Chapter IV: Part 4

My last letter was a record of the most odious barbarities--to-day I am describing a festival. At one period I have to remark the destruction of the saints--at another the adoration of Marat. One half of the newspaper is filled with a list of names of the guillotined, and the other with that of places of amusement; and every thing now more than ever marks that detestable association of cruelty and levity, of impiety and absurdity, which has uniformly characterized the French revolution. It is become a crime to feel, and a mode to affect a brutality incapable of feeling--the persecution of Christianity has made atheism a boast, and the danger of respecting traditional virtues has hurried the weak and timid into the apotheosis of the most abominable vices. Conscious that they are no longer animated by enthusiasm,* the Parisians hope to imitate it by savage fury or ferocious mirth--their patriotism is signalized only by their zeal to destroy, and their attachment to their government only by applauding its cruelties.--If Robespierre, St. Just, Collot d'Herbois, and the Convention as their instruments, desolate and massacre half France, we may lament, but we can scarcely wonder at it. How should a set of base and needy adventurers refrain from an abuse of power more unlimited than that of the most despotic monarch; or how distinguish the general abhorrence, amid addresses of adulation, which Louis the Fourteenth would have blushed to appropriate?*

* Louis the Fourteenth, aguerri (steeled) as he was by sixty years
of adulation and prosperity, had yet modesty sufficient to reject a
"dose of incense which he thought too strong." (See D'Alembert's
Apology for Clermont Tonnerre.) Republicanism, it should seem, has
not diminished the national compliasance for men in power, thought
it has lessened the modesty of those who exercise it.--If Louis the
Fourteenth repressed the zeal of the academicians, the Convention
publish, without scruple, addresses more hyperbolical than the
praises that monarch refused.--Letters are addressed to Robespierre
under the appellation of the Messiah, sent by the almighty for the
reform of all things! He is the apostle of one, and the tutelar
deity of another. He is by turns the representative of the virtues
individually, and a compendium of them altogether: and this monster,
whose features are the counterpart of his soul, find republican
parasites who congratulate themselves on resembling him.

The bulletins of the Convention announce, that the whole republic is in a sort of revolutionary transport at the escape of Robespierre and his colleague, Collot d'Herbois, from assassination; and that we may not suppose the legislators at large deficient in sensibility, we learn also that they not only shed their grateful tears on this affecting occasion, but have settled a pension on the man who was instrumental in rescuing the benign Collot.

The members of the Committee are not, however, the exclusive objects of public adoration--the whole Convention are at times incensed in a style truly oriental; and if this be sometimes done with more zeal than judgment, it does not appear to be less acceptable on that account. A petition from an incarcerated poet assimilates the mountain of the Jacobins to that of Parnassus--a state-creditor importunes for a small payment from the Gods of Olympus--and congratulations on the abolition of Christianity are offered to the legislators of Mount Sinai! Every instance of baseness calls forth an eulogium on their magnanimity. A score of orators harangue them daily on their courage, while they are over-awed by despots as mean as themselves and whom they continue to reinstal at the stated period with clamorous approbation. They proscribe, devastate, burn, and massacre--and permit themselves to be addressed by the title of "Fathers of their Country!"

All this would be inexplicable, if we did not contemplate in the French a nation where every faculty is absorbed by a terror which involves a thousand contradictions. The rich now seek protection by becoming members of clubs,* and are happy if, after various mortifications, they are finally admitted by the mob who compose them; while families, that heretofore piqued themselves on a voluminous and illustrious genealogy,** eagerly endeavour to prove they have no claim to either.

* _Le diplome de Jacobin etait une espece d'amulette, dont les
inities etaient jaloux, et qui frappoit de prestiges ceux qui ne
l'etaient pas_--"The Jacobin diploma was a kind of amulet, which the
initiated were jealous of preserving, and which struck as it were
with witchcraft, those who were not of the number."

Rapport de Courtois sur les Papiers de Robespierre.

** Besides those who, being really noble, were anxious to procure
certificates of sans-cullotism, many who had assumed such honours
without pretensions now relinquished them, except indeed some few,
whose vanity even surmounted their fears. But an express law
included all these seceders in the general proscription; alledging,
with a candour not usual, that those who assumed rank were, in fact,
more criminal than such as were guilty of being born to it.

--Places and employments, which are in most countries the objects of
intrigue and ambition, are here refused or relinquished with such
perfect sincerity, that a decree became requisite to oblige every
one, under pain of durance, to preserve the station to which his ill
stars, mistaken politics, or affectation of patriotism, had called
him. Were it not for this law, such is the dreadful responsibility
and danger attending offices under the government, that even low and
ignorant people, who have got possession of them merely for support,
would prefer their original poverty to emoluments which are
perpetually liable to the commutation of the guillotine.--Some
members of a neighbouring district told me to-day, when I asked them
if they came to release any of our fellow-prisoners, that so far
from it, they had not only brought more, but were not certain twelve
hours together of not being brought themselves.

The visionary equality of metaphysical impostors is become a substantial one--not constituted by abundance and freedom, but by want and oppression. The disparities of nature are not repaired, but its whole surface is levelled by a storm. The rich are become poor, but the poor still remain so; and both are conducted indiscriminately to the scaffold. The prisons of the former government were "petty to the ends" of this. Convents, colleges, palaces, and every building which could any how be adapted to such a purpose, have been filled with people deemed suspicious;* and a plan of destruction seems resolved on, more certain and more execrable than even the general massacre of September 1792.

