Part 10

Immediately after this disturbance was quelled, expresses communicative of the event were dispatched into all the districts. The courier to this place arrived a little before noon on the 9th instant, and the drum was forthwith beat in every quarter of the town, inviting all “_good citizens_” to repair at two o’clock to the cathedral, to hear the account from Paris read, and to adopt measures in consequence of it. Being assured of not giving offence, I went at three to the place of appointment, and found the municipality, and about 150 people of the lower order, including a few officers, several soldiers, and many women, collected. They were listening to a man who was mounted into the pulpit, and reading to them a _bulletin_, stating the circumstances of the attempt which had been committed on the national representatives, and of its suppression; also the names of certain members whose arrest had been decreed; and lastly, that General Pichegru was called in, to preserve by an armed force the peace of Paris from the machinations of royalists and terrorists. Every body wore their hats, and no insult was offered to us Englishmen, several of whom were present. When the reading was finished, an address to the convention was voted, on the patriotism and energy they had displayed; and several people got into the pulpit, and spoke in their turns. From these orators, a blacksmith was universally allowed to bear away the palm, haranguing with great fluency against the terrorists, and surprizing his auditors by the keenness of his sarcasms, and the justness of his observations. The speech of one who ascended the tribune was simply, “_Vive la republique!_” which was received with many plaudits. In conclusion they decreed, that the members of the ancient committee of _surveillance_ of the town (which has long been suppressed) shall be deemed suspected persons, be disarmed, and obliged to appear every day before the municipality; and that henceforth they shall not be eligible to any office of trust or power in their commune.

A mention of the committee of _surveillance_ leads me to bring you acquainted with that infernal institution, which, of all engines that ever were placed in the hands of a government, was surely the most effectual to over-awe the citizens, and to promote the cause of despotism. The number and cost of this host of licensed spies were not less extraordinary than their power, which authorized them, without assigning any reason but a suspicion of incivism, to enter the houses of all the inhabitants, whom they pleased to say had been denounced to them; to seize upon their persons, in order to deliver them over to the revolutionary tribunal; and to break open their cabinets, and inspect their papers. There are in France forty thousand communes, and every commune had its committee, which, upon an average, contained ten members, the number in part depending upon that of the inhabitants. The salary of every member was five livres a day.

If therefore we multiply 40,000 by 10 ------------------------ the number of members will be 400,000 5 ------------------------ and the expence per day 2,000,000 livres; which multiplied by 365 ------------------------ makes the annual expence 730,000,000 livres, or, at 10½_d._ each, £.31,937,500.

The committee of _surveillance_ of Quimper consisted of twelve members, whose names and occupations were as follows:

Botibon, retail shopkeeper, Harier, butcher, Moreau, musician, Becam, taylor, Cariou, taylor, Keroch, barber, Rose, barber, Roland, merchant’s clerk, Morivan, hog-butcher, Le Moine, gardener, Montaigne, brazier, L’Hot, printer’s devil.

They were to a man the creatures of the creatures, ten gradations deep, of the committee of public safety. In such hands were the liberties and lives of Frenchmen deposited! Even on the day I write, the institution is not totally abolished, but is momently expected to be so. It is still retained in towns which contain forty thousand inhabitants, or more, but is seldom allowed to exercise its powers.

The number of persons guillotined in Quimper was only four, two priests and two women. The _guillotine_ was kept in the cathedral, but performed its office on the parade. It was customary to send to Brest those who were denounced, which was more convenient than to try them on the spot, where witnesses might have established their innocence: of this class there were many victims. I was told, when at Brest, that 172 persons of both sexes had been executed there. The operation is said to have been performed on 32 of the number in somewhat less than nineteen minutes.

It is impossible to pronounce the word _guillotine_, without associating with it its grand mover Robespierre, that modern Procrustes, who sought to contract or extend to the standard of his own opinion, a mighty people; before whom neither elevation of virtue or talents could erect a shield, or insignificancy of birth and situation creep beneath a shelter. Without aiming to become his defender, I must, however, be permitted to observe, that many of the relations, which, on authority seemingly good, I every day hear and read of his towering ambition and capricious cruelty, are too extravagant to be credited, and, if true, too degrading to our nature to be repeated. In the general horror and indignation excited by his remembrance, I am sensible (especially among this declamatory people) that truth will often be sacrificed to passion. There is, besides, a second reason, that increases the distrust with which I listen:----to screen themselves from odium, all the subordinate tyrants fix upon him, and attribute to his orders, the innumerable butcheries and acts of oppression which they have perpetrated.----They who were once his closest imitators, are now loudest in their outcries against his memory; which, in many instances, is loaded with the crimes of his contemporaries. I had not been taken twenty-four hours when Captain Le Franq, either from credulity, or a wish to impress me with an early belief of his not being attached to a sinking party, told me, among similar tales, that Robespierre had, in the townhall of Paris, caused himself to be proclaimed, “Maximilian the First, Emperor of the French.” Upon finding that a man, whose relative rank and situation in life entitled him to respectable sources of information, could thus, either from ignorance, prejudice, or a less laudable motive, be guilty of so gross a misrepresentation, it became doubly incumbent upon me to restrain my belief.

