* 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. Emd 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. Emd to marry her at sixteen, and to relinquish the fortune allotted her to her two younger sisters. Monsieur de St. Emd, 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. Emd, 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. Emd 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. Emd 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. Emd'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. Emd 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. Emd 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. Emd 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. Emd 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. Emd 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. Emd 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.



1795

Amiens, Jan. 23, 1795.

Nothing proves more that the French republican government was originally founded on principles of despotism and injustice, than the weakness and anarchy which seem to accompany every deviation from these principles. It is strong to destroy and weak to protect: because, deriving its support from the power of the bad and the submission of the timid, it is deserted or opposed by the former when it ceases to plunder or oppress— while the fears and habits of the latter still prevail, and render them as unwilling to defend a better system as they have been to resist the worst possible.

The reforms that have taken place since the death of Robespierre, though not sufficient for the demands of justice, are yet enough to relax the strength of the government; and the Jacobins, though excluded from authority, yet influence by the turbulence of their chiefs in the Convention, and the recollection of their past tyranny—against the return of which the fluctuating politics of the Assembly offer no security. The Committees of Public Welfare and General Safety (whose members were intended, according to the original institution, to be removed monthly) were, under Robespierre, perpetual; and the union they preserved in certain points, however unfavourable to liberty, gave a vigour to the government, of which from its conformation it should appear to have been incapable. It is now discovered, that an undefined power, not subject to the restriction of fixed laws, cannot remain long in the same hands without producing tyranny. A fourth part of the Members of these Committees are, therefore, now changed every month; but this regulation, more advantageous to the Convention than the people, keeps alive animosities, stimulates ambition, and retains the country in anxiety and suspense; for no one can guess this month what system may be adopted the next—and the admission of two or three new Jacobin members would be sufficient to excite an universal alarm.

We watch these renewals with a solicitude inconceivable to those who study politics as they do a new opera, and have nothing to apprehend from the personal characters of Ministers; and our hopes and fears vary according as the members elected are Moderates, Doubtfuls, or decided Mountaineers.*

* For instance, Carnot, whose talents in the military department obliged the Convention (even if they had not been so disposed) to forget his compliances with Robespierre, his friendship for Barrere and Collot, and his eulogiums on Carrier.

—This mixture of principles, which intrigue, intimidation, or expediency, occasions in the Committees, is felt daily; and if the languor and versatility of the government be not more apparent, it is that habits of submission still continue, and that the force of terror operates in the branches, though the main spring be relaxed. Were armies to be raised, or means devised to pay them now, it could not be done; though, being once put in motion, they continue to act, and the requisitions still in a certain degree supply them.

The Convention, while they have lost much of their real power, have also become more externally contemptible than ever. When they were overawed by the imposing tone of their Committees, they were tolerably decent; but as this restraint has worn off, the scandalous tumult of their debates increases, and they exhibit whatever you can imagine of an assemblage of men, most of whom are probably unacquainted with those salutary forms which correct the passions, and soften the intercourse of polished society. They question each other's veracity with a frankness truly democratic, and come fraternally to "Touchstone's seventh remove" at once, without passing any of the intermediate progressions. It was but lately that one Gaston advanced with a stick in full assembly to thresh Legendre; and Cambon and Duhem are sometimes obliged to be holden by the arms and legs, to prevent their falling on Tallien and Freron. I described scenes of this nature to you at the opening of the Convention; but I assure you, the silent meditations of the members under Robespierre have extremely improved them in that species of eloquence, which is not susceptible of translation or transcription. We may conclude, that these licences are inherent to a perfect democracy; for the greater the number of representatives, and the nearer they approach to the mass of the people, the less they will be influenced by aristocratic ceremonials. We have, however, no interest in disputing the right of the Convention to use violence and lavish abuse amongst themselves; for, perhaps, these scenes form the only part of their journals which does not record or applaud some real mischief.

The French, who are obliged to celebrate so many aeras of revolution, who have demolished Bastilles and destroyed tyrants, seem at this moment to be in a political infancy, struggling against despotism, and emerging from ignorance and barbarity. A person unacquainted with the promoters and objects of the revolution, might be apt to enquire for what it had been undertaken, or what had been gained by it, when all the manufactured eloquence of Tallien is vainly exerted to obtain some limitation of arbitrary imprisonment—when Freron harangues with equal labour and as little success in behalf of the liberty of the press; while Gregoire pleads for freedom of worship, Echasseriaux for that of commerce, and all the sections of Paris for that of election.*

* It is to be observed, that in these orations all the decrees passed by the Convention for the destruction of commerce and religion, are ascribed to the influence of Mr. Pitt.—"La libertedes cultes existe en Turquie, elle n'existe point en France. Le peuple y est prive d'un droit donc on jouit dans les etats despotiques memes, sous les regences de Maroc et d'Algers. Si cet etat de choses doit perseverer, ne parlons plus de l'inquisition, nous en avons perdu le droit, car la liberte des cultes n'est que dans les decrets, et la persecution tiraille toute la France.

"Cette impression intolerante aurait elle ete (suggeree) par le cabinet de St. James?"

"In Turkey the liberty of worship is admitted, though it does not exist in France. Here the people are deprived of a right common to the most despotic governments, not even excepting those of Algiers and Morocco.—If things are to continue in this state, let us say no more about the Inquisition, we have no right, for religious liberty is to be found only in our decrees, while, in truth, the whole country is exposed to persecution.

"May not these intolerant notions have been suggested by the Cabinet of St. James?"

Gregoire's Report on the Liberty of Worship.

—Thus, after so many years of suffering, and such a waste of whatever is most valuable, the civil, religious, and political privileges of this country depend on a vote of the Convention.