* Now multiplied to more than four hundred thousand!--The prisons of
Paris and the environs were supposed to contain twenty-seven
thousand. The public papers stated but about seven thousand,
because they included the official returns of Paris only.

--Agents of the police are, under some pretended accusation, sent to the different prisons; and, from lists previously furnished them, make daily information of plots and conspiracies, which they alledge to be carrying on by the persons confined. This charge and this evidence suffice: the prisoners are sent to the tribunal, their names read over, and they are conveyed by cart's-full to the republican butchery. Many whom I have known, and been in habits of intimacy with, have perished in this manner; and the expectation of Le Bon,* with our numbers which make us of too much consequence to be forgotten, all contribute to depress and alarm me.

* Le Bon had at this period sent for lists of the prisoners in the
department of the Somme--which lists are said to have been since
found, and many of the names in them marked for destruction.

--Even the levity of the French character yields to this terrible despotism, and nothing is observed but weariness, silence, and sorrow:-- _"O triste loisir, poids affreux du tems."_ [St. Lambert.] The season returns with the year, but not to us--the sun shines, but to add to our miseries that of insupportable heat--and the vicissitudes of nature only awaken our regret that we cannot enjoy them--

"Now gentle gales o'er all the vallies play,
"Breathe on each flow'r, and bear their sweets away."
[Collins.]

Yet what are fresh air and green fields to us, who are immured amidst a thousand ill scents, and have no prospect but filth and stone walls? It is difficult to describe how much the mind is depressed by this state of passive suffering. In common evils, the necessity of action half relieves them, as a vessel may reach her port by the agitation of a storm; but this stagnant listless existence is terrible.

Those most to be envied here are the victims of their religious opinions. The nuns, who are more distressed than any of us,* employ themselves patiently, and seem to look beyond this world; whilst the once gay deist wanders about with a volume of philosophy in his hand, unable to endure the present, and dreading still more the future.

* These poor women, deprived of the little which the rapacity of the
Convention had left them, by it subordinate agents, were in want of
every thing; and though in most prisons they were employed for the
republican armies, they could scarcely procure more than bread and
water. Yet this was not all: they were objects of the meanest and
most cruel persecution.--I knew one who was put in a dungeon, up to
her waist in putrid water, for twelve hours altogether, without
losing her resolution or serenity.

I have already written you a long letter, and bid you adieu with the reluctance which precedes an uncertain separation. Uneasiness, ill health, and confinement, besides the danger I am exposed to, render my life at present more precarious than "the ordinary of nature's tenures." --God knows when I may address you again!--My friend Mad. de ____ is returned from the hospital, and I yield to her fears by ceasing to write, though I am nevertheless determined not to part with what I have hitherto preserved; being convinced, that if evil be intended us, it will be as soon without a pretext as with one.--Adieu.

Providence, Aug. 11, 1794.

I have for some days contemplated the fall of Robespierre and his adherents, only as one of those dispensations of Providence, which were gradually to pursue all who had engaged in the French revolution. The late change of parties has, however, taken a turn I did not expect; and, contrary to what has hitherto occurred, there is a manifest disposition in the people to avail themselves of the weakness which is necessarily occasioned by the contentions of their governors.

When the news of this extraordinary event first became public, it was ever where received with great gravity--I might say, coldness.--Not a comment was uttered, nor a glance of approbation seen. Things might be yet in equilibrium, and popular commotions are always uncertain. Prudence was, therefore, deemed, indispensable; and, until the contest was finally decided, no one ventured to give an opinion; and many, to be certain of guarding against verbal indiscretion, abstained from all intercourse whatever.

By degrees, the execution of Robespierre and above an hundred of his partizans, convinced even the most timid; the murmurs of suppressed discontent began to be heard; and all thought they might now with safety relieve their fears and their sufferings, by execrating the memory of the departed tyrants. The prisons, which had hitherto been avoided as endangering all who approached them, were soon visited with less apprehension; and friendship or affection, no longer exanimate by terror, solicited, though still with trepidation, the release of those for whom they were interested. Some of our associates have already left us in consequence of such intercessions, and we all hope that the tide of opinion, now avowedly inimical to the detestable system to which we are victims, will enforce a general liberation.--We are guarded but slightly; and I think I perceive in the behaviour of the Jacobin Commissaries something of civility and respect not usual.

Thus an event, which I beheld merely as the justice which one set of banditti were made the instruments of exercising upon another, may finally tend to introduce a more humane system of government; or, at least, suspend proscription and massacre, and give this harassed country a little repose.

I am in arrears with my epistolary chronicle, and the hope of so desirable a change will now give me courage to resume it from the conclusion of my last. To-morrow shall be dedicated to this purpose.-- Yours.

August 12.

My letters, previous to the time when I judged it necessary to desist from writing, will have given you some faint sketch of the situation of the country, and the sufferings of its inhabitants--I say a faint sketch, because a thousand horrors and iniquities, which are now daily disclosing, were then confined to the scenes where they were perpetrated; and we knew little more of them than what we collected from the reports of the Convention, where they excited a laugh as pleasantries, or applause as acts of patriotism.

France had become one vast prison, executions were daily multiplied, and a minute and comprehensive oppression seemed to have placed the lives, liberty, and fortune of all within the grasp of the single Committee. Despair itself was subdued, and the people were gradually sinking into a gloomy and stupid obedience.

