Chapter VIII: Part 8

It is not inapposite to mention a circumstance which happened to a friend of Mr. D____'s, some little time since, at Paris. He was passing through France, in his way from Italy, at the time of the general arrest, and was detained there till the other day. As soon as he was released from prison, he applied in person to a member of the Convention, to learn when he might hope to return to England. The Deputy replied, _"Ma soi je n'en sais rien_ [Faith I can't tell you.]--If your Messieurs (naming some members in the opposition) had succeeded in promoting a revolution, you would not have been in your cage so long--_mais pour le coup il faut attendre."_ [But now you must have patience.] It is not probable the members he named could have such designs, but Dumont once held the same language to me; and it is mortifying to hear these miscreants suppose, that factious or ambitious men, because they chance to possess talents, can make revolutions in England as they have done in France.

In the papers which gave rise to these reflections, I observe that some of your manufacturing towns are discontented, and attribute the stagnation of their commerce to the war; but it is not unlikely, that the stagnation and failures complained of might have taken place, though the war had not happened.--When I came here in 1792, every shop and warehouse were over-stocked with English goods. I could purchase any article of our manufacture at nearly the retail price of London; and some I sent for from Paris, in the beginning of 1793, notwithstanding the reports of war, were very little advanced. Soon after the conclusion of the commercial treaty, every thing English became fashionable; and so many people had speculated in consequence, that similar speculations took place in England. But France was glutted before the war; and all speculations entered into on a presumption of a demand equal to that of the first years of the treaty, must have failed in a certain degree, though the two countries had remained at peace.--Even after a two years cessation of direct intercourse, British manufactures are every where to be procured, which is a sufficient proof that either the country was previously over supplied, or that they are still imported through neutral or indirect channels. Both these suppositions preclude the likelihood that the war has so great a share in relaxing the activity of your commerce, as is pretended.

But whatever may be the effect of the war, there is no prospect of peace, until the efforts of England, or the total ruin of the French finances,* shall open the way for it.

* By a report of Cambon's at this time, it appears the expences of
France in 1792 were eighteen millions sterling--in 1793, near ninety
millions--and, in the spring of 1794, twelve and a half millions per
month!--The church bells, we learn from the same authority, cost in
coinage, and the purchase of copper to mix with the metal, five or
six millions of livres more than they produced as money. The church
plate, which was brought to the bar of the Convention with such
eclat, and represented as an inexhaustible resource, amounted to
scarcely a million sterling: for as the offering was every where
involuntary, and promoted by its agents for the purposes of pillage,
part was secreted, a still greater part stolen, and, as the
conveyance to Paris was a sort of job, the expences often exceeded
the worth--a patine, a censor, and a small chalice, were sent to the
Convention, perhaps an hundred leagues, by a couple of Jacobin
Commissioners in a coach and four, with a military escort. Thus,
the prejudices of the people were outraged, and their property
wasted, without any benefit, even to those who suggested the
measure.

--The Convention, indeed, have partly relinquished their project of destroying all the Kings of the earth, and forcing all the people to be free. But, though their schemes of reformation have failed, they still adhere to those of extirpation; and the most moderate members talk occasionally of "vile islanders," and "sailing up the Thames."*--

* The Jacobins and the Moderates, who could agree in nothing else,
were here perfectly in unison; so that on the same day we see the
usual invectives of Barrere succeeded by menaces equally ridiculous
from Pelet and Tallien--

_"La seule chose dont nous devons nous occuper est d'ecraser ce
gouvernement infame."_

Discours de Pelet, 14 Nov.

"The destruction of that infamous government is the only thing that
ought to engage our attention."
Pelet's Speech, 14 Nov. 1794.

_"Aujourdhui que la France peut en se debarrassant d'une partie de
ses ennemis reporter la gloire de ses armes sur les bordes de la
Tamise, et ecraser le gouvernement Anglais."
Discours de Tallien._

"France, having now the opportunity of lessening the number of her
enemies, may carry the glory of her arms to the banks of the Thames,
and crush the English government."
Tallien's Speech.

