Chapter XVIII: Part 18

--Camille Desmouins, a republican reformer, nearly as sanguinary, though not more liberal, thought the guillotine disgraced by such ignorant prey, and that it were better to hunt them down like wild beasts; or, if made prisoners, to exchange them against the cattle of their country!--The eminently informed Herault de Sechelles was the patron and confidant of the exterminating reforms of Carrier; and Carnot, when the mode of reforming by noyades and fusillades was debated at the Committee, pleaded the cause of Carrier, whom he describes as a good, nay, an excellent patriot.--Merlin de Thionville, whose philosophy is of a more martial cast, was desirous that the natives of La Vendee should be completely annihilated, in order to furnish in their territory and habitations a recompence for the armies.--Almost every member of the Convention has individually avowed principles, or committed acts, from which common turpitude would recoil, and, as a legislative body, their whole code has been one unvarying subversion of morals and humanity. Such are the men who value themselves on possessing all the advantages the Vendeans are pretended to be in want of.--We will now examine what disciples they have produced, and the benefits which have been derived from their instructions.

Every part of France remarkable for an early proselytism to the revolutionary doctrines has been the theatre of crimes unparalleled in the annals of human nature. Those who have most boasted their contempt for religious superstition have been degraded by an idolatry as gross as any ever practiced on the Nile; and the most enthusiastic republicans have, without daring to murmur, submitted for two years successively to a horde of cruel and immoral tyrants.--A pretended enfranchisement from political and ecclesiastical slavery has been the signal of the lowest debasement, and the most cruel profligacy: the very Catechumens of freedom and philosophy have, while yet in their first rudiments, distinguished themselves as proficients in the arts of oppression and servility, of intolerance and licentiousness.--Paris, the rendezvous of all the persecuted patriots and philosophers in Europe, the centre of the revolutionary system, whose inhabitants were illumined by the first rays of modern republicanism, and who claim a sort of property in the rights of man, as being the original inventors, may fairly be quoted as an example of the benefits that would accrue from a farther dissemination of the new tenets.

Without reverting to the events of August and September, 1792, presided by the founders of liberty, and executed by their too apt sectaries, it is notorious that the legions of Paris, sent to chastise the unenlightened Vendeans, were the most cruel and rapacious banditti that ever were let loose to afflict the world. Yet, while they exercised this savage oppression in the countries near the Loire, their fellow-citizens on the banks of the Seine crouched at the frown of paltry tyrants, and were unresistingly dragged to dungeons, or butchered by hundreds on the scaffold.--At Marseilles, Lyons, Bourdeaux, Arras, wherever these baleful principles have made converts, they have made criminals and victims; and those who have been most eager in imbibing or propagating them have, by a natural and just retribution, been the first sacrificed. The new discoveries in politics have produced some in ethics not less novel, and until the adoption of revolutionary doctrines, the extent of human submission or human depravity was fortunately unknown.

In this source of guilt and misery the people of La Vendee are now to be instructed--that people, who are acknowledged to be hospitable, humane, and laborious, and whose ideas of freedom may be better estimated by their resistance to a despotism which the rest of France has sunk under, than by the jargon of pretended reformers.--I could wish, that not only the peasants of La Vendee, but those of all other countries, might for ever remain strangers to such pernicious knowledge. It is sufficient for this useful class of men to be taught the simple precepts of religion and morality, and those who would teach them more, are not their benefactors. Our age is, indeed, a literary age, and such pursuits are both liberal and laudable in the rich and idle; but why should volumes of politics or philosophy be mutilated and frittered into pamphlets, to inspire a disgust for labour, and a taste for study or pleasure, in those to whom such disgusts or inclinations are fatal. The spirit of one author is extracted, and the beauties of another are selected, only to bewilder the understanding, and engross the time, of those who might be more profitably employed.

I know I may be censured as illiberal; but I have, during my abode in this country, sufficiently witnessed the disastrous effects of corrupting a people through their amusements or curiosity, and of making men neglect their useful callings to become patriots and philosophers.*--

*This right of directing public affairs, and neglecting their own,
we may suppose essential to republicans of the lower orders, since
we find the following sentence of transportation in the registers of
a popular commission:

"Bergeron, a dealer in skins--suspected--having done nothing in
favour of the revolution--extremely selfish (egoiste,) and blaming
the Sans-Culottes for neglecting their callings, that they may
attend only to public concerns."--Signed by the members of the
Commission and the two Committees.

--_"Il est dangereux d'apprendre au peuple a raisonner: il ne faut pas l'eclairer trop, parce qu'il n'est pas possible de l'eclairer assez."_ ["It is dangerous to teach the people to reason--they should not be too much enlightened, because it is not possible to enlighten them sufficiently."]--When the enthusiasm of Rousseau's genius was thus usefully submitted to his good sense and knowledge of mankind, he little expected every hamlet in France would be inundated with scraps of the contrat social, and thousands of inoffensive peasants massacred for not understanding the Profession de Foi.

The arguments of mistaken philanthropists or designing politicians may divert the order of things, but they cannot change our nature--they may create an universal taste for literature, but they will never unite it with habits of industry; and until they prove how men are to live without labour, they have no right to banish the chearful vacuity which usually accompanies it, by substituting reflections to make it irksome, and propensities with which it is incompatible.

