Part 18
This Tribunate meets in those departments of the Palais Royale which are opposite the Rue St. Thomas. A few shabby-looking individuals compose what is called their Guard of Honour. I had the honour and privilege of being admitted to one of these meetings, and I will try to describe what passed on this occasion. Having obtained an order of admittance at the door in exchange for our cards, we were ushered into a seat appropriated for the friends of the members, and just opposite to the Presidential chair. Immediately behind us were the reporters, and beyond them the place reserved for the public, who on that particular day consisted of eight persons. The room itself is small and mean, furnished with benches covered with blue cloth. After we had waited about twenty minutes, during which time two or three individuals peeped through the folding doors opposite to us, much in the same way as a head is sometimes seen through the green curtain at Drury Lane, in the act of exploring the house, a sudden crash of drums as a signal was heard, and the folding-door vanished as if touched by the wand of Harlequin. The drums then beat a salute, and the scene that opened presented us with a very fine perspective of soldiers presenting arms. In a minute or two the procession commenced, with six men in fancy dresses, whose appearance was a burlesque upon French legislation.
They were dressed in grey coats and pantaloons, with scarlet waistcoats and red half-boots. Upon their heads a round hat turned up in front with a blue feather, a red sash round the waist, and a good-sized stick in their hands.
Next followed the President, his round hat garnished with three upright tri-coloured feathers; he wore a mazarine-blue coat embroidered in silver, breeches to match, and a white silk waistcoat bound in by a silk tri-colour sash with silver fringes.
Behind followed the secretaries, and a motley group whose appearance provoked great merriment amongst us. Most of them were in full costume, like the President, but some with worsted, others with black silk, stockings. They wore pantaloons and half-boots, and several had whole boots with dirty brown tops.
Except the President and secretaries, there were but three in this crowd who wore a clean pair of shoes and looked like gentlemen. These three were Lucien Bonaparte, the First Consul’s next brother, who was not only in full uniform, but appeared in silk stockings and clean linen, and had in every respect the manners and address of a gentleman, with the countenance of an Italian Jew; Chauvelier,[7] formerly resident for the late unfortunate King of France in our country; and Carnot, the ex-Director, who was dressed in a suit of black worthy of a courtier. He seemed very surly, and during the whole sitting employed himself reading a pamphlet. All the rest looked like blackguards in masquerade. As soon as the President mounted his tribune, he rang a handbell; he then took off his hat, and remarked, “La Séance est ouverte.” The six gentlemen in grey already mentioned began to get up a hissing resembling geese. This was to obtain silence (for they were gentlemen ushers). The order of the day was then read. No debate took place. After each law proposed, every man (as his name was called) advanced to the tribune, and put the ball which recorded his vote into the urn. This ceremony was repeated a number of times, and, indeed, this figuring continued for above three hours. The President then rang his bell again, and declared, “La Séance est levée!” Instantly the folding doors disappeared once more with a crash, and exeunt President, secretaries, and tribunes to their respective dressing-rooms, where they exchanged their fine fancy clothes for their ordinary habiliments.
Having described the nature and object of this body, I shall now endeavour to do the same by that extraordinary assembly of Mutes, which goes by the name of the _Legislative Council of France_, in which 300 choice spirits are collected together to be dumb by law during four months in ever year. According to the code of “_Minos_” Bonaparte, article 34, we find: “The legislative body enacts the law by secret _scrutiny and without the least discussion on the part of its members_, upon the plans of the law debated before it, by the orators of the Tribunate and the Government.”
[Sidenote: A SILENT PARLIAMENT]
This is exquisite! Each mute is allowed the sum of £436 sterling per annum, with permission to talk during eight months of the year. Such is the best account I can give of this marvellous assembly. It is called a Legislative Council, but this designation is an improper one. In the French, as well as the English language, the word _council_, derived from the Latin _concilium_, signifies a body of men met together for the purpose of consultation. Now, except in “Dean Swift’s Voyage to Laputa,” I have never heard or read of a number of men assembled together only to _think_, not even at a Quaker meeting.
The hall where these thoughtful meetings take place was constructed during the Directorate; it is now pompously called “The Palace of the Legislative Bodies,” and it merits the name of palace, for it is one of the most elegant and beautiful rooms in Europe. It is semicircular, with benches rising one upon the other, for the convenience of members. Above the uppermost bench, and extending along the semicircle, are a number of arcades of fine marble, the capitals composed of bronze.
