A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, by An English Lady
A >>
An English Lady >> A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795,
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9
These men were apprehended as smugglers, under circumstances of peculiar
atrocity, and committed to the gaol at ____. A few days after, a young
girl, of bad character, who has much influence at the club, made a
motion, that the people, in a body, should demand the release of the
prisoners. The motion was carried, and the Hotel de Ville assailed by a
formidable troop of sailors, fish-women, &c.--The municipality refused to
comply, the Garde Nationale was called out, and, on the mob persisting,
fired over their heads, wounded a few, and the rest dispersed of
themselves.--Now you must understand, the latent motive of all this was
two thousand livres promised to one of the Jacobin leaders, if he
succeeded in procuring the men their liberty.--I do not advance this
merely on conjecture. The fact is well known to the municipality; and
the decent part of it would willingly have expelled this man, who is one
of their members, but that they found themselves too weak to engage in a
serious quarrel with the Jacobins.--One cannot reflect, without
apprehension, that any society should exist which can oppose the
execution of the laws with impunity, or that a people, who are little
sensible of realities, should be thus abused by names. They suffer, with
unfeeling patience, a thousand enormities--yet blindly risk their
liberties and lives to promote the designs of an adventurer, because he
harangues at a club, and calls himself a patriot.--I have just received
advice that my friends have left Lausanne, and are on their way to Paris.
Our first plan of passing the winter there will be imprudent, if not
impracticable, and we have concluded to take a house for the winter six
months at Amiens, Chantilly, or some place which has the reputation of
being quiet. I have already ordered enquiries to be made, and shall set
out with Mrs. ____ in a day or two for Amiens. I may, perhaps, not write
till our return; but shall not cease to be, with great truth.--Yours, &c.
Amiens, 1792.
The departement de la Somme has the reputation of being a little
aristocratic. I know not how far this be merited, but the people are
certainly not enthusiasts. The villages we passed on our road hither
were very different from those on the frontiers--we were hailed by no
popular sounds, no cries of Vive la nation! except from here and there
some ragged boy in a red cap, who, from habit, associated this salutation
with the appearance of a carriage. In every place where there are half a
dozen houses is planted an unthriving tree of liberty, which seems to
wither under the baneful influence of the _bonnet rouge_. [The red cap.]
This Jacobin attribute is made of materials to resist the weather, and
may last some time; but the trees of liberty, being planted unseasonably,
are already dead. I hope this will not prove emblematic, and that the
power of the Jacobins may not outlive the freedom of the people.
The Convention begin their labours under disagreeable auspices. A
general terror seems to have seized on the Parisians, the roads are
covered with carriages, and the inns filled with travellers. A new
regulation has just taken place, apparently intended to check this
restless spirit. At Abbeville, though we arrived late and were fatigued,
we were taken to the municipality, our passports collated with our
persons, and at the inn we were obliged to insert in a book our names,
the place of our birth, from whence we came, and where we were going.
This, you will say, has more the features of a mature Inquisition, than a
new-born Republic; but the French have different notions of liberty from
yours, and take these things very quietly.--At Flixecourt we eat out of
pewter spoons, and the people told us, with much inquietude, that they
had sold their plate, in expectation of a decree of the Convention to
take it from them. This decree, however, has not passed, but the alarm
is universal, and does not imply any great confidence in the new
government.
I have had much difficulty in executing my commission, and have at last
fixed upon a house, of which I fear my friends will not approve; but the
panic which depopulates Paris, the bombardment of Lisle, and the
tranquillity which has hitherto prevailed here, has filled the town, and
rendered every kind of habitation scarce, and extravagantly dear: for you
must remark, that though the Amienois are all aristocrates, yet when an
intimidated sufferer of the same party flies from Paris, and seeks an
asylum amongst them, they calculate with much exactitude what they
suppose necessity may compel him to give, and will not take a livre
less.--The rent of houses and lodgings, like the national funds, rises
and falls with the public distresses, and, like them, is an object of
speculation: several persons to whom we were addressed were extremely
indifferent about letting their houses, alledging as a reason, that if
the disorders of Paris should increase, they had no doubt of letting them
to much greater advantage.