The situation of France has amply demonstrated the folly of attempting to make a whole people reasoners and politicians--there seems to be no medium; and as it is impossible to make a nation of sages, you let loose a horde of savages: for the philosophy which teaches a contempt for accustomed restraints, is not difficult to propagate; but that superior kind, which enables men to supply them, by subduing the passions that render restraints necessary, is of slow progress, and never can be general.

I have made the war of La Vendee more a subject of reflection than narrative, and have purposely avoided military details, which would be not only uninteresting, but disgusting. You would learn no more from these desultory hostilities, than that the defeats of the republican armies were, if possible, more sanguinary than their victories; that the royalists, who began the war with humanity, were at length irritated to reprisals; and that more than two hundred thousand lives have already been sacrificed in the contest, yet undecided.

Amiens, Oct. 24, 1794.

Revolutions, like every thing else in France, are a mode, and the Convention already commemorate four since 1789: that of July 1789, which rendered the monarchical power nugatory; that of August the 10th, 1792, which subverted it; the expulsion of the Brissotins, in May 1793; and the death of Robespierre, in July 1794.

The people, accustomed, from their earliest knowledge, to respect the person and authority of the King, felt that the events of the two first epochs, which disgraced the one and annihilated the other, were violent and important revolutions; and, as language which expresses the public sentiment is readily adopted, it soon became usual to speak of these events as the revolutions of July and August.

The thirty-first of May has always been viewed in a very different light, for it was not easy to make the people at large comprehend how the succession of Robespierre and Danton to Brissot and Roland could be considered as a revolution, more especially as it appeared evident that the principles of one party actuated the government of the other. Every town had its many-headed monster to represent the defeat of the Foederalists, and its mountain to proclaim the triumph of their enemies the Mountaineers; but these political hieroglyphics were little understood, and the merits of the factions they alluded to little distinguished--so that the revolution of the thirty-first of May was rather a party aera, than a popular one.

The fall of Robespierre would have made as little impression as that of the Girondists, if some melioration of the revolutionary system had not succeeded it; and it is in fact only since the public voice, and the interest of the Convention, have occasioned a change approaching to reform, that the death of Robespierre is really considered as a benefit.

But what was in itself no more than a warfare of factions, may now, if estimated by its consequences, be pronounced a revolution of infinite importance. The Jacobins, whom their declining power only rendered more insolent and daring, have at length obliged the Convention to take decided measures against them, and they are now subject to such regulations as must effectually diminish their influence, and, in the end, dissolve their whole combination. They can no longer correspond as societies, and the mischievous union which constituted their chief force, can scarcely be supported for any time under the present restrictions.*

* "All affiliations, aggregations, and foederations, as well as
correspondences carried on collectively between societies, under
whatever denomination they may exist, are henceforth prohibited, as
being subversive of government, and contrary to the unity of the
republic.

"Those persons who sign as presidents or secretaries, petitions or
addresses in a collective form, shall be arrested and confined as
suspicious, &c. &c.--Whoever offends in any shape against the
present law, will incur the same penalty."

The whole of the decree is in the same spirit. The immediate and
avowed pretext for this measure was, that the popular societies, who
have of late only sent petitions disagreeable to the Convention, did
not express the sense of the people. Yet the deposition of the
King, and the establishment of the republic, had no other sanction
than the adherence of these clubs, who are now allowed not to be the
nation, and whose very existence as then constituted is declared to
be subversive of government.

It is not improbable, that the Convention, by suffering the clubs still to exist, after reducing them to nullity, may hope to preserve the institution as a future resource against the people, while it represses their immediate efforts against itself. The Brissotins would have attempted a similar policy, but they had nothing to oppose to the Jacobins, except their personal influence. Brissot and Roland took part with the clubs, as they approved the massacres of August and September, just as far as it answered their purpose; and when they were abandoned by the one, and the other were found to incur an unprofitable odium, they acted the part which Tallien and Freron act now under the same circumstances, and would willingly have promoted the destruction of a power which had become inimical to them.*--

* Brissot and Roland were more pernicious as Jacobins than the most
furious of their successors. If they did not in person excite the
people to the commission of crimes, they corrupted them, and made
them fit instruments for the crimes of others. Brissot might affect
to condemn the massacres of September in the gross, but he is known
to have enquired with eager impatience, and in a tone which implied
he had reasons for expecting it, whether De Morande, an enemy he
wished to be released from, was among the murdered.

--Their imitators, without possessing more honesty, either political or moral, are more fortunate; and not only Tallien and Freron, who since their expulsion from the Jacobins have become their most active enemies, are now in a manner popular, but even the whole Convention is much less detested than it was before.

It is the singular felicity of the Assembly to derive a sort of popularity from the very excesses it has occasioned or sanctioned, and which, it was natural to suppose, would have consigned it for ever to vengeance or obloquy; but the past sufferings of the people have taught them to be moderate in their expectations; and the name of their representation has been so connected with tyranny of every sort, that it appears an extraordinary forbearance when the usual operations of guillotines and mandates of arrest are suspended.

Thus, though the Convention have not in effect repaired a thousandth part of their own acts of injustice, or done any good except from necessity, they are overwhelmed with applauding addresses, and affectionate injunctions not to quit their post. What is still more wonderful, many of these are sincere; and Tallien, Freron, Legendre, &c. with all their revolutionary enormities on their heads, are now the heroes of the reviving aristocrats.

