Chapter V: Part 5

The debates of the Convention are violent and acrimonious. Robespierre has been accused of aspiring to the Dictatorship, and his defence was by no means calculated to exonerate him from the charge. All the chiefs reproach each other with being the authors of the late massacres, and each succeeds better in fixing the imputation on his neighbour, than in removing it from himself. General reprobation, personal invectives, and long speeches, are not wanting; but every thing which tends to examination and enquiry is treated with much more delicacy and composure: so that I fear these first legislators of the republic must, for the present, be content with the reputation they have assigned each other, and rank amongst those who have all the guilt, but want the courage, of assassins.

I subjoin an extract from a newspaper, which has lately appeared.*

*Extract from _The Courier de l'Egalite,_ November, 1792:

"There are discontented people who still venture to obtrude their
sentiments on the public. One of them, in a public print, thus
expresses himself--

'I assert, that the newspapers are sold and devoted to falsehood.
At this price they purchase the liberty of appearing; and the
exclusive privilege they enjoy, as well as the contradictory and
lying assertions they all contain, prove the truth of what I
advance. They are all preachers of liberty, yet never was liberty
so shamefully outraged--of respect for property, and property was at
no time so little held sacred--of personal security, yet when were
there committed so many massacres? and, at the very moment I am
writing, new ones are premeditated. They call vehemently for
submission, and obedience to the laws, but the laws had never less
influence; and while our compliance with such as we are even
ignorant of is exacted, it is accounted a crime to execute those in
force. Every municipality has its own arbitrary code--every
battalion, every private soldier, exercises a sovereignty, a most
absolute despotism; and yet the Gazettes do not cease to boast the
excellence of such a government. They have, one and all, attributed
the massacres of the tenth of August and the second of September,
and the days following each, to a popular fermentation. The
monsters! they have been careful not to tell us, that each of these
horrid scenes (at the prisons, at La Force, at the Abbaye, &c. &c.)
was presided by municipal officers in their scarfs, who pointed out
the victims, and gave the signal for the assassination. It was
(continue the Journals) the error of an irritated people--and yet
their magistrates were at the head of it: it was a momentary error;
yet this error of a moment continued during six whole days of the
coolest reflection--it was only at the close of the seventh that
Petion made his appearance, and affected to persuade the people to
desist. The assassins left off only from fatigue, and at this
moment they are preparing to begin again. The Journals do not tell
us that the chief of these _Scelerats_ [We have no term in the
English language that conveys an adequate meaning for this word--it
seems to express the extreme of human wickedness and atrocity.]
employed subordinate assassins, whom they caused to be clandestinely
murdered in their turn, as though they hoped to destroy the proof of
their crime, and escape the vengeance that awaits them. But the
people themselves were accomplices in the deed, for the Garde
Nationale gave their assistance,'" &c. &c.

In spite of the murder of so many journalists, and the destruction of the printing-offices, it treats the September business so freely, that the editor will doubtless soon be silenced. Admitting these accusations to be unfounded, what ideas must the people have of their magistrates, when they are credited? It is the prepossession of the hearer that gives authenticity to fiction; and such atrocities would neither be imputed to, nor believed of, men not already bad.--Yours, &c.

December, 1792.

Dear Brother,

All the public prints still continue strongly to insinuate, that England is prepared for an insurrection, and Scotland already in actual rebellion: but I know the character of our countrymen too well to be persuaded that they have adopted new principles as easily as they would adopt a new mode, or that the visionary anarchists of the French government can have made many proselytes among an humane and rational people. For many years we were content to let France remain the arbitress of the lighter departments of taste: lately she has ceded this province to us, and England has dictated with uncontested superiority. This I cannot think very strange; for the eye in time becomes fatigued by elaborate finery, and requires only the introduction of simple elegance to be attracted by it. But if, while we export fashions to this country, we should receive in exchange her republican systems, it would be a strange revolution indeed; and I think, in such a commerce, we should be far from finding the balance in our favour. I have, in fact, little solicitude about these diurnal falsehoods, though I am not altogether free from alarm as to their tendency. I cannot help suspecting it is to influence the people to a belief that such dispositions exist in England as preclude the danger of a war, in case it should be thought necessary to sacrifice the King.

I am more confirmed in this opinion, from the recent discovery, with the circumstances attending it, of a secret iron chest at the Tuilleries. The man who had been employed to construct this recess, informs the minister, Rolland; who, instead of communicating the matter to the Convention, as it was very natural he should do on an occasion of so much importance, and requiring it to be opened in the presence of proper witnesses, goes privately himself, takes the papers found into his own possession, and then makes an application for a committee to examine them. Under these suspicious and mysterious appearances, we are told that many letters, &c. are found, which inculpate the King; and perhaps the fate of this unfortunate Monarch is to be decided by evidence not admissible with justice in the case of the obscurest malefactor. Yet Rolland is the hero of a party who call him, par excellence, the virtuous Rolland! Perhaps you will think, with me, that this epithet is misapplied to a man who has risen, from an obscure situation to that of first Minister, without being possessed of talents of that brilliant or prominent class which sometimes force themselves into notice, without the aid of wealth or the support of patronage.

