A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795 Part 19

When we had pa.s.sed the gate, we found Fleury, with some porters, ready to receive our beds, and overjoyed at having procured us a more decent prison, for, it seems, he could by no means reconcile himself to the name of Bicetre. We had about half a mile to walk, and on the road he contrived to acquaint us with the means by which he had solicited this favour of Dumont. After advising with all Mad. de ____'s friends who were yet at liberty, and finding no one willing to make an effort in her behalf, for fear of involving themselves, he discovered an old acquaintance in the "femme de chambre" of one of Fleury's mistresses.-- This, for one of Fleury's sagacity, was a spring to have set the whole Convention in a ferment; and in a few days he profited so well by this female patronage, as to obtain an order for transferring us. .h.i.ther. On our arrival, we were informed, as usual, that the house was already full, and that there was no possibility of admitting us. We however, set up all night in the keeper's room with some other people newly arrived like ourselves, and in the morning, after a little disputing and a pretty general derangement of the more ancient inhabitants, we were "nichees,"

as I have described to you.

We have not yet quitted our room much, but I observe that every one appears more chearful, and more studied in their toilette, than at the Bicetre, and I am willing to infer from thence that confinement here is less insupportable.--I have been employed two days in enlarging the notes I had made in our last prison, and in making them more legible, for I ventured no farther than just to scribble with a pencil in a kind of short-hand of my own invention, and not even that without a variety of precautions. I shall be here less liable either to surprize or observation, and as soon as I have secured what I have already noted, (which I intend to do to-night,) I shall continue my remarks in the usual form. You will find even more than my customary incorrectness and want of method since we left Peronne; but I shall not allow your competency as a critic, until you have been a prisoner in the hands of French republicans.

It will not be improper to notice to you a very ingenious decree of Gaston, (a member of the Convention,) who lately proposed to embark all the English now in France at Brest, and then to sink the s.h.i.+ps.--Perhaps the Committee of Public Welfare are now in a sort of benevolent indecision, whether this, or Collot d'Herbois' gunpowder scheme, shall have the preference. Legendre's iron cage and simple hanging will, doubtless, be rejected, as too slow and formal. The mode of the day is "les grandes mesures." If I be not seriously alarmed at these propositions, it is not that life is indifferent to me, or that I think the government too humane to adopt them. My tranquillity arises from reflecting that such measures would be of no political use, and that we shall most likely be soon forgotten in the mult.i.tude of more important concerns. Those, however, whom I endeavour to console by this reasoning, tell me it is nothing less than infallible, that the inutility of a crime is here no security against its perpetration, and that any project which tends to evil will sooner be remembered than one of humanity or justice.

[End of Vol. I. The Printed Books]

[Beginning of Volume II. Of The Printed Books]

Providence, Dec. 20, 1793.

"All places that are visited by the eye of Heaven, are to the wise man happy havens." If Shakspeare's philosophy be orthodox, the French have, it must be confessed, many claims to the reputation of a wise people; and though you know I always disputed their pretensions to general gaiety, yet I acknowledge that misfortune does not deprive them of the share they possess, and, if one may judge by appearances, they have at least the habit, more than any other nation, of finding content under situations with which it should seem incompatible. We are here between six and seven hundred, of all ages and of all ranks, taken from our homes, and from all that usually makes the comfort of life, and crowded together under many of the inflictions that const.i.tute its misery; yet, in the midst of all this, we fiddle, dress, rhyme, and visit as ceremoniously as though we had nothing to disturb us. Our beaux, after being correctly frizz'd and powdered behind some door, compliment the belle just escaped from a toilet, performed amidst the apparatus of the kitchen; three or four beds are piled one upon another to make room for as many card-tables; and the wits of the prison, who are all the morning employed in writing doleful placets to obtain their liberty, in the evening celebrate the loss of it in bout-rimees and acrostics.