The speech of Gregoire, which tended to restore the Catholic worship, was very ill received by his colleagues, but every where else it is read with avidity and applause; for, exclusive of its merit as a composition, the subject is of general interest, and there are few who do not wish to have the present puerile imitations of Paganism replaced by Christianity. The Assembly listened to this tolerating oration with impatience, passed to the order of the day, and called loudly for Decades, with celebrations in honour of "the liberty of the world, posterity, stoicism, the republic, and the hatred of tyrants!" But the people, who understand nothing of this new worship, languish after the saints of their ancestors, and think St. Francois d'Assise, or St. Francois de Sales, at least as likely to afford them spiritual consolation, as Carmagnoles, political homilies, or pasteboard goddesses of liberty.

The failure of Gregoire is far from operating as a discouragement to this mode of thinking; for such has been the intolerance of the last year, that his having even ventured to suggest a declaration in favour of free worship, is deemed a sort of triumph to the pious which has revived their hopes. Nothing is talked of but the restoration of churches, and reinstalment of priests—the shops are already open on the Decade, and the decrees of the Convention, which make a principal part of the republican service, are now read only to a few idle children or bare walls. [When the bell toll'd on the Decade, the people used to say it was for La messe du Diable—The Devil's mass.]—My maid told me this morning, as a secret of too much importance for her to retain, that she had the promise of being introduced to a good priest, (un bon pretre, for so the people entitle those who have never conformed,) to receive her confession at Easter; and the fetes of the new calendar are now jested on publicly with very little reverence.

The Convention have very lately decreed themselves an increase of pay, from eighteen to thirty-six livres. This, according to the comparative value of assignats, is very trifling: but the people, who have so long been flattered with the ideas of partition and equality, and are now starving, consider it as a great deal, and much discontent is excited, which however evaporates, as usual, in the national talent for bon mots. The augmentation, though an object of popular jealousy, is most likely valued by the leading members only as it procures them an ostensible means of living; for all who have been on missions, or had any share in the government, have, like Falstaff, "hid their honour in their necessities," and have now resources they desire to profit by, but cannot decently avow.

The Jacobin party have in general opposed this additional eighteen livres, with the hope of casting an odium on their adversaries; but the people, though they murmur, still prefer the Moderates, even at the expence of paying the difference. The policy of some Deputies who have acquired too much, or the malice of others who have acquired nothing, has frequently proposed, that every member of the Convention should publish an account of his fortune before and since the revolution. An enthusiastic and acclamatory decree of assent has always insued; but somehow prudence has hitherto cooled this warmth before the subsequent debate, and the resolution has never yet been carried into effect.

The crimes of Maignet, though they appear to occasion but little regret in his colleagues, have been the source of considerable embarrassment to them. When he was on mission in the department of Vaucluse, besides numberless other enormities, he caused the whole town of Bedouin to be burnt, a part of its inhabitants to be guillotined, and the rest dispersed, because the tree of liberty was cut down one dark night, while they were asleep.*

* Maignet's order for the burning of Bedouin begins thus: "Liberte, egalite, au nom du peuple Francais!" He then states the offence of the inhabitants in suffering the tree of liberty to be cut down, institutes a commission for trying them, and proceeds—"It is hereby ordered, that as soon as the principal criminals are executed, the national agent shall notify to the remaining inhabitants not confined, that they are enjoined to evacuate their dwellings, and take out their effects in twenty-four hours; at the expiration of which he is to commit the town to the flames, and leave no vestige of a building standing. Farther, it is forbidden to erect any building on the spot in future, or to cultivate the soil."

"Done at Avignon, the 17th Floreal."

The decree of the Convention to the same effect passed about the 1st of Floreal. Merlin de Douai, (Minister of Justice in 1796,) Legendre, and Bourdon de l'Oise, were the zealous defenders of Maignet on this occasion.

—Since the Assembly have thought it expedient to disavow these revolutionary measures, the conduct of Maignet has been denounced, and the accusations against him sent to a commission to be examined. For a long time no report was made, till the impatience of Rovere, who is Maignet's personal enemy, rendered a publication of the result dispensable. They declared they found no room for censure or farther proceedings. This decision was at first strongly reprobated by the Moderates; but as it was proved, in the course of the debate, that Maignet was authorized, by an express decree of the Convention, to burn Bedouin, and guillotine its inhabitants, all parties soon agreed to consign the whole to oblivion.

Our clothes, &c. are at length entirely released from sequestration, and the seals taken off. We are indebted for this act of justice to the intrigues of Tallien, whose belle Espagnole is considerably interested. Tallien's good fortune is so much envied, that some of the members were little enough to move, that the property of the Spanish Bank of St. Charles (in which Madame T——'s is included) should be excepted from the decree in favour of foreigners. The Convention were weak enough to accede; but the exception will, doubtless, be over-ruled.

The weather is severe beyond what it has been in my remembrance. The thermometer was this morning at fourteen and a half. It is, besides, potentially cold, and every particle of air is like a dart.—I suppose you contrive to keep yourselves warm in England, though it is not possible to do so here. The houses are neither furnished nor put together for the climate, and we are fanned by these congealing winds, as though the apertures which admit them were designed to alleviate the ardours of an Italian sun.

The satin hangings of my room, framed on canvas, wave with the gales lodged behind them every second. A pair of "silver cupids, nicely poised on their brands," support a wood fire, which it is an occupation to keep from extinguishing; and all the illusion of a gay orange-grove pourtrayed on the tapestry at my feet, is dissipated by a villainous chasm of about half an inch between the floor and the skirting-boards. Then we have so many corresponding windows, supernumerary doors, "and passages that lead to nothing," that all our English ingenuity in comfortable arrangement is baffled.—When the cold first became so insupportable, we attempted to live entirely in the eating-room, which is warmed by a poele, or German stove, but the kind of heat it emits is so depressive and relaxing to those who are not inured to it, that we are again returned to our large chimney and wood-fire.—The French depend more on the warmth of their clothing, than the comfort of their houses. They are all wadded and furred as though they were going on a sledge party, and the men, in this respect, are more delicate than the ladies: but whether it be the consequence of these precautions, or from any other cause, I observe they are, in general, without excepting even the natives of the Southern provinces, less sensible of cold than the English.



