WHILE far along the moral hori­zon of France the tempest became every hour more black and turbulent, the spring, earlier and more profuse of graces than in the climate of England, arose in its unsullied freshness, and formed a con­trast at which humanity sickened. The lovely environs of Paris are not, like those of London, so encumbered with houses and buildings that you must travel ten or twelve miles from town to find the coun­try, [Page 2] but, the moment you have passed the barriers of the city, present you with all the charming variety of vine-clad hills, and fields, and woods, and lawns. Imme­diately after our release from prison we quitted our apartments in the centre of the town, and tried to shelter ourselves from observation in an habitation situ­ated in the most remote part of the faux­bourg Germain. From thence a few minutes walk led us to the country. But we no longer dared, as we had done the preceding year, to forget awhile the horrors of our situation by wandering occasionally amidst the noble parks of St. Cloud, the wild woods of Meudon, or the elegant gardens of Bellevue, all within an hour's ride of Paris. Those seats, once the residence of fallen royalty, were now haunted by vulgar despots, by revolution­ary commissaries, by spies of the police, and sometimes by the sanguinary decem­virs themselves. Often they held their [Page 3] festive orgies in those scenes of beauty, where they dared to cast their polluting glance on nature, and tread with profane steps her hallowed recesses. Even the revolutionary jury used sometimes on a decadi, the only day of suspension from their work of death, to go to Marly or Versailles; and, steeped as they were to the very lips in blood, without being haunted by the mangled spectres of those whom they had murdered the preceding day, they saw nature in her most benign aspect, pleading the cause of humanity and mercy, and returned to feast upon the groans of those whom they were to murder on the morrow.

Those regions of decorated beauty be­ing now forbidden ground, we confined our walks to some pasturage lands near the town, which were interspersed with a few scattered hamlets, and skirted by hills, and were so unfrequented, that we heard no sounds except the sheep-bell, [Page 4] and the nightingales, and saw no human figure but an old peasant with a white beard, who together with a large black dog took care of the flock. It was in these walks that the soul, which the scenes of Paris petrified with terror, melted at the view of the soothing landscape, and that the eye was lifted up to heaven with tears of resignation mingled with hope. I have no words to paint the strong feeling of reluctance with which I always returned from our walks to Paris, that den of carnage, that slaughter­house of man. How I envied the pea­sant his lonely hut! for I had now al­most lost the idea of social happiness. My disturbed imagination divided the communities of men but into two classes, the oppressor and the oppressed; and peace seemed only to exist with soli­tude.

On the 15th of Germinal (the begin­ning of April,) the committee of public [Page 5] safety, or rather of public extermination, caused a law to bepassed, ordering all the former nobility and strangers to leave Paris within ten days, under the penalty of be­ing put out of the law; which meant, that if found in Paris after that period, they were to be led to the scaffold without a tri­al, as soon as their persons were identified. This law, to which my family and myself were subject, was a part of the plan of general proscription that Robespierre had formed against nobles and foreigners; and which he was now impatient to put in force. We were ordered by the decree, after choosing the place of our retreat, to present ourselves at the revolutionary committee of our respective sections, who delivered to each of us not a passport, but what was called a pass, on which was written a declaration that we left Paris in conformity to the law of the 26th of Germinal. Thus were we condemn­ed to wander into the country with this [Page 6] pass, which was the mark of Cain upon our foreheads, and which under pain of imprisonment we were to deposit at the municipality where we bent our course; and we were also condemned to present ourselves every twenty-four hours before the municipality and inscribe our names on a list, which was to be dispatched every decade to the committee of public safety. And lest the country municipa­lities should mistake the intentions of the committee, and treat particular indi­viduals with lenity upon their produ­cing testimonies of their attachment to the cause of the revolution, these devoted victims were ordered by a decree to burn every certificate of civism of which they might happen to be in possession. We chose for the place of our retreat a lit­tle village half a mile distant from Marly, and with hearts overwhelmed with an­guish bade adieu to my sister, who, being married to a Frenchman, was exempted [Page 7] from the law; and we were once more driven from our home, not to return un­der the penalty of death. Our neigh­bours came weeping to our gate to take leave of us; and the poor, who were the only class which now dared to utter a complaint, murmured loudly at the in­justice of the decree. We were obli­ged to pass the square of the revolution, where we saw the guillotine erected, the crowd assembled for the bloody tragedy, and the gens d'armes on horseback, fol­lowed by victims who were to be sacri­ficed, entering the square. Such was the daily spectacle which had succeeded the painted shows, the itinerant theatres, the mountebank, the dance, the song, the shifting scenes of harmless gaiety, which used to attract the cheerful crowd as they passed from the Thuilleries to the Champs Elisées.

When we reached the barrier we were stopped by a concourse of carriages filled [Page 8] with former nobles, and were obliged to wait till our passes were examined in our turn. The procession at the gate was singular and affecting. Most of the fu­gitives having, like ourselves, deferred their departure till the last day, and it being the forfeiture of our heads to be found in Paris the day following, the demand for carriages was so great, and the price exacted by those who let them out, and who knew the urgency of the case, so exorbitant, that a coach or cha­riot was a luxury which fell only to the lot of a favoured few. The greater num­ber were furnished with cabriolets, which seemed from their tottering condition somewhat emblematical of decayed no­bility; and many who found even these crazy vehicles too costly, journeyed in the carts which transported their furni­ture, seated upon the chairs they were conveying to their new abodes.

We reached our little dwelling at the [Page 9] hour of sun-set. The hills were fringed with clouds, which still reflected the fading colours of the day; the woods were in deep shadow; a soft veil was thrown over nature, and objects indis­tinctly seen were decorated by imagination with those graces which were most con­genial to the feelings of the moment. The air was full of delicious fragrance, and the stillness of the scene was only dis­turbed by sounds the most soothing in nature, the soft rustling of the leaves, or the plaintive notes of the wood-pigeon. The tears which the spectacle of the guil­lotine had petrified with horror, now flowed again with melancholy luxury. Our habitation was situated within a few paces of the noble park of Marly; and the deserted alleys overgrown with long grass—the encumbering fragments of rock, over which once fell the mimic cas­cades, whose streams no longer murmur—the piles of marble which once formed the [Page 10] bed of crystal basons—the scattered ma­chinery of the jets d'eaux, whose sources are dried—the fallen statues—the defaced symbols of feudality—the weeds springing between the stone steps of the ascent to the deserted palace—the cobwebbed win­dows of the gay pavillions, were all in union with that pensiveness of mind which our present circumstances natu­rally excited. And here, where we could see nothing of Paris but the distant dome of the Pantheon, we should have been less unhappy, if we had not too well known that the committee of public safety had not sent nobles and foreigners into the country to enjoy the freshness of rural gales, or the beauty of the opening spring, but as the first step towards a ge­neral proscription; and as we passed every evening through the park of Marly, in order to appear before the municipa­lity, that appalling idea "breathed a browner horror over the woods." We [Page 11] were again rescued from the general dan­ger by the two benevolent commissaries of the revolutionary committee of our section, who when they came to conduct us to prison had treated us with so much gentleness, who had afterwards reclaimed us of the administration of police, and who now, unsolicited and even unasked, went to the committee of public safety, declared they would answer for us with their lives, and caused us to be put into requisition; a form which enabled us to return to Paris, and thus snatched us from the class of the suspected and the pro­scribed. To their humanity we probably owe our existence; and I shall ever recol­lect with gratitude that noble courage which led them amidst the cruel impulse of revolutionary government, the move­ment of which was accelerated as it went on, to pause and succour the unfortu­nate. I have the satisfaction of adding, that those commissaries are now at liberty [Page 12] on account of their general good con­duct, while scarcely any other members of revolutionary committees have escaped imprisonment. Our benefactors have in­deed a right to this honourable ex­ception; who, although appointed the immediate agents of terror, the order of the day, regulated their actions by the eternal code of humanity.

A short time before our departure from Paris, the guillotine, upon which so many innocent victims had been sacrificed, for once streamed with the blood of the guilty:

One of the secrets of Robespierre's go­vernment was to employ as the step-lad­ders of his ambition men whose charac­ters were marked with opprobrium, or stained with crimes. Such men were best [Page 13] suited to his purpose; since they were not likely to pause in the execution of his orders, depending upon his favour, perhaps, for shelter from legal punish­ment; and when they had fulfilled the part he allotted them, and he no longer stood in need of their agency, he had suf­ficient address to lead them to make some extravagant proposition, which he deno­minated ultra-revolutionary, and for which he sent them to the scaffold, even with the approbation of the public. Such was the sentiment excited by the execution of Hebert, one of the chiefs of the munici­pality of Paris, whose arrest by the com­mission of twelve, previously to the thirty-first of May, had served the conspirators as the signal for ringing that fatal tocsin which was the knell of liberty. Hebert was the man who upon the trial of Marie Antoinette outraged all the feelings of nature, by an accusation which wrung from her bursting heart that affecting ap­peal [Page 14] to every mother who was present. It was he who loaded her with the indig­nity of gross abuse, and poured the bit­terness of insult into the cup of death. He soon after acted again at the revolu­tionary tribunal the part of evidence against the twenty-one; those virtuous patriots, the Sidneys and the Russels of their country, whose martyrdom has been avenged, not as they wished, but as they predicted, by scenes of universal desolation and despair.

Hebert was commonly called Pere du Chesne, on account of a daily paper he published, bearing that title. In this paper he professed to tread in the steps of Marat, and indeed he proved himself worthy to be his lineal successor. He had the same insatiable thirst of blood; he demanded with the same vehemence the heads of all conspirators, nobles, bank­ers, writers and merchants, the faction of federalists, and the faction of Pitt and [Page 15] Cobourg. Those mild demands were breathed in the language of the lowest vulgar: every line was enforced by an oath, and every period rounded by an im­precation. Camille Desmoulins, after drawing the character of this journal, concluded by saying that it was written "pour faire les délices de Coblentz, et le seul espoir de Pitt ^*." Such was Hebert! who having succeeded with his colleagues of the municipality in accomplishing what they called the revolution of the 31st of May, felt with indignation that his revolutionary genius was forced to bend before the genius of Robespierre, and determined to immortalize the month of Ventose by a new revolution.

They had hitherto met with such splendid success in insurrection, that they began to think it was no very dif­ficult enterprise, now that the routine [Page 16] was known. It was but to ring the tocsin, beat the generale, put the city under arms, take the direction of the military force, overthrow the committee of public safe­ty, and seize the reins of government. The ides of March, however, proved as fatal to the dominion of the red cap, as they had heretofore done to that of the purple robe. In vain Hebert mounted the tribune at the Cordeliers, asserted that tyranny existed, and caused a black veil to be thrown over the table of the rights of man—In vain the section of Marat declared itself in insurrection: the other sections of Paris were of opinion, that to go from the committee of public safety to the municipality was flying from Scylla to Charybdis; and though all France groaned under the tyranny of the com­mittee, there was little hope that the wounds of the bleeding country would be healed by men who were the leaders of massacre, and the preachers of the agra­rian [Page 17] law. The Parisians therefore ap­plauded the decree which sent Hebert and twenty of his co-adjutors in revolu­tionary crimes to that sanguinary tribu­nal, which, after a mockery of trial, or­dered them to execution, "and bade the cruel feel the pains they gave." There appeared so much of retribution in the circumstances that attended the death of Hebert and his colleagues, that it seemed as if Heaven were visibly stretching forth its arm to punish the guilty. For it is re­markable enough, that they were not tried for any of the multiplied crimes they had committed, but for having as­serted that tyranny existed: a sacred truth which every heart swelled to acknow­ledge, though no lips but theirs had dared to give it utterance.—The behavi­our of Hebert and his associates upon the approach of death was far different from that of the innocent sufferers who had consciences void of reproach. Along [Page 18] those subterraneous galleries where all the light which entered was "darkness visible," terrific phantoms covered with blood seemed to pursue their steps, and with menacing looks prepare to drag them to abysses of deeper horror: they fan­cied they saw the headless trunks of mur­dered victims encumbering the ground; they heard human groans and shrieks sounding hollow through the vaulted passages; while the knife of the guillo­tine, like Macbeth's aërial dagger, hung suspended before their affrighted imagi­nation. Anacharsis Clootz, a Prussian baron and a member of the national con­vention, known by the title which he con­ferred upon himself, of orator of the hu­man race, suffered death with this band of russians. He was also a preacher of blood; but, cruelty being the order of the day, what most distinguished him from others was not the ferocity of his prin­ciples, but the chimeras of his imagina­tion. [Page 19] His publications which were nu­merous, were always dated Paris, chef lieu du globe ^*;" and he seriously proposed, that as soon as all the potentates of the earth were overthrown, an event of which he had a bird's eye view from the begin­ning of the French revolution, the people of every nation should send their repre­sentatives to Paris, who should be ho­noured with seats in the national assem­bly of France, and there form an univer­sal republic, of which France should be the centre, and the other kingdoms of the world the departments. He proposed for instance, that as soon as the deputies of the English nation arrived, England should take the name of Le departement de la Tamise ^†.

Soon after the memorable 10th of Au­gust, Anacharsis marched to the bar of the legislative assembly at the head of a [Page 20] number of men he had hired to represent the natives of every quarter of the globe, and who were clad in the respective dresses of the people they personated. This embassy of the human race de­clared, by the organ of their common orator Anacharsis, their admiration of the French republic, and their attachment to its cause. The conclusion of this drama however was less splendid than the opening scene at the bar of the con­vention; for the next morning the door of Anacharsis was beset with Italians, Germans, Swedes, Poles, Jews, Turks, and Russians, clamorously demanding to be paid: but none were more noisy in their vociferations than a Calmuck Tartar, and an Indian of the banks of the Ohio, who menaced their orator with the ven­geance of the whole fauxbourg of St. Antoine, if he refused to pay them for the loss of their day's labour, and the hire of their dresses. Anacharsis, after much al­tercation, [Page 21] came to a compromise with the deputation of the human race, who de­parted not very well satisfied with their champion.—Clootz met death with more firmness than might have been expected from his general character, and his athe­istical principles. Hebert and his col­leagues passed their time, when together, like the fallen spirits in Milton, in mu­tual accusation, till Clootz with a loud voice recited to them those well-known lines:

This citation had the effect he wished: they became reconciled to each other; and Clootz, whose only apprehension was lest any of them should die in reli­gious belief, preached atheism to them till their last sigh.