Rolland was inspector of manufactories in this place, and afterwards at Lyons; and I do not go too far in advancing, that a man of very rigid virtue could not, from such a station, have attained so suddenly the one he now possesses. Virtue is of an unvarying and inflexible nature: it disdains as much to be the flatterer of mobs, as the adulator of Princes: yet how often must he, who rises so far above his equals, have stooped below them? How often must he have sacrificed both his reason and his principles? How often have yielded to the little, and opposed the great, not from conviction, but interest? For in this the meanest of mankind resemble the most exalted; he bestows not his confidence on him who resists his will, nor subscribes to the advancement of one whom he does not hope to influence.--I may almost venture to add, that more dissimulation, meaner concessions, and more tortuous policy, are requisite to become the idol of the people, than are practised to acquire and preserve the favour of the most potent Monarch in Europe. The French, however, do not argue in this manner, and Rolland is at present very popular, and his popularity is said to be greatly supported by the literary talents of his wife.

I know not if you rightly understand these party distinctions among a set of men whom you must regard as united in the common cause of establishing a republic in France, but you have sometimes had occasion to remark in England, that many may amicably concur in the accomplishment of a work, who differ extremely about the participation of its advantages; and this is already the case with the Convention. Those who at present possess all the power, and are infinitely the strongest, are wits, moralists, and philosophers by profession, having Brissot, Rolland, Petion, Concorcet, &c. at their head; their opponents are adventurers of a more desperate cast, who make up by violence what they want in numbers, and are led by Robespierre, Danton, Chabot, &c. &c. The only distinction of these parties is, I believe, that the first are vain and systematical hypocrites, who have originally corrupted the minds of the people by visionary and insidious doctrines, and now maintain their superiority by artifice and intrigue: their opponents, equally wicked, and more daring, justify that turpitude which the others seek to disguise, and appear almost as bad as they are. The credulous people are duped by both; while the cunning of the one, and the vehemence of the other, alternately prevail.--But something too much of politics, as my design is in general rather to mark their effect on the people, than to enter on more immediate discussions.

Having been at the Criminal Tribunal to-day, I now recollect that I have never yet described to you the costume of the French Judges.--Perhaps when I have before had occasion to speak of it, your imagination may have glided to Westminster Hall, and depicted to you the scarlet robes and voluminous wigs of its respectable magistrates: but if you would form an idea of a magistrate here, you must bring your mind to the abstraction of Crambo, and figure to yourself a Judge without either gown, wig, or any of those venerable appendages. Nothing indeed can be more becoming or gallant, than this judicial accoutrement--it is black, with a silk cloak of the same colour, in the Spanish form, and a round hat, turned up before, with a large plume of black feathers. This, when the magistrate happens to be young, has a very theatrical and romantic appearance; but when it is worn by a figure a little Esopian, or with a large bushy perriwig, as I have sometimes seen it, the effect is still less awful; and a stranger, on seeing such an apparition in the street, is tempted to suppose it a period of jubilee, and that the inhabitants are in masquerade.

It is now the custom for all people to address each other by the appellation of Citizen; and whether you are a citizen or not--whether you inhabit Paris, or are a native of Peru--still it is an indication of aristocracy, either to exact, or to use, any other title. This is all congruous with the system of the day: the abuses are real, the reform is imaginary. The people are flattered with sounds, while they are losing in essentials. And the permission to apply the appellation of Citizen to its members, is but a poor compensation for the despotism of a department or a municipality.

In vain are the people flattered with a chimerical equality--it cannot exist in a civilized state, and if it could exist any where, it would not be in France. The French are habituated to subordination--they naturally look up to something superior--and when one class is degraded, it is only to give place to another.

--The pride of the noblesse is succeeded by the pride of the merchant-- the influence of wealth is again realized by cheap purchases of the national domains--the abandoned abbey becomes the delight of the opulent trader, and replaces the demolished chateau of the feudal institution. Full of the importance which the commercial interest is to acquire under a republic, the wealthy man of business is easily reconciled to the oppression of the superior classes, and enjoys, with great dignity, his new elevation. The counting-house of a manufacturer of woollen cloth is as inaccessible as the boudoir of a Marquis; while the flowered brocade gown and well-powdered curls of the former offer a much more imposing exterior than the chintz robe de chambre and dishevelled locks of the more affable man of fashion.

I have read, in some French author, a maxim to this effect:--"Act with your friends as though they should one day be your enemies;" and the existing government seems amply to have profited by the admonition of their country-man: for notwithstanding they affirm, that all France supports, and all England admires them, this does not prevent their exercising a most vigilant inquisition over the inhabitants of both countries.--It is already sagaciously hinted, that Mr. Thomas Paine may be a spy, and every householder who receives a lodger or visitor, and every proprietor who lets a house, is obliged to register the names of those he entertains, or who are his tenants, and to become responsible for their conduct. This is done at the municipality, and all who thus venture to change their residence, of whatever age, sex, or condition, must present themselves, and submit to an examination. The power of the municipalities is indeed very great; and as they are chiefly selected from the lower class of shop-keepers, you may conclude that their authority is not exercised with much politeness or moderation.

