Chapter XXII: Part 22

When we enquired if the Citizen was at home, a servant, not in livery, informed us Monsieur was dressing, but that if we would walk in, he would let Monsieur know we were there. We passed through a dining parlour, where we saw the remains of a dessert, coffee, &c. and were assailed by the odours of a plentiful repast. As we entered the saloon, we heard the servant call at the door of an adjoining parlour, _"Monsieur, voici deux Citoyennes et un Citoyen qui vous demandent."_ ["Sir, here are two female citizens and one male citizen enquiring for you."] When Monsieur appeared, he apologized with an air of graciousness for the impossibility he had been under of getting my friend's affairs arranged--protested he was _accable_ [Oppressed..]--that he had scarcely an instant at his own disposal--that _enfin_ the responsibility of people in office was so terrible, and the fatigue so _assommante,_ [Overpowering.] that nothing but the purest _civism,_ and a heart _penetre de l'amour de la patrie,_ [Penetrated with the love of his country.] could enable him to persevere in the task imposed on him. As for the papers we required, he would endeavour to find them, though his cabinet was really so filled with petitions and certificates of all sorts, _que des malheureux lui avoient addresses,_ [Addressed to him by unfortunate people.] that it would not be very easy to find them at present; and, with this answer, which we should have smiled at from M. de Choiseul or Sartine, we were obliged to be satisfied. We then talked of the news of the day, and he lamented that the aristocrats were still restless and increasing in number, and that notwithstanding the efforts of the Convention to diffuse a spirit of philosophy, it was too evident there was yet much fanaticism among the people.

As we rose to depart, Madame entered, dressed for visiting, and decorated with bracelets on her wrists and above her elbows, medallions on her waists and neck, and, indeed, finery wherever it could possibly be bestowed. We observed her primitive condition of a waiting-woman still operated, and that far from affecting the language of her husband, she retained a great deference for rank, and was solicitous to insinuate that she was secretly of a superior way of thinking. As we left the room together, she made advances to an acquaintance with my companions (who were people of condition); and having occasion to speak to a person at the door, as she uttered the word _Citoyen_ she looked at us with an expression which she intended should imply the contempt and reluctance with which she made use of it.

I have in general remarked, that the republicans are either of the species I have just been describing, waiters, jockies, gamblers, bankrupts, and low scribblers, living in great splendour, or men taken from laborious professions, more sincere in their principles, more ignorant and brutal--and who dissipate what they have gained in gross luxury, because they have been told that elegance and delicacy are worthy only of Sybarites, and that the Greeks and Romans despised both. These patriots are not, however, so uninformed, nor so disinterested, as to suppose they are to serve their country without serving themselves; and they perfectly understand, that the rich are their legal patrimony, and that it is enjoined them by their mission to pillage royalists and aristocrats.*

--Yours.

* Garat observes, it was a maxim of Danton, _"Que ceux qui fesaient
les affaires de la republique devaient aussi faireles leurs,"_ that
who undertook the care of the republic should also take care of
themselves. This tenet, however, seems common to the friends of
both.

Paris, June 6, 1795.

I had scarcely concluded my last, when I received advice of the death of Madame de la F--------; and though I have, almost from the time we quitted the Providence, thought she was declining, and that such an event was probable, it has, nevertheless, both shocked and grieved me.

Exclusively of her many good and engaging qualities, which were reasonable objects of attachment, Madame de la F-------- was endeared to me by those habits of intimacy that often supply the want of merit, and make us adhere to our early friendships, even when not sanctioned by our maturer judgment. Madame de la F-------- never became entirely divested of the effects of a convent education; but if she retained a love of trifling amusements, and a sort of infantine gaiety, she likewise continued pious, charitable, and strictly attentive not only to the duties, but to the decorum, essential in the female character and merits of this sort are, I believe, now more rare than those in which she might be deemed deficient.

I was speaking of her this morning to a lady of our acquaintance, who acquiesced in my friendly eulogiums, but added, in a tone of superiority, _"C'etoit pourtant une petite femme bien minutieuse_--she always put me out of patience with her birds and her flowers, her levees of poor people, and her persevering industry in frivolous projects." My friend was, indeed, the most feminine creature in the world, and this is a flippant literary lady, who talks in raptures of the Greeks and Romans, calls Rousseau familiarly Jean Jaques, frisks through the whole circle of science at the Lyceum, and has an utter contempt both for personal neatness and domestic oeconomy. How would Madame de Sevigne wonder, could she behold one of these modern belles esprits, with which her country, as well as England, abounds? In our zeal for reforming the irregular orthography and housewifely penmanship of the last century, we are all become readers, and authors, and critics. I do not assert, that the female mind is too much cultivated, but that it is too generally so; and that we encourage a taste for attainments not always compatible with the duties and occupations of domestic life. No age has, I believe, produced so many literary ladies as the present;* yet I cannot learn that we are at all improved in morals, or that domestic happiness is more universal than when, instead of writing sonnets to dew-drops or daisies,** we copied prayers and recipes, in spelling similar to that of Stowe or Hollingshed.

* Let me not be supposed to undervalue the female authors of the
present day. There are some who, uniting great talents with
personal worth, are justly entitled to our respect and admiration.
The authoress of "Cecilia," or the Miss Lees, cannot be confounded
with the proprietors of all the Castles, Forests, Groves, Woods,
Cottages, and Caverns, which are so alluring in the catalogue of a
circulating library.