I saw an a.s.s at the _Corps de Garde_ this morning laden with violins and music, and a female prisoner seldom arrives without her complement of bandboxes.--Embarra.s.sed, stifled as we are by our numbers, it does not prevent a daily importation of lap-dogs, who form as consequential a part of the community in a prison, as in the most superb hotel. The faithful valet, who has followed the fortunes of his master, does not so much share his distresses as contribute to his pleasure by adorning his person, or, rather, his head, for, excepting the article of hair-dressing, the beaux here are not elaborate. In short, there is an indifference, a frivolity, in the French character, which, in circ.u.mstances like the present, appears unaccountable. But man is not always consistent with himself, and there are occasions in which the French are nothing less than philosophers. Under all these externals of levity, they are a very prudent people, and though they seem to bear with infinite fort.i.tude many of the evils of life, there are some in which their sensibility is not to be questioned. At the death of a relation, or the loss of liberty, I have observed that a few hours suffice, _pour prendre son parti;_ [To make up his mind.] but on any occasion where his fortune has suffered, the liveliest Frenchman is _au desespoir_ for whole days. Whenever any thing is to be lost or gained, all his characteristic indifference vanishes, and his attention becomes mentally concentrated, without dissipating the habitual smile of his countenance. He may sometimes be deceived through deficiency of judgment, but I believe not often by unguardedness; and, in a matter of interest, a _pet.i.t maitre_ of five-and-twenty might _tout en badinage_ [All in the way of pleasantry.] maintain his ground against a whole synagogue.--This disposition is not remarkable only in affairs that may be supposed to require it, but extends to the minutest objects; and the same oeconomy which watches over the ma.s.s of a Frenchman's estate, guards with equal solicitude the menu property of a log of wood, or a hen's nest.

There is at this moment a general scarcity of provisions, and we who are confined are, of course, particularly inconvenienced by it; we do not even get bread that is eatable, and it is curious to observe with what circ.u.mspection every one talks of his resources. The possessor of a few eggs takes care not to expose them to the eye of his neighbour; and a slice of white bread is a donation of so much consequence, that those who procure any for themselves do not often put their friends to the pain either of accepting or refusing it.

Mad. de ____ has been unwell for some days, and I could not help giving a hint to a relation of her's whom we found here, and who has frequent supplies of bread from the country, that the bread we eat was peculiarly inimical to her; but I gained only a look of repulsive apprehension, and a cold remark that it was very difficult to get good bread--_"et que c'etoit bien malheureux."_ [And that it certainly was very unfortunate.]

I own this kind of selfishness is increased by a situation where our wants are numerous, and our enjoyments few; and the great distinctions of meum and tuum, which at all times have occasioned so much bad fellows.h.i.+p in the world, are here perhaps more rigidly observed than any where else; yet, in my opinion, a close-hearted consideration has always formed an essential and a predominant quality in the French character.

People here do not ruin themselves, as with us, by hospitality; and examples of that thoughtless profusion which we censure and regret, without being able entirely to condemn, are very rare indeed. In France it is not uncommon to see a man apparently dissipated in his conduct, and licentious in his morals, yet regular, even to parsimony, in his pecuniary concerns.--He oeconomizes with his vices, and indulges in all the excesses of fas.h.i.+onable life, with the same system of order that acc.u.mulates the fortune of a Dutch miser. Lord Chesterfield was doubtless satisfied, that while his son remained in France, his precepts would have all the benefit of living ill.u.s.tration; yet it is not certain that this cautious and reflecting licentiousness has any merit over the more imprudent irregularity of an English spendthrift: the one is, however, likely to be more durable than the other; and, in fact, the character of an old libertine is more frequent in France than in England.

If oeconomy preside even over the vices of the rich and fas.h.i.+onable, you may conclude that the habits of the middling ranks of people of small fortunes are still more scrupulously subjected to its influence. A French _menage_ [Household.] is a practical treatise on the art of saving--a spirit of oeconomy pervades and directs every part of it, and that so uniformly, so generally, and so consistently, as not to make the same impression on a stranger as would a single instance where the whole was not conducted on the same principle. A traveller is not so forcibly stricken by this part of the French character, because it is more real than apparent, and does not seem the effect of reasoning or effort, which is never consequential, but rather that of inclination and the natural course of things.