The timid or indolent inhabitant of London, whose head has been filled with the Bastilles and police of the ancient government, and who would as soon have ventured to Constantinople as to Paris, reads, in the debates of the Convention, that France is now the freeest country in the world, and that strangers from all corners of it flock to offer their adorations in this new Temple of Liberty. Allured by these descriptions, he resolves on the journey, willing, for once in his life, to enjoy a taste of the blessing in sublimate, which he now learns has hitherto been allowed him only in the gross element.--He experiences a thousand impositions on landing with his baggage at Calais, but he submits to them without murmuring, because his countrymen at Dover had, on his embarkation, already kindly initiated him into this science of taxing the inquisitive spirit of travellers. After inscribing his name, and rewarding the custom-house officers for rummaging his portmanteau, he determines to amuse himself with a walk about the town. The first centinel he encounters stops him, because he has no cockade: he purchases one at the next shop, (paying according to the exigency of the case,) and is suffered to pass on. When he has settled his bill at the Auberge "a l'Angloise," and emagines he has nothing to do but to pursue his journey, he finds he has yet to procure himself a passport. He waits an hour and an half for an officer, who at length appears, and with a rule in one hand, and a pen in the other, begins to measure the height, and take an inventory of the features of the astonished stranger. By the time this ceremony is finished, the gates are shut, and he can proceed no farther, till the morrow. He departs early, and is awakened twice on the road to Boulogne to produce his passport: still, however, he keeps his temper, concluding, that the new light has not yet made its way to the frontiers, and that these troublesome precautions may be necessary near a port. He continues his route, and, by degrees, becomes habituated to this regimen of liberty; till, perhaps, on the second day, the validity of his passport is disputed, the municipality who granted it have the reputation of aristocracy, or the whole is informal, and he must be content to wait while a messenger is dispatched to have it rectified, and the officers establish the severity of their patriotism at the expence of the stranger.

Our traveller, at length, permitted to depart, feels his patience wonderfully diminished, execrates the regulations of the coast, and the ignorance of small towns, and determines to stop a few days and observe the progress of freedom at Ameins. Being a large commercial place, he here expects to behold all the happy effects of the new constitution; he congratulates himself on travelling at a period when he can procure information, and discuss his political opinions, unannoyed by fears of state prisons, and spies of the police. His landlord, however, acquaints him, that his appearance at the Town House cannot be dispensed with--he attends three or four different hours of appointment, and is each time sent away, (after waiting half an hour with the valets de ville in the antichamber,) and told that the municipal officers are engaged. As an Englishman, he has little relish for these subordinate sovereigns, and difficult audiences--he hints at the next coffee-house that he had imagined a stranger might have rested two days in a free country, without being measured, and questioned, and without detailing his history, as though he were suspected of desertion; and ventures on some implied comparison between the ancient "Monsieur le Commandant," and the modern "Citoyen Maire."--To his utter astonishment he finds, that though there are no longer emissaries of the police, there are Jacobin informers; his discourse is reported to the municipality, his business in the town becomes the subject of conjecture, he is concluded to be _"un homme sans aveu,"_ [One that can't give a good account of himself.] and arrested as "suspect;" and it is not without the interference of the people to whom he may have been recommended at Paris, that he is released, and enabled to continue his journey.

At Paris he lives in perpetual alarm. One night he is disturbed by a visite domiciliaire, another by a riot--one day the people are in insurrection for bread, and the next murdering each other at a public festival; and our country-man, even after making every allowance for the confusion of a recent change, thinks himself very fortunate if he reaches England in safety, and will, for the rest of his life, be satisfied with such a degree of liberty as is secured to him by the constitution of his own country.

You see I have no design of tempting you to pay us a visit; and, to speak the truth, I think those who are in England will show their wisdom by remaining there. Nothing but the state of Mrs. D____'s health, and her dread of the sea at this time of the year, detains us; for every day subtracts from my courage, and adds to my apprehensions.

--Yours, &c.

1793

Amiens, January, 1793.

Vanity, I believe, my dear brother, is not so innoxious a quality as we are desirous of supposing. As it is the most general of all human failings, so is it regarded with the most indulgence: a latent consciousness averts the censure of the weak; and the wise, who flatter themselves with being exempt from it, plead in its favour, by ranking it as a foible too light for serious condemnation, or too inoffensive for punishment. Yet, if vanity be not an actual vice, it is certainly a potential one--it often leads us to seek reputation rather than virtue, to substitute appearances for realities, and to prefer the eulogiums of the world to the approbation of our own minds. When it takes possession of an uninformed or an ill-constituted mind, it becomes the source of a thousand errors, and a thousand absurdities. Hence, youth seeks a preeminence in vice, and age in folly; hence, many boast of errors they would not commit, or claim distinction by investing themselves with an imputation of excess in some popular absurdity--duels are courted by the daring, and vaunted by the coward--he who trembles at the idea of death and a future state when alone, proclaims himself an atheist or a free-thinker in public--the water-drinker, who suffers the penitence of a week for a supernumerary glass, recounts the wonders of his intemperance--and he who does not mount the gentlest animal without trepidation, plumes himself on breaking down horses, and his perils in the chace. In short, whatever order of mankind we contemplate, we shall perceive that the portion of vanity allotted us by nature, when it is not corrected by a sound judgement, and rendered subservient to useful purposes, is sure either to degrade or mislead us.