We were at the theatre last night--it was opened for the first time since
France has been declared a republic, and the Jacobins vociferated loudly
to have the fleur de lys, ad other regal emblems, effaced. Obedience was
no sooner promised to this command, than it was succeeded by another not
quite so easily complied with--they insisted on having the Marsellois
Hymn sung. In vain did the manager, with a ludicrous sort of terror,
declare, that there were none of his company who had any voice, or who
knew either the words of the music of the hymn in question. _"C'est egal,
il faut chanter,"_ ["No matter for that, they must sing."] resounded from
all the patriots in the house. At last, finding the thing impossible,
they agreed to a compromise; and one of the actors promised to sing it on
the morrow, as well as the trifling impediment of having no voice would
permit him.--You think your galleries despotic when they call for an
epilogue that is forgotten, and the actress who should speak it is
undrest; or when they insist upon enlivening the last acts of Jane Shore
with Roast Beef! What would you think if they would not dispense with a
hornpipe on the tight-rope by Mrs. Webb? Yet, bating the danger, I
assure you, the audience of Amiens was equally unreasonable. But liberty
at present seems to be in an undefined state; and until our rulers shall
have determined what it is, the matter will continue to be settled as it
is now--by each man usurping as large a portion of tyranny as his
situation will admit of. He who submits without repining to his
district, to his municipality, or even to the club, domineers at the
theatre, or exercises in the street a manual censure on aristocratic
apparel.*
*It was common at this time to insult women in the streets if
dressed too well, or in colours the people chose to call
aristocratic. I was myself nearly thrown down for having on a straw
bonnet with green ribbons.
Our embarrassment for small change is renewed: many of the communes who
had issued bills of five, ten, and fifteen sols, repayable in assignats,
are become bankrupts, which circumstance has thrown such a discredit on
all this kind of nominal money, that the bills of one town will not pass
at another. The original creation of these bills was so limited, that no
town had half the number requisite for the circulation of its
neighbourhood; and this decrease, with the distrust that arises from the
occasion of it, greatly adds to the general inconvenience.
The retreat of the Prussian army excites more surprize than interest, and
the people talk of it with as much indifference as they would of an event
that had happened beyond the Ganges. The siege of Lisle takes off all
attention from the relief of Thionville--not on account of its
importance, but on account of its novelty.--I remain, Yours, &c.
Abbeville, September, 1792.
We left Amiens early yesterday morning, but were so much delayed by the
number of volunteers on the road, that it was late before we reached
Abbeville. I was at first somewhat alarmed at finding ourselves
surrounded by so formidable a cortege; they however only exacted a
declaration of our political principles, and we purchased our safety by a
few smiles, and exclamations of vive la nation! There were some hundreds
of these recruits much under twenty; but the poor fellows, exhilarated by
their new uniform and large pay, were going gaily to decide their fate by
that hazard which puts youth and age on a level, and scatters with
indiscriminating hand the cypress and the laurel.
At Abbeville all the former precautions were renewed--we underwent
another solemn identification of our persons at the Hotel de Ville, and
an abstract of our history was again enregistered at the inn. One would
really suppose that the town was under apprehensions of a siege, or, at
least, of the plague. My "paper face" was examined as suspiciously as
though I had had the appearance of a travestied Achilles; and M____'s,
which has as little expression as a Chinese painting, was elaborately
scrutinized by a Dogberry in spectacles, who, perhaps, fancied she had
the features of a female Machiavel. All this was done with an air of
importance sufficiently ludicrous, when contrasted with the object; but
we met with no incivility, and had nothing to complain of but a little
additional fatigue, and the delay of our dinner.
We stopped to change horses at Bernay, and I soon perceived our landlady
was a very ardent patriot. In a room, to which we waded at great risk of
our clothes, was a representation of the siege of the Bastille, and
prints of half a dozen American Generals, headed by Mr. Thomas Paine. On
descending, we found out hostess exhibiting a still more forcible picture
of curiosity than Shakspeare's blacksmith. The half-demolished repast
was cooling on the table, whilst our postilion retailed the Gazette, and
the pigs and ducks were amicably grazing together on whatever the kitchen
produced. The affairs of the Prussians and Austrians were discussed with
entire unanimity, but when these politicians, as is often the case, came
to adjust their own particular account, the conference was much less
harmonious. The postilion offered a ten sols billet, which the landlady
refused: one persisted in its validity, the other in rejecting it--till,
at last, the patriotism of neither could endure this proof, and peace was
concluded by a joint execration of those who invented this fichu papier--
"Sorry paper."