The death of Hebert was the signal [Page 22] for throwing off the hideous masquerade of sansculottism, in which all the world had been arrayed during the winter, in submissive deference to his interpreta­tion of equality. Immediately after his execution, the scene suddenly changed: black wigs, red caps, sailors' jackets, and pantaloons were cast aside; and the eye was refreshed with the sight of combed locks, clean linen, and decent apparel;—while the women, who for some months had reluctantly bound up their hair beneath the round cap of the peasant, now unfolded their tresses, per­fumed and powdered, to the vernal gales, and decorated in whatever manner they thought proper, provided the national cockade formed one of their ornaments.

THE execution of Hebert and his colleagues was soon followed by that of a considerable number of the mountain deputies, among whom were Danton and Camille Desmoulins, names not un­known to fame in the annals of the re­volution. Danton had acted a distin­guished part on the political theatre, be­fore Robespierre had been heard of; and Camille Desmoulins, on the day pre­ceding the taking of the Bastille, had the glory of being the first man in France who placed the national cockade in his hat, and called upon his fellow-citizens to shake off the fetters of despotism. And surely it was glorious to be a leader of the revolution; for, although the sun of liberty, like the orb of day when seen [Page 24] through opposing mists, has been turned into blood, its dawning beams were radiant, and it will again shake off the foul vapours that have hung around it, and spread that unsullied light which exhilarates all nature.

Robespierre was not deterred from marking Danton and Camille Desmou­lins as his victims, by the consideration that Danton had saved him at the mo­ment when Louvet's representation of his crimes on the 2d of September had so strongly excited the indignation of the convention, that a decree of accusa­tion was on the point of being hurled against him; and that Camille Desmou­lins had been his school-fellow and his friend. But the tyrant felt that Dan­ton was too "near the throne;" and Camille Desmoulins had awakened all his fury by an appeal which he made to the people, in a paper called the "Old Cordelier," and which found an echo [Page 25] in every heart. The excessive severity of the revolutionary law against the sus­pected had excited Desmoulins' indig­nation; and in a happy parallel between the capricious tyrannies of the Roman emperors and those of the committees of government ^*, he expanded the glow­ing precision of Tacitus into charges so extremely ludicrous, that they honoured lord Shaftesbury's axiom, that ridicule is the test of truth. This publication made some atonement to humanity for the mis­chiefs which his former writings had produced; above all, that cruel pleasantry upon the party of the Gironde, on which their act of accusation was founded. The atonement came too late; tyranny was established; and Camille Desmoulins pe­rished, to use his own words, "for hav­ing shed one tear over the unhappy."

Several other deputies suffered at the [Page 26] same time; and Camille Desmoulins ob­served when he was going to the scaffold, "Robespierre fait des coups percés de la convention," alluding to the mode of cutting down the forests in France by portions, which are marked to be hewn at certain periods. The person most re­gretted among the deputies who now pe­rished was Philipeaux, who having been sent on a mission to the Vendée, made known at his return the horrors of which he had been a witness, and was dragged to the scaffold for having dared to lift up the veil which the conspirators had thrown over their crimes. Fabre d'Eglan­tine, who had been one of the founders of the revolutionary government and the auxiliary of Robespierre, perished unla­mented. He possessed fine talents for literature, and had written a celebrated comedy, entitled Philinthe. It was ob­served, that he had carried the spirit of intrigue which prevailed in his comedy [Page 27] into the part he had acted as legislator. The love of fame, the prevailing passion of authors, he felt strong in death; and all his thoughts seemed fixed upon a co­medy of five acts, which he had de­posited at the committee of public safety, and of which he was afraid Billaud Va­rennes would take the credit. Fabre d'Eglantine was also the author of the new French calendar. Danton, while at the Conciergerie, often conversed with the prisoners across the bars of his dun­geon. He seemed ashamed of having been duped by Robespierre, with whom, by means of a common friend, he had an interview a few days before he was arrested, in order that they might come to an explanation. Danton, after a long conversation, finding that he was unable to move the implacable Robespierre, who listened to him with a look of insulting malignity, shed some tears, and left the room, saying, "Je vois que mon sort [Page 28] est décidé, mais ma mort sera votre ruine ^*." This prediction was fulfilled; for no sooner had Robespierre rid him­self of all his rivals than he pressed for­ward with a more rapid course towards his own destruction. Danton in his dungeon expatiated continually on the charms of nature, on the beauties of rural scenery, and the peace of rural shades. "In revolutions," cried he, "the power always remains in the hands of villains. It is better to be a poor fisher­man than to govern men. Those fools! they will cry `Long live the republic!' on seeing me pass to the scaffold.—This day last year I caused the revolutionary tribunal to be instituted. I ask pardon of God and of men; it was not that it should become the scourge of humanity; it was to prevent the renewal of the [Page 29] massacres of September." Camille Des­moulins and Danton, who had both pos­sessed considerable powers of eloquence, defended themselves at the tribunal with so lofty a spirit, and treated their judges with so much disdain, that at length ir­ritated by their contempt and the sallies of their wit, and impatient at their per­severance in vindicating themselves when it was determined they should die, the public accuser sent a letter to the con­vention, informing them that the prison­ers were in a state of revolt against the tribunal. The committee of public safe­ty caused a decree to be passed which put them out of the law, and sent in­stantly to execution all such of the ac­cused as dared to insult their judges. In vain Danton called upon Barrere, upon Billaud Varennes, and upon other members of the committee of public safety to ap­pear in evidence. Danton was left to his fate, and sent with his colleagues to [Page 30] execution. At the gate of the Concier­gerie, while the executioner was placing the condemned deputies in the carts, Danton amused the crowd who were looking on by many sportive observa­tions. He said to Fabre d'Eglantine, who was a poet, "Eh bien, nous de­viendrons tous poetes, nous allons tous faire des vers ^*." On his way to the scaffold his head was bare, and many persons were struck with its resemblance to the medals of Socrates. He behaved with remarkable firmness, conversing with those who were placed in the same cart, and sometimes answering the cries of the populace by looks of strong indignation. When he was tied to the plank he cast his eyes upwards to the fatal knife, and his countenance and figure assumed an expression of magnanimity with which the spectators were deeply penetrated.

A proof of the horrible oppression under which we groaned, was, that we lament­ed the fate of Danton—of Danton, the minister of justice on the 2d of Septem­ber, and one of the murderers of liberty on the 31st of May! Yet with all these crimes upon his head, Danton still pos­sessed some human affections: his mind was still awake to some of the sensibili­ties of our nature; his temper was frank and social, and humanity in despair leant upon him as a sort of refuge from its worst oppressor. A week after the death of Camille Desmoulins, his wife, a charm­ing woman of twenty-three years of age, was led to the scaffold. For her fate no eye except those of her barbarous judges refused a tear. Her execution [Page 32] forms an epocha in the annals of the re­volutionary government; since on that occasion, for the first time, a conspiracy supposed in a prison became the pretext for murder, and multitudes afterwards perished the victims of that fatal inven­tion. Camille Desmoulins was in habits of friendship with Arthur Dillon, an Irish general, who had bravely defended the pass in the forest of Argonne against the Prussian army, and who held the highest rank in the service of the republic. Soon after the 31st of May, he was arrested with multitudes soupçonnés d'être suspects ^*, and was confined in the prison of the Luxembourg. His hopes of regaining his liberty rested upon the influence of his friend Camille Desmoulins, and he was deeply affected by the intelligence of his being sent to the revolutionary tribunal. In his affliction he made use of some imprudent expressions to a fel­low [Page 33] prisoner, and seemed to flatter him­self with the hope that the people would not suffer such a patriot as Desmoulins to perish. The wretch to whom Dillon confided these sentiments had the atro­city to write a denunciation against him to the committee of general safety, with the view of purchasing his own freedom by the life of his unfortunate compa­nion. Dillon had also, a few days before Desmoulins perished, written a letter to his wife, expressing his sympathy in her misfortunes, and his hope that the inno­cence of her husband would yet triumph. In this letter Dillon enclosed three thousand livres. All these circumstances were made known to the committee; and a few days after the execution of Des­moulins, Dillon, the turnkey to whom he had offered the letter, and Madame Desmoulins in the first transports of grief upon the loss of a husband whom she tenderly loved, were sent by an order [Page 34] of the committee to the Conciergerie to take their trial at the revolutionary tri­bunal. It appeared upon the trial that the turnkey had refused to take the let­ter; upon which Dillon had slipt it into his pocket; which the turnkey perceiv­ing, returned it to him immediately, and Dillon tore it in pieces. Madame Des­moulins, it was therefore clear, had never received the letter or the three thousand livres enclosed. She answered the inter­rogatories of her judges with the candour of innocence, and the sweet complacency of her manner sensibly affected the spec­tators. Those assassins in the robes of justice condemned Dillon to die as the author of a conspiracy in the prisons against the security of the French peo­ple; the turnkey was sent to death for having had sufficient humanity not to make a declaration to the police of Dil­lon's proposition respecting the letter; and the unfortunate Madame Desmou­lins [Page 35] was dragged to the scaffold because a letter was written to her which it was [...]early proved had never been sent. In the first anguish of separation from the object of our affections, death ceases to be an evil; and Madame Desmoulins dep [...]ored her husband too tenderly to re­gret that they were going to be re-united in a happier state of existence. She dressed herself in white, and with some care; and went with a placid smile upon her countenance to execution, conversing with her companions in the cart, particu­larly with the wife of Hebert, who was put to death at the same time, and met her fate with equal firmness. It was one of the singular chances of these revolu­lutionary moments, that Camille Des­moulins, who with the pointed shafts of his wit had overthrown the idol of the populace Hebert, perished himself but a fortnight later; and that his own wife and the wife of Hebert, seated on the same [Page 36] stone in the Conciergerie, deplored their mutual loss, and were led together to the scaffold. The people, as Madame Des­moulins passed along the streets to exe­cution, could not resist uttering exclama­tions of pity and admiration. "Comme elle est belle! elle a l'air si doux! quel dommage qu'elle va périr ^*!" At the foot of the scaffold she embraced the wife of Hebert, bade her companions in the cart farewell, and resigned herself to the exe­cutioner with the serenity of an angel. Dillon went to death with great com­posure, and, as he passed to execution, bowed to a friend of his and mine whom he saw in the street. Far different from the meek and placid resignation with which Madame Desmoulins made the sacrifice of life in all its bloom and fresh­ness, was the behaviour of Chaumette procureur of the commune, and Gobet [Page 37] the archbishop of Paris, who perished at the same time. Their aspect testified that Death appeared to their perturbed spirits, not in the form he wears to suffering innocence, to whom he comes the mes­senger of peace, but armed with all his stings, and clad in all his terrors.

Chaumette, one of the leaders of the conspiracy of the 31st of May, saw him­self dragged to the scaffold by the man whom he had powerfully contributed to raise to supreme eminence, and for a measure by which he expected to confirm his own popularity, which was over­throwing the altars of the catholic church. And Gobet, the archbishop of Paris, a weak old man, whom Chaumette and Anacharsis Clootz had persuaded to go with the municipality to the bar of the convention, and at sixty-seven years of age declare that the profession of his life had been imposture, that he renounced the christian faith and his ecclesiastical [Page 38] dignity, and demanded that the churches consecrated to religious worship should henceforth become the temples of Reason, was punished for his apostacy with death. Robespierre embraced the new doctrine till the church was despoiled of all the treasures with which superstition had en­riched it, and soon after abolished the decadary feasts of the goddess Reason, and sent her high priests Gobet and Chau­mette to the guillotine. One of the few instances of fortitude in death exemplified by persons who had neither the conscious­ness of innocence nor the sentiment of sympathy to sooth their minds in so severe a trial, was that of the former duke of Orleans, in whose life nothing was worthy of applause except his manner of leaving it. The remembrance of the vote he had given against his unfortunate relation Lewis XVI. from motives of personal vengeance and ambition, could not but gnaw upon his heart, and depress [Page 39] his spirit, and must have been mingled not only with a feeling of indignation against the wretches who made him suffer upon false pretences, but with all the anguish of remorse for having joined their party; by which act of debasement he had incurred not only guilt, but its speedy punishment. Yet notwithstanding such reflections could not fail to embitter his last moments, he went to execution with a calm dignity worthy of a better mind. Nor did he gratify the populace by be­traying any emotion when the cart in which he was placed stopped for ten minutes before the gate of the Palais-Royal, the scene of a life of luxurious pleasures. He looked at the building with apparent unconcern; and whatever pangs of recollection might struggle at his heart, his behaviour expressed no sen­timent but that of magnanimity till he expired.

The resignation and courage with [Page 40] which the victims of this cruel tyranny in general resigned life were truly ad­mirable. Many young persons, after re­ceiving their act of accusation, composed verses written with a pencil at the table where they partook their last repast with their fellow prisoners. The following, written by a young man of twenty-four years of age, to his mistress, the night be­fore his execution, are simple and affect­ing:

Among the crowds who were led to the guillotine, two persons only displayed [Page 42] strong marks of dismay and terror. One of these persons was Madame du Barry, the mistress of Lewis XV. She had been induced to leave England, where she passed some time after the revolution, and return to France, in order to secure her property; and soon after the 31st of May was led from her beautiful pa­vilion at Lucienne, to a prison in Paris, by one of the agents of terrorism, who, I am sorry to add, was an Englishman. The prisons, to use a French mode of ex­pression, in a short time became the anti­chambers of the scaffold; and Madame du Barry's mind was impressed strongly with a presage of her fate. Whenever the door of her chamber in the prison opened, she was seized with violent trem­bling, and sometimes with fainting fits. At length the fatal summons to the re­volutionary tribunal arrived. The chief evidence against her was a negro slave, whom she had reared from an infant, and [Page 43] to whom she was so much attached, that he was generally to be found in her apartments; and one day Lewis XV. sportively created him governor of Lu­cienne, with a pension of six hundred livres a year, which this viper, who stung the bosom that cherished him, still enjoys.