A degree of parsimony, which an Englishman, who does not affect the reputation of a Codrus, could not acquire without many self-combats, appears in a Frenchman a matter of preference and convenience, and till one has lived long and familiarly in the country, one is apt to mistake principles for customs, and character for manners, and to attribute many things to local which have their real source in moral causes.--The traveller who sees nothing but gay furniture, and gay clothes, and partakes on invitation of splendid repasts, returns to England the enamoured panegyrist of French hospitality.--On a longer residence and more domestic intercourse, all this is discoverable to be merely the sacrifice of parsimony to vanity--the solid comforts of life are unknown, and hospitality seldom extends beyond an occasional and ostentatious reception. The gilding, painting, gla.s.ses, and silk hangings of a French apartment, are only a gay disguise; and a house, which to the eye may be attractive even to splendour, often has not one room that an Englishman would find tolerably convenient. Every thing intended for use rather than shew is scanty and sordid--all is _beau, magnifique, gentil,_ or _superb,_ [Fine magnificent, genteel, or superb.] and nothing comfortable. The French have not the word, or its synonime, in their language.

In France, clothes are almost as durable as furniture, and the gaiety which twenty or thirty years ago we were complaisant enough to admire is far from being expensive. People are not more than five or six hours a day in their gala habits, and the whole of this period is judiciously chosen between the hours of repast, so that no risk in incurred by accidents at table. Then the caprices of fas.h.i.+on, which in England are so various and despotic, have here a more limited influence: the form of a dress changes as long as the material is convertible, and when it has outlasted the possibility of adaptation to a reigning mode, it is not on that account rejected, but is generally worn in some way or other till banished by the more rational motive of its decay. All the expences of tea-visits, breakfast-loungings, and chance-dinners, are avoided--an evening visit is pa.s.sed entirely at cards, a breakfast in form even for the family is unusual, and there are very few houses where you could dine without being previously engaged. I am, indeed, certain, that (unless in large establishments) the calculation for diurnal supply is so exact, that the intrusion of a stranger would be felt by the whole family. I must, however, do them the justice to say, that on such occasions, and where they find the thing to be inevitable, they put the best face possible on it, and the guest is entertained, if not plentifully, and with a very sincere welcome, at least with smiles and compliments. The French, indeed, allow, that they live less hospitably than the English: but then they say they are not so rich; and it is true, property is not so general, nor so much diffused, as with us. This is, however, only relative, and you will not suspect me of being so uncandid as to make comparisons without allowing for every difference which is the effect of necessity. All my remarks of this kind are made after an unprejudiced comparison of the people of the same rank or fortune in the two countries;--yet even the most liberal examination must end by concluding, that the oeconomy of the French too nearly approaches to meanness, and that their civility is ostentatious, perhaps often either interested, or even verbal.

You already exclaim, why, in the year 1793, you are characterizing a nation in the style of Salmon! and implying a panegyric on the moral of the School for Scandal! I plead to the first part of the charge, and shall hereafter defend my opinion against the more polished writers who have succeeded Salmon. For the moral of the School for Scandal, I have always considered it as the seal of humanity on a comedy which would otherwise be perfection.

It is not the oeconomy of the French that I am censuring, but their vanity, which, engrossing all their means of expence, prefers show to accommodation, and the parade of a sumptuous repast three or four times a year to a plainer but more frequent hospitality.--I am far from being the advocate of extravagance, or the enemy of domestic order; and the liberality which is circ.u.mscribed only by prudence shall not find in me a censurer.

My ideas on the French character and manner of living may not be unuseful to such of my countrymen as come to France with the project of retrieving their affairs; for it is very necessary they should be informed, that it is not so much the difference in the price of things, which makes a residence here oeconomical, as a conformity to the habits of the country; and if they were not deterred by a false shame from a temporary adoption of the same system in England, their object might often be obtained without leaving it. For this reason it may be remarked, that the English who bring English servants, and persist in their English mode of living, do not often derive very solid advantages from their exile, and their abode in France is rather a retreat from their creditors than the means of paying their debts.

