Letters on the French Revolution, written in France, in the summer of 1790, to a friend in England; containing, various anecdotes relative to that interesting event, and memoirs of Mons. and Madame Du F--. / By Helen Maria Williams.

LETTERS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

LETTER I.

I ARRIVED at Paris, by a very rapid journey, the day before the federation; and when I am disposed to murmur at the evils of my destiny, I shall henceforth put this piece of good fortune into the opposite scale, and re|flect how many disappointments it ought to counterbalance. Had the packet which con|veyed me from Brighton to Dieppe sailed a few hours later; had the wind been contrary; in short, had I not reached Paris at the mo|ment I did reach it, I should have missed the most sublime spectacle which, perhaps, was ever represented on the theatre of this earth.

I shall send you once a week the details which I promised when we parted, though I am well aware how very imperfectly I shall be able to describe the images which press upon my mind. It is much easier to feel what is

sublime than to paint it; and all I shall be able to give you will be a faint sketch, to which your own imagination must add colour|ing and spirit. The night before the federa|tion, by way of prelude to the solemnities of that memorable day, the Te Deum was per|formed at the church of Notre Dame, by a greater number of musicians than have ever been assembled together, excepting at West|minster Abbey. The overture which prece|ded the Te Deum was simple and majestic: the music, highly expressive, had the power of electrifying the hearers: and near the conclu|sion of the piece, the composor, by artful dis|cords, produced a melancholy emotion, and then by exciting ideas of trouble and inquie|tude, prepared the mind for a recitative which affected the audience in a very powerful man|ner, by recalling the images of that consterna|tion and horror which prevailed in Paris on the 13th of July, 1789, the day before that on which the Bastile was taken. The words were, as well as I can recollect, what follows; —"People, your enemies advance, with hostile sentiments, with menacing looks! They come to bathe their hands in your blood! Already they encompass the walls of your City! Rise, rise from the inaction in which you are plung|ed, seize your arms, and fly to the combat! God will combat with you!" These words were succeeded by a chorus of instruments and voices, deep and solemn, which seemed to

chill the soul. But what completed the effect was, when the sound of a loud and heavy bell mixed itself with this awful concert, in imita|tion of the alarm-bell, which, the day before the taking of the Bastile, was rung in every church and convent in Paris, and which, it is said, produced a confusion of sounds inex|pressibly horrible. At this moment the audi|ence appeared to breathe with difficulty, every heart seemed frozen with terror; till at length the bell ceased, the music changed its tone, and another recitative announced the entire de|feat of the enemy; and the whole terminated, after a flourish of drums and trumpets, with an hymn of thanksgiving to the Supreme Being.

LETTER II.

I PROMISED to send you a descrip|tion of the federation; but it is not to be de|scribed! One must have been present, to form any judgment of a scene, the sublimity of which depended much less on its external magnifi|cence, than on the effect it produced on the minds of the spectators. "The people, sure, the people were the sight!" I may tell you of pavilions, of triumphal arches, of altars on which incense was burnt, of two hundred thousand men walking in procession; but how am I to give you an adequate ••lea of the be|haviour

of the spectators? How am I to paint the impetuous feelings of that immense, that exulting multitude? Half a million of people assembled at a spectacle, which furnish|ed every image that can elevate the mind of man; which connected the enthusiasm of mor|al sentiment with the solemn pomp of re|ligious ceremonies; which addressed itself at once to the imagination, the understanding, and the heart!

The Champ de Mars was formed into an immense amphitheatre, round which were erected forty rows of seats, raised one above another with earth, on which wooden forms were placed. Twenty days labour, animated by the enthusiasm of the people, accomplished what seemed to require the toil of years. Al|ready in the Champ de Mars the distinctions of rank were forgotten; and, inspired by the same spirit, the highest and lowest orders of citizens gloried in taking up the spade, and as|sisting the persons employed in a work on which the common welfare of the state de|pended. Ladies took the instruments of la|bour in their hands, and removed a little of the earth, that they might be able to boast that they also had assisted in the preparations at the Champ de Mars; and a number of old sold|iers were seen voluntarily bestowing on their country the last remains of their strength. A young Abbé of my acquaintance told me, that the people beat a drum at the door of the con|vent

where he lived, and obliged the Superior to let all the Monks come out and work in the Champ de Mars. The Superior with great reluctance acquiesced, "Quant à moi," said the young Abbé, "je ne demandois pas mieux."* 1.1

At the upper end of the amphitheatre a pa|vilion was built for the reception of the King, the Queen, their attendants, and the National Assembly, covered with striped tent-cloth of the national colours, and decorated with streamers of the same beloved tints, and fleur de lys. The white flag was displayed above the spot where the King was seated. In the middle of the Champ de Mars, L'Autel de la Patrie was placed, on which incense was burnt by priests dressed in long white robes, with sashes of national ribbon. Several in|scriptions were written on the altar, but the words visible at the greatest distance were, La Nation, la Loi, et le Roi.† 1.2

At the lower end of the amphitheatre, op|posite to the pavilion, three triumphal arches were erected, adorned with emblems and alle|gorical figures.

The procession marched to the Champ de Mars, through the central streets of Paris. At La Place de Louis Quinze, the escorts, who carried the colours, received under their ban|ners, ranged in two lines, the National Assem|bly, who came from the Thuilleries. When

the procession passed the street where Henry the Fourth was assassinated, every man paused as if by general consent: The cries of joy were suspended, and succeeded by a solemn si|lence. This tribute of regret, paid from the sudden impulse of feeling at such a moment, was perhaps the most honourable testimony to the virtues of that amiable Prince, which his memory has yet received.

In the streets, at the windows, and on the roofs of the houses, the people, transported with joy, shouted and wept as the procession passed. Old men were seen kneeling in the streets, blessing God that they had lived to witness that happy moment. The people ran to the doors of their houses loaded with re|freshments, which they offered to the troops; and crowds of women surrounded the soldiers, and holding up their infants in their arms, and melting into tears, promised to make their children imbibe, from their earliest age, an in|violable attachment to the principles of the new constitution.

I recollected these lines of Shakespeare:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home. Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, And rouze him at the name— He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours— This story shall the good man teach his son: And this day to the ending of the world, And we in it. shall be remember'd; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers

The procession entered the Champ de Mars by a long road, which thousands of people had assisted in forming, by filling up deep hollows, levelling the rising grounds, and erecting a tem|porary bridge across the Seine, opposite to the triumphal arches. The order of the procession was as follows:

• A troop of horse, with trumpets.
• A great band of music.
• A detachment of grenadiers.
• The electors chosen at Paris in 1789.
• A band of volunteers.
• The Assembly of the representatives of the people.
• The military committee.
• Company of chasseurs.
• A band of drums.
• The President of sixty districts.
• The Deputies of the people sent to the Feder|ation.
• The Administrators of the municipality.
• Bands of music and drums.
• Battalion of children, carrying a standard, on which was written. L'Esperance de la Patrie.* 1.3
• Detachment with the colours of the national guard of Paris.
• Battalion of veterans.
• Deputies from forty-two departments, arrang|ed alphabetically.
• The Oriflamme, or grand standard of the Kings of France.
• ...

• Deputies from the regular troops.
• Deputies from the navy.
• Deputies from forty-one departments, arrang|ed also alphabetically.
• Band of volunteer chasseurs.
• Troop of horse with trumpets.

The procession which was formed with eight persons abreast, entered the Champ de Mars beneath the triumphal arches, with a discharge of cannon. The deputies placed themselves round the inside of the amphitheatre. Between them and the seats of the spectators, the national guard of Paris were ranged; and the seats round the amphitheatre were filled with four hundred thousand people. The mid|dle of the amphitheatre was crowded with an immense multitude of soldiers. The National Assembly walked towards the pavilion, where they placed themselves with the King, the Queen, the royal family, and their attendants; and opposite this group, rose in perspective the hills of Passy and Chaillot, covered with peo|ple. The standards, of which one was pre|sented to each department of the kingdom, as a mark of brotherhood, by the citizens of Paris, were carried to the altar to be consecrated by the bishop. High mass was performed, after which Monsieur de la Fayette, who had been appointed by the King Major General of the Federation, ascended the altar, gave the signal, and himself took the national oath. In an in|stant every sword was drawn, and every arm

lifted up. The King pronounced the oath, which the President of the National Assembly repeated, and the solemn words were reechoed by six hundred thousand voices; while the Queen raised the Dauphin in her, arms, shew|ing him to the people and the army. At the moment the consecrated banners were display|ed, the sun, which had been obscured by fre|quent showers in the course of the morning, burst forth, while the people lifted their eyes to heaven, and called upon the Deity to look down and witness the sacred engagement into which they entered. A respectful silence was succeeded by the cries, the shouts, the acclama|tions of the multitude; they wept, they em|braced each other, and then dispersed.

You will not suspect that I was an indiffer|ent witness of such a scene. Oh no! this was not a time in which the distinctions of coun|try were remembered. It was the triumph of human kind; it was man asserting the noblest privileges of his nature; and it required but the common feelings of humanity to become in that moment a citizen of the world. For myself, I acknowledge that my heart caught with enthusiasm the general sympathy; my eyes were filled with tears; and I shall never forget the sensations of that day, "while mem|ory holds her seat in my bosom."

The weather proved very unfavorable dur|ring the morning of the fe••eration; but the minds of people were too much elevated by

ideas of moral good, to attend to the physical evils of the day. Several heavy showers were far from interrupting the general gaiety. The people, when drenched by the rain, call|ed out with exultation, rather than regret, * 1.4 "Nous sommes mouillez a la nation." Some exclaimed, † 1.5 "La revolution Françoise est cimentee avec de l'eau, au lieu do sang." The national guard, during the hours which preceded the arrival of the proces|sion, amused the spectators with dancing in a circle, and with a thousand whimsical and play|ful evolutions, highly expressive of that gaiety which distinguishes the French character. I believe none but Frenchmen would have di|verted themselves, and half a million of people, who were waiting in expectation of a scene the most solemn upon record, by circles of ten thousand men galloping in the round dance. But if you are disposed to think of this gaiety with the contempt of superior gravity, for I will not call it wisdom, recollect that these dancers were the very men whose bravery formed the great epocha of French liberty; the heroes who demolished the towers of the Bas|tile, and whose fame will descend to the latest posterity.

Such was the admirable order with which this august spectacle was conducted, that no ac|cident

interrupted the universal festivity. All carriages were forbidden during that day, and the entrances to the Champ de Mass were so numerous, that half a million of people were collected tog••ther without a crowd.

The people had only one subject of regret; they murmured that the King had taken the national oath in the pavilion, instead of per|forming that ceremony at the foot of the altar; and some of them, crowding round Mons. de la Fayette, conjured him to persuade the King to go to the altar and take the oath a second time. * 1.6"Mes enfans," said Mons. de la Fayette, "le ferment n'est pas une ariette, on ne peut pas le jouer deux fois."

Mons. de la Fayette, after the Federation, went to the Chateau de la Muette, where a public dinner was prepared for the national guard. An immense crowd gathered round him when he alighted from his horse, at a little distance from the chateau; and some Aristocrates, mix|ing themselves with the true worshippers of him who is so justly the idol of the French na|tion, attempted to stifle him with their embra|ces. He called out † 1.7 "Mais, mes amis, vous m'e••auffex!" and one of his aide de camps, who perceived the danger of his general, threw himself from his horse, which he intreated

Mons. de la Fayette to mount. He did so, and hastened to the chateau.

This incident reminds me of a line in Ra|cine's fine tragedy of Britanicus, where Nero says, * 1.8'J'embrasse mon rival, mais e'est pour l'etouffer.'

Adieu.

LETTER III.

THE rejoicings at Paris did not termi|nate with the ceremony of the Federation: A succession of entertainments, which lasted sev|eral days, were prepared for the deputies from the provinces, who were all quartered in the houses of the bourgeois, where they were re|ceived with the most cordial hospitality.

The night of the 14th of July, the whole city of Paris was illuminated, and the next day le ci-devant Duc, now Mons. d'Orleans, gave a public dinner to the national guard in the hall of the Palais Royal. We walked in the even|ing round the gallery, from which we saw part of the crowd below amusing themselves by dancing, while others were singing in chorus the favourite national songs.

On the following Sunday the national guards were reviewed by Mons. de la Fayette in the

Champ de Mars, which was again filled with spectators, and the people appeared more en|thusiastic than ever in their applauses of their General. The Champ de Mars resounded with repeated cries of * 1.9 "Vive Mons. de la Fayette." On this day carriages were again forbidden, and the evening displayed a scene of general rejoicing. The whole city was il|luminated, and crowds of company filled the gardens of the Thuilleries, from which we saw the beautiful façade of the Louvre lighted in the most splendid manner. In the Champ Elysées, where a fete was given to the Depu|ties, innumerable lamps were hung from one row of trees to another and shed the most agree|able brilliance on those enchanting walks; where the exhilarated crowd danced and sung; and filled the air with the sound of rejoicing. Several parties of the national guard came from the Champs Elysées, dancing along the walks of the Thuilleries with a woman between every two men; and all the priests, whom they met in their way, they obliged to join in the dance, treating them as women, by placing them be|tween two soldiers, and sometimes sportively dressing them in grenadiers caps. Fire-works of great variety and beauty were exhibited on the Pont Neuf, and the statue of Henry the fourth was decorated with the ornament of all others the most dear in the eyes of the people, a scarf of national ribbon. Transparencies of

Mons. de la Fayette and Mons. Bailly were placed, as the highest mark of public favour, on each side of this revered statue.

But the spectacle of all others the most in|teresting to my feelings, was the rejoicings at the Bastile. The ruins of that execrable fort|ress were suddenly transformed, as if with the wand of necromancy, into a scene of beauty and of pleasure. The ground was covered with fresh clods of grass, upon which young trees were placed in rows, and illuminated with a blaze of light. Here the minds of the people took a higher tone of exultation than in the other scenes of festivity. Their mutual congratulations, their reflections on the horror of the past, their sense of present felicity, their cries of * 1.10 "Vive la Nation," still ring in my ear! I too, though but a sojourner in their land, rejoiced in their happiness, joined the univer|sal voice, and repeated with all my heart and soul, "Vive la Nation!"

LETTER IV.

BEFORE I suffered my friends at Paris to conduct me through the usual routine of convents, churches, and palaces, I requested to visit the Bastile; feeling a much

stronger desire to contemplate the ruins of that building than the most perfect edifices of Par|is. When we got into the carriage, our French servant called to the coachman, with an air of triumph, * 1.11 "A la Bastile—mais nous n'y resterons pas." We drove under that porch which so many wretches have en|tered never to repass, and alighting from the carriage, descended with difficulty into the dungeons, which were too low to admit of our standing upright, and so dark that we were obliged at noon-day to visit them with the light of a candle. We saw the hooks of those chains by which the prisoners were fastened round the neck, to the walls of their cells; many of which being below the level of the water, are in a constant state of humidity; and a noxious vapour issued from them, which more than once extinguished the can|dle, and was so insufferable that it required a strong spirit of curiosity to tempt one to enter. Good God!—and to these regions of horror were human creatures dragged at the caprice of despotic power. What a melancholy con|sideration, that

—Man! proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep.

There appears to be a greater number of these dungeons than one could have imagined

the hard heart of tyranny itself would contrive; for, since the destruction of the building, many subterraneous cells have been discovered under|neath a piece of ground which was inclosed within the walls of the Bastile, but which seem|ed a bank of solid earth before the horrid se|crets of this prison-house were disclosed. Some skeletons were found in these recesses, with irons still fastened on their decaying bones.

After having visited the Bastile, we may indeed be surprised, that a nation so enlighten|ed as the French, submitted so long to the op|pressions of their government; but we must cease to wonder that their indignant spirits at length shook off the galling yoke.

Those who have contemplated the dungeons of the Bastile, without rejoicing in the French revolution, may▪ for aught I know, be very respectable persons, and very agreeable com+panions in the hours of prosperity; but, if my heart were sinking with anguish, I should not fly to those persons for consolation. Sterne says, that a man is incapable of loving one woman as he ought, who has not a sort of an affection for the whole sex; and as little should I look for particular sympathy from those who have no feelings of general philanthropy. If the splendor of a despotic throne can only shine like the radiance of lightning, while all around is involved in gloom and horror, in the name of heaven let its baleful lustre be extinguished for ever. May no such strong contrast of light

and shade again exist in the political system of France! but may the beams of liberty, like the beams of day, shed their benign influence on the cottage of the peasant, as well as on the palace of the monarch! May liberty, which for so many ages past has taken pleasure in softening the evils of the bleak and rugged climates of the north, in fertilizing a barren soil, in clearing the swamp, in lifting mounds against the inundations of the tempest, diffuse her blessings also on the genial land of France, and bid the husbandman rejoice under the shade of the olive and the vine.

The Bastile, which Henry the Fourth and his veteran troops assailed in vain, the citizens of Paris had the glory of taking in a few hours, The avarice of Mons. de Launay had tempted him to guard this fortress with only half the complement of men ordered by government; and a letter which he received the morning of the 14th of July, commanding him to sustain the siege till the evening, when succour would arrive, joined to his own treachery towards the assailants, cost him his life.

The courage of the besiegers was inflamed by the horrors of famine, there being at this time only twenty-four hours provision of bread in Paris. For some days the people had as|sembled in crowds round the shops of the bak|ers, who were obliged to have a guard of sold|iers to protect them from the famished multi|tude; while the women, rendered furious by

want, cried, in the resolute tone of despair,* 1.12 "Il nous faut du pain pour nos enfans." Such was the scarcity of bread, that a French gen|tleman told me, that, the day preceding the taking of the Bastile, he was invited to dine with a Negotiant, and, when he went, was in|formed that a servant had been out five hours in search of bread, and had at last been able to purchase only one loaf.

It was at this crisis, it was to save themselves the shocking spectacle of their wives and in|fants perishing before their eyes, that the citi|zens of Paris slew to arms, and, impelled 〈◊〉〈◊〉 by such causes, fought with the daring intre|pidity of men who had all that renders life of any value as stake, and who determined to die or conquer. The women too, far from in|dulging the fears incident to our feeble sex, in defiance of the cannon of the Bastile, ventured to bring victuals to their sons and husbands; and, with a spirit worthy of Roman matrons, encouraged them to go on. Women mounted guard in the streets, and, when any person pass|ed, call out, † 1.13 "Qui va la?"

A gentleman, who had the command of fifty men in this enterprise, told me, that one of his soldiers being killed by a cannon ball, the peo|ple, with great marks of indignation, removed the corps, and then, snatching up the dead man's hat, begged money of the bystanders for

his interment, in a manner characteristic enough of that gaiety, which never forsakes the French, even on such occasions as would make any oth|er people on earth serious. * 1.14 "Madame, pour ce pauvre diable qui s'est fait tué pour la Na|tion!—Mons. pour ce pauvre chien qui s'est fait tué pour la Nation!" This mode of sup|plication, though not very pathetic, obtained the end desired; no person being sufficiently ob|durate to resist the powerful plea, † 1.15 "qu'il s'est fait tué pour la Nation."

