Chapter XIII: Part 13

* _"Ce ne sont point les philosophes qui connoissent le mieux les
hommes. Ils ne les voient qu'a travers les prejuges, et je ne fache
aucun etat ou l'on en ait tant."_--J. J. Rousseau. ["It is not among
philosophers that we are to look for the most perfect knowledge of
human nature.--They view it only through the prejudices of
philosophy, and I know of no profession where prejudices are more
abundant."]

Providence, Jan. 29.

We are now quite domesticated here, though in a very miserable way, without fire, and with our mattresses, on the boards; but we nevertheless adopt the spirit of the country, and a total absence of comfort does not prevent us from amusing ourselves. My friend knits, and draws landscapes on the backs of cards; and I have established a correspondence with an old bookseller, who sends me treatises of chemistry and fortifications, instead of poetry and memoirs. I endeavoured at first to borrow books of our companions, but this resource was soon exhausted, and the whole prison supplied little more than a novel of Florian's, _Le Voyage du jeune Anarcharsis,_ and some of the philosophical romances of Voltaire.--They say it ennuyes them to read; and I observe, that those who read at all, take their books into the garden, and prefer the most crowded walks. These studious persons, who seem to surpass Crambe himself in the faculty of abstraction, smile and bow at every comma, without any appearance of derangement from such frequent interruptions.

Time passes sorrowly, rather than slowly; and my thoughts, without being amused, are employed. The novelty of our situation, the past, the future, all offer so many subjects of reflection, that my mind has more occasion for repose than amusement. My only external resource is conversing with our fellow-prisoners, and learning the causes of their detention. These relations furnish me with a sort of "abstract of the times," and mark the character of the government better than circumstances of more apparent consequence; for what are battles, sieges, and political machinations, but as they ultimately affect the happiness of society? And when I learn that the lives, the liberty, and property of no class are secure from violation, it is not necessary one should be at Paris to form an opinion of this period of the revolution, and of those who conduct it.

The persecution which has hitherto been chiefly directed against the Noblesse, has now a little subsided, and seems turned against religion and commerce. People are daily arrested for assisting at private masses, concealing images, or even for being possessors of religious books. Merchants are sent here as monopolizers, and retailers, under various pretexts, in order to give the committees an opportunity of pillaging their shops. It is not uncommon to see people of the town who are our guards one day, become our fellow-prisoners the next; and a few weeks since, the son of an old gentleman who has been some time here, after being on guard the whole day, instead of being relieved at the usual hour, was joined by his wife and children, under the escort of a couple of dragoons, who delivered the whole family into the custody of our keeper; and this appears to have happened without any other motive than his having presented a petition to Dumont in behalf of his father.

An old man was lately taken from his house in the night, and brought here, because he was said to have worn the cross of St. Louis.--The fact is, however, that he never did wear this obnoxious distinction; and though his daughter has proved this incontrovertibly to Dumont, she cannot obtain his liberty: and the poor young woman, after making two or three fruitless journeys to Paris, is obliged to content herself with seeing her father occasionally at the gate.

The refectory of the convent is inhabited by hospital nuns. Many of the hospitals in France had a sort of religious order annexed to them, whose business it was to attend the sick; and habit, perhaps too the association of the offices of humanity with the duties of religion, had made them so useful in their profession, that they were suffered to remain, even after the abolition of the regular monasteries. But the devastating torrent of the revolution at length reached them: they were accused of bestowing a more tender solicitude on their aristocratic patients than on the wounded volunteers and republicans; and, upon these curious charges, they have been heaped into carts, without a single necessary, almost without covering, sent from one department to another, and distributed in different prisons, where they are perishing with cold, sickness, and want! Some people are here only because they happened to be accidentally at a house when the owner was arrested;* and we have one family who were taken at dinner, with their guests, and the plate they were using!

* It was not uncommon for a mandate of arrest to direct the taking
"Citizen Such-a-one, and all persons found in his house."

A grand-daughter of the celebrated De Witt, who resided thirty leagues from hence, was arrested in the night, put in an open cart, without any regard to her age, her sex, or her infirmities, though the rain fell in torrents; and, after sleeping on straw in different prisons on the road, was deposited here. As a Fleming, the law places her in the same predicament with a very pretty young woman who has lived some months at Amiens; but Dumont, who is at once the maker, the interpreter, and executor of the laws, has exempted the latter from the general proscription, and appears daily with her in public; whereas poor Madame De Witt is excluded from such indulgence, being above seventy years old-- and is accused, moreover, of having been most exemplarily charitable, and, what is still worse, very religious.--I have given these instances not as any way remarkable, and only that you may form some idea of the pretexts which have served to cover France with prisons, and to conduct so many of its inhabitants to the scaffold.