Adieu.--You will not be sorry that I have been able for a moment to forget our personal sufferings, and the miserable politics of the country. The details of the former are not pleasant, and the latter grow every day more inexplicable.

1794

A RESIDENCE IN FRANCE

January 6, 1794.

If I had undertaken to follow the French revolution through all its absurdities and iniquities, my indolence would long since have taken the alarm, and I should have relinquished a task become too difficult and too laborious. Events are now too numerous and too complicated to be described by occasional remarks; and a narrator of no more pretensions than myself may be allowed to shrink from an abundance of matter which will hereafter perplex the choice and excite the wonder of the historian.--Removed from the great scene of intrigues, we are little acquainted with them--we begin to suffer almost before we begin to conjecture, and our solicitude to examine causes is lost in the rapidity with which we feel their effects.

Amidst the more mischievous changes of a philosophic revolution, you will have learned from the newspapers, that the French have adopted a new aera and a new calendar, the one dating from the foundation of their republic, and other descriptive of the climate of Paris, and the productions of the French territory. I doubt, however, if these new almanack-makers will create so much confusion as might be supposed, or as they may desire, for I do not find as yet that their system has made its way beyond the public offices, and the country people are particularly refractory, for they persist in holding their fairs, markets, &c. as usual, without any regard to the hallowed decade of their legislators. As it is to be presumed that the French do not wish to relinquish all commercial intercourse with other nations, they mean possibly to tack the republican calendar to the rights of man, and send their armies to propagate them together; otherwise the correspondence of a Frenchman will be as difficult to interpret with mercantile exactness as the characters of the Chinese.

The vanity of these philosophers would, doubtless, be gratified by forcing the rest of Europe and the civilized world to adopt their useless and chimerical innovations, and they might think it a triumph to see the inhabitant of the Hebrides date _"Vendemiaire,"_ [Alluding to the vintage.] or the parched West-Indian _"Nivose;"_ but vanity is not on this, as it is on many other occasions, the leading principle.--It was hoped that a new arrangement of the year, and a different nomenclature of the months, so as to banish all the commemorations of Christianity, might prepare the way for abolis.h.i.+ng religion itself, and, if it were possible to impose the use of the new calendar so far as to exclude the old one, this might certainly a.s.sist their more serious atheistical operations; but as the success of such an introduction might depend on the will of the people, and is not within the competence of the bayonet, the old year will maintain its ground, and these pedantic triflers find that they have laboured to no more extensive a purpose, than to furnish a date to the newspapers, or to their own decrees, which no one will take the pains to understand.

Mankind are in general more attached to customs than principles. The useful despotism of Peter, which subdued so many of the prejudices of his countrymen, could not achieve the curtailment of their beards; and you must not imagine that, with all the endurance of the French, these continual attempts at innovation pa.s.s without murmurs: partial revolts happen very frequently; but, as they are the spontaneous effect of personal suffering, not of political manoeuvre, they are without concert or union, of course easily quelled, and only serve to strengthen the government.--The people of Amiens have lately, in one of these sudden effusions of discontent, burnt the tree of liberty, and even the representative, Dumont, has been menaced; but these are only the blows of a coward who is alarmed at his own temerity, and dreads the chastis.e.m.e.nt of it.*

* The whole town of Bedouin, in the south of France, was burnt pursuant to a decree of the convention, to expiate the imprudence of some of its inhabitants in having cut down a dead tree of liberty.

Above sixty people were guillotined as accomplices, and their bodies thrown into pits, dug by order of the representative, Magnet, (then on mission,) before their death. These executions were succeeded by a conflagration of all the houses, and the imprisonment or dispersion of their possessors. It is likewise worthy of remark, that many of these last were obliged, by express order of Maignet, to be spectators of the murder of their friends and relations.

