Part 16

Nov. 22. We have been walking in the yard to-day with General Laveneur, who, for an act which in any other country would have gained him credit, is in this suspended from his command.--When Custine, a few weeks before his death, left the army to visit some of the neighbouring towns, the command devolved on Laveneur, who received, along with other official papers, a list of countersigns, which, having probably been made some time, and not altered conformably to the changes of the day, contained, among others, the words Condorcet--Constitution; and these were in their turn given out. On Custine's trial, this was made a part of his accusation. Laveneur, recollecting that the circumstance had happened in the absence of Custine, thought it incumbent on him to take the blame, if there were any, on himself, and wrote to Paris to explain the matter as it really stood; but his candour, without availing Custine, drew persecution on himself, and the only notice taken of his letter was an order to arrest him. After being dragged from one town to another, like a criminal, and often lodged in dungeons and common prisons, he was at length deposited here.

I know not if the General's principles are republican, but he has a very democratic pair of whiskers, which he occasionally strokes, and seems to cherish with much affection. He is, however, a gentleman-like man, and expresses such anxiety for the fate of his wife and children, who are now at Paris, that one cannot but be interested in his favour.--As the agents of the republic never err on the side of omission, they arrested Mons. Laveneur's aid-de-camp with him; and another officer of his acquaintance, who was suspended, and living at Amiens, has shared the same fate, only for endeavouring to procure him a trifling accommodation. This gentleman called on Dumont, to beg that General Laveneur's servant might be permitted to go in and out of the prison on his master's errands. After breakfasting together, and conversing on very civil terms, Dumont told him, that as he concerned himself so much in behalf of his friend, he would send him to keep the latter company, and at the conclusion of his visit he was sent prisoner to the Bicetre.

Perhaps the greater part of between three and four hundred thousand people, now imprisoned on suspicion, have been arrested for reasons as little substantial.

--I begin to fear my health will not resist the hardship of a long continuance here. We have no fire-place, and are sometimes starved with partial winds from the doors and roof; at others faint and heartsick with the unhealthy air produced by so many living bodies. The water we drink is not preferable to the air we breathe; the bread (which is now every where scarce and bad) contains such a mixture of barley, rye, damaged wheat, and trash of all kinds, that, far from being nourished by it, I lose both my strength and appetite daily.--Yet these are not the worst of our sufferings. Shut out from all society, victims of a despotic and unprincipled government capable of every thing, and ignorant of the fate which may await us, we are occasionally oppressed by a thousand melancholy apprehensions. I might, indeed, have boasted of my fortitude, and have made myself an heroine on paper at as small an expence of words as it has cost me to record my cowardice: but I am of an unlucky conformation, and think either too much or too little (I know not which) for a female philosopher; besides, philosophy is getting into such ill repute, that not possessing the reality, the name of it is not worth assuming.

A poor old priest told me just now, (while Angelique was mending his black coat with white thread,) that they had left at the place where they were last confined a large quantity of linen, and other necessaries; but, by the express orders of Dumont, they were not allowed to bring a single article away with them. The keeper, too, it seems, was threatened with dismission, for supplying one of them with a shirt.--In England, where, I believe, you ally political expediency as much as you can with justice and humanity, these cruelties, at once little and refined, will appear incredible; and the French themselves, who are at least ashamed of, if they are not pained by, them, are obliged to seek refuge in the fancied palliative of a "state of revolution."--Yet, admitting the necessity of confining the persons of these old men, there can be none for heaping them together in filth and misery, and adding to the sufferings of years and infirmity by those of cold and want. If, indeed, a state of revolution require such deeds, and imply an apology for them, I cannot but wish the French had remained as they were, for I know of no political changes that can compensate for turning a civilized nation into a people of savages. It is not surely the eating acorns or ragouts, a well-powdered head, or one decorated with red feathers, that constitutes the difference between barbarism and civilization; and, I fear, if the French proceed as they have begun, the advantage of morals will be considerably on the side of the unrefined savages.

The conversation of the prison has been much engaged by the fate of an English gentleman, who lately destroyed himself in a Maison d'Arret at Amiens. His confinement had at first deeply affected his spirits, and his melancholy increasing at the prospect of a long detention, terminated in deranging his mind, and occasioned this last act of despair.--I never hear of suicide without a compassion mingled with terror, for, perhaps, simple pity is too light an emotion to be excited by an event which reminds us, that we are susceptible of a degree of misery too great to be borne--too strong for the efforts of instinct, reflection, and religion. --I could moralize on the necessity of habitual patience, and the benefit of preparing the mind for great evils by a philosophic endurance of little ones; but I am at the Bicetre--the winds whistle round me--I am beset by petty distresses, and we do not expatiate to advantage on endurance while we have any thing to endure.--Seneca's contempt for the things of this world was doubtless suggested in the palace of Nero. He would not have treated the subject so well in disgrace and poverty. Do not suppose I am affecting to be pleasant, for I write in the sober sadness of conviction, that human fortitude is often no better than a pompous theory, founded on self-love and self-deception.