Amiens, Jan. 30, 1795.

Delacroix, author of "Les Constitutions Politiques de l'Europe," [The Political Constitutions of Europe.] has lately published a work much read, and which has excited the displeasure of the Assembly so highly, that the writer, by way of preliminary criticism, has been arrested. The book is intitled "Le Spectateur Francais pendant la Revolution." [The French Spectator during the Revolution.] It contains many truths, and some speculations very unfavourable both to republicanism and its founders. It ventures to doubt the free acceptance of the democratic constitution, proposes indirectly the restoration of the monarchy, and dilates with great composure on a plan for transporting to America all the Deputies who voted for the King's death. The popularity of the work, still more than its principles, has contributed to exasperate the Assembly; and serious apprehensions are entertained for the fate of Delacroix, who is ordered for trial to the Revolutionary Tribunal.

It would astonish a superficial observer to see with what avidity all forbidden doctrines are read. Under the Church and Monarchy, a deistical or republican author might sometimes acquire proselytes, or become the favourite amusement of fashionable or literary people; but the circulation of such works could be only partial, and amongst a particular class of readers: whereas the treason of the day, which comprises whatever favours Kings or religion, is understood by the meanest individual, and the temptation to these prohibited enjoyments is assisted both by affection and prejudice.—An almanack, with a pleasantry on the Convention, or a couplet in behalf of royalism, is handed mysteriously through half a town, and a brochure [A pamphlet.] of higher pretensions, though on the same principles, is the very bonne bouche of our political gourmands. [Gluttons.]

There is, in fact, no liberty of the press. It is permitted to write against Barrere or the Jacobins, because they are no longer in power; but a single word of disrespect towards the Convention is more certain of being followed by a Lettre de Cachet, than a volume of satire on any of Louis the Fourteenth's ministers would have been formerly. The only period in which a real freedom of the press has existed in France were those years of the late King's reign immediately preceding the revolution; and either through the contempt, supineness, or worse motives, of those who should have checked it, it existed in too great a degree: so that deists and republicans were permitted to corrupt the people, and undermine the government without restraint.*

* It is well known that Calonne encouraged libels on the Queen, to obtain credit for his zeal in suppressing them; and the culpable vanity of Necker made made him but too willing to raise his own reputation on the wreck of that of an unsuspecting and unfortunate Monarch.

After the fourteenth of July 1789, political literature became more subject to mobs and the lanterne, than ever it had been to Ministers and Bastilles; and at the tenth of August 1792, every vestige of the liberty of the press disappeared.*—

* "What impartial man among us must not be forced to acknowledge, that since the revolution it has become dangerous for any one, I will not say to attack the government, but to emit opinions contrary to those which the government has adopted." Discours de Jean Bon St. Andre sur la Liberte de la Presse, 30th April, 1795.

A law was passed on the first of May, 1795, a short time after this letter was written, making it transportation to vilify the National Representation, either by words or writing; and if the offence were committed publicly, or among a certain number of people, it became capital.

—Under the Brissotins it was fatal to write, and hazardous to read, any work which tended to exculpate the King, or to censure his despotism, and the massacres that accompanied and followed it.*—

* I appeal for the confirmation of this to every person who resided in France at that period.

—During the time of Robespierre the same system was only transmitted to other hands, and would still prevail under the Moderates, if their tyranny were not circumscribed by their weakness. It was some time before I ventured to receive Freron's Orateur du Peuple by the post. Even pamphlets written with the greatest caution are not to be procured without difficulty in the country; and this is not to be wondered at when we recollect how many people have lost their lives through a subscription to a newspaper, or the possession of some work, which, when they purchased it, was not interdicted.

As the government has lately assumed a more civilized cast, it was expected that the anniversary of the King's death would not have been celebrated. The Convention, however, determined otherwise; and their musical band was ordered to attend as usual on occasions of festivity. The leader of the band had perhaps sense and decency enough to suppose, that if such an event could possibly be justified, it never could be a subject of rejoicing, and therefore made choice of melodies rather tender than gay. But this Lydian mood, far from having the mollifying effect attributed to it by Scriblerus, threw several Deputies into a rage; and the conductor was reprimanded for daring to insult the ears of the legislature with strains which seemed to lament the tyrant. The affrighted musician begged to be heard in his defence; and declaring he only meant, by the adoption of these gentle airs, to express the tranquillity and happiness enjoyed under the republican constitution, struck off Ca Ira.

When the ceremony was over, one Brival proposed, that the young King should be put to death; observing that instead of the many useless crimes which had been committed, this ought to have had the preference. The motion was not seconded; but the Convention, in order to defeat the purposes of the royalists, who, they say, increase in number, have ordered the Committees to consider of some way of sending this poor child out of the country.

