Part 21

Mr. Joel Barlow lives at No. 50, Rue Vaugirard, one of the finest houses in Paris. As he was not at home when I first called, I inquired of the servant if any one lived there besides Mr. Barlow, and was answered that it was his own house and he had purchased it (it was confiscated property and sold much below its value). The next day Mr. Barlow called on me and invited us to visit him, when he received us with great cordiality and showed us over his magnificent hotel. It was however, wholly destitute of furniture, excepting four rooms, occupied by himself and his family. He explained he had bought the house some years previously, purely as a speculation, with the idea that at the return of Peace he might sell it to some English ambassador or nobleman, who should choose to reside in Paris, when he hoped to get £6000 sterling instead of the 6000 livres Français he originally gave for it. It certainly would suit an ambassador in point of accommodation, and its situation is desirable. The lawn at the back, consisting of two acres of pleasure ground, bordered by a shrubbery, is bordered by fruit trees, but it is far from the centre of the city, and I doubt he will get the price he asks, notwithstanding the influx of strangers. He informed me that the instant he had disposed of this property he intended to return to America with Mrs. Barlow. Of the Republic and its rulers he entertains a profound contempt. Respecting the English Government and its rulers, he said very little, but that little was in their favour. He confessed his utter astonishment at the exertions we had made during the War, and avowed that he had entirely mistaken the financial resources and patriotic spirit of Great Britain.

“I have been calculating,” he said, “year by year the downfall of the Government, and could not conceive it possible you could stand up another year. Whenever I took up a paper and saw the Committee of Ways and Means and read of your subsidies, I looked for a national bankruptcy in the course of the ensuing twelve months. But when Mr. Pitt came forward with the Income Tax, all the wise heads of this metropolis (Paris) gave you over as lost, and I pronounced you saved. When I saw the nation cheerfully submit to it, I was convinced you might carry on the war for fifty years.” He spoke of Mr. Pitt in terms which surprised me, and declared he believed in his conscience, if he had dared to execute to the full extent of what he thought, he would have succeeded in changing the face of Europe. “At all events,” said he, “it cannot be denied that he has the merit of having saved the old fabric (meaning the Constitution), if it be worth saving.”

On my asking what he thought of the Peace and our present situation, he said that he saw nothing censurable in it, but had cut out plenty of work for the French which he was sure they would never finish. “If they do, woe betide you!” I asked for an explanation, and he replied, “If the French Government are intent on Peace they will set themselves seriously to work on their colonies; and such is the activity of the French that they will soon repair their losses, create a vast commerce, which their local possessions and influences will facilitate, and they will end with a powerful navy.” On my noticing that they had already excluded our commerce, he answered: “That will just give you an idea what a set of fools they are. This false step at the first start is a convincing proof they don’t know how to go to work. The prohibition of your manufactories has created an avidity for them. They should have opened a _free trade_ with you and gradually cozened away your industry and mechanics. But this Government is in such a confounded hurry that instead of sticking to any given point, it attempts five hundred different projects and only succeeds in one, enslaving the people!”

He thought the Peace might be permanent if any change took place in the Government; but with Bonaparte at its head he was convinced it could not be of long duration. For the First Consul is essentially the creature of the army, and hungry generals and soldiers are hourly importuning him. Unless he could find them employment they would employ him.

I asked if he thought Bonaparte secure. He replied: “Not more so than any of his predecessors; they are satisfied and grateful because he does not use the guillotine, but we have not yet got to the end of the third act of the Revolution. It is impossible to tell, but my guess is it will end either in the complete subjugation of Europe or in a bloody civil war between rival Generals, Republicans, Jacobins and Royalists, and bring back out of its confusion a Royal establishment.”

The Abbé Costi is a phenomenon; he is eighty-four years of age, and as frolicsome as a boy of eighteen. His reputation as the first poet of Italy has long been established, and it is certain he would be now Laureate to the First Consul had it not been for his enthusiastic admiration for the principle of true liberty. We have frequently been in his company, and have always found him in the same lively humour, but it is rather unpleasant to hear him speak, as he has lost the roof of his mouth. He is endeavouring to procure a subscription for a splendid edition of his works, and proposes visiting England for that purpose.

[Sidenote: DR. SUEDAEUR]