Situated as things are at present, there is much sound policy in flattering the Convention into a proper use of their power, rather than making a convulsive effort to deprive them of it. The Jacobins would doubtless avail themselves of such a movement; and this is so much apprehended, that it has given rise to a general though tacit agreement to foment the divisions between the Legislature and the Clubs, and to support the first, at least until it shall have destroyed the latter.

The late decrees, which obstruct the intercourse and affiliation of popular societies, may be regarded as an event not only beneficial to this country, but to the world in general; because it is confessed, that these combinations, by means of which the French monarchy was subverted, and the King brought to the scaffold, are only reconcileable with a barbarous and anarchical government.

The Convention are now much occupied on two affairs, which call forth all their "natural propensities," and afford a farther confirmation of this fact--that their feelings and principles are always instinctively at war with justice, however they may find it expedient to affect a regard for it--_C'est la chatte metamorphosee en femme_ [The cat turned into a woman.]--

_"En vain de son train ordinaire"
"On la veut desaccoutumer,
"Quelque chose qu'on puisse faire
"On ne fauroit la reformer."_
La Fontaine.

The Deputies who were imprisoned as accomplices of the Girondists, and on other different pretexts, have petitioned either to be brought to trial or released; and the abominable conduct of Carrier at Nantes is so fully substantiated, that the whole country is impatient to have some steps taken towards bringing him to punishment: yet the Convention are averse from both these measures--they procrastinate and elude the demand of their seventy-two colleagues, who were arrested without a specific charge; while they almost protect Carrier, and declare, that in cases which tend to deprive a Representative of his liberty, it is better to reflect thirty times than once. This is curious doctrine with men who have sent so many people arbitrarily to the scaffold, and who now detain seventy-two Deputies in confinement, they know not why.

The ashes of Rousseau have recently been deposited with the same ceremonies, and in the same place, as those of Marat. We should feel for such a degradation of genius, had not the talents of Rousseau been frequently misapplied; and it is their misapplication which has levelled him to an association with Marat. Rousseau might be really a fanatic, and, though eccentric, honest; yet his power of adorning impracticable systems, it must be acknowledged, has been more mischievous to society than a thousand such gross impostors as Marat.

I have learned since my return from the Providence, the death of Madame Elizabeth. I was ill when it happened, and my friends took some pains to conceal an event which they knew would affect me. In tracing the motives of the government for this horrid action, it may perhaps be sufficiently accounted for in the known piety and virtues of this Princess; but reasons of another kind have been suggested to me, and which, in all likelihood, contributed to hasten it. She was the only person of the royal family of an age competent for political transactions who had not emigrated, and her character extorted respect even from her enemies. [The Prince of Conti was too insignificant to be an object of jealousy in this way.] She must therefore, of course, since the death of the Queen, have been an object of jealousy to all parties. Robespierre might fear that she would be led to consent to some arrangement with a rival faction for placing the King on the throne--the Convention were under similar apprehensions with regard to him; so that the fate of this illustrious sufferer was probably gratifying to every part of the republicans.

I find, on reading her trial, (if so it may be called,) a repetition of one of the principal charges against the Queen--that of trampling on the national colours at Versailles, during an entertainment given to some newly-arrived troops. Yet I have been assured by two gentlemen, perfectly informed on the subject, and who were totally unacquainted with each other, that this circumstance, which has been so usefully enlarged upon, is false,* and that the whole calumny originated in the jealousy of a part of the national guard who had not been invited.

* This infamous calumny (originally fabricated by Lecointre the
linen draper, then an officer of the National Guard, now a member of
the council of 500) was amply confuted by M. Mounier, who was
President of the States-General at the time, in a publication
intitled "_Expose de ma Conduite,_" which appeared soon after the
event--in the autumn of 1789.--Editor.

But this, as well as the taking of the Bastille, and other revolutionary falsehoods, will, I trust, be elucidated. The people are now undeceived only by their calamities--the time may come, when it will be safe to produce their conviction by truth. Heroes of the fourteenth of July, and patriots of the tenth of August, how will ye shrink from it!--Yours, &c.

Amiens, Nov. 2, 1794.

Every post now brings me letters from England; but I perceive, by the suppressed congratulations of my friends, that, though they rejoice to find I am still alive, they are far from thinking me in a state of security. You, my dear Brother, must more particularly have lamented the tedious confinement I have endured, and the inconveniencies to which I have been subjected; I am, however, persuaded that you would not wish me to have been exempt from a persecution in which all the natives of England, who are not a disgrace to their country, as well as some that are so, have shared. Such an exemption would now be deemed a reproach; for, though it must be confessed that few of us have been voluntary sufferers, we still claim the honour of martyrdom, and are not very tolerant towards those who, exposed by their situation, may be supposed to have owed their protection to their principles.

There are, indeed, many known revolutionists and republicans, who, from party disputes, personal jealousies, or from being comprised in some general measure, have undergone a short imprisonment; and these men now wish to be confounded with their companions who are of a different description. But such persons are carefully distinguished;* and the aristocrats have, in their turn, a catalogue of suspicious people--that is, of people suspected of not having been suspicious.

* Mr. Thomas Paine, for instance, notwithstanding his sufferings, is
still thought more worthy of a seat in the Convention or the
Jacobins, than of an apartment in the Luxembourg.--Indeed I have
generally remarked, that the French of all parties hold an English
republican in peculiar abhorrence.

