A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795 Part 26

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

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

[Collins.]

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

Those most to be envied here are the victims of their religious opinions.

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

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

I have already written you a long letter, and bid you adieu with the reluctance which precedes an uncertain separation. Uneasiness, ill health, and confinement, besides the danger I am exposed to, render my life at present more precarious than "the ordinary of nature's tenures."

--G.o.d knows when I may address you again!--My friend Mad. de ____ is returned from the hospital, and I yield to her fears by ceasing to write, though I am nevertheless determined not to part with what I have hitherto preserved; being convinced, that if evil be intended us, it will be as soon without a pretext as with one.--Adieu.

Providence, Aug. 11, 1794.

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

When the news of this extraordinary event first became public, it was ever where received with great gravity--I might say, coldness.--Not a comment was uttered, nor a glance of approbation seen. Things might be yet in equilibrium, and popular commotions are always uncertain.

Prudence was, therefore, deemed, indispensable; and, until the contest was finally decided, no one ventured to give an opinion; and many, to be certain of guarding against verbal indiscretion, abstained from all intercourse whatever.

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

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

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

August 12.

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

France had become one vast prison, executions were daily multiplied, and a minute and comprehensive oppression seemed to have placed the lives, liberty, and fortune of all within the grasp of the single Committee.

Despair itself was subdued, and the people were gradually sinking into a gloomy and stupid obedience.

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

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

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

Discours de Bailleul, 19 March 1795.

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

Speech of Bailleul, 19 March 1795.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But at this crisis all Robespierre's circ.u.mspection abandoned him.

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

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

All these imprudences gave the Convention time to proclaim that Robespierre, the munic.i.p.ality, and their adherents, were decreed out of the protection of the laws, and in circ.u.mstances of this nature such a step has usually been decisive--for however odious a government, if it does but seem to act on a presumption of its own strength, it has always an advantage over its enemies; and the timid, the doubtful, or indifferent, for the most part, determine in favour of whatever wears the appearance of established authority. The people, indeed, remained perfectly neuter; but the Jacobins, the Committees of the Sections, and their dependents, might have composed a force more than sufficient to oppose the few guards which surrounded the National Palace, had not the publication of this summary outlawry at once paralyzed all their hopes and efforts.--They had seen mult.i.tudes hurried to the Guillotine, because they were "hors de la loi;" and this impression now operated so forcibly, that the cannoneers, the national guard, and those who before were most devoted to the cause, laid down their arms, and precipitately abandoned their chiefs to the fate which awaited them. Robespierre was taken at the Hotel de Ville, after being severely wounded in the face; his brother broke his thigh, in attempting to escape from a window; Henriot was dragged from concealment, deprived of an eye; and Couthon, whom nature had before rendered a cripple, now exhibited a most hideous spectacle, from an ineffectual effort to shoot himself.--Their wounds were dressed to prolong their suffering, and their sentence being contained in the decree that outlawed them, their persons were identified by the same tribunal which had been the instrument of their crimes.

--On the night of the tenth they were conveyed to the scaffold, amidst the insults and execrations of a mob, which a few hours before beheld them with trembling and adoration.--Lebas, also a member of the convention, and a princ.i.p.al agent of Robespierre, fell by his own hand; and Couthon, St. Just, and seventeen others, suffered with the two Robespierres.--The munic.i.p.ality of Paris, &c. to the number of seventy-two, were guillotined the succeeding day, and about twelve more the day after.

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

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

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

You will perceive by this summary that the overthrow of Robespierre was chiefly occasioned by the rivals.h.i.+p of his colleagues in the Committee, a.s.sisted by the fears of the Convention at large for themselves.--Another circ.u.mstance, at which I have already hinted, as having some share in this event, shall be the subject of my next letter.

Providence, Aug. 13, 1794.