One of the most flagrant testimo­nies which were produced of Madame du Barry's counter-revolutionary prin­ciples was Mr. Pitt's picture, which she said had been given to her the night before her departure from Lon­don by lord Thurlow. This unfortu­nate woman was condemned to die; and a person of my acquaintance who was at that time a prisoner in the Con­ciergerie told me, that she was deluded with the promise of pardon provided she would discover the spot where she ac­knowledged that some treasures were concealed; but no sooner were they found, than she was ordered to execution. During her passage thither she appeared [Page 44] almost dead, and leaned her head upon the shoulder of the executioner. But when she reached the square of the revolution, the sight of the instrument of death rallied her sinking spirits, and called forth the most cruel agonies of reluctant nature. She rent the air with her shrieks, and was deaf to the expostulations of Noil, a deputy of the Gironde who perished at the same time, and who encouraged her to resign herself to a fate which was in­evitable. Her convulsed frame acquired extraordinary strength: she struggled with her executioners, and, after a conflict at which humanity shudders, was forced to undergo the fatal stroke, and released from frantic desperation.

With Madame du Barry perished the banker Vanderuyver, and his two sons, ac­cused of being her accomplices in sending money into England, and also of having aided the knights of the poniard, as they were called, in the chateau of the Thuil­leries [Page 45] on the memorable 10th of August, although twenty-five witnesses attended to prove that Vanderuyver had not quit­ted his house during the whole of that day. But those who first appeared in his favour being arrested as they went out of court, the others made their escape, and left this unhappy family to their fate.

Their real crime was their great wealth, which it was thought expedient to seize. On this account bankers were the objects of particular proscription; for although the great revolutionary sinancier Cambon had one day called them all together, and favoured them with an harangue of con­siderable length upon the value of paper money, and the worthlessness of gold, which he asserted every real lover of his country ought to despise as dross, and of which he exhorted them to rid themselves as fast as possible; it was feared that in spite of this precious morsel of elo­quence, an obstinate attachment to me­tallic [Page 46] coin still lurked in the hearts of the bankers, who were for the most part punished for this grovelling predilection with death. Of this number was Laborde, once the banker of the court, and now guilty of a revenue of two millions of livres. This respectable old man was dragged to the scaffold at seventy-six years of age, although since the first epocha of the revolution he had given unques­tionable proofs of his attachment to its cause, and the magnificence of his dona­tions were more than proportionate to his wealth. His first patriotic gift was twenty thousand louis; he had sent all the fine horses with which his stables were filled to the municipality; he had lodged troops of national guards at his house; and above all, he had been the father of the country where his fine seat of Meriville was placed. The year before his death I had passed some very agreeable days at that noble mansion, where strangers properly [Page 47] recommended were received and enter­tained with the most splendid hospitality. The pleasure-grounds had been formed in a flat situation unfavourable to beauty. With immense labour and expence pas­toral hills arose, and jutting rocks hung over crystal waters, or were worn into fragments by the fall of lavish cascades. A beautiful Grecian temple reared its Corinthian pillars upon a broad green as­cent, and amidst the deep recesses of spreading oaks a monument was erected to Captain Cook. Perhaps the decorated scenes of Meriville are somewhat too richly hung with ornaments; but in creat­ing this blooming Eden, which was the work of years, Mons. Laborde had given employment to the whole country. For a great extent of space round his dwelling no wants were felt which his munificence was not eager to relieve; and when the eye saw him, it blessed him. Nor was the [Page 48] good he conferred confined to the pre­cincts of his own possessions. The Paris markets were often supplied with such articles of living as were most wanted, at the very time when its owner was lan­guishing in prison. With tears and la­mentations his tenants heard of his con­finement. Whole villages and munici­palities crowded to the bar of the con­vention, and claimed the enlargement of their common benefactor, but in vain. The rich spoils of his chateau were too tempting to be resisted, the seizure of his immense property was an expedient of finance, and as a preliminary step to its confiscation he was put to death.

I have mentioned among the multi­tudes who perished, that Madame du Barry and one other person only were remarked for having betrayed symp­toms of weakness and terror in their last moments. You will be surprised to [Page 49] hear that this person was general Cus­tine.

This unfortunate general, although ac­customed to look upon death with intre­pidity in the ranks of battle, shrunk from it in a form of horror for which he was unprepared. His son, an amiable and ac­complished young man, who suffered a few months after as the accomplice of his father, because he had given proofs of filial affection, behaved with admirable courage. I shall transcribe a letter which he sent to his wife on the day of his exe­cution ^*.

This interesting young woman had the courage, during the trial of her father-in-law the general, to sit at his feet at the tribunal, to wipe the damps from his [Page 50] [...] [Page 51] [...] [Page 48] [...] [Page 49] [...] [Page 50] brow, to animate his failing spirits, and calm the agitation of his mind by her soothing attentions. After seeing her hus­band dragged to the scaffold, she was thrown into prison, from which she was one of the last persons released.

Early in the spring Madame Elizabeth was brought before the revolutionary tri­bunal. The only crime that could be imputed to her was that she was the sister of a king, and had shewn that steadfast fidelity to her brother, which in generous minds, whatever might be their political opinions, would have excited sentiments of esteem and admiration. She had taken no part in those fatal schemes of crooked policy, which, by seeking to seize once more that despotic power which the will of a mighty nation had torn from its grasp, lost that limited empire, and that circumscribed dominion of which it might still have held possession. But whatever were the errors of Lewis XVI. or the [Page 51] vices of Marie Antoinette, no blame was by any party imputed to the princess Elizabeth. She had neither shared in the intrigues or the licentiousness of the court. All that was known of her in prosperity was her virtuous manners, and her chari­table disposition; and in adversity, her un­shaken friendship for her brother, and her piety and resignation to God. She had suf­fered not only the most severe extremes of calamity, but all those indignities, wants, and hardships, which could give misfor­tune a keener edge; for, during the ty­ranny of Robespierre, the forms of de­cency which had till then been observed were altogether disregarded. She, who had been used to the long train of attendants of the most splendid court of Europe, was compelled to perform the most menial offices herself; to dress her scanty meal, and to sweep the floor of her prison. In such circumstances, with no ray of hope to cheer the gloomy towers where she was [Page 52] immured, except that hope which was fixed on a better state of existence—she probably looked upon death as her most soothing refuge, and therefore met it with tranquillity and firmness. I shall transcribe her examination at the revolutionary tri­bunal, not only as a proof of the calmness and dignity with which she answered the interrogatories of her barbarous judges, but also as a specimen of the manner in which the trials at this sanguinary court were conducted even before the period ar­rived when all enquiry, all form was laid aside.

Here the trial ended, no witnesses were called, and the prisoner was condemned without farther examina­tion.

Madame Elizabeth betrayed some emo­tion at the sight of the guillotine; but she [Page 62] recovered herself immediately, and waited calmly at the foot of the scaffold, till twenty-five persons who perished with her were put to death, her former rank being still sufficiently remembered to give her a title to pre-eminence in punishment.

Sometimes amidst these horrors, the most ludicrous violations of the laws of na­tions took place; and we might have smiled at the absurdities of our tyrants, if they had been mingled with less atro­city. The revolutionary committee of Cette, in the department of Herault, with a noble defiance of all ordinary forms and observances, thought fit to put in requisition not only some mules belong­ing to the consul of a northern court, and a cart which was his property, but the consul himself to be their driver. The requisition was signed by William Tell, Brutus, Marat, Cato, and Cesar. Whether the consul was of opinion, that such great names were not to be trifled [Page 63] with, or whether he thought that driving mules was a safer occupation than con­tending with tigers, is uncertain; but it is well known that he submitted himself with passive obedience to this sans-culotte edict, till the 9th of Thermidor; after which period he sent to Paris to com­plain of the indignity he had suffered, and demanded the chastizement of Wil­liam Tell and his colleagues.

IT would require the pencil of a master to trace in all its dark colouring that picture of calamity and horror which Paris presented at this period. A deep and silent gloom pervaded that city, where heretofore every heart bounded with gaiety, and every eye sparkled with delight. The citizens in general saw with stupefied terror those processions of death which daily encumbered the streets, and the feelings of sympathy and indigna­tion were repelled by the sense of that personal danger from which no indivi­dual was secure. Even in his own habi­tation, and in the bosom of his family, no man dared to utter a complaint but in anxious whispers, lest a servant should over-hear the forbidden expostulations [Page 65] of humanity, and denounce him as a coun­ter-revolutionist. Many persons wearied of spectacles of horror put an end to their existence; and some who desired to die, but shrunk from giving themselves the stroke of death, took measures to be sent before the revolutionary tribunal, where they knew assassins were ever ready. The usual means employed for this purpose was the cry of "Vive le roi!" words which many young women who had lost their parents or their lovers on the scaffold re­peated in the phrensy of despair, and found them, as they wished, a passport to the tomb. Well might the people of France have exclaimed in the words of our divine poet,

‘Alas poor country, almost afraid to know itself! It cannot be called our mother, but our grave, where nothing, but who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air are made, not marked; [Page 66] where violent sorrow seems a modern ecstasy: the dead man's knell is there scarce asked for whom: and good men's lives expire before the flowers in their caps, dy­ing or ere they sicken.— MACBETH.’

The beginning of the month of Prai­rial, a man of the name of Admiral formed the design of assassinating Robes­pierre and Collot d'Herbois: he failed in the attempt, was seized, and sent to the Conciegerie. A few days after Amée Cecile Renaud, a girl of nineteen years of age, whose sensibility it appears was singularly affected by the scenes which were passing before her, and whose ima­gination perhaps was somewhat disordered by those terrible impressions, had the courage, while an armed nation bowed before its assassins, to enter alone and unarmed the monster's den, and, as it would seem, with the intention, at the expence of life, to point out to her countrymen the tyrant under whom they [Page 67] groaned. Cecile Renaud went one morn­ing to Robespierre's house, and enquired if he was at home. She was answered in the negative; and being asked what she wanted, replied that she came to see what sort of thing was a tyrant. Upon this declaration she was instantly led to the committee of general safety, and went through a long examination. She again declared with the same simplicity, that she had only gone because she want­ed to see a tyrant; and upon being searched, no offensive weapon was found upon her, and all that was contained in a little bundle which she held under her arm was a change of linen, with which she said she had provided herself, know­ing she should want it in prison. The conduct of this heroic young woman furnished the tyrants with an opportunity of murder too favourable to be neglect­ed. They instantly proclaimed that a vast plan of conspiracy against the lives [Page 68] of those renowned patriots Collot d'Herbois and Robespierre had been formed by traitors within the prisons, and traitors without.

The father, mother and aunt of Ce­cile Renaud were led with herself to the Conciergerie, where she was again inter­rogated, and threatened that her whole family should perish with her, if she did not confess her intention of assassinating Robespierre. She repeated what she had said at the committee; and added, that they might put her to death if they thought proper, but, if she deserved to die, it was not for any intention to assas­sinate, but for her anti-republican senti­ments. Cecile Renaud, who was very young and handsome, was dressed with some care, and perhaps coquetry. Her appearance led her savage judges to in­vent a new s ecies of question in order to bring her to confession. By their directions she was stripped of her own [Page 69] clothes, and covered with squalid and dis­gusting rags, in which condition she was made to appear in the council-chamber and undergo a new interrogatory, where the same menaces were repeated, and where she answered as she had done be­fore; and with great spirit rallied her judges upon the absurdity of trying to shake her purpose by a mode of punish­ment so contemptible. Notwithstanding no proof of any intention to assassinate Robespierre could be brought against her, she together with her whole family was put to death. Her two brothers, who were fighting the battles of the re­public on the frontiers, were ordered to be conducted to Paris, that they might share her fate; but the tyrants were too impatient for blood to wait their arrival, and owing to this circumstance they escaped.

With Cecile Renaud perished not only her own family, but sixty-nine persons [Page 66] [...] [Page 67] [...] [Page 68] [...] [Page 69] [...] [Page 70] were brought from different parts and different prisons of Paris, who had never seen or heard of each other till they met at the Conciergerie, and were together dragged before the tribu­nal, and declared guilty of one common conspiracy. Their trial only lasted a suffi­cient length of time to call over their names; none of them were permitted to make any defence; the jury declared themselves satisfied in their souls and con­sciences; and the devoted victims, covered with the red cloaks worn by assassins on their way to execution, were led to death. Among those who perished on this occa­sion were madame Sainte Amaranthe, her daughter, who had married Monsieur Sartine the son of the ex-minister, and who was now only in her nineteenth year, and one of the most beautiful wo­men in France, and her brother, who was but seventeen years of age. A friend of mine was confined in the same prison [Page 71] with this family. A servant from the outside of the walls had made madame Sainte Amaranthe understand by signs that her son in law, who had been con­fined in another prison, had perished, and that she herself was in danger. She went immediately to her daughter, and said to her, "Your husband is no more, and it is very probable that we shall follow him to-morrow to the scaffold—No tears—this is no time for softness—we must pre­pare to meet with courage a fate that is inevitable." The next day passed, and no summons to the Conciergerie arrived; but on the night following at eleven o'clock a huissier entered madame Sainte Amaranthe's chamber, and told her she was wanted below. The call was well understood. "And are not we too wanted?" cried her son and daughter. "Certainly," answered the huissier. They both flew to their mother, threw their arms round her neck, and exclaim­ed, [Page 72] "We shall die together!" The next day they perished. Fouquier Tainville, the public accuser, that monster, "hor­ribly trick'd with blood of fathers, mo­thers, daughters, sons, bak'd and impasted with the parching streets," placed himself at a window of the Conciergerie close to the gate through which the prisoners passed, in order to ascend the carts which were to carry them to execution. There he feasted his atrocious soul with the sight of sixty-nine victims, covered with assas­sins' cloaks; and observing among them some young women, particularly the lovely madame Sartine, walking towards the vehicles of death with that firmness which belongs to innocence; "How bold those women look!" cried Fouquier, en­raged at their calmness; "I must go and see if they shew the same effrontery on the scaffold, even if I should lose my dinner!"