At ____ we met our friend, Mad. de ____, with part of her family and an
immense quantity of baggage. I was both surprized and alarmed at such an
apparition, and found, on enquiry, that they thought themselves unsafe at
Arras, and were going to reside near M. de ____'s estate, where they were
better known. I really began to doubt the prudence of our establishing
ourselves here for the winter. Every one who has it in his power
endeavours to emigrate, even those who till now have been zealous
supporters of the revolution.--Distrust and apprehension seem to have
taken possession of every mind. Those who are in towns fly to the
country, while the inhabitant of the isolated chateau takes refuge in the
neighbouring town. Flocks of both aristocrates and patriots are
trembling and fluttering at the foreboding storm, yet prefer to abide its
fury, rather than seek shelter and defence together. I, however, flatter
myself, that the new government will not justify this fear; and as I am
certain my friends will not return to England at this season, I shall not
endeavour to intimidate or discourage them from their present
arrangement. We shall, at least, be enabled to form some idea of a
republican constitution, and I do not, on reflection, conceive that any
possible harm can happen to us.
October, 1792.
I shall not date from this place again, intending to quit it as soon as
possible. It is disturbed by the crouds from the camps, which are broken
up, and the soldiers are extremely brutal and insolent. So much are the
people already familiarized with the unnatural depravity of manners that
begins to prevail, that the wife of the Colonel of a battalion now here
walks the streets in a red cap, with pistols at her girdle, boasting of
the numbers she has destroyed at the massacres in August and September.
The Convention talk of the King's trial as a decided measure; yet no one
seems to admit even the possibility that such an act can be ever
intended. A few believe him culpable, many think him misled, and many
acquit him totally: but all agree, that any violation of his person would
be an atrocity disgraceful to the nation at large.--The fate of Princes
is often disastrous in proportion to their virtues. The vanity,
selfishness, and bigotry of Louis the Fourteenth were flattered while he
lived, and procured him the appellation of Great after his death. The
greatest military talents that France has given birth to seemed created
to earn laurels, not for themselves, but for the brow of that
vain-glorious Monarch. Industry and Science toiled but for his
gratification, and Genius, forgetting its dignity, willingly received
from his award the same it has since bestowed.
Louis the Fifteenth, who corrupted the people by his example, and ruined
them by his expence, knew no diminution of the loyalty, whatever he might
of the affection, of his people, and ended his days in the practice of
the same vices, and surrounded by the same luxury, in which he had passed
them.
Louis the Sixteenth, to whom scarcely his enemies ascribe any vices, for
its outrages against whom faction finds no excuse but in the facility of
his nature--whose devotion is at once exemplary and tolerant--who, in an
age of licentiousness, is remarkable for the simplicity of his manners--
whose amusements were liberal or inoffensive--and whose concessions to
his people form a striking contrast with the exactions of his
predecessors.--Yes, the Monarch I have been describing, and, I think, not
partially, has been overwhelmed with sorrow and indignities--his person
has been degraded, that he might be despoiled of his crown, and perhaps
the sacrifice of his crown may be followed by that of his life. When we
thus see the punishment of guilt accumulated on the head of him who has
not participated in it, and vice triumph in the security that should seem
the lot of innocence, we can only adduce new motives to fortify ourselves
in this great truth of our religion--that the chastisement of the one,
and reward of the other, must be looked for beyond the inflictions or
enjoyments of our present existence.
I do not often moralize on paper, but there are moments when one derives
one's best consolation from so moralizing; and this easy and simple
justification of Providence, which refers all that appears inconsistent
here to the retribution of a future state, is pointed out less as the
duty than the happiness of mankind. This single argument of religion
solves every difficulty, and leaves the mind in fortitude and peace;
whilst the pride of sceptical philosophy traces whole volumes, only to
establish the doubts, and nourish the despair, of its disciples.
Adieu. I cannot conclude better than with these reflections, at a time
when disbelief is something too fashionable even amongst our
countrymen.--Yours, &c.
Amiens, October, 1792.