It is impossible to reflect on a country in such a situation, without abhorring the authors of it, and dreading the propagation of their doctrines. I hope they neither have imitators nor admirers in England; yet the convention in their debates, the Jacobins, and all the French newspapers, seem so sanguine in their expectation, and so positive in their assertions of an English revolution, that I occasionally, and in spite of myself, feel a vague but serious solicitude, which I should not have supposed the apprehension of any political evil could inspre. I know the good sense and information of my countrymen offer a powerful resource against the love of change and metaphysical subtilties; but, it is certain, the French government have much depended on the spirit of party, and the zeal of their propagandistes. They talk of a British convention, of a conventional army, and, in short, all France seem prepared to see their neighbours involved in the same disastrous system with themselves. The people are not a little supported in this error by the extracts that are given them from your orators in the House of Commons, which teem with nothing but complaints against the oppression of their own country, and enthusiastic admiration of French liberty. We read and wonder--collate the Bill of Rights with the Code Revolutionnaire, and again fear what we cannot give credit to.

Since the reports I allude to have gained ground, I have been forcibly stricken by a difference in the character of the two nations. At the prospect of a revolution, all the French who could conveniently leave the country, fled; and those that remained (except adventurers and the banditti that were their accomplices) studiously avoided taking any part. But so little are our countrymen affected with this selfish apathy, that I am told there is scarcely one here who, amidst all his present sufferings, does not seem to regret his absence from England, more on account of not being able to oppose this threatened attack on our constitution, than for any personal motive.--The example before them must, doubtless, tend to increase this sentiment of genuine patriotism; for whoever came to France with but a single grain of it in his composition, must return with more than enough to constitute an hundred patriots, whose hatred of despotism is only a principle, and who have never felt its effects.--Adieu.

February 2, 1794.

The factions which have chosen to give France the appellation of a republic, seem to have judged, and with some reason, that though it might answer their purpose to amuse the people with specious theories of freedom, their habits and ideas were far from requiring that these fine schemes should be carried into practice. I know of no example equal to the submission of the French at this moment; and if "departed spirits were permitted to review the world," the shades of Richelieu or Louvois might hover with envy round the Committee of Public Welfare, and regret the undaring moderation of their own politics.

How shall I explain to an Englishman the doctrine of universal requisition? I rejoice that you can imagine nothing like it.--After establishing, as a general principle, that the whole country is at the disposal of government, succeeding decrees have made specific claims on almost every body, and every thing. The tailors, shoemakers,* bakers, smiths, sadlers, and many other trades, are all in requisition--carts, horses, and carriages of every kind, are in requisition--the stables and cellars are put in requisition for the extraction of saltpetre, and the houses to lodge soldiers, or to be converted into prisons.

* In order to prevent frauds, the shoemakers were obliged to make
only square-toed shoes, and every person not in the army was
forbidden to wear them of this form. Indeed, people of any
pretentions to patriotism (that is to say, who were much afraid) did
not venture to wear any thing but wooden shoes; as it had been
declared anti-civique, if not suspicious, to walk in leather.

--Sometimes shopkeepers are forbidden to sell their cloth, nails, wine, bread, meat, &c. There are instances where whole towns have been kept without the necessaries of life for several days together, in consequence of these interdictions; and I have known it proclaimed by beat of drum, that whoever possessed two uniforms, two hats, or two pair of shoes, should relinquish one for the use of the army! Yet with all these efforts of despotism, the republican troops are in many respects ill supplied, the produce being too often converted to the use of the agents of government, who are all Jacobins, and whose peculations are suffered with impunity, because they are too necessary, or perhaps too formidable for punishment.