It is now the fashion to talk of a sojourn in a maison d'arret with triumph; and the more decent people, who from prudence or fear had been forced to seek refuge in the Jacobin clubs, are now solicitous to proclaim their real motives. The red cap no longer "rears its hideous front" by day, but is modestly converted into a night-cap; and the bearer of a diplome de Jacobin, instead of swinging along, to the annoyance of all the passengers he meets, paces soberly with a diminished height, and an air not unlike what in England we call sneaking. The bonnet rouge begins likewise to be effaced from flags at the doors; and, as though this emblem of liberty were a very bad neighbour to property, its relegation seems to encourage the re-appearance of silver forks and spoons, which are gradually drawn forth from their hiding-places, and resume their stations at table. The Jacobins represent themselves as being under the most cruel oppression, declare that the members of the Convention are aristocrats and royalists, and lament bitterly, that, instead of fish-women, or female patriots of republican external, the galleries are filled with auditors in flounces and anti-civic top-knots, femmes a fontanges.

These imputations and grievances of the Jacobins are not altogether without foundation. People in general are strongly impressed with an idea that the Assembly are veering towards royalism; and it is equally true, that the speeches of Tallien and Freron are occasionally heard and applauded by fair elegantes, who, two years ago, would have recoiled at the name of either. It is not that their former deeds are forgotten, but the French are grown wise by suffering; and it is politic, when bad men act well, whatever the motive, to give them credit for it, as nothing is so likely to make them persevere, as the hope that their reputation is yet retrievable. On this principle the aristocrats are the eulogists of Tallien, while the Jacobins remind him hourly of the massacres of the priests, and his official conduct as Secretary to the municipality or Paris.*

* Tallien was Seecretary to the Commune of Paris in 1792, and on the
thirty-first of August he appeared at the bar of the Legislative
Assembly with an address, in which he told them "he had caused the
refractory priests to be arrested and confined, and that in a few
days the Land of Liberty should be freed of them."--The massacres of
the prisons began two days after!

As soon as a Representative is convicted of harbouring an opinion unfavourable to pillage or murder, he is immediately declared an aristocrat; or, if the Convention happen for a moment to be influenced by reason or justice, the hopes and fears of both parties are awakened by suspicions that the members are converts to royalism.--For my own part, I believe they are and will be just what their personal security and personal interest may suggest, though it is but a sorry sort of panegyric on republican ethics to conclude, that every one who manifests the least symptom of probity or decency, must of course be a royalist or an aristocrat.

Notwithstanding the harmony which appears to subsist between the Convention and the people, the former is much less popular in detail than in the gross. Almost every member who has been on mission, is accused of dilapidations and cruelties so heinous, that, if they had not been committed by Representans du Peuple, the criminal courts would find no difficulty in deciding upon them.--But as theft or murder does not deprive a member of his privileges, complaints of this nature are only cognizable by the Assembly, which, being yet in its first days of regeneration, is rather scrupulous of defending such amusements overtly. Alarmed, however, at the number, and averse from the precedent of these denunciations, it has now passed a variety of decrees, which are termed a guarantee of the national representation, and which in fact guarantee it so effectually, that a Deputy may do any thing in future with impunity, provided it does not affect his colleagues. There are now so many forms, reports, and examinations, that several months may be employed before the person of a delinquent, however notorious his guilt, can be secured. The existence of a fellow-creature should, doubtless, be attacked with caution; for, though he may have forfeited his claims on our esteem, and even our pity, religion has preserved him others, of which he should not be deprived.--But when we recollect that all these merciful ceremonies are in favour of a Carrier or a Le Bon, and that the King, Madame Elizabeth, and thousands of innocent people, were hurried to execution, without being allowed the consolations of piety or affection, which only a mockery of justice might have afforded them; when, even now, priests are guillotined for celebrating masses in private, and thoughtless people for speaking disrespectfully of the Convention--the heart is at variance with religion and principle, and we regret that mercy is to be the exclusive portion of those who were never accessible to its dictates.*

* The denunciation being first presented to the Assembly, they are
to decide whether it shall be received. If they determine in the
affirmative, it is sent to the three Committees of Legislation,
Public Welfare, and General Safety, to report whether there may be
room for farther examination. In that case, a commission of
twenty-one members is appointed to receive the proofs of the accuser,
and the defence of the accused. These Commissioners, after as long a
delay as they may think fit to interpose, make known their opinion;
and if it be against the accused, the Convention proceed to
determine finally whether the matter shall be referred to the
ordinary tribunal. All this time the culprit is at large, or, at
worst, and merely for the form, carelessly guarded at his own
dwelling.

I would not "pick bad from bad," but it irks one's spirit to see these miscreants making "assurance doubly sure," and providing for their own safety with such solicitude, after sacrificing, without remorse, whatever was most interesting or respectable in the country.--Yours, &c.

Basse-ville, Arras, Nov. 6, 1794.

Since my own liberation, I have been incessantly employed in endeavouring to procure the return of my friends to Amiens; who, though released from prison some time, could not obtain passports to quit Arras. After numerous difficulties and vexations, we have at length succeeded, and I am now here to accompany them home.