Within these persons who have obtained cards of admission are stationed, and considerably above them, nearly at the top of the ceiling is a gallery, for spectators. Opposite to the benches of the members, and in the middle of its diameter, is the chair of the President, a little below him the place of the secretaries and the tribune from which the orators of the Government, viz., the Council of State and those of the Tribunate harangue the assembly. These are all made of solid mahogany, inlaid with gold, and the pedestal of the tribune has a beautiful relief in marble, filched from Italy. On the right of the President there are three niches, within which are the statues of Lycurgus, Demosthenes and Solon, on the left three others, in which Brutus, Cato, and Cicero are fixed.
The floor, which forms the area between the tribune and the benches of the members, is of marble.
We were never present at the opening of the _séance_, so I cannot say whether the drums beat as at the Tribunate, but I think it likely this assembly has also a guard of honour. There is a semicircular bench on the floor opposite to the President appropriated for those tribunes and orators of the Government who are detached for the purpose of discussing the laws. They are preceded by huissiers at their entrance into the hall, and the doors are always opened as if by magic and with a crash.
The mutes wear the same uniforms as the tribunes, except that their clothing is embroidered with gold; they are by no means so slovenly in their appearance as the gentlemen of the lower chamber. A great many general officers are among their number.
The palace to which this hall is attached is the Palace Bourbon, formerly the Parisian residence of the Prince de Condé. It is situate on the other side of the Seine, opposite to the place once Place Louis XV., now Place de la Concorde, on the middle of which the unfortunate monarch of France and innumerable numbers of his former subjects were put to death.
The beautiful bridge, Pont de la Concorde, which leads to the palace, and the triumphant portal between two noble pavilions, to which it is connected by a double row of lofty columns of the Corinthian order, add to the splendour of its appearance. We must _not_ forget while admiring so many noble specimens of architecture that not _one_ of them is the work of the genius of Republican France; on the contrary, they were raised and embellished by the liberality of Princes, whose descendants an ungrateful people have driven into exile.
The only pieces of architecture produced by the Republic are several wooden houses erected upon barges on the river for shows and bagnios where the lascivious and polluted may at any hour of the day or night regale themselves with girls, liqueurs, coffee, dainties of all kinds and hot and cold baths.
[Sidenote: CRIMINAL COURT]
In the interior of the _Palais du Corps Législatif_ there are several halls dedicated to peace and victory, and to those funny divinities, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.
I will now describe the _Palais de Justice_.
This is another magnificent edifice. It is enclosed within a gate 120 feet in length, which forms the boundary of a large area. The façade presents a very dignified appearance, at the middle of which, after ascending a flight of steps, the people enter through a vast opening.
Among the different courts there is one which can never fail to attract a foreigner--the hall where the Revolutionary Tribunal assembled to murder innocents by wholesale. It is now called the Chamber of the Court of Appeal, and is completely altered since I last saw it in 1793, when a set of drunken cannibals, selected from the filthiest styes of the Metropolis, with red caps upon their heads, made human nature tremble, inundated France with blood, and caused every honest man to envy the days of Nero and Caracalla. The person who was with me gave me a very minute account of the trials of the Queen and Princess Elizabeth, where they were stationed, and how calm and dignified was their behaviour.
In the Criminal Court four young men were being tried for their lives. The room, the seats of the judges, advocates, jury and spectators, made me think I was in one of the circuit courts of our own country. Every person was uncovered. The judge politely invited us to sit within the tribunal, so we saw and heard all that passed distinctly.
There were three judges, who wore the same gowns as our Masters of Arts. The prisoners were seated on their left, attended by two _gens d’armes_ and their counsel on a seat below them; to the right the jury and public prosecutor were stationed. This latter official was habited like the judges.
One of the prisoners completely established an _alibi_, the others succeeded so far as to render the evidence against them all ambiguous, so in consequence they were acquitted.
The Revolution caused such havoc among the corps of lawyers that the profession is scarcely deemed reputable. Every advocate of the old Monarchy, who entered into the spirit of the times, is now either a member of the Tribunate or the Conservative Senate.
The most lamentable circumstance in the interests of justice is the mean salaries granted to the judges, the principal of whom do not receive more than £400 sterling a year; and when the importance of their functions and their relative rank in society are contrasted with their pay, one cannot avoid thinking that there is a deliberate intention to degrade the name of Justice in this country, by rendering it infinitely below the scale of military authority.
This opinion is corroborated by what took place a short time ago at the Tuileries, when the Civil Code was under discussion. Cambacères, the Second Consul, had actually persuaded Bonaparte that in England there were _no juries_ in _civil causes_. Upon further inquiry St. Jean d’ Angely assured him of the contrary. “How is this, Cambacères,” said the First Consul, “I am now told that the English always have juries in civil as well as criminal causes?” The latter still persisting, Blackstone was appealed to, but as no one present understood enough English to read this law book, Bonaparte extricated himself from the dilemma by saying: “Oh! as to these matters, one says one thing and another another; there appears to be no certainty at all about what is the practice in England, nor is it of any consequence whatever, but I decide there shall be no juries in France in civil causes!” _Ainsi soit-il!_
With this stupendous effort of human judgment I finish my account of the mode in which justice is administered in this enlightened Republic.