These proceedings, which are not the less mischievous for being absurd, must end in a total destruction of commerce: the merchant will not import what he may be obliged to sell exclusively to government at an arbitrary and inadequate valuation.--Those who are not imprisoned, and have it in their power, are for the most part retired from business, or at least avoid all foreign speculations; so that France may in a few months depend only on her internal resources. The same measures which ruin one class, serve as a pretext to oppress and levy contributions on the rest.--In order to make this right of seizure still more productive, almost every village has its spies, and the domiciliary visits are become so frequent, that a man is less secure in his own house, than in a desert amidst Arabs. On these occasions, a band of Jacobins, with a municipal officer at their head, enter sans ceremonie, over-run your apartments, and if they find a few pounds of sugar, soap, or any other article which they choose to judge more than sufficient for immediate consumption, they take possession of the whole as a monopoly, which they claim for the use of the republic, and the terrified owner, far from expostulating, thinks himself happy if he escapes so well.--But this is mere vulgar tyranny: a less powerful despotism might invade the security of social life, and banish its comforts. We are prone to suffer, and it requires often little more than the will to do evil to give us a command over the happiness of others. The Convention are more original, and, not satisfied with having reduced the people to the most abject slavery, they exact a semblance of content, and dictate at stated periods the chastisement which awaits those who refuse to smile.

The splendid ceremonies at Paris, which pass for popular rejoicings, merit that appellation less than an auto de fe. Every movement is previously regulated by a Commissioner appointed for the purpose, (to whom en passant these fetes are very lucrative jobs,) a plan of the whole is distributed, in which is prescribed with great exactness, that at such and such parts the people are to "melt into tears," at others they are to be seized with a holy enthusiasm, and at the conclusion of the whole they are to rend the air with the cry of "Vive la Convention!" --These celebrations are always attended by a military force, sufficient to ensure their observance, besides a plentiful mixture of spies to notice refractory countenances or faint acclamations.

The departments which cannot imitate the magnificence of Paris, are obliged, nevertheless, to manifest their satisfaction. At every occasion on which a rejoicing is ordered, the same kind of discipline is preserved; and the aristocrats, whose fears in general overcome their principles, are often not the least zealous attendants.

At the retaking of Toulon, when abandoned by our countrymen, the National Guards were every where assembled to participate in the festivity, under a menace of three days imprisonment. Those persons who did not illuminate their houses were to be considered as suspicious, and treated as such: yet, even with all these precautions, I am informed the business was universally cold, and the balls thinly attended, except by aristocrats and relations of emigrants, who, in some places, with a baseness not excused even by their terrors, exhibited themselves as a public spectacle, and sang the defeats of that country which was armed in their defence.

I must here remark to you a circumstance which does still less honour to the French character; and which you will be unwilling to believe. In several towns the officers and others, under whose care the English were placed during their confinement, were desirous sometimes on account of the peculiar hardship of their situation as foreigners, to grant them little indulgences, and even more liberty than to the French prisoners; and in this they were justified on several considerations, as well as that of humanity.--They knew an Englishman could not escape, whatever facility might be given him, without being immediately retaken; and that if his imprisonment were made severe, he had fewer external resources and alleviations than the natives of the country: but these favourable dispositions were of no avail--for whenever any of our countrymen obtained an accommodation, the jealousy of the French took umbrage, and they were obliged to relinquish it, or hazard the drawing embarrassment on the individual who had served them.

You are to notice, that the people in general, far from being averse to seeing the English treated with a comparative indulgence, were even pleased at it; and the invidious comparisons and complaints which prevented it, proceeded from the gentry, from the families of those who had found refuge in England, and who were involved in the common persecution.--I have, more than once, been reproached by a female aristocrat with the ill success of the English army; and many, with whom I formerly lived on terms of intimacy, would refuse me now the most trifling service.--I have heard of a lady, whose husband and brother are both in London, who amuses herself in teaching a bird to repeat abuse of the English.

It has been said, that the day a man becomes a slave, he loses half his virtue; and if this be true as to personal slavery, judging from the examples before me, I conclude it equally so of political bondage.--The extreme despotism of the government seems to have confounded every principle of right and wrong, every distinction of honour and dishonour and the individual, of whatever class, alive only to the sense of personal danger, embraces without reluctance meanness or disgrace, if it insure his safety.--A tailor or shoemaker, whose reputation perhaps is too bad to gain him a livelihood by any trade but that of a patriot, shall be besieged by the flatteries of people of rank, and have levees as numerous as Choiseul or Calonne in their meridian of power.