** Mrs. Smith's beautiful Sonnets have produced sonnetteers for
every object in nature, visible or invisible; and her elegant
translations of Petrarch have procured the Italian bard many an
English dress that he would have been ashamed to appear in.

--We seem industrious to make every branch of education a vehicle for inspiring a premature taste for literary amusements; and our old fashioned moral adages in writing-books are replaced by scraps from "Elegant Extracts," while print-work and embroidery represent scenes from poems or novels. I allow, that the subjects formerly pourtrayed by the needle were not pictoresque, yet, the tendency considered, young ladies might as well employ their silk or pencils in exhibiting Daniel in the lions' den, or Joseph and his brethren, as Sterne's Maria, or Charlotte and Werter.

You will forgive this digression, which I have been led into on hearing the character of Madame de la F-------- depreciated, because she was only gentle and amiable, and did not read Plutarch, nor hold literary assemblies. It is, in truth, a little amende I owe her memory, for I may myself have sometimes estimated her too lightly, and concluded my own pursuits more rational than hers, when possibly they were only different. Her death has left an impression on my mind, which the turbulence of Paris is not calculated to soothe; but the short time we have to stay, and the number of people I must see, oblige me to conquer both my regret and my indolence, and to pass a great part of the day in running from place to place.

I have been employed all this morning in executing some female commissions, which, of course, led me to milliners, mantua-makers, &c. These people now recommend fashions by saying one thing is invented by Tallien's wife, and another by Merlin de Thionville, or some other Deputy's mistress; and the genius of these elegantes has contrived, by a mode of dressing the hair which lengthens the neck, and by robes with an inch of waist, to give their countrywomen an appearance not much unlike that of a Bar Gander.

I saw yesterday a relation of Madame de la F--------, who is in the army, and whom I formerly mentioned as having met when we passed through Dourlens. He was for some months suspended, and in confinement, but is now restored to his rank, and ordered on service. He asked me if I ever intended to visit France again. I told him I had so little reason to be satisfied with my treatment, that I did not imagine I should.--"Yes, (returned he,) but if the republic should conquer Italy, and bring all its treasures to Paris, as has lately been suggested in the Convention, we shall tempt you to return, in spite of yourself."*

*The project of pillaging Italy of its most valuable works of art
was suggested by the philosophic Abbe Gregoire, a constitutional
Bishop, as early as September 1794, because, as he alledged, the
chefs d'ouvres of the Greek republic ought not to embellish a
country of slaves.

--I told him, I neither doubted their intending such a scheme, nor the possibility of its success, though it was not altogether worthy of philosophers and republicans to wage war for Venus's and Appollos, and to sacrifice the lives of one part of their fellow-citizens, that the rest might be amused with pictures and statues.--"That's not our affair (says Monsieur de --------). Soldiers do not reason. And if the Convention should have a fancy to pillage the Emperor of China's palace, I see no remedy but to set sail with the first fair wind,"--"I wish, (said his sister, who was the only person present,) instead of being under such orders, you had escaped from the service." "Yes, (returned the General quickly,) and wander about Europe like Dumouriez, suspected and despised by all parties." I observed, Dumouriez was an adventurer, and that on many accounts it was necessary to guard against him. He said, he did not dispute the necessity or even the justice of the conduct observed towards him, but that nevertheless I might be assured it had operated as an effectual check to those who might, otherwise, have been tempted to follow Dumouriez's example; "And we have now (added he, in a tone between gaiety and despair,) no alternative but obedience or the guillotine."--I have transcribed the substance of this conversation, as it confirms what I have frequently been told, that the fate of Dumouriez, however merited, is one great cause why no desertion of importance has since taken place.

I was just now interrupted by a noise and shouting near my window, and could plainly distinguish the words Scipio and Solon uttered in a tone of taunt and reproach. Not immediately comprehending how Solon or Scipio could be introduced in a fray at Paris, I dispatched Angelique to make enquiry; and at her return I learned that a croud of boys were following a shoemaker of the neighbourhood, who, while he was member of a revolutionary Committee, had chosen to unite in his person the glories of both Rome and Greece, of the sword and gown, and had taken unto himself the name of Scipio Solon. A decree of the Convention some weeks since enjoined all such heroes and sages to resume their original appellations, and forbade any person, however ardent his patriotism, to distinguish himself by the name of Brutus, Timoleon, or any other but that which he derived from his Christian parents. The people, it seems, are not so obedient to the decree as those whom it more immediately concerns; and as the above-mentioned Scipio Solon had been detected in various larcenies, he is not allowed to quit his shop without being reproached with his thefts, and his Greek and Roman appellations.

--I am, &c.

Paris, June 8, 1795.

Yesterday being Sunday, and to-day the Decade, we have had two holidays successively, though, since the people have been more at liberty to manifest their opinions, they give a decided preference to the Christian festival over that of the republic.*

* This was only at Paris, where the people, from their number, are
less manageable, and of course more courageous. In the departments,
the same cautious timidity prevailed, and appeared likely to
continue.