I was surprized at meeting among our fellow-prisoners a number of Dutch officers. I find they had been some time in the town on their parole, and were sent here by Dumont, for refusing to permit their men to work on the fortifications.--The French government and its agents despise the laws of war hitherto observed; they consider them as a sort of aristocratie militaire, and they pretend, on the same principle, to be enfranchised from the law of nations.--An orator of the convention lately boasted, that he felt himself infinitely superior to the prejudices of Grotius, Puffendorff, and Vatel, which he calls "l'aristocratie diplomatique."--Such sublime spirits think, because they differ from the rest of mankind, that they surpass them. Like Icarus, they attempt to fly, and are perpetually struggling in the mire.--Plain common sense has long pointed out a rule of action, from which all deviation is fatal, both to nations and individuals. England, as well as France, has furnished its examples; and the annals of genius in all countries are replete with the miseries of eccentricity.--Whoever has followed the course of the French revolution, will, I believe, be convinced, that the greatest evils attending on it have been occasioned by an affected contempt for received maxims. A common banditti, acting only from the desire of plunder, or men, erring only through ignorance, could not have subjugated an whole people, had they not been assisted by narrow-minded philosophers, who were eager to sacrifice their country to the vanity of making experiments, and were little solicitous whether their systems were good or bad, provided they were celebrated as the authors of them. Yet, where are they now? Wandering, proscribed, and trembling at the fate of their followers and accomplices.--The Brissotins, sacrificed by a party even worse than themselves, have died without exciting either pity or admiration. Their fall was considered as the natural consequence of their exaltation, and the courage with which they met death obtained no tribute but a cold and simple comment, undistinguished from the news of the day, and ending with it.

December.

Last night, after we had been asleep about an hour, (for habit, that "lulls the wet sea-boy on the high and giddy mast," has reconciled us to sleep even here,) we were alarmed by the trampling of feet, and sudden unlocking of our door. Our apprehensions gave us no time for conjecture --in a moment an ill-looking fellow entered the room with a lantern, two soldiers holding drawn swords, and a large dog! The whole company walked as it were processionally to the end of the apartment, and, after observing in silence the beds on each side, left us. It would not be easy to describe what we suffered at this moment: for my own part, I thought only of the massacres of September, and the frequent proposals at the Jacobins and the Convention for dispatching the _"gens suspect,"_ and really concluded I was going to terminate my existence _"revolutionnairement."_ I do not now know the purport of these visits, but I find they are not unusual, and most probably intended to alarm the prisoners.

After many enquiries and messages, I have had the mortification of hearing that Mr. and Mrs. D____ were taken to Arras, and were there even before I left it. The letters sent to and from the different prisons are read by so many people, and pass through so many hands, that it is not surprizing we have not heard from each other. As far as I can learn, they had obtained leave, after their first arrest, to remove to a house in the vicinity of Dourlens for a few days, on account of Mrs. D____'s health, which had suffered by passing the summer in the town, and that at the taking of Toulon they were again arrested while on a visit, and conveyed to a _Maison d'Arret_ at Arras. I am the more anxious for them, as it seems they were unprepared for such an event; and as the seals were put upon their effects, I fear they must be in want of every thing. I might, perhaps, have succeeded in getting them removed here, but Fleury's Arras friend, it seems, did not think, when the Convention had abolished every other part of Christianity, that they intended still to exact a partial observance of the eighth article of the decalogue; and having, in the sense of Antient Pistol, "conveyed" a little too notoriously, Le Bon has, by way of securing him from notice or pursuit, sent him to the frontiers in the capacity of Commissary.