* The words despotism and tyranny are sufficiently expressive of the
nature of the government to which they are applied; yet still they
are words rendered familiar to us only by history, and convey no
precise idea, except that of a bad political system. The condition
of the French at this time, besides its wretchedness, had something
so strange, so original in it, that even those who beheld it with
attention must be content to wonder, without pretending to offer any
description as adequate.

--The following extract from a speech of Bailleul, a member of the Convention, exhibits a picture nearer the original than I have yet seen--

_"La terreur dominait tous les esprits, comprimait tous les couers--
elle etait la force du gouvernement, et ce gouvernement etait tel,
que les nombreux habitans d'un vaste territoire semblaient avoir
perdu les qualites qui distinguent l'homme de l'animal domestique:
ils semblaient meme n'avoir de vie que ce que le gouvernement
voulait bien leur en accorder.--Le moi humain n'existoit plus;
chaque individu n'etait qu'une machine, allant, venant, pensant ou
ne pensant pas, felon que la tyrannie le pressait ou l'animait."_

Discours de Bailleul, 19 March 1795.

"The minds of all were subdued by terror, and every heart was
compressed beneath its influence.--In this consisted the strength of
the government; and that government was such, that the immense
population of a vast territory, seemed to have lost all the
qualities which distinguish man from the animals attached to him.--
They appeared to exhibit no signs of life but such as their rulers
condescended to permit--the very sense of existence seemed doubtful
or extinct, and each individual was reduced to a mere machine, going
or coming, thinking or not thinking, according as the impulse of
tyranny gave him force or animation."
Speech of Bailleul, 19 March 1795.

On the twenty-second of Prairial, (June 10,) a law, consisting of a variety of articles for the regulation of the Revolutionary Tribunal, was introduced to the convention by Couthon, a member of the government; and, as usual adopted with very little previous discussion.--Though there was no clause of this act but ought to have given the alarm to humanity, "knocked at the heart, and bid it not be quiet;" yet the whole appeared perfectly unexceptionable to the Assembly in general: till, on farther examination, they found it contained an implied repeal of the law hitherto observed, according to which, no representative could be arrested without a preliminary decree for that purpose.--This discovery awakened their suspicions, and the next day Bourdon de l'Oise, a man of unsteady principles, (even as a revolutionist,) was spirited up to demand an explicit renunciation of any power in the Committee to attack the legislative inviolability except in the accustomed forms.--The clauses which elected a jury of murderers, that bereft all but guilt of hope, and offered no prospect to innocence but death, were passed with no other comment than the usual one of applause.*--

* The baseness, cruelty, and cowardice of the Convention are neither
to be denied, nor palliated. For several months they not only
passed decrees of proscription and murder which might reach every
individual in France except themselves, but they even sacrificed
numbers of their own body; and if, instead of proposing an article
affecting the whole Convention, the Committee had demanded the heads
of as many Deputies as they had occasion for by name, I am persuaded
they would have met no resistance.--This single example of
opposition only renders the convention still more an object of
abhorrence, because it marks that they could subdue their
pusillanimity when their own safety was menaced, and that their
previous acquiescence was voluntary.

--This, and this only, by involving their personal safety, excited their courage through their fears.--Merlin de Douay, originally a worthless character, and become yet more so by way of obviating the imputation of bribery from the court, seconded Bourdon's motion, and the obnoxious article was repealed instantaneously.

This first and only instance of opposition was highly displeasing to the Committee, and, on the twenty-fourth, Robespierre, Barrere, Couthon, and Billaud, animadverted with such severity on the promoters of it, that the terrified Bourdon* declared, the repeal he had solicited was unnecessary, and that he believed the Committee were destined to be the saviours of the country; while Merlin de Douay disclaimed all share in the business-- and, in fine, it was determined, that the law of the twenty-second of Prairial should remain as first presented to the Convention, and that the qualification of the succeeding day was void.

* It was on this occasion that the "intrepid" Bourdon kept his bed a
whole month with fear.

So dangerous an infringement on the privileges of the representative body, dwelt on minds insensible to every other consideration; the principal members caballed secretly on the perils by which they were surrounded; and the sullen concord which now marked their deliberations, was beheld by the Committee rather as the prelude to revolt, than the indication of continued obedience. In the mean while it was openly proposed to concentrate still more the functions of government. The circulation of newspapers was insinuated to be useless; and Robespierre gave some hints of suppressing all but one, which should be under particular and official controul.*

* This intended restriction was unnecessary; for the newspapers were
all, not indeed paid by government, but so much subject to the
censure of the guillotine, that they had become, under an "unlimited
freedom of the press," more cautious and insipid than the gazettes
of the proscribed court. Poor Duplain, editor of the "Petit
Courier," and subsequently of the "Echo," whom I remember one of the
first partizans of the revolution, narrowly escaped the massacre of
August 1792, and was afterwards guillotined for publishing the
surrender of Landrecy three days before it was announced officially.

A rumour prevailed, that the refractory members who had excited the late rebellion were to be sacrificed, a general purification of the Assembly to take place, and that the committee and a few select adherents were to be invested with the whole national authority. Lists of proscription were said to be made; and one of them was secretly communicated as having been found among the papers of a juryman of the Revolutionary Tribunal lately arrested.--These apprehensions left the members implicated no alternative but to anticipate hostilities, or fall a sacrifice; for they knew the instant of attack would be that of destruction, and that the people were too indifferent to take any part in the contest.

Things were in this state, when two circumstances of a very different nature assisted in promoting the final explosion, which so much astonished, not only the rest of Europe, but France itself.

