* Tallien was Seecretary to the Commune of Paris in 1792, and on the thirty-first of August he appeared at the bar of the Legislative a.s.sembly with an address, in which he told them "he had caused the refractory priests to be arrested and confined, and that in a few days the Land of Liberty should be freed of them."--The ma.s.sacres of the prisons began two days after!
As soon as a Representative is convicted of harbouring an opinion unfavourable to pillage or murder, he is immediately declared an aristocrat; or, if the Convention happen for a moment to be influenced by reason or justice, the hopes and fears of both parties are awakened by suspicions that the members are converts to royalism.--For my own part, I believe they are and will be just what their personal security and personal interest may suggest, though it is but a sorry sort of panegyric on republican ethics to conclude, that every one who manifests the least symptom of probity or decency, must of course be a royalist or an aristocrat.
Notwithstanding the harmony which appears to subsist between the Convention and the people, the former is much less popular in detail than in the gross. Almost every member who has been on mission, is accused of dilapidations and cruelties so heinous, that, if they had not been committed by Representans du Peuple, the criminal courts would find no difficulty in deciding upon them.--But as theft or murder does not deprive a member of his privileges, complaints of this nature are only cognizable by the a.s.sembly, which, being yet in its first days of regeneration, is rather scrupulous of defending such amus.e.m.e.nts overtly.
Alarmed, however, at the number, and averse from the precedent of these denunciations, it has now pa.s.sed a variety of decrees, which are termed a guarantee of the national representation, and which in fact guarantee it so effectually, that a Deputy may do any thing in future with impunity, provided it does not affect his colleagues. There are now so many forms, reports, and examinations, that several months may be employed before the person of a delinquent, however notorious his guilt, can be secured. The existence of a fellow-creature should, doubtless, be attacked with caution; for, though he may have forfeited his claims on our esteem, and even our pity, religion has preserved him others, of which he should not be deprived.--But when we recollect that all these merciful ceremonies are in favour of a Carrier or a Le Bon, and that the King, Madame Elizabeth, and thousands of innocent people, were hurried to execution, without being allowed the consolations of piety or affection, which only a mockery of justice might have afforded them; when, even now, priests are guillotined for celebrating ma.s.ses in private, and thoughtless people for speaking disrespectfully of the Convention--the heart is at variance with religion and principle, and we regret that mercy is to be the exclusive portion of those who were never accessible to its dictates.*
* The denunciation being first presented to the a.s.sembly, they are to decide whether it shall be received. If they determine in the affirmative, it is sent to the three Committees of Legislation, Public Welfare, and General Safety, to report whether there may be room for farther examination. In that case, a commission of twenty-one members is appointed to receive the proofs of the accuser, and the defence of the accused. These Commissioners, after as long a delay as they may think fit to interpose, make known their opinion; and if it be against the accused, the Convention proceed to determine finally whether the matter shall be referred to the ordinary tribunal. All this time the culprit is at large, or, at worst, and merely for the form, carelessly guarded at his own dwelling.
I would not "pick bad from bad," but it irks one"s spirit to see these miscreants making "a.s.surance doubly sure," and providing for their own safety with such solicitude, after sacrificing, without remorse, whatever was most interesting or respectable in the country.--Yours, &c.
Ba.s.se-ville, Arras, Nov. 6, 1794.
Since my own liberation, I have been incessantly employed in endeavouring to procure the return of my friends to Amiens; who, though released from prison some time, could not obtain pa.s.sports to quit Arras. After numerous difficulties and vexations, we have at length succeeded, and I am now here to accompany them home.
I found Mr. and Mrs. D____ much altered by the hardships they have undergone: Mrs. D____, in particular, has been confined some months in a noisome prison called the Providence, originally intended as a house of correction, and in which, though built to contain an hundred and fifty persons, were crouded near five hundred females, chiefly ladies of Arras and the environs.--The superintendance of this miserable place was entrusted to a couple of vulgar and vicious women, who, having distinguished themselves as patriots from the beginning of the revolution, were now rewarded by Le Bon with an office as profitable as it was congenial to their natures.
I know not whether it is to be imputed to the national character, or to that of the French republicans only, but the cruelties which have been committed are usually so mixed with licentiousness, as to preclude description. I have already noticed the conduct of Le Bon, and it must suffice to say, his agents were worthy of him, and that the female prisoners suffered every thing which brutality, rapaciousness, and indecency, could inflict. Mr. D____ was, in the mean time, transferred from prison to prison--the distress of separation was augmented by their mutual apprehensions and pecuniary embarra.s.sments--and I much fear, the health and spirits of both are irretrievably injured.