_"Que le gouvernement prenne des mesures sages pour faire une paix
honorable avec quelques uns de nos ennemis, et a l'aide des
vaisseaux Hollandais et Espagnols, portons nous ensuite avec vigueur
sur les bordes de la Tamise, et detruisons la nouvelle Carthage."
Discours de Tallien, 14 Nov._

"Let the government but adopt wise measures for making an honorable
peace with a part of our enemies, and with the aid of the Dutch and
Spanish navies, let us repair to the banks of the Thames, and
destroy the modern Carthage."
Tallien's Speech, 14 Nov. 1794.

No one is here ignorant of the source of Tallien's predilection for Spain, and we may suppose the intrigue at this time far advanced. Probably the charms of his wife (the daughter of Mons. Cabarrus, a French speculator, formerly much encouraged by the Spanish government, afterwards disgraced and imprisoned, but now liberated) might not be the only means employed to procure his conversion.

--Tallien, Clauzel, and those who have newly assumed the character of rational and decent people, still use the low and atrocious language of Brissot, on the day he made his declaration of war; and perhaps hope, by exciting a national spirit of vengeance against Great Britain, to secure their lives and their pay, when they shall have been forced to make peace on the Continent: for, be certain, the motives of these men are never to be sought for in any great political object, but merely in expedients to preserve their persons and their plunder.

Those who judge of the Convention by their daily harangues, and the justice, virtue, or talents which they ascribe to themselves, must believe them to be greatly regenerated: yet such is the dearth both of abilities and of worth of any kind, that Andre Dumont has been successively President of the Assembly, Member of the Committee of General Safety, and is now in that of Public Welfare.--Adieu.

Amiens, Dec. 16, 1794.

The seventy-three Deputies who have been so long confined are now liberated, and have resumed their seats. Jealousy and fear for some time rendered the Convention averse from the adoption of this measure; but the public opinion was so determined in favour of it, that farther resistance might not have been prudent. The satisfaction created by this event is general, though the same sentiment is the result of various conclusions, which, however, all tend to one object--the re-establishment of monarchy.

The idea most prevalent is, that these deputies, when arrested, were royalists.*

* This opinion prevailed in many places where the proscribed
deputies took refuge. "The Normans (says Louvet) deceived by the
imputations in the newspapers, assisted us, under the idea that we
were royalists: but abandoned us when they found themselves
mistaken." In the same manner, on the appearance of these Deputies
in other departments, armies were collecting very fast, but
dispersed when they perceived these men were actuated only by
personal fear or personal ambition, and that no one talked of
restoring the monarchy.

--By some it is thought, persecution may have converted them; but the reflecting part of the nation look on the greater number as adherents of the Girondists, whom the fortunate violence of Robespierre excluded from participating in many of the past crimes of their colleagues, and who have, in that alone, a reason for not becoming accomplices in those which may be attempted in future.

It is astonishing to see with what facility people daily take on trust things which they have it in their power to ascertain. The seventy-three owe a great part of the interest they have excited to a persuasion of their having voted either for a mild sentence on the King, or an appeal to the nation: yet this is so far from being true, that many of them were unfavourable to him on every question. But supposing it to have been otherwise, their merit is in reality little enhanced: they all voted him guilty, without examining whether he was so or not; and in affecting mercy while they refused justice, they only aimed at conciliating their present views with their future safety.

The whole claim of this party, who are now the Moderates of the Convention, is reducible to their having opposed the commission of crimes which were intended to serve their adversaries, rather than themselves. To effect the dethronement of the King, and the destruction of those obnoxious to them, they approved of popular insurrections; but expected that the people whom they had rendered proficients in cruelty, should become gentle and obedient when urged to resist their own authority; yet they now come forth as victims of their patriotism, and call the heads of the faction who are fallen--martyrs to liberty! But if they are victims, it is to their folly or wickedness in becoming members of such an assembly; and if their chiefs were martyrs, it was to the principles they inculcated.

The trial of the Brissotins was justice, compared with that of the King. If the former were condemned without proof, their partizans should remember, that the revolutionary jury pretended to be influenced by the same moral evidence they had themselves urged as the ground on which they condemned the King; and if the people beheld with applause or indifference the execution of their once-popular idols, they only put in practice the barbarous lessons which those idols had taught them;--they were forbidden to lament the fate of their Sovereign, and they rejoiced in that of Brissot and his confederates.--These men, then, only found the just retribution of their own guilt; and though it may be politic to forget that their survivors were also their accomplices, they are not objects of esteem--and the contemporary popularity, which a long seclusion has obtained for them, will vanish, if their future conduct should be directed by their original principles.*

* Louvet's pamphlet had not at this time appeared, and the
subsequent events proved, that the interest taken in these Deputies
was founded on a supposition they had changed their principles; for
before the close of the Convention they were as much objects of
hatred and contempt as their colleagues.