I found Mr. and Mrs. D____ much altered by the hardships they have undergone: Mrs. D____, in particular, has been confined some months in a noisome prison called the Providence, originally intended as a house of correction, and in which, though built to contain an hundred and fifty persons, were crouded near five hundred females, chiefly ladies of Arras and the environs.--The superintendance of this miserable place was entrusted to a couple of vulgar and vicious women, who, having distinguished themselves as patriots from the beginning of the revolution, were now rewarded by Le Bon with an office as profitable as it was congenial to their natures.

I know not whether it is to be imputed to the national character, or to that of the French republicans only, but the cruelties which have been committed are usually so mixed with licentiousness, as to preclude description. I have already noticed the conduct of Le Bon, and it must suffice to say, his agents were worthy of him, and that the female prisoners suffered every thing which brutality, rapaciousness, and indecency, could inflict. Mr. D____ was, in the mean time, transferred from prison to prison--the distress of separation was augmented by their mutual apprehensions and pecuniary embarrassments--and I much fear, the health and spirits of both are irretrievably injured.

I regret my impatience in coming here, rather than waiting the arrival of my friends at home; for the changes I observe, and the recollections they give birth to, oppress my heart, and render the place hateful to me.--All the families I knew are diminished by executions, and their property is confiscated--those whom I left in elegant hotels are now in obscure lodgings, subsisting upon the superfluities of better days--and the sorrows of the widows and orphans are increased by penury; while the Convention, which affects to condemn the crimes of Le Bon, is profiting by the spoils of his victims.

I am the more deeply impressed by these circumstances, because, when I was here in 1792, several who have thus fallen, though they had nothing to reproach themselves with, were yet so much intimidated as to propose emigrating; and I then was of opinion, that such a step would be impolitic and unnecessary. I hope and believe this opinion did not influence them, but I lament having given it, for the event has proved that a great part of the emigrants are justifiable. It always appeared to me so serious and great an evil to abandon one's country, that when I have seen it done with indifference or levity, I may perhaps have sometimes transferred to the measure itself a sentiment of disapprobation, excited originally by the manner of its adoption. When I saw people expatiate with calmness, and heard them speak of it as a means of distinguishing themselves, I did not sufficiently allow for the tendency of the French to make the best of every thing, or the influence of vanity on men who allow it to make part of the national characteristic: and surely, if ever vanity were laudable, that of marking a detestation for revolutionary principles, and an attachment to loyalty and religion, may justly be considered so. Many whom I then accused of being too lightly affected by the prospect of exile, might be animated by the hope of personally contributing to the establishment of peace and order, and rescuing their country from the banditti who were oppressing it; and it is not surprising that such objects should dazzle the imagination and deceive the judgment in the choice of measures by which they were to be obtained.

The number of emigrants from fashion or caprice is probably not great; and whom shall we now dare to include under this description, when the humble artizan, the laborious peasant, and the village priest, have ensanguined the scaffold destined for the prince or the prelate?--But if the emigrants be justifiable, the refugees are yet more so.

By Emigrants, I mean all who, without being immediately in danger, left their country through apprehension of the future--from attachment to the persons of the Princes, or to join companions in the army whom they might deem it a disgrace to abandon.--Those whom I think may with truth be styled Refugees, are the Nobility and Priests who fled when the people, irritated by the literary terrorists of the day, the Brissots, Rolands, Camille Desmoulins, &c. were burning their chateaux and proscribing their persons, and in whom expatriation cannot properly be deemed the effect of choice. These, wherever they have sought an asylum, are entitled to our respect and sympathy.

Yet, I repeat, we are not authorized to discriminate. There is no reasoning coldly on the subject. The most cautious prudence, the most liberal sacrifices, and the meanest condescensions, have not insured the lives and fortunes of those who ventured to remain; and I know not that the absent require any other apology than the desolation of the country they have quitted. Had my friends who have been slaughtered by Le Bon's tribunal persisted in endeavouring to escape, they might have lived, and their families, though despoiled by the rapacity of the government, have been comparatively happy.*

* The first horrors of the revolution are well known, and I have
seen no accounts which exaggerate them. The niece of a lady of my
acquaintance, a young woman only seventeen, escaped from her
country-house (whilst already in flames) with her infant at her
breast, and literally without clothes to cover her. In this state
she wandered a whole night, and when she at length reached a place
where she procured assistance, was so exhausted that her life was in
danger.--Another lady, whom I knew, was wounded in the arm by some
peasants assembled to force from her the writings of her husband's
estates. Even after this they still remained in France, submitted
with cheerfulness to all the demands of patriotic gifts, forced
loans, requisitions and impositions of every kind; yet her husband
was nevertheless guillotined, and the whole of their immense
property confiscated.

Retrospections, like these, obliterate many of my former notions on the subject of the Emigrants; and if I yet condemn emigration, it is only as a general measure, impolitic, and inadequate to the purposes for which it was undertaken. But errors of judgment, in circumstances so unprecedented, cannot be censured consistently with candour, through we may venture to mark them as a discouragement to imitation; for if any nation should yet be menaced by the revolutionary scourge, let it beware of seeking external redress by a temporary abandonment of its interests to the madness of systemists, or the rapine of needy adventurers. We must, we ought to, lament the fate of the many gallant men who have fallen, and the calamities of those who survive; but what in them has been a mistaken policy, will become guilt in those who, on a similar occasion, shall not be warned by their example. I am concerned when I hear these unhappy fugitives are any where objects of suspicion or persecution, as it is not likely that those who really emigrated from principle can merit such treatment: and I doubt not, that most of the instances of treachery or misconduct ascribed to the Emigrants originated in republican emissaries, who have assumed that character for the double purpose of discrediting it, and of exercising their trade as spies.