The prison, considering how many French inhabitants it contains, is tolerably quiet--to say the truth, we are not very sociable, and still less gay. Common interest establishes a sort of intimacy between those of the same apartment; but the rest of the house pass each other, without farther intercourse than silent though significant civility. Sometimes you see a pair of unfortunate aristocrates talking politics at the end of a passage, or on a landing-place; and here and there a bevy of females, en deshabille, recounting altogether the subject of their arrest. One's ear occasionally catches a few half-suppressed notes of a proscribed aire, but the unhallowed sounds of the Carmagnole and Marseillois are never heard, and would be thought more dissonant here than the war-whoop. In fact, the only appearance of gaiety is among the ideots and lunatics. --_"Je m'ennuye furieusement,"_ is the general exclamation.--An Englishman confined at the Bicetre would express himself more forcibly, but, it is certain, the want of knowing how to employ themselves does not form a small part of the distresses of our fellow-prisoners; and when they tell us they are _"ennuyes,"_ they say, perhaps, nearly as much as they feel-- for, as far as I can observe, the loss of liberty has not the same effect on a Frenchman as an Englishman. Whether this arises from political causes, or the natural indifference of the French character, I am not qualified to determine; probably from both: yet when I observe this facility of mind general, and by no means peculiar to the higher classes, I cannot myself but be of opinion, that it is more an effect of their original disposition than of their form of government; for though in England we were accustomed from our childhood to consider every man in France as liable to wake and find himself in the Bastille, or at Mont St. Michel, this formidable despotism existed more in theory than in practice; and if courtiers and men of letters were intimidated by it, the mass of the people troubled themselves very little about Lettres de Cachet. The revenge or suspicion of Ministers might sometimes pursue those who aimed at their power, or assailed their reputation; but the lesser gentry, the merchants, or the shopkeepers, were very seldom victims of arbitrary imprisonment--and I believe, amongst the evils which it was the object of the revolution to redress, this (except on the principle) was far from being of the first magnitude. I am not likely, under my present circumstances, to be an advocate for the despotism of any form of government; and I only give it as a matter of opinion, that the civil liberty of the French was not so often and generally violated,* as to influence their character in such a degree as to render them insensible of its loss. At any rate, we must rank it among the _bizarreries_ [Unaccountable whimsical events.] of this world, that the French should have been prepared, by the theory of oppression under their old system, for enduring the practice of it under the new one; and that what during the monarchy was only possible to a few, is, under the republic, almost certain to all.

* I remember in 1789, after the destruction of the Bastille, our compassionate countrymen were taught to believe that this tremendous prison was peopled with victims, and that even the dungeons were inhabited; yet the truth is, though it would not have told so pathetically, or have produced so much theatrical effect, there were only seven persons confined in the whole building, and certainly not one in the dungeons.

Amiens, Providence, Dec. 10, 1793.

We have again, as you will perceive, changed our abode, and that too without expecting, and almost without desiring it. In my moments of sullenness and despondency, I was not very solicitous about the modifications of our confinement, and little disposed to be better satisfied with one prison than another: but, heroics apart, external comforts are of some importance, and we have, in many respects, gained by our removal.

Our present habitation is a spacious building, lately a convent, and though now crouded with more prisoners by two or three hundred than it will hold conveniently, yet we are better lodged than at the Bicetre, and we have also a large garden, good water, and, what above all is desirable, the liberty of delivering our letters or messages ourselves (in presence of the guard) to any one who will venture to approach us. Mad. de ____ and myself have a small cell, where we have just room to place our beds, but we have no fire-place, and the maids are obliged to sleep in an adjoining passage.

A few evenings ago, while we were at the Bicetre, we were suddenly informed by the keeper that Dumont had sent some soldiers with an order to convey us that night to the Providence. We were at first rather surprized than pleased, and reluctantly gathered our baggage together with as much expedition as we could, while the men who were to escort us were exclaiming "a la Francaise" at the trifling delay this occasioned. When we had passed the gate, we found Fleury, with some porters, ready to receive our beds, and overjoyed at having procured us a more decent prison, for, it seems, he could by no means reconcile himself to the name of Bicetre. We had about half a mile to walk, and on the road he contrived to acquaint us with the means by which he had solicited this favour of Dumont. After advising with all Mad. de ____'s friends who were yet at liberty, and finding no one willing to make an effort in her behalf, for fear of involving themselves, he discovered an old acquaintance in the "femme de chambre" of one of Fleury's mistresses.-- This, for one of Fleury's sagacity, was a spring to have set the whole Convention in a ferment; and in a few days he profited so well by this female patronage, as to obtain an order for transferring us hither. On our arrival, we were informed, as usual, that the house was already full, and that there was no possibility of admitting us. We however, set up all night in the keeper's room with some other people newly arrived like ourselves, and in the morning, after a little disputing and a pretty general derangement of the more ancient inhabitants, we were "nichees," as I have described to you.