When a Deputy of the Convention is sent to a town on mission, sadness takes possession of every heart, and gaiety of every countenance. He is beset with adulatory petitions, and propitiating gifts; the Noblesse who have escaped confinement form a sort of court about his person; and thrice happy is the owner of that habitation at which he condescends to reside.--*

* When a Deputy arrives, the gentry of the town contend with jealous
rivalship for the honour of lodging him; and the most eloquent
eulogist of republican simplicity in the Convention does not fail to
prefer a large house and a good table, even though the unhallowed
property of an aristocrat.--It is to be observed, that these
Missionaries travel in a very patriarchal style, accompanied by
their wives, children, and a numerous train of followers, who are
not delicate in availing themselves of this hospitality, and are
sometimes accused of carrying off the linen, or any thing else
portable--even the most decent behave on these occasions as though
they were at an inn.

--A Representative of gallantry has no reason to envy either the authority of the Grand Signor, or the licence of his seraglio--he is arbiter of the fate of every woman that pleases him; and, it is supposed, that many a fair captive has owed her liberty to her charms, and that the philosophy of a French husband has sometimes opened the doors of his prison.

Dumont, who is married, and has besides the countenance of a white Negro, never visits us without occasioning a general commotion amongst all the females, especially those who are young and pretty. As soon as it is known that he is expected, the toilettes are all in activity, a renovation of rouge and an adjustment of curls take place, and, though performed with more haste, not with less solicitude, than the preparatory splendour of a first introduction.--When the great man arrives, he finds the court by which he enters crowded by these formidable prisoners, and each with a petition in her hand endeavours, with the insidious coquetry of plaintive smiles and judicious tears, that brighten the eye without deranging the features, to attract his notice and conciliate his favour. Happy those who obtain a promise, a look of complacence, or even of curiosity!--But the attention of this apostle of republicanism is not often bestowed, except on high rank, or beauty; and a woman who is old, or ill dressed, that ventures to approach him, is usually repulsed with vulgar brutality--while the very sight of a male suppliant renders him furious. The first half hour he walks about, surrounded by his fair cortege, and is tolerably civil; but at length, fatigued, I suppose by continual importunity, he loses his temper, departs, and throws all the petitions he has received unopened into the fire.

Adieu--the subject is too humiliating to dwell on. I feel for myself, I feel for human nature, when I see the fastidiousness of wealth, the more liberal pride of birth, and the yet more allowable pretensions of beauty, degraded into the most abject submission to such a being as Dumont. Are our principles every where the mere children of circumstance, or is it in this country only that nothing is stable? For my own part I love inflexibility of character; and pride, even when ill founded, seems more respectable while it sustains itself, than concessions which, refused to the suggestions of reason, are yielded to the dictates of fear.--Yours.

February 12, 1794.

I was too much occupied by my personal distresses to make any remarks on the revolutionary government at the time of its adoption. The text of this political phoenomenon must be well known in England--I shall, therefore, confine myself to giving you a general idea of its spirit and tendency,--It is, compared to regular government, what force is to mechanism, or the usual and peaceful operations of nature to the ravages of a storm--it substitutes violence for conciliation, and sweeps with precipitate fury all that opposes its devastating progress. It refers every thing to a single principle, which is in itself not susceptible of definition, and, like all undefined power, is continually vibrating between despotism and anarchy. It is the execrable shape of Milton's Death, "which shape hath none," and which can be described only by its effects.--For instance, the revolutionary tribunal condemns without evidence, the revolutionary committees imprison without a charge, and whatever assumes the title of revolutionary is exonerated from all subjection to humanity, decency, reason, or justice.--Drowning the insurgents, their wives and children, by boatloads, is called, in the dispatch to the Convention, a revolutionary measure--*

* The detail of the horrors committed in La Vendee and at Nantes
were not at this time fully known. Carrier had, however,
acknowledged, in a report read to the Convention, that a boat-load
of refractory priests had been drowned, and children of twelve years
old condemned by a military commission! One Fabre Marat, a
republican General, wrote, about the same period, I think from
Angers, that the Guillotine was too slow, and powder scarce, so that
it was concluded more expedient to drown the rebels, which he calls
a patriotic baptism!--The following is a copy of a letter addressed
to the Mayor of Paris by a Commissary of the Government:

"You will give us pleasure by transmitting the details of your fete at Paris last decade, with the hymns that were sung. Here we all cried _"Vive la Republique!"_ as we ever do, when our holy mother Guillotine is at work. Within these three days she has shaved eleven priests, one _ci-devant_ noble, a nun, a general, and a superb Englishman, six feet high, and as he was too tall by a head, we have put that into the sack! At the same time eight hundred rebels were shot at the Pont du Ce, and their carcases thrown into the Loire!--I understand the army is on the track of the runaways. All we overtake we shoot on the spot, and in such numbers that the ways are heaped with them!"