Robespierre had now attained nearly [Page 73] the summit of his hopes; and his igno­rance being equal to his vanity, he did not perceive that the few steps he had to climb before he could grasp at absolute dominion, must be trodden with cautious prudence; since he had advanced so far, that, if he was now compelled to descend, it could only be by a descent which would lead to death. He had destroyed his most powerful rival Danton; but his spies and emissaries, and above all his guilty conscience, told him that more of his colleagues must fall to give him per­fect safety. He read in the countenances of the deputies, in the silent gloom with which his edicts were sanctioned, that new storms gathered over his head; and he prepared, in conjunction with Cou­thon, the means of putting the lives of all those who opposed him more abso­lutely in his power. In the mean time he thought fit to amuse the people by a festival in honour of the Supreme Being, [Page 74] whose existence he had lately proclaimed, and whose name he had dared to utter with his unhallowed lips. The plan of the festival was arranged by the cele­brated painter David; he, whose mind the cultivation of the finer arts has had no power to soften; who, not satisfied with displaying on canvass those scenes of sanguinary guilt which from the hor­rors they excite furnish fit subjects for the pencil, has contributed to give them in his bleeding country "a local habi­tation and a name;" who, instead of che­rishing that sacred flame of enlightened liberty which is connected with the sub­limer powers of the imagination, was the lacquey of the tyrant Robespierre, and the friend of the man of blood, Marat; who, ambitious of recorded disgrace, of immortal ignominy, debased the noblest gift of heaven, genius, and employed his degraded pencil in tracing the hideous features of the monster Marat, while a [Page 75] groaning people were compelled to bow the knee before the image he had set up; and who, at the tribune of the national convention, insulted all common sense and decency by a comparison which, from its audacious absurdity, excites as much ridicule as indignation. "Cato, Aristides, Socrates, Timoleon, Fabricius, and Phocion," exclaims the panegyrist David, "ye whose venerable lives I ad­mire, I have not lived with you—but I have known Marat!" (blessed compen­sation!) "I have admired him like you, and posterity will do him justice!" Yes, David, repose with your idol upon the civic crowns, the palms and laurels won by revolutionary measures, and doubt not that posterity will do ample justice both to you and Marat. Posterity will indeed be spared the task of overthrow­ing his altars, since they are already in the dust; and while the offences of many of our vulgar tyrants will be forgotten [Page 76] with their ignoble names, David's shame will be as durable as his celebrity.

While I am upon the subject of Marat and his friend, I cannot help observing, that nothing appears more strange to us in this country than the opinions which are formed in England of the public characters of France, not by the enemies but by the friends of the French revolu­tion. That Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud should receive no incense of applause from those who perhaps lament that the king's castle of the Bastille was over­thrown, is natural; but when we hear Mr. Sheridan speak in the house of com­mons of the faction of the Gironde, and when we read in Mr. Gilbert Wakefield's answer to Mr. Paine's pamphlet his re­mark upon the Brissotine faction, we are filled with astonishment. They might with as much propriety talk of the fac­tion of Sidney, of Russel, and of Hamp­den. Such observations are blasphemies [Page 77] indeed from the lovers of liberty; they who ought to pronounce with veneration the names of those illustrious martyrs, who, after the most honourable struggles for their country, shed their blood upon the scaffold in its cause, with heroism worthy of the proudest days of Greece or Rome. But though the iron sceptre of revolutionary government has re­strained the groans, the lamentations, of a mourning nation for the fall of its best defenders; and though the slavish pen of the Moniteur, from which Europe re­ceived French intelligence, applauded the assassins of liberty; though Brissot, it was asserted, had filled his coffers with English gold, while his widow was lan­guishing with an infant at her breast, with no other nourishment than bread and water, in one of the dungeons of Robespierre, and at this moment exists with three children "steeped in poverty to the very lips;" yet with becoming pride [Page 78] disdaining to solicit support, till the me­mory of her husband has received, as it shortly will do, some mark of public atonement and public honour; history will do justice to his character—history will judge between Brissot and Robe­spierre, between the Gironde and the Mountain. History will not confound those sanguinary and ambitious men who passed along the revolutionary horizon like baneful meteors, spreading destruc­tion in their course, with those whose ta­lents formed a radiant constellation in the zone of freedom, and diffused benignant beams over the hemisphere till extin­guished by storms and darkness.

Perhaps it will not be displeasing to you to read the following sketch of Bris­sot, traced by Madame Roland, who was intimately acquainted with him, and who was so admirable a judge of character.

"Brissot came to visit us: I know nothing more pleasant than the first in­terview [Page 79] of those who, though connected by correspondence, have never seen each other. We look with earnestness to see if the features of the face bear any resem­blance to the physiognomy of the soul, and if the figure of the person confirms the opinion which we have formed of the mind.

"The simplicity of Brissot's manners, his frankness, his natural negligence, seemed to me in perfect harmony with the austerity of his principles: but I found in him a sort of lightness of mind and character which was not very consist­ent with the seriousness of a philosopher. This disposition always gave me uneasi­ness, and his enemies always took ad­vantage of it. The more I became ac­quainted with him, the greater was my esteem. It is impossible for any one to unite a more perfect disinterestedness to a more ardent zeal for the public service, or feel with so perfect a forgetfulness of [Page 80] his own interest a greater desire of do­ing good. But his writings are more fit­ted than his person to effect it, because they have all the authority which reason, justice and knowledge give to literary works, while his figure, from its want of dignity, inspires no respect. He is the best of human beings; a good husband, a tender father, a faithful friend, a vir­tuous citizen. His conversation is as mild as his character is easy. Confident even to imprudence, gay and sprightly as a youth of fifteen, he was formed to live with the wise, and to be the dupe of the wicked. As a well-informed politician, and studying during his whole life the different relations of society, and the means of procuring the greatest quantity of happiness for the human race, he was well acquainted with the nature of man, and altogether ignorant of the characters of men. He knew that vice existed, but he never could believe him to be a vi­cious [Page 81] man who spoke to him with an open countenance; and when he disco­vered such persons he treated them as fools whom he ought to pity, without taking any precautions against them. He could not hate: his mind, though very susceptible, had not solidity enough for so vigorous a sentiment. His know­ledge was so extensive, that all literary labour was to him extremely easy; and he composed a treatise with the same fa­cility as another would copy a song: an experienced eye therefore will discern in his works, together with an excellent fund of information, the hasty touches of a rapid and sometimes a slight mind. His activity, his good humour, never re­fusing to join in any thing which he thought useful, have given him the air of meddling in every thing; and have sub­jected him to animadversions as an in­triguer by those who were eager to find fault. A curious kind of intriguer in­deed! [Page 82] a man who never thought of him­self, or even the interest of his friends; who is as incapable as he is averse to look after his own concerns; who is no more ashamed of poverty than he is afraid of death, considering both as the usual reward of public virtues.

"I have seen him consecrating the whole of his time to the revolution, without any other motives than wishing to see the triumph of truth, and concurring in the establishment of the public good; working diligently at his Journal, which he might easily have made a good object of speculation, but contenting himself with the moderate share allowed him by his partner. His wife as modest as himself, with much prudence and great strength of mind, formed a more severe judgment of things. She had, since their marriage, continually turned her eyes towards the united states of America, as the place most suited to their [Page 83] taste, and their manners, and where it was easy to live with a very small income.

"Brissot had made a voyage thither, and they were on the point of their departure when the revolution fixed him in France. As he was born at Chartres, and was the school-fellow of Pethion, who is a na­tive of the same city, Brissot formed a still stronger attachment to him in the constituent assembly, where his know­ledge and his labour were of essential service to his friend. He brought us acquainted with him, as well as with many other deputies whom former ac­quaintance or conformity of opinion and zeal for the public good frequently call­ed together to converse on the subject. It was even agreed that they should as­semble four hours a week in the evening at my house, because I was always at home, had good apartments, and was so conveni­ently situated that it was not far from any of those who composed our little circle."

[Page 84] I cannot resist adding to this sketch the copy of a letter addressed by Brissot to Barrere, the day after the latter, from the tribune of the convention, had pro­mised to satiate the people with Brissot's blood.

But let us leave the martyrs of liberty, and return to the polluted festival institu­ted by a tyrant. David, ever ready to fulfil the mandates of his master Robespierre, steps forth, marshals the procession, and, like the herald in Othello, "orders every man to put himself into triumph."

At this spot, by David's command, the mothers are to embrace their daugh­ters—at that, the fathers are to clasp their sons—here, the old are to bless the young, and there, the young are to kneel to the old—upon this boulevard the people are [Page 87] to sing—upon that, they must dance—at noon they must listen in silence, and at sun-set they must rend the air with acclamations.

Ah, what was then become of those ci­vic festivals which hailed the first glories of the revolution! What was become of that sublime federation of an assembled nation which had nobly shaken off its ignominious fetters, and exulted in its new-born freedom! What was become of those moments when no emotions were pre-ordained, no feelings mea­sured out, no acclamations decreed; but when every bosom beat high with admi­ration, when every heart throbbed with enthusiastic transport, when every eye melted into tears, and the vault of hea­ven resounded the bursts of unpremedi­tated applause!

But let us not even now despair of the cause of liberty. Let us not abandon a fair and noble region filled with objects which excite the thrill of tenderness or the [Page 88] glow of admiration, because along the path which France has chosen serpents have lurked beneath the buds of roses, and beasts of prey have issued from the lofty woods: let us discover, if we can, a less tremendous road, but let us not re­nounce the land of promise.

The citizens of Paris had been invited, and the invitation amounted to a com­mand, to decorate their houses in honour of the festival. Accordingly Paris on that morning, lighted up by brilliant sun­shine, presented the most gay and charm­ing spectacle imaginable. Woods had been robbed of their shade, and gar­dens to the extent of some leagues rifled of their sweets, in order to adorn the city. The walls of every house were covered with luxuriant wreaths of oak and laurel, blended with flowers; civic crowns were interwoven with national ribbands; three-coloured flags waved over every portal; and the whole was arran­ged with that light and airy grace which [Page 89] belongs to Parisian fancy. The women wore garlands of fresh-blown roses in their hair, and held branches of palm or laurel in their hands: the men placed oaken boughs in their hats, and children strewed the way with violets and myrtle. The representatives of the people had large three-coloured plumes in their hats, national scarfs thrown across their shoul­ders, and nosegays of blended wheat­ears, fruits, and flowers in their hands, as symbols of their mission.

From this profusion of gay objects, which in happier moments would have excited delightful sensations, the droop­ing soul now turned distasteful. The scent of carnage seemed mingled with these lavish sweets; the glowing festoons appeared tinged with blood; and in the back ground of this festive scenery the guillotine arose before the disturbed ima­gination. I thought of that passage in Mr. Burke's book, "In the groves of [Page 90] their academy, at the end of every vista I see the gallows!" Ah Liberty! best friend of mankind, why have sanguinary monsters profaned thy name, and ful­filled this gloomy prediction!—

A great amphitheatre was raised in the garden of the Thuilleries immediately before the palace, now the seat of the convention. Upon a tribune in the centre of the theatre, Robespierre as president of the convention appeared; and having for a few hours disencum­bered the square of the revolution of the guillotine, this high-priest of Molock, within view of that very spot where his daily sacrifice of human victims was offer­ed up, covered with their blood, invoked the Parent of universal nature, talked of the charms of virtue, and breathed the hope of immortality. When the foul fiend had finished this impious mockery, he descended from the tribune, and walk­ed with great solemnity towards a gro­tesque [Page 91] kind of monument that was rais­ed upon the bason in the front of the palace, which had been covered over for that purpose. On this monument was placed a mishapen and hideous figure, with ass's ears, which for some hours served as an enigma to the gazing crowd, who knew not how to account for this singular appearance; till Robespierre having set fire to this image of deformity, which was declared to be the symbol of atheism, its cumbrous drapery suddenly vanished, and a fair and majestic form was discovered, emblematical of wis­dom and philosophy.

Atheism being thus happily destroyed, the convention, attended by a numerous procession of people, and preceded by triumphal cars and banners, marched to the Champ de Mars, where with much toil and cost a rocky mountain had been reared, upon whose lofty summit the ty­rant and his attendants climbed, and [Page 92] from whence he once more harangued the people; and the festival closed with hymns and choral songs in honour of the Supreme Being.

Robespierre on this day, intoxicated with his power, lost sight of his usual prudence, and displayed all the littleness of his vanity. He caused a line of se­paration to be made between himself and the other deputies of the convention, and marched at some distance before them, like a captain at the head of his band. He had the folly to display his importance by keeping the convention and the assem­bled multitude waiting, and the ceremo­ny suspended for two hours, while he was sought for in vain. During the proces­sion his creatures attempted to raise the cry of "Vive Robespierre!" but it was faintly re-echoed by the spectators, ma­ny of whom followed him with "curses, not loud but deep, which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not."

[Page 93] Two days after this festival in honour of the Supreme Being, Robespierre, the scourge of his creatures, compelled the enslaved convention to pass a law, which permitted the revolutionary jury to con­demn those who were brought before them, from their own internal conviction, without any proof whatever, or hearing any witnesses; and which also suppressed the superfluous office of official defender, or counsel; a privilege that Couthon, who made the report in the name of the com­mittee of public safety, asserted conspira­tors by no means deserved ^*. In other words, the jury were now authorised to pass sentence without even the forms of a trial. From this period, till the fall [Page 94] of Robespierre, all the judicial solemni­ties of the revolutionary tribunal con­sisted in reading over the names of the accused, who were immediately after de­clared by the jury to be guilty of a con­spiracy against the safety of the French people, and the indivisibility of the French republic.

If any of the unhappy persons thus proscribed attempted to speak in their defence, they were thus silenced by the president: "Tu n'a pas la parole ^*;" and if they persisted in declaring their innocence, they were put what was called "hors de debats;" that is, ordered im­mediately out of the court, condemned in their absence, and sent to execution. "I was not in prison when this con­spiracy took place," cried the viscountess de Noailles, madame de la Fayette's sister. "But you would have been in the con­spiracy if you had been there," answered [Page 95] the president; and this unfortunate lady, the mother of three children, perished with her own mother and grandmother. Madame de la Fayette being in another prison was, in the hurry of forming the lists of death, forgotten when her family suffered—and still lives. From this pe­riod the prisons became the scenes of un­exampled horror and despair. Till now, the crowds by which they were inha­bited had submitted to their fate with that cheerful resignation, and often with that careless gaiety which is buoyant at a Frenchman's heart in circumstances that would altogether overwhelm the sinking spirits of the people of other countries. The houses allotted for the prisons of the suspected persons were for the most part hotels of emigrants, which were placed in the most agreeable situations of Paris, with extensive gardens, and commanding beautiful views of the country. Such habitations had nothing [Page 96] of that gloom and darkness which we usually associate with the idea of a prison, and they were peopled with the best so­ciety of Paris.