--They observe the former from inclination, and the latter from necessity; so that between the performance of their religious duties, and the sacrifice to their political fears, a larger portion of time will be deducted from industry than was gained by the suppression of the Saints' days. The Parisians, however, seem to acquiesce very readily in this compromise, and the philosophers of the Convention, who have so often declaimed against the idleness occasioned by the numerous fetes of the old calendar, obstinately persist in the adoption of a new one, which increases the evil they pretend to remedy.

If the people are to be taken from their labour for such a number of days, it might as well be in the name of St. Genevieve or St. Denis, as of the Decade, and the Saints'-days have at least this advantage, that the forenoons are passed in churches; whereas the republican festivals, dedicated one to love, another to stoicism, and so forth, not conveying any very determinate idea, are interpreted to mean only an obligation to do nothing, or to pass some supernumerary hours at the cabaret. [Alehouse.]

I noticed with extreme pleasure yesterday, that as many of the places of public worship as are permitted to be open were much crouded, and that religion appears to have survived the loss of those exterior allurements which might be supposed to have rendered it peculiarly attractive to the Parisians. The churches at present, far from being splendid, are not even decent, the walls and windows still bear traces of the Goths (or, if you will, the philosophers,) and in some places service is celebrated amidst piles of farage, sacks, casks, or lumber appertaining to the government--who, though they have by their own confession the disposal of half the metropolis, choose the churches in preference for such purposes.*

* It has frequently been asserted in the Convention, that by
emigrations, banishments, and executions, half Paris had become the
property of the public.

--Yet these unseemly and desolate appearances do not prevent the attendance of congregations more numerous, and, I think, more fervent, than were usual when the altars shone with the offerings of wealth, and the walls were covered with the more interesting decorations of pictures and tapestry.

This it is not difficult to account for. Many who used to perform these religious duties with negligence, or indifference, are now become pious, and even enthusiastic--and this not from hypocrisy or political contradiction, but from a real sense of the evils of irreligion, produced by the examples and conduct of those in whom such a tendency has been most remarkable.--It must, indeed, be acknowledged, that did Christianity require an advocate, a more powerful one need not be found, than in a retrospect of the crimes and sufferings of the French since its abolition.

Those who have made fortunes by the revolution (for very few have been able to preserve them) now begin to exhibit equipages; and they hope to render the people blind to this departure from their visionary systems of equality, by foregoing the use of arms and liveries--as if the real difference between the rich and the poor was not constituted rather by essential accommodation, than extrinsic embellishments, which perhaps do not gratify the eyes of the possessor a second time, and are, probably of all branches of luxury, the most useful. The livery of servants can be of very little importance, whether morally or politically considered--it is the act of maintaining men in idleness, who might be more profitably employed, that makes the keeping a great number exceptionable; nor is a man more degraded by going behind a carriage with a hat and feather, than with a bonnet de police, or a plain beaver; but he eats just as much, and earns just as little, equipped as a Carmagnole, as though glittering in the most superb gala suit.*

* In their zeal to imitate the Roman republicans, the French seem to
forget that a political consideration very different from the love
of simplicity, or an idea of the dignity of man, made the Romans
averse from distinguishing their slaves by any external indication.
They were so numerous that it was thought impolitic to furnish them
with such means of knowing their own strength in case of a revolt.

The marks of service cannot be more degrading than service itself; and it is the mere chicane of philosophy to extend reform only to cuffs and collars, while we do not dispense with the services annexed to them. A valet who walks the street in his powdering jacket, disdains a livery as much as the fiercest republican, and with as much reason--for there is no more difference between domestic occupation performed in one coat or another, than there is between the party-coloured habit and the jacket.

If the luxury of carriages be an evil, it must be because the horses employed in them consume the produce of land which might be more beneficially cultivated: but the gilding, fringe, salamanders, and lions, in all their heraldic positions, afford an easy livelihood to manufacturers and artisans, who might not be capable of more laborious occupations.

I believe it will generally be found, that most of the republican reforms are of this description--calculated only to impose on the people, and disguising, by frivolous prohibitions, their real inutility. The affectation of simplicity in a nation already familiarized with luxury, only tends to divert the wealth of the rich to purposes which render it more destructive. Vanity and ostentation, when they are excluded from one means of gratification, will always seek another; and those who, having the means, cannot distinguish themselves by ostensible splendour, will often do so by domestic profusion.*

* "Sectaries (says Walpole in his Anecdotes of Painting, speaking of
the republicans under Cromwell) have no ostensible enjoyments; their
pleasures are private, comfortable and gross. The arts of civilized
society are not calculated for men who mean to rise on the ruins of
established order." Judging by comparison, I am persuaded these
observations are yet more applicable to the political, than the
religious opinions of the English republicans of that period; for,
in these respects, there is no difference between them and the
French of the present day, though there is a wide one between an
Anabaptist and the disciples of Boulanger and Voltaire.

--Nor can it well be disputed, that a gross luxury is more pernicious than an elegant one; for the former consumes the necessaries of life wantonly, while the latter maintains numerous hands in rendering things valuable by the workmanship which are little so in themselves.

