An appeal to impartial posterity. By Madame Roland, wife of the minister of the interior: or, A collection of tracts written by her during her confinement in the prisons of the Abbey, and St. Pelagie, in Paris. In four parts. / Translated from the French original, published for the benefit of her only daughter, deprived of the fortune of her parents by sequestration. ; Vol. I. Containing Part I. and II[-Vol. II. Containing Part III and IV.]. ; [Four lines of quotations]

HISTORICAL MEMOIRS.

Abbey Prison, June 1795.

To day on a throne, to-morrow in a prison.

SUCH is the fate of virtue in revolutionary times. After the first commotions of a nation, weary of the abuses by which it has been aggrieved, have subsided, enlightened men, who have pointed out its rights, and assisted in regaining them, are called into places of authority: but they cannot long maintain themselves there; for the ambitious, eager to take advantage of cir|cumstances, soon contrive to mislead the people by flat|tery, and set them against their real defenders, that they themselves may acquire consequence and power. Such has been the progress of things, particularly since the tenth of August. On some future day, perhaps, I shall recur to earlier times, to give an account of what my situation has enabled me to know: at present the sole object I have in view is to commit the circumstances of my arrest to paper: it is the kind of amusement most suitable to the solitary, to reflect on their personal con|cerns, and to express what they feel.

The resignation of Roland appeased not his 〈◊〉〈◊〉. He had quitted the ministry, in spite of his re•• to await there the laying of the storm, and to brave 〈◊〉〈◊〉

danger; because the state of the council, when he became fully acquainted with it, and his want of influence, which kept continually increasing, and was particularly evi|dent about the middle of January, no longer left him any thing to look forward to but faults and follies, of which he must participate the disgrace. He was not even al|lowed to enter his reasons or his opinions on the register of the proceedings, when they were contrary to the deter|mination of the majority.

THE consequence was, that from the day of that pitiful decree respecting the comedy intituled l' Ami des Loix, which he would not sign, because the second article was at best ridiculous, he no longer affixed his signature to any deliberation of the council. That was the fifteenth of January. The prospect held out to him by the con|vention was by no means encouraging. His very name was there become the signal of discord and disturbance; and could no longer be pronounced without producing an uproar. If a member ventured to answer the odious accusations gratuitously preferred against the minister, he was treated as an instrument of faction, and reduced to silence. In the mean time Pache was accumulating in the war department all the faults which his weakness and implicit submission to the jacobins enabled the perfidy, imbecility, and imprudence of his agents to commit; and yet the convention could not obtain the dismission of Pache; for the moment a single sentence was uttered against him, the bloodhounds of the mountain set up a howl against Roland. Thus the continuation of his cou|rageous struggle in the ministry could no longer prevent the faults of the council, while it became an additional motive of disorder in the convention. He deemed it

therefore prudent to give in his resignation. To prove that it was necessary, it suffices to remark, that the sound part of the legislative body, convinced as it was of the virtues and talents of the calumniated minister, durst not make a single observation on the subject. This was unquestionably weakness; for it stood in need of a firm and honest man in the home department, who would have been its most powerful support; and losing this it could not do otherwise than submit to the yoke of the violent patriots, who were endeavouring to set up and maintain an authority capable of rivalling the na|tional representation.

ROLAND kept a usurping commune in awe. Roland gave to all the administrative bodies a regular, uniform, and harmonious motion: he watched over the supply of provisions of the great national family: he found means to re-establish peace in all the departments; he diffused throughout them that order which proceeds from justice, and that confidence which is kept alive by a vigilant ad|ministration; and he set on foot between them a friendly correspondence, and a ready communication of knowledge Roland ought therefore to have been supported: but si•• weakness denied the means, he, to whom that weakness was well known, could not choose but retire.