It is rare that a number of men, however well meaning, perfectly agree in the exercise of power; and the combinations of the selfish and wicked must be peculiarly subject to discord and dissolution. The Committee of Public Welfare, while it enslaved the convention and the people, was torn by feuds, and undermined by the jealousies of its members. Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just, were opposed by Collot and Billaud Varennes; while Barrere endeavoured to deceive both parties; and Carnot, Lindet, the two Prieurs, and St. Andre, laboured in the cause of the common tyranny, in the hope of still dividing it with the conquerors.

For some months this enmity was restrained, by the necessity of preserving appearances, and conciliated, by a general agreement in the principles of administration, till Robespierre, relying on his superior popularity, began to take an ascendant, which alarmed such of his colleagues as were not his partisans, both for their power and their safety. Animosities daily increased, and their debates at length became so violent and noisy, that it was found necessary to remove the business of the Committee to an upper room, lest people passing under the windows should overhear these scandalous scenes. Every means were taken to keep these disputes a profound secret--the revilings which accompanied their private conferences were turned into smooth panegyrics of each other when they ascended the tribune, and their unanimity was a favourite theme in all their reports to the Convention.*

* So late as on the seventh of Thermidor, (25th July,) Barrere made
a pompous eulogium on the virtues of Robespierre; and, in a long
account of the state of the country, he acknowledges "some little
clouds hang over the political horizon, but they will soon be
dispersed, by the union which subsists in the Committees;--above
all, by a more speedy trial and execution of revolutionary
criminals." It is difficult to imagine what new means of dispatch
this airy barbarian had contrived, for in the six weeks preceding
this harangue, twelve hundred and fifty had been guillotined in
Paris only.

The impatience of Robespierre to be released from associates whose views too much resembled his own to leave him an undivided authority, at length overcame his prudence; and, after absenting himself for six weeks from the Committee, on the 8th of Thermidor, (26th July,) he threw off the mask, and in a speech full of mystery and implications, but containing no direct charges, proclaimed the divisions which existed in the government.--On the same evening he repeated this harangue at the Jacobins, while St. Just, by his orders, menaced the obnoxious part of the Committee with a formal denunciation to the Convention.--From this moment Billaud Varennes and Collot d'Herbois concluded their destruction to be certain. In vain they soothed, expostulated with, and endeavoured to mollify St. Just, so as to avert an open rupture. The latter, who probably knew it was not Robespierre's intention to accede to any arrangement, left them to make his report.

On the morning of the ninth the Convention met, and with internal dread and affected composure proceeded to their ordinary business.--St. Just then ascended the tribune, and the curiosity or indecision of the greater number permitted him to expatiate at large on the intrigues and guilt of every kind which he imputed to a "part" of the Committee.--At the conclusion of this speech, Tallien, one of the devoted members, and Billaud Varennes, the leader of the rival party, opened the trenches, by some severe remarks on the oration of St. Just, and the conduct of those with whom he was leagued. This attack encouraged others: the whole Convention joined in accusing Robespierre of tyranny; and Barrere, who perceived the business now deciding, ranged himself on the side of the strongest, though the remaining members of the Committee still appeared to preserve their neutrality. Robespierre was, for the first time, refused a hearing, yet, the influence he so lately possessed still seemed to protect him. The Assembly launched decrees against various of his subordinate agents, without daring to proceed against himself; and had not the indignant fury with which he was seized, at the desertion of those by whom he had been most flattered, urged him to call for arrest and death, it is probable the whole would have ended in the punishment of his enemies, and a greater accession of power to himself.

But at this crisis all Robespierre's circumspection abandoned him. Having provoked the decree for arresting his person, instead of submitting to it until his party should be able to rally, he resisted; and by so doing gave the Convention a pretext for putting him out of the law; or, in other words, to destroy him, without the delay or hazard of a previous trial.

Having been rescued from the Gens d'Armes, and taken in triumph to the municipality, the news spread, the Jacobins assembled, and Henriot, the commander of the National Guard, (who had likewise been arrested, and again set at liberty by force,) all prepared to act in his defence. But while they should have secured the Convention, they employed themselves at the Hotel de Ville in passing frivolous resolutions; and Henriot, with all the cannoneers decidedly in his favour, exhibited an useless defiance, by stalking before the windows of the Committee of General Safety, when he should have been engaged in arresting its members.

All these imprudences gave the Convention time to proclaim that Robespierre, the municipality, and their adherents, were decreed out of the protection of the laws, and in circumstances of this nature such a step has usually been decisive--for however odious a government, if it does but seem to act on a presumption of its own strength, it has always an advantage over its enemies; and the timid, the doubtful, or indifferent, for the most part, determine in favour of whatever wears the appearance of established authority. The people, indeed, remained perfectly neuter; but the Jacobins, the Committees of the Sections, and their dependents, might have composed a force more than sufficient to oppose the few guards which surrounded the National Palace, had not the publication of this summary outlawry at once paralyzed all their hopes and efforts.--They had seen multitudes hurried to the Guillotine, because they were "hors de la loi;" and this impression now operated so forcibly, that the cannoneers, the national guard, and those who before were most devoted to the cause, laid down their arms, and precipitately abandoned their chiefs to the fate which awaited them. Robespierre was taken at the Hotel de Ville, after being severely wounded in the face; his brother broke his thigh, in attempting to escape from a window; Henriot was dragged from concealment, deprived of an eye; and Couthon, whom nature had before rendered a cripple, now exhibited a most hideous spectacle, from an ineffectual effort to shoot himself.--Their wounds were dressed to prolong their suffering, and their sentence being contained in the decree that outlawed them, their persons were identified by the same tribunal which had been the instrument of their crimes. --On the night of the tenth they were conveyed to the scaffold, amidst the insults and execrations of a mob, which a few hours before beheld them with trembling and adoration.--Lebas, also a member of the convention, and a principal agent of Robespierre, fell by his own hand; and Couthon, St. Just, and seventeen others, suffered with the two Robespierres.--The municipality of Paris, &c. to the number of seventy-two, were guillotined the succeeding day, and about twelve more the day after.