Every one who has been a reflecting spectator of the revolution will acknowledge the justice of these observations. The agents and retainers of government are the general monopolizers of the markets, and these men, who are enriched by peculation, and are on all occasions retailing the cant phrases of the Convention, on the _purete des moeurs republicains, et la luxe de la ci-devant Noblesse,_ [The purity of republican manners, and the luxury of the ci-devant Noblesse.] exhibit scandalous exceptions to the national habits of oeconomy, at a time too when others more deserving are often compelled to sacrifice even their essential accommodations to a more rigid compliance with them.*

* Lindet, in a report on the situation of the republic, declares,
that since the revolution the consumption of wines and every article
of luxury has been such, that very little has been left for
exportation. I have selected the following specimens of republican
manners, from many others equally authentic, as they may be of some
utility to those who would wish to estimate what the French have
gained in this respect by a change of government.

"In the name of the French people the Representatives sent to
Commune Affranchie (Lyons) to promote the felicity of its
inhabitants, order the Committee of Sequestration to send them
immediately two hundred bottles of the best wine that can be
procured, also five hundred bottles of claret, of prime quality, for
their own table. For this purpose the commission are authorized to
take of the sequestration, wherever the above wine can be found.

Done at Commune Affranchie, thirteenth Nivose, second year.
(Signed) "Albitte,
"Fouche,
"Deputies of the National Convention."

Extract of a denunciation of Citizen Boismartin against Citizen
Laplanche, member of the National Convention:

"The twenty-fourth of Brumaire, in the second year of the republic,
the Administrators of the district of St. Lo gave orders to the
municipality over which I at that time presided, to lodge the
Representative of the people, Laplanche, and General Siphert, in the
house of Citizen Lemonnier, who was then under arrest at Thorigni.
In introducing one of the founders of the republic, and a French
General, into this hospitable mansion, we thought to put the
property of our fellow-citizen under the safeguard of all the
virtues; but, alas, how were we mistaken! They had no sooner
entered the house, than the provisions of every sort, the linen,
clothes, furniture, trinkets, books, plate, carriages, and even
title-deeds, all disappeared; and, as if they purposely insulted our
wretchedness, while we were reduced to the sad necessity of
distributing with a parsimonious hand a few ounces of black bread to
our fellow-citizens, the best bread, pillaged from Citizen
Lemonnier, was lavished by buckets full to the horses of General
Siphert, and the Representative Laplanche.--The Citizen Lemonnier,
who is seventy years of age, having now recovered his liberty, which
he never deserved to lose, finds himself so entirely despoiled, that
he is at present obliged to live at an inn; and, of property to the
amount of sixty thousand livres, he has nothing left but a single
spoon, which he took with him when carried to one of the Bastilles
in the department de la Manche."

The chief defence of Laplanche consisted in allegations that the
said Citizen Lemonnier was rich, and a royalist, and that he had
found emblems of royalism and fanaticism about the house.

At the house of one of our common friends, I met --------, and so little did I imagine that he had escaped all the revolutionary perils to which he had been exposed, that I could almost have supposed myself in the regions of the dead, or that he had been permitted to quit them, for his being alive scarcely seemed less miraculous or incredible. As I had not seen him since 1792, he gave me a very interesting detail of his adventures, and his testimony corroborates the opinion generally entertained by those who knew the late King, that he had much personal courage, and that he lost his crown and his life by political indecision, and an humane, but ill-judged, unwillingness to reduce his enemies by force. He assured me, the Queen might have been conveyed out of France previous to the tenth of August, if she would have agreed to leave the King and her children behind; that she had twice consulted him on the subject; but, persisting in her resolution not to depart unaccompanied by her family, nothing practicable could be devised, and she determined to share their fate.*

* The gentleman here alluded to has great talents, and is
particularly well acquainted with some of the most obscure and
disastrous periods of the French revolution. I have reason to
believe, whenever it is consistent with his own safety, he will, by
a genuine relation, expose many of the popular falsehoods by which
the public have been misled.

This, as well as many other instances of tenderness and heroism, which distinguished the Queen under her misfortunes, accord but ill with the vices imputed to her; and were not such imputations encouraged to serve the cause of faction, rather than that of morality, these inconsistencies would have been interpreted in her favour, and candour have palliated or forgotten the levities of her youth, and remembered only the sorrows and the virtues by which they were succeeded.

I had, in compliance with your request on my first arrival in France, made a collection of prints of all the most conspicuous actors in the revolution; but as they could not be secreted so easily as other papers, my fears overcame my desire of obliging you, and I destroyed them successively, as the originals became proscribed or were sacrificed. Desirous of repairing my loss, I persuaded some friends to accompany me to a shop, kept by a man of whom they frequently purchased, and whom, as his principles were known to them, I might safely ask for the articles I wanted. He shook his head, while he ran over my list, and then told me, that having preferred his safety to his property, he had disposed of his prints in the same way I had disposed of mine. "At the accession of a new party, (continued he,) I always prepare for a domiciliary visit, clear my windows and shelves of the exploded heads, and replace them by those of their rivals. Nay, I assure you, since the revolution, our trade is become as precarious as that of a gamester. The Constitutionalists, indeed, held out pretty well, but then I was half ruined by the fall of the Brissotins; and, before I could retrieve a little by the Hebertists and Dantonists, the too were out of fashion."-- "Well, but the Robespierrians--you must have gained by them?"--"Why, true; Robespierre and Marat, and Chalier, answered well enough, because the royalists generally placed them in their houses to give themselves an air of patriotism, yet they are gone after the rest.--Here, however, (says he, taking down an engraving of the Abbe Sieyes,) is a piece of merchandize that I have kept through all parties, religions, and constitutions--_et le voila encore a la mode,_ ["And now you see him in fashion again."] mounted on the wrecks, and supported by the remnants of both his friends and enemies. _Ah! c'est un fin matois."_ ["Ah! He's a knowing one."]