THE timid Garat, an agreeable companion, a man of letters, of moderate merit, and a detestable minister; Garat, whose appointment to the judicial department proved the want of able men, a want which is incon|ceivable, and which none can tell but they who, occu|pying places of importance, have coadjutors to seek; Garat had not even sense enough to remain in that of|fice, where there is least to be done, and where his bad

health, his natural indolence, and his incapacity for bu|siness, would have been least conspicuous; but removed to the home department, without possessing the smallest share of the requisite knowledge, not only where politics are the question, but in regard to commerce, the arts, and a multitude of administrative operations, that come within its cognizance. With all that ignorance, and with all his inactivity, he ventured to take the place of the most active man in the republic, and the best informed in all the above particulars. The relaxation of the machine soon occasioned the dislocation of its parts, and proved the weakness of the regulator: the departments were thrown into commotion, scarcity began to be felt, the flames of civil war were lighted up in la Vendée; the authorities of Paris exceeded their powers; the jacobins assumed the reins of government; and the puppet Pache, dismissed from the department, which he had thrown into confusion, was raised by a cabal to the mayoralty, where his suppleness was wanted, while his place at the council-board was filled by the idiot Bouchotte, as sup|ple as he, and even surpassing him in stupidity.

ROLAND gave a terrible blow to his adversaries, by publishing, on his retirement, such accounts, as no minister before him had furnished. To have them ex|amined and sanctioned by a report, was a piece of jus|tice, which he was doomed to solicit in vain; for that would have been acknowledging the falsehood of the ob|loquy thrown on him, the infamy of his detractors, and the weakness of the convention, which had not dared to undertake his defence.

IT was necessary to persevere in slandering him, without coming to the proof; in order to perplex

and mislead the public opinion, so as to be able to ruin him with impunity; and thus to get rid of a troublesome witness of so many atrocities, which must either be concealed, or justified, to preserve to the perpetrators the wealth and authority they helped them to acquire. In vain did Roland entreat, publish, and write seven times in four months to the convention, to demand an examination and a report on his conduct in the ministry. The jacobins continued to employ their satellites, to proclaim him a traitor: Marat proved to his people that the ex-minister's head was necessary to the tranquillity of the republic: conspiracies frustrated, set on foot anew, baffled again, and yet constanly carried on, ended at length in the insurrection of the 31st of May, when the good people of Paris, with a fixed determination to massacre no one, did every thing besides that their audacious directors, their insolent commune, and the revolutionary committee of messieurs the Jacobins, grown mad or furious, or else become the hirelings of the enemy, were pleased to require. Roland had writ|ten the eighth time to the convention, which had not even deigned to read his letter; and I was preparing to get the municipality to sign passports, by means of which I might go with my daughter into the country, whither I was called by domestic business, by the state of my health, and by many good reasons beside. Among other things I considered, how much more easy it would be for Roland to escape alone from the pursuit of his enemies, should they proceed to the last extremities, than for the whole of his little family together: prudence pointed out the propriety of diminishing the number of

points in which he was attackable* 1.1. My passports had been delayed at the section, through the chicanery of some zealous maratists, in whose eyes I was an object of suspicion; and they were but just delivered to me, when a fit of the nervous colic, attended with violent convulsions, the only indisposition to which I am subject, and to which the vehement affections of a strong mind ruling a robust body expose me, obliged me to keep my bed. I passed six days in this state, and purposed going out on Friday, to shew myself at the municipality; but the sound of the alarm-bell informed me, that it was not a proper time. Every thing had long foretold an approaching crisis. It is true that the ascendancy of the jacobins made it very unlikely that its issue should be favourable to the real friends of liberty: but energetic minds detest suspense; and the debasement of the con|vention, with its daily acts of weakness and slavery, appeared to me so distressing, that I hardly considered the worst excesses as more lamentable, because they would necessarily contribute to open the eyes, and de|termine the conduct of the departments. The alarm gun, and the commotions of the day, awakened in me that interest, which great events inspire, without pro|ducing any painful emotion. Two or three persons came to confer with us; and one, in particular, pressed Roland to make his appearance at his section, by which

he was esteemed, and of which the good disposition was the best warrant of his safety. It was agreed, however, that he should not sleep at home the following night: though, by the way, nothing was talked of but the good intentions of the citizens, who drew up under arms, in order to oppose every act of violence. It was not added, that they would permit preparations for every act of violence to be made.