Some of these Deputies were the hirelings of the Duke of Orleans, and most of them are individuals of no better reputation than the rest of the Assembly. Lanjuinais has the merit of having acted with great courage in defence of himself and his party on the thirty-first of May 1792; but the following anecdote, recited by Gregoire* in the Convention a few days ago will sufficiently explain both his character and Gregoire's, who are now, however, looked up to as royalists, and as men comparatively honest.

* Gregoire is one of the constitutional Clergy, and, from the habit
of comparing bad with worse, is more esteemed than many of his
colleagues; yet, in his report on the progress of Vandalism, he
expresses himself with sanguinary indecency--"They have torn (says
he) the prints which represented the execution of Charles the first,
because there were coats of arms on them. Ah, would to god we could
behold, engraved in the same manner, the heads of all Kings, done
from nature! We might then reconcile ourselves to seeing a
ridiculous embellishment of heraldry accompany them."

--"When I first arrived at Versailles, (says Gregoire,) as member of the Constituent Assembly, (in 1789,) I met with Lanjuinais, and we took an oath in concert to dethrone the King and abolish Nobility." Now, this was before the alledged provocations of the King and Nobility--before the constitution was framed--before the flight of the royal family to Varennes--and before the war. But almost daily confessions of this sort escape, which at once justify the King, and establish the infamy of the revolutionists.

These are circumstances not to be forgotten, did not the sad science of discriminating the shades of wickedness, in which (as I have before noticed) the French have been rendered such adepts, oblige them at present to fix their hopes--not according to the degree of merit, but by that of guilt. They are reduced to distinguish between those who sanction murders, and those who perpetrated them--between the sacrificer of one thousand victims, and that of ten--between those who assassinate, and those who only reward the assassin.*

* Tallien is supposed, as agent of the municipality of paris, to
have paid a million and a half of livres to the Septembrisers or
assassins of the prisons! I know not whether the sum was in
assignats or specie.--If in the former, it was, according to the
exchange then, about two and thirty thousand pounds sterling: but if
estimated in proportion to what might be purchased with it, near
fifty thousand. Tallien has never denied the payment of the money--
we may, therefore, conclude the charge to be true.

--Before the revolution, they would not have known how to select, where all were objects of abhorrence; but now the most ignorant are casuists in the gradations of turpitude, and prefer Tallien to Le Bon, and the Abbe Sieyes to Barrere.

The crimes of Carrier have been terminated, not punished, by death. He met his fate with a courage which, when the effect of innocence, is glorious to the sufferer, and consoling to humanity; but a career like his, so ended, was only the confirmation of a brutal and ferocious mind.*

* When Carrier was arrested, he attempted to shoot himself, and, on
being prevented by the Gens-d'armes, he told them there were members
of the Convention who would not forgive their having prevented his
purpose--implying, that they apprehended the discoveries he might
make on his trial. While he was dressing himself, (for they took
him in bed,) he added, "_Les Scelerats!_ (Meaning his more
particular accomplices, who, he was told, had voted against him,)
they deserved that I should be as dastardly as themselves." He
rested his defence entirely on the decrees of the Convention.

--Of thirty who were tried with him as his agents, and convicted of assisting at the drownings, shootings, &c. two only were executed, the rest were acquitted; because, though the facts were proved, the moral latitude of the Revolutionary Jury* did not find the guilt of the intention--that is, the culprits were indisputably the murderers of several thousand people, but, according to the words of the verdict, they did not act with a counter-revolutionary intention.

* An English reader may be deceived by the name of Jury. The
Revolutionary Jury was not only instituted, but even appointed by
the Convention.--The following is a literal translation of some of
the verdicts given on this occasion:

"That O'Sulivan is author and accomplice of several noyades
(drownings) and unheard-of cruelties towards the victims delivered
to the waves.

"That Lefevre is proved to have ordered and caused to be executed a
noyade of men, women, and children, and to have committed various
arbitrary acts.