I arrived here the day on which a ball was given to celebrate the return
of the volunteers who had gone to the assistance of Lisle.*
*The bombardment of Lisle commenced on the twenty-ninth of
September, at three o'clock in the afternoon, and continued, almost
without interruption, until the sixth of October. Many of the
public buildings, and whole quarters of the town, were so much
damaged or destroyed, that the situation of the streets were
scarcely distinguishable. The houses which the fire obliged their
inhabitants to abandon, were pillaged by barbarians, more merciless
than the Austrians themselves. Yet, amidst these accumulated
horrors, the Lillois not only preserved their courage, but their
presence of mind: the rich incited and encouraged the poor; those
who were unable to assist with their labour, rewarded with their
wealth: the men were employed in endeavouring to extinguish the fire
of the buildings, or in preserving their effects; while women and
children snatched the opportunity of extinguishing the fuzes of the
bombs as soon as they fell, at which they became very daring and
dexterous. During the whole of this dreadful period, not one
murmur, not one proposition to surrender, was heard from any party.
--The Convention decreed, amidst the wildest enthusiasm of applause,
that Lisle had deserved well of the country.
--Forty-two thousand five hundred balls were fired, and the damages
were estimated at forty millions of livres.
The French, indeed, never refuse to rejoice when they are ordered; but as
these festivities are not spontaneous effusions, but official ordinances,
and regulated with the same method as a tax or recruitment, they are of
course languid and uninteresting. The whole of their hilarity seems to
consist in the movement of the dance, in which they are by not means
animated; and I have seen, even among the common people, a cotillion
performed as gravely and as mechanically as the ceremonies of a Chinese
court.--I have always thought, with Sterne, that we were mistaken in
supposing the French a gay nation. It is true, they laugh much, have
great gesticulation, and are extravagantly fond of dancing: but the laugh
is the effect of habit, and not of a risible sensation; the gesture is
not the agitation of the mind operating upon the body, but constitutional
volatility; and their love of dancing is merely the effect of a happy
climate, (which, though mild, does not enervate,) and that love of action
which usually accompanies mental vacancy, when it is not counteracted by
heat, or other physical causes.
I know such an opinion, if publicly avowed, would be combated as false
and singular; yet I appeal to those who have at all studied the French
character, not as travellers, but by a residence amongst them, for the
support of my opinion. Every one who understands the language, and has
mixed much in society, must have made the same observations.--See two
Frenchmen at a distance, and the vehemence of their action, and the
expression of their features, shall make you conclude they are discussing
some subject, which not only interests, but delights them. Enquire, and
you will find they were talking of the weather, or the price of a
waistcoat!--In England you would be tempted to call in a peace-officer at
the loud tone and menacing attitudes with which two people here very
amicably adjust a bargain for five livres.--In short, we mistake that for
a mental quality which, in fact, is but a corporeal one; and, though the
French may have many good and agreeable points of character, I do not
include gaiety among the number.
I doubt very much of my friends will approve of their habitation. I
confess I am by no means satisfied with it myself; and, with regard to
pecuniary consideration, my engagement is not an advantageous one.
--Madame Dorval, of whom I have taken the house, is a character very
common in France, and over which I was little calculated to have the
ascendant. Officiously polite in her manners, and inflexibly attentive
to her interest, she seemingly acquiesces in every thing you propose.
You would even fancy she was solicitous to serve you; yet, after a
thousand gracious sentiments, and as many implied eulogiums on her
liberality and generosity, you find her return, with unrelenting
perseverance, to some paltry proposition, by which she is to gain a few
livres; and all this so civilly, so sentimentally, and so determinedly,
that you find yourself obliged to yield, and are duped without being
deceived.
The lower class have here, as well as on your side of the water, the
custom of attributing to Ministers and Governments some connection with,
or controul over, the operations of nature. I remarked to a woman who
brings me fruit, that the grapes were bad and dear this year--_"Ah! mon
Dieu, oui, ils ne murrissent pas. Il me semble que tout va mal depuis
qu'on a invente la nation."_ ["Ah! Lord, they don't ripen now.--For my
part, I think nothing has gone well since the nation was first
invented."]
I cannot, like the imitators of Sterne, translate a chapter of sentiment
from every incident that occurs, or from every physiognomy I encounter;
yet, in circumstances like the present, the mind, not usually observing,
is tempted to comment.--I was in a milliner's shop to-day, and took
notice on my entering, that its mistress was, whilst at her work,
learning the _Marseillois_ Hymn. [A patriotic air, at this time highly
popular.] Before I had concluded my purchase, an officer came in to
prepare her for the reception of four volunteers, whom she was to lodge
the two ensuing nights. She assented, indeed, very graciously, (for a
French woman never loses the command of her features,) but a moment
after, the Marseillois, which lay on the counter, was thrown aside in a
pet, and I dare say she will not resume her patriotic taste, nor be
reconciled to the revolution, until some days after the volunteers shall
have changed their quarters.