We have not yet quitted our room much, but I observe that every one appears more chearful, and more studied in their toilette, than at the Bicetre, and I am willing to infer from thence that confinement here is less insupportable.--I have been employed two days in enlarging the notes I had made in our last prison, and in making them more legible, for I ventured no farther than just to scribble with a pencil in a kind of short-hand of my own invention, and not even that without a variety of precautions. I shall be here less liable either to surprize or observation, and as soon as I have secured what I have already noted, (which I intend to do to-night,) I shall continue my remarks in the usual form. You will find even more than my customary incorrectness and want of method since we left Peronne; but I shall not allow your competency as a critic, until you have been a prisoner in the hands of French republicans.

It will not be improper to notice to you a very ingenious decree of Gaston, (a member of the Convention,) who lately proposed to embark all the English now in France at Brest, and then to sink the ships.--Perhaps the Committee of Public Welfare are now in a sort of benevolent indecision, whether this, or Collot d'Herbois' gunpowder scheme, shall have the preference. Legendre's iron cage and simple hanging will, doubtless, be rejected, as too slow and formal. The mode of the day is "les grandes mesures." If I be not seriously alarmed at these propositions, it is not that life is indifferent to me, or that I think the government too humane to adopt them. My tranquillity arises from reflecting that such measures would be of no political use, and that we shall most likely be soon forgotten in the multitude of more important concerns. Those, however, whom I endeavour to console by this reasoning, tell me it is nothing less than infallible, that the inutility of a crime is here no security against its perpetration, and that any project which tends to evil will sooner be remembered than one of humanity or justice.

[End of Vol. I. The Printed Books]

[Beginning of Volume II. Of The Printed Books]

Providence, Dec. 20, 1793.

"All places that are visited by the eye of Heaven, are to the wise man happy havens." If Shakspeare's philosophy be orthodox, the French have, it must be confessed, many claims to the reputation of a wise people; and though you know I always disputed their pretensions to general gaiety, yet I acknowledge that misfortune does not deprive them of the share they possess, and, if one may judge by appearances, they have at least the habit, more than any other nation, of finding content under situations with which it should seem incompatible. We are here between six and seven hundred, of all ages and of all ranks, taken from our homes, and from all that usually makes the comfort of life, and crowded together under many of the inflictions that constitute its misery; yet, in the midst of all this, we fiddle, dress, rhyme, and visit as ceremoniously as though we had nothing to disturb us. Our beaux, after being correctly frizz'd and powdered behind some door, compliment the belle just escaped from a toilet, performed amidst the apparatus of the kitchen; three or four beds are piled one upon another to make room for as many card-tables; and the wits of the prison, who are all the morning employed in writing doleful placets to obtain their liberty, in the evening celebrate the loss of it in bout-rimees and acrostics.

I saw an ass at the _Corps de Garde_ this morning laden with violins and music, and a female prisoner seldom arrives without her complement of bandboxes.--Embarrassed, stifled as we are by our numbers, it does not prevent a daily importation of lap-dogs, who form as consequential a part of the community in a prison, as in the most superb hotel. The faithful valet, who has followed the fortunes of his master, does not so much share his distresses as contribute to his pleasure by adorning his person, or, rather, his head, for, excepting the article of hair-dressing, the beaux here are not elaborate. In short, there is an indifference, a frivolity, in the French character, which, in circumstances like the present, appears unaccountable. But man is not always consistent with himself, and there are occasions in which the French are nothing less than philosophers. Under all these externals of levity, they are a very prudent people, and though they seem to bear with infinite fortitude many of the evils of life, there are some in which their sensibility is not to be questioned. At the death of a relation, or the loss of liberty, I have observed that a few hours suffice, _pour prendre son parti;_ [To make up his mind.] but on any occasion where his fortune has suffered, the liveliest Frenchman is _au desespoir_ for whole days. Whenever any thing is to be lost or gained, all his characteristic indifference vanishes, and his attention becomes mentally concentrated, without dissipating the habitual smile of his countenance. He may sometimes be deceived through deficiency of judgment, but I believe not often by unguardedness; and, in a matter of interest, a _petit maitre_ of five-and-twenty might _tout en badinage_ [All in the way of pleasantry.] maintain his ground against a whole synagogue.--This disposition is not remarkable only in affairs that may be supposed to require it, but extends to the minutest objects; and the same oeconomy which watches over the mass of a Frenchman's estate, guards with equal solicitude the menu property of a log of wood, or a hen's nest.

There is at this moment a general scarcity of provisions, and we who are confined are, of course, particularly inconvenienced by it; we do not even get bread that is eatable, and it is curious to observe with what circumspection every one talks of his resources. The possessor of a few eggs takes care not to expose them to the eye of his neighbour; and a slice of white bread is a donation of so much consequence, that those who procure any for themselves do not often put their friends to the pain either of accepting or refusing it.