However outrageous the execrations of the French now are on hearing his name, they do not surpass the adulation with which they once approached the idol of his power. I wish I could send to you the _Gazette Nationale_ of the 30th of _Pluviose_, which belongs to a collection of news-papers that I have access to, and contains a report of the 16th of _Nivose_, made to the convention by Courtois, in the name of the committee appointed to examine the papers of Robespierre. Never before was flattery so gross and servile used as some of these productions, which were addresses to him from different districts, _communes_, and popular societies. The statue inscribed to the “_immortal man_,” and the poetic incense afterwards offered at his shrine by Boileau, fade before it. He is called in them the glorious, incorruptible Robespierre, who covers, as with a shield, the republic by his virtues and talents; who joins to the self-denial of a Spartan, or a Roman of early date, the eloquence of an Athenian. Even his tenderness and humanity of disposition are praised. One man congratulates himself on a personal resemblance of him; and another, at the distance of 600 miles, is hastening to Paris, to feast his eyes with a sight of him. He is compared, not by an individual but by a body of people, to the Messiah, “_annoncé par l’Etre Supreme, pour reformer toute chose_;” and afterwards he is said to manifest himself “_comme Dieu, par des merveilles_.” On some occasion a _Te Deum_ was performed for him, the burthen of the ditty being, “_Vive Robespierre! Vive la Republique!_”----I feel ashamed to transcribe any more of these impious and contemptible absurdities. I beg of you, however, to remark, when Courtois’s report shall fall into your hands, that amidst the papers which have been scrutinized of this extraordinary personage, though incontrovertible evidence of his restless and sanguinary disposition appears, yet nothing bearing the marks of an arranged plan for mounting a throne, or erecting himself into a dictator, was found. Some trifling hints are once or twice thrown out, which the reporter does not fail to magnify; but Robespierre, if he ever really entertained such a project, was too circumspect to commit it to writing; and knew too well the loose nature of man to entrust his secret, until it were matured in his own mind, and could tempt to confederacy by its probability of accomplishment. I never reflect on the sudden and total apostacy of the French from this man and Marat, without indulging a hope that the versatile levity of sentiment, and unceasing desire of change, which characterize the nation, will at length point, in a spirit of repentant loyalty, founded on an unconquerable determination to be free, to the descendants of their kings. And this hope I am always willing to sustain, by calling to mind our restoration of Charles the Second; but at the same time I confess, that (at least for the present) my observations pronounce it to be rather a conclusion which I desire, than a consummation which I expect.

By posterity then must Robespierre be judged. No scrutiny will reach his virtues, however it may exalt his genius. Vigour of mind he undoubtedly possessed, and he joined to it (except in moments of inebriation, to which he was sometimes addicted) profound dissimulation; but there exist unquestionable proofs, that he was a poltroon, which single flaw in his composition rendered his downfall certain. A combination of other causes might have prolonged his elevation, but could not have preserved it to the end of his existence. On how many occasions did Cromwell’s personal intrepidity, and firmness of nerve, uphold him and his authority!

We owe candour more to a review of the worst than of the best of characters; and no man was ever more entitled to an indulgence of it than Robespierre.

The papers of the other members of the committee, of which Robespierre is believed to have directed all the springs, are also laid open, and are equally curious and shocking as his. There are among them orders, ready signed and sealed, for bringing to trial, and executing, those whose names might be inserted in the blank spaces. Juries, a venerable institution derived from _us_, have hitherto had very little claim to the gratitude of the French. In a report made to the convention by Saladin, in the name of the committee of 21, on the 13th of last _Ventose_ (3d March) it is stated, that the managers of the committee of public safety, Barrere, Collot, Billaud, &c. held every evening conferences with the public accuser and the president of the revolutionary tribunal, who rendered to them an account of their proceedings, and received their instructions for the work of the next day.----On the following account you may also rely. A judge and jury were sent to Paris, from a place 200 miles distant from it, to give an account of their principles, for having condemned two men to ten years imprisonment, who, in the opinion of a representative who was present in the court, ought to have suffered death. The crime of the prisoners was, having said, that “they wished to see the tree of liberty of their commune cut down.”----The sentence was ordered to be quashed; they were tried again; and guillotined.