This quartering of troops in private houses appears to me the most
grievous and impolitic of all taxes; it adds embarrassment to expence,
invades domestic comfort, and conveys such an idea of military
subjection, that I wonder any people ever submits to it, or any
government ever ventures to impose it.
I know not if the English are conscious of their own importance at this
moment, but it is certain they are the centre of the hopes and fears of
all parties, I might say of all Europe. The aristocrates wait with
anxiety and solicitude a declaration of war, whilst their opponents
regard such an event as pregnant with distress, and even as the signal of
their ruin. The body of the people of both parties are averse from
increasing the number of their enemies; but as the Convention may be
directed by other motives than the public wish, it is impossible to form
any conclusion on the subject. I am, of course, desirous of peace, and
should be so from selfishness, if I were not from philanthropy, as a
cessation of it at this time would disconcert all our plans, and oblige
us to seek refuge at ____, which has just all that is necessary for our
happiness, except what is most desirable--a mild and dry atmosphere.--
Yours, &c.
Amiens, November, 1792.
The arrival of my friends has occasioned a short suspension of my
correspondence: but though I have been negligent, I assure you, my dear
brother, I have not been forgetful; and this temporary preference of the
ties of friendship to those of nature, will be excused, when you consider
our long separation.
My intimacy with Mrs. D____ began when I first came to this country, and
at every subsequent visit to the continent it has been renewed and
increased into that rational kind of attachment, which your sex seldom
allow in ours, though you yourselves do not abound in examples of it.
Mrs. D____ is one of those characters which are oftener loved than
admired--more agreeable than handsome--good-natured, humane, and
unassuming--and with no mental pretensions beyond common sense tolerably
well cultivated. The shades of this portraiture are an extreme of
delicacy, bordering on fastidiousness--a trifle of hauteur, not in
manners, but disposition--and, perhaps, a tincture of affectation. These
foibles are, however, in a great degree, constitutional: she is more an
invalid than myself; and ill health naturally increases irritability, and
renders the mind less disposed to bear with inconveniencies; we avoid
company at first, through a sense of our infirmities, till this timidity
becomes habitual, and settles almost into aversion.--The valetudinarian,
who is obliged to fly the world, in time fancies herself above it, and
ends by supposing there is some superiority in differing from other
people. Mr. D____ is one of the best men existing--well bred and well
informed; yet, without its appearing to the common observer, he is of a
very singular and original turn of mind. He is most exceedingly nervous,
and this effect of his physical construction has rendered him so
susceptible, that he is continually agitated and hurt by circumstances
which others pass by unnoticed. In other respects he is a great lover of
exercise, fond of domestic life, reads much, and has an aversion from
bustle of all kind.
The banishment of the Priests, which in many instances was attended with
circumstances of peculiar atrocity, has not yet produced those effects
which were expected from it, and which the promoters of the measure
employed as a pretext for its adoption. There are indeed now no masses
said but by the Constitutional Clergy; but as the people are usually as
ingenious in evading laws as legislators are in forming them, many
persons, instead of attending the churches, which they think profaned by
priests who have taken the oaths, flock to church-yards, chapels, or
other places, once appropriated to religious worship, but in disuse since
the revolution, and of course not violated by constitutional masses. The
cemetery of St. Denis, at Amiens, though large, is on Sundays and
holidays so crouded, that it is almost difficult to enter it. Here the
devotees flock in all weathers, say their mass, and return with the
double satisfaction of having preserved their allegiance to the Pope, and
risked persecution in a cause they deem meritorious. To say truth, it is
not very surprizing that numbers should be prejudiced against the
constitutional clergy. Many of them are, I doubt not, liberal and
well-meaning men, who have preferred peace and submission to theological
warfare, and who might not think themselves justified in opposing their
opinion to a national decision: yet are there also many of profligate
lives, who were never educated for the profession, and whom the
circumstances of the times have tempted to embrace it as a trade, which
offered subsistence without labour, and influence without wealth, and
which at once supplied a veil for licentiousness, and the means of
practising it. Such pastors, it must be confessed, have little claim to
the confidence or respect of the people; and that there are such, I do
not assert, but on the most credible information. I will only cite two
instances out of many within my own knowledge.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9