When the Bastile was taken, and the old man, of whom you have no doubt heard, and who had been confined in a dungeon thirty-|five years, was brought into day-light, which had not for so long a space of time visited his eyes, he staggered, shook his white beard, and cried faintly. ‡ 1.16 "Messieurs, vous m'avez rendu un grand service, rendez m'en un a••u••e, tuez moi! je ne sais pas oû aller." —"Allons, al|lons," the crowd answered with one voice, "la Nation te nourrira."

As the heroes of the Bastile passed along the streets after its surrender, the citizens stood at

the doors of their houses loaded with wine, brandy, and other refreshments, which they offered to these deliverers of their country. But they refused to taste any strong liquors, considering the great work they had undertaken as not yet accomplished, and being determined to watch the whole night, in case of any sur|prise.

All those who had assisted in taking the Bas|tile, were presented by the municipality of Par|is with a ribbon of the national colours, on which is stamped, inclosed in a circle of brass, an impression of the bastile, and which so worn as a military order.

The municipality of Paris also proposed a solemn funeral procession, in memory of those who lost their lives in this enterprise; but, on making application to the National Assembly for a deputation of its members to assist at this solemnity, the Assembly were of opinion that these funeral honours should be postponed till a more favorable moment▪ as they might at present have a tendency to inflame the minds of the people.

I have heard several persons mention a young man, of a little insignificant figure, who, the day before the Bastile was taken, got up on a chair in the Palais Royal, and harangued the multitude, conjuring them to make a struggle for their liberty, and asserting that now the mo|ment was arrived. They listened to his elo|quence with the most eager attention; and,

when he had instructed as many as could hear him at on time, he requested them to depart, and repeated his harangue to a new set of au|ditors.

Among the dungeons of the Bastile are plac|ed, upon a heap of stones, the figures of the two men who contrived the plan of this fortress, where they were afterwards confined for life. These men are represented chained to the wall, and are beheld without any emotion of sympa|thy.

The person employed to remove the ruins of the Bastile, has framed of the stones, eighty-three complete models of this building, which, with a true patriotic spirit, he has presented to the eighty-three departments of the kingdom, by way of hint to his countrymen to take care of their liberties in future.

LETTER. V.

I AM just returned from a visit to Mad|ame Sillery, whose works on education are so well known, and so justly esteemed in Eng|land, and who received me with the most en|gaging politeness. Surely the French are un|rivalled in the arts of pleasing; in the power of uniting with the most polished elegance of manners, that attentive kindness which seems

to flow warm from the heart, and which, while it sooths our vanity, secures our affections. Madame Sillery and her pupils are at present at St. Leu, a beautiful spot in the rich valley of Montmo••enci. Mons. d'Orleans has cer|tainly conferred a most essential obligation up|on his children, by placing them under the care of this lady. I never met with young people more amiable in their dispositions, o•• more charming in their manners, which are equally remote from arrogance, and from those efforts of condescension which I have seen some great people make, with much difficulty to themselves, and much offence to others. The Princess, who is thirteen years of age, has a countenance of the sweetest expression, and appears to me to be Adelaide, the heroine of Madame Sillery's Letters on Education, per|sonified. The three princes, though under Madame Sillery's superintendence, have also preceptors who live in the house, and assist in their education. The eldest prince, Mons. de Chartres, is nearly eighteen years of age, and his attentive politeness formed a striking con|trast in my mind, to the manners of those fash|ionable gentlemen in a certain great metropo|lis, who consider apathy and negligence as the test of good breeding. But if I was pleased with the manners of this young Prince, I was still more delighted to find him a confirmed friend to the new constitution of France, and willing, with the enthusiasm of a young and

ardent mind, to renounce the splendor of his titles for the general good. When he heard that the sacrifice of fortune also was required, and that the immense property, which he had been taught to consider as his inheritance, was to be divided with his brothers, he embraced them with the utmost affection, declaring that he should rejoice in such a division. To find a democratic Prince, was somewhat singular: I was much less surprised that Madame Sillery had adopted sentiments which are so conge|nial to an enlarged and comprehensive mind. This lady I have called Sillery, because it is the name by which she is known in England; but, since the decree of the National Assem|bly, abolishing the nobility, she has renounced with her title the name of Sillery, and has tak|en that of Brulart.

She talked to me of the distinctions of rank, in the spirit of philosophy, and ridiculed the absurdity of converting the rewards of person|al merit into the inheritance of those who had perhaps so little claim to honours, that they were a sort of oblique reproach on their char|acter and conduct. There may be arguments against hereditary rank sufficiently convincing to such an understanding as Madame Brulart's; but I know some French ladies who entertain very different notions on this subject; who see no impropriety in the establishments of no|bility; and who have carried their love of ar|istocratical rights so far as to keep their bed••▪

in a fit of despondency, upon being obliged to relinquish the agreeable epithets of Comtesse or Marquise, to which their ears had been so long accustomed.

But let me do justice to the ladies of France. The number of those who have murmured at the loss of rank, bears a very small proportion to those who have acted with a spirit of distin|guished patriotism; who, with those generous affections which belong to the female heart, have gloried in sacrificing titles, fortune, and even the personal ornaments, so dear to female vanity, for the common cause. It was the la|dies who gave the example of le don patriot|ique,* 1.17 by offering their jewels at the shrine of liberty; and, if the women of ancient Rome have gained the applause of distant ages for such actions, the women of France will also claim the admiration of posterity.

The women have certainly had a considera|ble share in the French revolution; for, what|ever the imperious lords of the creation may fancy, the most important events which take place in this world, depend a little on our in|fluence; and we often act in human affairs like those secret springs in mechanism, by which, though invisible, great movements are regulated.

But let us return to Madame Brulart, who wears at her breast a medallion made of a stone of the Bastile, polished. In the middle of

the medallion, Liberté was written in diamonds; above was marked, in diamonds, the planet that shone on the 14th of July; and below was seen the moon, of the shape she appeared that memorable night. The medallion was set in a branch of laurel, composed of emeralds, and tied at the top with the national cockade, formed of brilliant stones of the three national colours.

Our conversation on the subject of the Bastile, led Madame Brulart to relate an action of Mons. de Chartres, which reflects the high|est honour on his humanity. Being in Nor|mandy, he visited Mont St. Michel, a fortress built on a rock which stands a league and a half from the coast of Normandy. The tide covers this space twice every twenty-four hours; but when it is low-water, a person can pass over on foot. Mont St. Michel was originally a church, founded by a good bishop in the seventh century, in honour of St. Michel, who, it seems, appeared to him in a vision on this spot. Richard the First, Duke of Normandy, of that name, afterwards converted the church into an abbey, and this abbey gave rise to the military order des Chevaliers de St. Michel, instituted by Louis the Eleventh. After hav|ing seen the precious relics of the abbey, the square buckler, and the short sword found in Ireland near the body of the well-known drag|on, whose destruction is attributed to the prow|ess of St. Michel, Mons. de Chartres was con|ducted,

through many labyrinths, to the sub|terraneous parts of the edifice; where he was shewn a wooden cage, which was made by or|der of Louis the Fourteenth, for the punish|ment of an unfortunate wit, who had dared to ridicule his conquests in Holland, no sooner gained than lost. Mons. de Chartres beheld with horror this instrument of tyranny, in which prisoners were still frequently confined; and, expressing in very strong terms his indignation, he was told, that, as a Prince of the blood, he had a right, if he thought proper, to order the cage to be destroyed. Scarcely were the words pronounced, when the young Prince seized a hatchet, gave the first stroke himself to this execrable machine, waited to see it levelled with the ground, and thus may claim the glory of having, even before the demolition of the Bastile, begun the French revolution.

We found at St. Leu, a young English lady, who is the companion of the Princess, and whose appearance is calculated to give the most favourable idea of English beauty. I never saw more regular features, or an expression of countenance more lovely; and Madame Bru|lart, by whom she has been educated, assured me that "the mind keeps the promise we had from the face." This young lady seems to

Cast a fond look where England's glories shine, And bids her bosom sympathize with mine.

LETTER VI.

I HAVE been at the National Assem|bly, where, at a time when the deputies from the provinces engrossed every ticket of ad|mission, my sister and I were admitted without tickets, by the gentleman who had the com|mand of the guard, and placed in the best seats, before he suffered the doors to be open|ed to other people. We had no personal ac|quaintance with this gentleman, or any claim to his politeness, except that of being foreign|ers and women; but these are, of all claims, the most powerful to Frenchmen.

My sister observed to me, that our seats, which were immediately opposite the tribune from which the members speak, reminded her of our struggles to attain the same situation in Westminster Hall. I believe, however, said I, that if the same of Mr. Fox's eloquence should lead a French woman to present her|self at the door of Westminster Hall without a ticket, she might stand there as long as Mr. Hastings's trial has lasted, without being per|mitted to pass the barrier.

The hall of the National Assembly is long and narrow; at each end there is a gallery, where the common people are admitted by applying very early in the morning for num|bers, which are distributed at the door; and

the persons who first apply secure the first numbers. The seats bring also numbered, all confusion and disorder are prevented. The galleries at the side of the hall are divided in|to boxes, which are called tribunes. They belong to the principal members of the Na|tional Assembly, and to these places company are admitted with tickets. Rows of seats are placed round the hall, raised one above anoth|er, where the members of the Assembly are seated; and immediately opposite the chair of the president, in the narrow part of the hall, is the tribune which the members ascend when they are going to speak. One capital subject of debate in this Assembly is, who shall speak first; for all seem more inclined to talk than to listen; and sometimes the president in vain ••ings a bell, or with the vehemence of French action stretches out his arms, and endeavours to impose silence; while the six Huissers, per|sons who are appointed to keep order, make the attempt with as little success as the presi|dent himself. But of how little consequence is this impetuosity in debate, if the decrees which are passed are wise and beneficial, and the new constitution arises, like the beauty and order of nature, from the confusion of mingled elements! I was highly gratified by hearing several of the members speak. Their manner of speaking in the National Assembly is remarkably slow and distinct, and very dif|ferent from the usual volubility of Frenchmen.

And this, repeated I with exultation to my|self, this is the National Assembly of France! Those men now before my eyes are the men who engross the attention, the astonishment of Europe; for the issue of whose decrees sur|rounding nations wait in suspense, and whose fame has already extended through every civi|lized region of the globe: The men whose magnanimity invested them with power to destroy the old constitution, and whose wis|dom is erecting the new, on a principle of perfection which has hitherto been thought chimerical, and has only served to adorn the page of the philosopher; but which they be|lieve may be reduced to practice, and have therefore the courage to attempt. My mind, with a sensation of elevated pleasure, passing through the interval of ages, anticipated the increasing renown of these legislators, and the period when, all the nations of Europe follow|ing the liberal system which France has adopt|ed, the general policy of the present times shall give place to the reign of reason, virtue and science.

The most celebrated characters in the Na|tional Assembly were pointed out to us. Mon|sieur Barnave de Dauphine, who is only six and twenty years of age, and the youngest mem|ber of the Assembly, is esteemed its first orator, and is the leader of the democratic party. I believe Mons. Barnave does not owe all his rep|utation to his talents, however distinguished:

His virtues also claim a considerable share of that applause which he receives from his coun|try. He has shewn himself as stedfast in prin|ciple, as he is eloquent in debate. With firm undeviating integrity he has defended the cause of the people. Every motion he has made in the Assembly has passed into a law, because its beneficial tendency has been always evi|dent; and it was he who effected that memo|rable decree which deprived the King of the power of making war, without the consent of the nation. Mons. Barnave is adored by the people, who have two or three times tak|en the horses from his carriage, and drawn him in triumph along the streets of Paris.

We also saw Mons. Mirabeau ••ain••, whose genius is of the first class, but who possesses a very small share of popularity. I am, how|ever, one of his partizans, though not merely from that enthusiasm which always comes a|cross my heart in favour of great intellectual abilities. Mons. Mirabeau has another very powerful claim on my partiality: He is the professed friend (and I must and will love him for being so) of the African race. He has proposed the abolition of the slave trade to the National Assembly, and, though the Assembly have delayed the consideration of this subject, on account of those deliberations which im|mediately affect the country, yet, perhaps, if our Senators continue to doze over this affair as they have hitherto done, the French will have the glory of setting us an example, which

it will then be our humble employment to fol|low. But I trust the period will never come, when England will submit to be taught by another nation the lesson of humanity. I trust an English House of Commons will never persist in thinking, that what is morally wrong, can be politically right; that the virtue and the prosperity of a people are things at vari|ance with each other; and that a country which abounds with so many sources of wealth, cannot afford to close one polluted channel, which is stained with the blood of our fellow-creatures.

But it is a sort of treason to the honour, the spirit, the generosity of Englishmen, to suppose they will persevere in such conduct. Admit|ting, however, a supposition which it is pain|ful to make, admitting that they should abide by this system of inhumanity, they will only retard, but will not finally prevent the aboli|tion of slavery. The Africans have not per|haps long to suffer, nor their oppressors to triumph. Europe seems hastening towards a period too enlightened for the perpetuation of such monstrous abuses. The mists of igno|rance and error are rolling fast away, and the benign beams of philosophy are spreading their lustre over the nations. But whither have these children of captivity led me? I perceive I have wandered a great way from the Na|tion Assembly, where I was so happily seated, and of which I will tell you more in my next letter.

LETTER VII.

THE Abbé Maury is one of the most distinguished members of the National Assem|bly. He possesses astonishing powers of elo|quence; but he has done his talents the injus|tice to make them subservient to the narrow considerations of self-interest▪ had he display|ed that ability in defence of civil and religious liberty, which he has employed in the service of the exorbitant pretensions of the church, he would have deserved the highest applause of his country; instead of which, he has called to the aid of his genius an auxiliary it ought to have scorned; that subtlety which tries "to make the worse appear the better reason;" and he is still more detested than admired. I am not surprised that a little mind is sometimes tempted by interest to tread in a mean and sor|did path; but I own it does astonish me that genius can be seduced from the fair field of honorable fame into those serpentine ways where it can meet, with no object worthy of its ambition. "Something too much of this." You shall hear a repartee of the Abbé Maury, who, after having made a very unpopular motion in the Assembly, was insulted as he was going out; the people crying, as they are too apt to do, * 1.18 "A la lanterne." The Abbé, turning to the

crowd, answered, with equal indignation and spirit, * 1.19 "Eh! Messieurs, si j'etois à l•• lanterne, seriez vous plus eclairés?" The Abbé Maury, before the revolution, was in possession of eight hundred farms, and has lost sixty thousand li|vres a year in consequence of that event. But enough of Mons. l'Abbé, whose picture I have just purchased in a snuff-box. You touch a spring, open the lid of the snuff-box, and the Abbé jumps up, and occasions much sur|prise and merriment. The joke, however, is grown a little stale in France; but I shall bring the Abbé with me to England, where I flatter myself his sudden appearance will afford some diversion.

A singular but very respectable figure in the National Assembly, is a Deputy from Britany, called Le Pere Gerard. This venerable old man is a peasant, and his appearance reminds one of those times when Generals were called from the plough to take the command of armies. The dress of Le Pere Gerard is made of a coarse woollen cloth, which is worn by the peasants of Britany, and is of such strong tex|ture, that a coat often descends from one gen|eration to another. This cloth is called Pinch|ina; and the king, to whom the old Breton has presented several addresses from the As|sembly, calls him, † 1.20 en badinage, Le Pere

Pinchina. When I saw him, he had on this everlasting coat, and wore worsted stockings gartered above the knees. But, what pleased me most in his appearance, were the long white hairs which hung down his shoulders; an or|nament for which you know I have a particu|lar predilection.

The respectable Pere Gerard boasts that he is descended from a race of deputies, his great grand-father having been chosen as a deputy to the States General in 1614, the last time they were held, before that memorable period when they effected the revolution.

At the time when the ladies set the example of the patriotic donation, by offering their jew|els, and the members of the National Assem|bly, in a moment of enthusiasm, took the silver buckles out of their shoes, and laid them on the President's table, the Pere Gerard rose, and said, that, he had no such offering to give, his buckles being made of brass, but that his don patriotique should be that of rendering his ser|vices to his country unpaid. The old man was heard by the Assembly with the applause he merited; and the people, on the day of the Federation, carried him from the Champ de Mars to his own house in triumph on their shoulders.

Messieurs Charles and Alexander Lameth, two brothers, and Mons. Rabeau de St. Estienne, are among the first patriots of the Nation|al Assembly, and have a very high reputation for talents. The French, who love what they

call an equivoque, tell you, que Mons. Ra|beau vaut deux de Mi Rabeau.

The meetings of the Assembly, though still tumultuous, are much less so than they were at their commencement. A gentleman, who was present when the motion was made for abolishing monasteries, told me, that the minds of the members were, on that occasion, inflam|ed to such a height, that it appeared to him very probable, that the debate would end in a massacre. He mentioned a circumstance very characteristic of French vivacity. One of the members was expressing himself in these words, "What is a Monk? A man who has renounced his father, his mother, every tie, every affection that is dear in nature! and for whom?"—before the speaker could finish his sentence, a member from the other end of the hall seized the moment while the orator was drawing his breath, and called out * 1.21 "Pour une puissance étrangére," to the great horror du côté noir, for so the clergy are called.

The Democrates place themselves on one side of the hall, and the Aristocrates on the other. The spectators in the galleries take such a part in the debate, as frequently to ex|press their applause by clapping their hands with great violence. An old Marechal of France rose, the day I was at the Assembly▪ when they were debating on the military pen|sions, and declared, that in recompense for the services which he had rendered his country▪

he desired honours, and not pay. The Assem|bly clapped him, and the galleries joined in this mark of approbation. A young Frenchman, who sat next me, whispered to me * 1.22 "Mons. trouve apparamment que l'argent l'incom|mode."

The members of the National Assembly are paid three crowns a day for their attendance; while in England a candidate for a seat in par|liament often spends many thousand pounds, and, with magnificent generosity, makes a whole county drunk for a week, merely to en|joy the privilege of serving his country with|out pay.

The qualification requisite for a member of the National Assembly, is that of possessing sufficient property in land or houses to pay tax|es to the amount of a marc d'argent, which is the value of four louis. Every hundred of the citizens, who pay taxes to government of three days labour, or three livres, have a right to vote far an elector; whose qualification is that of paying taxes to the amount of ten livres, or ten days labour. The electors of one depart|ment meet together in one assembly, and choose from among their own body the persons who are to direct the administration of that depart|ment. Those electors will also choose in the same manner the deputies sent by that depart|ment to the National Assembly. There will therefore be only one intermediate degree be|tween

the lowest order of active citizens, and the members of the National Assembly.

