Part 19

_Sallies respecting Malta and hints respecting Egypt and the Mediterranean._--Regnault de St. Jean d’Angely, Councillor of State, in great favour with Bonaparte, formerly an avocat of Saintogne, a furious royalist as long as Louis XVI. continued to fee him. Intrepid royalist, editor of the _Journal de Paris_ in 1791; violent Jacobinist, editor of the _Gazette de Milan_ under the auspices of Bonaparte in 1796. Member of the Constituent Assembly, in which capacity he was pensioned by the Order of Malta to plead on behalf of its rights; in return for which he betrayed his clients, went to the island as the Commissary of the Directory, and superintended the administration of the plunder. Completely sacked the Palace of the Grand Master, Baron de Homfesch, pilfered all the plate and money he could lay his hands on, composed a Revolutionary Gazette for the Islands of the Archipelago, and returned to France laden with an immense booty, is a member of the National Institute in the class of Political Economy; is a married man with a family, keeps a girl, but is saving and takes care of the main chance.

[Sidenote: FALSE NEWS]

_Barefaced lies and swindling propositions._--Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, ex-Bishop of Autun; renounced Christianity and his Order, went to England, 1793, to assist Chauvelin and Moret in lulling the English Government. Trembling for his head remained there after the war broke out. Took lodgings at Mr. Colpus’s, near Highgate Pond, during which time he made a point of eating boiled beef on Fridays, departed for America, whence he humbly sued for permission to return to France. The Directorate, being in want of a dexterous rascal to manage the pillage, sequestration of the German abbeys, and other ecclesiastical possessions, permitted him to return home, and gave him the portfolio of Charles de la Croix; since which he has been actively engaged in the decomposition of Europe and in converting the German Empire into a State Lottery for himself and his masters--takes bribes from all and cheats all, with placid composure. Feels a great reluctance to enter into negotiation without a preliminary douceur (the American commissioners to wit); the greatest swindler in Europe. Rich as Lucullus, has lately resumed Christianity and sent to request the Pope will unfrock him and give him absolution for his past sins. The First Consul has promised to make it his care that his Holiness shall execute this request, and in return for which special grace Talleyrand will richly reward the Pontifical Ambassador for the expenses incurred in negotiating the business.--Keeps Madame Grand, of Indian fame, at the hotel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she acts in every way as if she were his lawful wife. He also keeps a young tit at a little château where he transacts private business.

Is a man of rank, education and princely birth, possesses transcendent abilities, and perhaps is the greatest living rogue and liar in Christendom.

_Sensible data on the public law in Europe, afforded though not written for publication, but digested by Roederer for the Press._--Rosensthiel, formerly principal Secretary of Legation to the French Ministers at the farcical congress of Radstadt in 1799, the pupil and friend of Pfeffer, long employed in the diplomatic department under the old Monarchy; devotedly attached to his King, detesting the Revolution, on that account dismissed by Dumouriez, when Minister of Foreign Affairs; having been imprisoned, proscribed and ruined. Father of a large family, he was constrained from the necessity of his circumstances to accept the Consulship of Elsineur in 1796, whence, being the only Frenchman profoundly versed in the history and practice of public law, he was again transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Modest, mild, virtuous and learned, he is therefore _not_ a member of the National Institute.

These are the principal workmen who furnish the _Moniteur_ with leading articles, most of which are a vehicle for blustering and imposture.

The next Parisian newspaper in rank and circulation to the Moniteur is the _Journal des Défenseurs de la Patrie_. In this paper there are often good articles and useful literary criticisms. But all political reflection is, for obvious reasons, banished from its pages.

One, Joseph la Vallée, without appearing ostensibly to take any interest in this paper, is really paid £260 sterling by the Government for watching its concerns.

I have seen a great deal of la Vallée; he is endowed with great intellectual acquirements. He is a modest, inoffensive man, extremely anxious to oblige, not loquacious, but interesting in conversation.