Dr. Suedaeur intended to have gone to Naples and established himself there as a physician, but the sbirri of the Committee of Public Safety arrested him as he was leaving France on foot and in disguise. They gave him his choice--to go to prison and appear a day or two later before the Revolutionary Tribunal, or to be a Director of a public establishment in which some chemical operations were being carried out for the use of the armies. The doctor naturally accepted the latter. As soon as he had taken up his position in his new residence an order came that he was _never_ to go out of the house on pain of being instantly sent to prison. This was a cruel joke, as the doctor was of course virtually a close prisoner during the eighteen months he was superintending this factory. At length he was allowed to breathe the fresh air, attended by a guard, and to visit certain patients; but the guard attended him even into the chambers of the sick, even under circumstances of peculiar delicacy. Upon his presenting a remonstrance against this indecorum, he was sent straight to prison, with a promise that he should be tried with the next batch of prisoners for conspiring against the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. After keeping him in jail for some time, he was taken out of his bed at midnight, put into a hackney coach and brought back to his lodging in the Governmental establishment. The next morning, just as he was putting things there a little in order, he was again arrested and carried before the Committee of General Vigilance, of which the painter David was a present member, who, giving him one of his snarling tiger grins, asked him how he dared as a foreigner have his name inscribed at his Section. While the doctor was endeavouring to explain, David accused him of being an agent of Pitt, and he was remanded to prison. Two days later a guard took him once more to the Committee of Public Safety, who told him there had been a mistake in his affair.

It was a lucky thing the mistake was discovered, as on that very morning all his fellow-prisoners were tried and found guilty of conspiring against the Republic and summarily executed.

He was once again remanded to his Directorship and forbidden to leave his lodgings.

At last an end came to those days of blood and peril, and the doctor was liberated, after being duly ruined. Thrown upon the wide world at his age, when something like comfort and ease had become necessary, he found he had to beat up again his learning through life.

Sometimes he thought of going to America or England. A mere accident repaired his fortunes. A female personage of high consequence was suddenly taken ill in her husband’s absence. Suedaeur attended and cured her. He was thenceforward recommended and pushed among the Governmental people. He now keeps his carriage, and makes, as he tells me, over 50,000 livres (£2000 sterling) per annum.

The effect of his sufferings is, however, very apparent. He looks older than his years. He has lost his vivacity and his tongue is sealed on politics, in which he declares he will never more have any concern.

But he told us many histories of the Terror, and one which struck me as peculiarly sad and horrible I will relate, because it concerns an Englishman.

Young L---- (whose mother is still alive and resides in London) was sent to Paris in order to polish and keep him out of harm’s way. I remember him well; he was a good-natured lad, very incautious, and possessed of great simplicity of manners. He was a most impassioned English patriot, and openly cursed the French and their measures, for which indiscretion Suedaeur remonstrated with him in vain. The Committee of Public Safety, wanting some English heads for exhibition, ordered his arrestation. Suedaeur visited him in prison. He was always merry, full of the heyday of youth, and continued to _blaspheme_ the French Republic. “Rule Britannia” and “God Save the King” were the favourite songs with which he made his prison walls resound. But these very songs proved him to be a “serf” of King George and an agent of Pitt. It was evident, said Fouquier-Tainville, the Public Accuser, that he was engaged in a conspiracy to destroy the unity and indivisibility of the Republic. Accordingly he was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, with a vast number of other persons of both sexes, among whom was Colonel Newton, who was sentenced to death for playing at cards.[14]

[Sidenote: EXECUTION OF COLONEL NEWTON]

As the poor youth knew scarcely anything of the French language, he was quite unaware of what passed. They asked him no questions, merely sentenced him to die. When he returned to prison he was as unconcerned and gay as ever, for he had not the most distant idea he had ever been tried. The next morning he was led down into the courtyard, where the fatal cart, attended by gens-d’armes awaited him. At the same instant Dr. Suedaeur entered the prison to take a last adieu of him and Colonel Newton. Colonel Newton was seated in the cart already, bound and looking very dejected. The spectacle of Newton bound and in that situation surprised and startled the young man, who inquired where they were going to take him. He could not make himself understood, as he did not speak French. At that instant Suedaeur overwhelmed with grief, came up to him. He asked hastily, “Dr. Suedaeur! what are they going to do with me?” “My poor lost boy,” said Suedaeur, quite overcome and bursting into tears, “you are going to instant death!” “To death!” he cried, “I have not been tried!” Then wringing his hands, he exclaimed, “Oh God! Oh God!” and swooned away in the arms of the doctor. While in this condition he was flung into the cart. He recovered before he reached the scaffold, and cried more bitterly. Colonel Newton (who had long served under Suwarroff, and received twelve wounds at the storming of Ishmael, and was colonel of the Regiment of Dragoons which guarded the King to the scaffold), pitying the distress of the youth, employed the last moments of his existence in administering comfort to him. But Nature was uppermost, the misery of his afflicted mother rushed into his mind, and he did not cease to exclaim: “My poor mother! my poor mother!” until the fatal axe closed his eyes upon this world. His person was extremely prepossessing, and the sight of his unaltered countenance was enough to wring a tear from a heart of stone. He was but eighteen years of age, and the only child of his widowed mother.

XLII

HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS. MADAME TALLIEN. KOSCIUSKO

Miss Helen Maria Williams[1] lives at the hotel of Alexander Berthier, Minister of War. Helen is a personage, and at the Ministry of War she holds her court.