The ladies were attentive to the duties of the toilette, the gentlemen were polite and assiduous, and the court-yard of the Luxembourg, the con­vent of St. Lazare, and some other pri­sons, exhibited of an evening almost as much brilliancy and gaiety as the Thuil­leries or the Champs Elisées. Music and literature had their amateurs. At the Luxembourg, select circles were formed to hear lectures from men of letters, sometimes on chemistry, sometimes on astronomy. At St. Lazare, ladies sent invitations to dinner from the corridor of Frimaire to the corridor of Floreal, with the same formalities as formerly from their respective hotels. Sometimes cards, sometimes bout-rimés, charades, and epigrams beguiled the evening of its [Page 97] length, and thus the days of captivity rolled on ^*. They were indeed em­bittered by one hour of mournful melan­choly, and one of trembling terror: the first when the evening paper arrived, and the list of the victims of the revo­lutionary tribunal was read over, among whom the prisoners seldom failed to find some friend or acquaintance to lament. But this was a sensation of gentle sadness, compared to that turbulent dismay ex­cited by the hoarse voice of the turnkey sounding at midnight through the long galleries the knell of some devoted vic­tim, who was called upon to rise, in [Page 98] order to be led to the Conciergerie by gendarmes sent for that purpose from the revolutionary tribunal. Still, how­ever, amidst the tears which the prisoners shed over their lost companions, many of them cherished the fond hope that they themselves should escape. But the law of the 22d of Prairial tore away every illusion of the imagination or the heart, and displayed the general proscription of the prisoners in all its extent of horror. It was no longer a solitary individual who was called to death; multitudes were summoned at once. Every returning night, long covered carts drawn by four horses entered successively the court­yards of the different prisons. Whenever the trampling of the horses' feet was heard, the prisoners prepared themselves for their doom. The names of the vic­tims marked for execution the following day were called over, and they were in­stantly hurried into these gloomy hearses. [Page 99] The husband was scarcely allowed time to bid his wife a last farewell, or the mo­ther to recommend her orphan children to the compassion of such of the prisoners as might survive the general calamity. At the prison of the Luxembourg, an hundred and sixty-nine victims were in one night torn from their beds, and led to the grated dungeons of the Conciergerie, that prison over the gates of which might with equal propriety have been written, the same as over that of the infernal region of Dante, " ^*Lasciate speranza voi ch'en­trate;" for here it might literally be said, "hope never came, that comes to all." I have seen the Conciergerie, that abode of horror, that anti-chamber of the tomb. I have seen those infectious cells, where the prisoners breathed contagion, where the walls are in some places stained with the blood of the massacres of September, and where a part of the spacious court­yard, [Page 100] round which the grated dungeons are built, remains unpaved since that pe­riod, when the stones were taken up for the purpose of burying the dead. I have seen the chamber, where the persons condemned by the revolutionary tribunal submitted to the preparatory offices of the executioner; where his scissars cut off the lavish tresses of the youthful beauty, and where he tied her tender hands behind her waist with cords. Merciful Heaven! and among those who have thus suffered were persons to whom my heart was bound by the ties of friendship and af­fection.—But though I have survived such scenes, they have left upon my heart that settled melancholy which never can be dissipated.—For me, the world has lost its illusive colouring; its fairy spells, its light enchantments have vanished; and death, the idea most familiar to my ima­gination, appears to my wearied spirit the only point of rest.

The usual pretext for those murders [Page 101] in mass, which were practised at this pe­riod, was that of a conspiracy in the pri­sons; a vague and wide term which the tyrants might interpret at their pleasure, and which gave them the power of in­cluding whatever persons and whatever numbers they thought proper. Spies were placed in every prison, who, after making out their lists of proscription as they were directed by the tyrants, declared that a conspiracy existed, of which those marked on the lists were the authors, or accom­plices. Persons who had never seen or heard of each other till that moment, were often brought together from different pri­sons to take their trial for the same con­spiracy: and when the decemvirs wished to get rid of any particular individual, he was without any hesitation added to what was called the fournée, the batch; for such was the appellation given to the crowds dragged together to the guillotine, and with such terms of jocular familiarity was [Page 102] mourning humanity insulted. Sometimes the persons accused only received their act of accusation as they were led up to the tribunal. Sometimes in the hurry, confusion, and carelessness with which these indictments were made out, one person was mistaken for another. The duchess of Biron, among other instances, went to the tribunal with an act of accu­sation which was destined for her steward. The indifference of the tribunal with re­spect to such errors, enabled mons. Loi­serolles, at sixty years of age, to deceive his barbarous judges, by dying for his son, a youth in his twenty-first year. It was observed, that this generous parent, who thus a second time gave life to his child, answered with uncommon alacrity when his name was called upon, and went with a look of exultation to the scaffold. Perhaps history does not offer a more af­fecting instance of parental tenderness, making the voluntary sacrifice of life to [Page 103] save the object of its affection. But this extraordinary epocha called forth the lights and shades of the human character in all their strongest colouring. The last excesses of ferocious crimes were con­trasted by the sublime enthusiasm of the virtuous affections, shedding their sweet­ness like solitary flowers over the wilder­ness where serpents hiss, and beasts of the forest howl; and by the noblest efforts of heroical philanthropy bidding us cease to despair of humanity, and converting the throb of indignant horror into the glow of sympathetic admiration;—bid­ding us turn from the tribunal of blood, from Robespierre and his jury of assassins, to Loiserolles dying for his child; to madame Berenger, led in the bloom of life to execution with her parents, and, al­together forgetful of herself, seeking only to support the sinking spirits of her mo­ther;—to madame Bousquet, the sister-in-law of Guadet, scorning the impious [Page 104] laws which punished humanity with death, affording shelter to her proscribed friends, and dying with them on the scaf­fold for having done so.

Among the multitudes who perished at this period, all were not armed with the same fortitude; and sometimes even when tyranny spared the life of its vic­tim, its cruel persecutions bereaved the sufferer of reason. Of this mademoiselle—was a melancholy instance. This unfortunate young lady saw her father, her mother, and several of her relations dragged to the scaffold: she alone was spared, and remained a prisoner at the Conciergerie. Along the gloomy vaults of that terrific prison, by the dim light of sickly lamps, she fancied she saw the mangled spectres of her murdered pa­rents, and in a short time became entirely bereft of reason. She obstinately refused all sustenance, and remained motionless as a statue, holding to her bosom her parrot, [Page 105] whom she had insisted on bringing with her to her dungeon. When conjured by the other prisoners to take some nourish­ment, she only answered, " ^*Je n'ai besoin de rien." "But your parrot," said they, "your poor parrot is hungry." "Non," she constantly replied, "non, il n'a be­soin de rien—Mon paroquet est comme moi—il n'a besoin de rien." The tyrant has fallen, and the dungeon of this un­fortunate young lady is thrown open—but alas! for her, redress and freedom have come too late—her reason is gone for ever!

The Polish princess Lubomirska uni­ted with superior talents all the charms of early youth and distinguished beauty. She had been travelling through different countries of Europe; and two years since was compelled to leave Berne in Switzer­land, on account of the attachment she [Page 106] had avowed to the cause of the French revolution. She came with her husband to Paris, and cultivated the society and friendship of Vergniaud and of other de­puties of the convention, who were the most eminent for their talents and their zeal for liberty. This democratic princess, to whom a true republican would have offered a civic crown, became an object of resentment to the vindictive Robespierre, on account of her friendship for some members of the Gironde: she was thrown into prison, from thence sent to the re­volutionary tribunal, and condemned by the jury of assassins to die. Being in a state of pregnancy, her execution was de­ferred. In the mean time her friends gave information of her danger to Kosciusko, the Polish general, and desired his inter­position in her behalf. Kosciusko instant­ly dispatched a letter to Robespierre, de­claring that the princess Lubomirska had ever shewn the most devoted attachment [Page 107] to the principles of liberty, and conjuring Robespierre to spare the life of a zealous friend to the common cause in which France and Poland were engaged. Ro­bespierre, after reading the letter, ex­claimed, " ^*Quoi! grace pour une prin­cesse!—Ah, Kosciusko!—qu'on la guil­lotine." The unhappy princess, having miscarried, was immediately sent to exe­cution.—Two days before the fall of Robespierre, eight women who had been respited having declared themselves preg­nant, were dragged to the scaffold. Among this number was the princess of Monaco. As she passed along the court of the pri­son, she said to the prisoners who were assembled to see the sad procession, and bid a last farewell to the companions of their misfortunes, "I go to death with the calm­ness which innocence inspires, and wish you from my soul a better fate." Then ad­dressing [Page 108] herself to one of the turnkeys who was leading her towards the cham­ber where the executioner waited to bind the victims, "I have one favour to ask you," said she, taking a pacquet from her bosom, "will you promise to grant it? This pacquet contains my hair: I im­plore your compassion, I conjure you in my own name, in the name of all who hear me, send it to my son, to whom it is directed; swear to me in the presence of those virtuous persons, whom the same destiny as mine awaits, that you will render me this last service which I re­quire of humanity." The dismay and ter­ror of one of her women who was involved in the proscription, formed a striking contrast to the firmness she herself dis­played. "Take courage, my dear friend," cried the princess, "take courage, it is the guilty only who ought to fear."—The prison of Port Libre offered an af­fecting spectacle of filial piety. Madame [Page 109] Lachabeaussiere, in consequence of a ma­lignant denunciation made against her by her son-in-law, was not only dragged to prison, but placed in a dungeon in close confinement till the moment arrived when she was to appear before the tribunal. Her daughter, madame Malessi, who was already confined in another prison, pro­cured leave to be transferred to that where her mother was immured, whom by tears and supplications she obtained permission to see. Madame Lachabeaus­siere was taken out of her dungeon, and led to her daughter, who flew towards her, and, throwing her arms round her neck, remained a long time pressing her mother to her bosom, and without power to articulate a word. After this melan­choly interview, madame Lachabeaussiere was led back to her dungeon. Her situ­ation affected her daughter so deeply that she became bereft of her reason. Some­times she took up her needle-work for a [Page 110] few moments; then throwing it aside, rose with precipitation, and flew along the galleries of the prison till she reached her mother's cell. She usually seated herself at the door, and listened attentively: when she could hear nothing, she used to weep bitterly, and repeat again and again in a tone of despair, "Oh, my mother! Oh, my tender, my unfortunate mother!" She often remained many hours together, seat­ed upon the stone-floor, and she was in a state of pregnancy. Her hair hung dishe­velled over her shoulders, her eye seemed bent on vacancy, her cheeks were some­times flushed with deep red, and some­times of a deadly paleness, and she was often seized with convulsive faintings. Every day she carried the greatest por­tion of her food to her mother, who without this succour would have often wanted sufficient nourishment for her sup­port. It is soothing to add, that madame Lachabeaussiere was snatched from death [Page 111] by the fall of the tyrant, and that her tender and virtuous daughter is restored to reason.

While the tyrants, far from finding any satiety of blood in their daily murders, were erecting new ranges of seats in the hall of the revolutionary tribunal, suffi­cient to contain an hundred instead of fifty accused persons, death now hovered in a new form over the prisons. The administrators of the police went to each prison attended by a strong guard, and ordered the prisoners to be shut up in their respective chambers, and not suf­fered to have any communication till the purpose of the visit was effected. They then went successively to every apart­ment, and demanded of the prisoners their knives, scissars, razors, buckles, watches, and all the money they had in their possession. These unhappy persons, being altogether ignorant of the object of the visit, had no time to conceal any thing, [Page 112] and were stripped of all they had except fifty livres in paper, which each prisoner was suffered to retain in order to pay for his subsistance. But from this day fa­mine scowled along these gloomy man­sions, adding to the pangs of mental suf­ferings those of debility and disease. The prisoners were no longer permitted to receive their daily meals from their own houses, or from a tavern; but were ordered from henceforth, in conformity to the laws of equality, to eat à la ga­melle ^*. Their food was provided for them at the rate of fifty sous a day, by a cook placed in the prison. Their nou­rishment consisted of one meal in twenty-four hours, often too scanty to satisfy the calls of hunger, and sometimes com­posed of such nauseous diet as the great­er part of the prisoners were unable to eat.

[Page 113] Age and infirmity were denied every indulgence necessary to support the dis­ordered frame, or raise the sinking spirits. A little bread saved from this wretched meal, and water, was all that could be ob­tained during the rest of the day ^*. To this meal the prisoners at the Luxem­bourg, where nine hundred persons were confined, were summoned in a succession of three hundred at a time, by a great bell, which called them to a hall, at the door of which stood the jailor, who had been an executioner under Collot d'Her­bois [Page 114] at Lyons ^*. This man was re­markably tall, big, and muscular; his arms were bare to the elbow; he wore a fierce red cap, which had now become the symbol of blood, and looked as if he were prepared for a massacre. He only suffered twenty persons at a time to enter the hall, and then flinging the door in the faces of the others, obliged them to remain in the passages till those within were seated at the table. The hour of dinner passed like the other hours of the day, in gloomy and unbroken silence; for even the soothing intercourse of conversation was now forbidden, under the penalty of be­ing dragged immediately before the tri­bunal, since the spies placed in the pri­sons, whenever they observed two or [Page 115] three persons talking together, inquired sternly if they were forming a conspiracy. What most occupied the minds of the pri­soners at this period was contriving the means of escaping from their tyrants by a voluntary death, which was now be­come difficult, since they had ben strip­ped of every instrument which could have served that purpose. Such was the situa­tion of these unhappy victims of tyran­ny, when on the night of the 9th of Thermidor the tocsin sounded, and the city was called to arms. Many circum­stances which I shall afterwards relate, led the prisoners to believe that these sounds were the signal of a general mas­sacre. But the tocsin now rung the joy­ful, the triumphant peal of liberty. Be­fore I give you a detail of the scenes which passed on the 9th of Thermidor, I must trace the political events which led to that memorable epocha, and rescued France from a state which was the as­tonishment [Page 116] and shame of human nature; from a state more terrible than all which the most cunning tyrant could have in­flicted upon slaves whom he had previ­ously disarmed. And all this was suf­fered by a nation which called itself free, which had taken up arms to assert its freedom, and gained the most glorious victories in its defence. France, covered with all the laurels of heroic valour, and the terror of combined Europe, held out her neck to vulgar assassins and execu­tioners, instead of crumbling them into dust.—Such are the strange contradic­tions of human nature! The effects re­sulting from the terrible impulse of re­volutionary government upon the moral world, may perhaps be compared to those produced upon the natural scene by the tremendous tempests which some­times sweep along the western islands; when the mingled elements rush forth in irresistible fury, when the deluging wa­ters [Page 117] bear away vegetation, trees, and rocks, and the shrieking whirlwinds shake the dwellings of man to their foundations.—The storm is past—the enormous vapours have rolled away—a soft light hovers on the horizon, and we are now left at leisure to sigh over the ruins that surround us, and lament the victims laid prostrate by the blast. But let us hope that this stormy revolu­tion will at least produce some portion of felicity to succeeding generations, who have not, like us, felt the tumultuous horrors of this convulsion of the passions, who will owe their happiness to the struggles of a race that is passed away, and whom they have never known; while we, who have been spectators of the cruel conflict—we, who have lost the friends we loved and honoured, are often unable, amidst the tears we shed over their tombs, to consider "all partial evil as universal good."