I regret my impatience in coming here, rather than waiting the arrival of my friends at home; for the changes I observe, and the recollections they give birth to, oppress my heart, and render the place hateful to me.--All the families I knew are diminished by executions, and their property is confiscated--those whom I left in elegant hotels are now in obscure lodgings, subsisting upon the superfluities of better days--and the sorrows of the widows and orphans are increased by penury; while the Convention, which affects to condemn the crimes of Le Bon, is profiting by the spoils of his victims.
I am the more deeply impressed by these circ.u.mstances, because, when I was here in 1792, several who have thus fallen, though they had nothing to reproach themselves with, were yet so much intimidated as to propose emigrating; and I then was of opinion, that such a step would be impolitic and unnecessary. I hope and believe this opinion did not influence them, but I lament having given it, for the event has proved that a great part of the emigrants are justifiable. It always appeared to me so serious and great an evil to abandon one"s country, that when I have seen it done with indifference or levity, I may perhaps have sometimes transferred to the measure itself a sentiment of disapprobation, excited originally by the manner of its adoption. When I saw people expatiate with calmness, and heard them speak of it as a means of distinguishing themselves, I did not sufficiently allow for the tendency of the French to make the best of every thing, or the influence of vanity on men who allow it to make part of the national characteristic: and surely, if ever vanity were laudable, that of marking a detestation for revolutionary principles, and an attachment to loyalty and religion, may justly be considered so. Many whom I then accused of being too lightly affected by the prospect of exile, might be animated by the hope of personally contributing to the establishment of peace and order, and rescuing their country from the banditti who were oppressing it; and it is not surprising that such objects should dazzle the imagination and deceive the judgment in the choice of measures by which they were to be obtained.
The number of emigrants from fashion or caprice is probably not great; and whom shall we now dare to include under this description, when the humble artizan, the laborious peasant, and the village priest, have ensanguined the scaffold destined for the prince or the prelate?--But if the emigrants be justifiable, the refugees are yet more so.
By Emigrants, I mean all who, without being immediately in danger, left their country through apprehension of the future--from attachment to the persons of the Princes, or to join companions in the army whom they might deem it a disgrace to abandon.--Those whom I think may with truth be styled Refugees, are the n.o.bility and Priests who fled when the people, irritated by the literary terrorists of the day, the Brissots, Rolands, Camille Desmoulins, &c. were burning their chateaux and proscribing their persons, and in whom expatriation cannot properly be deemed the effect of choice. These, wherever they have sought an asylum, are ent.i.tled to our respect and sympathy.
Yet, I repeat, we are not authorized to discriminate. There is no reasoning coldly on the subject. The most cautious prudence, the most liberal sacrifices, and the meanest condescensions, have not insured the lives and fortunes of those who ventured to remain; and I know not that the absent require any other apology than the desolation of the country they have quitted. Had my friends who have been slaughtered by Le Bon"s tribunal persisted in endeavouring to escape, they might have lived, and their families, though despoiled by the rapacity of the government, have been comparatively happy.*
* The first horrors of the revolution are well known, and I have seen no accounts which exaggerate them. The niece of a lady of my acquaintance, a young woman only seventeen, escaped from her country-house (whilst already in flames) with her infant at her breast, and literally without clothes to cover her. In this state she wandered a whole night, and when she at length reached a place where she procured a.s.sistance, was so exhausted that her life was in danger.--Another lady, whom I knew, was wounded in the arm by some peasants a.s.sembled to force from her the writings of her husband"s estates. Even after this they still remained in France, submitted with cheerfulness to all the demands of patriotic gifts, forced loans, requisitions and impositions of every kind; yet her husband was nevertheless guillotined, and the whole of their immense property confiscated.
Retrospections, like these, obliterate many of my former notions on the subject of the Emigrants; and if I yet condemn emigration, it is only as a general measure, impolitic, and inadequate to the purposes for which it was undertaken. But errors of judgment, in circ.u.mstances so unprecedented, cannot be censured consistently with candour, through we may venture to mark them as a discouragement to imitation; for if any nation should yet be menaced by the revolutionary scourge, let it beware of seeking external redress by a temporary abandonment of its interests to the madness of systemists, or the rapine of needy adventurers. We must, we ought to, lament the fate of the many gallant men who have fallen, and the calamities of those who survive; but what in them has been a mistaken policy, will become guilt in those who, on a similar occasion, shall not be warned by their example. I am concerned when I hear these unhappy fugitives are any where objects of suspicion or persecution, as it is not likely that those who really emigrated from principle can merit such treatment: and I doubt not, that most of the instances of treachery or misconduct ascribed to the Emigrants originated in republican emissaries, who have a.s.sumed that character for the double purpose of discrediting it, and of exercising their trade as spies.