He is not a member of the National Institute, which may account for his integrity. In one of our conversations he complained bitterly of the English newspapers for their animadversions on the French Government, and particularly on the First Consul, expressing his fears that these attacks might lead to bloodshed between the two countries.

[Sidenote: CONTROL OF PRESS BY BONAPARTE]

I desired him to name the papers he alluded to; he mentioned the _Porcupine_ and the _Morning Post_. I explained to him that the _Porcupine_ was nonexistent, having been for some months merged in the _True Briton_. He was quite confounded by this information, for he had no idea the _Porcupine_ had been relinquished. He observed that the _True Briton_ was however also extremely violent.

“Why then,”, I returned, “do you not, my dear friend, answer them with equal vehemence?” “Because these political discussions are not agreeable to the Government, for if we replied it would be impossible to do so without translating and so publishing the arguments of the enemy, for such discussions would only unsettle the minds of people and might shake the Government.” “Ah, vive la Liberté,” said I. “I thought I was in a free Republic!” He gave no reply, and our conversation abruptly ended.

A curious incident took place a few years ago here. It was common talk the Senate (Législatif Conseil) were to pass a decree continuing Bonaparte in the Consulate for life. A paper was circulated containing remarks upon the meanness of such a project, declaring national gratitude should proclaim Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of the Gauls, and make the throne hereditary to his race.

The very next day there appeared in the _Journal des Défenseurs_ a well-written article in the true spirit of a Republican against not only the Imperial project, but also against that of making the Consulate a life-long appointment. Soon after I had read it la Vallée called on me. “You see,” said he, “Frenchmen can write as they please. Nothing shall deter me,” continued the indignant Republican. “I never disliked the late King, nor shared in the events of the Revolution; but rather than see any one of my fellow citizens upon the throne of France, I would burn this hand if I did not write against him!”

_Two days_ after this animated declaration, I took up the same journal and read a long laboured dissertation on the innumerable advantages the Republic would obtain by conferring the Consulate for life “on the genius of victory and peace.” I became extremely desirous of another interview with the intrepid Republican. But he never came near us for several days. At length we met him at a dinner party, consisting of twenty persons. He betrayed on seeing me some confusion and sheepishness. I shook him heartily by the right hand, whispering in his ear, “I am happy to find you have not burnt it.” I was sorry I gave way to this not ill-natured jest, for a visible dejection overspread his features, and he remained depressed and dispirited during the whole time he was in my company that evening.

_Le Chef du Cabinet_, the best printed of the Parisian journals, is compiled with care, and gives in general a fairly faithful account of continental news.

One of the principal writers in this paper and in _Le Publiciste_ is Garot, member of the Senate, and also of the National Institute. Before the Revolution he was what the French call _homme des lettres_, _i.e._, a poor lawyer without practice. In England, our men of letters, successful or otherwise, are almost invariably men of a classical education and cultivated talents. But in France, a mere smattering of Greek and Latin, learnt principally through the medium of translations, constitute their principal studies.

He began his career with writing paragraphs for the _Mercure_. He was next a member of the Constitutional Assembly, in which his talents were considered in so contemptible a light that he was never noticed.

But in later years he attributed his silence in that Assembly to his philosophy. He then became editor of the _Journal de Paris_. Here he seems to have been most liberally paid, as out of six months’ savings, he managed to find 32,000 livres (£1280 sterling), with which he purchased a house and garden.

[Sidenote: JOSEPH LA VALLÉE]

In April 1792, he arrived in England, in the suite of the French Embassy. After the memorable 10th of August in the same year, he having returned to France, was made by the Convention _Editeur de la Gazette Nationale_.

Less than two months later, on October 9, he was appointed Minister of Justice. Here was a leap!

During his short ministry, he truckled to every faction, and courted the goodwill of every demagogue. He was nevertheless pronounced an imbecile, deposed, arrested for a day, and released. He next composed a book, in which he compared himself to Sully, Turgot, and our Lord Jesus Christ. He was appointed Commissary of Public Instruction, but shortly afterwards cashiered. Then sent as French Ambassador to the Court of Naples, in order to pave the way for the irruption of a Republican army.