"That General Heron is proved to have assassinated children, and
worn publicly in his hat the ear of a man he had murdered. That he
also killed two children who were peaceably watching sheep.

"That Bachelier is author and accomplice of the operations at
Nantes, in signing arbitrary mandates of arrest, imposing vexatious
taxes, and taking for himself plate, &c. found at the houses of
citizens arrested on suspicion.

"That Joly is guilty, &c. in executing the arbitrary orders of the
Revolutionary Committee, of tying together the victims destined to
be drowned or shot."

There are thirty-one articles conceived nearly in the same terms,
and which conclude thus--"All convicted as above, but not having
acted with criminal or counter-revolutionary intentions, the
Tribunal acquits and sets them at liberty."

All France was indignant at those verdicts, and the people of Paris
were so enraged, that the Convention ordered the acquitted culprits
to be arrested again, perhaps rather for protection than punishment.
They were sent from Paris, and I never heard the result; but I have
seen the name of General Heron as being at large.

The Convention were certainly desirous that the atrocities of these men (all zealous republicans) should be forgotten; for, independently of the disgrace which their trial has brought on the cause, the sacrifice of such agents might create a dangerous timidity in future, and deprive the government of valuable partizans, who would fear to be the instruments of crimes for which, after such a precedent, they might become responsible. But the evil, which was unavoidable, has been palliated by the tenderness or gratitude of a jury chosen by the Convention, who, by sacrificing two only of this mass of monsters, and protecting the rest, hope to consecrate the useful principle of indulgence for every act, whatever its enormity, which has been the consequence of zeal or obedience to the government.

It is among the dreadful singularities of the revolution, that the greatest crimes which have been committed were all in strict observance of the laws. Hence the Convention are perpetually embarrassed by interest or shame, when it becomes necessary to punish them. We have only to compare the conduct of Carrier, le Bon, Maignet, &c. with the decrees under which they acted, to be convinced that their chief guilt lies in having been capable of obeying: and the convention, coldly issuing forth their rescripts of extermination and conflagration, will not, in the opinion of the moralist, be favorably distinguished from those who carried these mandates into execution.

December 24, 1794.

I am now at a village a few miles from Amiens, where, upon giving security in the usual form, we have been permitted to come for a few days on a visit to some relations of my friend Mad. de ____. On our arrival, we found the lady of the house in a nankeen pierrot, knitting grey thread stockings for herself, and the gentleman in a thick woollen jacket and pantaloons, at work in the fields, and really labouring as hard as his men.--They hope, by thus taking up the occupation and assuming the appearance of farmers, to escape farther persecution; and this policy may be available to those who have little to lose: but property is now a more dangerous distinction than birth, and whoever possesses it, will always be considered as the enemies of the republic, and treated accordingly.

We have been so much confined the last twelve months, that we were glad to ride yesterday in spite of the cold; and our hosts having procured asses for the females of the party, accompanied us themselves on foot.-- During our ramble, we entered into conversation with two old men and a boy, who were at work in an open field near the road. They told us, they had not strength to labour, because they had not their usual quantity of bread--that their good lady, whose chateau we saw at a distance, had been guillotined, or else they should have wanted for nothing--_"Et ste pauvre Javotte la n'auroit pas travaille quant elle est qualsiment prete a mourir."_ ["And our poor Javotte there would not have had to work when she is almost in her grave."]--_"Mon dieu,"_ (says one of the old men, who had not yet spoke,) _"Je donnerais bien ma portion de sa terre pour la ravoir notre bonne dame."_ ["God knows, I would willingly give up my share of her estate to have our good lady amongst us again."]--_"Ah pour ca oui,"_ (returned the other,) _"mais j'crois que nous n'aurons ni l'une l'autre, voila ste maudite nation qui s'empare de tout."_ ["Ah truly, but I fancy we shall have neither one nor the other, for this cursed nation gets hold of every thing."]