--At Lyons, it is revolutionary to chain three hundred victims together before the mouths of loaded cannon, and massacre those who escape the discharge with clubs and bayonets;* and at Paris, revolutionary juries guillotine all who come before them.--**

* The Convention formally voted their approbation of this measure,
and Collot d'Herbois, in a report on the subject, makes a kind of
apostrophical panegyric on the humanity of his colleagues. "Which
of you, Citizens, (says he,) would not have fired the cannon? Which
of you would not joyfully have destroyed all these traitors at a
blow?"

** About this time a woman who sold newspapers, and the printer of
them, were guillotined for paragraphs deemed incivique.

--Yet this government is not more terrible than it is minutely vexations. One's property is as little secure as one's existence. Revolutionary committees every where sequestrate in the gross, in order to plunder in detail.*

* The revolutionary committees, when they arrested any one,
pretended to affix seals in form. The seal was often, however, no
other than the private one of some individual employed--sometimes
only a button or a halfpenny, which was broken as often as the
Committee wanted access to the wine or other effects. Camille
Desmoulins, in an address to Freron, his fellow-deputy, describes
with some humour the mode of proceeding of these revolutionary
pilferers:

_"Avant hier, deux Commissaires de la section de Mutius Scaevola, montent chez lui--ils trouvent dans la bibliotheque des livres de droit; et non-obstant le decret qui porte qu'on ne touchera point Domat ni a Charles Dumoulin, bien qu'ils traitent de matieres feodales, ils sont main basse sur la moitie de la bibliotheque, et chargent deux Chrocheteurs des livres paternels. Ils trouvent une pendule, don't la pointe de Paiguille etoit, comme la plupart des pointes d'aiguilles, terminee en trefle: il leur semble que cette pointe a quelque chose d'approchant d'une fleur de lys; et non-obstant le decret qui ordonne de respecter les monumens des arts, il confisquent la pendule.--Notez bien qu'il y avoit a cote une malle sur laquelle etoit l'adresse fleurdelisee du marchand.--Ici il n'y avoit pas moyen de aier que ce fut une belle et bonne fleur de lys; mais comme la malle ne valoit pas un corset, les Commissaires se contentent de rayer les lys, au lieu que la malheureuse pendule, qui vaut bien 1200 livres, est, malgre son trefle, emportee par eux-memes, qui ne se fioient pas aux Chrocheteurs d'un poid si precieux--et ce, en vertu du droit que Barrere a appelle si heureusement le droit de prehension, quoique le decret s'opposat, dans l'espece, a l'application de ce droit.--Enfin, notre decemvirat sectionnaire, qui se mettoit ainsi au-dessus des decrets, trouve le brevet de pension de mon beau-pere, qui, comme tous les brevets de pension, n'etant pas de nature a etre porte sur le grand livre de la republique, etoit demeure dans le porte-feuille, et qui, comme tous les brevets de pension possibles, commencoit par ce protocole; Louis, &c. Ciel! s'ecrient les Commissaires, le nom du tyran!--Et apres avoir retrouve leur haleine, suffoquee d'abord par l'indignation, ils mettent en poche le brevet de pension, c'est a dire 1000 livres de rente, et emportent la marmite. Autre crime, le Citoyen Duplessis, qui etoit premier commis des finances, sous Clugny, avoit conserve, comme c'etoit l'usage, la cachet du controle general d'alors--un vieux porte-feuille de commis, qui etoit au rebut, ouble au dessus d'une armoire, dans un tas de poussiere, et auquel il n'avoit pas touche ne meme pense depuis dix ans peutetre, et sur le quel on parvint a decouvrir l'empreinte de quelques fleurs de lys, sous deux doigts de crasse, acheva de completer la preuve que le Citoyen Duplessis etoit suspect--et la voila, lui, enferme jusqu'a la paix, et le scelle mis sur toutes les portes de cette campagne, ou, tu te souviens, mon cher Freroa--que, decretes tous deux de prise de corps, apres le massacre du Champ de Mars, nous trouvions un asyle que le tyran n'osoit violer."_