An extract of a letter, signed Darthè, found, after his execution, in the cabinet of Le Bas, is as follows. “_Le comité de salut public a dit à Le Bon, qu’il esperait que nous irions tous les jours de mieux en mieux. Robespierre voudrait que chacun de nous pût former un seul tribunal, et empoigner chacun une ville de la frontiere._” After this gentle wish (allowing it to have been uttered) which breathes more closely that of Caligula than any other that modern biography affords, you will, perhaps, think I have been too lenient to the memory of Robespierre. Remember, I only wish to apportion his share of guilt. The convention, by banishing the triumvirate, “until they can be tried at a period of more tranquillity,” not only demonstrate a fear of the Jacobin party, but a secret apprehension lest many of themselves should be implicated in the transactions which such an enquiry would unfold. Hence the violent opposition to a publication of their papers by many of the moderate party, as well as that of their opponents. How indeed, in consistency, could those men, from whom they derived their powers, now turn their accusers?

To conclude an odious and debasing subject. The “_noyades_, _fuzilades_, and _republican marriages_” of Carrier at Nantes; joined to the exploits of Collot d’Herbois at Lyons, who chained together, at one time, four hundred people, in the great square of the city, and fired upon them with grape-shot, until they were exterminated; with many others equally diabolical, which shall not pollute my page, almost tempt one to believe, that a majority of the nation were at one time accomplices in its crimes and miseries. They have, indeed, at length awakened from their delirium, and sigh at the dreadful retrospect.

I have written until my paper is exhausted, my eyes bedimmed, and my imagination haunted by racks, wheels, and _guillotines_ dyed in human gore.----Therefore good night! and adieu until to-morrow, when I will resume my pen!

LETTER XI.

Quimper, 1st May 1795.

Amidst such scenes as I was yesterday condemned to describe, it were impossible but an universal corruption of manners must follow, and it has accordingly arrived. That the French should pant to be free, who can doubt, or who can blame? But it has happened to _them_, as it must to every people who are suddenly hurried into extremes, without the national mind being in any degree prepared for the change which has taken place. This people possesses not the stability of character, or the austere self-denying virtues, of the ancient republicans. Many of the present leading demagogues of the convention do not even affect a common regularity of manners; and, if the public journals, which do not spare them by name, may be believed, wallow in the most scandalous sensuality. I read the other day a description of a drunken scene between one of the Merlins and a brother deputy, which was pourtrayed with much humour. I mention this to shew you, that the editors of news-papers here are not more afraid of the executive power than on your side of the water. When I compare the present number of the convention to what it was at its institution, not three years since, and recollect the causes,----self-murder, public execution, desertion, and banishment----which have occasioned the diminution, I stand petrified with amazement and horror. What stronger proof of the depravity of this legislative assembly can be adduced than their perpetual deliberate acts of treachery towards each other, in betraying private conversations, which have passed among themselves? Their annals are full of it. How many of their members have been hurried by it to the _guillotine_; and how many more have been supplanted in the public favour by the informers!

The thirst for dissipation is not lessened; but whence the means which enable many of the French to pursue it in its present form are derived, is a mystery. If the excessive and daily increasing price of commodities be considered, nothing is more inexplicable than how those who have only stipulated incomes contrive to subsist upon them. I live with the most rigid frugality, and yet cannot bound my expences within less than 250 livres a week. It is certain that false _assignats_ abound; and the tongue of malevolence has not scrupled to assert, that many of them have been issued from the national treasury, “in order to lessen the public debt, when the day of presentation for payment shall arrive.” Remember, I do not pretend to state this as more than the whisper of party. It is evident that the habits, which this plenty of the medium of exchange, however obtained, creates, are destructive of all industry. This little town is crowded by men and women, who, like the Athenians, do nothing from morning to night “but tell and hear of some new thing.” The national fickleness demonstrates itself no less in private than in public opinion. In Paris alone, in the month of last _Nivose_, 223 divorces took place, 198 of which were solicited by the _wives_. Nothing is more specious than a facility of divorce. To render the chain of union indissoluble were, indeed, to realize the punishment of Mezentius; but to permit its separation upon every trifling and momentary caprice, is to corrupt society in its source. You know that marriage is here a civil contract only, which I have seen entered into at the _bureau_ of the municipality, and which consists merely in the parties declaring, before certain witnesses, their wish to be united, and entering their names in a register; but of late all but flaming republicans have thought it necessary to strengthen the engagement, by privately superadding the ceremony of the church.

