A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795 Part 25

Such an attention in a beautiful girl of eighteen was not very unnatural; yet the mean and cruel wretches who were her judges, had the littleness to endeavour at mortifying, by divesting her of her ornaments, and covering her with the most loathsome rags. But a mind tortured to madness by the sufferings of her country, was not likely to be shaken by such puerile malice; and, when interrogated under this disguise, she still preserved the same firmness, mingled with contempt, which she had displayed when first apprehended. No accusation, nor even implication, of any person could be drawn from her, and her only confession was that of a pa.s.sionate loyalty: yet an universal conspiracy was nevertheless decreed by the Convention to exist, and Miss Renaud, with sixty-nine others,* were sentenced to the guillotine, without farther trial than merely calling over their names.

* It is worthy of remark, that the sixty-nine people executed as accomplices of Miss Renaud, except her father, mother, and aunt, were totally unconnected with her, or with each other, and had been collected from different prisons, between which no communication could have subsisted.

--They were conducted to the scaffold in a sort of red frocks, intended, as was alleged, to mark them as a.s.sa.s.sins--but, in reality, to prevent the crowd from distinguis.h.i.+ng or receiving any impression from the number of young and interesting females who were comprised in this dreadful slaughter.--They met death with a courage which seemed almost to disappoint the malice of their tyrants, who, in an original excess of barbarity, are said to have lamented that their power of inflicting could not reach those mental faculties which enabled their victims to suffer with fort.i.tude.*

* Fouquier Tinville, public accuser of the Revolutionary Tribunal, enraged at the courage with which his victims submitted to their fate, had formed the design of having them bled previous to their execution; hoping by this means to weaken their spirits, and that they might, by a pusillanimous behaviour in their last moments, appear less interesting to the people.

Such are the horrors now common to almost every part of France: the prisons are daily thinned by the ravages of the executioner, and again repeopled by inhabitants destined to the fate of their predecessors. A gloomy reserve, and a sort of uncertain foreboding, have taken possession of every body--no one ventures to communicate his thoughts, even to his nearest friend--relations avoid each other--and the whole social system seems on the point of being dissolved. Those who have yet preserved their freedom take the longest circuit, rather than pa.s.s a republican Bastille; or, if obliged by necessity to approach one, it is with downcast or averted looks, which bespeak their dread of incurring the suspicion of humanity.

I say little of my own feelings; they are not of a nature to be relieved by pathetic expressions: "I am e'en sick at heart." For some time I have struggled both against my own evils, and the share I take in the general calamity, but my mortal part gives way, and I can no longer resist the despondency which at times depresses me, and which indeed, more than the danger attending it, has occasioned my abandoning my pen for the last month.--Several circ.u.mstances have occurred within these few days, to add to the uneasiness of our situation, and my own apprehensions. Le Bon,*

whose cruelties at Arras seem to have endeared him to his colleagues in the Convention, has had his powers extended to this department, and Andre Dumont is recalled; so that we are hourly menaced with the presence of a monster, compared to whom our own representative is amiable.--

* I have already noticed the cruel and ferocious temper of Le Bon, and the ma.s.sacres of his tribunals are already well known. I will only add some circ.u.mstances which not only may be considered as characteristic of this tyrant, but of the times--and I fear I may add of the people, who suffered and even applauded them. They are selected from many others not susceptible of being described in language fit for an English reader.

As he was one day enjoying his customary amus.e.m.e.nt of superintending an execution, where several had already suffered, one of the victims having, from a very natural emotion, averted his eyes while he placed his body in the posture required, the executioner perceived it, and going to the sack which contained the heads of those just sacrificed, took one out, and with the most horrible imprecations obliged the unhappy wretch to kiss it: yet Le Bon not only permitted, but sanctioned this, by dining daily with the hangman.

He was afterwards reproached with this familiarity in the Convention, but defended himself by saying, "A similar act of Lequinio's was inserted by your orders in the bulletin with 'honourable mention;' and your decrees have invariably consecrated the principles on which I acted." They all felt for a moment the dominion of conscience, and were silent.--On another occasion he suspended an execution, while the savages he kept in pay threw dirt on the prisoners, and even got on the scaffold and insulted them previous to their suffering.