"The day before yesterday, two Commissaries belonging to the section of Mutius Scaevola, entered my father-in-law's apartments; they found some law-books in the library, and, notwithstanding the decree which exempts from seizure the works of Domat and Charles Dumouin, (although they treat of feudal matters,) they proceeded to lay violent hands on one half of the collection, and loaded two porters with paternal spoils. The next object that attracted their attention was a clock, the hand of which, like the hands of most other clocks, terminated in a point, in the form of a trefoil, which seemed to them to bear some resemblance to a fleur de lys; and, notwithstanding the decree which ordains that the monuments of the arts shall be respected, they immediately passed sentence of confiscation on the clock. I should observe to you, that hard by lay a portmanteau, having on it the maker's address, encircled with lilies.-- Here there was no disputing the fact, but as the trunk was not worth five livres, the Commissaries contented themselves with erasing the lilies; but the unfortunate clock, being worth twelve hundred, was, notwithstanding its trefoil, carried off by themselves, for they would not trust the porters with so precious a load.--And all this was done in virtue of the law, which Barrere aptly denominated the law of prehension, and which, according to the terms of the decree itself, was not applicable to the case in question.

"At length our sectionary decemvirs, who thus placed themselves above the law, discovered the grant of my father-in-law's pension, which, like all similar grants, being excluded from the privilege of inscription on the great register of public debts, had been left in his port-folio; and which began, as all such grants necessarily must, with the words, Louis, &c. "Heaven!" exclaimed the Commissaries, "here is the very name of the tyrant!" And, as soon as they recovered their breaths, which had been nearly stopped by the violence of the indignation, they coolly pocketed the grant, that is to say, an annuity of one thousand livres, and sent off the porridge-pot. Nor did these constitute all the crimes of Citizen Duplessis, who, having served as first clerk of the revenue board under Clugny, had, as was usual, kept the official seal of that day. An old port-folio, which had been thrown aside, and long forgotten, under a wardrobe, where it was buried in dust, and had, in all probability, not been touched for ten years, but, which with much difficulty, was discovered to bear the impression of a fleur de lys, completed the proof that Citizen Duplessis was a suspicious character. And now behold him shut up in a prison until peace shall be concluded, and the seals put upon all the doors of that country seat, where, you may remember, my dear Freron, that at the time when warrants were issued for apprehending us both, after the massacre in the Champ de Mars, we found an asylum which the tyrant did not dare to violate."

--In a word, you must generally understand, that the revolutionary system supersedes law, religion, and morality; and that it invests the Committees of Public Welfare and General Safety, their agents, the Jacobin clubs, and subsidiary banditti, with the disposal of the whole country and its inhabitants.

This gloomy aera of the revolution has its frivolities as well as the less disastrous periods, and the barbarism of the moment is rendered additionally disgusting by a mixture of levity and pedantry.--It is a fashion for people at present to abandon their baptismal and family names, and to assume that of some Greek or Roman, which the debates of the Convention have made familiar.--France swarms with Gracchus's and Publicolas, who by imaginary assimilations of acts, which a change of manners has rendered different, fancy themselves more than equal to their prototypes.*

* The vicissitudes of the revolution, and the vengeance of party,
have brought half the sages of Greece, and patriots of Rome, to the
Guillotine or the pillory. The Newgate Calendar of Paris contains
as many illustrious names as the index to Plutarch's Lives; and I
believe there are now many Brutus's and Gracchus's in durance vile,
besides a Mutius Scaevola condemned to twenty years imprisonment for
an unskilful theft.--A man of Amiens, whose name is Le Roy,
signified to the public, through the channel of a newspaper, that he
had adopted that of Republic.

--A man who solicits to be the executioner of his own brother ycleps himself Brutus, and a zealous preacher of the right of universal pillage cites the Agrarian law, and signs himself Lycurgus. Some of the Deputies have discovered, that the French mode of dressing is not characteristic of republicanism, and a project is now in agitation to drill the whole country into the use of a Roman costume.--You may perhaps suspect, that the Romans had at least more bodily sedateness than their imitators, and that the shrugs, jerks, and carracoles of a French petit maitre, however republicanized, will not assort with the grave drapery of the toga. But on your side of the water you have a habit of reasoning and deliberating --here they have that of talking and obeying.