While they were going on in this style, a berline and four cabriolets, with three-coloured flags at the windows, and a whole troop of national guard, passed along the road. _"Vive la Republique!"_--"Vive la Nation!" cried our peasants, in an instant; and as soon as the cavalcade was out of sight, _"Voyez ste gueusaille la, quel train, c'est vraiment quelque depute de la Convention--ces brigands la, ils ne manquent de rien, ils vivent comme des rois, et nous autres nous sommes cent sois plus miserables que jamais."_ ["See there what a figure they make, those beggarly fellows--it's some deputy of the convention I take it. The thieves want for nothing, they live like so many kings, and we are all a hundred times worse off than ever."]--_"Tais toi, tais tois,"_ ["Be quiet, I tell you."] (says the old man, who seemed the least garrulous of the two.)--_"Ne crains rien,_ ["Never fear."] (replied the first,) _c'est de braves gens;_ these ladies and gentlemen I'm sure are good people; they have not the look of patriots."--And with this compliment to ourselves, and the externals of patriotism, we took our leave of them.

I found, however, by this little conversation, that some of the peasants still believe they are to have the lands of the gentry divided amongst them, according to a decree for that purpose. The lady, whom they lamented, and whose estate they expected to share, was the Marquise de B____, who had really left the country before the revolution, and had gone to drink some of the German mineral waters, but not returning within the time afterwards prescribed, was declared an emigrant. By means of a friend, she got an application made to Chabot, (then in high popularity,) who for an hundred thousand livres procured a passport from the Executive Council to enter France. Upon the faith of this she ventured to return, and was in consequence, notwithstanding her passport, executed as an emigrant.

Mrs. D____, who is not yet well enough for such an expedition, and is, besides, unaccustomed to our montures, remained at home. We found she had been much alarmed during our absence, every house in the village having been searched, by order of the district, for corn, and two of the horses taken to the next post to convey the retinue of the Deputy we had seen in the morning. Every thing, however, was tranquil on our arrival, and rejoicing it was no worse, though Mons. ____ seemed to be under great apprehension for his horses, we sat down to what in France is called a late dinner.

Our host's brother, who left the army at the general exclusion of the Noblesse, and was in confinement at the Luxembourg until after the death of Robespierre, is a professed wit, writes couplets to popular airs, and has dramatized one of Plutarch's Lives. While we were at the desert, he amused us with some of his compositions in prison, such as an epigram on the Guillotine, half a dozen calembours on the bad fare at the _Gamelle,_ [Mess.] and an ode on the republican victory at Fleurus--the last written under the hourly expectation of being sent off with the next _fournee_ (batch) of pretended conspirators, yet breathing the most ardent attachment to the convention, and terminated by a full sounding line about tyrants and liberty.--This may appear strange, but the Poets were, for the most part, in durance, and the Muses must sing, though in a cage: hope and fear too both inspire prescriptively, and freedom might be obtained or death averted by these effusions of a devotion so profound as not to be alienated by the sufferings of imprisonment, or the menace of destruction. Whole volumes of little jeux d'esprit, written under these circumstances, might be collected from the different prisons; and, I believe, it is only in France that such a collection could have been furnished.*

* Many of these poetical trifles have been published--some written
even the night before their authors were executed. There are
several of great poetical merit, and, when considered relatively,
are wonderful.--Among the various poets imprisoned, was one we
should scarcely have expected--Rouget Delille, author of the
Marseillois Hymn, who, while his muse was rouzing the citizens from
one end of the republic to the other to arm against tyrants, was
himself languishing obscurely a victim to the worst of all
tyrannies.

Mr. D____, though he writes and speaks French admirably, does not love French verses; and I found he could not depend on the government of his features, while a French poet was reciting his own, but kept his eyes fixed on a dried apple, which he pared very curiously, and when that was atchieved, betook himself to breaking pralines, and extracting the almonds with equal application. We, however, complimented Monsieur's poetry; and when we had taken our coffee, and the servants were entirely withdrawn, he read us some trifles more agreeable to our principles, if not to our taste, and in which the Convention was treated with more sincerity than complaisance. It seems the poet's zeal for the republic had vanished at his departure from the Luxembourg, and that his wrath against coalesced despots, and his passion for liberty, had entirely evaporated. In the evening we played a party of reversi with republican cards,* and heard the children sing "Mourrons pour la Patrie."

* The four Kings are replaced by four Genii, the Queens by four
sorts of liberty, and the Knaves by four descriptions of equality.

--After these civic amusements, we closed our chairs round the fire, conjecturing how long the republic might last, or whether we should all pass another twelve months in prison, and, agreeing that both our fate and that of the republic were very precarious, adjourned to rest.