XXXIX
NEWSPAPERS. CHARACTERS OF THOSE CONCERNED IN THEM
[Sidenote: FRENCH NEWSPAPERS]
In the inaugural address pronounced by the celebrated Montesquieu on his admission to the French Academy, January 24, 1728, he said: “Talents without virtues are fatal presents, only proper to add strength to our vices and to render them more conspicuous.”
Had Montesquieu lived to this day he would have thought in the same spirit.
But he would not have survived the Revolutionary storm unless he had taken refuge in exile.
I well remember a rebuke I once received from Robespierre when I extolled “The Spirit of Laws.”
“The Spirit of Laws,” said he, “is the production of a fanatic and weak mind (_imbécile_), replete with dogma and prejudice; if Montesquieu were now alive he would very soon be less by a head, _car il était un parlementaire, non pas un bon Republicain_.” The word _parlementaire_ means, strictly speaking, a Roundhead or a Whig; but such a person was not sufficiently divested of prejudice to be a good Republican in the eyes of Robespierre; besides, as the tyrant continued, “being a member of the ancient parliament of France (he was president of that at Bordeaux) he was _necessarily_ an enemy of Republican Government, for which reason, notwithstanding his dogmas and prejudices in favour of public liberty, he was without doubt worthy of death as an aristocrat and a conspirator.”
When I heard that Montesquieu would have been less by a head had he fallen into Robespierre’s hands, I felt an unpleasant sensation in my throat, and I therefore was immediately _convinced_ that the tyrant’s arguments were correct; but knowing that extremes of servility and opposition were alike obnoxious to him, I endeavoured to appease him with observing that it was very true, the author of “The Spirit of Laws” groped in darkness, especially in the article in which he treats of Influence of Climate, as it was now _clear_ that the enlightened principles of the Revolution were equally applicable to the whole race of man, and that there would probably be a National Convention very soon in China; but still that I could not avoid considering Montesquieu, as well as Machiavel, in the light of a pioneer of liberty! “Machiavel, the pioneer of liberty!” he cried (giving me a fixed look with his two large tigerish eyes and clenching his fists, the usual preliminaries of a warrant of arrest), “you are not acquainted with the true principles, the doctrines of Machiavel established tyranny over the whole of Europe.” Every one who has read Machiavel with attention, which I am persuaded Robespierre never did, if he read him at all, must be satisfied that his book “The Prince,” was written solely to expose the machinations of tyrants, and caution the people of free States against their intrigues.
I have been led to these remarks in order to expose the worthlessness of the literary claims of those _political_ writers and orators who affect a great deal of information when they possess none. No people possess greater facility than the French in persuading the world that they know everything, when in fact they know little or nothing.
When I was about to depart for France I was requested by the proprietors of a long-established daily paper in London to procure if possible some intelligent person in whom they might confide to act as a proper correspondent, to give them authentic information of what was passing in France. When I arrived in Paris I therefore addressed myself to men of approved talents in science, and, as I had been informed, of knowledge in politics.
[Sidenote: FRENCH NEWSPAPERS]
The sum I was empowered to offer was sufficiently captivating, and they buzzed about me in consequence like so many paupers round the overseer of a parish in the act of distributing bread. With respect to operas, plays, masquerades, concerts, balls and all the other equipage of folly and pleasure, information respecting them was none of my object. I wanted such communications as should prove useful to men of understanding, to the politician, the manufacturer and the merchant; I did not care to learn whether the First Consul slept at Malmaison or the Tuileries. The points upon which accurate information might be of incalculable advantage to the British public were, who was the last person robbed, banished, poisoned, or otherwise murdered by the order of the chief of the State, what measures were in agitation to sap the foundations of any kingdom, and what independent community was next to be overthrown and enslaved.
Accordingly I stated distinctly to my would-be correspondents that we required _facts_ and _facts only_. Politics were the principal topics of conversation during our interviews, and I was utterly astonished to discover the profound ignorance my new acquaintances displayed.
None of them seemed to have any just notion either of the state of Europe or their own country. After a short intercourse I discovered that with the little information I had gained I already knew more of the affairs of France than they did.
However, that I might not be led away by my own opinions, I suggested to five of those gentlemen, who I selected from the crowd owing to their distinguished credentials, that they should take up their pens and give a specimen of their manner of treating things, that I might forward such writings immediately to the two gentlemen in England who had commissioned me to seek for correspondents. I told this to each applicant separately, and requested he should choose his subject for himself. Two of those individuals were members of the National Institute, one a very celebrated Professor, and the two others distinguished and respected _savans_! Five hours after the conversation I received an _estafette_ from one of the Institute men, and before two days had elapsed despatches arrived from all the rest. After having read them all over with repeated attention, I decided, for the sake of my own credit, to send none of them to England. They were so puerile that I will stake my honour upon a boy at Eton or Westminster writing more and better to the purpose.