Our whole community are in despair to-day. Dumont has been here, and those who accosted him, as well as those who only ventured to interpret his looks, all agree in their reports that he is in a "bad humour."--The brightest eyes in France have supplicated in vain--not one grace of any sort has been accorded--and we begin to cherish even our present situation, in the apprehension that it may become worse.--Alas! you know not of what evil portent is the "bad humour" of a Representant. We are half of us now, like the Persian Lord, feeling if our heads are still on our shoulders.--I could add much to the conclusion of one of my last letters. Surely this incessant solicitude for mere existence debilitates the mind, and impairs even its passive faculty of suffering. We intrigue for the favour of the keeper, smile complacently at the gross pleasantries of a Jacobin, and tremble at the frown of a Dumont.--I am ashamed to be the chronicler of such humiliation: but, "tush, Hal; men, mortal men!" I can add no better apology, and quit you to moralize on it.--Yours.

[No date given.]

Were I a mere spectator, without fear for myself or compassion for others, the situation of this country would be sufficiently amusing. The effects produced (many perhaps unavoidably) by a state of revolution--the strange remedies devised to obviate them--the alternate neglect and severity with which the laws are executed--the mixture of want and profusion that distinguish the lower classes of people--and the distress and humiliation of the higher; all offer scenes so new and unaccountable, as not to be imagined by a person who has lived only under a regular government, where the limits of authority are defined, the necessaries of life plentiful, and the people rational and subordinate. The consequences of a general spirit of monopoly, which I formerly described, have lately been so oppressive, that the Convention thought it necessary to interfere, and in so extraordinary a way, that I doubt if (as usual) "the distemper of their remedies" will not make us regret the original disease. Almost every article, by having passed through a variety of hands, had become enormously dear; which, operating with a real scarcity of many things, occasioned by the war, had excited universal murmurings and inquietude. The Convention, who know the real source of the evil (the discredit of assignats) to be unattainable, and who are more solicitous to divert the clamours of the people, than to supply their wants, have adopted a measure which, according to the present appearances, will ruin one half of the nation, and starve the other. A maximum, or highest price, beyond which nothing is to be sold, is now promulgated under very severe penalties for all who shall infringe it. Such a regulation as this, must, in its nature, be highly complex, and, by way of simplifying it, the price of every kind of merchandise is fixed at a third above what it bore in 1791: but as no distinction is made between the produce of the country, and articles imported--between the small retailer, who has purchased perhaps at double the rate he is allowed to sell at, and the wholesale speculator, this very simplification renders the whole absurd and inexecutable.--The result was such as might have been expected; previous to the day on which the decree was to take place, shopkeepers secreted as many of their goods as they could; and, when the day arrived, the people laid siege to them in crowds, some buying at the maximum, others less ceremonious, and in a few hours little remained in the shop beyond the fixtures. The farmers have since brought neither butter nor eggs to market, the butchers refuse to kill as usual, and, in short, nothing is to be purchased openly. The country people, instead of selling provisions publicly, take them to private houses; and, in addition to the former exorbitant prices, we are taxed for the risk that is incurred by evading the law. A dozen of eggs, or a leg of mutton, are now conveyed from house to house with as much mystery, as a case of fire-arms, or a treasonable correspondence; the whole republic is in a sort of training like the Spartan youth; and we are obliged to have recourse to dexterity and intrigue to procure us a dinner.

Our legislators, aware of what they term the "aristocratie marchande,"-- that is to say, that tradesmen would naturally shut up their shops when nothing was to be gained--provided, by a clause in the above law, that no one should do this in less time than a year; but as the injunction only obliged them to keep the shops open, and not to have goods to sell, every demand is at first always answered in the negative, till a sort of intelligence becomes established betwixt the buyer and seller, when the former, if he may be trusted, is informed in a low key, that certain articles may be had, but not au maximum.--Thus even the rich cannot obtain the necessaries of life without difficulty and submitting to imposition--and the decent poor, who will not pillage nor intimidate the tradesmen, are more embarrassed than ever.

The above species of contraband commerce is carried on, indeed, with great circumspection, and no avowed hostilities are attempted in the towns. The great war of the maximum was waged with the farmers and higlers, as soon as it was discovered that they took their commodities privily to such people as they knew would buy at any price, rather than not be supplied. In consequence, the guards were ordered to stop all refractory butter-women at the gates, and conduct them to the town-house, where their merchandize was distributed, without pity or appeal, au maximum, to those of the populace who could clamour loudest.