This conversation passed in a gay tone, though the man added, very seriously, that the instability of popular factions, and their intolerance towards each other, had obliged him to destroy to the amount of some thousand livres, and that he intended, if affairs did not change, to quit business.

Of all the prints I enquired for, I only got Barrere, Sieyes, and a few others of less note. Your last commissions I have executed more successfully, for though the necessaries of life are almost unpurchaseable, articles of taste, books, perfumery, &c. are cheaper than ever. This is unfortunately the reverse of what ought to be the case, but the augmentation in the price of provisions is to be accounted for in various ways, and that things of the description I allude to do not bear a price in proportion is doubtless to be attributed to the present poverty of those who used to be the purchasers of them; while the people who are become rich under the new government are of a description to seek for more substantial luxuries than books and essences.--I should however observe, that the venders of any thing not perishable, and who are not forced to sell for their daily subsistence, are solicitous to evade every demand for any article which is to be paid for in assignats.

I was looking at some trinkets in a shop at the Palais Royal, and on my asking the mistress of it if the ornaments were silver, she smiled significantly, and replied, she had nothing silver nor gold in the shop, but if I chose to purchase _en espece,_ she would show me whatever I desired: _"Mais pour le papier nous n'en avons que trop."_ ["In coin, but for paper we have already too much of it."]

Many of the old shops are nearly empty, and the little trade which yet exists is carried on by a sort of adventurers who, without being bred to any one trade, set up half a dozen, and perhaps disappear three months afterwards. They are, I believe, chiefly men who have speculated on the assignats, and as soon as they have turned their capital in a mercantile way a short time, become apprehensive of the paper, realize it, and retire; or, becoming bankrupts by some unlucky monopoly, begin a new career of patriotism.

There is, properly speaking, no money in circulation, yet a vast quantity is bought and sold. Annuitants, possessors of moderate landed property, &c., finding it impossible to subsist on their incomes, are forced to have recourse to the little specie they have reserved, and exchange it for paper. Immense sums in coin are purchased by the government, to make good the balance of their trade with the neutral countries for provisions, so that I should suppose, if this continue a few months, very little will be left in the country.

One might be tempted to fancy there is something in the atmosphere of Paris which adapts the minds of its inhabitants to their political situation. They talk of the day appointed for a revolt a fortnight before, as though it were a fete, and the most timid begin to be inured to a state of agitation and apprehension, and to consider it as a natural vicissitude that their lives should be endangered periodically.

A commission has been employed for some time in devising another new constitution, which is to be proposed to the Assembly on the thirteenth of this month; and on that day, it is said, an effort is to be made by the royalists. They are certainly very numerous, and the interest taken in the young King is universal. In vain have the journalists been forbidden to cherish these sentiments, by publishing details concerning him: whatever escapes the walls of his prison is circulated in impatient whispers, and requires neither printing nor gazettes a la main to give it publicity.*

* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence
which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written
gazettes.--I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them
at present.

--The child is reported to be ill, and in a kind of stupefaction, so as to sit whole days without speaking or moving: this is not natural at his age, and must be the consequence of neglect, or barbarous treatment.

The Committees of Government, and indeed most of the Convention who have occasionally appeared to give tacit indications of favouring the royalists, in order to secure their support against the Jacobins, having now crushed the latter, begin to be seriously alarmed at the projects of the former.--Sevestre, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, has announced that a formidable insurrection may be expected on the twenty-fifth of Prairial, (thirteenth June,) the Deputies on mission are ordered to return, and the Assembly propose to die under the ruins of the republic. They have, notwithstanding, judged it expedient to fortify these heroic dispositions by the aid of a military force, and a large number of regular troops are in Paris and the environs. We shall certainly depart before this menacing epoch: the application for our passports was made on our first arrival, and Citizen Liebault, Principal of the Office for Foreign Affairs, who is really very civil, has promised them in a day or two.

Our journey here was, in fact, unnecessary; but we have few republican acquaintance, and those who are called aristocrats do not execute commission of this kind zealously, nor without some apprehensions of committing themselves.--You will wonder that I find time to write to you, nor do I pretend to assume much merit from it. We have not often courage to frequent public places in the evening, and, when we do, I continually dread some unlucky accident: either a riot between the Terrorists and Muscadins, within, or a military investment without. The last time we were at the theatre, a French gentleman, who was our escort, entered into a trifling altercation with a rude vulgar-looking man, in the box, who seemed to speak in a very authoritative tone, and I know not how the matter might have ended, had not a friend in the next box silenced our companion, by conveying a penciled card, which informed him the person he was disputing with was a Deputy of the Convention. We took an early opportunity of retreating, not perfectly at ease about the consequences which might ensue from Mr. -------- having ventured to differ in opinion from a Member of the Republican Legislature. Since that time we have passed our evenings in private societies, or at home; and while Mr. D-------- devours new pamphlets, and Mrs. D-------- and the lady we lodge with recount their mutual sufferings at Arras and St. Pelagie, I take the opportunity of writing.