The common people here, who were retained by Le Bon for several months to attend and applaud his executions, are still dissolute and ferocious, and openly regret the loss of their pay, and the disuse of the guillotine.

--I came to Arras in mourning, which I have worn since the receipt of your first letter, but was informed by the lady with whom my friends lodge, that I must not attempt to walk the streets in black, for that it was customary to insult those who did so, on a supposition that they were related to some persons who had been executed; I therefore borrowed a white undress, and stole out by night to visit my unfortunate acquaintance, as I found it was also dangerous to be seen entering houses known to contain the remains of those families which had been dismembered by Le Bon's cruelties.

We return to Amiens to-morrow, though you must not imagine so formidable a person as myself is permitted to wander about the republic without due precaution; and I had much difficulty in being allowed to come, even attended by a guard, who has put me to a considerable expence; but the man is civil, and as he has business of his own to transact in the town, he is no embarrassment to me.

Amiens, Nov. 26, 1794.

The Constituent Assembly, the Legislative Assembly, and the National Convention, all seem to have acted from a persuasion, that their sole duty as revolutionists was comprised in the destruction of whatever existed under the monarchy. If an institution were discovered to have the slightest defect in principle, or to have degenerated a little in practice, their first step was to abolish it entirely, and leave the replacing it for the present to chance, and for the future to their successors. In return for the many new words which they have introduced into the French language, they have expunged that of reform; and the havock and devastation, which a Mahometan conqueror might have performed as successfully, are as yet the only effects of philosophy and republicanism.

This system of ignorance and violence seems to have persecuted with peculiar hostility all the ancient establishments for education; and the same plan of suppressing daily what they have neither leisure nor abilities to supply, which I remarked to you two years ago, has directed the Convention ever since. It is true, the interval has produced much dissertation, and engendered many projects; but those who were so unanimous in rejecting, were extremely discordant in adopting, and their own disputes and indecision might have convinced them of their presumption in condemning what they now found it so difficult to excel. Some decided in favour of public schools, after the example of Sparta-- this was objected to by others, because, said they, if you have public schools you must have edifices, and governors, and professors, who will, to a certainty, be aristocrats, or become so; and, in short, this will only be a revival of the colleges of the old government--A third party proposed private seminaries, or that people might be at liberty to educate their children in the way they thought best; but this, it was declared, would have a still greater tendency to aristocracy; for the rich, being better able to pay than the poor, would engross all the learning to themselves. The Jacobins were of opinion, that there should be no schools, either public or private, but that the children should merely be taken to hear the debates of the Clubs, where they would acquire all the knowledge necessary for republicans; and a few spirits of a yet sublimer cast were adverse both to schools or clubs, and recommended, that the rising generation should "study the great book of Nature alone." It is, however, at length concluded, that there shall be a certain number of public establishments, and that people shall even be allowed to have their children instructed at home, under the inspection of the constituted authorities, who are to prevent the instillation of aristocratic principles.*

* We may judge of the competency of many of these people to be
official censors of education by the following specimens from a
report of Gregoire's. Since the rage for destruction has a little
subsided, circular letters have been sent to the administrators of
the departments, districts, &c. enquiring what antiquities, or other
objects of curiosity, remain in their neighbourhood.--"From one,
(says Gregoire,) we are informed, that they are possessed of nothing
in this way except four vases, which, as they have been told, are of
porphyry. From a second we learn, that, not having either forge or
manufactory in the neighbourhood, no monument of the arts is to be
found there: and a third announces, that the completion of its
library cataloges has been retarded, because the person employed at
them ne fait pas la diplomatique!"--("does not understand the
science of diplomacy.")

The difficulty as to the mode in which children were to be taught being got over, another remained, not less liable to dispute--which was, the choice of what they were to learn. Almost every member had a favourite article---music, physic, prophylactics, geography, geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, natural history, and botany, were all pronounced to be requisites in an eleemosynary system of education, specified to be chiefly intended for the country people; but as this debate regarded only the primary schools for children in their earliest years, and as one man for a stipend of twelve hundred livres a year, was to do it all, a compromise became necessary, and it has been agreed for the present, that infants of six years shall be taught only reading, writing, gymnastics, geometry, geography, natural philosophy, and history of all free nations, and that of all the tyrants, the rights of man, and the patriotic songs. --Yet, after these years of consideration, and days of debate, the Assembly has done no more than a parish-clerk, or an old woman with a primer, and "a twig whilom of small regard to see," would do better without its interference.

The students of a more advanced age are still to be disposed of, and the task of devising an institution will not be easy; because, perhaps a Collot d'Herbois or a Duhem is not satisfied with the system which perfectioned the genius of Montesquieu or Descartes. Change, not improvement, is the object--whatever bears a resemblance to the past must be proscribed; and while other people study to simplify modes of instruction, the French legislature is intent on rendering them as difficult and complex as possible; and at the moment they decree that the whole country shall become learned, they make it an unfathomable science to teach urchins of half a dozen years old their letters.

Foreigners, indeed, who judge only from the public prints, may suppose the French far advanced towards becoming the most erudite nation in Europe: unfortunately, all these schools, primary, and secondary, and centrical, and divergent, and normal,* exist as yet but in the repertories of the Convention, and perhaps may not add "a local habitation" to their names, till the present race** shall be unfit to reap the benefit of them.