I was led into this train of reflection by the conduct of our Anglo-Gallican legislator, Mr. Thomas Paine. He has lately composed a speech, which was translated and read in his presence, (doubtless to his great satisfaction,) in which he insists with much vehemence on the necessity of trying the King; and he even, with little credit to his humanity, gives intimations of presumed guilt. Yet I do not suspect Mr. Paine to be of a cruel or unmerciful nature; and, most probably, vanity alone has instigated him to a proceeding which, one would wish to believe, his heart disapproves. Tired of the part he was playing, and which, it must be confessed, was not calculated to flatter the censurer of Kings and the reformer of constitutions, he determined to sit no longer for whole hours in colloquy with his interpreter, or in mute contemplation, like the Chancellor in the Critic; and the speech to which I have alluded was composed. Knowing that lenient opinions would meet no applause from the tribunes, he inlists himself on the side of severity, accuses all the Princes in the world as the accomplices of Louis the Sixteenth, expresses his desire for an universal revolution, and, after previously assuring the Convention the King is guilty, recommends that they may instantly proceed to his trial. But, after all this tremendous eloquence, perhaps Mr. Paine had no malice in his heart: he may only be solicitous to preserve his reputation from decay, and to indulge his self-importance by assisting at the trial of a Monarch whom he may not wish to suffer.--I think, therefore, I am not wrong in asserting, that Vanity is a very mischievous counsellor.

The little distresses I formerly complained of, as arising from the paper currency, are nearly removed by a plentiful emission of small assignats, and we have now pompous assignments on the national domains for ten sols: we have, likewise, pieces coined from the church bells in circulation, but most of these disappear as soon as issued. You would scarcely imagine that this copper is deemed worthy to be hoarded; yet such is the people's aversion from the paper, and such their mistrust of the government, that not an housewife will part with one of these pieces while she has an assignat in her possession; and those who are rich enough to keep a few livres by them, amass and bury this copper treasure with the utmost solicitude and secresy.

A tolerably accurate scale of the national confidence might be made, by marking the progress of these suspicious interments. Under the first Assembly, people began to hide their gold; during the reign of the second they took the same affectionate care of their silver; and, since the meeting of the Convention, they seem equally anxious to hide any metal they can get. If one were to describe the present age, one might, as far as regards France, call it, both literally and metaphorically, the Iron Age; for it is certain, the character of the times would justify the metaphoric application, and the disappearance of every other metal the literal one. As the French are fond of classic examples, I shall not be surprized to see an iron coinage, in imitation of Sparta, though they seem in the way of having one reason less for such a measure than the Spartans had, for they are already in a state to defy corruption; and if they were not, I think a war with England would secure the purity of their morals from being endangered by too much commercial intercourse.

I cannot be displeased with the civil things you say of my letters, nor at your valuing them so much as to preserve them; though, I assure you, this fraternal gallantry is not necessary, on the account you intimate, nor will our countrymen suffer, in my opinion, by any comparisons I can make here. Your ideas of French gallantry are, indeed, very erroneous-- it may differ in the manner from that practised in England, but is far from having any claim to superiority. Perhaps I cannot define the pretensions of the two nations in this respect better than by saying, that the gallantry of an Englishman is a sentiment--that of a Frenchman a system. The first, if a lady happen to be old or plain, or indifferent to him, is apt to limit his attentions to respect, or utility--now the latter never troubles himself with these distinctions: he is repulsed by no extremity of years, nor deformity of feature; he adores, with equal ardour, both young and old, nor is either often shocked by his visible preference of the other. I have seen a youthful beau kiss, with perfect devotion, a ball of cotton dropped from the hand of a lady who was knitting stockings for her grand-children. Another pays his court to a belle in her climacteric, by bringing _gimblettes_ [A sort of gingerbread.] to the favourite lap-dog, or attending, with great assiduity, the egresses and regresses of her angola, who paces slowly out of the room ten times in an hour, while the door is held open by the complaisant Frenchman with a most respectful gravity.

Thus, you see, France is to the old what a masquerade is to the ugly --the one confounds the disparity of age as the other does that of person; but indiscriminate adoration is no compliment to youth, nor is a mask any privilege to beauty. We may therefore conclude, that though France may be the Elysium of old women, England is that of the young. When I first came into this country, it reminded me of an island I had read of in the Arabian Tales, where the ladies were not deemed in their bloom till they verged towards seventy; and I conceived the project of inviting all the belles, who had been half a century out of fashion in England, to cross the Channel, and begin a new career of admiration!-- Yours, &c.

Amiens, 1793.

Dear Brother,

I have thought it hitherto a self evident proposition--that of all the principles which can be inculcated in the human mind, that of liberty is least susceptible of propagation by force. Yet a Council of Philosophers (disciples of Rousseau and Voltaire) have sent forth Dumouriez, at the head of an hundred thousand men, to instruct the people of Flanders in the doctrine of freedom. Such a missionary is indeed invincible, and the defenceless towns of the Low Countries have been converted and pillaged [By the civil agents of the executive power.] by a benevolent crusade of the philanthropic assertors of the rights of man. These warlike Propagandistes, however, do not always convince without experiencing resistance, and ignorance sometimes opposes, with great obstinacy, the progress of truth. The logic of Dumouriez did not enforce conviction at Gemappe, but at the expence of fifteen thousand of his own army, and, doubtless, a proportionate number of the unconverted.