--Adieu.

Paris, June 12, 1795.

The hopes and fears, plots and counterplots, of both royalists and republicans, are now suspended by the death of the young King. This event was announced on Tuesday last, and since that time the minds and conversation of the public have been entirely occupied by it. Latent suspicion, and regret unwillingly suppressed, are every where visible; and, in the fond interest taken in this child's life, it seems to be forgotten that it is the lot of man "to pass through nature to eternity," and that it was possible for him to die without being sacrificed by human malice.

All that has been said and written on original equality has not yet persuaded the people that the fate of Kings is regulated only by the ordinary dispensations of Providence; and they seem to persist in believing, that royalty, if it has not a more fortunate pre-eminence, is at least distinguished by an unusual portion of calamities.

When we recollect the various and absurd stories which have been propagated and believed at the death of Monarchs or their offspring, without even a single ground either political or physical to justify them, we cannot now wonder, when so many circumstances of every kind tend to excite suspicion, that the public opinion should be influenced, and attribute the death of the King to poison. The child is allowed to have been of a lively disposition, and, even long after his seclusion from his family, to have frequently amused himself by singing at the window of his prison, until the interest he was observed to create in those who listened under it, occasioned an order to prevent him. It is therefore extraordinary, that he should lately have appeared in a state of stupefaction, which is by no means a symptom of the disorder he is alledged to have died of, but a very common one of opiates improperly administered.*

* In order to account in some way for the state in which the young
King had lately appeared, it was reported that he had been in the
habit of drinking strong liquors to excess. Admitting this to be
true, they must have been furnished for him, for he could have no
means of procuring them.--It is not inapposite to record, that on a
petition being formerly presented to the legislature from the
Jacobin societies, praying that the "son of the tyrant" might be put
to death, an honourable mention in the national bulletin was
unanimously decreed!!!

Though this presumption, if supported by the evidence of external appearances, may seem but of little weight; when combined with others, of a moral and political nature, it becomes of considerable importance. The people, long amused by a supposed design of the Convention to place the Dauphin on the throne, were now become impatient to see their wishes realized; or, they hoped that a renewal of the representative body, which, if conducted with freedom, must infallibly lead to the accomplishment of this object, would at least deliver them from an Assembly which they considered as exhausted in talents and degraded in reputation.--These dispositions were not attempted to be concealed; they were manifested on all occasions: and a general and successful effort in favour of the Royal Prisoner was expected to take place on the thirteenth.*

* That there were such designs, and such expectations on the part of
the people, is indubitable. The following extract, written and
signed by one of the editors of the _Moniteur,_ is sufficiently
expressive of the temper of the public at this period; and I must
observe here, that the _Moniteur_ is to be considered as nearly
equivalent to an official paper, and is always supposed to express
the sense of government, by whom it is supported and paid, whatever
party or system may happen to prevail:

_"Les esperances les plus folles se manifestent de toutes parts.--
C'est a qui jettera plus promptement le masque--on dirait, a lire
les ecrits qui paraissent, a entendre les conversations des gens qui
se croient dans les confidences, que c'en est fait de la republique:
la Convention, secondee, poussee meme par le zele et l'energie des
bons citoyens a remporte une grande victoire sur les Terroristes,
sur les successeurs de Robespierre, il semble qu'elle n'ait plus
qu'a proclamer la royaute. Ce qui donne lieu a toutes les
conjectures plus ou moins absurdes aux quelles chacun se livre,
c'est l'approche du 25 Prairial."_ (13th June, the day on which the
new constitution was to be presented).

"The most extravagant hopes, and a general impatience to throw off
the mask are manifested on all sides.--To witness the publications
that appear, and to hear what is said by those who believe
themselves in the secret, one would suppose that it was all over
with the republic.--The Convention seconded, impelled even, by the
good citizens, has gained a victory over the Terrorists and the
successors of Robespierre, and now it should seem that nothing
remained to be done by to proclaim royalty--what particularly gives
rise to these absurdities, which exist more or less in the minds of
all, is the approach of the 25th Prairial."
_Moniteur,_ June 6, 1795.

Perhaps the majority of the Convention, under the hope of securing impunity for their past crimes, might have yielded to the popular impulse; but the government is no longer in the hands of those men who, having shared the power of Robespierre before they succeeded him, might, as Rabaut St. Etienne expressed himself, "be wearied of their portion of tyranny."*

* -"Je suis las de la portion de tyrannie que j'exerce."---"I am
weary of the portion of tyranny which I exercise."
Rabaut de St. Etienne

--The remains of the Brissotins, with their newly-acquired authority, have vanity, interest, and revenge, to satiate; and there is no reason to suppose that a crime, which should favour these views, would, in their estimation, be considered otherwise than venial. To these are added Sieyes, Louvet, &c. men not only eager to retain their power, but known to have been of the Orleans faction, and who, if they are royalists, are not loyalists, and the last persons to whose care a son of Louis the Sixteenth ought to have been intrusted.