* _Les Ecoles Normales_ were schools where masters were to be
instructed in the art of teaching. Certain deputies objected to
them, as being of feudal institution, supposing that Normale had
some reference to Normandy.

** This was a mistake, for the French seem to have adopted the
maxim, "that man is never too old to learn;" and, accordingly, at
the opening of the Normal schools, the celebrated Bougainville, now
eighty years of age, became a pupil. This Normal project was,
however, soon relinquished--for by that fatality which has hitherto
attended all the republican institutions, it was found to have
become a mere nursery for aristocrats.

But this revolutionary barbarism, not content with stopping the progress of the rising generation, has ravaged without mercy the monuments of departed genius, and persecuted with senseless despotism those who were capable of replacing them. Pictures have been defaced, statues mutilated, and libraries burnt, because they reminded the people of their Kings or their religion; while artists, and men of science or literature, were wasting their valuable hours in prison, or expiring on the scaffold.--The moral and gentle Florian died of vexation. A life of abstraction and utility could not save the celebrated chymist, Lavoisier, from the Guillotine. La Harpe languished in confinement, probably, that he might not eclipse Chenier, who writes tragedies himself; and every author that refused to degrade his talents by the adulation of tyranny has been proscribed and persecuted. Palissot,* at sixty years old, was destined to expiate in a prison a satire upon Rousseau, written when he was only twenty, and escaped, not by the interposition of justice, but by the efficacity of a bon mot.

* Palissot was author of "The Philosophers," a comedy, written
thirty years ago, to ridicule Rousseau. He wrote to the
municipality, acknowledged his own error, and the merits of
Rousseau; yet, says he, if Rousseau were a god, you ought not to
sacrifice human victims to him.--The expression, which in French is
well tuned, pleased the municipality, and Palissot, I believe, was
not afterwards molested.

--A similar fate would have been awarded Dorat, [Author of "Les Malheurs de l'Inconstance," and other novels.] for styling himself Chevalier in the title-pages of his novels, had he not commuted his punishment for base eulogiums on the Convention, and with the same pen, which has been the delight of the French boudoir, celebrated Carrier's murders on the Loire under the appellation of "baptemes civiques." Every province in France, we are informed by the eloquent pedantry of Gregoire, exhibits traces of these modern Huns, which, though now exclusively attributed to the agents of Robespierre and Mr. Pitt,* it is very certain were authorized by the decrees of the Convention, and executed under the sanction of Deputies on mission, or their subordinates.

* _"Soyez sur que ces destructions se sont pour la plupart a
l'instigation de nos ennemis--quel triomphe pour l'Anglais si il eul
pu ecraser notre commerce par l'aneantissement des arts dont la
culture enrichit le sien."_--"Rest assured that these demolitions
were, for the most part, effected at the instigation of our enemies
--what a triumph would it have been for the English, if they had
succeeded in crushing our commerce by the annihilation of the arts,
the culture of which enriched their own."

--If the principal monuments of art be yet preserved to gratify the national taste or vanity, it is owing to the courage and devotion of individuals, who obeyed with a protecting dilatoriness the destructive mandates of government.

At some places, orangeries were sold by the foot for fire-wood, because, as it was alledged, that republicans had more occasion for apples and potatoes than oranges.--At Mousseaux, the seals were put on the hot-houses, and all the plants nearly destroyed. Valuable remains of sculpture were condemned for a crest, a fleur de lys, or a coronet attached to them; and the deities of the Heathen mythology were made war upon by the ignorance of the republican executioners, who could not distinguish them from emblems of feodality.*

* At Anet, a bronze stag, placed as a fountain in a large piece of
water, was on the point of being demolished, because stags are
beasts of chace, and hunting is a feodal privilege, and stags of
course emblems of feodality.--It was with some difficulty preserved
by an amateur, who insisted, that stags of bronze were not included
in the decree.--By a decree of the Convention, which I have formerly
mentioned, all emblems of royalty or feodality were to be demolished
by a particular day; and as the law made no distinction, it could
not be expected that municipalities, &c. often ignorant or timid,
should either venture or desire to spare what in the eyes of the
connoisseur might be precious.

"At St. Dennis, (says the virtuoso Gregoire,) where the National
Club justly struck at the tyrants even in their tombs, that of
Turenne ought to have been spared; yet strokes of the sword are
still visible on it."--He likewise complains, that at the Botanic
Garden the bust of Linnaeus had been destroyed, on a presumption of
its being that of Charles the Ninth; and if it had been that of
Charles the Ninth, it is not easy to discern how the cause of
liberty was served by its mutilation.--The artist or moralist
contemplates with equal profit or curiosity the features of Pliny or
Commodus; and History and Science will appreciate Linnaeus and
Charles the Ninth, without regarding whether their resemblances
occupy a palace, or are scattered in fragments by republican
ignorance.--Long after the death of Robespierre, the people of
Amiens humbly petitioned the Convention, that their cathedral,
perhaps the most beautiful Gothic edifice in Europe, might be
preserved; and to avoid giving offence by the mention of churches or
cathedrals, they called it a Basilique.--But it is unnecessary to
adduce any farther proof, that the spirit of what is now called
Vandalism originated in the Convention. Every one in France must
recollect, that, when dispatches from all corners announced these
ravages, they were heard with as much applause, as though they had
related so many victories gained over the enemy.