THE blood boils in my veins when I hear praises be|stowed on the good-nature of the Parisians, who are de|termined not to have another day like the 2d of Sep|tember. Why, good heavens! nobody wants you to exe|cute another; you need only suffer it as you did before: but you are necessary to collect the victims, and you kindly lend your aid to apprehend them; you are ne|cessary to give the appearance of a legitimate insurrection to the violence of the galleries* 1.2 by whom you are governed, and you approve their undertakings: you obey their orders, you swear fealty to the monstrous authorities they create; you surround the legislative body with your b••yonets, and you permit rebels to dictate to the national represen|tation the decrees they wish to pass. Boast then no more of being its defenders; it is you who bind it in chains; you who deliver into the hands of oppression the members, the most distinguished for their virtues and their talents; you who with equal cowardice would see them brought to the block, by proceedings similar to those that destroyed Sidney; and you it is who will have to answer to indignant France for so many crimes; who

serve the cause of her enemies, and who prepare the way for federalism. Think you, that the high-spirited Marseilles, and the enlightened department of la Gironde, will pass over the outrages committed on their representatives, or fraternise with a city polluted by such crimes? You are the destroyers of your country, and soon will you lament, in vain, your infamous pusillanimity in the midst of its ruins.

IT was half after five in the evening, when six armed men came to our house. One of them read to Roland an order of the revolutionary committee, by virtue of which they were come to apprehend him. 'I know no law,' said Roland, 'which constitutes the authority you men|tion; nor shall I obey the orders which it issues. If you employ violence, I can only oppose to you such resist|ance as a man of my years is capable of; but I shall pro|test against it to the last moment of my life.'—'I have no order to employ violence,' replied the spokesman, 'I shall therefore go and communicate your answer to the council-general of the commune: in the mean time I will leave my colleagues here.'

IT occurred to me immediately, that it would not be amiss to denounce these proceedings to the convention, in the most public manner, in order to prevent the arrest of Roland, or to obtain his prompt release, if it should have taken place. To communicate this idea to my husband, write a letter to the president, and set out, was the business of a few minutes. My servant being ab|sent, I left a friend, who was in the house, to keep Ro|land company; and stepped alone into a hackney coach, which I ordered to proceed as fast as possible to the Ca|rouzel. The court-yard of the Tuileries was filled

with armed men. I crossed it, and flew through the midst of them like a bird. I was dressed in a morning gown, and had put on a black shaul, and a veil. On my arrival at the doors of the outer halls, which were all shut, I found sentinels, who allowed no one to enter, or sent me by turns from door to door. In vain did I insist on admission; till at length it came into my mind to employ such language as a bigotted Robesperian would have held. 'Why, citizens,' said I, 'in this day of salvation for our country, and in the midst of the traitors, from whom we have so much to fear, you do not know then of what importance some notes may be which I wish to transmit to the president. Send at least for an usher, that I may entrust them to his care.'

THE doors instantly flew open, and I walked into the petitioner's hall. I then enquired for one of the ushers, and was desired by a sentry, planted within the hall, to wait till one came out. A quarter of an hour had al|ready passed, when I perceived Rose* 1.3, the very man who had brought me the decree of the convention, re|questing me to repair to the bar, on account of the ri|diculous accusation of Viard, whom I overwhelmed with confusion: I now solicited permission to appear there, and represented Roland's danger, as connected with the pub|lic weal. But circumstances were no longer the same, though my rights were equally good: before, requested respectfully, now a suppliant, how was I to obtain the same success? Rose took charge of my letter; conceived at once the subject, and the greatness of my impatience;