I was interrupted by a visitor, who related a little incident, which has interested me so much, that I can write of nothing else at pres|ent, and you shall therefore have it warm from my heart. While the National Assem|bly were deliberating upon the division of property among brothers, a young man of high birth and fortune, who is a member of the As|sembly, entered with precipitation, and, mount|ing the tribune, with great emotion informed the Assembly, that he had just received ac|counts that his father was dying; that he himself was his eldest son, and had come to conjure the Assembly to pass, without delay, that equitable decree, giving the younger sons an equal share of fortune with the eldest, in order, he said, that his father might have the satisfaction, before he breathed his last, of knowing that all his children were secure of a provision. If you are not affected by this circumstance, you have read it with very dif|ferent feelings from those with which I have written it: But if, on the contrary, you have fallen in love with this young Frenchman, do not imagine your passion is singular, for I am violently in love with him myself.

LETTER VIII.

YOU have not heard, perhaps, that on the day of the Federation at Paris the na|tional oath was taken throughout the whole kingdom, at the hour of twelve.

A great number of farmers and peasants walk|ed in the procession at Rouen, bearing in their hands the instruments of their husbandry, decorated with national ribbons. The nation|al guard cut down branches from the trees, and stuck them in their hats; and a French gentle|man of my acquaintance, who understands English, and reads Shakespeare, told me, that it seemed like Birnham Wood coming to Dun|••nane.

The leaders of the French Revolution, are men well acquainted with the human heart. They have not trusted merely to the force of reason, but have studied to interest in their cause the most powerful passions of human na|ture, by the appointment of solemnities per|fectly calculated to awaken that general sympa|thy which is caught from heart to heart with irresistible energy, fills every eye with tears, and throbs in every bosom.

I have heard of a procession, which took place not long ago, in one of the districts of Paris, in which five hundred young ladies walked dressed in white, and decorated with

cockades of the national ribbon, leading by silken cords a number of prisoners newly re|leased from captivity; and who, with their fac|es covered by long flowing veils, were con|ducted to a church, where they returned thanks for their deliverance.

Thus have the leaders of the Revolution en|gaged beauty as one of their auxiliaries, justly concluding, that, to the gallantry and sensibil|ity of Frenchmen, no argument would be found more efficacious than that of a pretty face.

I have just read a private letter from a little town about two leagues from Montaubun, call|ed Negre-Pelisse, where the inhabitants, on the day of the Federation, displayed a liberali|ty of sentiment, which reflects honour, not on|ly on themselves, but on the age in which we live. The national guard of this little town and its environs, were assembled to take the national oath. Half of the inhabitants being Protestants and the other half Catholics, the Curé and the Protestant Minister ascended to|gether one altar, which had been erected by the citizens, and administered the oath to their respective parishioners at the same moment, after which, Catholics and Protestants joined in singing Te Deum.

Surely religious worship was never perform|ed more truly in the spirit of the Divine au|thor of Christanity, whose great precept is that of universal love! Surely the incense of 〈◊〉〈◊〉 was never more likely to ascend to 〈◊〉〈◊〉,

than when the Catholics and Protestants of Negre-Pelisse offered it together!

This amiable community, when their devo|tions were finished, walked in procession to a spot where fire-works had been prepared; and, it being considered as a mark of honor to light the fire-works, the office was reserved for Mons. le Curé, who however, insisted on the participation of the Protestant Minister in this distinction; upon which the Minister received a wax taper from the Curé, and with him led the procession. The fire-works represented two trees: One, twisted and distorted, was em|blematical of aristocracy, and was soon entire|ly consumed; when a tall straight plant, figu|rative of patriotism, appeared to rise from the ashes of the former, and continued to burn with undiminished splendor.

When we look back on the ignorance, the superstition, the barbarous persecution of Gothic times, is it not something to be thank|ful for, that we exist at this enlightened period, when such evils are no more; when particular tenets of religious belief are no longer imput|ed as crimes; when the human mind has made as many important discoveries in morality as in science, and liberality of sentiment is culti|vated with as much success as arts and learn|ing; when, in short (and you are not one of those who will suspect that I am not all the while a good English-woman) when one can witness an event so sublime as the French Revolution?

LETTER IX.

YESTERDAY I received your letter in which you accuse me of describing with too much enthusiasm the public rejoicings of France, and prophesy that I shall return to my own country a fierce republican. In answer to these accusations, I shall only observe, that it is very difficult, with common sensibility, to avoid sympathizing in general happiness. My love of the French revolution, is the natural result of this sympathy, and therefore my po|litical creed is entirely an affair of the heart; for I have not been so absurd as to consult my head upon matters of which it is so incapable of judging. If I were at Rome, you would not be surprised to hear that I had visited, with the warmest reverence, every spot where any relics of her ancient grandeur could be traced; that I had flown to the capitol, that I had kiss|ed the earth on which the Roman Senate sat in council: And can you then expect me to have seen the Federation at the Champ de Mars, and the National Assembly of France, with in|difference? Before you insist that I ought to have done so, point out to me, in the page of Roman history, a spectacle more solemn, more affecting, than the Champ de Mars exhibited, or more magnanimous, more noble efforts in the cause of liberty than have been made by the National Assembly. Whether the new

form of government, establishing in France, be more or less perfect than our own,

Who shall decide, when doctors disagree. And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?

I fancy we had better leave the determination of this question to posterity. In the mean time, I wish that some of our political critics would speak with less contempt, than they are apt to do, of the new constitution of France, and no longer repeat after one another the trite remark, that the French have gone too far, because they have gone farther than our|selves; as if it were not possible that that de|gree of influence which is perfectly safe in the hand of the executive part of our government, might be dangerous, at this crisis, to the liberty of France. But be this as it may, it appears ev|ident that the temple of Freedom, which they are erecting, even if imperfect in some of its proportions, must be preferable to the old gloomy Gothic fabric which they have laid in ruins. And therefore, when I hear my good countrymen, who guard their own rights with such unremitting vigilance, and who would rather part with life than liberty, speak with contempt of the French for having imbibed the noble lesson which England has taught, I cannot but suspect that some mean jealousy lurks beneath the ungenerous censure. I can|not but suspect, that, while the fair and honor|able traders of our commercial country act with the most liberal spirit in their ordinary

dealings with other nations, they wish to make a monopoly of liberty, and are angry that France should claim a share of that prec|ious property; by which, however, she may surely be enriched, without our being impov|erished. The French, on the contrary, seem to have imbibed, with the principles of liberty, the strongest sentiments of respect and friend|ship towards that people, whom they grateful|ly acknowledge to have been their masters in this science. They are, to use their own phrase, * 1.23 "devenus fous des Anglois," and fondly im|agine that the applause they have received from a society of philosophers in our country, is the general voice of the nation.

Whether the new constitution be composed of durable materials or not, I leave to politi|cians to determine; but it requires no extraor|dinary sagacity to pronounce, that the French will henceforth be free. The love of liberty has pervaded all ranks of the people, who, if its blessings must be purchased with blood, will not shrink from paying the price:

While ev'n the peasant boasts his right to scan, And learns to venerate himself as man.

The enthusiastic spirit of liberty displays itself, not merely on the days of solemn ceremonies; occupies not only every serious deliberation; but is mingled with the gaiety of social enjoy|ment. When they converse, liberty is the theme of discourse; when they dance, the fig|ure

of the cotillion is adapted to a national tune▪ and when they sing, it is but to repeat a vow of fidelity to the constitution, at which all who are present instantly join in chorus, and sportively lift up their hands in confirmation of this favourite sentiment.

In every street, you see children performing the military exercise, and carrying banners made of paper of the national colours, wearing grenadiers caps of the same composition, and armed, though not like Jack the Giant-killer, with swords of sharpness.

Upon the whole, liberty appears in France adorned with the freshness of youth, and is lov|ed with the ardour of passion. In England she is seen in her matron state, and, like other ladies at that period, is beheld with sober ve••|eration.

With respect to myself, I must acknowl|edge, that, in my admiration of the revolution in France, I blend the feelings of private friendship with my sympathy in public bless|ings; since the old constitution is connected in my mind with the image of a friend con|fined in the gloomy recesses of a dungeon, and pining in hopeless captivity; while, with the new constitution, I unite the soothing idea of his return to prosperity, honours, and happi|ness.

This person is Mons. du F—, whose lady I am come to France to visit. They are friends, with whom I wept in the day of their adversity, and with whom in their prosperity,

I have hastened to rejoice. Their history is most affecting; and, when I leave the hurry of Paris, to accompany them to their Chateau in Normandy, I will make you acquainted with incidents as pathetic as romance itself can furnish. Adieu!

LETTER X.

WE have been driving at a furious rate, for several days past, through the city of Paris, which I think bears the same resem|blance to London (if you will allow me the indulgence of a simile) that the grand natural objects in a rude and barren country, bear to the tame but regular beauties of a scene, rich with cultivation. The streets of Paris are narrow, dark, and dirty; but we are repaid for this by noble edifices, which powerfully inter|est the attention. The streets of London are broad, airy, light, and elegant; but I need not tell you that they lead scarcely to any edifices at which foreigners do not look with contempt. London has, therefore, most of the beautiful, and Paris of the sublime, according to Mr. Burke's definition of these qualities; for I as|sure you a sensation of terror is not wanting to the sublimity of Paris, while the coachman drives through the streets with the impetuosity of a Frenchman, and one expects every step

the horses take will be fatal to the foot passen|gers, who are heard exclaiming, * 1.24 "Que les rue de Paris sont aristocrates." By the way, aristocracie, and à la nation, are become cant terms, which, as Sterne said of tant pis, and tant mieux, may now be considered as two of the great hinges in French conversation. Ev|ery thing tiresome or unpleasant, "c'est une aristocracie!" and every thing charming and agreeable is, "à la nation."

I have seen all the fine buildings at Paris, and fancy I should have admired the façade of the Louvre, the beautiful new church of St. Genevieve, and some other edifices, even if I had not been told previously by a connoisseur in these matters, the precise degree of admiration which it was proper to bestow on every public building in Paris; but, having received such minute instructions on this subject, I can form but an imperfect notion of my own taste for architecture.

At the request of Madame Brulart, Mons. de Chartes sent orders for our admission to the Palais Royal, which is not at present shewn to the public. Of the collection of pictures, I am incapable of saying any thing, and enough has been already said by those who understand its merits. Fine painting gives me considera|ble pleasure, but has not the power of calling forth my sensibility, like fine poetry; and I am willing to believe that the art I love, is the most perfect of the two; and that it would

have been impossible for the pencil of Raphael to convey all those ideas to the mind, and ex|cite all those emotions in the heart, which are awakened by the pen of Shakespeare.

I confess, the only picture in Paris which has cost me any tears is that of La Valliere, in the convent of the Carmelites. She is repre|sented in the habit of a Carmelite; all the form|er ornaments of her person lie scattered at her feet; and her eyes are cast up to Heaven with a look of the deepest anguish. While I gazed at her picture, I lamented that sensibility which led into the most fatal errors a mind that seems to have been formed for virtue, and which, even in the bosom of pleasure, bewailed its own weakness. How can one forbear regretting, that the capricious inconstant monarch, to whom she gave her heart, should have inspired a passion of which he was so unworthy; a pas|sion which appears to have been wholly un|mixed with interest, vanity, or ambition? And how can one avoid pitying the desolate peni|tent, who, for so many years, in the dismal gloom of a convent, deplored her errors, and felt at once the bitterness of remorse, and the agony of disappointed love? while, probably,

In every-hymn she seem'd his voice to hear, And dropt with every bead, too soft a tear!

If the figure of this beautiful Carmelite had not come across my imagination, I should have told you sooner, that the Palais Royal is a square▪ of which the Duc de Orleans's palace forms one

side. You walk under piazzas round this square, which is surrounded with coffee-houses. and shops displaying a variety of ribbons, trink|ets, and caricature prints, which are now as common at Paris as at London. The walks under the piazzas are crowded with people; and in the upper part of the square, tents are placed, where coffee, lemonade, ices, &c. are sold. Nothing is heard but the voice of mirth; nothing is seen but cheerful faces: and I have no doubt that the Palais Royal is, upon the whole, one of the merriest scenes under the sun. Indeed, what is most striking to a stranger at Paris, is that general appear|ance of gaiety, which it is easy to perceive, is not assumed for the moment, but is the habit of the mind, and which is, therefore, so exhil|arating to a spectator of any benevolence. It is this which gives such a charm to every pub|lic place and walk in Paris. Kensington Gardens can boast as fine verdure, as majestic trees, as noble walks, and perhaps more beau|tiful women, than the gardens of the Thuille|ries; but we shall look in vain for that spright|ly animation, that everlasting cheerfulness, which render the Thuilleries so enchanting.

We have just returned from the Hopital des Invalides, a noble building, adorned with fine paintings, which record the history of some celebrated saints, whose exploits were recount|ed with incredible rapidity by the man who conducted us through the chapels, and who seemed to think that nothing could be more

absurd than our curiosity, after having heard these stories from his lips, to observe how they were told by the painters.

As we passed thr••••gh the church, we saw several old soldiers kneeling at the confession|als, with that solemn devotion which seemed undisturbed by our intrusion, and fixed upon "the things that are above."

A few days before the taking of the Bastile, a crowd of the Parisians assembled at the Hop|ital des Invalides, and demanded arms of the old soldiers; who answered, that they were the friends of their fellow citizens, but durst not deliver up their arms without the appear|ance of a contest; and therefore desired that the people would assemble before the gates in greater numbers the next day, when, after fir|ing a little powder upon them, they would throw down their arms. The people accord|ingly returned the following day; and the in|valids, after a faint shew of resistance, threw down their arms, which the citizens took up, embraced the old men, and then departed.

We stopped yesterday at La Maison de Ville, and went into a large apartment where the mayor and corporation assemble. The walls are hung round with pictures of Kings and Dukes, which I looked at with much less respect than at the chair on which Mons. Bailly sits. If his picture should ever be plac|ed in this apartment, I fancy that, in the esti|mation of posterity, it will obtain precedency over all the Princes in the collection.

As we came out of La Maison de Ville, we were shewn, immediately opposite, the far-famed * 1.25 lanterne, at which, for want of a gal|lows, the first victims of popular fury were sacrificed. I own that the sight of La Lan|terne chilled the blood within my veins. At that moment, for the first time, I lamented the revolution; and, forgetting the imprudence, or the guilt, of those unfortunate men, could only reflect with horror on the dreadful expia|tion they had made. I painted in my imagi|nation the agonies of their families and friends, nor could I for a considerable time chase these gloomy images from my thoughts.

It is for ever to be regretted, that so dark a shade of ferocious revenge was thrown across the glories of the revolution. But, alas! where do the records of history point out a revolu|tion unstained by some actions of barbarity? When do the passions of human nature rise to that pitch which produces great events, with|out wandering into some irregularites? If the French revolution should cost no farther blood|shed, it must be allowed, notwithstanding a few shocking instances of public vengeance, that the liberty of twenty-four millions of people, will have been purchased at a far cheaper rate than could ever have been expected from the former experience of the world.

LETTER XI.

WE are just returned from Versailles, where I could not help fancying I saw, in the back ground of that magnificent abode of a despot, the gloomy dungeons of the Bastile, which still haunt my imagination, and prevented my being much dazzled by the splendor of this superb palace.

We were shewn the passages through which the Queen escaped from her own apartment to the King's on the memorable night when the Poissardes visited Versailles, and also the bal|cony at which she stood with the Dauphin in her arms, when, after having remained a few hours concealed in some secret recess of the palace, it was thought proper to comply with the desire of the crowd, who repeatedly de|manded her presence. I could not help moral|izing a little, on being told that the apartment to which this balcony belongs, is the very room in which Louis the Fourteenth died; little sus|pecting what a scene would, in the course of a few years, be acted on that spot.

All the bread which could be procured in the town of Versailles, was distributed among the Poissardes; who, with savage ferocity, held up their morsels of bread on their bloody pikes, towards the balcony where the Queen stood; crying, in a tone of defiance, * 1.26 "Nous avons du pain!"

During the whole of the journey from Ver|sailles to Paris, the Queen held the Dauphin in her arms, who had been previously taught to put his infant hands together, and attempt to soften the enraged multitude by repeating * 1.27"Grace pour maman!"

Mons. de la Fayette prevented the whole Gardes du Corps from being massacred at Ver|sailles, by calling to the incensed people, † 1.28 "Le Roi vous demande grace pour ses Gardes du Corps." The voice of Mons. de la Fayette was listened to and obeyed. The Gardes du Corps were spared; with whom, before they set out for Paris, the people exchanged clothes, giving them also national cockades; and, as a farther protection from danger, part of the crowd mounted on the horses of the Gardes du Corps, each man taking an officer behind him. Before the King came out of La Mai|son du Ville, Mons. de la Fayette appeared, and told the multitude, who had preserved an indignant silence the whole way from Ver|sailles to Paris, that the King had expressed sentiments of the strongest affection for his people, and had accepted the national cockade; and that he (Mons. de la Fayette) hoped, when his Majesty came out of la Maison du Ville, they would testify their gratitude. In a few minutes the King appeared, and was received with the loudest acclamations.

When the Queen was lately asked to give her deposition on the attempt which, it is said, was made to assassinate her by the Poissardes at Versailles, she answered, with great prudence, * 1.29"Jai tout vu, tout entendu, et tout oublié!"

The King is now extremely popular, and the people sing in the streets to the old tune of † 1.30 "Vive Henri quatre! &c." "Vive Louis seize!"

The Queen is, I am told, much altered late|ly in her appearance, but she is still a fine wom|an. Madame is a beautiful girl; and the Dauphin, who is about seven years of age, is the idol of the people. They expect that he will be educated in the principles of the new constitution, and will be taught to consider himself less a King than a citizen. He appears to be a sweet engaging child, and I have just heard one of his sayings repeated. He has a collection of animals, which he feeds with his own hand. A few days ago, an ungrateful rabbit, who was his first favourite, bit his finger when he was giving him food. The Prince, while smarting with the pain, called out to his ‡ 1.31 petit lapin, "Tu est Aristocrate." One of the attendants enquired, "Eh! Mon|seigneur,

qu'est-ce que c'est qu'un Aristocrate." "Ce sont ceux," answered the Prince, "qui font de la peine à Papa."

The King lately called the Queen en badi|nage, Madame Capet; to which she retorted very readily, by giving his Majesty the appel|lation of "Monsieur Capot."