When I reflect on the event which these men have so indecently commemorated, and the horrors which succeeded it, I feel something more than a detestation for republicanism. The undefined notions of liberty imbibed from poets and historians, fade away—my reverence for names long consecrated in our annals abates—and the sole object of my political attachment is the English constitution, as tried by time and undeformed by the experiments of visionaries and impostors. I begin to doubt either the sense or honesty of most of those men who are celebrated as the promoters of changes of government which have chiefly been adopted rather with a view to indulge a favourite theory, than to relieve a people from any acknowledged oppression. A wise or good man would distrust his judgment on a subject so momentous, and perhaps the best of such reformers were but enthusiasts. Shaftesbury calls enthusiasm an honest passion; yet we have seen it is a very dangerous one: and we may perhaps learn, from the example of France, not to venerate principles which we do not admire in practice.*

* I do not imply that the French Revolution was the work of enthusiasts, but that the enthusiasm of Rousseau produced a horde of Brissots, Marats, Robespierres, &c. who speculated on the affectation of it. The Abbe Sieyes, whose views were directed to a change of Monarchs, not a dissolution of the monarchy, and who in promoting a revolution did not mean to found a republic, has ventured to doubt both the political genius of Rousseau, and the honesty of his sectaries. These truths from the Abbe are not the less so for our knowing they would not be avowed if it answered his purpose to conceal them.—"Helas! un ecrivain justement celebre qui seroit mort de douleur s'il avoit connu ses disciples; un philosophe aussi parfait de sentiment que foible de vues, n'a-t-il pas dans ses pages eloquentes, riches en detail, pauvre au fond, confondu lui-meme les principes de l'art social avec les commencemens de la societe humaine? Que dire si l'on voyait dans un autre genre de mechaniques, entreprendre le radoub ou la construction d'un vaisseau de ligne avec la seule theorie, avec les seules resources des Sauvages dans la construction de leurs Pirogues!"—"Alas! has not a justly-celebrated writer, who would have died with grief, could he have known what disciples he was destined to have;—a philosopher as perfect in sentiment as feeble in his views,—confounded, in his eloquent pages—pages which are as rich in matter as poor in substance—the principles of the social system with the commencement of human society? What should we say to a mechanic of a different description, who should undertake the repair or construction of a ship of the line, without any practical knowledge of the art, on mere theory, and with no other resources than those which the savage employs in the construction of his canoe?" Notices sur la Vie de Sieyes.

What had France, already possessed of a constitution capable of rendering her prosperous and happy, to do with the adoration of Rousseau's speculative systems? Or why are the English encouraged in a traditional respect for the manes of republicans, whom, if living, we might not improbably consider as factious and turbulent fanatics?*

* The prejudices of my countrymen on this subject are respectable, and I know I shall be deemed guilty of a species of political sacrilege. I attack not the tombs of the dead, but the want of consideration for the living; and let not those who admire republican principles in their closets, think themselves competent to censure the opinions of one who has been watching their effects amidst the disasters of a revolution.

Our slumbers have for some time been patriotically disturbed by the danger of Holland; and the taking of the Maestricht nearly caused me a jaundice: but the French have taught us philosophy—and their conquests appear to afford them so little pleasure, that we ourselves hear of them with less pain. The Convention were indeed, at first, greatly elated by the dispatches from Amsterdam, and imagined they were on the eve of dictating to all Europe: the churches were ordered to toll their only bell, and the gasconades of the bulletin were uncommonly pompous—but the novelty of the event has now subsided, and the conquest of Holland excites less interest than the thaw. Public spirit is absorbed by private necessities or afflictions; people who cannot procure bread or firing, even though they have money to purchase it, are little gratified by reading that a pair of their Deputies lodged in the Stadtholder's palace; and the triumphs of the republic offer no consolation to the families which it has pillaged or dismembered.

The mind, narrowed and occupied by the little cares of hunting out the necessaries of life, and evading the restraints of a jealous government, is not susceptible of that lively concern in distant and general events which is the effect of ease and security; and all the recent victories have not been able to sooth the discontents of the Parisians, who are obliged to shiver whole hours at the door of a baker, to buy, at an extravagant price, a trifling portion of bread.

* "Chacun se concentre aujourdhui dans sa famille et calcule ses resources."—"The attention of every one now is confined to his family, and to the calculation of his resources." Discours de Lindet.

"Accable du soin d'etre, et du travail de vivre."—"Overwhelmed with the care of existence, and the labour of living." St. Lambert

—The impression of these successes is, I am persuaded, also diminished by considerations to which the philosopher of the day would allow no influence; yet by their assimilation with the Deputies and Generals whose names are so obscure as to escape the memory, they cease to inspire that mixed sentiment which is the result of national pride and personal affection. The name of a General or an Admiral serves as the epitome of an historical relation, and suffices to recall all his glories, and all his services; but this sort of enthusiasm is entirely repelled by an account that the citizens Gillet and Jourbert, two representatives heard of almost for the first time, have taken possession of Amsterdam.

I enquired of a man who was sawing wood for us this morning, what the bells clattered for last night. "L'on m'a dit (answered he) que c'est pour quelque ville que quelque general de la republique a prise. Ah! ca nous avancera beaucoup; la paix et du pain, je crois, sera mieux notre affaire que toutes ces conquetes." ["They say its for some town or other, that some general or other has taken.—Ah! we shall get a vast deal by that—a peace and bread, I think, would answer our purpose better than all these victories."] I told him he ought to speak with more caution. "Mourir pour mourir, [One death's as good as another.] (says he, half gaily,) one may as well die by the Guillotine as be starved. My family have had no bread these two days, and because I went to a neighbouring village to buy a little corn, the peasants, who are jealous that the town's people already get too much of the farmers, beat me so that I am scarce able to work."*—

* "L'interet et la criminelle avarice ont fomente et entretenu des germes de division entre les citoyens des villes et ceux des campagnes, entre les cultivateurs, les artisans et les commercans, entre les citoyens des departements et districts, et meme des communes voisines. On a voulu s'isoler de toutes parts." Discours de Lindet.

"Self-interest and a criminal avarice have fomented and kept alive the seeds of division between the inhabitants of the towns and those of the country, between the farmer, the mechanic, and the trader— the like has happened between adjoining towns and districts—an universal selfishness, in short, has prevailed." Lindet's Speech.

This picture, drawn by a Jacobin Deputy, is not flattering to republican fraternization.