--Quantities of curious medals have been melted down for the trifling value of the metal; and at Abbeville, a silver St. George, of uncommon workmanship, and which Mr. Garrick is said to have desired to purchase at a very high price, was condemned to the crucible--

_"----Sur tant de tresors
"Antiques monumens respectes jusqu'alors,
"Par la destruction signalant leur puissance,
"Las barbares etendirent leur stupide vengeance."
"La Religion,"_ Racine.

Yet the people in office who operated these mischiefs were all appointed by the delegates of the Assembly; for the first towns of the republic were not trusted even with the choice of a constable. Instead, therefore, of feeling either surprise or regret at this devastation, we ought rather to rejoice that it has extended no farther; for such agents, armed with such decrees, might have reduced France to the primitive state of ancient Gaul. Several valuable paintings are said to have been conveyed to England, and it will be curious if the barbarism of France in the eighteenth century should restore to us what we, with a fanaticism and ignorance at least more prudent than theirs, sold them in the seventeenth. The zealots of the Barebones' Parliament are, however, more respectable than the atheistical Vandals of the Convention; and, besides the benefit of our example, the interval of a century and an half, with the boast of a philosophy and a degree of illumination exceeding that of any other people, have rendered the errors of the French at once more unpardonable and more ridiculous; for, in assimilating their past presentations to their present conduct and situation, we do not always find it possible to regret without a mixture of contempt.

Amiens, Nov. 29, 1794.

The selfish policy of the Convention in affecting to respect and preserve the Jacobin societies, while it deprived them of all power, and help up the individuals who composed them to abhorrence, could neither satisfy nor deceive men versed in revolutionary expedients, and more accustomed to dictate laws than to submit to them.*

* The Jacobins were at this time headed by Billaud Varenne, Collot,
Thuriot, &c.--veterans, who were not likely to be deceived by
temporizing.

Supported by all the force of government, and intrinsically formidable by their union, the Clubs had long existed in defiance of public reprobation, and for some time they had braved not only the people, but the government itself. The instant they were disabled from corresponding and communicating in that privileged sort of way which rendered them so conspicuous, they felt their weakness; and their desultory and unconnected efforts to regain their influence only served to complete its annihilation. While they pretended obedience to the regulations to which the Convention had subjected them, they intrigued to promote a revolt, and were strenuously exerting themselves to gain partizans among the idle and dissolute, who, having subsisted for months as members of revolutionary committees, and in other revolutionary offices, were naturally averse from a more moderate government. The numbers of these were far from inconsiderable: and, when it is recollected that this description of people only had been allowed to retain their arms, while all who had any thing to defend were deprived of them, we cannot wonder if the Jacobins entertained hopes of success.

The Convention, aware of these attempts, now employed against its ancient accomplices the same arts that had proved so fatal to all those whom it had considered as its enemies. A correspondence was "opportunely" intercepted between the Jacobins and the Emigrants in Switzerland, while emissaries insinuated themselves into the Clubs, for the purpose of exciting desperate motions; or, dispersed in public places, contrived, by assuming the Jacobin costume, to throw on the faction the odium of those seditious exclamations which they were employed to vociferate.

There is little doubt that the designs of the Jacobins were nearly such as have been imputed to them. They had, however, become more politic than to act thus openly, without being prepared to repel their enemies, or to support their friends; and there is every appearance that the Swiss plots, and the insurrections of the _Palais Egalite,_ were the devices of the government, to give a pretext for shutting up the Club altogether, and to avert the real dangers with which it was menaced, by spreading an alarm of fictitious ones. A few idle people assembled (probably on purpose) about the _Palais Egalite,_ and the place where the Jacobins held their meetings, and the exclamation of "Down with the Convention!" served as the signal for hostilities. The aristocrats joined the partizans of the Convention, the Jacobins were attacked in their hall, and an affray ensued, in which several persons on each side were wounded. Both parties accused each other of being the aggressor, and a report of the business was made to the Assembly; but the Assembly had already decided--and, on the ninth of November, while the Jacobins were endeavouring to raise the storm by a recapitulation of the rights of man, a decree was passed, prohibiting their debates, and ordering the national seal to be put on their doors and papers. The society were not in force to make resistance, and the decree was carried into execution as quietly as though it had been levelled against the hotel of some devoted aristocrat.

When the news of this event reached the departments, it occasioned an universal rejoicing--not such a rejoicing as is ordered for the successes of the French arms, (which always seems to be a matter of great indifference,) but a chearfulness of heart and of countenance; and many persons whom I do not remember to have ever seen in the least degree moved by political events, appeared sincerely delighted at this--

"And those smile now, who never smil'd before,
"And those who always smil'd, now smile the more."
Parnell's Claudian.

The armies might proceed to Vienna, pillage the Escurial, or subjugate all Europe, and I am convinced no emotion of pleasure would be excited equal to that manifested at the downfall of the Jacobins of Paris.

Since this disgrace of the parent society, the Clubs in the departments have, for the most part, dissolved themselves, or dwindled into peaceable assemblies to hear the news read, and applaud the convention.--The few Jacobin emblems which were yet remaining have totally disappeared, and no vestige of Jacobinism is left, but the graves of its victims, and the desolation of the country.