THE surrender of Lyons, which took place some days previous to the murder of the deputies of the Gironde, contri­buted to hasten the execution of that atrocious deed. The Lyonnais had long struggled against the commissaries of the mountain faction, who, under the pre­tence of an ardent zeal for liberty, were diligent in seeking opportunities for riot and plunder; and however strongly this detachment of conspirators were support­ed by those who directed their motions from Paris, they could not withstand the indignation and vengeance of the citizens of Lyons, who, roused by the dangers with which they were threatened, crushed their oppressors, the chief of whom, Cha­lier, they sent to the scaffold. The Lyonnais [Page 151] had proceeded too far to hope for any mercy from the faction, who had now accomplished their treason at Paris: and seeing the cause of liberty abandoned by the departments, who had made their peace with the traitors, they were driven either to suffer patiently the weight of their wrath, or prepare to oppose it. Of this dreadful alternative they chose the latter; but finding themselves unsupport­ed in the project they had at first formed of marching to Paris, they determined to defend their own city. In the mean time they employed the most honourable means to explain to the convention, that their resistance arose neither from disaffection to the republic, nor from any wish to form a federal government, of which they had been accused; that they had sworn fidelity to the republican constitu­tion, and had issued orders to assem­ble the primary assemblies for its ac­ceptance. But resistance for any cause [Page 152] was now a crime, and this concession of the Lyonnais only served to increase the insolence of their oppressors, who decreed that the city was in a state of rebellion, and that all who had resorted thither from the neighbouring departments should be treated as emigrants: for the conspirators easily perceived that this city might form a central point of opposition, by col­lecting together all those persons in the southern provinces who were averse to the revolutionary order of things. An army was immediately levied, and ordered to march against Lyons; and it was be­lieved that when the Lyonnais were in­formed that the affair was about to be­come so serious, they would make no far­ther opposition.

The general who commanded the con­ventional army, endeavoured by proclama­tions to concilia [...] the parties, but in vain. His proposals of pardon were rejected by those who thought themselves injured, [Page 153] and who knew by fatal experience what degree of confidence was to be placed in the offer of tender mercies from the cruel. The Lyonnais were allowed three hours to deliberate on the gracious propositions of the general, but a discharge of cannon returned their answer before the first had expired; and though new proclamations were issued, and on the anniversary of the 10th of August both parties sent deputa­tions to celebrate that event together, the Lyonnais continued their warlike oppo­sition, and prepared to make an obstinate resistance.

In the mean time the department of Mont-Blanc, formerly Savoy, was reco­vered by the Piedmontese, who took ad­vantage of the absence of the army which had been called off for the purpose of reducing Lyons; and the representatives who conducted the operations of the siege wrote to the convention to repeal the de­cree which the conspirators in their wrath [Page 154] had poured out against that city. The Lyonnais were as deaf to these concessions as they had been to the proclamations of the generals, who now proceeded to ex­tremities, and began the bombardment of the city, which was set on fire in se­veral places, and a great number of the inhabitants perished. Other proclama­tions followed this act of hostility, which met with the same reception. The black flag continued floating on the towers, in­dicating resistance till death; and though the city, being unfortified, had nothing to defend it but the bravery of its inhabi­tants, no impression could be made ex­cept by bombardment. The conspirators therefore sent their emissaries into the ad­joining departments to raise the people in mass; and, if any credit is to be given to the reports of those who were employed, the besieging army was re-inforced by other armies amounting to fifty thousand men. With this re-inforcement the attack be­gan [Page 155] afresh, the city was surrounded, all communication cut off, and the conven­tion was informed that famine would soon effect what the obstinacy of the Lyonnais had hitherto prevented. Du­ring three months these brave republi­cans contended against the numerous ar­mies that the conspirators had assembled; and had not their ardour been checked by their commanders, they would all have witnessed against the cowardice and base­ness of their countrymen, by whom they were left unsupported, with the last drop of their blood. After having performed prodigies of valour, till they were over­powered by numbers, and resistance be­came no longer possible, they endeavour­ed to effect their retreat, by forcing their way through the besiegers; for accord­ing to the dispatches sent to the conven­tion they were entirely surrounded. In this retreat some succeeded; but a great part were cut to pieces, and the con­ventional [Page 156] army entered the city in tri­umph.

With the savage joy of the famished cannibal, when he seizes on some ship­wrecked wretch whom the waves have unkindly spared from the fate of his com­panions, the mountain conspirators heard of the reduction of Lyons. The com­mittee of public safety, through the organ of Barrere, in congratulating the conven­tion on the news, informed them that measures were taken to exterminate every fugitive; that no weakness, no mercy should be shewn; and that this den of conspirators must make ample reparation, and that this reparation must consist in burying this rebel city under its own ruins. And lest this moment of wrath should be transient, lest the indignation which had filled their capacious souls should evaporate, these guardians of the public weal methodized their vengeance by a decree, which the convention sanc­tioned, [Page 157] that Lyons should be razed to the ground, and struck out of the cities of the republic. This "great and vigor­ous measure, the total destruction of the city, was the only one that had escaped us," the deputies in mission at this devoted place echo to their colleagues of the com­mittee. They had already created mili­tary tribunals to judge the inhabitants; but complete extermination had not been within the reach of their comprehension: and lest this example of vengeance should be lost to the world by some misplaced hesitation, by some sentiment of weak hu­manity, the committee dispatched one of its own members to direct and superin­tend the execution.

What had hitherto passed was scarcely the beginning of horrors. Collot d'Her­bois, a comedian, who had been driven from the stage for his professional inca­pacity, but who had acted a considerable part in the conspiracy, was gone thither [Page 158] to give tragedy some original strokes. "Alas," says the eloquent reporter on the correspondence of Robespierre and the extent of his enormities, "the terrible in­strument of death, erected only for the punishment of crimes, springs up like poisonous plants over every part of the republic. It becomes naturalised under the opposite skies of the north and the south: the frozen bear and the devour­ing dog-star alike mourn over its fatal successes.

"O! come; let us penetrate together, my fellow-citizens, across those fiery tor­rents, under those ruined walls which seem crumbling down to threaten us with ruin; let us pass into those cities hereto­fore filled with people, now widowed of their inhabitants; into those new deserts more frightful than those of Paran or Horeb. See them, like the hyena growl­ing fiercely over its prey!—Do you not perceive them like destroying demons [Page 159] rushing with their devouring torches over every monument of genius or of art? These new Gengis, who have conquered neither Persia, nor Egypt, nor Lybia, are anxious to make Frenchmen of the 18th century a race of barbarians, reduced not to the practice, but to the simple reading of the rights of man, as the Saracens were here­tofore instructed in the knowledge of the Koran.

"Look for a moment with us, on these vile dilapidations of the treasures of Pto­lemy Philadelphus; observe those evil principles, those Arimanes, who have been disputing with each other for twelve months past the palpitating limbs of our dismembered country! What were they, and what are they now, those founders of committees of demolition, those creators of ruins?—Vile slaves, trembling in the presence of the mighty.

"It is the conspiracy of folly and of crimes united against genius and virtue. [Page 160] It is the insurrection of robbery against the precept of mine and thine. It is the reign of private vengeance and the most abject passions.

"O Lyons! city celebrated for thy commerce, who is this new Gengis ^*, who, with the axe and the thunder in his hand, pours down on thy walls, and rushes on to avenge the injuries of Themugin? It is finished, and thy ruin is sworn!"

It is unnecessary to ask of the unfortunate inhabitants, as I have sometimes done, the history of their woes—their tyrants blazon themselves their crimes to the open day, and invite you to read the black cata­logue of their enormities. "In destroy­ing a rebel city," says Collot, "we shall [Page 161] consolidate the rest. We must leave no­thing but ashes. We demolish with can­non balls, and with explosions like those of mines." When such were his principles, his projects, and his exploits, it would be trifling to stop to talk of individual distresses—to relate how he ordered three ladies, who had thrown themselves at his feet to implore his mercy, to be tied for six hours to the scaffold where their hus­bands were to be executed; or to speak of the execution of a young heroine, who had shewn prodigies of valour during the siege. These were only interludes in this great tragedy, one of whose languish­ing actors in his existing correspondence writes, that since the guillotine has been at work, his health has been established; that every thing goes well, and is ex­pected to go better; "since it is found," continues he, "that the guillotine is not sufficiently expeditious, and in a few days three or four hundred will be dispatched [Page 162] at a time; and the houses are fast demo­lishing."

This was no empty menace—the tra­gedian executed what this savage had promised.—"The guillotine and fusillade do not go amiss," says he; "sixty, eighty, two hundred at once are shot, and every day care is taken to arrest a sufficient number, so as not to leave the prisons empty." But still these were ordinary means. This new Salmoneus was not contented with the insignia of the god, he panted to imitate his destroying power; and accordingly some of the miserable inhabitants were placed before batteries of cannon; and while they were shattered and torn in pieces by the artillery, though the greater part were left to be dispatched the following day by the spades of those who came to bury them, Collot amused him­self in beholding the operation.

During this waste of life, that of the property of the unfortunate victims was [Page 163] not more respected. "It costs four hun­dred thousand livres each decade for de­molitions," writes one of these demons, who talks of re-colonizing the country. "More heads every day, more heads are falling. What ecstacies thou wouldst have felt," adds the monster to his correspond­ent, "if thou hadst seen this national jus­tice executed on two hundred and nine rascals! What cement for the republic! We have knocked off five hundred; and when we have dispatched twice as many, which we shall do, things will go for­ward."

Where then, it might be asked, was the convention, while these horrors were exe­cuting? Where? Alas! this convention, sent by a free people to consolidate their liberty, was in chains. Had it been less enslaved, the decree, that Lyons should no longer exist, would have justified the executioners.—Collot was not willing that this decree of devastation should remain [Page 164] a figure of rhetoric—he says so: "The revolutionary army arrives the day after to-morrow, and then," continues he, "I shall be able to perform great things. These conspirators must soon be dispatch­ed—Lyons must exist no longer—and the inscription thou hast proposed," for this letter is addressed to Robespierre, "con­tains a great truth, for hitherto the de­cree has been but an hypothesis. It will be your business to make it what it ought to be, and we will prepare the amend­ments before hand."

This was the private correspondence of the monster with Robespierre. But let us not conceal his language to the conven­tion itself. "We are hardened," says he, "against the tears of repentance—Indul­gence is a dangerous weakness—The de­molitions are too slow—We must employ means more adapted to republican impa­tience. The explosion of the mine, the devouring activity of the flame alone can [Page 165] express the omnipotence of the people: its will cannot be impeded like that of tyrants; it ought to have the effect of thunder." And what answer does the con­vention return to its colleague?—The wretch for a whole year after retained a seat in the assembly.—It was the plan of Collot to banish those whom he did not destroy; for he found it difficult to carry his purpose into full execution; and after having murdered a part, and exiled the rest, he discovered that he had fulfilled his commission, and should be able on his return to say with truth, that Lyons ex­isted no longer.

"What ideas! what fury!" exclaims the reporter: "it seems as if the moral world was fallen back into chaos. And these are legislators! Alas! if the Erebus of the antients had had its legislation also, it would undoubtedly have been more consistent and more humane."

We are at first tempted to believe, in [Page 166] passing in review these ferocious charac­ters, that all the monsters of the desert had quitted their dens to rush in on our cities; or rather, to adopt more natural ideas, we cannot help discovering the end of these horrible levellers, which was the de­struction of commerce, and the establish­ment not of an equality of happiness, but of an equality of misery, throughout the republic.

It will scarcely be thought possible, yet it is very generally believed, that Col­lot was led to this vengeance on the peo­ple of Lyons for having hissed him when he acted on their stage. Thousands of victims have atoned for the insult offered to a wretched comedian; and this great city, which from the time of Augustus had been the centre of the commerce of Gaul, where he lavished his favours, and for three ages received the tribute of grati­tude in the honours that were rendered him, had now fallen under the stroke of [Page 167] the most vulgar of tyrants. Had these monsters looked for precedents for their cruelties, they might have found them in their prototype Caligula, for in this very city that tyrant once resided: and the re­semblance of Caligula and Collot is so far striking, that they both exercised their despotism over the same class of citizens; though the motives of Caligula appear to have been more natural than those of Collot, and his cruelty more discrimi­nate.

While this tragic ruffian was acting his part at Lyons, others with principles as atrocious, though they were less steeped in blood, were carrying desolation into other parts of France. Bourdeaux, which had been raising itself to the height of the revolution, was now a prey to the caprice of a young monster who had not yet counted twenty years, and who was the valet of Robespierre in the commis­sion of crimes. The republican patriots [Page 168] having long since fallen under the pro­scription, Julien's instructions and plan seem to have been the establishment of sansculottism over the aristocracies of com­merce, of muscadinism, and of wealth. His correspondence is as silly as it is atro­cious, and of its atrocity we may judge when he condemns the measures of blood already taken as being moderate and al­most counter-revolutionary. It appears that he was one of the first who had de­nounced the enormities of Carrier; but ages of punishment or repentance will not atone for the murder of Salles and Guadet, who were executed at Bourdeaux during Julien's administration, together with Guadet's father, mother, sister and her husband, the husband's brother, and one of his aunts; in short, the whole family, excepting Guadet's wife, whose murder was delayed till she recovered from a se­vere indisposition, which happily lasted till the tyrants fell.

NO class of men were more interested in the preservation of the abuses of the an­cient government than the priests. When the constituent assembly lessened the in­fluence of the higher clergy, by stripping the church of its domains, and making the salaries of its ministers more equal, the national wealth was not only increas­ed, but the great mass of the priest­hood were satisfied with the distribution. The majority of those who had hitherto directed the machine of the revolution were fully persuaded that the priesthood shared but little in its spirit; and, know­ing that whatever does not keep pace with its career, retards its progress, had sought at different times to dissolve the [Page 170] alliance of the church and state alto­gether. They felt indeed that the article in the declaration of rights, which says "that no one shall be disturbed in his religious opinions," must be eventually subversive of the established religion; since whoever believed it to be not only unnecessary and expensive, but hostile to the great principles of liberty, would murmur at contributing to its support.