The common people here, who were retained by Le Bon for several months to attend and applaud his executions, are still dissolute and ferocious, and openly regret the loss of their pay, and the disuse of the guillotine.
--I came to Arras in mourning, which I have worn since the receipt of your first letter, but was informed by the lady with whom my friends lodge, that I must not attempt to walk the streets in black, for that it was customary to insult those who did so, on a supposition that they were related to some persons who had been executed; I therefore borrowed a white undress, and stole out by night to visit my unfortunate acquaintance, as I found it was also dangerous to be seen entering houses known to contain the remains of those families which had been dismembered by Le Bon"s cruelties.
We return to Amiens to-morrow, though you must not imagine so formidable a person as myself is permitted to wander about the republic without due precaution; and I had much difficulty in being allowed to come, even attended by a guard, who has put me to a considerable expence; but the man is civil, and as he has business of his own to transact in the town, he is no embarra.s.sment to me.
Amiens, Nov. 26, 1794.
The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, the Legislative a.s.sembly, and the National Convention, all seem to have acted from a persuasion, that their sole duty as revolutionists was comprised in the destruction of whatever existed under the monarchy. If an inst.i.tution were discovered to have the slightest defect in principle, or to have degenerated a little in practice, their first step was to abolish it entirely, and leave the replacing it for the present to chance, and for the future to their successors. In return for the many new words which they have introduced into the French language, they have expunged that of reform; and the havock and devastation, which a Mahometan conqueror might have performed as successfully, are as yet the only effects of philosophy and republicanism.
This system of ignorance and violence seems to have persecuted with peculiar hostility all the ancient establishments for education; and the same plan of suppressing daily what they have neither leisure nor abilities to supply, which I remarked to you two years ago, has directed the Convention ever since. It is true, the interval has produced much dissertation, and engendered many projects; but those who were so unanimous in rejecting, were extremely discordant in adopting, and their own disputes and indecision might have convinced them of their presumption in condemning what they now found it so difficult to excel.
Some decided in favour of public schools, after the example of Sparta-- this was objected to by others, because, said they, if you have public schools you must have edifices, and governors, and professors, who will, to a certainty, be aristocrats, or become so; and, in short, this will only be a revival of the colleges of the old government--A third party proposed private seminaries, or that people might be at liberty to educate their children in the way they thought best; but this, it was declared, would have a still greater tendency to aristocracy; for the rich, being better able to pay than the poor, would engross all the learning to themselves. The Jacobins were of opinion, that there should be no schools, either public or private, but that the children should merely be taken to hear the debates of the Clubs, where they would acquire all the knowledge necessary for republicans; and a few spirits of a yet sublimer cast were adverse both to schools or clubs, and recommended, that the rising generation should "study the great book of Nature alone." It is, however, at length concluded, that there shall be a certain number of public establishments, and that people shall even be allowed to have their children instructed at home, under the inspection of the const.i.tuted authorities, who are to prevent the instillation of aristocratic principles.*
* We may judge of the competency of many of these people to be official censors of education by the following specimens from a report of Gregoire"s. Since the rage for destruction has a little subsided, circular letters have been sent to the administrators of the departments, districts, &c. enquiring what antiquities, or other objects of curiosity, remain in their neighbourhood.--"From one, (says Gregoire,) we are informed, that they are possessed of nothing in this way except four vases, which, as they have been told, are of porphyry. From a second we learn, that, not having either forge or manufactory in the neighbourhood, no monument of the arts is to be found there: and a third announces, that the completion of its library cataloges has been r.e.t.a.r.ded, because the person employed at them ne fait pas la diplomatique!"--("does not understand the science of diplomacy.")
The difficulty as to the mode in which children were to be taught being got over, another remained, not less liable to dispute--which was, the choice of what they were to learn. Almost every member had a favourite article---music, physic, prophylactics, geography, geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, natural history, and botany, were all p.r.o.nounced to be requisites in an eleemosynary system of education, specified to be chiefly intended for the country people; but as this debate regarded only the primary schools for children in their earliest years, and as one man for a stipend of twelve hundred livres a year, was to do it all, a compromise became necessary, and it has been agreed for the present, that infants of six years shall be taught only reading, writing, gymnastics, geometry, geography, natural philosophy, and history of all free nations, and that of all the tyrants, the rights of man, and the patriotic songs.