Here let me forbear every expression tending to levity: the heart recoils at such a slaughter of human victims; and, if a momentary smile be excited by these Quixotisms, it is checked by horror at their consequences!--Humanity will lament such destruction; but it will likewise be indignant to learn, that, in the official account of this battle, the killed were estimated at three hundred, and the wounded at six!--But, if the people be sacrificed, they are not deceived. The disabled sufferers, who are returning to their homes in different parts of the republic, betray the turpitude of the government, and expose the fallacy of these bloodless victories of the gazettes. The pedants of the Convention are not unlearned in the history of the Praetorian Bands and the omnipotence of armies; and an offensive war is undertaken to give occupation to the soldiers, whose inactivity might produce reflection, or whose discontent might prove fatal to the new order of things.--Attempts are made to divert the public mind from the real misery experienced at home, by relations of useless conquests abroad; the substantial losses, which are the price of these imaginary benefits, are palliated or concealed; and the circumstances of an engagement is known but by individual communication, and when subsequent events have nearly effaced the remembrance of it.--By these artifices, and from motives at least not better, and, perhaps, worse than those I have mentioned, will population be diminished, and agriculture impeded: France will be involved in present distress, and consigned to future want; and the deluded people be punished in the miseries of their own country, because their unprincipled rulers have judged it expedient to carry war and devastation into another.

One of the distinguishing features in the French character is _sang froid_ --scarcely a day passes that it does not force itself on one's observation. It is not confined to the thinking part of the people, who know that passion and irritability avail nothing; nor to those who, not thinking at all, are, of course, not moved by any thing: but is equally possessed by every rank and condition, whether you class them by their mental endowments, or their temporal possessions. They not only (as, it must be confessed, is too commonly the case in all countries,) bear the calamities of their friends with great philosophy, but are nearly as reasonable under the pressure of their own. The grief of a Frenchman, at least, partakes of his imputed national complaisance, and, far from intruding itself on society, is always ready to accept of consolation, and join in amusement. If you say your wife or relations are dead, they replay coldly, _"Il faut se consoler:"_ or if they visit you in an illness, _"Il faut prendre patience."_ Or tell them you are ruined, and their features then become something more attenuated, the shoulders something more elevated, and a more commiserating tone confesses, _"C'est bien mal beureux--Mai enfin que voulez vous?"_ ["It's unlucky, but what can be said in such cases?"] and in the same instant they ill recount some good fortune at a card party, or expatiate on the excellence of a ragout.--Yet, to do them justice, they only offer for your comfort the same arguments they would have found efficacious in promoting their own.

This disposition, which preserves the tranquillity of the rich, indurates the sense of wretchedness in the poor; it supplies the place of fortitude in the one, and that of patience in the other; and, while it enables both to endure their own particular distresses, it makes them submit quietly to a weight and excess of public evils, which any nation but their own would sink under, or resist. Amongst shopkeepers, servants, &c. without incurring personal odium, it has the effect of what would be deemed in England impenetrable assurance. It forces pertinaceously an article not wanted, and preserves the inflexibility of the features at a detected imposition: it inspires servants with arguments in defence of every misdemeanour in the whole domestic catalogue; it renders them insensible either of their negligences or the consequences of them; and endows them with a happy facility of contradicting with the most obsequious politeness.

A gentleman of our acquaintances dined at a table d'Hote, where the company were annoyed by a very uncommon and offensive smell. On cutting up a fowl, they discovered the smell to have been occasioned by its being dressed with out any other preparation than that of depluming. They immediately sent for the host, and told him, that the fowl had been dressed without having been drawn: but, far from appearing disconcerted, as one might expect, he only replied, _"Cela se pourroit bien, Monsieur."_ ["'Tis very possible, Sir."] Now an English Boniface, even though he had already made his fortune, would have been mortified at such an incident, and all his eloquence would scarcely have produced an unfaultering apology.

Whether this national indifference originate in a physical or a moral cause, from an obtuseness in their corporeal formation or a perfection in their intellectual one, I do not pretend to decide; but whatever be the cause, the effect is enjoyed with great modesty. So little do the French pique themselves on this valuable stoicism, that they acknowledge being more subject to that human weakness called feeling, than any other people in the world. All their writers abound in pathetic exclamations, sentimental phrases, and allusions to "la sensibilite Francaise," as though they imagined it proverbial. You can scarcely hold a conversation with a Frenchman without hearing him detail, with an expression of feature not always analogous, many very affecting sentences. He is _desole, desespere, or afflige_--he has _le coeur trop sensible, le coeur serre, or le coeur navre;_ [Afflicted--in despair--too feeling a heart-- his heart is wrung or wounded.] and the well-placing of these dolorous assertions depends rather upon the judgement and eloquence of the speaker, than the seriousness of the case which gives rise to them. For instance, the despair and desolation of him who has lost his money, and of him whose head is ill drest, are of different degrees, but the expressions are usually the same. The debates of the Convention, the debates of the Jacobins, and all the public prints, are fraught with proofs of this appropriated susceptibility, and it is often attributed to persons and occasions where we should not much expect to find it. A quarrel between the legislators as to who was most concerned in promoting the massacres of September, is reconciled with a "sweet and enthusiastic excess of fraternal tenderness." When the clubs dispute on the expediency of an insurrection, or the necessity of a more frequent employment of the guillotine, the debate terminates by overflowing of sensibility from all the members who have engaged in it!