While I was undressing, I observed Angelique looked extremely discontented, and on my enquiring what was the matter, she answered, _"C'est que je m'ennuie beaucoup ici,"_ ["I am quite tired of this place."] "Mademoiselle," (for no state or calling is here exempt from this polite sensation.) "And why, pray?"--_"Ah quelle triste societe, tout le monde est d'un patriotisme insoutenable, la maison est remplie d'images republicaines, des Marat, des Voltaire, des Pelletier, que sais-moi? et voila jusqu'au garcon de l'ecurie qui me traite de citoyenne."_ ["Oh, they are a sad set--every body is so insufferably patriotic. The house is full from top to bottom of republican images, Marats, and Voltaires, and Pelletiers, and I don't know who--and I am called Citizen even by the stable boy."] I did not think it right to satisfy her as to the real principles of our friends, and went to bed ruminating on the improvements which the revolution must have occasioned in the art of dissimulation. Terror has drilled people of the most opposite sentiments into such an uniformity of manner and expression, that an aristocrat who is ruined and persecuted by the government is not distinguishable from the Jacobin who has made his fortune under it.

In the morning Angelique's countenance was brightened, and I found she had slept in the same room with Madame's _femme de chambre,_ when an explanation of their political creeds had taken place, so that she now assured me Mad. Augustine was _"fort honnete dans le fond,"_ [A very good girl at heart.] though she was obliged to affect republicanism.--"All the world's a stage," says our great dramatic moralist. France is certainly so at present, and we are not only necessitated to act a part, but a sorry one too; for we have no choice but to exhibit in farce, or suffer in tragedy.--Yours, &c.

December 27, 1794.

I took the opportunity of my being here to go about four leagues farther to see an old convent acquaintance lately come to this part of the country, and whom I have not met since I was at Orleans in 1789.

The time has been when I should have thought such a history as this lady's a romance, but tales of woe are now become familiar to us, and, if they create sympathy, they no longer excite surprize, and we hear of them as the natural effects of the revolution.

Madame de St. E__m__d is the daughter of a gentleman whose fortune was inadequate both to his rank and manner of living, and he gladly embraced the offer of Monsieur de St. E__m__d to marry her at sixteen, and to relinquish the fortune allotted her to her two younger sisters. Monsieur de St. E__m__d, being a dissipated man, soon grew weary of any sort of domestic life, and placing his wife with her father, in less than a year after their marriage departed for Italy.--Madame de St. E__m__d, thus left in a situation both delicate and dangerous for a young and pretty woman, became unfortunately attached to a gentleman who was her distant relation: yet, far from adopting the immoral principles not unjustly ascribed to your country, she conducted herself with a prudence and reserve, which even in France made her an object of general respect. About three years after her husband's departure the revolution took place, and not returning, he was of course put on the list of emigrants. In 1792, when the law passed which sanctioned and facilitated divorces, her friends all earnestly persuaded her to avail herself of it, but she could not be prevailed upon to consider the step as justifiable; for though Monsieur de St. E__m__d neglected her, he had, in other respects, treated her with generosity and kindness. She, therefore, persisted in her refusal, and her lover, in despair, joined the republican army.

At the general arrest of the Noblesse, Madame de St. E__m__d and her sisters were confined in the town where they resided, but their father was sent to Paris; and a letter from one of his female relations, who had emigrated, being found among his papers, he was executed without being able to see or write to his children. Madame de St. E__m__d's husband had returned about the same time to France, in the disguise of a post-boy, was discovered, and shared the same fate. These events reached her love, still at the army, but it was impossible for him to quit his post, and in a few days after, being mortally wounded, he died,* recommending Eugenie de St. E__m__d to the protection of his father.--

* This young man, who died gallantly fighting in the cause of the
republic, was no republican: but this does not render the murder of
his father, a deaf [There were people both deaf and dumb in the
prisons as conspirators.] and inoffensive man, less abominable.--The
case of General Moreau's father, though somewhat similar, is yet
more characteristic of the revolution. Mons. Moreau was persuaded,
by a man who had some interest in the business, to pay a debt which
he owed an emigrant, to an individual, instead of paying it, as the
law directed, to the use of the republic. The same man afterwards
denounced him, and he was thrown into prison. At nine o'clock on
the night preceding his trial, his act of accusation was brought
him, and before he had time to sketch out a few lines for his
defence, the light by which he wrote was taken away. In the morning
he was tried, the man who had informed against him sitting as one of
his judges, and he was condemned and executed the very day on which
his son took the Fort de l'Ecluse!--Mons. Moreau had four sons,
besides the General in the army, and two daughters, all left
destitute by the confiscation of his property.