The national taste has suffered equal degradation. The dramas of Racine, and the odes and epistles of Boileau, are supplanted by crude declamatory productions, to which the revolutionary spirit has given birth. The French have been almost as ingenious as ourselves. It was a discovery reserved for the present age, that Pope was a mere versifier; and that the immortal compositions of the two before-mentioned writers are harmonious tinklings only, devoid of fire of fancy, and elevation of genius. There has been a report presented to the convention, on the _Gothicism_ which has overspread the land, and exterminated in its fury more than two thirds of the works of art and taste, which ennobled France. It will be handed down to posterity, in the chronicles of the revolution, as a fact that marks the spirit in which it has been conducted.

Notwithstanding the various arms by which religion has been persecuted, she again begins to lift her head. A report, presented by Boissy d’Anglas, from the united committees of public safety, general security, and legislation, to the convention, containing ten articles in favour of public worship, has been adopted and decreed. By these the republic acknowledges no national religious institution; nor grants salaries to the priesthood; nor furnishes any place for the performance of worship, &c. &c.; but it expressly forbids, under pain of punishment, every one from preventing his neighbour from the exercise of his devotion.

In consequence of this decree on the back of the proclamation issued by Guesno and Guermeur, and of assurances from the constituted authorities that they shall not be molested, the moderate catholics here assemble on every Sabbath in the cathedral, the use of which (as an indulgence) is granted to them; but the more rigid, fearless of the law (which forbids it) hold little meetings at each other’s houses, where the non-juring clergy officiate. This is known to the police; but the predilection of the country people, who flock in great numbers to these assemblies, renders it convenient to wink at them, and has hitherto restrained all attack upon them.

I went upon Easter Sunday to the cathedral, and found a numerous congregation there. The altar was lighted up by twelve large waxen tapers; the holy water was sprinkled upon the congregants; and the incense was burnt, with the accustomed ceremonies; but even here democratic spleen manifested itself in disturbing what it is no longer allowed to interdict. In the most solemn part of the service, the _Marseillois Hymn_ was heard from the organ: that war-whoop, to whose sound the bands of regicides who attacked their sovereign in his palace marched; and which, during the last three years, has been the watch-word of violence, rapine, and murder[H]! How incongruous were its notes in the temple of the Prince of Peace! A black-guard-looking fellow close to me, whom I knew, by his uncombed hair, dirty linen, ragged attire, and contemptuous gestures, to be a _veritable sans-culotte_, joined his voice to the music, and echoed, “_Aux armes, citoyens!_” Fear alone kept the people quiet; and of its influence in this country I have witnessed astonishing proofs, which demonstrate, beyond volumes of reasoning, the terror inspired by the revolutionary government.

As the observance of the Sabbath advances, the _Decadis_ sink into contempt. I had heard much of civic feasts and other patriotic institutions celebrated upon them; but since I have been here, nothing of the sort has occurred. The national flag is displayed on the public offices, and if there is no pressure of business, the clerks have a holiday. A few zealous republicans also shut up their shops; but at present for one shop shut on a Decadi, there are six on a Sunday; for, however their owners may differ on political questions, a sense of religion is not extinguished in the mass of the people, even of the town. I have, nevertheless, been assured, that six months ago, to have shewn this mark of respect for the Sabbath would have been a certain mean of drawing down the resentment of the predominant faction. On every Decadi the laws are appointed to be read in the cathedral, and the municipality attend. I had once the curiosity to go to this meeting, and found the number of auditors, which I counted, exclusive of the reader, and those who attended officially, to be twenty-seven persons, of whom, to my surprize, five were old women.

Were I not bound to attend an appointment at twelve o’clock, in the event of which I am deeply interested, methinks it were a curious speculation (to which I incline) to try to develope what will be the probable state of France, when peace with all her neighbours shall be restored to her. The thinking part of the nation survey, not without alarming anticipation, the consequence of a million and a half of armed men, to whom a habit of indolence is become familiar, being turned loose upon a country whose specie has disappeared, whose foreign commerce is annihilated, and whose manufactures must be _born again_, for hardly a trace of their having ever existed remains: add to this, that the government, by being no longer revolutionary, will lose its strong executive spring: and that the people are split into innumerable parties, which hate each other with irreconcileable inveteracy.

National prejudices and political antipathies I consider as a vile state engine, which, in the hands of a few crafty men, has for more than five thousand years wrought the misery of the human race. Englishmen and Frenchmen, the Charib and the Hindoo, the philosopher of Europe and the naked savage whose wanderings I have witnessed at Botany Bay, shall one day, I presume in humble confidence to trust, be assembled before the “living throne,” of a common Father; and look back on that diminutive speck, which in the boundless ocean of infinity nothing short of divine irradiation could make visible to their eyes;----to review with unqualified contempt, sorrow, and repentance, those false principles, and sanguinary conclusions, which rendered it unto them a theatre of contention and horror, and caused their days to be “few and evil!”