Recalled and nominated a member of the Council of the Ancients, dismissed by Bonaparte--he retired into a corner, and quitted his obscurity for a seat among the Mutes. He then became the apologist of Bonaparte, as he had before been of Robespierre and Danton--gets a pension of £3000 sterling per annum of the public spoils, and finally becomes a member of the National Institute. He, now, in a work of his lately published, calls Robespierre _un monstre, un fou, scélérat, étranger à une bonne logique, having a soul filled with suspicion, terror, vanity and vengeance_. His elocution, he pronounces to have been _senseless babbling, eternal and tiresome repetition of the same sentiments for the rights of man, the sovereignty of the people on principles of which he incessantly harangued without ever propounding a new or correct idea_.

The following epistle was found among the papers of Robespierre after his execution; it was a letter, written by this very Garot to the man whom he afterwards described as given above.

_October 30, 1793._

“I have read your report on foreign powers, and the extracts of your last speech, delivered to the Jacobins: as I have not at this time an opportunity of making my sentiments known to the public, I hasten to acquaint you yourself with the impressions they have made on me.

“The report is a _magnificent_ piece of policy, Republican morality, style and eloquence. It is with such _profound_ and exalted sentiments of virtue, and I will add with such _language_, that the nation one represents is honoured in the eyes of all mankind. The style of the report on foreign Powers is throughout dignified, pointed and elegant, and rises to the tone of the highest order of eloquence by the grandeur of its sentiments and its ideas.

“Your speech to Louvet, your speech on the trial of Louis Capet, are in my opinion the most exquisite pieces which have appeared during the whole Revolution. They will be studied in the schools of the Republic as models of classic eloquence, and they will be transcribed upon the pages of history as the most powerful causes that have operated on the destiny of France.”

_Le Citoyen Français_ is the most independent paper in Paris. Before the usurpation of Bonaparte, Thomas Paine frequently furnished it with articles, but since that event he has withdrawn his assistance.

_Le Journal de Commerce_ is under the direction of Monsieur Penchet, member of the Commercial Council and the Board of Commerce. He is a respectable man, possessed of enlightened views and scientific and practical knowledge.

The _Publiciste_, the _Gazette de France_, _Journal des Débats_ are the remaining newspapers, worthy of notice. It is refreshing to the national pride of an Englishman to contrast the wretched state of the craven French Press with the free and vigorous reasoning which appears in the London journals; I become hourly more enamoured of my country and more disgusted with the Republic.

Louis XIV. during the whole of his reign never degraded the Press of his country as it is now degraded. But with respect to other branches of literature, the French still shine with uncommon brilliancy, and as no man is more ready than myself to do them justice, when they deserve it, I will describe some of those publications in my next letter.

XL

PHILOSOPHICAL, LITERARY AND OTHER PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS

[Sidenote: MAGAZINES AND OTHER PERIODICALS]

During the Old Monarchy, France made great advances in practical philosophy, but scientific knowledge was still confined within very circumscribed limits. The Revolution has enabled scientific and literary men to diffuse their acquirements over the surface of the Republic. A short review of the leading periodicals of the day will demonstrate their respective objects.

The first of those periodicals, in point of respectability and talent, is the _Journal de Physique_, edited and conducted by one of the ablest and most virtuous men in France, Dr. de la Metherie. I have already mentioned he had been imprisoned during those days of persecution, when it was the fashion to oppress every man of worth and talents. But to this hour no ground has ever been given for his arrestation. He is now Professor of Mineralogy in the College de France, and receives for this £100 per annum. As editor of the _Journal de Physique_ he receives £200 a year, and this is the whole emolument his literary labours bring him.

The _Annales de Chimie_ is a publication which merits attention, and I believe every eminent chemist in France contributes to its contents and reputation.