A considerable part of the clergy re­fused to accede to the civil constitution which the constituent assembly had form­ed, alleging that in matters of religion, or in the regulations of the church, no one ought to guide their faith, or receive their obedience, but the personage who, in constant succession from the great author of christianity, had held the dele­gated power. This class had by their non-conformity lost their employment, but they were not the less cherished on that account by those who thought [Page 171] with themselves, that man was made for the sabbath, and not the sabbath for man. The zeal of these non-jurors for the faith which they contended was once delivered to the saints, was too ardent to suffer this humiliation of the church in silence; nor was the vigilance of the friends of the re­volution less awake to counteract their ef­forts. The majesty of the church, of which they believed themselves to be the only true supporters, would not permit them to bow before the majesty of the people; and when the legislative assembly under­took to be the interpreters of the law, and enacted decrees for the banishment of the unconstitutional clergy, they sought refuge in the majesty of the throne, the cherished ally hi herto of the church, whose power was at this time scarcely more confirmed than its own.

The protection given by the court to the non-juring clergy hastened the ruin [Page 172] of both ^*. The king refused at first to sanction the decree of the legislative as­sembly, who however at length prevail­ed: and when the royal power was an­nihilated, which happened not long after, the priests were compelled to seek asy­lums of charity, in foreign countries, of those whose ancestors had fled from the bloody persecutions of their order, but whose injuries the sons had forgotten; or if still remembered, they perhaps an­swered as Guise did to Poltrot, "If your religion enjoins you to murder, ours compels us to forgive."

The disposition of the national con­vention was still more unfavourable than that of the legislative assembly to the [Page 173] civil establishment of the clergy. The truth is, that the enlightened part of the country had considered religion as a per­sonal thing. Those who believed, of which the number was not very great, thought the protection of the state no addition to its dignity; and those who disbelieved, or, which was the same, con­founded the doctrines of christianity and the established church, thought that its alliance was not only burdensome, but pernicious. The great divisions of the contending parties for the government gave the priesthood respite. But no sooner was this question decided, and the reign of Robespierre established, than the men of reason, as they called themselves, re­newed the attack against the men of the church, who were unable to make any farther resistance.

The constitutional clergy had no pro­tection but that which was given them by the constitution now proscribed, and [Page 174] had inspired no interest in the devotees, who considered them rather as apostates from religion, than defenders of the faith; and treacherous guides in the road of salvation, on account of their compliance with the law.

A strict adherence to the ceremonies and doctrines of the Romish church was not the only superstition that darkened France. There was another of a more terrible nature, and more destructive of social order, which was atheism. Vol­taire has observed, that a reasoning atheist is a greater scourge to mankind, than the most sanguinary fanatic. The com­mune of Paris had assumed this charac­ter; and, having twice contributed to overturn the civil government of the country in the space of a few months, imagined that the kingdom of the next world was to be taken by force as well as the kingdom of the present. This formidable project was conceived, and [Page 175] brought to maturity in modest silence. The good people of Paris, who had troubled themselves but little about re­ligion, but who imagined that there might be something good in it, as there is in the worst of vocations, were ex­tremely surprised to see the archbishop of Paris, with his clergy, present themselves at the bar of the convention, attended by the constituted powers of the department and the municipality, "to be regene­rated;" that is, to abjure their former belief, and make their new confession of faith, in which they declared that there was no other duty than liberty, no other gospel than the republican constitution, and no other worship than equality. This illumination was not the result of the deep studies either of the archbishop or his vicars. The secret was imparted to him by Chaumette, the procureur of the commune, to whom it was discovered by one Clootz, commonly called Ana­charsis, [Page 176] a Prussian by birth, [...] an atheist by profession, whose history I have already related. Clootz had writ­ten a book, which he told the conven­tion on presenting it was the fruit of fifteen hours labour every day during the course of four years. He also in­structed them that this work, singular in its method and curious in its detail, over­turned at one stroke all fects, antient or modern, of natural or revealed religion.—Of this work, which "proved the nothingness of all religion," the conven­tion decreed the acceptance, and honour­able mention; and, thus armed, Ana­charsis set out on his travels to convert the world to atheism. There was some­thing masterly in his first attempt; and had he been satisfied with the conversion of the archbishop and the commune, whom he brought to the bar of the con­vention, he might have enjoyed his tri­umph in security; but when he attempt­ed [Page 177] to proselyte the convention itself, Robespierre opposed the invader with his doctrine of the Supreme Being, and Anacharsis was sent to the prison of the Luxembourg. There a friend of mine found him in daily controversy with Thomas Paine, who had just written "The Age of Reason," for his credulity in still indulging so many religious and political prejudices. Soon after, this vain enthusiast was sent by his polemic antagonist Robespierre to the guillotine, where many of his converts in succession followed him, and among his pupils was the archbishop.

Many of the bishops and priests who were deputies in the assembly, and some of the ministers of the protestant faith, animated by the example of the arch­bishop, made their public recantation. Of this last sect one observed that, though his system of faith inculcated, more than any other, moral obligations, yet, as the [Page 178] great day of judgment was arrived, the reign of reason, the triumph of philoso­phy, he must divest himself of his sacer­dotal character, and become regenerated also, since, as he confessed, "tous les prêtres dans tous les cultes ont toujours un peu de charlatanisme ^*."

The ingenuousness in the members of one profession provoked the same candour in those of another. The priests having confessed that there was a little quackery in their administration of the next world, the physicians crowded to the bar of the commune, to acknowledge that they had been "un peu prêtres" also, and that a little spice of mountebank dealing en­tered into their administration of this. Admitting that nature and reason were the best remedies, they made offerings of their diplomas by which they had been [Page 179] authorised to cure secundum artem, in direct contradiction to both; and this virtuous dereliction of their former prac­tice was rewarded with applauses and civic insertion.

Reformation, as well as terror, was the order of the day: the searching eye of the commune left nothing unexplored. To the epuration of the priests and phy­sicians succeeded that of the comedians, who had no professional sins to confess, since they had acted their parts on the stage of the world without any disguise. However, the commune thought that those who had been in the habitude of personating princes, and nobles, and queens, and countesses, could little relish habits of equality, and therefore sent to prison both actors and actresses as sus­pected.

The spirit of reform did not stop at the consecration of the spoils of the church to the services of the state. It [Page 180] seized on those privileges which in all countries, and under every establishment of religion, have been accorded with the common consent of mankind, and on the exercise of which much of the order and happiness of the world has been thought to depend. On our entrance into the world it is the priest who confers on us our moral existence; in riper days it is he who hallows our affections; and with­out his dismission we have been taught to think that our road to heaven was not altogether secure. Of the two first of these functions, the legislative assembly had taken possession—the fathers brought their children to be regenerated at the municipal font, and the lover led his blushing mistress before the altar of Hy­men, and received her from the hand of the civil officer, who pronounced their union "in the name of the law." The care of disposing of the citizens at death yet remained to the church, and the fu­nerals [Page 181] continued to darken the way in long processions, till the commune seized on this last prerogative of the clergy, and decreed, that gay revolutionary colours of the nation should take place of the funereal pall—the priests should be changed into municipal officers, and the cemetery should be called the place of repose, where, instead of the hope of be­ing troubled with a resurrection, the ci­tizen should have the privilege of sleep­ing for ever.

The church of Notre Dame was changed into the temple of Reason; and the commune, with the divinity herself, attended by a splendid train, came to request the convention to sanctify with their presence the consecration. The Goddess of Reason was a fine blooming damsel of the opera-house, and acted her part in this comedy also to the entire satisfaction of her new votaries. From her imperial throne, in which she was [Page 182] borne by four porters, she descended to the right hand of the president of the conven­tion, and by a decree received the fraternal kiss, as soon as the procureur of the com­mune, who attended as high priest, or master of the ceremonies, had announced her negative and positive character; "first, that she was not, like the objects of the ancient worship, a cold and inanimate image; and next, that she was a master­piece of nature; and that her sacred form had so enflamed every heart, that only one universal cry was heard, "No more priests, and no other gods!"

When the deputies arrived at the temple, the Goddess of Reason introduced them to the Goddess of Liberty, who came out of the house of Philosophy, to receive their homage, and bestow her benediction. The enemies of the revo­lution encouraged these follies, which the patriot disavowed and lamented: and the philosopher would only have smiled at [Page 183] these transient puerilities, had they not been mixed with atrocity and crimes. Alas! the respect for Reason was as fleeting as the respect for other strange gods; for her altars were soon deserted, and her high priests, and the divinity her­self, were soon after conducted amidst the applauses of the people to the guillotine. Immediately after the regeneration of the metropolitan, those who felt the same conviction of its necessity made con­fession of their sins, and applied for the conventional blessing. This conviction nevertheless was far from being general in either profession; for though the con­stitutional clergy were attached to the cause of liberty, and rejoiced in the re­generation of their country, they did not imagine that the belief of reward in a future state would make a less virtuous citizen of the present. This counter-revolutionary obstinacy was held in great indignation. Though the commune had [Page 184] called on Reason, like the priests of Baal, "from morning until noon," the votaries at her shrine were few and soli­tary, and it became necessary for the honour of the goddess, that more revo­lutionary measures should be pursued. Accordingly, attended by the committees of the sections, and the popular societies of Paris, the municipality appeared a second time at the bar of the convention, where, after a philippic against the unre­canting clergy, they demanded the sup­pression of their salaries, and that those who believed in "the tales of augurs should pay them." The convention, who probably had as little faith in augurs as the commune, had however more charity, and deferred the sentence of famine, which the municipality had decreed. The commune, though it did not suc­ceed in the attack on the priesthood, was more successful in its attacks on the church. The word of order was [Page 185] issued, and the streets of Paris were filled with mock religious processions. The most ludicrous masquerades presented themselves in every quarter; pioneers and artillery-men led the march, clothed in the surplices of the inferior clergy; the national guard were arrayed in the habits of the priests; the revolutionary citizens of the section were vested in garments still more costly; the revolutionary ladies and the priestesses of Reason had sancti­fied themselves with the dresses belonging to the Virgin, and St. Frances and St. Bridget; and the revolutionary committee had reserved for their own decoration, with great prudence, all the garments of fine gold, embroidery and jewels, while the caps of the priests and the mitres were placed on the heads of the horses employed in dragging these weighty spoils, which were to be presented to the con­vention. These offerings consisted of [Page 186] crosses, suns, vases, chandeliers, and chases, apostles and saints in gold and silver, St. Anthony and his pig, St. Roche and his dog, and all the other saints re­gistered in the calendar who were found to be of the same metallic worth. From the convention, after undergoing the sen­tence of condemnation for aristocratical and counter-revolutionary principles, they were sent to be regenerated at the mint, and make expiation for the long series of impositions they had been practising on the world, by becoming, under a new form, the protectors of liberty and the republic.

The wooden saints, who in moral and religious estimation were equal, and often­times superior, in paradisaical rank to their brethren, though their consideration in these moments of irreligious phrensy was infinitely less, were committed, with­out remorse, to the flames at the place of [Page 187] execution. And into the same unhallowed fire were thrown those inestimable trea­sures which had been for ages the consolation of the suffering believer, and the refuge of the faithful and pious. Amid the sacrilegious pile lay three eyes of the evangelists; a blue jacket, be­daubed with paint, taken from the ward­robe of St. Luke; a piece of ragged tent cloth, that had been purchased from the warehouse of St. Paul, and his cloak, which had been left with Carpus; a few of the coats and garments of St. Dorcas, which the weeping widows had shewn to St. Peter; all which, with other relics still more precious, such as some of the moveables belonging to the holy Virgin, with parts of her apparel; the spoon and pap-dish of the holy child; the head of some renowned saint of St. Genevieve's acquaintance; the bones of the patroness of Paris herself, with her linen, and other property found in her [Page 188] chapel ^*, of which age had obliterated the knowledge, with arms, legs, toes, and little fingers of illustrious martyrs, became the prey of revolutionary flames, kindled with bundles of the real wood of the cross.

But these civic sacrifices were not con­fined to the worshippers of the established system; the sectaries also burnt with the same patriotic zeal; the followers of Mo­ses and of Calvin applauded these votive [Page 189] offerings of their catholic brethren. They beheld with secret satisfaction the down­fall of a power, of which they had been for ages the victims, while they deposited the precious ornaments and utensils of their own worship, but without compli­menting the state with the abjuration of their religious belief. In this madness against superstition some method was observed. Almost every monument that bore the marks of genius, every relic that could contribute to the progress of the arts, was preserved with care, and de­posited in places of safety. Many a saint owes his rescue from destruction to the chisel of the sculptor or the painter's skill; and except in a few of the depart­ments, nothing was destroyed that was worth preserving.

The great depository at St. Denis nevertheless suffered from this reforming rage. The crowns of Dagobert and Clovis; the sceptres of Philip the beautiful, and [Page 190] Henry the fowler; the silver helmet and golden spurs of Charlemagne; and the rich variety of treasure arising from the munificence of sovereigns to the tutelary saint of France, were mingled together in the crucible of the mint. The bodies of these monarchs and heroes were not treated with equal respect; for, as the edict had gone forth against every vestige of royalty, and every mark or remnant of aristocracy, the tombs in which they had been for ages quietly inurned were forced to open their ponderous jaws; and those furious Jacobins, worse than "the hellish rout that tore the Thracian bard in Rhodope," had the satisfaction to see the bones and ashes of the long line of their Charles's, Henries, and Louis; of their Condés, Montmorencies, and Turennes, before wh se lowest valets they would have trembled in submissive [...] become the prey of famished dogs, and the sport of the winds.

[Page 191] One of the pretences for this violation of the dead, which was general around Paris, and in some of the neighbouring departments, was the want of the cof­fins that enclosed them to make bullets for the use of the army. The cemete­ries were therefore called the revolu­tionary lead-mines. If the ramblings of imagination might be indulged amidst the horror which this sort of plunder in­spired, we might pursue these revolu­tionary instruments of death to their destination, and see many an emigrant laid prostrate with the former covering of his parents' dust. On many a coun­tenance doomed to long night, the sun once again shone, and many met its be [...]ms, whose features preserved all their original force and character. Among others, madame Sevigné was found en­tire, with the unfading bloom of healthy and virtuous old age: but as the edict against aristocracy and privileges com­prehended [Page 192] talents as well as birth, the wise as well as the mighty suffered in the general proscription against lead coffins; except Descartes, whose bones were put into a basket, and carried to the Pantheon, where he is fated to repose with the "immortal and divine Marat."