When any of his colleagues pa.s.sed through Arras, he always proposed their joining with him in a _"partie de Guillotine,"_ and the executions were perpetrated on a small square at Arras, rather than the great one, that he, his wife, and relations might more commodiously enjoy the spectacle from the balcony of the theatre, where they took their coffee, attended by a band of music, which played while this human butchery lasted.

The following circ.u.mstance, though something less horrid, yet sufficiently so to excite the indignation of feeling people, happened to some friends of my own.--They had been brought with many others from a distant town in open carts to Arras, and, worn out with fatigue, were going to be deposited in the prison to which they were destined. At the moment of their arrival several persons were on the point of being executed. Le Bon, presiding as usual at the spectacle, observed the cavalcade pa.s.sing, and ordered it to stop, that the prisoners might likewise be witnesses. He was, of course, obeyed; and my terrified friends and their companions were obliged not only to appear attentive to the scene before them, but to join in the cry of _"Vive la Republique!"_ at the severing of each head.-- One of them, a young lady, did not recover the shock she received for months.

The Convention, the Committees, all France, were well acquainted with the conduct of Le Bon. He himself began to fear he might have exceeded the limits of his commission; and, upon communicating some scruples of this kind to his employers, received the following letters, which, though they do not exculpate him, certainly render the Committee of Public Welfare more criminal than himself.

"Citizen,

"The Committee of Public Welfare approve the measures you have adopted, at the same time that they judge the warrant you solicit unnecessary--such measures being not only allowable, but enjoined by the very nature of your mission. No consideration ought to stand in the way of your revolutionary progress--give free scope therefore to your energy; the powers you are invested with are unlimited, and whatever you may deem conducive to the public good, you are free, you are even called upon by duty, to carry into execution without delay.--We here transmit you an order of the Committee, by which your powers are extended to the neighbouring departments. Armed with such means, and with your energy, you will go on to confound the enemies of the republic, with the very schemes they have projected for its destruction.

"Carnot.

"Barrere.

"R. Lindet."

Extract from another letter, signed Billaud Varenne, Carnot, Barrere.

"There is no commutation for offences against a republic. Death alone can expiate them!--Pursue the traitors with fire and sword, and continue to march with courage in the revolutionary track you have described."

--Merciful Heaven! are there yet positive distinctions betwixt bad and worse that we thus regret a Dumont, and deem ourselves fortunate in being at the mercy of a tyrant who is only brutal and profligate? But so it is; and Dumont himself, fearful that he has not exercised his mission with sufficient severity, has ordered every kind of indulgence to cease, the prisons to be more strictly guarded, and, if possible, more crowded; and he is now gone to Paris, trembling lest he should be accused of justice or moderation!

The pretended plots for a.s.sa.s.sinating Robespierre are, as usual, attributed to Mr. Pitt; and a decree has just pa.s.sed, that no quarter shall be given to English prisoners. I know not what such inhuman politics tend to, but my contempt, and the conscious pride of national superiority; certain, that when Providence sees fit to vindicate itself, by bestowing victory on our countrymen, the most welcome

"Laurels that adorn their brows "Will be from living, not dead boughs."

The recollection of England, and its generous inhabitants, has animated me with pleasure; yet I must for the present quit this agreeable contemplation, to take precautions which remind me that I am separated from both, and in a land of despotism and misery!

--Yours affectionately.

June 11, 1794.

The immorality of Hebert, and the base compliances of the Convention, for some months turned the churches into "temples of reason."--The ambition, perhaps the vanity, of Robespierre, has now permitted them to be dedicated to the "Supreme Being," and the people, under such auspices, are to be conducted from atheism to deism. Desirous of distinguis.h.i.+ng his presidency, and of exhibiting himself in a conspicuous and interesting light, Robespierre, on the last decade, appeared as the hero of a ceremony which we are told is to restore morals, destroy all the mischiefs introduced by the abolition of religion, and finally to defeat the machinations of Mr. Pitt. A gay and splendid festival has been exhibited at Paris, and imitated in the provinces: flags of the republican colours, branches of trees, and wreaths of flowers, were ordered to be suspended from the houses--every countenance was to wear the prescribed smile, and the whole country, forgetting the pressure of sorrow and famine, was to rejoice. A sort of monster was prepared, which, by some unaccountable ingenuity, at once represented Atheism and the English, Cobourg and the Austrians--in short, all the enemies of the Convention.--This external phantom, being burned with proper form, discovered a statue, which was understood to be that of Liberty, and the inauguration of this divinity, with placing the busts of Chalier* and Marat in the temple of the Supreme Being, by way of attendant saints, concluded the ceremony.--

* Chalier had been sent from the munic.i.p.ality of Paris after the dethronement of the King, to revolutionize the people of Lyons, and to excite a ma.s.sacre. In consequence, the first days of September presented the same scenes at Lyons as were presented in the capital.