_Annales de l’Agriculture Française_ is published by Tessier, and is now advanced as far as the twelfth volume. It is one of the best and most valuable publications extant in the Republic, and has afforded great encouragement and information to the cultivator. Although Tessier is the editor of the work, Monsieur Hugard is the principal manager. He is an honest, indefatigable and learned man. He was brought up as a practising farrier in his father’s shop, to which circumstance he is indebted for the beginning of his knowledge (now that of an expert) upon the diseases and treatment of horses and other cattle.

He has a sound and vigorous intellect, looks as plump and jolly as John Bull, and possesses all the good nature of that character.

_Annales Statistiques_ is likely to prove one of the most valuable productions of France. It is extremely well printed on good paper, and a number appears every month.

_Bibliothèque Commerciale_ is a new work determined to diffuse information upon subjects of commerce and navigation.

_Annales des Arts et Manufactures._ This is a periodical publication, accompanied by a number of engravings.

The editor is one O’Reilly, an Irishman, once a pronounced and violent Jacobin.

[Sidenote: CITIZEN O’REILLY]

As citizen O’Reilly, in the year 1792, he succeeded in expelling two Englishmen from White’s in the Rue des Petits Pères, because they opposed the maniac Irish propositions of Citizen Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the two unhappy Sheares, all of whom met a tragic fate in Ireland.[8] O’Reilly, however, remained in France and thereby saved himself from the fate which his deserts fully entitled him. The Colonel Commandant of Tyrone in Ireland during the rebellion, informed me that Citizen O’Reilly had been hanged. I was therefore not a little astonished one day in Paris, when about to sit down to dinner at a party to which I had been invited, to see my old friend enter the room, quite _debonnair_ and dressed or rather masked _à la française_. In this land of magic I had been so accustomed to see supposed dead men once more in the flesh, that I eyed this ghost for a considerable time before addressing him, but he hearing my name mentioned, at once exclaimed: God bless me! is it you, Mr. Yorke? do you not recollect me? “Upon my word, sir, yes; you are so much like a gentleman of my acquaintance who had the misfortune to be hanged four years since in Ireland, that I could swear you were the very man.” After some explanation, I found he had escaped the hands of Jack Ketch, and is now, as he expressed it, “a French citizen and no subject of the King of England.” He seemed desirous of taking every opportunity to affront the English and asperse our Government.

This man would not have occupied so much of my space did I not know him to be one of the rankest conspirators against our country. He ran away from England on account of the debts which he had incurred as one of the proprietors or managers of the Opera House, and set up in Paris as a _persecuted Irish patriot_. From the year 1792 to the present hour he has been ceaselessly engaged in plots against England, and his hatred increases daily against our country to whose genial soil he knows he can never return. He has fought against England in the French armies, and glories in the fact. He is a favourite with Bonaparte in consequence of his suggesting a new plan of gun vessels for transporting an invading army to our shores. He is an ardent and active member of the Irish Club in Paris, and avows his heart and soul are bound up in the hope and desire of emancipating Ireland. After he left the army he returned to Paris and commenced the periodical work I have already mentioned. It is in high esteem, and its sale must be great or his means of subsistence amply supplied by the Government, for he has a press of his own, lives in style and keeps his girl.

_Bibliothèque Britannique_, printed at Geneva, has a great sale in Paris. It is edited by Messrs. Picter and Mourin, and contains a digest of the most valuable philosophical treatise in our language.

_Mazarin Encyclopædie ou Journal des Sciences, Lettres et Arts_, edited by A. L. Millier, keeper of the antiques and medals in the National Library, is considered one of the most valuable periodical journals in France.

_La Decade Philosophique, Littéraire et Politique_, appears three times every month, and has the greatest circulation of any other periodical work in France. But this is no evidence of its superiority. It is a farrago of modern philosophical trash and impiety. It is a critical review, a poetical repository, a novelists’ magazine, a political register, a literary advertiser, a theoretical reporter, a herald of folly, a base and servile declaimer in favour of the ruling power, and a recorder of obscenity and atheism.