--Yet, after these years of consideration, and days of debate, the a.s.sembly has done no more than a parish-clerk, or an old woman with a primer, and "a twig whilom of small regard to see," would do better without its interference.
The students of a more advanced age are still to be disposed of, and the task of devising an inst.i.tution will not be easy; because, perhaps a Collot d"Herbois or a Duhem is not satisfied with the system which perfectioned the genius of Montesquieu or Descartes. Change, not improvement, is the object--whatever bears a resemblance to the past must be proscribed; and while other people study to simplify modes of instruction, the French legislature is intent on rendering them as difficult and complex as possible; and at the moment they decree that the whole country shall become learned, they make it an unfathomable science to teach urchins of half a dozen years old their letters.
Foreigners, indeed, who judge only from the public prints, may suppose the French far advanced towards becoming the most erudite nation in Europe: unfortunately, all these schools, primary, and secondary, and centrical, and divergent, and normal,* exist as yet but in the repertories of the Convention, and perhaps may not add "a local habitation" to their names, till the present race** shall be unfit to reap the benefit of them.
* _Les Ecoles Normales_ were schools where masters were to be instructed in the art of teaching. Certain deputies objected to them, as being of feudal inst.i.tution, supposing that Normale had some reference to Normandy.
** This was a mistake, for the French seem to have adopted the maxim, "that man is never too old to learn;" and, accordingly, at the opening of the Normal schools, the celebrated Bougainville, now eighty years of age, became a pupil. This Normal project was, however, soon relinquished--for by that fatality which has. .h.i.therto attended all the republican inst.i.tutions, it was found to have become a mere nursery for aristocrats.
But this revolutionary barbarism, not content with stopping the progress of the rising generation, has ravaged without mercy the monuments of departed genius, and persecuted with senseless despotism those who were capable of replacing them. Pictures have been defaced, statues mutilated, and libraries burnt, because they reminded the people of their Kings or their religion; while artists, and men of science or literature, were wasting their valuable hours in prison, or expiring on the scaffold.--The moral and gentle Florian died of vexation. A life of abstraction and utility could not save the celebrated chymist, Lavoisier, from the Guillotine. La Harpe languished in confinement, probably, that he might not eclipse Chenier, who writes tragedies himself; and every author that refused to degrade his talents by the adulation of tyranny has been proscribed and persecuted. Palissot,* at sixty years old, was destined to expiate in a prison a satire upon Rousseau, written when he was only twenty, and escaped, not by the interposition of justice, but by the efficacity of a bon mot.
* Palissot was author of "The Philosophers," a comedy, written thirty years ago, to ridicule Rousseau. He wrote to the munic.i.p.ality, acknowledged his own error, and the merits of Rousseau; yet, says he, if Rousseau were a G.o.d, you ought not to sacrifice human victims to him.--The expression, which in French is well tuned, pleased the munic.i.p.ality, and Palissot, I believe, was not afterwards molested.
--A similar fate would have been awarded Dorat, [Author of "Les Malheurs de l"Inconstance," and other novels.] for styling himself Chevalier in the t.i.tle-pages of his novels, had he not commuted his punishment for base eulogiums on the Convention, and with the same pen, which has been the delight of the French boudoir, celebrated Carrier"s murders on the Loire under the appellation of "baptemes civiques." Every province in France, we are informed by the eloquent pedantry of Gregoire, exhibits traces of these modern Huns, which, though now exclusively attributed to the agents of Robespierre and Mr. Pitt,* it is very certain were authorized by the decrees of the Convention, and executed under the sanction of Deputies on mission, or their subordinates.
* _"Soyez sur que ces destructions se sont pour la plupart a l"instigation de nos ennemis--quel triomphe pour l"Anglais si il eul pu ecraser notre commerce par l"aneantiss.e.m.e.nt des arts dont la culture enrichit le sien."_--"Rest a.s.sured that these demolitions were, for the most part, effected at the instigation of our enemies --what a triumph would it have been for the English, if they had succeeded in crushing our commerce by the annihilation of the arts, the culture of which enriched their own."
--If the princ.i.p.al monuments of art be yet preserved to gratify the national taste or vanity, it is owing to the courage and devotion of individuals, who obeyed with a protecting dilatoriness the destructive mandates of government.