When the French guards laid down their arms at Versailles, their officers endeavoured to persuade them to take them up. An officer of my acquaintance told me that he said to his soldiers. * 1.32 "Mes enfans, vous allez donc me quitter, vous ne m'aimez plus?" "Mon offi|cier," they answered, "nous vous aimons tous, si il s'agit d'aller contre nos ennemis, nous sommes tous prets à vous suivre, mais nous ne tirerons jamais contre nos compatriotes." Since that period, whenever any of the French guards appear, they are followed by the accla|mations of the people, and † 1.33 "Vive les Gardes Francoises!" resounds from every quarter.

While we were sitting, after dinner, at the inn at Versailles, the door was suddenly open|ed, and a Franciscan friar entered the room. He had so strong a resemblance to Sterne's monk, that I am persuaded he must be a de|scendant

of the same family. We could not, like Sterne, bestow immortality; but we gave some alms; and the venerable old monk, after thanking us with affecting simplicity, added, spreading out his hands with a slow and solemn movement, * 1.34 "Que la paix soit avec vous," and then departed. I have been frequently put in mind of Sterne since my arrival in France; and the first post-boy I saw in jack-boots, appeared to me a very classical figure, by recalling the idea of La Fleur mounted on his bidet.

LETTER XII.

WE have been at all the Theatres, and I am charmed with the comic actors. The tragic performers afforded me much less pleas|ure. Before we can admire Madame Vestris, the first tragic actress of Paris, we must have lost the impression (a thing impossible) of Mrs. Siddons's performance; who, instead of "tearing a passion to rags," like Madame Vestris, only tears the hearts of the audience with sympathy.

Most of the pieces we have seen at the French theatres, have been little comedies, relative to the circumstances of the times, and, on that account, preferred, in this moment of

enthusiasm, to all the wit of Moliere. These little pieces might perhaps read coldly enough in your study, but have a most charming effect with an accompanyment of applause from some hundreds of the national guards, the real actors in the scenes represented. Between the acts, national songs are played, in which the whole audience join in chorus. There is one air, in particular, which is so universal a favourite, that it is called "Le Carrillon National;" the burden of the song is * 1.35 "C'a ira." It is sung not only at every theatre, and in every street of Paris, but in every town and village of France, by man, woman, and child. "C'a ira" is every where the signal of pleasure, the beloved sound which animates every bosom with delight, and of which every ear is enam|oured. And I have heard the most serious political conversations end by a sportive assur|ance, in allusion to this song, que "Ca ria!"

Giornowiche, the celebrated player on the violin, who was so much the fashion last winter at London, I am told, sometimes amused him|self at Paris, by getting up into one of the trees of the Palais Royal, after it was dark, and call|ing forth tones from his violin, fit to "take the prisoned soul, and lap it in Elysium," He has frequently detained some thousands of peo|ple half the night in the Palais Royal, who, before they discovered the performer, used to call out in rapture, "Bravo, bravo; † 1.36 c'est mieux que Giornowiche."

I am just returned from seeing the Gobelin tapestry, which appears the work of magic. It gave me pleasure to see two pictures of Henry the Fourth. In one, he is placed at supper with the miller's family; and in the other, he is embracing Sully, who is brought forward on a couch, after having been wounded in bat|tle. Nothing has afforded me more delight, since I came to France, than the honors which are paid to my favourite hero▪ Henry the Fourth, whom I prefer to all the Alexanders and Frederics that ever existed. They may be terribly sublime, if you will, and have great claims to my admiration; but as for my love, all that portion of it which I bestow on heroes, is already in Henry's possession.

Little statues of Henry the Fourth and Sully are very common. Sully is represented kneel|ing at the feet of this amiable Prince, who holds out his hand to him; and on the base of the statue, are written the words which Sully records in his Memoirs;* 1.37 "Mais levez vous, levez vous done, Sully, on croiroit que je vous pardonne."

While the statue of Henry the Fourth, on the Pont-Neuf, is illuminated and decorated with national ribbon, that of Louis the Fourteenth, in the Place Victoire, is stripped of its former ostentatious ornaments; the nations, which were represented enchained at his feet, having been removed since the revolution. The fig|ure

of Fame is, however, still left hovering be|hind the statue of the King, with a crown of laurel in her hand, which, it is generally sup|posed, she is going to place upon his head. But I have heard of a French wit, who enquired whether it was really her intention to place the laurel on his Majesty's head, or whether she had just taken it off.

In our ride this morning, we stopped at the Place Royale, where I was diverted by read|ing, on the front of a little shop under the pi|azzas, these words: "Robelin, * 1.38 ecrivain.— Memoires et lettres écrites à juste prix, à la nation." I am told, that Mons. Robelin is in very flourishing business; and perhaps I might have had recourse to him for assistance in my correspondence with you, if I did not leave Paris to-morrow. You shall hear from me from Rouen.

LETTER XIII.

WE had a most agreeable journey from Paris to Rouen, travelling a hundred miles a|long the borders of the Seine, through a beau|tiful country, richly wooded, and finely diver|sified by hill and valley. We passed several magnificent chateaus, and saw many a spire be|longing

to Gothic edifices, which, it would seem, were built of such lasting materials, with the moral purpose of leading the mind to re|flect on the comparatively short duration of human life. Frequently an old venerable cross, placed at the side of the road by the pie|ty of remote ages, and never passed by Roman Catholics without some mark of respect, throws a kind of religious sanctity over the landscape.

We stopped to look at the immense machine which conveys water to Versailles and Marly. The water is raised, by means of this machine, sixty feet, and is carried the distance of five hun|dred. I never heard a sound which filled my mind with more horror than the noise occa|sioned by the movements of this tremendous machine; while, at the same time, the vast chasms, where the water foams with angry vio|lence, make the brain giddy, and I was glad to leave these images of terror.

Part of our journey was performed by moon|light, which slept most sweetly upon the bank, and spread over the landscape those softened graces which I will not attempt to describe, lest my pen should stray into rhyme.

We passed the chateau of Rosni, a noble domain given to Sully by Henry the Fourth; a testimony of that friendship which reflects equal honour on the King and the Minister.

About three leagues from Rouen stands a convent, of which Abelard was for some time the superior. It is still inhabited by a few monks, and is called Le Couvent de deux

Amans. Had it been the monastery of the Paraclete, the residence of Eloisa, I should have hastened to visit the spot,

Where, o'er the twilight groves and dusky caves, Long sounding isles, and intermingled graves, Black melancholy sits, and round her throws, A death-like silence, and a dread repose; Her gloomy presence saddens all the scene, Shades ev'ry flow'r, and darkens ev'ry green, Deepens the murmur of the falling floods, And breathes a browner horror on the woods.

If it were not very difficult to be angry with such a poet as Pope, particularly after having just transcribed these exquisite lines, I should be so when I recollect how clearly Mr. Ber|ington shows, in his History of Abelard and Eloisa, the cruel injustice done by Pope to the sentiments of Eloisa, who is too often made to speak a very different language in the poem, from that of her genuine letters.

On our way to Rouen we slept at Gallon, a town about five leagues distant. Our inn was close to the castle, which formerly belonged to the Archbishop of Rouen, and which is now the property of the nation. The castle is a venerable Gothic building, with a fine orangery, and parks which extend several leagues. The Archbishop, who is the Cardinal de la Roch|efoucault, brother to that distinguished patriot, formerly the Duke de la Rochefoucault, has lost a very considerable revenue since the revo|lution. He had an immense train of servants, whom it is said he dismissed, upon the diminu|tion

of his income, with all possible gentleness, giving horses to one, a carriage to another, and endeavouring to bestow on all some little al|leviation of the pain they felt at quitting so good a master. It is impossible not to regret that the property of the Cardinal de la Roche|foucault is diminished, by whom it was only employed in dispensing happiness.

After visiting the castle, I returned somewhat in mournful mood to the inn, where there was nothing calculated to convey one cheerful idea. The cieling of our apartment was crossed with old bare beams; the tapestry, with which the room was hung, displayed, like the dress of Ot|way's old woman, "variety of wretchedness;" the canopied beds were of coarse dirty stuff; two pictures, in tawdry gilt frames, caricatured the sweet countenances of the Dauphin and Madame; and the floor was paved with brick. In short, one can scarcely imagine a scene more remote from England, in accommodation and comfort, than the country inns of France; yet, in this habitation, where an Englishman would have been inclined to hang himself, was my rest disturbed half the night by the merry songs which were sung in an adjoining apartment, as gloomy as my own. But those local circumstan|ces, which affect English nerves, never disturb the peace of that happy people, by whom, wheth|er engaged in taking the Bastile, or sitting with their friends after supper, * 1.39 tout se sait enchan|tant.

LETTER XIV.

ROUEN is one of the largest and most commercial towns of France. It is situated on the banks of the Seine, has a fine quay, and a singular bridge, of barges placed close together, with planks fixed upon them: The bridge rises and sinks with the tide, and opens for vessels to pass.

The streets of Rouen are so narrow, dark, and frightful, that, to borrow an expression from Madame Sevigné, * 1.40 "elles abusent de la permission qu'ont les rues Françoises d'étre laides." There are many figures of Saints to be seen from these ugly streets, placed in lit|tle nitches in the walls. The Virgin Mary is seated in one of these niches, with the infant in her arms; and in the neighbourhood is St. Anne, who has the credit, with many good catholics, of having taught the Virgin to read. Every night the general darkness of the town is a little dispelled by the lamps which the people place in the nitches, † 1.41 "pour eclairer les Saintes."

Rouen is surrounded by fine boulevards, that form very beautiful walks. On the top of the lull of St. Catharine, which overlooks

the town, are the ruins of a fort called St. Michell, from which Henry the Fourth be|sieged Rouen. I love to be put in mind of Henry the Fourth, and am therefore very well pleased, that whenever I go to walk, I can fix my eyes on the hill of St. Catharine.

I always feel a little ashamed of my coun|try, when I pass the spot where the Maid of Orleans was executed, and on which her statue stands, a monument of our disgrace. The ashes of her persecutor, John, Duke of Bedford, repose at no great distance, within a tomb of black marble, in the cathedral, which was built by the English. One cannot feel much respect for the judgment of our ances|tors, in choosing, of all places under the sun, the cathedral of Rouen for the tomb of him whose name is transmitted to us with the epithet of the good Duke of Bedford: For you have scarcely left the cathedral, before the statue of Jeane d'Arc stares you in the face, and seems to cast a most formidable shade over the good Duke's virtues.

The cathedral is a very magnificent edifice, and the great bell is ten feet high, and weighs thirty-six thousand pounds. But in France it is not what is ancient, but what is modern, that most powerfully engages attention. Noth|ing in this fine old cathedral interested me so much as the consecrated banner, which, since the Federation, has been placed over the altar, and on which is inscribed, * 1.42 "Vivons libres,

ou mourir!" I hope every Frenchman, who enters the cathedral of Rouen, while he reads the inscription on this consecrated banner, re|peats from the bottom of his soul, * 1.43 "Vivons libres ou mourir!" But the French will, I trust, escape the horrors of civil war, notwith|standing the gloomy forebodings of the ene|mies of the new constitution.

A people just delivered from the yoke of oppression, will surely have little inclination to resume their shackles; to rebuild the dun|geons they have so lately demolished; to close again those gloomy monastic gates which are now thrown open; to exchange their new courts and judicature, founded on the basis of justice and humanity, for the caprice of power, and the dark iniquity of letters de cachét; to quench the fair star of liberty, which has arisen on their hemisphere, and suffer themselves to be once more guided by the meteor of despotism.

A very considerable number, even among the nobility of France, have had the virtue to support the cause of freedom; and, forgetting the little considerations of vanity, which have some importance in the ordinary course of hu|man affairs, but which are lost and annihilated when the mind is animated by any great senti|ment, they have chosen to become the bene|factors rather than the oppressors of their coun|try; the citizens of a free state, instead of the slaves of a despotic monarch. They will no longer bear arms to gratify the ambition, or

the caprice of a minister; they will no longer exert that impetuous and gallant spirit, for which they have ever been distinguished, in any cause unworthy of its efforts. The fire of valour, which they have too often employed for the purposes of destruction, will henceforth be directed to more generous ends. They will choose another path to renown. Instead of at|tempting to take the citadel of glory by storm, they will prefer the fame of an honourable de|fence, and, renouncing the sanguinary laurel, strive, with more exalted enthusiasm, to obtain the civic wreath. Yes, the French nation will inviolably guard, will transmit to posterity the sacred rights of freedom. Future ages will celebrate, with grateful commemoration, the fourteenth of July; and strangers, when they visit France, will hasten with impatience to the Champ de Mars, filled with that enthusiasm which is awakened by the view of a place where any great scene has been acted. I think I hear them exclaim, "Here the Federation was held! here an assembled nation devoted themselves to freedom!" I fancy I see them pointing out the spot on which the altar of the country stood. I see them eagerly searching for the place where they have heard it recorded, that the National Assembly were feated! I think of these things, and then repeat to myself with transport, "I was a spectator of the Federation!"

But these meditations have led me to travel through the space of so many centuries, that it is realy difficult to get back again to the present

times. Did you expect that I should ever dip my pen in politics, who used to take so small an interest in public affairs, that I recollect a gentleman of my acquaintance surprised me not a little, by informing me of the war be|tween the Turks and the Russians, at a time when all the people of Europe, except myself, had been two years in possession of this intelli|gence?

If, however, my love of the French revolu|tion requires an apology, you shall receive one in a very short time; for I am going to Mons. du F—'s chateau, and will send you from thence the history of his misfortunes. They were the inflictions of tyranny, and you will rejoice with me that tyranny is no more.

Before I close my letter, I shall mention a singular privilege of the church of Rouen, which is the power of setting free a murderer every year on the day of Ascension. It seems that in the time of King Dagobert, who reign|ed in the sixth century, a horrible and unre|lenting dragon desolated the country, sparing neither man nor beast. St. Romain, who was then Bishop of Rouen, asked for two criminals to assist him in an enterprise he had the courage to meditate against the dragon; and with these aides de camp he sallied forth, killed the mon|ster, and delivered the country. In conse|quence of this miracle, Dagobert gave the suc|cessors of St. Romain the privilege of setting a murderer free every year on Ascension-day. The bones of St. Romain are carried by the

criminal in a gilt box through the streets; the figure of a hideous animal representing the drag|on, though it is suspected of doing injustice to his appearance, accompanies these venerable bones, and has generally a young living wolf placed in its mouth, except when it is * 1.44 jour maigre, and then the dragon is provided with a large fish. The counsellors of the parlia|ment, dressed in their scarlet robes, attend this procession to a church, where high mass is said, and, these ceremonies being performed, the criminal is set at liberty. But it is only when there are some strong alleviating circumstances in the case of the offender, that he is suffered in this manner to evade the punishment of his crimes.

Yesterday, in a little town called Sotte Ville, joined to Rouen by the bridge, a political dis|pute arose between the Curé and his parishioners. The enraged Curé exclaimed, † 1.45"Vous étes une assemblée d'ânes." To which one of the parishioners answered, with great calmness, ‡ 1.46 "Oui Mons. le Curé, et vous en étes le pas|teur."

LETTER XV.

I HEARD * 1.47 La messé militaire, on Sunday last, at a church where all the national guard of Rouen attended. The service began with the loudest thunder of drums and trump|ets, and seemed more like a signal for battle than for devotion; but the music soon softened into the most soothing sounds which flowed from the organ, clarinets, flutes, and hautboys; the priests chanted, and the people made re|sponses. The wax tapers were lighted, holy water was sprinkled on the ground, incense was burnt at the altar, and the elevation of the host was announced by the sound of the drum; upon which the people knelt down, and the priest prostrated his face towards the earth.

There is something affecting in the pomp and solemnity of these ceremonies. Indeed the Roman Catholic worship, though a sad stumbling block to reason, is striking to the imagination. I have more than once heard the service for the dead performed, and never can hear it without emotion; without feeling that in those melancholy separations, which bury every hope of the survivor in the relentless grave, the heart that can delude itself with the belief, that its prayers may avail any thing to the departed object of its affections, must find

consolation in thus uniting a tribute of tender|ness, with the performance of a religious duty.

We have been at several convents at Rouen. The first to which we went was a convent of Benedictine Nuns. When we had entered the gates we rang a bell, and a servant appeared, and desired us to go up stairs to the parloir. We opened a wrong door, and found, in a room grated across the middle with iron bars, a young man sitting on one side of the grate, and a young nun on the other. I could not help thinking that the heart of this young man was placed in a perilous situation; for where can a young woman appear so interesting, as when seen within that gloomy barrier, which death alone can remove? What is there, in all the ostentation of female dress, so likely to af|fect a man of sensibility, as that dismal habit which seems so much at variance with youth and beauty, and is worn as the melancholy sym|bol of an eternal renunciation of the world and all its pleasures? We made an apology to the nun for our intrusion, and she directed us to another apartment, where, a few minutes after we had seated ourselves on one side of the grate, La Depositaire entered on the other, and told us that the Abbess, whom we had desired to see, was not yet risen from dinner, and La Desposi|taire hoped we would wait a little. * 1.48 "Parce|que,"

said she, "Madame l'Abbesse etoit obli|gée hier de se lever de table de bonne heure, et elle se trouvoit une peu incommodée." You must observe that the Abbesse dined at three o'clock, and it was now past six. At length this lady, who was so fond of long din|ners, appeared. She is a woman of fifty, but is still handsome; has a frank agreeable coun|tenance, fine eyes, and had put on her veil in a very becoming manner. We wished to be admitted to the interior part of the convent, and with this view a French gentleman, who was of out party, * 1.49 "se mit à conter des his|tories à Madame l'Abbesse."

He told her that my sister and I, though English women, were catholics, and wished to be received into the convent, and even, if it had been possible, to take the vows. The Abbess enquired if he was quite sure of our being catholics; upon which the gentleman, a little puzzled what to answer, insinuated that Mons. du F— had probably the merit of our conversion. "But I have heard," said the Ab|bess, from Madame —, "that Mons. du F— has become a protestant himself." Mons. du F—, who is truth itself, avowed his princi|ples without hesitation; while the Abbess, turning to La Depositaire, exclaimed, † 1.50 "Mais

comme Mons. est aimable! quels beaux senti|ments! Ah Mons. vous étés trop bon pour que Die•• vous laisse dans l'erreur." "St Augus|tin," continued she, "had once some doubts; I hope you will be a second St. Augustin; my|self, and all my community, will pray for your conversion." La Depositaire, who was a tall thin old woman, with a sharp malignant coun|tenance, added, casting a look on Mons. du F— full of the contempt of superior knowl|edge, "It is not surprising that a young man▪ after passing several years in England, that country of heretics, should find his faith some|what shaken; but he only wants to be enlight|ened by Mons. le Curé de —, who will immediately dissipate all his doubts."