Ginguené,[1] member of the National Institute and the Senate, is the avowed editor of this political decade. This person, before the era of the Republic, was employed as a secretary by Madame Necker. Being patronised by Marmontel, he soon became a man of consequence. He next became the tool of Mirabeau, then the spaniel of Danton. Then a first-rate Jacobin, a hireling of the Directoire, and now a humble servant of the First Consul. Such a career deserved a rich reward in such a Republic as this of France.

[Sidenote: TOM PAINE]

He was accordingly preferred to the post of Director of Public Instruction, but he solicited a more brilliant destiny, and was accordingly turned into an ambassador and sent to Turin to assist General Bruno in preparing the dethronement and exile of the Piedmontese sovereign. On his return to Paris he has been temporarily gratified by a membership in the Conservative Senate, and the editorship of this periodical, a lucrative situation.

I could mention many more interesting literary works and periodicals of the highest literary interest, but I have commemorated enough works of uncommon merit, edited and produced most of them by men of great ability and furnished with means and opportunities of increasing the knowledge they already possess. It is but a tribute of justice which every man owes to superior genius to declare that in point of real science, experimental philosophy and literary merit, “France is without a rival.”

XLI

THOMAS PAINE. JACK BARLOW. THE ABBÉ COSTI. DR. SUDAEUR

The name of Tom Paine is familiar to every Englishman. Had I not been previously acquainted with him I should have contrived an interview with him during my stay in Paris. Nearly ten years had elapsed since we were last together, and I felt deeply interested in learning his opinions concerning the French Revolution, after all the experiences, so long a period of storms and convulsion, must have afforded him.

It was not without considerable difficulty that I discovered his residence, for the name of Thomas Paine is now odious in France, far more so than in England. A bookseller’s shop in the Palais Royal appeared a likely place for inquiries, but I had no sooner mentioned his name than the bookseller, his wife and a bystander fell upon me, in the most unmerciful manner, calling Paine “_Scélérat, bandit, coquin!_” and ascribing to him the resistance Leclerc had received from the negroes of St. Domingo, of which repulse to French arms they had just received intelligence, so that I found it necessary to decamp as soon as possible.

Being at a loss how to proceed, I determined to inquire at the hotel of the American Minister, where I was informed that Paine lived at a bookseller’s in the Rue du Théâtre Français, an American bookseller, who inhabited No. 2. I immediately repaired to the house, and after mounting to the second storey, was shown into a little dirty room, containing a small wooden table and two chairs. “This,” said the portress, who had guided me upstairs, “is Mr. Paine’s room; he is taking a nap, but will be here presently.” I never saw such a filthy apartment in the whole course of my life. The chimney hearth was a heap of dirt. There was not a speck of cleanliness anywhere. Three shelves were filled with paste-board boxes, each labelled after the manner of a Minister of Foreign Affairs: “Correspondance Américaine, Ditto Britannique--idem Française. Notices politiques. Le Citoyen Français,” &c. In one corner of the room stood several huge bars of iron, curiously shaped, and two large trunks; opposite the fireplace a board covered with pamphlets and journals, having more the appearance of a dresser in a scullery than a sideboard. Such was the wretched habitation where I found Thomas Paine, one of the founders of the American Independence, whose extraordinary genius must ever command attention, and whose writings have summoned to action the minds of the most enlightened politicians of Europe! How different the dwelling of the apostle of Freedom from the gorgeous mansions tenanted by the apostles of the French Republic!

After I had waited for a short time, Mr. Paine came downstairs, dressed in a long flannel gown.

[Sidenote: INTERVIEW WITH PAINE]

I was shocked by his altered appearance. Time seemed to have made dreadful ravages over his frame, and a settled melancholy was visible over his countenance. He pressed me by the hand, his countenance brightened as he recollected me, and a tear stole down his cheek. Nor was I less affected than himself. “Thus we are met once more, Mr. Paine, after a separation of ten years, and after we have both been severely weather-beaten.”