--A brother officer, who engaged to execute this commission, wrote immediately to the old man, to inform him of his loss, and of his son's last request. It was too late, the father having been arrested on suspicion, and afterwards guillotined, with many other persons, for a pretended conspiracy in prison, the very day on which his son had fallen in the performance of an act of uncommon bravery.

Were I writing from imagination, I should add, that Madame de St. E__m__d had been unable to sustain the shock of these repeated calamities, and that her life or understanding had been the sacrifice. It were, indeed, happy for the sufferer, if our days were always terminated when they became embittered, or that we lost the sense of sorrow by its excess: but it is not so--we continue to exist when we have lost the desire of existence, and to reason when feeling and reason constitute our torments. Madame de St. E__m__d then lives, but lives in affliction; and having collected the wreck of her personal property, which some friends had concealed, she left the part of France she formerly inhabited, and is now with an aunt in this neighbourhood, watching the decay of her eldest sister, and educating the youngest.

Clementine was consumptive when they were first arrested, and vexation, with ill-treatment in the prison, have so established her disorder, that she is now past relief. She is yet scarcely eighteen, and one of the most lovely young women I ever saw. Grief and sickness have ravaged her features; but they are still so perfect, that fancy, associating their past bloom with their present languor, supplies perhaps as much to the mind as is lost by the eye. She suffers without complaining, and mourns without ostentation; and hears her father spoken of with such solemn silent floods of tears, that she looks like the original of Dryden's beautiful portrait of the weeping Sigismunda.

The letter which condemned the father of these ladies, was not, it seems, written to himself, but to a brother, lately dead, whose executor he was, and of whose papers he thus became possessed. On this ground their friends engaged them to petition the Assembly for a revision of the sentence, and the restoration of their property, which was in consequence forfeited.

The daily professions of the Convention, in favour of justice and humanity, and the return of the seventy-three imprisoned Deputies, had soothed these poor young women with the hopes of regaining their paternal inheritance, so iniquitously confiscated. A petition was, therefore, forwarded to Paris about a fortnight ago; and the day before, the following decree was issued, which has silenced their claims for ever: "La Convention Nationale declare qu'elle n'admettra aucune demande en revision des jugemens criminels portant confiscation de biens rendus et executes pendant la revolution."*

* "The National Convention hereby declares that it will admit no
petitions for the revisal of such criminal sentences, attended with
confiscation of property, as have been passed and executed since the
revolution."

Yet these revolutionists, who would hear nothing of repairing their
own injustice, had occasionally been annulling sentences past half a
century ago, and the more recent one of the Chevalier La Barre. But
their own executions and confiscations for an adherence to religion
were to be held sacred.--I shall be excused for introducing here a
few words respecting the affair of La Barre, which has been a
favourite topic with popular writers of a certain description. The
severity of the punishment must, doubtless, be considered as
disgraceful to those who advised as well as to those who sanctioned
it: but we must not infer from hence that he merited no punishment
at all; and perhaps degradation, some scandalous and public
correction, with a few years solitary confinement, might have
answered every purpose intended.

La Barre was a young etourdi, under twenty, but of lively talents,
which, unfortunately for him, had taken a very perverse turn. The
misdemeanour commonly imputed to him and his associates was, that
they had mutilated a Christ which stood on the Pont-neuf at
Abbeville: but La Barre had accustomed himself to take all
opportunities of insulting, with the most wanton malignity, these
pious representations, and especially in the presence of people,
with whom his particular connections led him to associate, and whose
profession could not allow them entirely to overlook such affronts
on what was deemed an appendage to the established religion of the
country.

The people of Abbeville manifested their sense of the business when
d'Etalonde, La Barre's intimate friend, who had saved himself by
flight, returned, after a long exile, under favour of the
revolution. He was received in the neighbourhood with the most
mortifying indifference.