From the Convent of the Benedictines we went to that of the Carmelites, where religion, which was meant to be a source of happiness in this world, as well as in the next, wears an aspect of the most gloomy horror. When we entered the convent, it seemed the residence of silence and solitude; no voice was heard, no human creature appeared, and when we rang the bell, a person, whom we could not see, en|quired, through a hole in the wall, what we wanted. On being informed that we wished to speak to the Superieure, putting her hand through the hole, she gave us a key, and desired us to unlock the door of the parloir. This we accordingly did; and in a few minutes the Su|perieure came to a thick double grate, with a curtain drawn at the inside, to prevent the pos|sibility

of being seen. Our French gentleman again talked of our desire to enter the convent, and begged to know the rules. A hollow voice answered, that the Carmelites rose at four in the morning in summer and five in the win|ter:—"Obedient slumbers, that can wake and weep!"—That they slept in their coffins, upon straw, and every morning dug a shovel full of earth for their graves; that they walked to their devotional exercises upon their knees; that when any of their friends visited them, if they spoke, they were not suffered to be seen, or if they were seen, they were not suffered to speak; that with them it was * 1.51 toujours maigre, and they only tasted food twice a day.

Our Frenchman said, † 1.52"Il faut Madame que ces demoiselles reflechissent, si cela leurs con|vient." The poor Carmelite agreed that the matter required some reflection, and we de|parted.

As we returned home meditating on the lot of a Carmelite, we met in the street three nuns walking in the habit of their order. Upon en|quiry, we were told that they had been forced by their parents to take the veil, and, since the decree of the National Assembly giving them liberty, they had obtained permission to pay a visit for three months to some friends who sympathized in their unhappiness, and were now on their journey.

The monks and nuns must in a short time decide whether they will finally leave their cloisters or not; and the religious houses which are vacated will be fold. In the department of Rouen a calculation has been made, that, after paying every monk seven hundred, and every nun five hundred livres a year, out of the revenues of the religious houses, the depart|ment will gain sixty thousand livres a year. The monks and nuns above sixty years of age, who choose to leave their convents, will be allowed an annual pension of nine hundred li|vres.

A letter was read in the National Assembly, a few days ago, from a priest, intreating that the clergy might have permission to marry; a privilege which it is thought the Assembly will soon authorize. * 1.53 "On a bouleversé tout," said an old Curé, a fierce Aristocrate, with whom I was in company, † 1.54 "Et meme on veut porter la profanation si loin que de marier les pre|tres." It is conjectured, however, that the younger part of the clergy think of this meas|ure with less horror than the old Curé.

We arrived last night at Mons. du F—'s chateau, without having visited, during our stay at Rouen, the tomb of William the Conquer|or, who is buried at Caen, a town twelve leagues distant. But I have been too lately

at the Champ de Mars, to travel twelve leagues in order to see the tomb of a tyrant.

Upon Mons. du F—'s arrival at the chat|eau, all his tenants, with their wives and daugh|ters, came to pay their respects to Mon Seig|neur, and were addressed by Mons. and Mad|ame with those endearing epithets which give such a charm to the French language, and are so much more rejoicing to the heart than our formal appellations. Here a peasant girl is termed, by the lady of the chateau, * 1.55 "Ma bon|ne amie, Ma petite, Mon enfant;" while those pretty monosyllables † 1.56 tu, ta, &c. used only to the nearest relations, and to servants, impress the mind with the idea of that affectionate famili|arity, which so gracefully softens the distance of situation, and excites in the dependant, not presumption, but gratitude. ‡ 1.57 "Et comment te porte tu, La Voie?" said Mons. du F— to one of his farmers. § 1.58 "Assez bien Mon Seig|neur," replied he; "mais j'eûs la fievre à Pâ|que, à votre service."

LETTER XVI.

I EMBRACE the first hours of leisure, which I have found since my arrival at the chateau, to send you the history of my friends.

Antoine Augustin Thomás du F—, eld|est son of the Baron du F—, Counsellor of the Parliament of Normandy, was born on the fifteenth of July, 1750. His early years were embittered by the severity of his father, who was of a disposition that prefered the exercise of domestic tyranny to the blessings of social happiness, and chose rather to be dreaded than beloved. The endearing name of father con|veyed no transport to his heart, which, being wrapt up in stern insensibility was cold even to the common feelings of nature.

The Baron's austerity was not indeed con|fined to his son, but extended to all his depend|ants. Formed by nature for the support of the ancient government of France, he maintained his aristocratic rights with unrelenting severity, ruled his feudal tenures with a rod of iron, and considered the lower order of people as a set of beings whose existence was tolerated merely for the use of the nobility. The poor, he be|lieved▪ were only born for suffering; and he determined, as far as in him lay, not to deprive them of their natural inheritance. On the whole, the Baron acted as if it were the great

purpose of human life to be hated, and perhaps no person ever attained that end more com|pletely than himself.

His son discovered early a taste for literature, and received an education suitable to his rank and fortune. As he advanced in life, the treatment he experienced from his father be|came more and more intolerable to him, as, far from inheriting the same character, he pos|sessed the most amiable dispositions, and the most feeling heart.

His mother, feeble alike in mind and body, submitted with the helplessness, and almost with the thoughtlessness of a child, to the im|perious will of her husband. Their family was increased by two more sons, and two daughters; but these children, being several years younger than Mons. du F—, were not of an age to afford him the consolations of friendship; and the young man would have found his situation intolerable, but for the sym|pathy of a person, in whose society every evil was forgotten.

This person, his attachment to whom has tinctured the colour of his life, was the youngest of eight children, of a respectable family of Bourgeois at Rouen. There is great reason to believe that her father was de|scended from the younger branch of a noble family of the same name, and bearing the same arms. But, unhappily, some links were w••ting in this chain of honourable parent|age. The claim to nobility could not be tra|ced

to the entire satisfaction of the Baron; who, though he would have dispensed with any moral qualities in favour of rank, considered obscure birth as a radical stain, which could not be wiped off by all the virtues under heav|en. He looked upon marriage as merely a convention of interest, and children as a prop|erty, of which it was reasonable for parents to make the most in their power.

The father of Mad^seile Monique C— was a farmer, and died three months before the birth of this child; who, with seven other children, was educated with the utmost care by their mother, a woman of sense and virtue, beloved by all to whom she was known. It seemed as if this respectable woman had, after the death of her husband, only supported life for the sake of her infant family, from whom she was snatched by death, the moment her maternal cares became no longer necessary; her youngest daughter, Monique, having, at this period, just attained her twentieth year. Upon the death of her mother, Monique went to live with an aunt, with whom she remained only a very short time, being invited by Mad|ame du F—, to whom she was well known, to come and live with her as an humble com|panion, to read to her when she was disposed to listen, and to enliven the sullen grandeur of the chateau, by her animating vivacity.

This young person had cultivated her excel|lent understanding by reading, and her heart stood in no need of cultivation. Mons. du

F—found in the charms of her conversa|tion, and in the sympathy of her friendship, the most soothing consolation under the rigour of parental tyranny. Living several years beneath the same roof, he had constant opportunities of observing her disposition and character, and the passion with which she at length inspired him, was founded on the lasting basis of es|teem.

If it was ever pardonable to deviate from that law, in the code of interest and etiquette, which forbids the heart to listen to its best emo|tions; which, stifling every generous sentiment of pure disinterested attachment, sacrifices love at the shrine of avarice or ambition; the vir|tues of Monique were such as might excuse this deviation. Yes, the character, the conduct of this amiable person, have nobly justified her lover's choice. How long might he have vainly sought, in the highest classes of society▪ a mind so elevated above the common mass!— a mind that, endowed with the most exquisite sensibility, has had sufficient firmness to sustain, with a calm and equal spirit, every transition of fortune; the most severe trials of adversity, and perhaps what is still more difficult to bear, the trial of high prosperity.

Mons. du F—had been taught, by his early misfortunes, that domestic happiness was the first good of life. He had already found, by experience, the insufficiency of rank and fortune to confer enjoyment; and he deter+mined to seek it in the bosom of conjugal fe+licity.

He determined to pass his life with her whose society now seemed essential not only to his happiness, but to his very existence.

At the solemn hour of midnight, the young couple went to a church, where they were met by a priest whom Mons. du F— had made the confident of his attachment, and by whom the marriage ceremony was performed.

Some time after, when the situation of his wife obliged Mons. du F— to acknowledge their marriage to his mother, she assured her son that she would willingly consent to receive his wife as her daughter, but for the dread of his father's resentment. Madame du F—, with tears of regret, parted with Monique, whom she placed under the protection of her brothers; they conducted her to Caen, where she was soon after delivered of a son.

The Baron du F— was absent while these things were passing; he had been suspected of being the author of a pamphlet written against the princes of the blood, and an order was issu|ed to seize his papers, and conduct him to the Bastile; but he found means to escape into Holland, where he remained nearly two years. Having made his peace with the ministry, he prepared to come home; but before he return|ed, Mons. du F— received intelligence that his father, irritated almost to madness by the information of his marriage, was making appli|cation for a le••••••e de cachet, in order to confine his daughter-in-law for the rest of her life; and had also obtained power to have his son seized

and imprisoned. Upon this Mons. du F— and his wife fled with precipitaton to Geneva, leaving their infant at nurse near Caen. The Genevois seemed to think that the unfortunate situation of these strangers, gave them a claim to all the offices of friendship. After an inter|val of many years, I have never heard Mons. or Madame du F— recall the kindness they received from that amiable people, without tears of tenderness and gratitude.

Meanwhile the Baron, having discovered the place of his son's retreat, obtained, in the name of the King, permission from the cantons of Berne and Friburg to arrest them at Echa|lans, near Laufanne, where they had retired for some months. The wife of Le Seigneur Bail|liff secretly gave the young people notice of this design, and on the twenty-eighth of Febru|ary, 1775, they had just time to make their es|cape, with only a few livres in their pockets, and the clothes in which they were dressed. Mons. du F—, upon his first going to Swit|zerland, had lent thirty louis to a friend in dis|tress. He now, in this moment of necessity, desired to be repaid, and was promised the money within a month; mean time, he and his wife wandered from town to town, without finding any place where they could remain in security. They had spent all their small stock of money, and were almost without clothes; but at the expiration of the appointed time, the thirty louis were paid, and with this fund Mons. and madame du F— determined to take shelt|er

in the only country which could afford them a safe asylum from persecution, and imme|diately set off for England, travelling through Germany, and part of Holland, to avoid pass|ing through France.

They embarked at Rotterdam, and, after a long and gloomy passage, arrived late at night at London. A young man who was their fel|low passenger, had the charity to procure them a lodging in a garret, and directed them where to purchase a few ready made clothes. When they had remained in this lodging the time necessary for becoming parishioners, their banns were published in the church of St. Anne, Westminster, where they were married by the Curate of the parish. They then went to the chapel of the French Ambassador, and were again married by his chaplain; after which Mons. du F— told me, * 1.59 "Les deux epoux vinrent faire maigre chère à leur petite chambre."

Mons. du F— endeavoured to obtain a sit|uation at a school, to teach the French lan|guage; but before such a situation could be found, his wife was delivered of a girl. Not having sufficient money to hire a nurse he at|tended her himself. At this period they endur|ed all the horrors of absolute want. Unknown and unpitied, without help or support, in a for|eign country, and in the depth of a severe winter, they almost perished with cold and hun|ger.

The unhappy mother lay stretched upon the same bed with her new-born infant, who in vain implored her succour, want of food hav|ing dried up that source of nourishment. The woman, at whose house they lodged, and whom they had for some weeks been unable to pay, after many threatenings, at length told them that they must depart the next morning. Mad|ame du F— was at this time scarcely able to walk across her chamber, and the ground was covered with snow. They had already exhausted every resource; they had sold their watches, their clothes, to satisfy the cravings of hunger; every mode of relief was fled—ev|ery avenue of hope was closed—and they de|termined to go with their infant to the suburbs of the town, and there, seated on a stone, wait with patience for the deliverance of death. With what anguish did this unfortunate couple prepare to leave their last miserable retreat! With how many bitter tears did they bathe that wretched infant, whom they could no long|er save from perishing!

Oh, my dear, my ever beloved friends! when I recollect that I am not at this moment in|dulging the melancholy cast of my own dis|position by painting imaginary distress; when I recollect not only that these were real suffer|ings, but that they were sustained by you! my mind is overwhelmed with its own sensations. —The paper is blotted by my tears—and I can hold my pen no longer.

LETTER XVII.

— * 1.60 THE moral world, Which, though to us it seem perplex'd, moves o•• In higher order; fitted and impell'd, By Wisdom's finest hand, and issuing all In universal good.

Mons. and Madame du F— were relieved from this extremity of distress, at a moment so critical, and by means so unexpected, that it seemed the hand of heaven visibly interposing in behalf of oppressed virtue. Early in the morning of that fatal day when they were to leave their last sad shelter, Mons. du F— went out, and, in the utmost distraction of mind, wandered through some of the streets in the neighbourhood. He was stopped by a gen|tleman whom he had known at Geneva, and who told him that he was then in search of his lodging, having a letter to deliver to him from a Genevois clergyman. Mons. du F— opened the letter, in which he was informed by his friend, that, fearing he might be involv|ed in difficulties, he had transmitted ten guin|eas to a banker in London, and intreated Mons. du F—would accept that small re|lief, which was all he could afford, as a testi|mony of friendship. Mons. du F— flew to the banker's received the money as the gift of

Heaven, and then, hastening to his wife and child, bade them live a little longer.

A short time after, he obtained a situation as French usher at a school; and Madame du F—, when she had a little recovered her strength, put her infant out to nurse, and procured the place of French teacher at a boarding-school. They were now enabled to support their child, and re|pay the generous assistance of their kind friend at Geneva. At this period they heard of the death of their son, whom they had left at Caen.

Mons. and Madame du F—passed two years in this situation, when they were again plunged into the deepest distress. A French jeweller was commissioned by the Baron du F—, to go to his son, and propose to him conditions of reconciliation. This man told Mons. du F— that his father was just recovered from a severe and dangerous illness, and that his eldest daughter had lately died. These things, he said, had led him to reflect with some pain on the severity he had exercised towards his son; that the feelings of a parent were awak|ened in his bosom; and that if Mons. du F— would throw himself at his father's feet, and ask forgiveness, he would not fail to obtain it, and would be allowed a pension, on which he might live with his wife in England. In con|firmation of these assurances, this man pro+duced several letters which he had received from the Baron to that effect; who, as a far|ther proof of his sincerity, had given this agent seven hundred pounds to put into the hands of

Mons. du F— for the support of his wife and child during his absence. The agent told him, that he had not been able to bring the money to England, but would immediately give him three drafts upon a merchant of rep|utation in London, with whom he had con|nexions in business; the first draft payable in three months, the second in six, and the third in nine.

Mons. du F—long deliberated upon these proposals. He knew too well the vindictive spirit of his father, not to feel some dread of putting himself into his power. But his agent continued to give him the most solemn assur|ances of safety; and Mons. du F— thought it was not improbable that his sister's death might have softened the mind of his father. He reflected that his marriage had disappointed those ambitious hopes of a great alliance, which his father had fondly indulged, and to whom he owed at least the reparation of has|tening to implore his forgiveness when he was willing to bestow it. What also weighed strongly on his mind was the consideration that the sum which his father had offered to deposit for the use of his wife, would, in case any sinis|ter accident should befal him, afford a small provision for her and his infant.

The result of these deliberations was, that Mons. du F— determined (and who can much blame his want of prudence?) he deter|mined to confide in a father!—to trust in that instinctive affection, which, far from being

connected with any peculiar sensibility of mind, it requires only to be a parent to feel—an af|fection, which, not confined to the human heart, softens the ferociousness of the tyger, and speaks with a voice that is heard amidst the howlings of the desert.

Mons. du F—, after the repeated promises of his father, almost considered that suspicion which still hung upon his mind, as a crime. But, lest it might be possible that this agent was commissioned to deceive him, he endeav|oured to melt him into compassion for his sit|uation. He went to the village where his child was at nurse, and, bringing her six miles in his arms, presented her to this man, telling him, that the fate of that poor infant rested upon his integrity. The man took the inno|cent creature in his arms, kissed her, and then, returning her to her father, renewed all his former assurances. Mons. du F— listened and believed. Alas! how difficult is it for a good heart to suspect human nature of crimes which make one blush for the species! How hard is it for a mind glowing with benevolence to believe that the bosom of another harbours the malignity of a demon!

Mons. du F— now fixed the time for his departure with his father's agent, who was to accompany him to Normandy. Madame du F— saw the preparations for his journey with anguish which she could ill conceal. But she felt that the delicacy of her situation forbad her interference. It was she who had made

him an alien from his family, and an exile from his country. It was for her, that, re|nouncing rank, fortune, friends, and connex|ions, all that is esteemed most valuable in life, he had suffered the last extremity of want, and now submitted to a state of drudgery and de|pendance. Would he not have a right to reproach her weakness, if she attempted to op|pose his reconciliation with his father, and ex|erted that influence which she possessed over his mind, in order to detain him in a situation so remote from his former expectations? She was, therefore, sensible, that the duty, the grat|itude she owed her husband, now required on her part the absolute sacrifice of her own feel|ings; she suffered without complaint, and en|deavoured to resign herself to the will of Heav|en.

The day before his departure, Mons. du F— went to take leave of his little girl. At this moment a dark and melancholy presage seem|ed to agitate his mind. He pressed the child for a long while to his bosom, and bathed it with his tears. The nurse eagerly enquired what was the matter, and assured him that the child was perfectly well. Mons. du F— had no power to reply; he continued clasping his in|fant in his arms, and at length, tearing himself from her in silence he rushed out of the house.

When the morning of his departure came, Madame du F—, addressing herself to his fellow traveller, said to him with a voice of supplication, "I entrust you, Sir, with my hus|band,

with the father of my poor infant, our sole protector and support!—have compassion on the widow and the orphans!" The man, casting upon her a gloomy look, gave her a cold answer, which made her soul shrink with|in her. When Mons. du F— got into the Brighthelmstone stage, he was unable to bid her farewell; but when the carriage drove off, he put his head out of the window, and continued looking after her, while she fixed her eyes on him, and might have repeated with Imogen,

I would have broke mine eye-strings; Crack'd them, but to look upon him, till the diminution Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle; Nay, follow'd him, till he had melted from The smallness of a gnat to air; and then— Then turn'd mine eye and wept!

When the carriage was out of sight, she sum|moned all her strength, and walked with tremb|ling steps to the school where she lived as a teacher. With much difficulty she reached the door; but her limbs could support her no longer, and she fell down senseless at the thresh|old. She was carried into the house, and re|stored to life and the sensations of misery.

LETTER XVIII.