—It is true, the wants of the lower classes are afflicting. The whole town has, for some weeks, been reduced to a nominal half pound of bread a day for each person—I say nominal, for it has repeatedly happened, that none has been distributed for three days together, and the quantity diminished to four ounces; whereas the poor, who are used to eat little else, consume each, in ordinary times, two pounds daily, on the lowest calculation.

We have had here a brutal vulgar-looking Deputy, one Florent-Guyot, who has harangued upon the virtues of patience, and the magnanimity of suffering hunger for the good of the republic. This doctrine has, however, made few converts; though we learn, from a letter of Florent-Guyot's to the Assembly, that the Amienois are excellent patriots, and that they starve with the best grace possible.

You are to understand, that the Representatives on mission, who describe the inhabitants of all the towns they visit as glowing with republicanism, have, besides the service of the common cause, views of their own, and are often enabled by these fictions to administer both to their interest and their vanity. They ingratiate themselves with the aristocrats, who are pleased at the imputation of principles which may secure them from persecution—they see their names recorded on the journals; and, finally, by ascribing these civic dispositions to the power of their own eloquence, they obtain the renewal of an itinerant delegation—which, it may be presumed, is very profitable.



Beauvais, March 13, 1795.

I have often, in the course of these letters, experienced how difficult it is to describe the political situation of a country governed by no fixed principles, and subject to all the fluctuations which are produced by the interests and passions of individuals and of parties. In such a state conclusions are necessarily drawn from daily events, minute facts, and an attentive observation of the opinions and dispositions of the people, which, though they leave a perfect impression on the mind of the writer, are not easily conveyed to that of the reader. They are like colours, the various shades of which, though discriminated by the eye, cannot be described but in general terms.

Since I last wrote, the government has considerably improved in decency and moderation; and though the French enjoy as little freedom as their almost sole Allies, the Algerines, yet their terror begins to wear off— and, temporizing with a despotism they want energy to destroy, they rejoice in the suspension of oppressions which a day or an hour may renew. No one pretends to have any faith in the Convention; but we are tranquil, if not secure—and, though subject to a thousand arbitrary details, incompatible with a good government, the political system is doubtless meliorated. Justice and the voice of the people have been attended to in the arrest of Collot, Barrere, and Billaud, though many are of opinion that their punishment will extend no farther; for a trial, particularly that of Barrere, who is in the secret of all factions, would expose so many revolutionary mysteries and patriotic reputations, that there are few members of the Convention who will not wish it evaded; they probably expect, that the seclusion, for some months, of the persons of the delinquents will appease the public vengeance, and that this affair may be forgotten in the bustle of more recent events.—If there had been any doubt of the crimes of these men, the publication of Robespierre's papers would have removed them; and, exclusive of their value when considered as a history of the times, these papers form one of the most curious and humiliating monuments of human debasement, and human depravity, extant.*

* The Report of Courtois on Robespierre's papers, though very able, is an instance of the pedantry I have often remarked as so peculiar to the French, even when they are not deficient in talents. It seems to be an abstract of all the learning, ancient and modern, that Courtois was possessed of. I have the book before me, and have selected the following list of persons and allusions; many of which are indeed of so little use or ornament to their stations in this speech, that one would have thought even a republican requisition could not have brought them there:

"Sampson, Dalila, Philip, Athens, Sylla, the Greeks and Romans, Brutus, Lycurgus, Persepolis, Sparta, Pulcheria, Cataline, Dagon, Anicius, Nero, Babel, Tiberius, Caligula, Augustus, Antony, Lepidus, the Manicheans, Bayle and Galileo, Anitus, Socrates, Demosthenes, Eschinus, Marius, Busiris, Diogenes, Caesar, Cromwell, Constantine, the Labarum, Domitius, Machiavel, Thraseas, Cicero, Cato, Aristophanes, Riscius, Sophocles, Euripides, Tacitus, Sydney, Wisnou, Possidonius, Julian, Argus, Pompey, the Teutates, Gainas, Areadius, Sinon, Asmodeus, Salamanders, Anicetus, Atreus, Thyestus, Cesonius, Barca and Oreb, Omar and the Koran, Ptolomy Philadelphus, Arimanes, Gengis, Themuginus, Tigellinus, Adrean, Cacus, the Fates, Minos and Rhadamanthus," &c. &c. Rapport de Courtois su les Papiers de Robespierre.

After several skirmishes between the Jacobins and Muscadins, the bust of Marat has been expelled from the theatres and public places of Paris, and the Convention have ratified this popular judgment, by removing him also from their Hall and the Pantheon. But reflecting on the frailty of our nature, and the levity of their countrymen, in order to obviate the disorders these premature beatifications give rise to, they have decreed that no patriot shall in future by Pantheonized until ten years after his death. This is no long period; yet revolutionary reputations have hitherto scarcely survived as many months, and the puerile enthusiasm which is adopted, not felt, has been usually succeeded by a violence and revenge equally irrational.

It has lately been discovered that Condorcet is dead, and that he perished in a manner singularly awful. Travelling under a mean appearance, he stopped at a public house to refresh himself, and was arrested in consequence of having no passport. He told the people who examined him he was a servant, but a Horace, which they found about him, leading to a suspicion that he was of a superior rank, they determined to take him to the next town. Though already exhausted, he was obliged to walk some miles farther, and, on his arrival, he was deposited in a prison, where he was forgotten, and starved to death.

Thus, perhaps at the moment the French were apotheosing an obscure demagogue, the celebrated Condorcet expired, through the neglect of a gaoler; and now, the coarse and ferocious Marat, and the more refined, yet more pernicious, philosopher, are both involved in one common obloquy.