The decree of the Convention too, by which the memory of this
imprudent young man was re-established, when promulgated, created
about as much interest as any other law which did not immediately
affect the property or awaken the apprehensions of the hearers.

Madame de St. E__m__d told me her whole fortune was now reduced to a few Louis, and about six or seven thousand livres in diamonds; that she was unwilling to burden her aunt, who was not rich, and intended to make some advantage of her musical talents, which are indeed considerable. But I could not, without anguish, hear an elegant young woman, with a heart half broken, propose to get her living by teaching music.--I know not that I ever passed a more melancholy day. In the afternoon we walked up and down the path of the village church-yard. The church was shut up, the roof in part untiled, the windows were broken, and the wooden crosses that religion or tenderness had erected to commemorate the dead, broken and scattered about. Two labourers, and a black-smith in his working garb, came while we were there, and threw a sort of uncouth wooden coffin hastily into a hole dug for the purpose, which they then covered and left without farther ceremony. Yet this was the body of a lady regretted by a large family, who were thus obliged to conquer both their affection and their prejudices, and inter her according to the republican mode.*

* The relations or friends of the dead were prohibited, under severe
penalties, from following their remains to the grave.

I thought, while we traversed the walk, and beheld this scene, that every thing about me bore the marks of the revolution. The melancholy objects I held on my arm, and the feeble steps of Clementine, whom we could scarcely support, aided the impression; and I fear that, for the moment, I questioned the justice of Heaven, in permitting such a scourge to be let loose upon its works.

I quitted Madame de St. E__m__d this morning with reluctance, for we shall not meet again till I am entirely at liberty. The village municipality where she now resides, are quiet and civil, and her misfortunes make her fearful of attracting the notice of the people in authority of a large place, so that she cannot venture to Amiens.--You must observe, that any person who has suffered is an object of particular suspicion, and that to have had a father or a husband executed, and to be reduced to beggary, are titles to farther persecution.--The politics of the day are, it is true, something less ferocious than they were: but confidence is not to be restored by an essay in the Orateur du Peuple,* or an equivocal harangue from the tribune; and I perceive every where, that those who have been most injured, are most timid.

* _"L'Orateur du Peuple,"_ was a periodical paper published by
Freron, many numbers of which were written with great spirit.--
Freron was at this time supposed to have become a royalist, and his
paper, which was comparatively favourable to the aristocrats, was
read with great eagerness.

The following extract from the registers of one of the popular
commissions will prove, that the fears of those who had already
suffered by the revolution were well founded:

"A. Sourdeville, and A. N. E. Sourdeville, sisters of an emigrant
Noble, daughters of a Count, aristocrats, and having had their
father and brother guillotined.

"M. J. Sourdeville, mother of an emigrant, an aristocrat, and her
husband and son having been guillotined.

"Jean Marie Defille--very suspicious--a partizan of the Abbe Arnoud
and La Fayette, has had a brother guillotined, and always shewn
himself indifferent about the public welfare."

The commissions declare that the above are condemned to banishment.

I did not reach this place till after the family had dined, and taking my soup and a dish of coffee, have escaped, under pretext of the headache, to my own room. I left our poet far gone in a classical description of a sort of Roman dresses, the drawings of which he had seen exhibited at the Lyceum, as models of an intended national equipment for the French citizens of both sexes; and my visit to Madame de St. E__m__d had incapacitated me for discussing revolutionary draperies.

In England, this is the season of festivity to the little, and beneficence in the great; but here, the sterile genius of atheism has suppressed the sounds of mirth, and closed the hands of charity--no season is consecrated either to the one or the other; and the once-varied year is but an uniform round of gloom and selfishness. The philosopher may treat with contempt the notion of periodical benevolence, and assert that we should not wait to be reminded by religion or the calendar, in order to contribute to the relief of our fellow creatures: yet there are people who are influenced by custom and duty, that are not always awake to compassion; and indolence or avarice may yield a too ready obedience to prohibitions which favour both. The poor are certainly no gainers by the substitution of philosophy for religion; and many of those who are forbidden to celebrate Christmas or Easter by a mass, will forget to do it by a donation. For my own part, I think it an advantage that any period of the year is more particularly signalized by charity; and I rejoice when I hear of the annual gifts of meat or firing of such, or such a great personage--and I never enquire whether they might still continue their munificence if Christianity were abolished.--Adieu.