For near a year he continued to scourge this unfortunate city, by urging the lower cla.s.ses of people to murder and pillage; till, at the insurrection which took place in the spring of 1793, he was arrested by the insurgents, tried, and sentenced to the guillotine.

--The Convention, however, whose calendar of saints is as extraordinary as their criminal code, chose to beatify Chalier, while they executed Malesherbes; and, accordingly, decreed him a lodging in the Pantheon, pensioning his mistress, and set up his bust in their own Hall as an a.s.sociate for Brutus, whom, by the way, one should not have expected to find in such company.

The good citizens of the republic, not to be behind hand with their representatives, placed Chalier in the cathedrals, in their public-houses, on fans and snuff-boxes--in short, wherever they thought his appearance would proclaim their patriotism.--I can only exclaim as Poultier, a deputy, did, on a similar occasion--"Francais, Francais, serez vous toujours Francais?"--(Frenchmen, Frenchmen, will you never cease to be Frenchmen?)

--But the mandates for such celebrations reach not the heart: flowers were gathered, and flags planted, with the scrupulous exact.i.tude of fear;* yet all was cold and heavy, and a discerning government must have read in this anxious and literal obedience the indication of terror and hatred.

* I have more than once had occasion to remark the singularity of popular festivities solemnized on the part of the people with no other intention but that of exact obedience to the edicts of government. This is so generally understood, that Richard, a deputy on mission at Lyons, writes to the Convention, as a circ.u.mstance extraordinary, and worthy of remark, that, at the repeal of a decree which was to have razed their city to the ground, a rejoicing took place, _"dirigee et executee par le peuple, les autorites const.i.tutees n'ayant fait en quelque sorte qu'y a.s.sister,"_-- (directed and executed by the people, the const.i.tuted authorities having merely a.s.sisted at the ceremony).

--Even the prisons were insultingly decorated with the mockery of colours, which, we are told, are the emblems of freedom; and those whose relations have expired on the scaffold, or who are pining in dungeons for having heard a ma.s.s, were obliged to listen with apparent admiration to a discourse on the charms of religious liberty.--The people, who, for the most part, took little interest in the rest of this pantomime, and insensible of the national disgrace it implied, beheld with stupid satisfaction* the inscription on the temple of reason replaced by a legend, signifying that, in this age of science and information, the French find it necessary to declare their acknowledgment of a G.o.d, and their belief in the immortality of the soul.

* Much has been said of the partial ignorance of the unfortunate inhabitants of La Vendee, and divers republican scribblers attribute their attachment to religion and monarchy to that cause: yet at Havre, a sea-port, where, from commercial communication, I should suppose the people as informed and civilized as in any other part of France, the ears of piety and decency were a.s.sailed, during the celebration above-mentioned, by the acclamations of, _"Vive le Pere Eternel!"--"Vive l'etre Supreme!"_--(I entreat that I may not be suspected of levity when I translate this; in English it would be "G.o.d Almighty for ever! The Supreme Being for ever!")

--At Avignon the public understanding seems to have been equally enlightened, if we may judge from the report of a Paris missionary, who writes in these terms:--"The celebration in honour of the Supreme Being was performed here yesterday with all possible pomp: all our country-folks were present, and unspeakably content that there was still a G.o.d--What a fine decree (cried they all) is this!"

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 amus.e.m.e.nt; and every thing now more than ever marks that detestable a.s.sociation 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 ma.s.sacre 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 a.s.sa.s.sination; 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 pet.i.tion from an incarcerated poet a.s.similates the mountain of the Jacobins to that of Parna.s.sus--a state-creditor importunes for a small payment from the G.o.ds 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 ma.s.sacre--and permit themselves to be addressed by the t.i.tle 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 n.o.ble, were anxious to procure certificates of sans-cullotism, many who had a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sumed 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 const.i.tuted 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 ma.s.sacre 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.