At this crisis, then, when the Convention could no longer temporize with the expectations it raised--when the government was divided between one party who had deposed the King to gratify their own ambition, and another who had lent their assistance in order to facilitate the pretensions of an usurper--and when the hopes of the country were anxiously fixed on him, died Louis the Seventeenth. At an age which, in common life, is perhaps the only portion of our existence unalloyed by misery, this innocent child had suffered more than is often the lot of extended years and mature guilt. He lived to see his father sent to the scaffold--to be torn from his mother and family--to drudge in the service of brutality and insolence--and to want those cares and necessaries which are not refused even to the infant mendicant, whose wretchedness contributes to the support of his parents.*

* It is unnecessary to remind the reader, that the Dauphin had been
under the care of one Simon, a shoemaker, who employed him to clean
his (Simon's) shoes, and in any other drudgery of which his close
confinement admitted.

--When his death was announced to the Convention, Sevestre, the reporter, acknowledged that Dessault, the surgeon, had some time since declared the case to be dangerous; yet, notwithstanding policy as well as humanity required that every appearance of mystery and harshness should, on such an occasion, be avoided, the poor child continued to be secluded with the same barbarous jealousy--nor was the Princess, his sister, whose evidence on the subject would have been so conclusive, ever suffered to approach him.

No report of Dessault's opinion had till now been made public; and Dessault himself, who was an honest man, died of an inflammatory disorder four days before the Dauphin.--It is possible, he might have expressed himself too freely, respecting his patient, to those who employed him-- his future discretion might be doubted--or, perhaps, he was only called in at first, that his character might give a sanction to the future operations of those who were more confided in. But whether this event is to be ascribed to natural causes, or to that of opiates, the times and circumstances render it peculiarly liable to suspicions, and the reputation of those who are involved, is not calculated to repel them. Indeed, so conscious are the advocates of government, that the imputation cannot be obviated by pleading the integrity of the parties, that they seem to rest their sole defence on the inutility of a murder, which only transfers whatever rights the House of Bourbon may be supposed to possess, from one branch of it to another. Yet those who make use of this argument are well aware of its fallaciousness: the shades of political opinion in France are extremely diversified, and a considerable part of the Royalists are also Constitutionalists, whom it will require time and necessity to reconcile to the emigrant Princes. But the young King had neither enemies nor errors--and his claims would have united the efforts and affections of all parties, from the friends of the monarchy, as it existed under Louis the Fourteenth, down to the converted Republican, who compromises with his principles, and stipulates for the title of Perpetual President.

That the removal of this child has been fortunate for those who govern, is proved by the effect: insurrections are no longer talked of, the royalists are confounded, the point of interest is no more, and a sort of despondency and confusion prevails, which is highly favourable to a continuance of the present system.--There is no doubt, but that when men's minds become more settled, the advantage of having a Prince who is capable of acting, and whose success will not be accompanied by a long minority, will conciliate all the reflecting part of the constitutional royalists, in spite of their political objections. But the people who are more under the influence of their feelings, and yield less to expediency, may not, till urged by distress and anarchy, be brought to take the same interest in the absent claimant of the throne, that they did in their infant Prince.

It is to be regretted, that an habitual and unconquerable deference for the law which excludes females from the Crown of France, should have survived monarchy itself; otherwise the tender compassion excited by the youth, beauty and sufferings of the Princess, might yet have been the means of procuring peace to this distracted country. But the French admire, lament, and leave her to her fate--

"O, shame of Gallia, in one sullen tower
"She wets with royal tears her daily cell;
"She finds keen anguish every rose devour,
"They spring, they bloom, then bid the world farewell.
"Illustrious mourner! will no gallant mind
"The cause of love, the cause of justice own?
"Such claims! such charms! And is no life resign'd
"To see them sparkle from their parent throne?"

How inconsistent do we often become through prejudices! The French are at this moment governed by adventurers and courtezans--by whatever is base, degraded, or mean, in both sexes; yet, perhaps, would they blush to see enrolled among their Sovereigns an innocent and beautiful Princess, the descendant of Henry the Fourth.

Nothing since our arrival at Paris has seemed more strange than the eagerness with which every one recounts some atrocity, either committed or suffered by his fellow-citizens; and all seem to conclude, that the guilt or shame of these scenes is so divided by being general, that no share of either attaches to any individual. They are never tired of the details of popular or judicial massacres; and so zealous are they to do the honours of the place, that I might, but for disinclination on my part, pass half my time in visiting the spots where they were perpetrated. It was but to-day I was requested to go and examine a kind of sewer, lately described by Louvet, in the Convention, where the blood of those who suffered at the Guillotine was daily carried in buckets, by men employed for the purpose.*

* "At the gate of St. Antoine an immense aqueduct had been
constructed for the purpose of carrying off the blood that was shed
at the executions, and every day four men were employed in taking it
up in buckets, and conveying it to this horrid reservoir of
butchery."
Louvet's Report, 2d May.

