and prohibiting their residence within twenty leagues from the frontiers. Thus banished from their own habitations, they took refuge in different towns, at the prescribed distance; but, almost as soon as they were arrived, and had been at the expence of settling themselves, they were arrested as strangers,* and conducted to prison.

* I have before, I believe, noticed that the term estranger at this
time did not exclusively apply to foreigners, but to such as had
come from one town to another, who were at inns or on a visit to
their friends.

It will not be improper to notice here the conduct of the government towards the towns that have been besieged. Thionville,* to whose gallant defence in 1792 France owed the retreat of the Prussians and the safety of Paris, was afterwards continually reproached with aristocracy; and when the inhabitants sent a deputation to solicit an indemnity for the damage the town had sustained during the bombardment a member of the Convention threatened them from the tribune with "indemnities a coup de baton!" that is, in our vernacular tongue, with a good thrashing.

* Wimpsen, who commanded there, and whose conduct at the time was
enthusiastically admired, was driven, most probably by the
ingratitude and ill treatment of the Convention, to head a party of
the Foederalists.--These legislators perpetually boast of imitating
and surpassing the Romans, and it is certain, that their ingratitude
has made more than one Coriolanus. The difference is, that they are
not jealous for the liberty of the country, but for their own
personal safety.

The inhabitants of Lisle, who had been equally serviceable in stopping the progress of the Austrians, for a long time petitioned without effect to obtain the sums already voted for their relief. The noblesse, and others from thence who have been arrested, as soon as it was known that they were Lillois, were treated with peculiar rigour;* and an _armee revolutionnaire,_** with the Guillotine for a standard, has lately harrassed the town and environs of Lisle, as though it were a conquered country.

* The Commandant of Lisle, on his arrival at the Bicetre, was
stripped of a considerable sum of money, and a quantity of plate he
had unluckily brought with him by way of security. Out of this he
is to be supplied with fifty livres at a time in paper, which,
according to the exchange and the price of every thing, is, I
suppose, about half a guinea.

** The armee revolutionnaire was first raised by order of the
Jacobins, for the purpose of searching the countries for provisions,
and conducting them to Paris. Under this pretext, a levy was made
of all the most desperate ruffians that could be collected together.
They were divided into companies, each with its attendant
Guillotine, and then distributed in the different departments:
they had extraordinary pay, and seem to have been subject to no
discipline. Many of them were distinguished by the representation
of a Guillotine in miniature, and a head just severed, on their
cartouch-boxes. It would be impossible to describe half the
enormities committed by these banditti: wherever they went they were
regarded as a scourge, and every heart shrunk at their approach.
Lecointre, of Versailles, a member of the Convention, complained
that a band of these wretches entered the house of a farmer, one of
his tenants, by night, and, after binding the family hand and foot,
and helping themselves to whatever they could find, they placed the
farmer with his bare feet on the chaffing-dish of hot ashes, by way
of forcing him to discover where he had secreted his plate and
money, which having secured, they set all the vessels of liquor
running, and then retired.

You are not to suppose this a robbery, and the actors common thieves; all was in the usual form--"au nom de la loi," and for the service of the republic; and I do not mention this instance as remarkable, otherwise than as having been noticed in the Convention. A thousand events of this kind, even still more atrocious, have happened; but the sufferers who had not the means of defence as well as of complaint, were obliged, through policy, to be silent.

--The garrison and national guard, indignant at the horrors they committed, obliged them to decamp. Even the people of Dunkirk, whose resistance to the English, while the French army was collecting together for their relief, was perhaps of more consequence than ten victories, have been since intimidated with Commissioners, and Tribunals, and Guillotines, as much as if they had been convicted of selling the town. In short, under this philanthropic republic, persecution seems to be very exactly proportioned to the services rendered. A jealous and suspicious government does not forget, that the same energy of character which has enabled a people to defend themselves against an external enemy, may also make them less submissive to domestic oppression; and, far from repaying them with the gratitude to which they have a claim, it treats them, on all occasions, as opponents, whom it both fears and hates.

Nov. 22. We have been walking in the yard to-day with General Laveneur, who, for an act which in any other country would have gained him credit, is in this suspended from his command.--When Custine, a few weeks before his death, left the army to visit some of the neighbouring towns, the command devolved on Laveneur, who received, along with other official papers, a list of countersigns, which, having probably been made some time, and not altered conformably to the changes of the day, contained, among others, the words Condorcet--Constitution; and these were in their turn given out. On Custine's trial, this was made a part of his accusation. Laveneur, recollecting that the circumstance had happened in the absence of Custine, thought it incumbent on him to take the blame, if there were any, on himself, and wrote to Paris to explain the matter as it really stood; but his candour, without availing Custine, drew persecution on himself, and the only notice taken of his letter was an order to arrest him. After being dragged from one town to another, like a criminal, and often lodged in dungeons and common prisons, he was at length deposited here.