They were full of flowers, tropes and metaphors, but contained nothing solid; and all overflowed with the commonplace metaphysics of the new Philosophy. My embarrassments now increased, for the Club of Sages, whom the report of my commission collected round me, besieged my lodgings day after day, like suitors in the ante-chamber of Talleyrand; and notwithstanding their courteous carriage and apparent indifference they all asked me anxiously what news I had received by the post. The awkward situation in which I found myself compelled me eventually to say that my colleagues had altered their plans and determined to confide their correspondence to an English gentleman now in Paris--_i.e._, _myself_.
But although these philosophers did not obtain any ulterior benefit from my offer, I was enabled by my intercourse with them to obtain considerable information respecting the state of the Press in Paris at the present time, and I here give the result of my inquiries.
Newspapers in France are under the immediate control of the police, and are principally edited by those illuminated children of science, better known under the title of the National Institute.
The _Moniteur_ is the first in order in baseness and infamy. It is considered the official paper of the Government. As all its papers are under the superintendence of the police, they are _all_ official. Its nominal proprietors are Messrs. Roederer[1] and Hautrive,[1] but the profits belong to a club consisting of five Ministers, those of Finance, Interior, Foreign Affairs, War and Police. Roederer receives a stipend of £800 a year (which, with his income of a Councillor of State, gives him £3500 to spend) as a salary for editing the paper, for which he is of course considered the responsible person. All the expenses of paper, printing and publishing, are defrayed by the Treasury.
[Sidenote: CHARACTERS OF EDITORS]
Hautrive is not a stipendiary or responsible editor, but he writes in the _Moniteur_, and his articles are well paid. The Decemvir Barrère receives £1000 per annum for his literary assistance, but he is really acting as a private spy for the First Consul, on the operations of the Jacobins. He is likewise engaged as spy upon the Grand Spy, Fouché, Minister of Police.
The different Ministers frequently employ the pens of their subalterns in office. You cannot be mistaken respecting the authors of the articles, as their style convicts them. The following may, however, serve as general rules for the discovery of the distinguished literati engaged.
_Ferocious and blustering passages on the power of the Republic, in the style of epic prose._--Treilhard,[1] ex-Avocat, ex-Director, ex-Negotiator, and Councillor of State.
_Religious homilies and pious incantations, with much whining about the restoration of the Catholic Faith, but written in good style._--Portales,[1] the Elder Councillor of State, who from a professed atheist, having read the Bible over and over again, as he says, during his exile at Homburgh, has found himself converted, and on his return converted Bonaparte to believe what he believes, and is now a saint as well as his disciple.
_Gasconades, calembours, bombast, apostrophes to nature, mothers with infants at their breasts. Hard-hearted men who never had children, heaving bosoms of humanity, all the impure verbiage of the Tribunal of the National Convention._--Barrère, ex-member of the Council of Public Safety. Practical reporter of all its atrocities, who signed the death warrants of about 40,000 of his countrymen, avowing in the Committee that dead men tell no tales; afterwards sentenced to transportation; turned Christian in jail, won the good opinion of his jailer, at whose table he said grace before and after meals. Escaped from prison and secreted himself till Bonaparte attained supreme power, to whom he sent a fulsome address, declaring _he_ was the reporter who made known to astonished Europe the exploits of the hero of Italy; liberated by the commiseration and sympathy of his master, he now licks his feet and is his humble servant; though retired (as his profession requires) he lives in good style, near my lodgings, keeps a girl of his own and is allowed by the First Consul to share in the profits of a house of ill fame which he founded.
_Comparisons between Great Britain and the great nations; between porter and burgundy, coals and wood, roast beef and bouillie._--Chaptal,[1] the chemist, Minister of the Interior, one of the basest of slaves.
_Surly remarks on the tyrants of the ocean, the insolence and intrigues of British Government, the cravings and jealous disposition of the Nation of Shopkeepers, the National Debt of England, its exhausted resources, bad faith and sincere integrity of France._--Roederer, Councillor of State, member of the National Institute, ex-avocat, has always sided with every party in order to illustrate practically his valuable treatise on making loans and on solving the question whether the State should pay its debts. He was Procureur-General, Syndic of the Department of Paris, during the expiring moments of the Monarchy.
_The same in more fluent and easy language._--Hautrive,[1] a pensioner of the Consul and nominal sub-editor of the paper.