What a theme for the moralist!—Perhaps the gaoler, whose brutal carelessness terminated the days of Condorcet, extinguished his own humanity in the torrent of that revolution of which Condorcet himself was one of the authors; and perhaps the death of a sovereign, whom Condorcet assisted in bringing to the scaffold, might have been this man's first lesson in cruelty, and have taught him to set little value on the lives of the rest of mankind.—The French, though they do not analyse seriously, speak of this event as a just retribution, which will be followed by others of a similar nature. "Quelle mort," ["What an end."] says one—"Elle est affreuse, (says another,) mais il etoit cause que bien d'autres ont peri aussi."—"Ils periront tous, et tant mieux," ["'Twas dreadful—but how many people have perished by his means."— "They'll all share the same fate, and so much the better."] reply twenty voices; and this is the only epitaph on Condorcet.

The pretended revolution of the thirty-first of May, 1792, which has occasioned so much bloodshed, and which I remember it dangerous not to hallow, though you did not understand why, is now formally erased from among the festivals of the republic; but this is only the triumph of party, and a signal that the remains of the Brissotines are gaining ground.

A more conspicuous and a more popular victory has been obtained by the royalists, in the trial and acquittal of Delacroix. The jury had been changed after the affair of Carrier, and were now better composed; though the escape of Delacroix is more properly to be attributed to the intimidating favour of the people. The verdict was received with shouts of applause, repeated with transport, and Delacroix, who had so patriotically projected to purify the Convention, by sending more than half its members to America, was borne home on the shoulders of an exulting populace.

Again the extinction of the war in La Vendee is officially announced; and it is certain that the chiefs are now in treaty with government. Such a peace only implies, that the country is exhausted, for it suffices to have read the treatment of these unhappy people to know that a reconciliation can neither be sincere nor permanent. But whatever may be the eventual effect of this negotiation, it has been, for the present, the means of wresting some unwilling concessions from the Assembly in favour of a free exercise of religion. No arrangement could ever be proposed to the Vendeans, which did not include a toleration of Christianity; and to refuse that to patriots and republicans, which was granted to rebels and royalists, was deemed at this time neither reasonable nor politic. A decree is therefore passed, authorizing people, if they can overcome all the annexed obstacles, to worship God in they way they have been accustomed to.

The public hitherto, far from being assured or encouraged by this decree, appear to have become more timid and suspicious; for it is conceived in so narrow and paltry a spirit, and expressed in such malignant and illusive terms, that it can hardly be said to intend an indulgence. Of twelve articles of an act said to be concessive, eight are prohibitory and restrictive; and a municipal officer, or any other person "in place or office," may controul at his pleasure all religious celebrations. The cathedrals and parish churches yet standing were seized on by the government at the introduction of the Goddesses of Reason, and the decree expressly declares that they shall not be restored or appropriated to their original uses. Individuals, who have purchased chapels or churches, hesitate to sell or let them, lest they should, on a change of politics, be persecuted as the abettors of fanaticism; so that the long-desired restoration of the Catholic worship makes but very slow progress.*—

* This decree prohibits any parish, community, or body of people collectively, from hiring or purchasing a church, or maintaining a clergyman: it also forbids ringing a bell, or giving any other public notice of Divine Service, or even distinguishing any building by external signs of its being dedicated to religion.

—A few people, whose zeal overpowers their discretion, have ventured to have masses at their own houses, but they are thinly attended; and on asking any one if they have yet been to this sort of conventicle, the reply is, "On new sait pas trop ce que le decret veut dire; il faut voir comment cela tournera." ["One cannot rightly comprehend the decree—it will be best to wait and see how things go."] Such a distrust is indeed very natural; for there are two subjects on which an inveterate hatred is apparent, and which are equally obnoxious to all systems and all parties in the Assembly—I mean Christianity and Great Britain. Every day produces harangues against the latter; and Boissy d'Anglas has solemnly proclaimed, as the directing principle of the government, that the only negociation for peace shall be a new boundary described by the Northern conquests of the republic; and this modest diplomatic is supported by arguments to prove, that the commerce of England cannot be ruined on any other terms.*

* "How (exclaims the sagacious Bourdon de l'Oise) can you hope to ruin England, if you do not keep possession of the three great rivers." (The Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt.)

The debates of the Convention increase in variety and amusement. Besides the manual exercises of the members, the accusations and retorts of unguarded choler, disclose to us many curious truths which a politic unanimity might conceal. Saladin, who was a stipendiary of the Duke of Orleans, and whose reputation would not grace any other assembly, is transformed into a Moderate, and talks of virtue and crime; while Andre Dumont, to the great admiration of his private biographists, has been signing a peace with the Duke of Tuscany.—Our republican statesmen require to be viewed in perspective: they appear to no advantage in the foreground. Dumont would have made "a good pantler, he would have chipp'd bread well;" or, like Scrub, he might have "drawn warrants, or drawn beer,"—but I should doubt if, in a transaction of this nature, the Dukedom of Tuscany was ever before so assorted; and if the Duke were obliged to make this peace, he may well say, "necessity doth make us herd with strange companions."

Notwithstanding the Convention still detests Christianity, utters anathemas against England, and exhibits daily scenes of indecent discussion and reviling, it is doubtless become more moderate on the whole; and though this moderation be not equal to the people's wishes, it is more than sufficient to exasperate the Jacobins, who call the Convention the Senate of Coblentz, and are perpetually endeavouring to excite commotions. The belief is, indeed, general, that the Assembly contains a strong party of royalists; yet, though this may be true in a degree, I fear the impulse which has been given by the public opinion, is mistaken for a tendency in the Convention itself. But however, this may be, neither the imputations of the Jacobins, nor the hopes of the people, have been able to oppose the progress of a sentiment which, operating on a character like that of the French, is more fatal to a popular body than even hatred or contempt. The long duration of this disastrous legislature has excited an universal weariness; the guilt of particular members is now less discussed than the insignificance of the whole assemblage; and the epithets corrupt, worn out, hackneyed, and everlasting, [Tare, use, banal, and eternel.] have almost superseded those of rogues and villains.