The fate of these men may be ranked as one of the most dreadful of those examples which history vainly transmits to discourage the pursuits of ambition. The tyrant who perishes amidst the imposing fallaciousness of military glory, mingles admiration with abhorrence, and rescues his memory from contempt, if not from hatred. Even he who expiates his crimes on the scaffold, if he die with fortitude, becomes the object of involuntary compassion, and the award of justice is not often rendered more terrible by popular outrage. But the fall of Robespierre and his accomplices was accompanied by every circumstance that could add poignancy to suffering, or dread to death. The ambitious spirit which had impelled them to tyrannize over a submissive and defenceless people, abandoned them in their last moments. Depressed by anguish, exhausted by fatigue, and without courage, religion, or virtue, to support them, they were dragged through the savage multitude, wounded and helpless, to receive that stroke, from which even the pious and the brave sometimes shrink with dismay.

Robespierre possessed neither the talents nor merits of Nicolas Riezi; but they are both conspicuous instances of the mutability of popular support, and there is a striking similitude in the last events of their history. They both degraded their ambition by cowardice--they were both deserted by the populace, whom they began by flattering, and ended by oppressing; and the death of both was painful and ignominious--borne without dignity, and embittered by reproach and insult.*

* Robespierre lay for some hours in one of the committee-rooms,
writhing with the pain of his wound, and abandoned to despair; while
many of his colleagues, perhaps those who had been the particular
agents and applauders of his crimes, passed and repassed him,
glorying and jesting at his sufferings. The reader may compare the
death of Robespierre with that of Rienzi; but if the people of Rome
revenged the tyranny of the Tribune, they were neither so mean nor
so ferocious as the Parisians.

You will perceive by this summary that the overthrow of Robespierre was chiefly occasioned by the rivalship of his colleagues in the Committee, assisted by the fears of the Convention at large for themselves.--Another circumstance, at which I have already hinted, as having some share in this event, shall be the subject of my next letter.

Providence, Aug. 13, 1794.

_Amour, tu perdis Troye_ [Love! thou occasionedst the destruction of Troy.]:--yet, among the various mischiefs ascribed to the influence of this capricious Sovereign, amidst the wrecks of sieges, and the slaughter of battles, perhaps we may not unjustly record in his praise, that he was instrumental to the solace of humanity, by contributing to the overthrow of Robespierre. It is at least pleasing to turn from the general horrors of the revolution, and suppose, for a moment, that the social affections were not yet entirely banished, and that gallantry still retained some empire, when every other vestige of civilization was almost annihilated.

After such an exordium, I feel a little ashamed of my hero, and could wish, for the credit of my tale, it were not more necessary to invoke the historic muse of Fielding, than that of Homer or Tasso; but imperious Truth obliges me to confess, that Tallien, who is to be the subject of this letter, was first introduced to celebrity by circumstances not favourable for the comment of my poetical text.

At the beginning of the revolution he was known only as an eminent orator en plain vent; that is, as a preacher of sedition to the mob, whom he used to harangue with great applause at the Palais Royal. Having no profession or means of subsistence, he, as Dr. Johnson observes of one of our poets, necessarily became an author. He was, however, no farther entitled to this appellation, than as a periodical scribbler in the cause of insurrection; but in this he was so successful, that it recommended him to the care of Petion and the municipality, to whom his talents and principles were so acceptable, that they made him Secretary to the Committee.

On the second and third of September 1792, he superintended the massacre of the prisons, and is alledged to have paid the assassins according to the number of victims they dispatched with great regularity; and he himself seems to have little to say in his defence, except that he acted officially. Yet even the imputation of such a claim could not be overlooked by the citizens of Paris; and at the election of the Convention he was distinguished by being chosen one of their representatives.

It is needless to describe his political career in the Assembly otherwise than by adding, that when the revolutionary furor was at its acme, he was deemed by the Committee of Public Welfare worthy of an important mission in the South. The people of Bourdeaux were, accordingly, for some time harassed by the usual effects of these visitations--imprisonments and the Guillotine; and Tallien, though eclipsed by Maignet and Carrier, was by no means deficient in the patriotic energies of the day.

I think I must before have mentioned to you a Madame de Fontenay, the wife of an emigrant, whom I occasionally saw at Mad. de C____'s. I then remarked her for the uncommon attraction of her features, and the elegance of her person; but was so much disgusted at a tendency to republicanism I observed in her, and which, in a young woman, I thought unbecoming, that I did not promote the acquaintance, and our different pursuits soon separated us entirely. Since this period I have learned, that her conduct became exceedingly imprudent, or at least suspicious, and that at the general persecution, finding her republicanism would not protect her, she fled to Bourdeaux, with the hope of being able to proceed to Spain. Here, however, being a Spaniard by birth, and the wife of an emigrant, she was arrested and thrown into prison, where she remained till the arrival of Tallien on his mission.