MONS. du F— arrived at his fath|er's chatteau in Normandy, in June, 1778, and was received by the Baron, and all his family, with the most affectionate cordiality. In much exultation of mind, he dispatched a letter to Madame du F—, containing this agreeable intelligence; but his letter was far from pro|ducing in her mind the effect he desired. A deep melancholy had seized her thoughts, and her foreboding heart refused to sympathize in his joy. Short, indeed, was its duration. He had not been many days at the chateau, when he perceived, with surprise and consternation, that his steps were continually watched by two servants armed with fusees.

His father now shewed him an arret, which, on the fourth of June, 1776, he had obtained from the parliament of Rouen against his mar|riage. The Baron then ordered his son to ac|company him to his house at Rouen, whither they went, attended by several servants. That evening, when the attendants withdrew after supper, the Baron, entirely throwing off the mask of civility and kindness, which he had worn in such opposition to his nature, reproach|ed his son, in terms of the utmost bitterness, for his past conduct, inveighed against his mar|riage, and, after having exausted every expres|sion

of rage and resentment, at length suffered him to retire to his own apartment.

There the unhappy Mons. du F—, absorb|ed in the most gloomy reflections, lamented in vain that fatal credulity which had led him to put himself into the power of his implacable father. At the hour of midnight his medita|tions were interrupted by the sound of feet ap|proaching his chamber; and in a few moments the door was thrown open, and his father, at|tended by a servant armed, and two * 1.61 Cavaliers de Marechaussée, entered the room. Resist|ance and supplication were alike unavailing. Mons. du F—'s papers were seized; a few louis d'ors, which constituted all the money he possessed were taken from him; and he was conducted in the dead of night, July 7th, 1778, to St. Yon, a convent used as a place of con|finement near Rouen, where he was thrown into a dungeon.

A week after, his father entered the dungeon. You will perhaps conclude that his hard heart felt at length the relentings of a parent. You will at least suppose, that his imagination being haunted, and his conscience tormented with the image of a son stretched on the floor of this subterraneous cell, he could support the idea no longer, and had hastened to give repose to his own mind by releasing his captive. Far different were the motives of his visit. He considered that such was his son's attachment to his wise, that, so long as he believed he had

left he•••• in possession of seven hundred pounds▪ he would find comfort from that consideration▪ even in the depth of his dungeon. His father, therefore, hastened to remove an error from the mind of his son, which left the measure of his woes unfilled. Nor did he choose to yield to another the office of inflicting a pang sharper than captivity; but himself informed his son, that the merchant, who was to pay the seven hundred pounds to his wife, was declared a bankrupt.

A short time after, the Baron du F— com|menced a suit at law against that agent of ini|quity whom he had employed to deceive his son, and who, practising a refinement of treach|ery of which the Baron was not aware, had kept the seven hundred pounds, with which he was intrusted, and given drafts upon a mer|chant who he knew would fail before the time of payment. Not being able to prosecute this affair without a power of attorney from his son; the Baron applied to him for that purpose. But Mons. du F—, being firmly resolved not to deprive his wife of the chance of recov|ering the money for herself and her child, could by no intreaties or menaces be led to comply. In vain his father, who had consent|ed to allow him a few books, ordered him to be deprived of that resource, and that his con|finement should be rendered still more rigor|ous; he continued inflexible.

Mons. du F— remained in his prison without meeting with the smallest mark of

sympathy from any one of his family, though his second brother, Mons. de B—, was now eighteen years of age; an age at which the sordid considerations of interest, how much soever they may affect our conduct at a more advanced period of life, can seldom stifle those warm and generous feelings which seem to be|long to youth. It might have been expected that this young man would have abhorred the prospect of possessing a fortune which was the just inheritance of his brother, and which could only be obtained by detaining that broth|er in perpetual captivity. Even admitting that his inexorable father prohibited his visit|ing the prison of his brother, his heart should have told him that disobedience, in this in|stance, would have been virtue: Or, was it not sufficient to remain a passive spectator of injustice, without becoming, as he afterwards did, the agent of cruelty inflicted on a broth|er?

Where are the words that can convey an ade|quate idea of the sufferings of Madame du F— during this period? Three weeks after her hus|band's departure from England, she heard the gen|eral report of the town of Rouen that the Baron du F— had obtained a letter de cachet against his son, and thrown him into prison. This was all she heard of her husband for the space of two years. Ignorant of the place of his confinement, uncertain if he still lived, perhaps her miseries were even more poignant than his. In the dismal solitude of a prison, his pains

were alleviated by the soothing reflection that he suffered for her he loved; while that very idea was to her the most bitter aggravation of dis|tress. Her days passed in anguish, which can only be conceived where it has been felt, and her nights were disturbed by the gloomy wan|derings of fancy. Sometimes she saw him in her dreams, chained to the floor of his dungeon, his bosom bathed in blood, and his countenance disfigured by death. Sometimes she saw him hastening towards her, when at the moment that he was going to embrace her, they were fiercely torn asunder. Madame du F— was naturally of a delicate constitution, and grief of mind reduced her to such a deplorable state of weakness, that it was with infinite dif|ficulty she performed the duties of her situation. For herself, she would have welcomed death with thankfulness; but she considered that her child now depended entirely on her labours for support; and this was a motive sufficient|ly powerful to prompt her to the careful pres|ervation of her own life, though it had long be|come a burden. The child was three years old when her father left England; recollected him perfectly, and, whenever her mother went to visit her, used to call with eagerness for her papa. The enquiry, in the voice of her child, of, "When shall I see my dear, dear papa?" was heard by this unhappy mother with a de|gree of agony which it were a vain attempt to describe.

LETTER XIX.

MONS. du F— was repeatedly of|fered his liberty, but upon conditions which he abhorred. He was required forever to re|••••unce his wife; who, while she remained with her child in a distant country, was to re+••eive from his father a small pension, as an e|quivalent for the pangs of disappointed affection, of disgrace and dishonour. With the indig|nation of offended virtue he spurned at these insulting propositions, and endeavoured to pre|pare his mind for the endurance of perpetual captivity.

Nor can imagination form an idea of a scene more dereadful than his prison, where he per|ceived with horror that the greatest number of those prisoners who had been many years in confinement, had an appearance of frenzy in their looks, which shewed that reason had been too weak for the long struggle with calamity, and had at last yielded to despair. In a cell adjoining monsieur du F—'s, was an old man who had been confined nearly forty years. His grey beard hung down to his waist, and, during the day, he was chained by his neck to the wall. He was never allowed to leave his cell, and never spoke; but Mons. du F— used to hear the rattling of his chains.

The prisoners, a few excepted, were gener|ally brought from their cells at the hour of

noon, and dined together. But this gloomy repast was served in uninterrupted silence. They were not suffered to utter one word, and the penalty of transgressing this rule was a rig|orous confinement of several weeks. As soon as this comfortless meal was finished, the pris|oners were instantly obliged to return to their dungeons, in which they were locked up till the same hour the following day. Mons. du F—, in his damp and melancholy cell, passed two winters without fire, and suffered so se|verely from cold, that he was obliged to wrap himself up in the few clothes which covered his bed. Nor was he allowed any light, ex|cept that which during the short day beamed through the small grated window in the cieling of his dungeon.

Is it not difficult to believe that these suffer|ings were inflicted by a father? A father!— that name which I cannot trace without emo|tion; which conveys all the ideas of protec|tion, of security, of tenderness;—that dear relation to which, in general, children owe their prosperity, their enjoyments, and even their virtues!—Alas, the unhappy Mons. du F— owed nothing to his father, but that life, which from its earliest period his cruelty had embittered, and which he now condemned to languish in miseries that death only could heal.

A young gentleman, who was confined in a cell on one side of Mons. du F—'s contriv|ed to make a small hole through the wall;

and these companions in misfortune, by plac|ing themselves close to the hole, could con|verse together in whispers. But the Monks were not long in discovering this, and effectu|ally deprived them of so great an indulgence, by removing them to distant cells. These unrelenting Monks, who performed with such fidelity their office of tormenting their fellow-creatures, who never relaxed in one article of persecution, and adhered with scrupulous rig|our to the code of cruelty, were called, * 1.62 "Les Freres de la sainte Charité." One among them deserved the appellation. This good old Monk used to visit the prisoners by stealth, and endeavour to administer comfort to their afflic|tion. Often he repeated to Mons. du F—, † 1.63 "Mon cher frere, consolez vous; mettez votre confiance en Dieu, vos maux seront finis!"

Mons. du F— remained two years in pris|on without receiving any intelligence of his wife, on whose account he suffered the most distracting anxiety. He had reason to appre|hend that her frame, which had already been enfeebled by her misfortunes, would sink beneath this additional load of misery, and that she would perhaps be rendered unable to pro|cure that little pittance, which might preserve

herself and her child from want. At length one of his fellow-prisoners, who was going to regain his liberty, took charge of a letter to Madame du F—, and flattered him with the hope of finding some means of transmitting to him an answer.

The letter paints so naturally the situation of his mind, that I have translated some extracts from it.

My thoughts (he says) are unceasingly oc|cupied about you, and my dear little girl. I am for ever recalling the blessed moments when I had the happiness of being near you, and at that recollection my tears refuse to be controled. How could I consent to sepa|rate myself from what was most dear to me in the world? No motive less powerful than that of seeking your welfare, and that of my child, could have determined me—and alas! I have not accomplished this end. I know too well that you have never received that sum of money which I thought I had secured for you, and for which I risked the first blessing of life. What fills my mind with the greatest horror, in the solitude of my prison, is the fear that you are suffering difficulties in a foreign country. Here I remain ignorant of your fate, and can only offer to Heaven the most ardent vows for your welfare.

What joy would a letter from you give me! but I dare not flatter myself with the hope of such sweet consolation. All I can assure myself of is, that though separated, per|haps

for ever, our souls are united by the most tender friendship and attachment. Perhaps I may not find it possible to write to you again for a long while; but be assured that no me|naces, no sufferings, no dungeons shall ever shake my fidelity to you, and that I shall love you to the last hour of my existence. I find a consolation in the reflection that it is for you I suffer. If Providence ever permits us to meet again, that moment will efface the remem|brance of all my calamities. Live, my dearest wife, in that hope. I conjure you preserve your life for my sake, and for the sake of our dear little girl! Embrace her tenderly for me, and desire her also to embrace you for her poor papa. I need not recommend my child to the care of so tender a mother; but I con|jure you to inspire her mind with the deepest sense of religion. If she is born to inherit the misfortunes of her father, this will be her best source of consolation.

Whatever offers may be made you by my father, I exhort you never have the weakness to listen to them, but preserve your rights, and those of my dear little girl, which, perhaps, may one day be of some value. If you are still at Mrs. D—'s boarding-school, tell her that I recommend my wife and child to her compassion.—But what am I saying? I am ignorant if you are still with her, ignorant whether the dearest objects of my affection still live! But I trust that Providence has preserved

you. Adieu! May God Almighty bless you, and my child! I never cease imploring him to have pity on the widow and the orphan in a land of strangers.

LETTER XX.

YOU, my dear friend, who have felt the tender attachments of love and friendship, and the painful anxieties which absence occa|sions, even amidst scenes of variety and pleas|ure; who understand the value at which tid|ings from those we love is computed in the arithmetic of the heart; who have heard with almost uncontrolable emotion the post-man's rap at the door; have trembling seen the well-known hand which excited sensations that almost deprived you of power to break the seal which seemed the talisman of happiness; you can judge of the feelings of Mons. du F— when he received, by means of the same friend who had conveyed his letter, an answer from his wife. But the person who brought the letter to his dungeon, dreading the risk of a discovery, insisted, that after having read it, he should return it to him immediately. Mons. du F— pressed the letter to his heart, bath|ed it with his tears, and implored the indul|gence of keeping it at least till the next morn|ing. He was allowed to do so, and read it till

every word was imprinted on his memory; and, after enjoying the sad luxury of holding it that night on his bosom, was forced the next morning to relinquish his treasure.

On the 10th of October, 1780, the Baron du F— came to the convent, and ordered the Monks to bring his son from his dungeon to the parloir, and leave them together. With the utmost reluctance Mons. du F— obeyed this summons, having long lost all hope of soft|ening the obdurate heart of his father. When the Monks withdrew, the Baron began up|braiding him in the most bitter terms, for his obstinate resistance to his will, which, he in|formed him, had availed nothing, as he had gained his suit at law, and recovered the seven hundred pounds. Mons. du F— replied, that the pain he felt from this intelligence would have been far more acute, had his wife been deprived, with his concurrence, of the money which was promised for her subsistence, and on the reliance of which promise he had been tempted to leave England. His father then enquired if he still persisted in his adher|ence to the disgraceful connection he had formed; to which his son answered, that not merely were his affections interested, but that his honour obliged him to maintain, with invi|olable fidelity, a solemn and sacred engage|ment. The rage of the Baron, at these words, became unhounded. He stamped the ground with his feet; he aimed a stroke at his son, who, taking advantage of this moment of frenzy de|termined

to attempt his escape; and, rushing out of the apartment, and avoiding that side of the convent which the Monks inhabited, he endeavoured to find his way to the garden, but missed the passage which led to it. He then flew up a staircase, from which he heard the voice of his father calling for assistance. Find|ing that all the doors which he passed were shut, he continued ascending till he reached the top of the builing, where meeting with no other opening than a hole made in the sloping roof to let in light to a garret, he climbed up with much difficulty, and then putting his feet through the hole, and letting his body out by degrees, he supported himself for a moment on the roof, and deliberated on what he was about to do. But his mind was, at this crisis, wrought up to a pitch of desperation, which mocked the suggestions of fear. He quitted his hold, and, flinging himself from a height of nearly fifty feet, became insensible before he reached the ground, where he lay weltering in his blood, and to all appearance dead.

He had fallen on the high road leading from Rouen to Caen. Some people who were pass|ing gathered round him, and one person having washed the blood from his face, instantly re|cognized his features, and exclaimed to the astonished crowd, that he was the eldest son of Baron du F—. Upon examining his body, it was found that he had broken his arm, his thigh, his ancle-bone, and his heel, besides hav|ing received many violent bruises. He still re|mained

in a state of insensibility; and while these charitable strangers were using their ef|forts to restore him to life, the Monks hastened from their convent, snatched their victim from those good Samaritans who would have poured oil and wine into his wounds, and carried him to the infirmary of the convent, where he re|mained some weeks before he recovered his senses; after which he lay stretched upon a bed for three months, suffering agonies of pain.

His father, who had been the jailer, and al|most the murderer of his son, heard of these sufferings without remorse, nor did he ever see him more. But, though he was sufficiently ob|durate to bear, unmoved, the calamities he had inflicted on his child, though he could check the upbraidings of his own conscience, he could not silence the voice of public indignation. The report that Mons. du F— had been found lying on the road bathed in blood, and had in that condition been dragged to the prison of St. Yon, was soon spread through the town of Rou|en. Every one sympathized in the fate of this unfortunate young man, and execrated the ty|ranny of his unrelenting father.

The universal clamour reached the ear of his brother, Mons. de B—, who now, for the first time, out of respect to the public opinion, took a measure which his heart had never dic|tated during the long captivity of his brother, that of visiting him in prison. Mons. de B—'s design in these visits was merely to ap|pease the public; for small indeed was the con|solation

they afforded to his brother. He did not come to bathe with his tears the bed where that unhappy young man lay stretched in pain and anguish; to lament the severity of his father; to offer him all the consolation of fra|ternal tenderness:—He came to warn him against indulging a hope of ever regaining his liberty; he came to pierce his soul "with hard unkindness' altered eye, which mocks the tear it forc'd to flow!"

I will not attempt to describe the wretched|ness of Madame du F—, when she heard the report of her husband's situation. Your heart will conceive what she suffered far better than I can relate it. Three months after his fall, Mons. du F— contrived, through the assist|ance of the charitable old Monk, to send her a few lines written with his left hand. "My fall" (he says) "has made my captivity known, and has led the whole town of Rouen to take an interest in my misfortunes. Perhaps I shall have reason to bless the accident, which may possibly prove the means of procuring me my liberty, and uniting me again to you!—In the mean time, I trust that Providence will watch with paternal goodness over the two objects of my most tender affection. Do not, my dearest wife, suffer the thoughts of my situation to prey too much upon your mind. My arm is almost well; my thigh and foot are not quite cured; but I am getting better."

"I could not suppress my tears on reading that part of your letter, wherein you tell me

that my dear little girl often asks for her papa. Kiss her for me a thousand times, and tell her that her papa is always thinking of her and her dear mama. I am well convinced that you will give her the best education your little pit|tance can afford. But above all, I beseech you, inspire her young mind with sentiments of piety; teach her to love her Creator; that is the most essential of all lessons. Adieu, dearest and most beloved of women!—Is there a period in reserve when we shall meet again? Oh how amply will th•••• moment compensate for all our misfortunes!"

LETTER XXI.

AT length the Parliament of Rouen be|gan to interest itself in the cause of Mons. du F—. The circumstances of his confine|ment were mentioned in that Assembly, and the President sent his secretary to Mons. du F—'s prison, who had now quitted his bed, and was able to walk with the assistance of crutches. By the advice of the President, Mons. du F— addressed some letters to the Parliament representing his situation in the most pathetic terms, and imploring their interfer|ence in his behalf.

It is here necessary to mention, that Mons. de Bel B—, Procureur General de Rouen,

being intimately connected with the Baron du F—'s family, had ventured to demonstrate his friendship for the Baron, by confining his son nearly three years on his own authority, and without any lettre de cachet. And, though Mons. de Bel B— well knew that every spe|cies of oppression was connived at, under the shelter of lettres de cachet, he was sensible that it was only beneath their auspices that the ex|ercise of tyranny was permitted; and in this particular instance, not having been cruel * 1.64 selon les regles, he apprehended, that if ever Mons. du F— regained his liberty, he might be made responsible for his conduct. He, there|fore, exerted all his influence, and with too much success, to frustrate the benevolent in|tention of the President of the Parliament, re|specting Mons. du F—. His letters were indeed read in that Assembly, and ordered to be registered, where they still remain a record of the pusillanimity of those men, who suffer|ed the authority of Mons. de Bel B— to o|vercome the voice of humanity; who acknowl|edged the atrocity of the Baron du F—'s conduct, and yet were deaf to the supplications of his son, while, from the depth of his dun|geon, he called upon them for protection and redress.

May the sate of the captive, in the land of France, no more hang suspended on the frail thread of the pity, or the caprice of individu|als! May justice erect, on eternal foundations,

her protecting sanctuary for the oppressed; and may humanity and mercy be the graceful dec|orations of her temple!

The Baron du F— perceived that, not|withstanding his machinations had prevented the Parliament of Rouen from taking any ef|fectual measures towards liberating his son, it would be impossible to silence the murmurs of the public, while he remained confined at St. Yon. He determined, therefore, to remove him to some distant prison, where his name and family were unknown; and where, beyond the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Rouen, his groans might rise unpitied and unavenged. But the Baron, not daring, amidst the general clamour, to remove his son by force, endeav|oured to draw him artfully into the snare he had prepared.