At the assassinations in one of the prisons, when all the other miserable victims had perished, the mob discovered one Jonneau, a member of the Assembly, who had been confined for kicking another member named Grangeneuve.* As the massacrers probably had no orders on the subject, he was brought forth, from amidst heaps of murdered companions, and a messenger dispatched to the Assembly, (which during these scenes met as usual,) to enquire if they acknowledged Jonneau as a member. A decree was passed in the affirmative, and Jonneau brought by the assassins, with the decree fastened on his breast, in triumph to his colleagues, who, we are told, at this instance of respect for themselves, shed tears of tenderness and admiration at the conduct of monsters, the sight of whom should seem revolting to human nature.

* When the massacres began, the wife and friends of Jonneau
petitioned Grangeneuve on their knees to consent to his enlargement;
but Grangeneuve was implacable, and Jonneau continued in prison till
released by the means above mentioned. It is observable, that at
this dreadful moment the utmost strictness was observed, and every
form literally enforced in granting the discharge of a prisoner. A
suspension of all laws, human and divine, was allowed to the
assassins, while those only that secured them their victims were
rigidly adhered to.

Perhaps the real sang froid I have before noticed, and these pretensions to sensibility, are a natural consequence one or the other. It is the history of the beast's confession--we have only to be particularly deficient in any quality, to make us solicitous for the reputation of it; and after a long habit of deceiving others we finish by deceiving ourselves. He who feels no compassion for the distresses of his neighbour, knows that such indifference is not very estimable; he therefore studies to disguise the coldness of his heart by the exaggeration of his language, and supplies, by an affected excess of sentiment, the total absence of it.--The gods have not (as you know) made me poetical, nor do I often tax your patience with a simile, but I think this French sensibility is to genuine feeling, what their paste is to the diamond--it gratifies the vanity of the wearer, and deceives the eye of the superficial observer, but is of little use or value, and when tried by the fire of adversity quickly disappears.

You are not much obliged to me for this long letter, as I own I have scribbled rather for my own amusement than with a view to yours.-- Contrary to our expectation, the trial of the King has begun; and, though I cannot properly be said to have any real interest in the affairs of this country, I take a very sincere one in the fate of its unfortunate Monarch--indeed our whole house has worn an appearance of dejection since the commencement of the business. Most people seem to expect it will terminate favourably, and, I believe, there are few who do not wish it. Even the Convention seem at present disposed to be merciful; and as they judge now, so may they be judged hereafter!

--Yours.

Amiens, January 1793.

I do all possible justice to the liberality of my countrymen, who are become such passionate admirers of the French; and I cannot but lament their having been so unfortunate in the choice of the aera from whence they date this new friendship. It is, however, a proof, that their regards are not much the effect of that kind of vanity which esteems objects in proportion as they are esteemed by the rest of the world; and the sincerity of an attachment cannot be better evinced than by its surviving irretrievable disgrace and universal abhorrence. Many will swell the triumph of a hero, or add a trophy to his tomb; but he who exhibits himself with a culprit at the gallows, or decorates the gibbet with a wreath, is a friend indeed.

If ever the character of a people were repugnant to amity, or inimical to connection, it is that of the French for the last three years.--*

* The editor of the _Courier de l'Egalite,_ a most decided patriot,
thus expresses himself on the injuries and insults received by the
King from the Parisians, and their municipality, previous to his
trial:

"I know that Louis is guilty--but are we to double his punishment
before it is pronounced by the law? Indeed one is tempted to say
that, instead of being guided by the humanity and philosophy which
dictated the revolution, we have taken lessons of barbarity from the
most ferocious savages! Let us be virtuous if we would be
republicans; if we go on as we do, we never shall, and must have
recourse to a despot: for of two evils it is better to choose the
least."

The editor, whose opinion of the present politics is thus expressed, is so truly a revolutionist, and so confidential a patriot, that, in August last, when almost all the journalists were murdered, his paper was the only one that, for some time, was allowed to reach the departments.

In this short space they have formed a compendium of all the vices which have marked as many preceding ages:--the cruelty and treachery of the league--the sedition, levity, and intrigue of the _Fronde_ [A name given to the party in opposition to the court during Cardinal Mazarin's ministry.--See the origin of it in the Memoirs of that period.] with the licentiousness and political corruption of more modern epochs. Whether you examine the conduct of the nation at large, or that of its chiefs and leaders, your feelings revolt at the one, and your integrity despises the other. You see the idols erected by Folly, degraded by Caprice;--the authority obtained by Intrigue, bartered by Profligacy;--and the perfidy and corruption of one side so balanced by the barbarity and levity of the other, that the mind, unable to decide on the preference of contending vices, is obliged to find repose, though with regret and disgust, in acknowledging the general depravity.