At some places, orangeries were sold by the foot for fire-wood, because, as it was alledged, that republicans had more occasion for apples and potatoes than oranges.--At Mousseaux, the seals were put on the hot-houses, and all the plants nearly destroyed. Valuable remains of sculpture were condemned for a crest, a fleur de lys, or a coronet attached to them; and the deities of the Heathen mythology were made war upon by the ignorance of the republican executioners, who could not distinguish them from emblems of feodality.*
* At Anet, a bronze stag, placed as a fountain in a large piece of water, was on the point of being demolished, because stags are beasts of chace, and hunting is a feodal privilege, and stags of course emblems of feodality.--It was with some difficulty preserved by an amateur, who insisted, that stags of bronze were not included in the decree.--By a decree of the Convention, which I have formerly mentioned, all emblems of royalty or feodality were to be demolished by a particular day; and as the law made no distinction, it could not be expected that munic.i.p.alities, &c. often ignorant or timid, should either venture or desire to spare what in the eyes of the connoisseur might be precious.
"At St. Dennis, (says the virtuoso Gregoire,) where the National Club justly struck at the tyrants even in their tombs, that of Turenne ought to have been spared; yet strokes of the sword are still visible on it."--He likewise complains, that at the Botanic Garden the bust of Linnaeus had been destroyed, on a presumption of its being that of Charles the Ninth; and if it had been that of Charles the Ninth, it is not easy to discern how the cause of liberty was served by its mutilation.--The artist or moralist contemplates with equal profit or curiosity the features of Pliny or Commodus; and History and Science will appreciate Linnaeus and Charles the Ninth, without regarding whether their resemblances occupy a palace, or are scattered in fragments by republican ignorance.--Long after the death of Robespierre, the people of Amiens humbly pet.i.tioned the Convention, that their cathedral, perhaps the most beautiful Gothic edifice in Europe, might be preserved; and to avoid giving offence by the mention of churches or cathedrals, they called it a Basilique.--But it is unnecessary to adduce any farther proof, that the spirit of what is now called Vandalism originated in the Convention. Every one in France must recollect, that, when dispatches from all corners announced these ravages, they were heard with as much applause, as though they had related so many victories gained over the enemy.
--Quant.i.ties of curious medals have been melted down for the trifling value of the metal; and at Abbeville, a silver St. George, of uncommon workmanship, and which Mr. Garrick is said to have desired to purchase at a very high price, was condemned to the crucible--
_"----Sur tant de tresors "Antiques monumens respectes jusqu"alors, "Par la destruction signalant leur puissance, "Las barbares etendirent leur stupide vengeance."
"La Religion,"_ Racine.
Yet the people in office who operated these mischiefs were all appointed by the delegates of the a.s.sembly; for the first towns of the republic were not trusted even with the choice of a constable. Instead, therefore, of feeling either surprise or regret at this devastation, we ought rather to rejoice that it has extended no farther; for such agents, armed with such decrees, might have reduced France to the primitive state of ancient Gaul. Several valuable paintings are said to have been conveyed to England, and it will be curious if the barbarism of France in the eighteenth century should restore to us what we, with a fanaticism and ignorance at least more prudent than theirs, sold them in the seventeenth. The zealots of the Barebones" Parliament are, however, more respectable than the atheistical Vandals of the Convention; and, besides the benefit of our example, the interval of a century and an half, with the boast of a philosophy and a degree of illumination exceeding that of any other people, have rendered the errors of the French at once more unpardonable and more ridiculous; for, in a.s.similating their past presentations to their present conduct and situation, we do not always find it possible to regret without a mixture of contempt.
Amiens, Nov. 29, 1794.
The selfish policy of the Convention in affecting to respect and preserve the Jacobin societies, while it deprived them of all power, and help up the individuals who composed them to abhorrence, could neither satisfy nor deceive men versed in revolutionary expedients, and more accustomed to dictate laws than to submit to them.*
* The Jacobins were at this time headed by Billaud Varenne, Collot, Thuriot, &c.--veterans, who were not likely to be deceived by temporizing.
Supported by all the force of government, and intrinsically formidable by their union, the Clubs had long existed in defiance of public reprobation, and for some time they had braved not only the people, but the government itself. The instant they were disabled from corresponding and communicating in that privileged sort of way which rendered them so conspicuous, they felt their weakness; and their desultory and unconnected efforts to regain their influence only served to complete its annihilation. While they pretended obedience to the regulations to which the Convention had subjected them, they intrigued to promote a revolt, and were strenuously exerting themselves to gain partizans among the idle and dissolute, who, having subsisted for months as members of revolutionary committees, and in other revolutionary offices, were naturally averse from a more moderate government. The numbers of these were far from inconsiderable: and, when it is recollected that this description of people only had been allowed to retain their arms, while all who had any thing to defend were deprived of them, we cannot wonder if the Jacobins entertained hopes of success.