--These barbarous propensities have long been the theme of French satyrists; and though I do not pretend to infer that they are national, yet certainly the revolution has produced instances of ferocity not to be paralleled in any country that ever had been civilized, and still less in one that had not.*

* It would be too shocking, both to decency and humanity, to recite
the more serious enormities alluded to; and I only add, to those I
have formerly mentioned, a few examples which particularly describe
the manners of the revolution.--

At Metz, the heads of the guillotined were placed on the tops of
their own houses. The Guillotine was stationary, fronting the
Town-house, for months; and whoever was observed to pass it with
looks of disapprobation, was marked as an object of suspicion. A
popular Commission, instituted for receiving the revolutionary tax
at this place, held their meetings in a room hung with stripes of
red and black, lighted only with sepulchral lamps; and on the desk
was placed a small Guillotine, surrounded by daggers and swords. In
this vault, and amidst this gloomy apparatus, the inhabitants of
Metz brought their patriotic gifts, (that is, the arbitrary and
exorbitant contributions to which they were condemned,) and laid
them on the altar of the Guillotine, like the sacrifice of fear to
the infernal deities; and, that the keeping of the whole business
might be preserved, the receipts were signed with red ink, avowedly
intended as expressive of the reigning system.

At Cahors, the deputy, Taillefer, after making a triumphal entry
with several waggons full of people whom he had arrested, ordered a
Guillotine to be erected in the square, and some of the prisoners to
be brought forth and decorated in a mock costume representing Kings,
Queens, and Nobility. He then obliged them successively to pay
homage to the Guillotine, as though it had been a throne, the
executioner manoeuvring the instrument all the while, and exciting
the people to call for the heads of those who were forced to act in
this horrid farce. The attempt, however, did not succeed, and the
spectators retired in silent indignation.

At Laval, the head of Laroche, a deputy of the Constituent Assembly,
was exhibited (by order of Lavallee, a deputy there on mission) on
the house inhabited by his wife.--At Auch, in the department of
Gers, d'Artigoyte, another deputy, obliged some of the people under
arrest to eat out of a manger.--Borie used to amuse himself, and the
inhabitants of Nismes, by dancing what he called a farandole round
the Guillotine in his legislative costume.--The representative
Lejeune solaced his leisure hours in beheading animals with a
miniature Guillotine, the expence of which he had placed to the
account of the nation; and so much was he delighted with it, that
the poultry served at his table were submitted to its operation, as
well as the fruits at his dessert! (Debates, June 1.)

But it would be tedious and disgusting to describe all the _menus
plaisirs_ of these founders of the French republic. Let it suffice
to say, that they comprised whatever is ludicrous, sanguinary, and
licentious, and that such examples were but too successful in
procuring imitators. At Tours, even the women wore Guillotines in
their ears, and it was not unusual for people to seal their letters
with a similar representation!

We have been once at the theatre since the King's death, and the stanza of the _Reveil du Peuple,_ [The rousing of the people.] which contains a compliment to the Convention, was hissed pretty generally, while those expressing an abhorrence of Jacobinism were sung with enthusiasm. But the sincerity of these musical politics is not always to be relied on: a popular air is caught and echoed with avidity; and whether the words be _"Peuple Francais, peuple de Freres,"_ ["Brethren."]--or _"Dansons la Guillotine,"_ the expression with which it is sung is not very different. How often have the theatres resounded with _"Dieu de clemence et de justice."_ ["God of mercy and justice."] and _"Liberte, Liberte, cherie!"_ ["Liberty, beloved Liberty!"] while the instrument of death was in a state of unceasing activity--and when the auditors, who joined in these invocations to Liberty, returned to their homes trembling, lest they should be arrested in the street, or find a mandate or guard at their own houses.*

* An acquaintance of mine told me, that he was one evening in
company at Dijon, where, after singing hymns to liberty in the most
energetic style, all the party were arrested, and betook themselves
as tranquilly to prison, as though the name of liberty had been
unknown to them. The municipality of Dijon commonly issued their
writs of arrest in this form--"Such and such a person shall be
arrested, and his wife, if he has one!"

--At present, however, the Parisians really sing the _Reveil_ from principle, and I doubt if even a new and more agreeable air in the Jacobin interest would be able to supplant it.

We have had our permission to remain here extended to another Decade; but Mr. D------, who declares, ten times in an hour, that the French are the strangest people on earth, besides being the most barbarous and the most frivolous, is impatient to be gone; and as we now have our passports, I believe we shall depart the middle of next week.

--Yours.

Paris, June 15, 1795.

I am now, after a residence of more than three years, amidst the chaos of a revolution, on the eve of my departure from France. Yet, while I joyfully prepare to revisit my own country, my mind involuntarily traces the rapid succession of calamities which have filled this period, and dwells with painful contemplation on those changes in the morals and condition of the French people that seem hitherto to be the only fruits which they have produced. In this recurrence to the past, and estimation of the present, however we may regret the persecution of wealth, the destruction of commerce, and the general oppression, the most important and irretrievable mischief of the revolution is, doubtless, the corruption of manners introduced among the middle and lower classes of the people.

The labouring poor of France have often been described as frugal, thoughtless, and happy, earning, indeed, but little, yet spending still less, and in general able to procure such a subsistence as their habits and climate rendered agreeable and sufficient.*

* Mr. Young seems to have been persuaded, that the common people of
France worked harder, and were worse fed, than those of the same
description in England. Yet, as far as I have had opportunity of
observing, and from the information I have been able to procure, I
cannot help supposing that this gentleman has drawn his inference
partially, and that he has often compared some particular case of
distress, with the general situation of the peasantry in the rich
counties, which are the scene of his experiments. The peasantry of
many distant parts of England fare as coarsely, and labour harder,
than was common in France; and taking their habits of frugality,
their disposition to be satisfied, and their climate into the
account, the situation of the French perhaps was preferable.