I know not if the General's principles are republican, but he has a very democratic pair of whiskers, which he occasionally strokes, and seems to cherish with much affection. He is, however, a gentleman-like man, and expresses such anxiety for the fate of his wife and children, who are now at Paris, that one cannot but be interested in his favour.--As the agents of the republic never err on the side of omission, they arrested Mons. Laveneur's aid-de-camp with him; and another officer of his acquaintance, who was suspended, and living at Amiens, has shared the same fate, only for endeavouring to procure him a trifling accommodation. This gentleman called on Dumont, to beg that General Laveneur's servant might be permitted to go in and out of the prison on his master's errands. After breakfasting together, and conversing on very civil terms, Dumont told him, that as he concerned himself so much in behalf of his friend, he would send him to keep the latter company, and at the conclusion of his visit he was sent prisoner to the Bicetre.

Perhaps the greater part of between three and four hundred thousand people, now imprisoned on suspicion, have been arrested for reasons as little substantial.

--I begin to fear my health will not resist the hardship of a long continuance here. We have no fire-place, and are sometimes starved with partial winds from the doors and roof; at others faint and heartsick with the unhealthy air produced by so many living bodies. The water we drink is not preferable to the air we breathe; the bread (which is now every where scarce and bad) contains such a mixture of barley, rye, damaged wheat, and trash of all kinds, that, far from being nourished by it, I lose both my strength and appetite daily.--Yet these are not the worst of our sufferings. Shut out from all society, victims of a despotic and unprincipled government capable of every thing, and ignorant of the fate which may await us, we are occasionally oppressed by a thousand melancholy apprehensions. I might, indeed, have boasted of my fortitude, and have made myself an heroine on paper at as small an expence of words as it has cost me to record my cowardice: but I am of an unlucky conformation, and think either too much or too little (I know not which) for a female philosopher; besides, philosophy is getting into such ill repute, that not possessing the reality, the name of it is not worth assuming.

A poor old priest told me just now, (while Angelique was mending his black coat with white thread,) that they had left at the place where they were last confined a large quantity of linen, and other necessaries; but, by the express orders of Dumont, they were not allowed to bring a single article away with them. The keeper, too, it seems, was threatened with dismission, for supplying one of them with a shirt.--In England, where, I believe, you ally political expediency as much as you can with justice and humanity, these cruelties, at once little and refined, will appear incredible; and the French themselves, who are at least ashamed of, if they are not pained by, them, are obliged to seek refuge in the fancied palliative of a "state of revolution."--Yet, admitting the necessity of confining the persons of these old men, there can be none for heaping them together in filth and misery, and adding to the sufferings of years and infirmity by those of cold and want. If, indeed, a state of revolution require such deeds, and imply an apology for them, I cannot but wish the French had remained as they were, for I know of no political changes that can compensate for turning a civilized nation into a people of savages. It is not surely the eating acorns or ragouts, a well-powdered head, or one decorated with red feathers, that constitutes the difference between barbarism and civilization; and, I fear, if the French proceed as they have begun, the advantage of morals will be considerably on the side of the unrefined savages.

The conversation of the prison has been much engaged by the fate of an English gentleman, who lately destroyed himself in a Maison d'Arret at Amiens. His confinement had at first deeply affected his spirits, and his melancholy increasing at the prospect of a long detention, terminated in deranging his mind, and occasioned this last act of despair.--I never hear of suicide without a compassion mingled with terror, for, perhaps, simple pity is too light an emotion to be excited by an event which reminds us, that we are susceptible of a degree of misery too great to be borne--too strong for the efforts of instinct, reflection, and religion. --I could moralize on the necessity of habitual patience, and the benefit of preparing the mind for great evils by a philosophic endurance of little ones; but I am at the Bicetre--the winds whistle round me--I am beset by petty distresses, and we do not expatiate to advantage on endurance while we have any thing to endure.--Seneca's contempt for the things of this world was doubtless suggested in the palace of Nero. He would not have treated the subject so well in disgrace and poverty. Do not suppose I am affecting to be pleasant, for I write in the sober sadness of conviction, that human fortitude is often no better than a pompous theory, founded on self-love and self-deception.