The law of the maximum has been repealed some time, and we now procure necessaries with much greater facility; but the assignats, no longer supported by violence, are rapidly diminishing in credit—so that every thing is dear in proportion. We, who are more than indemnified by the rise of exchange in our favour, are not affected by these progressive augmentations in the price of provisions. It would, however, be erroneous and unfeeling to judge of the situation of the French themselves from such a calculation.

People who have let their estates on leases, or have annuities on the Hotel de Ville, &c. receive assignats at par, and the wages of the labouring poor are still comparatively low. What was five years ago a handsome fortune, now barely supplies a decent maintenance; and smaller incomes, which were competencies at that period, are now almost insufficient for existence. A workman, who formerly earned twenty-five sols a day, has at present three livres; and you give a sempstress thirty sols, instead of ten: yet meat, which was only five or six sols when wages was twenty-five, is now from fifty sols to three livres the pound, and every other article in the same or a higher proportion. Thus, a man's daily wages, instead of purchasing four or five pounds of meat, as they would have done before the revolution, now only purchase one.

It grieves me to see people whom I have known at their ease, obliged to relinquish, in the decline of life, comforts to which they were accustomed at a time when youth rendered indulgence less necessary; yet every day points to the necessity of additional oeconomy, and some little convenience or enjoyment is retrenched—and to those who are not above acknowledging how much we are the creatures of habit, a dish of coffee, or a glass of liqueur, &c. will not seem such trifling privations. It is true, these are, strictly speaking, luxuries; so too are most things by comparison—

"O reason not the need: our basest beggars "Are in the poorest thing superfluous: "Allow not nature more than nature needs, "Man's life is cheap as beast's."

If the wants of one class were relieved by these deductions from the enjoyments of another, it might form a sufficient consolation; but the same causes which have banished the splendor of wealth and the comforts of mediocrity, deprive the poor of bread and raiment, and enforced parsimony is not more generally conspicuous than wretchedness.

The frugal tables of those who were once rich, have been accompanied by relative and similar changes among the lower classes; and the suppression of gilt equipages is so far from diminishing the number of wooden shoes, that for one pair of sabots which were seen formerly, there are now ten. The only Lucullus's of the day are a swarm of adventurers who have escaped from prisons, or abandoned gaming-houses, to raise fortunes by speculating in the various modes of acquiring wealth which the revolution has engendered.—These, together with the numberless agents of government enriched by more direct pillage, live in coarse luxury, and dissipate with careless profusion those riches which their original situations and habits have disqualified them from converting to a better use.

Although the circumstances of the times have necessitated a good deal of domestic oeconomy among people who live on their fortunes, they have lately assumed a gayer style of dress, and are less averse from frequenting public amusements. For three years past, (and very naturally,) the gentry have openly murmured at the revolution; and they now, either convinced of the impolicy of such conduct, terrified by their past sufferings, or, above all, desirous of proclaiming their triumph over the Jacobins, are every where reviving the national taste for modes and finery. The attempt to reconcile these gaieties with prudence, has introduced some contrasts in apparel whimsical enough, though our French belles adopt them with much gravity.

In consequence of the disorders in the South of France, and the interruption of commerce by sea, soap is not only dear, but sometimes difficult to purchase at any rate. We have ourselves paid equal to five livres a pound in money. Hence we have white wigs* and grey stockings, medallions and gold chains with coloured handkerchiefs and discoloured tuckers, and chemises de Sappho, which are often worn till they rather remind one of the pious Queen Isabel, than the Greek poetess.

* Vilate, in his pamphlet on the secret causes of the revolution of the ninth Thermidor, relates the following anecdote of the origin of the peruques blondes. "The caprice of a revolutionary female who, on the fete in celebration of the Supreme Being, covered her own dark hair with a tete of a lighter colour, having excited the jealousy of La Demahe, one of Barrere's mistresses, she took occasion to complain to him of this coquettry, by which she thought her own charms eclipsed. Barrere instantly sent for Payen, the national agent, and informed him that a new counter-revolutionary sect had started up, and that its partizans distinguished themselves by wearing wigs made of light hair cut from the heads of the guillotined aristocrats. He therefore enjoined Payen to make a speech at the municipality, and to thunder against this new mode. The mandate was, of course, obeyed; and the women of rank, who had never before heard of these wigs, were both surprized and alarmed at an imputation so dangerous. Barrere is said to have been highly amused at having thus solemnly stopped the progress of a fashion, only becuase it displeased one of his female favourites.—I perfectly remember Payen's oration against this coeffure, and every woman in Paris who had light hair, was, I doubt not, intimidated."

This pleasantry of Barrere's proves with what inhuman levity the government sported with the feelings of the people. At the fall of Robespierre, the peruque blonde, no longer subject to the empire of Barrere's favourites, became a reigning mode.

—Madame Tallien, who is supposed occasionally to dictate decrees to the Convention, presides with a more avowed and certain sway over the realms of fashion; and the Turkish draperies that may float very gracefully on a form like hers, are imitated by rotund sesquipedal Fatimas, who make one regret even the tight lacings and unnatural diminishings of our grandmothers.

I came to Beauvais a fortnight ago with the Marquise. Her long confinement has totally ruined her health, and I much fear she will not recover. She has an aunt lives here, and we flattered ourselves she might benefit by change of air—but, on the contrary, she seems worse, and we propose to return in the course of a week to Amiens.

I had a good deal of altercation with the municipality about obtaining a passport; and when they at last consented, they gave me to understand I was still a prisoner in the eye of the law, and that I was indebted to them for all the freedom I enjoyed. This is but too true; for the decree constituting the English hostages for the Deputies at Toulon has never been repealed—

"Ah, what avails it that from slavery far, "I drew the breath of life in English air?" Johnson.