The miscellaneous occupations of a deputy-errant, naturally include an introduction to the female prisoners; and Tallien's presence afforded Mad. de Fontenay an occasion of pleading her cause with all the success which such a pleader might, in other times, be supposed to obtain from a judge of Tallien's age. The effect of the scenes Tallien had been an actor in, was counteracted by youth, and his heart was not yet indifferent to the charms of beauty--Mad. de Fontenay was released by the captivation of her liberator, and a reciprocal attachment ensued.

We must not, however, conclude, all this merely a business of romance. Mad. de Fontenay was rich, and had connexions in Spain, which might hereafter procure an asylum, when a regicide may with difficulty find one: and on the part of the lady, though Tallien's person is agreeable, a desire of protecting herself and her fortune might be allowed to have some influence.

From this time the revolutionist is said to have given way: Bourdeaux became the Capua of Tallien; and its inhabitants were, perhaps, indebted for a more moderate exercise of his power, to the smiles of Mad. de Fontenay.--From hanging loose on society, he had now the prospect of marrying a wife with a large fortune; and Tallien very wisely considered, that having something at stake, a sort of comparative reputation among the higher class of people at Bourdeaux, might be of more importance to him in future, than all the applause the Convention could bestow on a liberal use of the Guillotine.--The relaxed system which was the consequence of such policy, soon reached the Committee of Public Welfare, to whom it was highly displeasing, and Tallien was recalled.

A youth of the name of Julien, particularly in the confidence of Robespierre, was then sent to Bourdeaux, not officially as his successor, but as a spy, to collect information concerning him, as well as to watch the operations of other missionaries, and prevent their imitating Tallien's schemes of personal advantage, at the expence of scandalizing the republic by an appearance of lenity.--The disastrous state of Lyons, the persecutions of Carrier, the conflagrations of Maignet, and the crimes of various other Deputies, had obliterated the minor revolutionisms of Tallien:* The citizens of Bourdeaux spoke of him without horror, which in these times was equal to eulogium; and Julien transmitted such accounts of his conduct to Robespierre,** as were equally alarming to the jealousy of his spirit, and repugnant to the cruelty of his principles.

* It was Tallien's boast to have guillotined only aristocrats, and
of this part of his merit I am willing to leave him in possession.
At Toulon he was charged with the punishment of those who had given
up the town to the English; but finding, as he alledged, nearly all
the inhabitants involved, he selected about two hundred of the
richest, and that the horrid business might wear an appearance of
regularity, the patriots, that is, the most notorious Jacobins, were
ordered to give their opinion on the guilt of these victims, who
were brought out into an open field for that purpose. With such
judges the sentence was soon passed, and a fusillade took place on
the spot.--It was on this occasion that Tallien made particular
boast of his humanity; and in the same publication where he relates
the circumstance, he exposes the "atrocious conduct" of the English
at the surrender of Toulon. The cruelty of these barbarians not
being sufficiently gratified by dispatching the patriots the
shortest way, they hung up many of them by their chins on hooks at
the shambles, and left them to die at their leisure.--See
"Mitraillades, Fusillades," a recriminating pamphlet, addressed by
Tallien to Collot d'Herbois.--The title alludes to Collot's exploits
at Lyons.

** It is not out of the usual course of things that Tallien's
moderation at Bourdeaux might have been profitable; and the wife or
mistress of a Deputy was, on such occasions, a useful medium,
through which the grateful offerings of a rich and favoured
aristocrat might be conveyed, without committing the legislative
reputation.--The following passage from Julien's correspondence with
Robespierre seems to allude to some little arrangements of this
nature:

"I think it my duty to transmit you an extract from a letter of
Tallien's, [Which had been intercepted.] to the National Club.--It
coincides with the departure of La Fontenay, whom the Committee of
General Safety have doubtless had arrested. I find some very
curious political details regarding her; and Bourdeaux seems to have
been, until this moment, a labyrinth of intrigue and peculation."

It appears from Robespierre's papers, that not only Tallien, but Legendre, Bourdon de l'Oise, Thuriot, and others, were incessantly watched by the spies of the Committee. The profession must have improved wonderfully under the auspices of the republic, for I doubt if _Mons. le Noir's Mouchards_ [The spies of the old police, so called in derision.-- Brissot, in this act of accusation, is described as having been an agent of the Police under the monarchy.--I cannot decide on the certainty of this, or whether his occupation was immediately that of a spy, but I have respectable authority for saying, that antecedent to the revolution, his character was very slightly estimated, and himself considered as "hanging loose on society."] were as able as Robespierre's.--The reader may judge from the following specimens:

"The 6th instant, the deputy Thuriot, on quitting the Convention,
went to No. 35, Rue Jaques, section of the Pantheon, to the house of
a pocket-book maker, where he staid talking with a female about ten
minutes. He then went to No. 1220, Rue Fosse St. Bernard, section
of the Sans-Culottes, and dined there at a quarter past two. At a
quarter past seven he left the last place, and meeting a citizen on
the Quay de l'Ecole, section of the Museum, near le Cafe Manoury,
they went in there together, and drank a bottle of beer. From
thence he proceeded to la Maison Memblee de la Providence, No. 16,
Rue d'Orleans Honore, section de la Halle au Bled, whence, after
staying about five-and-twenty minutes, he came out with a citoyenne,
who had on a puce Levite, a great bordered shawl of Japan cotton,
and on her head a white handkerchief, made to look like a cap. They
went together to No. 163, Place Egalite, where after stopping an
instant, they took a turn in the galleries, and then returned to
sup.--They went in at half past nine, and were still there at eleven
o'clock, when we came away, not being certain if they would come out
again.