La Fayette, without very extraordinary pretensions, became the hero of the revolution. He dictated laws in the Assembly, and prescribed oaths to the Garde Nationale--and, more than once, insulted, by the triumph of ostentatious popularity, the humiliation and distress of a persecuted Sovereign. Yet when La Fayette made an effort to maintain the constitution to which he owed his fame and influence, he was abandoned with the same levity with which he had been adopted, and sunk, in an instant, from a dictator to a fugitive!

Neckar was an idol of another description. He had already departed for his own country, when he was hurried back precipitately, amidst universal acclamations. All were full of projects either of honour or recompence-- one was for decreeing him a statue, another proposed him a pension, and a third hailed him the father of the country. But Mr. Neckar knew the French character, and very wisely declined these pompous offers; for before he could have received the first quarter of his pension, or the statue could have been modelled, he was glad to escape, probably not without some apprehensions for his head!

The reign of Mirabeau was something longer. He lived with popularity, was fortunate enough to die before his reputation was exhausted, was deposited in the Pantheon, apotheosised in form, and his bust placed as a companion to that of Brutus, the tutelary genius of the Assembly.--Here, one might have expected, he would have been quit for this world at least; but the fame of a patriot is not secured by his death, nor can the gods of the French be called immortal: the deification of Mirabeau is suspended, his memory put in sequestration, and a committee appointed to enquire, whether a profligate, expensive, and necessitous character was likely to be corruptible. The Convention, too, seem highly indignant that a man, remarkable only for vice and atrocity, should make no conscience of betraying those who were as bad as himself; and that, after having prostituted his talents from the moment he was conscious of them, he should not, when associated with such immaculate colleagues, become pure and disinterested. It is very probable that Mirabeau, whose only aim was power, might rather be willing to share it with the King, as Minister, than with so many competitors, and only as Prime Speechmaker to the Assembly: and as he had no reason for suspecting the patriotism of others to be more inflexible than his own, he might think it not impolitic to anticipate a little the common course of things, and betray his companions, before they had time to stipulate for felling him. He might, too, think himself more justified in disposing of them in the gross, because he did not thereby deprive them of their right of bargaining for themselves, and for each other in detail.--*

* La Porte, Steward of the Household, in a letter to Duquesnoy, [Not
the brutal Dusquenoy hereafter mentioned.] dated February, 1791,
informs him that Barrere, Chairman of the Committee of Domains, is
in the best disposition possible.--A letter of Talon, (then
minister,) with remarks in the margin by the King, says, that
"Sixteen of the most violent members on the patriotic side may be
brought over to the court, and that the expence will not exceed two
millions of livres: that fifteen thousand will be sufficient for the
first payment; and only a Yes or No from his Majesty will fix these
members in his interest, and direct their future conduct."--It
likewise observes, that these two millions will cost the King
nothing, as the affair is already arranged with the
Liquidator-General.

Extract of a letter from Chambonas to the King, dated June 18, 1792:

"Sire,

"I inform your Majesty, that my agents are now in motion. I have
just been converting an evil spirit. I cannot hope that I have made
him good, but I believe I have neutralized him.--To-night we shall
make a strong effort to gain Santerre, (Commandant of the Garde
Nationale,) and I have ordered myself to be awakened to hear the
result. I shall take care to humour the different interests as well
as I can.--The Secretary of the Cordeliers club is now secured.--All
these people are to be bought, but not one of them can be hired.--I
have had with me one Mollet a physician. Perhaps your Majesty may
have heard of him. He is an outrageous Jacobin, and very difficult,
for he will receive nothing. He insists, previous to coming to any
definitive treaty, on being named Physician to the Army. I have
promised him, on condition that Paris is kept quiet for fifteen
days. He is now gone to exert himself in our favour. He has great
credit at the Caffe de Procope, where all the journalists and
'enragis' of the Fauxbourg St. Germain assemble. I hope he will
keep his word.--The orator of the people, the noted Le Maire, a
clerk at the Post-office, has promised tranquility for a week, and
he is to be rewarded.

"A new Gladiator has appeared lately on the scene, one Ronedie
Breton, arrived from England. He has already been exciting the
whole quarter of the Poisonnerie in favour of the Jacobins, but I
shall have him laid siege to.--Petion is to come to-morrow for
fifteen thousand livres, [This sum was probably only to propitiate
the Mayor; and if Chambonas, as he proposed, refused farther
payment, we may account for Petion's subsequent conduct.] on account
of thirty thousand per month which he received under the
administration of Dumouriez, for the secret service of the police.--
I know not in virtue of what law this was done, and it will be the
last he shall receive from me. Your Majesty will, I doubt not,
understand me, and approve of what I suggest.

(Signed) "Chambonas."
Extract from the Papers found at the Thuilleries.

It is impossible to warrant the authenticity of these Papers; on
their credibility, however, rests the whole proof of the most
weighty charges brought against the King. So that it must be
admitted, that either all the first patriots of the revolution, and
many of those still in repute, are corrupt, or that the King was
condemned on forged evidence.