This crime in the revolutionary code is of a very serious nature; and however trifling it may appear to you, it depends only on the will of Dumont to sacrifice many lives on the occasion. But Dumont, though erected by circ.u.mstances into a tyrant, is not sanguinary--he is by nature and education pa.s.sionate and gross, and in other times might only have been a good natured Polisson. Hitherto he has contented himself with alarming, and making people tired of their lives, but I do not believe he has been the direct or intentional cause of anyone's death.

He has so often been the hero of my adventures, that I mention him familiarly to you, without reflecting, that though the delegate of more than monarchical power here, he is too insignificant of himself to be known in England. But the history of Dumont is that of two-thirds of the Convention. He was originally clerk to an attorney at Abbeville, and afterwards set up for himself in a neighbouring village. His youth having been marked by some digressions from the "'haviour of reputation,"

his profession was far from affording him a subsistence; and the revolution, which seems to have called forth all that was turbulent, unprincipled, or necessitous in the country, naturally found a partizan in an attorney without practice.--At the election of 1792, when the King's fall and the domination of the Jacobins had spread so general a terror that no man of character could be prevailed upon to be a candidate for a public situation, Dumont availed himself of this timidity and supineness in those who ought to have become the representatives of the people; and, by a talent for intrigue, and a coa.r.s.e facility of phrase-making, (for he has no pretensions to eloquence,) prevailed on the mob to elect him. His local knowledge, active disposition, and subservient industry, render him an useful kind of drudge to any prevailing party, and, since the overthrow of the Brissotines, he has been entrusted with the government of this and some of the neighbouring departments. He professes himself a zealous republican, and an apostle of the doctrine of universal equality, yet unites in his person all the attributes of despotism, and lives with more luxury and expence than most of the _ci-devant_ gentry. His former habitation at Oisemont is not much better than a good barn; but patriotism is more profitable here than in England, and he has lately purchased a large mansion belonging to an emigrant.

* "Britain no longer pays her patriots with her spoils:" and perhaps it is matter of congratulation to a country, when the profession of patriotism is not lucrative. Many agreeable inferences may be made from it--the sentiment may have become too general for reward, Ministers too virtuous to fear, or even the people too enlightened to be deceived.

--His mode of travelling, which used at best to be in the _coche d'eau_ [Pa.s.sage-boat.] or the diligence, is now in a coach and four, very frequently accompanied by a led horse, and a party of dragoons. I fear some of your patriots behold this with envy, and it is not to be wondered at that they should wish to see a similar revolution in England. What a seducing prospect for the a.s.sertors of liberty, to have the power of imprisoning and guillotining all their countrymen! What halcyon days, when the aristocratic palaces* shall be purified by solacing the fatigues of republican virtue, and the levellers of all distinction travel with four horses and a military escort!--But, as Robespierre observes, you are two centuries behind the French in patriotism and information; and I doubt if English republicanism will ever go beyond a dinner, and toasting the manes of Hampden and Sydney. I would, therefore, seriously advise any of my compatriots who may be enamoured of a government founded on the rights of man, to quit an ungrateful country which seems so little disposed to reward their labours, and enjoy the supreme delight of men a systeme, that of seeing their theories in action.

* Many of the emigrants' houses were bought by members of the Convention, or people in office. At Paris, crouds of inferior clerks, who could not purchase, found means to get lodged in the most superb national edifices: Monceaux was the villa of Robespierre--St. Just occasionally amused himself at Raincy--Couthon succeed the Comte d'Artois at Bagatelle-and Vliatte, a juryman of the Revolutionary Tribunal, was lodged at the pavillion of Flora, in the Tuilleries, which he seems to have occupied as a sort of Maitre d'Hotel to the Comite de Salut Public.