WHILE Paris was delivered up to the most execrable factions, of which I shall hereafter give you a detail, the western departments became the theatre of calamities infinitely more tremendous. The struggles which took place previ­ously to the 31st of May between the republicans and the conspirators, toge­ther with the defeat of the northern ar­mies, and the defection of Dumourier, had diverted the attention of government from the dangers by which they were menaced in the Vendée. Of this war we yet know but little, and what we do know is only the history written by the party which persecuted.

Of all the evils which infest mankind, [Page 194] those occasioned by war are the most de­structive. The hurricane, the earthquake, and the volcano, those convulsions in nature which shake the earth to its basis, and seem to threaten it with annihilation, are not to be compared with the scourges of war. We read of cities besieged and taken by storm, without sympathizing very deeply in the history. We see nei­ther the insidious mine which shatters a thousand limbs at one blow, nor hear the cannon and the bomb, which per­form the work of destruction more open­ly. The soldier climbing precipices, or scaling walls, to fall with indiscriminate rage on the old, the infant, and the de­fenceless, and to convert flourishing ci­ties into one vast cemetery, is only a be­ing of romance to those who have lived at a distance from such scenes, and the tenor of whose days has glided away in tranquillity. When the laws of war according to the regulations of civilized [Page 195] society are observed, the miseries are still tremendous: the laws of nature are perverted; it is the young, not the old, that descend first to the tomb, and all the dear and tender relations of life are broken—the father laments his son—the wife the husband torn from them to serve the purposes of ambition or cruelty—whole countries are depopulated, fields lie uncultivated, and famine produces despair.

If such are the evils attendant on war when men murder each other without provocation and without resentment; when they scarcely know either the cause of the dispute which brought them into the field, or for whom they are going to shed their blood; what must be the hor­ror of that conflict where every regula­tion of humanity is considered as con­spiracy and treason, where every action becomes laudable in proportion as it be­comes ferocious, where murder is the [Page 196] only mark of bravery, and where ex­termination alone is conquest!

The progress of the royalists after the events of the 10th of August to the epocha of Dumourier's defection, had remain­ed unnoticed; nor was it till they had raised a most formidable camp and me­naced Nantes, Angers, and other cities, and issued their formal manifestoes de­manding the re-establishment of the priest­hood, nobility, and royalty, that any effective measures were taken to repress them. The first generals that were sent against them, who were Berruyer, Marie, and Ligonier, acted, it is said, as if they were their allies, rather than their ene­mies; and Quetinau, who succeeded them, is accused of having surrendered Touars, with the magazines which it contained, and an army of four thousand men.

These defections on the one side, and the victories of the royalists on the other, at length roused the convention, who [Page 197] decreed that an army of three hundred thousand men should be raised to suc­cour what they called the patriots in the Vendée, who were opposed by the robbers. As this seemed to be an ex­tra-service, great rewards were given to those who would enlist to go and assist "their brethren;" but most of these heroes, who were paid enormous sums to perform this act of charity, went and increased the armies of the malcontents, instead of fighting against them. A short time after the 31st of May, Saumur was taken by the royalists, and a number of other important places, Vehiers, Parte­nay, Bressuire, and Fontenay the capital of the department, fell into their power. The armies of the convention fled con­tinually before numbers greatly inferior, and abandoned their magazines, baggage, and cannon; so that the Vendéan troops were furnished completely with stores of every kind from the cowardice of the [Page 198] conventional forces, or the treachery of their commanders. While these dis­graces befel the armies on the western side, Nantes, which was besieged by an army of forty thousand men, was de­fended with five thousand, by Canclaux, who by the prudence and vigour of his operations saved the province of Brit­tany, and gained several important vic­tories. Other generals who appeared to have the means as well as the intention of finishing the war expeditiously, among whom was the former duc de Biron ^*, [Page 199] were suspended, as well as Canclaux, while Ronsin and Rossignol, two sansculotte generals, were loaded with eulogiums by the conspirators of Paris, in propor­tion as they were defeated by the roy­alists.

The royalists, encouraged by their suc­cesses, and finding themselves so well se­conded by these generals, marched on the 27th of July towards Angers, and to a bridge which was an important pass, [Page 200] called the bridge of Cé. Orders were given to evacuate this post, as had been done in preceding instances. But con­trary measures being taken by a deputy in mission, and other dispositions being made by general Tune, both places were saved, and for the first time a vic­tory was obtained. This general gained a still greater advantage, and a fortnight after he was broke.

The evacuation of Cholet by the roy­alists would have been the consequence of their defeat; but when general Rey was proposing to take advantage of his victory, an imperial edict of the same sansculotte general forced him to a re­treat. As a reward for successes which Rey afterwards gained, he also was broke; and his adjutant, who came to Paris to plead for him, was thrown into the dun­geon of the Conciergerie.

These plans of military operations were not likely to be attended with much [Page 201] success, and have appeared at all times mysterious. Phillipeaux, in his stric­tures on this war, calls it a strange phe­nomenon for history, that the govern­ment should have looked calmly on, whilst those who gained victories were disgraced, and those whose only prowess had consisted in converting whole ar­mies composed of some of the bravest and best disciplined troops in the re­public, into heaps of carcasses, were caressed and continued in command. Phillipeaux, in his letter to the committee of public-safety, assures them that the two generals Ronsin and Rossignol had butchered from forty to fifty thousand patriots.

But time reveals most mysteries. At this period the conspirators in Paris were more in dread of the resentment of the departments than they were of the arms of the royalists. Of the various calum­nies which they invented against the de­puties [Page 202] who had fled from Paris, that of joining the royalists was the most indus­triously propagated; and while the pro­scribed deputies were held up to the pub­lic as the supporters and actors in a cause which all parties agreed to call rebellion, the conspirators found themselves justi­fied in taking the measures best fitted to exterminate the only rivals they had to dread. Had the royalists been defeated, and the rebellion crushed, the calumny would have been discovered, and all pretence for punishment taken away. It was the interest therefore of the usurp­ers to menace the people with the venge­ance of royalism and federalism united; and none were better calculated to fulfil their intentions, than those inexperienced and profligate men who had the most remarkable talents for procuring the de­feat of the armies they commanded.

Whether or no this be the real expla­nation of that which has been deemed so [Page 203] mysterious, must be left to the considera­tion of those who wish to penetrate into this labyrinth. When we see the history of the war of the Vendée written by the royalists themselves, it is probable that they will say, that their own valour, and the goodness of the cause in which they were engaged, gave them these victories. In yielding its full force to this expla­nation, and supposing that the conven­tional armies were defeated by braver troops, it will yet remain unexplained, why, of two classes of conventional ge­nerals, those who beat and those who were beaten, the former should have found either imprisonment, or the scaf­fold, and the others prodigality of fa­vours.

The usurpers having succeeded in their criminal designs against the republican party, now found it necessary to rid themselves of the royalists, whom they had hitherto made useful to their designs. [Page 204] The latter end of August they formed a different plan for the remainder of the campaign, which consisted in attacking at once the royalists from every point, and finishing the contest as it were at a single blow. The army on the northern side was committed to Rossignol and Ronsin, and the revolutionary legions and the army on the western coast were entrusted to Lechelle. However well this plan might have been combined, the first specimen those who were to ex­ecute it gave of obedience to their in­structions was to suffer the insurgents to take possession of the island of Noir­moutier, Machecoul, and other places, and evacuate Montaigu, where they abandoned immense magazines of every sort, and the army was reduced to sleep in the open air; while their ignorant or treacherous leaders kept at a convenient distance, surrounded by actresses, cour­tesans, and all the licentiousness of an [Page 205] eastern camp, with all the vulgarity of the lowest profligacy.

This defeat was followed by many others, and by the capture also of several towns. The expedition which Lechelle made was so contrived, that his troops had not the means of effecting a retreat. The protection of the city of Nantes was entrusted to him, and he suffered a body of some hundred royalists to cut off its provisions for several days in the face of his whole army; and when the repre­sentatives of the people requested him to send a detachment to rescue a convoy of flour which had fallen into the enemy's hands, he treated the application with contempt.

While this general was disposing of the conventional armies on the western side, his colleagues Rossignol and Ron­sin, the latter of whom having seen some service took the title of minister-general, were preparing to execute the plan of [Page 206] the campaign on the other side. Instead of marching to attack the enemy, they halted for some time at Saumur and Tours, so as to let the royalist army ac­quire its proper consistency. To sur­round the enemy was the great object; and orders were sent to the commanders of the southern armies at Niort, Lucon, and Partenay, to co-operate. The event of this arrangement was, conformably to the ordinary system, the total defeat of these divisions; and on the 18th of Sep­tember so admirably were the instruc­tions obeyed, that fifty thousand men at Coran and near the passage of the Loire at Cé, commanded by Ronsin and Ros­signol, were attacked by an army con­sisting of three thousand royalists only; and what could appear scarcely credible, the sansculotte generals had so ingeniously arranged their troops, that they were not only defeated by this inconsidera­ble detachment, but the slaughter was immense.

[Page 207] This extraordinary defeat will not, I am told, surprise any military man, when he hears that the conventional army was arranged for battle in a single column, in the defiles of Coran, with eight men in front, and presenting a flank to the enemy, who had possession of the heights, of nearly twelve miles in extent. The artillery, instead of being placed on those heights, under the protection of a strong detachment, as was proposed by the guides, and those who knew the country, was placed at the head of this long co­lumn, and of course fell into the hands of the royalists, who turned it against the conventional troops, and made great carnage. In the mean time, detachments of the enemy gained possession of the heights without difficulty and without resistance, massacred the troops below, taking them in flank, and made them, from the confusion into which they were thrown, the exterminators of each other.

[Page 208] The generals who commanded this ex­pedition were, in the mean time, regaling themselves at a distance, with their mis­tresses, some of whom were afterwards goddesses of reason; but they had the prudence to destroy their magazines, in­stead of leaving them as usual at the disposition of the enemy. The harvest of that part of the country was just then gathered in, and would have sufficed them for a whole year, had they se­cured it agreeably to the orders of the convention.

This new plan of a campaign was not attended with more happy success than the former, and the mystery which em­barrassed Phillipeaux became still more inexplicable. It would be difficult in­deed to define what could be the motive which led the government to look with so much complacency on this continued system of defeat and carnage, did we not see what combinations of crooked policy [Page 209] were put into execution to secure the purposes of ferocious ambition. The party of the Gironde, being completely crushed, gave them no longer any in­quietude, and it became now the interest of the usurpers to bring the war to a speedy issue. The two former plans not having succeeded, the committee of pub­lic safety published another. These con­spirators had seen how efficacious their decrees had been in several instances, and therefore imagined a mode of putting an end to this destructive contest by decree­ing that it should finish on the 20th of October, and that the generals should receive the triumphal crown on the first of November following. We should be inclined to smile at this excess of folly, if that disposition were not suppressed by indignation and horror at the atrocious orders which were given for this purpose to their armies, "that desolation and in­discriminate [Page 210] destruction must now be­come the order of the day."

The decree having stated in express terms, "that all the retreats, mills, and ovens of the robbers should be destroyed and burnt, and that the minister of war should be ordered to send combustible matter for that purpose;" and the pro­clamation of the convention having in­vited the soldiers of liberty to exterminate all these robbers, before the end of Octo­ber; "the soldiers of liberty," and all those who were invited to the accom­plishment of this new plan of the cam­paign, prepared to put it into execution. Neither the committee of usurpation, nor the convention had been nice in the de­finition of their terms, and therefore the soldiers of liberty undertook to construe them at their pleasure. Accordingly, every house of the peaceful inhabitant came within the definition of the retreat of a robber, since every inhabitant of the [Page 211] Vendée was considered as a robber, and consequently his dwelling must be a re­treat.

Whether or no the instruments of this barbarous and execrable policy reasoned after this manner, they certainly became practical logicians; and the army, in ad­dition to their hundred thousand bay­onets, were armed with a hundred thou­sand torches; and having been pronounced by the usurpers the executors of their just vengeance, the property of the armed royalist and the peaceable republican became alike objects of their rapacity and fury; and indiscriminate massacre and plunder were literally the order of the day.

In the first days of the revolution, when liberty and philosophy went hand in hand together, what a moral revolution was instantly effected throughout Europe, by the sublime and immortal principles which this great change seemed about to introduce into government! But what [Page 212] eternal regrets must the lovers of Liberty feel, that her cause should have fallen into the hands of monsters ignorant of her charms, by whom she has been transformed into a Fury, who, brandish­ing her snaky whips and torches, has enlarged the limits of wickedness, and driven us back into regions of guilt hitherto unknown!

So unexampled are the crimes which have been committed, that it will require stronger evidence than the historian is commonly bound to produce, to persuade future generations of their reality. Alas! but a faint outline has been drawn of this terrifying picture, over which the friend of liberty would, if it were possible, like the recording angel, drop a tear, that might blot it out for ever.—"If some sweet oblivious antidote" could drive from my brain the remembrance of these things, and from my heart the feelings that oppress it, as well as from [Page 213] the knowledge of the world, I should be tempted to snatch from the enemies of Liberty the triumph they assume from this mournful history. But these horrors must stain the page of the revolution for ever. The bloody characters must re­main indelible on the wall, a dreadful, but instructive lesson to future ages, and to those countries which are destined to labour through revolutions, and who will learn, while they contemplate this terrific chart, how to avoid the rocks on which Liberty has been nearly wrecked.

Dreadful indeed has been the crisis we have passed! yet it is some consolation, amidst this mighty mass of evil, that France is at length beginning to learn wisdom from the things she has suffered. France no longer looks around to find apo­logies for the crimes that have been com­mitted: she her elf holds up the criminals to the world. She boasts not of her victo­ries over Europe armed against her rights; [Page 214] but she triumphs in the conquests she has made over herself. It is some relief, while I am struggling through the gloomy history of these horrors, that I see again the dawn of that glorious light which will chase them away. The last stroke has been given to that vile and degrading system, which ignoble usurpers had framed: we may now approach the altar of Liberty with confidence and hope; the hideous spectres that haunted it have fled for ever; and its incense in future will [...] grateful to heaven, and spread fragrance over a regenerated land.