The King might also be solicitous to purchase safety and peace at any rate; and it is unfortunate for himself and the country that he had not recourse to the only effectual means till it was too late. But all this rests on no better evidence than the papers found at the Thuilleries; and as something of this kind was necessary to nourish the exhausted fury of the populace, I can easily conceive that it was thought more prudent to sacrifice the dead, than the living; and the fame of Mirabeau being less valuable than the safety of those who survived him, there would be no great harm in attributing to him what he was very likely to have done.-- The corruption of a notorious courtier would have made no impression: the King had already been overwhelmed with such accusations, and they had lost their effect: but to have seduced the virtuous Mirabeau, the very Confucius of the revolution, was a kind of profanation of the holy fire, well calculated to revive the languid rage, and extinguish the small remains of humanity yet left among the people.

It is sufficiently remarkable, that notwithstanding the court must have seen the necessity of gaining over the party now in power, no vestige of any attempt of this kind has been discovered; and every criminating negotiation is ascribed to the dead, the absent, or the insignificant. I do not, however, presume to decide in a case so very delicate; their panegyrists in England may adjust the claims of Mirabeau's integrity, and that of his accusers, at their leisure.

Another patriot of "distinguished note," and more peculiarly interesting to our countrymen, because he has laboured much for their conversion, is Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun.--He was in England some time as Plenipotentiary from the Jacobins, charged with establishing treaties between the clubs, publishing seditious manifestoes, contracting friendly alliances with discontented scribblers, and gaining over neutral or hostile newspapers.--But, besides his political and ecclesiastical occupations, and that of writing letters to the Constitutional Society, it seems this industrious Prelate had likewise a correspondence with the Agents of the Court, which, though he was too modest to surcharge his fame by publishing it, was, nevertheless, very profitable.

I am sorry his friends in England are mostly averse from episcopacy, otherwise they might have provided for him, as I imagine he will have no objection to relinquish his claims on the see of Autun. He is not under accusation, and, were he to return, he would not find the laws quite so ceremonious here as in England. After labouring with impunity for months together to promote an insurrection with you, a small private barter of his talents would here cost him his head; and I appeal to the Bishop's friends in England, whether there can be a proper degree of freedom in a country where a man is refused the privilege of disposing of himself to the best advantage.

To the eternal obloquy of France, I must conclude, in the list of those once popular, the ci-devant Duke of Orleans. But it was an unnatural popularity, unaided by a single talent, or a single virtue, supported only by the venal efforts of those who were almost his equals in vice, though not in wealth, and who found a grateful exercise for their abilities in at once profiting by the weak ambition of a bad man, and corrupting the public morals in his favour. The unrighteous compact is now dissolved; those whom he ruined himself to bribe have already forsaken him, and perhaps may endeavour to palliate the disgrace of having been called his friends, by becoming his persecutors.--Thus, many of the primitive patriots are dead, or fugitives, or abandoned, or treacherous; and I am not without fear lest the new race should prove as evanescent as the old.

The virtuous Rolland,* whose first resignation was so instrumental in dethroning the King, has now been obliged to resign a second time, charged with want of capacity, and suspected of malversation; and this virtue, which was so irreproachable, which it would have been so dangerous to dispute while it served the purposes of party, is become hypocrisy, and Rolland will be fortunate if he return to obscurity with only the loss of his gains and his reputation.

* In the beginning of December, the Council-General of the
municipality of Paris opened a register, and appointed a Committee
to receive all accusations and complaints whatever against Rolland,
who, in return, summoned them to deliver in their accounts to him as
Minister of the interior, and accused them, at the same time, of the
most scandalous peculations.

The credit of Brissot and the Philosophers is declining fast--the clubs are unpropitious, and no party long survives this formidable omen; so that, like Macbeth, they will have waded from one crime to another, only to obtain a short-lived dominion, at the expence of eternal infamy, and an unlamented fall.

Dumouriez is still a successful General, but he is denounced by one faction, insulted by another, insidiously praised by a third, and, if he should persevere in serving them, he has more disinterested rectitude than I suspect him of, or than they merit. This is another of that Jacobin ministry which proved so fatal to the King; and it is evident that, had he been permitted to entertain the same opinion of all these people as they now profess to have of each other, he would have been still living, and secure on his throne.

After so many mutual infidelities, it might be expected that one party would grow indifferent, and the other suspicious; but the French never despair: new hordes of patriots prepare to possess themselves of the places they are forcing the old ones to abandon, and the people, eager for change, are ready to receive them with the momentary and fallacious enthusiasm which ever precedes disgrace; while those who are thus intriguing for power and influence, are, perhaps, secretly devising how it may be made most subservient to their personal advantage.

Yet, perhaps, these amiable levities may not be displeasing to the Constitutional Society and the revolutionists of England; and, as the very faults of our friends are often endearing to us, they may extend their indulgence to the "humane" and "liberal" precepts of the Jacobins, and the massacres of September.--To confess the truth, I am not a little ashamed for my country when I see addresses from England to a Convention, the members of which have just been accusing each other of assassination and robbery, or, in the ardour of a debate, threatening, cuffing, and knocking each other down. Exclusive of their moral character, considered only as it appears from their reciprocal criminations, they have so little pretension to dignity, or even decency, that it seems a mockery to address them as the political representatives of a powerful nation deliberating upon important affairs.