_A propos_--a decree of the Convention has lately pa.s.sed to secure the person of Mr. Thomas Paine, and place seals on his papers. I hope, however, as he has been installed in all the rights of a French citizen, in addition to his representative inviolability, that nothing more than a temporary retreat is intended for him. Perhaps even his personal sufferings may prove a benefit to mankind. He may, like Raleigh, "in his prison hours enrich the world," and add new proselytes to the cause of freedom. Besides, human evils are often only blessings in a questionable form--Mr. Paine's persecutions in England made him a legislator in France. Who knows but his persecutions in France may lead to some new advancement, or at least add another line to the already crouded t.i.tle-pages that announce his literary and political distinctions!

--Yours.

January, 1794.

The total suppression of all religious wors.h.i.+p in this country is an event of too singular and important a nature not to have been commented upon largely by the English papers; but, though I have little new to add on the subject, my own reflections have been too much occupied in consequence for me to pa.s.s it over in silence.

I am yet in the first emotions of wonder: the vast edifice which had been raised by the blended efforts of religion and superst.i.tion, which had been consecrated by time, endeared by national taste, and become necessary by habit, has now disappeared, and scarcely left a vestige of its ruins. To those who revert only to the genius of the Catholic religion, and to former periods of the history of France, this event must seem incredible; and nothing but constant opportunities of marking its gradual approach can reconcile it to probability. The pious christian and the insidious philosopher have equally contributed to the general effect, though with very different intentions: the one, consulting only his reason, wished to establish a pure and simple mode of wors.h.i.+p, which, divested of the allurements of splendid processions and imposing ceremonies, should teach the people their duty, without captivating their senses; the other, better acquainted with French character, knew how little these views were compatible with it, and hoped, under the specious pretext of banis.h.i.+ng the too numerous ornaments of the Catholic practice, to shake the foundations of Christianity itself. Thus united in their efforts, though dissimilar in their motives, all parties were eager at the beginning of the revolution for a reform in the Church: the wealth of the Clergy, the monastic establishments, the supernumerary saints, were devoted and attacked without pity, and without regret; and, in the zeal and hurry of innovation, the decisive measure, which reduced ecclesiastics to small pensions dependent on the state, was carried, before those who really meant well were aware of its consequences. The next step was, to make the receiving these pensions subject to an oath, which the selfish philosopher, who can coldly calculate on, and triumph in, the weakness of human nature, foresaw would be a brand of discord, certain to destroy the sole force which the Clergy yet possessed--their union, and the public opinion.

Unfortunately, these views were not disappointed: conviction, interest, or fear, prevailed on many to take the oath; while doubt, worldly improvidence, or a scrupulous piety, deterred others. A schism took place between the jurors and nonjurors--the people became equally divided, and adhered either to the one or the other, as their habits or prepossessions directed them. Neither party, as it may be imagined, could see themselves deprived of any portion of the public esteem, without concern, perhaps without rancour; and their mutual animosity, far from gaining proselytes to either, contributed only to the immediate degradation and future ruin of both. Those, however, who had not taken the prescribed oath, were in general more popular than what were called the const.i.tutionalists, and the influence they were supposed to exert in alienating the minds of their followers from the new form of government, supplied the republican party with a pretext for proposing their banishment.*

*The King's exertion of the power vested in him by the const.i.tution, by putting a temporary negative on this decree, it is well known, was one of the pretexts for dethroning him.

At the King's deposition this decree took place, and such of the nonjuring priests as were not ma.s.sacred in the prisons, or escaped the search, were to be embarked for Guiana. The wiser and better part of those whose compliances ent.i.tled them to remain, were, I believe, far from considering this persecution of their opponents as a triumph--to those who did, it was of short duration. The Convention, which had hitherto attempted to disguise its hatred of the profession by censure and abuse of a part of its members, began now to ridicule the profession itself: some represented it as useless--others as pernicious and irreconcileable with political freedom; and a discourse* was printed, under the sanction of the a.s.sembly, to prove, that the only feasible republic must be supported by pure atheism.

* Extracts from the Report of Anacharsis Cloots, member of the Committee of Public Instruction, printed by order of the National Convention:

"Our _Sans-culottes_ want no other sermon but the rights of man, no other doctrine but the const.i.tutional precepts and practice, nor any other church than where the section or the club hold their meetings, &c.