These proceedings alarmed the peasants, and our markets became deserted. New stratagems, on one side, new attacks on the other. The servants were forced to supply themselves at private rendezvous in the night, until some were fined, and others arrested; and the searching all comers from the country became more intolerable than the vexations of the ancient Gabelle.--Detachments of dragoons are sent to scour the farm-yards, arrest the farmers, and bring off in triumph whatever the restive housewives have amassed, to be more profitably disposed of.

In this situation we remain, and I suppose shall remain, while the law of the maximum continues in force. The principle of it was certainly good, but it is found impossible to reduce it to practice so equitably as to affect all alike: and as laws which are not executed are for the most part rather pernicious than nugatory, informations, arrests, imposition, and scarcity are the only ends which this measure seems to have answered.

The houses of detention, before insupportable, are now yet more crouded with farmers and shopkeepers suspected of opposing the law.--Many of the former are so ignorant, as not to conceive that any circumstances ought to deprive them of the right to sell the produce of their farms at the highest price they can get, and regard the maximum much in the same light as they would a law to authorize robbing or housebreaking: as for the latter, they are chiefly small dealers, who bought dearer than they have sold, and are now imprisoned for not selling articles which they have not got. An informer by trade, or a personal enemy, lodges an accusation against a particular tradesman for concealing goods, or not selling au maximum; and whether the accusation be true or false, if the accused is not in office, or a Jacobin, he has very little chance of escaping imprisonment.--It is certain, that if the persecution of these classes of people continue, and commerce (already nearly annihilated by the war) be thus shackled, an absolute want of various articles of primary consumption must ensue; but if Paris and the armies can be supplied, the starving the departments will be a mere pleasurable experiment to their humane representatives!

March 1, 1794.

The freedom of the press is so perfectly well regulated, that it is not surprizing we are indulged with the permission of seeing the public papers: yet this indulgence is often, I assure you, a source of much perplexity to me--our more intimate associates know that I am a native of England, and as often as any debates of our House of Commons are published, they apply to me for explanations which it is not always in my power to give them. I have in vain endeavoured to make them comprehend the nature of an opposition from system, so that when they see any thing advanced by a member exactly the reverse of truth, they are wondering how he can be so ill informed, and never suspect him of saying what he does not believe himself. It must be confessed, however, that our extracts from the English papers often form so complete a contrast with facts, that a foreigner unacquainted with the tactics of professional patriotism, may very naturally read them with some surprize. A noble Peer, for example, (whose wisdom is not to be disputed, since the Abbe Mably calls him the English Socrates,*) asserts that the French troops are the best clothed in Europe; yet letters, of nearly the same date with the Earl's speech, from two Generals and a Deputy at the head of different armies intreat a supply of covering for their denudated legions, and add, that they are obliged to march in wooden shoes!**

* It is surely a reflection on the English discernment not to have
adopted this happy appellation, in which, however, as well as in
many other parts of "the rights of Man and the Citizen," the Abbe
seems to have consulted his own zeal, rather than the noble Peer's
modesty.

** If the French troops are now better clothed, it is the effect of
requisitions and pre-emptions, which have ruined the manufacturers.
--Patriots of the North, would you wish to see our soldiers clothed
by the same means?

--On another occasion, your British Sage describes, with great eloquence, the enthusiasm with which the youth of France "start to arms at the call of the Convention;" while the peaceful citizen anticipates, with equal eagerness, the less glorious injunction to extract saltpetre.--The revolts, and the coercion, necessary to enforce the departure of the first levies (however fear, shame, and discipline, may have since made them soldiers, though not republicans) might have corrected the ardour of the orator's inventive talents; and the zeal of the French in manufacturing salpetre, has been of so slow a growth, that any reference to it is peculiarly unlucky. For several months the Convention has recommended, invited, intreated, and ordered the whole country to occupy themselves in the process necessary for obtaining nitre; but the republican enthusiasm was so tardy, that scarcely an ounce appeared, till a long list of sound penal laws, with fines and imprisonments in every line, roused the public spirit more effectually.*

* Two years imprisonment was the punishment assigned to a Citizen
who should be found to obstruct in any way the fabricating
saltpetre. If you had a house that was adjudged to contain the
materials required, and expostulated against pulling it down, the
penalty was incurred.--I believe something of this kind existed
under the old government, the abuses of which are the only parts the
republic seems to have preserved.

--Another cause also has much favoured the extension of this manufacture: 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.