Mons. de B— was sent to his brother's prison, where he represented to him, that, though he must not indulge the least hope of ever regaining his liberty, yet, if he would write a letter to Mons. M—, Keeper of the Seals, desiring to be removed to some other place, his confinement should be made far less rigorous. Mons. du F— was now in a state of desperation, that render|ed him almost careless of his fate. He per|ceived that the Parliament had renounced his cause. He saw no possibilty of escape from St. Yon; and flattered himself, that in a place where he was less closely confined, it might perhaps be practicable; and therefore

he consented to write the letter required, which Mons. de B— conveyed in triumph to his father. There were, however, some expressions in the letter which the Baron dis|approved, on which account he returned it, desiring that those expressions might be chang|ed. But, during the interval of his brother's absence, Mons. du F— had reflected on the rash imprudence of confiding in the promises of those by whom he had been so cruelly de|ceived. No sooner, therefore, did Mons. de B— put the letter again into his hands, than he tore it into pieces, and peremptorily refused to write another.

Soon after this, Mons. de B—, the ambas|sador of the tyrant, again returned to his broth|er with fresh credentials, and declared to him, that if he would write to the Keeper of the Seals, desiring to be removed from St. Yon, he should, in one fortnight after his removal, be restored to liberty. Upon Mons. du F—'s asserting that he could no longer confide in the promises made him by his family, his brother, in a formal written engagement, to which he signed his name, gave him the most solemn as|surance, that this promise should be fulfilled with fidelity. Mons. du F— desired a few days for deliberation, and, during that interval, found means of consulting a magistrate of Rouen who was his friend, and who advised him to comply with the terms that were offer|ed, after having caused several copies of the written engagement to be taken, and certified

by such of the prisoners at St. Yon as were likely to regain their freedom; a precaution nec|essary, lest his own copy should be torn from his hands.

Thus, having neither trusted to the affection, the mercy, or the remorse of those within whose bosoms such sentiments were extinguished; having bargained, by a written agreement, with a father and a brother, for his release from the horrors of perpetual captivity, Mons. du F— wrote the letter required.

Soon after, an order was sent from Versailles for his release from the prison of St. Yon, and with it a lettre de cachet, whereby he was exil|ed to Beauvais, with a command not to leave that town. Mons. de B—, acting as a * 1.65 Cavalier de la Marechaussée, conducted his brother to this place of exile, and there left him. A short time after, Mons. du F— re|ceived an intimation, from that magistrate of Rouen who had interested himself in his mis|fortunes, that his father was on the point of obtaining another lettre de cachet, to remove him from Beauvais, to some prison in the south of France, where he might never more be heard of. This gentleman added, that Mons. du F— had not one moment to lose, and advised him immediately to attempt his escape.

Early in the morning after he received this intelligence, Mons. du F—, who had liberty to walk about the town, fled from Beauvais.

The person who brought him the letter from the magistrate, waited for him at a little dis|tance from the town, and accompanied him on his journey. When they reached Lisle, in Flanders, not having a passport, they were obliged to wait from eleven o'clock at night till ten the next morning, before they could obtain permission from the Governor to pro|ceed on their journey. Mons. du F— con|cluded that he was pursued, and suffered the most dreadful apprehensions of being overtaken. His companion, with some address, at length obtained a passport, and attended him as far as Ostend. The wind proving contrary, he was detained two days in a state of the most distract|ing inquietude, and concealed himself on board the vessel in which he had taken his pas|sage for England. At length the wind became favourable; the vessel sailed, and arrived late in the night at Margate. Mons. du F—, when he reached the English shore, knelt down, and, in a transoprt of joy, kissed the earth of that dear country which had twice proved his asylum.

He then enquired when the stage-coach set off for London, and was told that it went at so ear|ly an hour the next morning, that he could not go till the day after, as he must wait till his portmanteau was examined by the custom-house officers, who were in bed. The delay of a few hours in seeing his wife and child, after such an absence, after such sufferings, was not to be endured. In a violent agitation of

mind, he snatched up his portmanteau, and was going to fling it into the sea, when he was prevented by the people near him, who said, that if he would pay the fees, his port|manteau should be sent after him. He eagealy complied with their demands, and set out for London. As he drew near, his anxiety, his impatience, his emotion increased. His pres|ent situation appeared to him like one of those delicious dreams, which sometimes visited the darkness of his dungeon, and for a while restor|ed him, in imagination, to those he loved. Scarcely could he persuade himself that he was beyond the reach of oppression; that he was in a land of freedom; that he was hastening every moment towards his wife and child. When he entered London, his sensations became al|most too strong to bear. He was in the very same place which his wife and child inhabit|ed—but were they yet alive? were they in health? had Heaven indeed reserved for him the transport of holding them once more to his bosom, of mixing his tears with theirs? When he knocked at the door of the house where he expected to hear of Madame du F—, he had scarcely power to articulate his enquiries after her and his child. He was told that they were in health, but that Madame du F—, being in a situation six miles from London, he could not see her till the next morning. Mons. du F— had not been in a bed for several nights, and was almost overcome with agitation and fatigue. He, however, instantly set out on

foot for the habitation of his wife, announced himself to the mistress of the family, and re|mained in another apartment, while she, after making Madame du F— promise that she would listen to her with calmness, told her, that there was a probability of her husband's return to England. He heard the sobs, the exclama|tions of his wife, at this intelligence—he could restrain no longer—he rushed into the room— he flew into her arms—he continued pressing her in silence to his bosom. She was unable to shed a tear; and it was not till after he had long endeavoured to sooth her by his tender|ness, and had talked to her of her child, that she obtained relief from weeping. She then, with the most violent emotion, again and again repeated the same enquiries, and was a consid|erable time before she recovered any degree of composure.

All the fortune Mons. du F— possessed when he reached London, was one half guinea; but his wife had, during his absence, saved ten guineas out of her little salary. You will easily im|agine how valuable this hoard became in her esti|mation, when she could apply it to the precious use of relieving the necessities of her husband. Mons. du F— went to London the next day, and hired a little garret; there, with a few books, a rush light, and some straw in which he wrapped his legs to supply the want of fire, he recollected not the splendor to which he had once been accustomed, but the dungeon from which he had escaped. He saw his wife

and child once a week; and, in those solitary moments, when books failed to sooth his thoughts, he anticipated the hour in which he should again meet the objects most dear to his heart, and passed the intervals of time in phi|losophic resignation. His clothes being too shabby to admit of his appearing in the day, he issued from his little shed when it was dark, and endeavoured to warm himself by the ex|ercise of walking.

Unfortunately he caught the small-pox, and his disorder rose to such a height, that his life was despaired of. In his delirium, he used to recapitulate the sad story of his misfortunes; and when he saw any person near his bed-side, would call out with the utmost vehemence, * 1.66"Qu'on fasse sortir touts les François!" After having been for some days in the most eminent danger, Mons. du F— recovered from this disease.

LETTER XXII.

SIX months after Mons. du F—'s re|turn to England, his family found themselves compelled to silence the public clamours, by allowing him a small annual pension. Upon this madame du F— quitted her place, and

came to live with her husband and child in an obscure lodging. Their little income receiv|ed some addition by means of teaching the French language in a few private families.

A young lady, who came to pay me a visit at London in 1785, desired to take some lessons in French, and Madame du F— was recom|mended to us for that purpose. We soon per|ceived in her conversation every mark of a cul|tivated mind, and of an amiable disposition. She at length told us the history of her misfor|tunes, with the pathetic eloquence of her own charming language; and, after having heard that recital, it required but common humanity, to treat her with the respect due to the unhap|py, and to feel for her sorrows that sympathy to which they had such claim. How much has the sensibility of Mons. and Madame du F—over-rated those proofs of esteem and friendship which we were enabled to shew them in their adversity!—But I must not antic|ipate.

On the seventh of December, 1787, the Baron died, leaving, besides Mons. du F—, two other sons, and a daughter.

I must here mention, that at the time when Mons. du F—was confined to his bed in the prison of St. Yon; from the consequences of his fall, his father, in order to avoid the clam|ours at Rouen, went for some weeks to Paris. He there made a will, disinheriting his eldest son. By the old laws of France, however, a father could not punish his son more than once

for the same offence. Nor was there any thing in so mild a clause that could much en|courage disobedience; since this single pun|ishment, of which the mercy of the law was careful to avoid repetition, might be extend|ed to residence for life in a dungeon. Such was evidently the intention of the Baron du F—; and, though his son, disappointing this intention, had escaped with only three years of captivity, and some broken limbs, the benignant law above mentioned interposed to prevent farther punishment, and left the Baron without any legal right to deprive Mons. du F— of his inheritance. His brothers, be|ing sensible of this, wrote to inform him of his father's death, and recall him to France. He refused to go while the lettre de cachet re|mained in force against him. The Baron hav|ing left all his papers sealed up, which his younger sons could not open but in the pres|ence of their brother, they obtained the revocation of the lettre de cachet, and sent it to Mons. du F—, who immediately set off for France.

The Barons' estate amounted to about four thousand pounds a year. Willing to avoid a tedious litigation with his brothers, Mons. du F—consented to divide with them this prop|erty. But he soon found reason to repent of his imprudent generosity; those very brothers, on whom he had bestowed an equal share of his fortune, refusing to concur with him in his ap|plication to the parliament of Rouen for the

revocation of the arret against his marriage. Mons. du F—, surprised and shocked at their refusal, began to entertain some apprehensions of his personal safety; and dreading that, sup|ported by the authority of his mother, another lettre de cachet might be obtained against him, he hastened back to England. Nor was it till after he had received assurances from several of the magistrates of Rouen, that they would be responsible for the safety of his person, that he again ventured to return to France, accompa|nied by Madame and Mademoiselle du F—, in order to obtain the revocation of the arret. On their arrival at Rouen, finding that the Par|liament was exiled, and that the business could not be prosecuted at that time, they again came back to pass the winter in England.

At this period his mother died; and in the following summer Mons. and Madame du F— arrived in France, at the great epoch of French liberty, on the 15th of July, 1789, the very day after that on which the Bastile was taken. It was then that Mons. du F— felt himself in security on his native shore.—It was then that his domestic comforts were no longer embitter|ed with the dread of being torn from his fami|ly by a seperation more terrible than death it|self.—It was then that he no more feared that his repose at night would be broken by the entrance of ruffians prepared to drag him to dungeons, the darkness of which was never vis|ited by the blessed beams of day.

He immediately took possession of his cha|teau, and only waits for the appointment of the new Judges, to solicit the revocation of the ar|ret against his marriage, and to secure the inher|itance of his estate to Mademoiselle du F—▪ his only daughter, who is now fifteen years of age, and is that very child who was born in the bosom of adversity, and whose infancy was ex|posed to all the miseries of want. May she never know the afflictions of her parents, but may she inherit their virtues!

Under the ancient government of France, there might have been some doubt of Mons. du F—'s obtaining the revocation of the ar|ret against his marriage. Beneath the iron hand of despotism, justice and virtue might have been overthrown. But happier omens belong to the new constitution of France.— The Judges will commence their high office, with that dignity becoming so important a trust, by cancelling an act of the most flagrant op|pression. They will confirm that solemn, that sacred engagement which Mons. and Madame du F— have three times vowed at the altar of God!—which has been sanctioned by laws human and divine—which has been ratified in earth and in heaven!

No sooner had Mons. and Madame du F— taken possession of their property, than they seemed eager to convince us, how little this change of fortune was capable of obliterating, for one moment, the remembrance of the friends of their adversity. With all the earn|estness

of affection, they invited us to France, and appeared to think, their prosperity incom|plete, and their happiness imperfect, till we ac|cepted the invitation. You will believe that we are not insensible witnesses of the delight|ful change in their fortune. We have the joy of seeing them not only possessing all the com|forts of affluence, but universal respect and es|teem.

Mons. du F—endeavours to banish mise|ry from his possessions. His tenants consider him as a father, and, "when the eye sees him it blesses him." I said to one of the peasants whom I met in my walk yesterday, * 1.67 "Je suis charmée de voir que Mons. est si bien aimé ici."—"Oh pour ç'a oui Madame, et à bonne raison, car il ne nous sait que du bien i"

Such is the history of Mons. du F—. Has it not the air of a romance? and are you not glad that the denouement is happy?— Does not the old Baron die exactly in the right place; at the very page one would choose?— Or, if I sometimes wish that he had lived a lit|tle longer, it is only from that desire of retri|bution, which, in cases of injustice and oppres|sion, it is so natural to feel.—It is only because the knowledge of the overthrow of the an|cient government would have been a sufficient punishment to him for all his cruelty. He

would have sickened at the sight of general happiness. The idea of liberty being extend|ed to the lower ranks, while, at the same time, tyranny was deprived of its privileges, he would have found insupportable; and would have ab|horred a country, which could no longer boast of a Bastile, a country where iron cages were broken down, where dungeons were thrown open, and where justice was henceforth to shed a clear and steady light, without one dark shade of relief from lettres de cachet.

But peace be to his ashes! If the recollection of his evil deeds excites my indignation, it is far otherwise with Mons. and Madame du F—. Never did I hear their lips utter an expression of resentment, or disrespect, towards his memory; and never did I, with that warmth which belongs to my friendship for them, pass a censure on his conduct, without being made sensible, by their behaviour, that I had done wrong.

Adieu!

LETTER XXIII.

I AM glad you think that a friend's having been persecuted, imprisoned, maimed, and almost murdered under the ancient govern|ment of France, is a good excuse for loving the revolution. What, indeed but friendship,

could have led my attention from the annals of imagination to the records of politics; from the poetry to the prose of human life? In vain might Aristocrates have explained to me the rights of Kings, and Democrates have des|canted on the rights of the people. How ma|ny fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange ar|guments and inferences in the cells of my brain! But however dull the faculties of my head, I can assure you, that when a proposition is addressed to my heart, I have some quickness of perception. I can then decide, in one mo|ment, points upon which philosophers and leg|islators have differed in all ages; nor could I be more convinced of the truth of any demon|stration in Euclid, than I am, that, that system of politics must be the best, by which those I love are made happy.

Mons. du F—'s chateau is near the little town of Forges, celebrated for its mineral wa|ters, and much resorted to in summer on that account. We went to the fountain on pre+tence of drinking the waters, but in reality to see the company. The first morning we made our appearance, the ladies presented us with nosegays of fine spreading purple heath, which they called * 1.68 Bouquets à la fontaine.

I was told, before I left England, that I should find that French liberty had destroyed French urbanity. But every thing I have seen

and heard, since my arrival in France, has con|tradicted this assertion, and led me to believe that the French will carefully preserve, from the wreck of their monarchical government, the old charter they have so long held of supe|riority in politeness. I am persuaded the most determined Democrates of the nation, what|ever other privileges they may choose to exer|cise, will always suffer the privilege of being rude to lie dormant.

In every country it is social pleasure that sheds the most delicious flowers which grow on the path of life; but in France she covers the whole way with roses, and the traveller can scarcely mark its ruggedness. Happy are a people, so fond of talking as the French, in possessing a language modelled to all the charming purposes of conversation. Then turn of expression is a dress that hangs so grace|fully on gay ideas, that you are apt to suppose that wit, a quality parsimoniously distributed in other countries, is in France as common as the gift of speech. Perhaps that brilliant phrase|ology, which dazzles a foreigner, may be fa|miliar and common to a French ear; but how much ingenuity must we allow to a people who have formed a language, of which the common-place phrases give you the idea of wit!

You, who are a reader of Madame Brulart's works, will know, that I am here on a sort of classic ground. The Abbaye de Bobec is but a few miles distant from this chateau, and I

walk every day in the forest where Michel and Jaqueline erected their little hut; which you may remember, having unfortunately built too low to admit of their standing up|right, they comforted themselves with the re|flection, * 1.69 "Qu'on ne peut pas penser à tout;" and when they were once seated in their dwell|ing, in which it was a vain attempt to stand, expatiated on the comforts of being † 1.70 "chez soi." Upon enquiry, I have heard that poor Jaqueline, three years after the happy change in her fortune, was killed by a stroke of light|ning, and that Michel (as he was bound to do, being the hero of a romance) died of grief.

The Abbé de Bobec has much reputation in this part of the country for wisdom; but a French gentleman, who dined with him yester|day, told me this morning, ‡ 1.71 "Il m'a donné une indigestion de bon sens." This is some|thing in the style of a young Frenchman, who went to visit an acquaintance of his at Rotter|dam, and has ever since called that worthy gen|tleman, § 1.72 "La raison continue (comme on dit la fievre continue) avec des redoublemens."

An alarm has been spread, but without any foundation, that the Austrian troops were march|ing to invade France. It puts me in mind of the

old trick of the Roman patricians, who, when|ever the plebeians grew refractory, called out, that the Equi and the Volsci were coming: the Equi and the Volsci, however, never came.

LETTER XXIV.

WE have had a féte at the chateau, on the day of St. Augustin, who is Mons. du F—'s patron; and, though Mons. is become a protestant, I hope he will always shew this mark of respect to his old friend St. Augustin. Indeed I am persuaded that Luther and Cal|vin, if they had been of our party, would have reconciled their minds to these charming rites of superstition.

The ceremonies began with a discharge of fusées, after which Mademoseille du F— entered the saloon, where a great crowd were assembled, with a crown of flowers in her hand, and addressed her father in these words: * 1.73 "Mon

tres cher papa, pourrois je profiter d'un mo|ment plus favorable pour vous souhaiter une bonne féte, que celui où nos bonnes, et vraies amies sont ici rassemblées, et s'unissent à moi pour celebrer cet heureux jour? C'est dans vos biens, cher papa, c'est dans votre chàteau que la Divine Providence nous réunit, pour chanter vos vertus, et ce courage héroique qui vous a fait supporter tous vos Malheurs. L'orage est passé, jouissez maintenant cher pa|pa du bonheur que vous meritez si bien de l'estime que vous vous étes acquise dans tous les coeurs sensibles. Que votre chere enfant con|tribue à votre félicité, que l'Eternel daigne exau|cer les voeux que je lui adresse pour la conserva|tion et le bonheur d'un tendre pere, à qui j'offre mes hommages, ma reconnoissance, et les senti|mens d'un coeur qui vous est tout devoué."

She then placed the crown of flowers upon his head, and he embraced her tenderly. A number of ladies advanced, presented him with nosegays, and were embraced in their turn.