Yet is it a consolation, that the title by which I was made an object of mean vengeance is the one I most value.*

* An English gentleman, who was asked by a republican Commissary, employed in examining the prisons, why he was there, replied, "Because I have not the misfortune to be a Frenchman!"

This is a large manufacturing town, and the capital of the department of l'Oise. Its manufactories now owe their chief activity to the requisitions for supplying cloth to the armies. Such commerce is by no means courted; and if people were permitted, as they are in most countries, to trade or let it alone, it would soon decline.—The choir of the cathedral is extremely beautiful, and has luckily escaped republican devastation, though there seems to exist no hope that it will be again restored to the use of public worship. Your books will inform you, that Beauvais was besieged in 1472 by the Duke of Burgundy, with eighty thousand men, and that he failed in the attempt. Its modern history is not so fortunate. It was for some time harassed by a revolutionary army, whose exactions and disorders being opposed by the inhabitants, a decree of the Convention declared the town in a state of rebellion; and this ban, which operates like the Papal excommunications three centuries ago, and authorizes tyranny of all kinds, was not removed until long after the death of Robespierre.—Such a specimen of republican government has made the people cautious, and abundant in the exteriors of patriotism. Where they are sure of their company, they express themselves without reserve, both on the subject of their legislators and the miseries of the country; but intercourse is considerably more timid here than at Amiens.

Two gentlemen dined with us yesterday, whom I know to be zealous royalists, and, as they are acquainted, I made no scruple of producing an engraving which commemorates mysteriously the death of the King, and which I had just received from Paris by a private conveyance. They looked alarmed, and affected not to understand it; and, perceiving I had done wrong, I replaced the print without farther explanation: but they both called this evening, and reproached me separately for thus exposing their sentiments to each other.—This is a trifling incident, yet perhaps it may partly explain the great aenigma why no effectual resistance is made to a government which is secretly detested. It has been the policy of all the revolutionists, from the Lameths and La Fayette down to Brissot and Robespierre, to destroy the confidence of society; and the calamities of last year, now aiding the system of spies and informers, occasion an apprehension and distrust which impede union, and check every enterprize that might tend to restore the freedom of the country.—Yours, &c.



Amiens, April 12, 1795.

Instead of commenting on the late disorders at Paris, I subjoin the translation of a letter just received by Mrs. D———— from a friend, whose information, we have reason to believe, is as exact as can possibly be obtained in the chaos of little intrigues which now comprise the whole science of French politics.

"Paris, April 9.

"Though I know, my good friend, you are sufficiently versed in the technicals of our revolution not to form an opinion of occurrences from the language in which they are officially described, yet I cannot resist the favourable opportunity of Mad. ————'s return, to communicate such explanations of the late events as their very ambiguous appearance may render necessary even to you.

"I must begin by informing you, that the proposed decree of the Convention to dissolve themselves and call a new Assembly, was a mere coquettry. Harassed by the struggles of the Jacobins, and alarmed at the symptoms of public weariness and disgust, which became every day more visible, they hoped this feint might operate on the fears of the people of Paris, and animate them to a more decided support against the efforts of the common enemy, as well as tend to reconcile them to a farther endurance of a representation from which they did not disguise their wishes to be released. An opportunity was therefore seized on, or created, when our allowance of bread had become unusually short, and the Jacobins unusually turbulent, to bring forward this project of renovating the legislature. But in politics, as well as love, such experiments are dangerous. Far from being received with regret, the proposition excited universal transport; and it required all the diligence of the agents of government to insinuate effectually, that if Paris were abandoned by the Convention at this juncture, it would not only become a prey to famine, but the Jacobins would avail themselves of the momentary disorder to regain their power, and renew their past atrocities.

"A conviction that we in reality derive our scanty supplies from exertions which would not be made, were they not necessary to restrain the popular ill humour, added to an habitual apprehension of the Clubs,* assisted this manoeuvre; and a few of the sections were, in consequence, prevailed on to address our Representatives, and to request they would remain at their post.—

* Paris had been long almost entirely dependent on the government for subsistence, so that an insurrection could always be procured by withholding the usual supply. The departments were pillaged by requisitions, and enormous sums sent to the neutral countries to purchase provisions, that the capital might be maintained in dependence and good humour. The provisions obtained by these means were distributed to the shopkeepers, who had instructions to retail them to the idle and disorderly, at about a twentieth part of the original cost, and no one could profit by this regulation, without first receiving a ticket from the Committee of his section.

It was lately asserted in the Convention, and not disavowed, that if the government persisted in this sort of traffic, the annual loss attending the article of corn alone would amount to fifty millions sterling. The reduction of the sum in question into English money is made on a presumption that the French government did not mean (were it to be avoided) to commit an act of bankruptcy, and redeem their paper at less than par. Reckoning, however, at the real value of assignats when the calculation was made, and they were then worth perhaps a fifth of their nominal value, the government was actually at the expence of ten millions sterling a year, for supplying Paris with a very scanty portion of bread! The sum must appear enormous, but the peculation under such a government must be incalculable; and when it is recollected that all neutral ships bringing cargoes for the republic must have been insured at an immense premium, or perhaps eventually purchased by the French, and that very few could reach their destination, we may conclude that such as did arrive cost an immoderate sum.

—"The insurrection that immediately succeeded was at first the effect of a similar scheme, and it ended in a party contention, in which the people, as usual, were neuter.

"The examination into the conduct of Barrere, Collot, &c. had been delayed until it seemed rather a measure destined to protect than to bring them to punishment; and the impatience which was every where expressed on the subject, sufficiently indicated the necessity, or at least the prudence, of hastening their trial. Such a process could not be ventured on but at the risk of involving the whole Convention in a labyrinth of crimes, inconsistencies, and ridicule, and the delinquents already began to exonerate themselves by appealing to the vote of solemn approbation passed in their favour three months after the death of Robespierre had restored the Assembly to entire freedom.