The notorious Mr. Stone,[1] who has driven away from his side and cruelly ill-used his wife, lives with Helen, in a virtuous philosophical platonic friendship. It is singular so spiritual a damsel should harbour and entertain a man of whom no one, not even in Paris, speaks a good word. It is difficult to describe his services; his functions being so variously compounded of the German squire, the Italian cicisbeo, the English master of the ceremonies, and the French peroquet (as those fellows are termed whom the French Republican ladies keep to puff them, their beauty, toilets and talents in the Journals).

He also acts as her “garde des archives” and her chamberlain. He is in short a man of all work!

These things give no offence in this easy capital, where it is a common thing for a man to sit down at table with his wife and children and his mistress, and _vice versâ_. I have been present at many of these happy meetings, or, as they are called here, _mélanges morales_.

[Sidenote: LAX VIEWS ON MARRIAGE]

A Parisian man of fashion told me the other day in the presence of his wife, a very handsome woman, that after the first child, he thought both parties were at liberty to do as they pleased. This would have been a good plea before an English jury for the mitigation of damages. In Paris they are more enlightened than in London, and you never hear of a single action for “crim. con.” from beginning to the end of the year in the French capital.

I have assisted at a dinner given by Madame Tallien,[1] who has long been separated from her husband, and now lives with a rich merchant, who I mentioned in a former letter as the present proprietor of the late Duke of Orleans’ château of Rincy. There were sixteen persons at table, exclusive of Madame and her “cher ami,” and one of the sixteen was Tallien himself. He sat by the side of his _ci-devant_ spouse, and was engaged during most of the banquet in an animated and almost affectionate conversation with her.

A fashionable French philosopher has lately announced, after the most recondite meditation, that he has discovered “marriage to be the most odious of all monopolies.” This important discovery has, so far, made no progress in England; but in this city, the favourite abode of true philosophy, it is taught in every _stoa poecile_. If I could borrow the pencil of Gilray, I might hope to delineate this nuptial banquet in its proper colours--a banquet at which Venus Suadala was present, accompanied by all the Loves and Graces in playful dalliance.

When Tallien was in Egypt, his patriotic wife, feeling for the grievous losses which the Republic had sustained in the number of its sons cut off by the sword, pestilence and famine, with a generous and disinterested ardour contributed her material labours towards making up the deficiency in the population. Two little Republicans, presented to the State during her husband’s absence, attest her zeal, and it is pleasant to add she was by no means singular in this sublime and Spartan devotion.

On the return of the illustrious Commissioner, he followed (for it is by no means etiquette for a husband and wife to go together) his lovely spouse to a ball.

When he arrived, he found her in a state so resembling a state of nature (she had but one apology for a garment, and that was of the thinnest muslin), that he was indignant. He reproached her for her indecent attire, and received the reply that he was free to get another wife to dress more to his mind. She told him coolly that she had never loved him, and only married him to save her life. But that as she was no longer in terror of the guillotine, he was welcome to her fortune, but should have nothing more to do with her person. “You know,” she added, “what I can tell if I choose.”

The ladies of Paris, from Madame Bonaparte downwards, highly approve of the spirited conduct of Madame Tallien, whom they consider a persecuted beauty as well as a charming woman.

The fact is that when she was Marquise de Fontenay, and in prison at Bordeaux, Tallien, then on a mission to that city, which he was reorganising in torrents of blood, proposed to save her head if she would surrender to him her purse and person, but threatened her with death should she reject his offer. She gave her hand, therefore, to this renowned Sans Culotte--a circumstance which engendered an irreconcilable hatred between him and Robespierre, which exploded on the 9th of Thermidor in favour of the former.

Some of Tallien’s exploits during the Revolution are worthy of record. In the days of September 1792, he knocked out with his own hands the brains of one old priest eighty years old, and bludgeoned six others. At Bordeaux only eighteen persons were executed on his own personal recommendation, but he brought away with him from that city 1,700,000 livres (£64,000 sterling) in solid cash--money paid to him as bribes for generously restoring to liberty “good citizens he discovered to have been falsely accused.”

[Sidenote: WILLIAMS AND BECCARIA]

But to return from this digression to Helen Williams. This priestess of the Revolution has a nightly synod at her apartments, to which the political dramatists and _literati_ of the capital resort. Here she is in her glory. Perched like the bird of wisdom on her shrine, she snuffs up the mounting incense of adulation offered up by homicides and plunderers of the public. At the instant of inspiration she becomes convulsed like the Delphic Priestess. By an ingenious device she contracts her lips into the form of a pipe, and literally whistles out the words of the oracle she pronounces. The keeper of the archives is at hand to record what passes for the benefit of the booksellers. The instant each ruling party is overthrown, out come two or four little duodecimos, which this fanatical female calls “Anecdotes of the Founders of the French Revolution,” &c., in which she records all their _sayings_, and abuses in turn those whom she before received with smiles at her conversaziones. If you wish to become acquainted with a devil in the shape of a philosopher, a general, a legislator, a quiz or a thief, you will find any of these characters at Helen’s coteries.

I mention Madame de Beccaria in this place by way of a contrast. She is the daughter of the celeb