"Bourdon de l'Oise, on entering the Assembly, shook hands with four
or five Deputies. He was observed to gape while good news was
announcing."

Tallien was already popular among the Jacobins of Paris; and his connexion with a beautiful woman, who might enable him to keep a domestic establishment, and to display any wealth he had acquired, without endangering his reputation, was a circumstance not to be overlooked; for Robespierre well knew the efficacy of female intrigue, and dinners,* in gaining partizans among the subordinate members of the Convention.

* Whoever reads attentively, and in detail, the debates of the
Convention, will observe the influence and envy created by a
superior style of living in any particular member. His dress, his
lodging, or dinners, are a perpetual subject of malignant reproach.
--This is not to be wondered at, when we consider the description of
men the Convention is composed of;--men who, never having been
accustomed to the elegancies of life, behold with a grudging eye the
gay apparel or luxurious table of a colleague, who arrived at Paris
with no other treasure but his patriotism, and has no ostensible
means beyond his eighteen livres a day, now increased to thirty-six.

Mad. de Fontenay, was, therefore, on her arrival at Paris, whither she had followed Tallien, (probably in order to procure a divorce and marry him,) arrested, and conveyed to prison.

An injury of this kind was not to be forgiven; and Robespierre seems to have acted on the presumption that it could not. He beset Tallien with spies, menaced him in the Convention, and made Mad. de Fontenay an offer of liberty, if she would produce a substantial charge against him, which he imagined her knowledge of his conduct at Bourdeaux might furnish her grounds for doing. A refusal must doubtless have irritated the tyrant; and Tallien had every reason to fear she would soon be included in one of the lists of victims who were daily sacrificed as conspirators in the prisons. He was himself in continual expectation of being arrested; and it was generally believed Robespierre would soon openly accuse him.--Thus situated, he eagerly embraced the opportunity which the schism in the Committee presented of attacking his adversary, and we certainly must allow him the merit of being the first who dared to move for the arrest of Robespierre.--I need not add, that la belle was one of the first whose prison doors were opened; and I understand that, being divorced from Mons. de Fontenay, she is either married, or on the point of being so, to Tallien.

This conclusion spoils my story as a moral one; and had I been the disposer of events, the Septembriser, the regicide, and the cold assassin of the Toulonais, should have found other rewards than affluence, and a wife who might represent one of Mahomet's Houris. Yet, surely, "the time will come, though it come ne'er so slowly," when Heaven shall separate guilt from prosperity, and when Tallien and his accomplices shall be remembered only as monuments of eternal justice. For the lady, her faults are amply punished in the disgrace of such an alliance--

"A cut-purse of the empire and the rule;
"____ a King of shreds and patches."

Providence, Aug. 14, 1794.

The thirty members whom Robespierre intended to sacrifice, might perhaps have formed some design of resisting, but it appears evident that the Convention in general acted without plan, union, or confidence.*--

* The base and selfish timidity of the Convention is strongly
evinced by their suffering fifty innocent people to be guillotined
on the very ninth of Thermidor, for a pretended conspiracy in the
prison of St. Lazare.--A single word from any member might at this
crisis have suspended the execution of the sentence, but that word
no one had the courage or the humanity to utter.

--Tallien and Billaud were rendered desperate by their situation, and it is likely that, when they ventured to attack Robespierre, they did not themselves expect to be successful--it was the consternation of the latter which encouraged them to persist, and the Assembly to support them:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
"Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

And to have been lucky enough to seize on this crisis, is, doubtless, the whole merit of the convention. There has, it is true, been many allusions to the dagger of Brutus, and several Deputies are said to have conceived very heroic projects for the destruction of the tyrant; but as he was dead before these projects were brought to light, we cannot justly ascribe any effect to them.

The remains of the Brissotin faction, still at liberty, from whom some exertions might have been expected, were cautiously inactive; and those who had been most in the habit of appreciating themselves for their valour, were now conspicuous only for that discretion which Falstaff calls the better part of it.--Dubois Crance, who had been at the expence of buying a Spanish poniard at St. Malo, for the purpose of assassinating Robespierre, seems to have been calmed by the journey, and to have finally recovered his temper, before he reached the Convention.--Merlin de Thionville, Merlin de Douay, and others of equal note, were among the "passive valiant;" and Bourdon de l'Oise had already experienced such disastrous effects from inconsiderate exhibitions of courage, that he now restrained his ardour till the victory should be determined. Even Legendre, who is occasionally the Brutus, the Curtius, and all the patriots whose names he has been able to learn, confined his prowess to an assault on the club-room of the Jacobins, when it was empty, and carrying off the key, which no one disputed with him, so that he can at most claim an ovation. It is, in short, remarkable, that all the members who at present affect to be most vehement against Robespierre's principles, [And where was the all-politic Sieyes?--At home, writing his own eulogium.] were the least active in attacking his person; and it is indisputable, that to Tallien, Billaud, Louchet, Elie Lacoste, Collot d'Herbois, and a few of the more violent Jacobins, were due those first efforts which determined his fall.--Had Robespierre, instead of a querelous harangue, addressed the convention in his usual tone of authority, and ended by moving for a decree against a few only of those obnoxious to him, the rest might have been glad to compound for their own safety, by abandoning a cause no longer personal: but his impolicy, not his wickedness, hastened his fate; and it is so far fortunate for France, that it has at least suspended the system of government which is ascribed to him.