We had seen, while we were at Paris, a charming little piece performed at the Theatre

de Monsieur, called, "La Féderation, ou La Famille Patriotique." Madame du F— sent for a copy of this piece, and it was now per|formed by the company assembled at the cha|teau. The tenants, with their wives and daugh|ters, formed the most considerable part of the audience, and I believe no play, in ancient or modern times, was ever acted with more ap|plause. My sister took a part in the perform|ance, which I declined doing, till I recollected that one of the principal characters was a statue; upon which, I consented to perform * 1.74 le beau role de la statue. And, in the last scene, I, being the representative of Liberty, appeared with all her usual attributes, and guarding the consecrated banners of the nation, which were placed on an altar, on which was inscribed, in transparent letters, † 1.75 "A la Liberté, 14 Juillet, 1789." One of the performers, pointing to the statue, says, ‡ 1.76 "Chaqae peuple a décoré cette idole de quelques attributs qui lui sont particuliers.— Ce bonnet sur-tout est devenu un embléme eloquent. Ne pour••ions-nous pas en ajoute•• d'autres qui deviendront peut-etre aussi céle|bres?" He then unfolds a scarf of national

ribband, which had been placed at the foot of the altar, and adds, * 1.77 "Cette noble echarpe•• Ces couleurs si bien assorties ne sont-elles pas dignes de figurer aussi parmi les attributs de la Liberté?" The scarf was thrown over my shoulder, and the piece concluded with † 1.78 Le Carillon National; after a grand chorus of ‡ 1.79 ç'a ira, the performers ranged themselves in order, and ç'a ira was danced. C'a ira hung on every lip, ç'a ira, glowed on every coun|tenance! Thus do the French, lest they should be tempted, by pleasure, to forget one mo|ment the cause of liberty, bind it to their re|membrance in the hour of festivity, with fil|lets and scarfs of national ribband; connect it with the sound of the viol and the harp, and appoint it not merely to regulate the great movements of government, but to mould the figure of the dance. When the cotillon was finished, some beautitul fire-works were play|ed off, and we then went to supper, § 1.80 "Vous etes bien placé, Mons." said Madame du F— to a young Frenchman, who was seated be|tween my sister and me at table. ‖ 1.81 "Madame,"

answered he, in a style truly French, "me voila heureux pour la premiere fois, a vingi trois ans."

After supper we returned to the saloon, where the gentlemen danced with the peasant girls, and the ladies with the peasants. A more joyous scene, or a set of happier countenances my eyes never beheld. When I recollected the former situation of my friends, the specta|cle before me seemed an enchanting vision: I could not forbear, the whole evening, compar|ing the past with the present, and, while I meant to be exceedingly merry, I felt that tears, which would not be suppressed, were gushing from my eyes; but they were tears of luxury.

LETTER XXV.

A DECREE has passed in the National Assembly, instituting rewards for literary mer|it. The proposal met with great opposition from one of the members, I do not wish to re|member his name, who said the state stood in need of husbandmen, not poets; as if the state would be encumbered by having both. This gentleman thinks, that, provided wheat and oats flourish, the culture of mind may be dispensed with; and that, if the spade and harrow are ••••••••pened, the quill of genius may be shipped

of all its feathers. * 1.82 Mais, vive l'Assemblée Nationale!—they have determined never to a|bolish the nobility of the muses, or deprive the fine arts † 1.83 de leurs droits honorisiques.

Apropos of poets.—The French have con|quered many old prejudices, but their prejudice against Shakespeare still exists. They well know, that though in England it is our policy, or our pleasure, to have an opposition on every other subject, we have not one dissenting voice about Shakespeare; and therefore they allow that he may, perhaps, deserve to be the idol of the British nation, a sort of house-hold god whom we delight to honour; but they have gods of their own to whom they pay homage, and have little idea that Shakespeare was not only the glory of England, but of human na|ture. It would be a hopeless attempt to con|vince them, that the genius of their boasted Corneille, has something of the proud and af|fected greatness of Lewis the Fourteenth▪ while that of Shakespeare has more affinity to the noble dignified simplicity of Henry the Fourth. They repeat, till you are weary of the remark, that French tragedies are regular dramas, while Shakespeare's plays are monsters. This re|minds me of Boileau's answer to an author who had brought him a play to read, of which Boi|leau disapproved. Sir, exclaimed the enraged author, I defy malice to say that my piece transgresses any one of the rules. "Why,

Sir," replied Boileau, "it transgresses the first rule of all, that of keeping the reader awake."

The young gentleman who, as I mentioned to you, was confined at St. Yon, in the cell adjoining Mons. du F—'s, and with whom he used to converse in whispers through a hole in the wall, is come to pay a visit at the cha|teau. This young man went very early into the army; but, at the age of twenty, his father being at St. Domingo, and his mother consid|ering her son as a spy upon her conduct, which was such as shrunk from inspection, obtained a lettre de cachet against him, and he was con|fined three years at St. Yon. He has told me, that, after the first year, he lost all hope of ever regaining his liberty. A morbid melancholy seized his mind; he lay stretched on the same bed for two years; and sometimes refused to taste food for several days together. When his father, at his return from St. Domingo, came to liberate him, he was so feeble that he was unable to walk.

His father again left France, and the brother of this young man has suffered a fate even more severe than himself. At the age of fifteen, he was guilty of some indiscretions, which incurred the resentment of his unrelenting mother, and another lettre de cachet was obtained.—"Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?"—He was confined ten years, and on|ly released when all the prisons were thrown open, by order of the National Assembly. But for this unhappy young man their mercy

came too late—His reason was gone for ever! and he was led out of his prison, at the age of five and twenty, a maniac. When the sensi|bility with which his brother relates these fam|ily misfortunes melts us into tears, we are told, * 1.84 que la tristesse, est la maladie du charbon Anglois, and will never be tolerated in France.

You will not be surprised to hear that Mons. du F— has, with great complacency, relin|quished his title; and that, being a ci-devant captive, as well as a ci-devant Baron, he feels that the enjoyment of personal security, the sweetness of domestic comfort, in short, that the common rights of man are of more value than he ever found the rights of nobility in the solitude of his dungeon. He is ready to ac|knowledge, that confinement in a subterraneous cell, a fall from a height of fifty feet, and the fracture of his limbs, are things which even the title of Baron can scarcely counterbalance; and he therefore drinks a libation, every day after dinner, † 1.85 à la sante de l'Assemblée Nationale. though they have deprived him of the soothing epithet of Mon-Seigneur. We, however, shall soon cease to pledge him in this toast. The day of our departure draws near. We must leave the charming society at the chateau—we must leave the peasants' dance under the shade of the old elms, while the setting sun pours streams of liquid gold through the soliage—we must

leave * 1.86 Le maitre de violon, qui se ride en|riant, avec sa malheureuse figure.—All this must we leave!—To-morrow is the last day of our residence at the chateau. What a desolate word is that monosyllable of last—how sad, how emphatical its meaning!—There is something in it which gives the most indifferent things an interest in our affections—I am sure I could write a volume with this little word for my text; but I may as well explain myself in one line—I am sorry to leave France!

LETTER XXVI.

LONDON.

WE left France early in September, that we might avoid the equinoctial gases; but were so unfortunate as to meet, in our passage from Dieppe to Brighton, with a very violent storm. We were two days and two nights at sea, and beat four and twenty hours off the coast of Brighton; and it would be difficult for you, who have formed your calculations of time on dry land, to guess what is the length of four and twenty hours in a storm at sea. At last, with great difficulty, we landed on the beach, where we found several of our friends

and acquaintance, who, supposing that we might be among the passengers, sympathized with our danger, and were anxious for our preservation.

Before the storm became so serious as to ex|clude every idea but that of preparing to die with composure, I could not help being divert|ed with the comments on French customs, and French politics, which passed in the cabin. "Ah," says one man to his companion, "one had need to go to France, to know how to like old England when one gets back again."— "For my part," rejoined another, "I've never been able to get drunk once the whole time I was in France—not a drop of porter to be had— and as for their victuals, they call a bit of meat of a pound and a half, a fine piece of roast beef."—"And pray," added he, turning to one of the sailors, "What do you think of their National Assembly?"—"Why," says the sailor, "if I ben't mistaken, the National Assembly has got some points from the wind."

I own it has surprised me not a little, since I came to London, to find that most of my ac|quaintance are of the same opinion with the sailor. Every visitor brings me intelligence from France full of dismay and horror. I hear of nothing but crimes, assassinations, tor|ture, and death. I am told that every day wit|nesses a conspiracy; that every town is the scene of a massacre; that every street is black|ened with a gallows, and every highway del|uged with blood. I hear these things, and re|peat

to myself, Is this the picture of France? Are these the images of that universal joy, which called tears into my eyes, and made my heart throb with sympathy?—To me, the land which these mighty magicians have suddenly covered with darkness, where, waving their evil wand, they have reared the dismal scaffold, have clotted the knife of the assassin with gore▪ have called forth the shriek of despair, and the agony of torture; to me, this land of desolation appeared drest in additional beauty beneath the genial smile of liberty. The woods seemed to cast a more refreshing shade, and the lawns to wear a brighter verdure, while the carols of freedom burst from the cottage of the peasant▪ and the voice of joy resounded on the hill, and in the valley.

Must I be told that my mind is perverted, that I am become dead to all sensations of sym|pathy, because I do not weep with those who have lost a part of their superfluities, rather than rejoice that the oppressed are protected, that the wronged are redressed, that the captive is set at liberty, and that the poor have bread? Did the Universal Parent of the human race, implant the feelings of pity in the heart, that they should be confined to the artificial wants of vanity, the ideal deprivations of greatness; that they should be fixed beneath the dome of the palace, or locked within the gate of the chateau; without extending one commiserating sigh to the wretched hamlet, as if its famished inhabitants, though not ennobled by man, did

not bear, at least, the ensigns of nobility stamp|ed on our nature by God?

Must I hear the charming societies, in which I found all the elegant graces of the most pol|ished manners, all the amiable urbanity of lib|eral and cultivated minds, compared with the most rude, ferocious, and barbarous levellers that ever existed? Really, some of my English acquaintance, whatever objections they may have to republican principles, do, in their dis|cussions of French politics, adopt a most free and republican style of censure. Nothing can be more democratical than their mode of ex|pression, or display a more levelling spirit, than their unqualified contempt of all the lead|ers of the revolution.

It is not my intention to shiver lances, in ev|ery society I enter, in the cause of the Nation|al Assembly. Yet I cannot help remarking, that, since that Assembly does not presume to set itself up as an example to this country, we seem to have very little right to be furiously angry, because they think proper to try anoth|er system of government themselves. Why should they not be suffered to make an experi|ment in politics? I have always been told, that the improvement of every science depends upon experiment. But I now hear that in|stead of their new attempt to form the great machine of society upon a simple principle of general amity, upon tho FEDERATION of its members, they ought to have repaired the feu|dal wheels and springs, by which their ances|tors

directed its movements. Yet if man|kind had always observed this retrograde mo|tion, it would surely have led them to few ac|quisitions in virtue, or in knowledge; and we might even have been worshipping the idols of paganism at this moment. To forbid, under the pains and penalties of reproach, all attempts of the human mind to advance to greater per|fection, seems to be proscribing every art and science. And we cannot much wonder that the French, having received so small a legacy of public happiness from their forefathers, and being sensible of the poverty of their own patri|mony, should try new methods of transmitting a richer inheritance to their posterity.

Perhaps the improvements which mankind may be capable of making in the art of politics, may have some resemblance to those they have made in the art of navigation. Perhaps our political plans may hitherto have been somewhat like those ill-constructed misshapen vessels, which, unfit to combat with the winds and waves, were only used by the ancients to con|vey the warriors of one country to despoil and ravage another neighbouring state; which only served to produce an intercourse of hostility, a communication of injury, an exchange of rap|ine and devastation. But it may be within the compass of human possibility to form a sys|tem of politics, which, like a modern ship of discovery, built upon principles that defy the opposition of the tempestuous elements "and passions are the elements of life"—) in|stead

of yielding to their fury, makes them sub|servient to its purpose, and sailing sublimely over the untracked ocean, unites those together whom nature seemed forever to have separated, and throws a line of connection across the di|vided world.

One cause of the general dislike in which the French Revolution is held in this country, is the exaggerated stories which are carefully circulated by such of the aristocrates as have taken refuge in England, They are not all, however, persons of this description. There is now a young gentleman in London, nephew to the Bishop de Sens, who has lost his fortune, his rank, all his high expectations, and yet who has the generosity to applaud the revolution, and the magnanimity to reconcile himself to personal calamities, from the consideration of general good; and who is "faithful found" to his country, "among the faithless." I hope this amiable young Frenchman will live to wit|ness, and to share the honours, the prosperity of that regenerated country; and I also hope that the National Assembly of France will answer the objections of its adversaries in the manner most becoming its own dignity, by forming such a constitution as will render the French nation virtuous, flourishing, and happy.

FINIS.

Notes

• * 1.1

  As for me, I desired nothing better.
• † 1.2

  The nation, the Law, and the King.
• * 1.3

  The hope of the country.
• * 1.4

  We are wet for the nation.
• † 1.5

  The French Revolution is cemented with water instead of blood.
• * 1.6

  My friends, the each is not an air which can be played twice over.
• † 1.7

  But, my friends, you stifle me.
• * 1.8

  I embrace my rival, but it is to destroy him.
• * 1.9

  Long live Mons. de la Fayette.
• * 1.10

  Long live the Nation.
• * 1.11

  To the Bastile—but we shall not remain there.
• * 1.12

  We must have bread for our children.
• † 1.13

  Who goes there?
• * 1.14

  Madam, for this poor devil, who has been killed for the Nation!—Sir, for this unfortunate dog▪ who has been killed for the Nation!
• † 1.15

  Had been killed for the Nation.
• ‡ 1.16

  Gentlemen, you have rendered me one great service: render me another, kill me! for I know not where to go. Come along, come along, the Nation will provide for you.
• * 1.17

  The patriotic donation.
• * 1.18

  To the lantern
• * 1.19

  If I were at the lantern, would you be more enlightened?
• † 1.20

  In pleasantry, Father Pinchina.
• * 1.21

  For a foreign power.
• * 1.22

  I suppose that gentleman finds money trouble+some.
• * 1.23

  Become madly fond of the English.
• * 1.24

  That the streets of Paris are aristocrates.
• * 1.25

  The lamp-iron.
• * 1.26

  We now have bread.
• * 1.27

  Spare mamma!
• † 1.28

  The King begs of you to spare his body-guards.
• * 1.29

  I saw every thing, heard every thing, and have forgot every thing.
• † 1.30

  Long live Henry the Fourth. Long live Louis the Sixteenth.
• ‡ 1.31

  Little rabbit, Thou art an Aristocrate.—And pray, my Lord, what is an Aristocrate?—Those who make my papa uneasy.
• * 1.32

  My friends, you are going then to forsake me: I possess none of your affection. Captain, they answered, we all love you; and, if you will lead us against our enemies, we are all ready to follow you; but we will never fire at our fellow citizens.
• † 1.33

  Long live the French guards.
• * 1.34

  Peace be with you.
• * 1.35

  It will go on.
• † 1.36

  This is better than Giornowiche.
• * 1.37

  But rise, pray rise, Sully; they will believe I am forgiving you.
• * 1.38

  Writer.—Memoirs and letters written at a moderate price, for the Nation.
• * 1.39

  Every thing is done singing.
• * 1.40

  "They abuse the permission the French streets have of being ugly."
• † 1.41

  "To liht the Saints."
• * 1.42

  Let us live free, or die!
• * 1.43

  Let us live free, or die!
• * 1.44

  Fast-day.
• † 1.45

  You are an Assembly of Asses.
• ‡ 1.46

  Yes, Sir, and you are our pastor.
• * 1.47

  The military mass.
• * 1.48

  Because, said she, the Abbess was obliged to rise from table very soon yesterday, and sound herself a little indisposed.
• * 1.49

  Told a great many tales to the Abbess.
• † 1.50

  How amiable he is! what noble sentiments! Ah, Sir, you are too good for God to leave you in error.
• * 1.51

  Always a fast.
• † 1.52

  These young ladies, Madam, must consider whether these regulations will suit them.
• * 1.53

  They have overturned every thing.
• † 1.54

  And would even carry the profanation so far as to suffer the priests to marry.
• * 1.55

  My good friend, My little girl, My child.
• † 1.56

  Thou, thy, &c.
• ‡ 1.57

  And how do you do, La Voie?
• § 1.58

  Pretty well, my Lord; but I had a fever last Easter, at your service.
• * 1.59

  The new-married couple kept a fast in their little apartment.
• * 1.60

  Thomson.
• * 1.61

  〈…〉〈…〉 Justice.
• * 1.62

  The Brothers of the holy Charity.
• † 1.63

  My dear brother, be comforted: Place your confidence in God; your afflictions will have an end.
• * 1.64

  According to rules.
• * 1.65

  An officer of justice.
• * 1.66

  Make all the French go out.
• * 1.67

  I am happy to see that Monsieur is so much beloved.—Oh, yes madam, and well he may, he does us nothing but good.
• * 1.68

  Nosegays of the fountain.
• * 1.69

  One cannot think of every thing.
• † 1.70

  At home.
• ‡ 1.71

  He gave me an indigestion of good sense.
• § 1.72

  Reasoning continued, as you would speak of fever with fresh paroxysms.
• * 1.73

  "My dearest papa, can I choose a more fa|vorable moment to wish you an agreeable féte than this, when our best, our faithful friends are here assembled, and join with me in celebrating this happy day? It is in the midst of your posses|sions, my dear papa, it is in your chateau, that Divine Providence has re-united us, to declare your virtues, and the heroic fortitude with which you have supported your misfortunes. The storm is past, and you can now, my dear papa, enjoy the happiness you so well deserve, and the esteem of every amiable mind. May your child contribute to your felicity! May the Supreme Being hear the prayers which I address to him for the preservation of a tender father, to whom I offer my duty, my gratitude, and the best affec|tions of my heart!"
• * 1.74

  The fine part of the statue.
• † 1.75

  To Liberty July 14th, 1789.
• ‡ 1.76

  Every nation has decorated this idol with some peculiar attributes: This cap has been long one of her most eloquent emblems. Can we not add some others, which may▪ perhaps, become no less celebrated▪
• * 1.77

  That noble scarf!—are not its auspicious col|ours worthy of appearing amongst the attributes of liberty?
• † 1.78

  The national bells.
• ‡ 1.79

  It will go on.
• § 1.80

  You are well placed. Sir.
• ‖ 1.81

  I am made happy, Madam, for the first time, at three and twenty years of age.
• * 1.82

  Long live the National Assembly.
• † 1.83

  Of their honorary rights.
• * 1.84

  Melancholy is the disease of English coal fires.
• † 1.85

  To the health of the National Assembly.
• * 1.86

  The player on the violin, who▪ with his mise|rable figure, has become wrinkled from laguhing.