The first days of victory were passed in receiving congratulations, and taking precautions; and though men do not often adapt their claims to their merits, yet the members of the Convention seemed in general to be conscious that none amongst them had very decided pretensions to the spoils of the vanquished.--Of twelve, which originally composed the Committee of Public Welfare, seven only remained; yet no one ventured to suggest a completion of the number, till Barrere, after previously insinuating how adequate he and his colleagues were to the task of "saving the country," proposed, in his flippant way, and merely as a matter of form, that certain persons whom he recommended, should fill up the vacancies in the government.

This modest Carmagnole* was received with great coolness; the late implicit acquiescence was changed to demur, and an adjournment unanimously called for.

* A ludicrous appellation, which Barrere used to give to his reports
in the presence of those who were in the secret of his Charlatanry.
The air of "La Carmagnole" was originally composed when the town of
that name was taken by Prince Eugene, and was adapted to the
indecent words now sung by the French after the 10th of August 1792.

--Such unusual temerity susprised and alarmed the remains of the Committee, and Billaud Varennes sternly reminded the Convention of the abject state they were so lately released from. This produced retort and replication, and the partners of Robespierre's enormities, who had hoped to be the tranquil inheritors of his power, found, that in destroying a rival, they had raised themselves masters.

The Assembly persisted in not adopting the members offered to be imposed upon them; but, as it was easier to reject than to choose, the Committee were ordered to present a new plan for this part of the executive branch, and the election of those to be entrusted with it was postponed for farther consideration.

Having now felt their strength, they next proceeded to renew a part of the committee of General Safety, several of its members being inculpated as partizans of Robespierre, and though this Committee had become entirely subordinate to that of Public Welfare, yet its functions were too important for it to be neglected, more especially as they comprised a very favourite branch of the republican government, that of issuing writs of arrest at pleasure.--The law of the twenty-second of Prairial is also repealed, but the Revolutionary Tribunal is preserved, and the necessity of suspending the old jury, as being the creatures of Robespierre, has not prevented the tender solicitude of the Convention for a renovated activity in the establishment itself.

This assumption of power has become every day more confirmed, and the addresses which are received by the Assembly, though yet in a strain of gross adulation,* express such an abhorrence of the late system, as must suffice to convince them the people are not disposed to see such a system continued.

* A collection of addresses, presented to the Convention at various
periods, might form a curious history of the progress of despotism.
These effusions of zeal were not, however, all in the "sublime"
style: the legislative dignity sometimes condescended to unbend
itself, and listen to metrical compositions, enlivened by the
accompaniment of fiddles; but the manly and ferocious Danton, to
whom such sprightly interruptions were not congenial, proposed a
decree, that the citizens should, in future, express their
adorations in plain prose, and without any musical accessories.

Billaud Varennes, Collot, and other members of the old Committee, view these innovations with sullen acquiescence; but Barrere, whose frivolous and facile spirit is incapable of consistency, even in wickedness, perseveres and flourishes at the tribune as gaily as ever.--Unabashed by detection, insensible to contempt, he details his epigrams and antitheses against Catilines and Cromwells with as much self-sufficiency as when, in the same tinsel eloquence, he promulgated the murderous edicts of Robespierre.

Many of the prisoners at Paris continue daily to obtain their release, and, by the exertions of his personal enemies, particularly of our quondam sovereign, Andre Dumont, (now a member of the Committee of General Safety,) an examination into the atrocities committed by Le Bon is decreed.--But, amidst these appearances of justice, a versatility of principle, or rather an evident tendency to the decried system, is perceptible. Upon the slightest allusion to the revolutionary government, the whole Convention rise in a mass to vociferate their adherence to it:* the tribunal, which was its offspring and support, is anxiously reinstalled; and the low insolence with which Barrere announces their victories in the Netherlands, is, as usual, loudly applauded.

* The most moderate, as well as the most violent, were always united
on the subject of this irrational tyranny.--_"Toujours en menageant,
comme la prunelle de ses yeux, le gouvernement revolutionnaire."_--
"Careful always of the revolutionary government, as of the apple of
their eye." _Fragment pour servir a l'Hist. de la Convention, par
J. J. Dussault_.

The brothers of Cecile Renaud, who were sent for by Robespierre from the army to Paris, in order to follow her to the scaffold, did not arrive until their persecutor was no more, and a change of government was avowed. They have presented themselves at the bar of the Convention, to entreat a revisal of their father's sentence, and some compensation for his property, so unjustly confiscated.--You will, perhaps, imagine, that, at the name of these unfortunate young men, every heart anticipated a consent to their claims, even before the mind could examine the justice of them, and that one of those bursts of sensibility for which this legislature is so remarkable instantaneously accorded the petition. Alas! this was not an occasion to excite the enthusiasm of the Convention: Coupilleau de Fontenay, one of the "mild and moderate party", repulsed the petitioners with harshness, and their claim was silenced by a call for the order of the day. The poor Renauds were afterwards coldly referred to the Committee of Relief, for a pittance, by way of charity, instead of the property they have a right to, and which they have been deprived of, by the base compliance of the Convention with the caprice of a monster.

Such relapses and aberrations are not consolatory, but the times and circumstances seem to oppose them--the whole fabric of despotism is shaken, and we have reason to hope the efforts of tyranny will be counteracted by its weakness.