and left me, in order to lay it on the table, and to reques•• that it might be read without delay. An hour elapsed I walked hastily backwards and forwards; and every tim•• the door was opened, my eyes were cast towards the hall but it was immediately shut by the guard, and from time to time a dreadful noise assailed my ears. Rose made his appearance again.—'Well!'—'Nothing has yet been done. A tumult I cannot describe prevails in the assem|bly. Some petitioners, at this moment at the bar, de|mand the confinement of the twenty-two: I have just assisted Rabaud in getting out without being seen: they will not consent to his making the report of the com|mission of twelve: he has been threatened: several others are making off: nor can any one say what will be the event.'—'Who is president?'—'Héraut Séchelles.'— 'Ah! my letter will not be read. Send me some member or other with whom I may speak a few words.'—'Whom?' —'Indeed I am little acquainted, or have little esteem for any, but those that are proscribed. Tell Vargniaux I wish to see him.'

ROSE went in quest of him; at the end of a very con|siderable time he came; and we talked together for seven or eight minutes. He then returned to the hall, came back, and said: 'In the present state of the assembly, I dare not flatter you: you have no great room for hope. If you get admission to the bar, you may obtain a little more favour as a woman; but the convention is no longer able to do any good.'—'It is able to do any thing it pleases,' exclaimed I: 'for the majority of Paris only desire to know how they ought to act. If I be admitted, I will venture to say, what you could not utter without exposing yourself to an impeachment. As to me I fear

nothing in the world; and if I cannot save Roland, I will speak some home truths, which will not be altogether useless to the republic. Inform your worthy colleagues: a courageous sally may have a great effect, or at least will serve to set a great example.'—I was indeed, in that temper of mind, which imparts eloquence: warm with indignation, and superior to all fear, my bosom glowing for my country, the ruin of which I foresaw, every thing dear to me in the world at stake, feeling strong|ly, expressing my sentiments with fluency, and too proud not to utter them with dignity, I had the most important interests to discuss, possessed some means of defending them, and was in a singular situation for doing it with advantage.—'But, at any rate,' said Verg|niaux, 'your letter cannot be read this hour or two; a motion of six articles is going to be discussed: and pe|titioners, deputed by the sections, are waiting at the bar; only think what a tedious time you will have to stay!'— 'I will go home, then, to know what has been passing there, and will immediately return; you may tell our friends so.' —'Most of them are absent: they behave courageously, when they are here; but they are deficient in affiduity.' —'That, alas! is but too true.'

I quitted Vergniaux, flew to Louvet's, wrote a note to inform him of what was going on, and what I foresaw would follow; threw myself into a hackney-coach, and ordered it to drive home. The wretched horses did not get on to my mind; and we were soon met by battalions of national guards, whose march stopped the way. I jumped out of the coach, paid the coachman, rushed through the ranks, and made off. This was near the Louvre, from whence I ran to our house, which was

in the Rue de la Harpe, opposite the school of surgery. The porter whispered me, that Roland was gone to the landlord's at the bottom of the court; and thither I repaired, perspiring at every pore. A glass of wine was brought me, and I was told, that the bearer of the war|rant having returned, without being able to procure a hearing at the council, Roland had persisted in protest|ing against his orders; and that these good people, after demanding his protest in writing, had withdrawn; in con|sequence of which Roland had come to beg a passage through their apartments, and had got out of the house by the back door. I did the same in order to find him, to inform him of the attempt I had made, and of the steps I meant to pursue. At the first house to which I repaired, I found him not: in the second I did. From the solitude of the streets, which, by the way, were illu|minated, I presumed that it was late: I prepared never|theless to return to the convention, where I should have taken care to be ignorant of Roland's escape, and should have spoken as I had before intended. I was going to set out on foot, without recollecting, that it was past ten o'clock, and that I was out that day for the first time since my illness, which demanded rest and the bath. A hackney-coach was brought me. On ap|proaching the Carouzel, I saw nothing more of the armed force, except two pieces of cannon, and a few men, who were still at the gate of the national palace; I went up to it, and found that the sitting was at an end.

What! on the day of an insurrection, when the sound of the alarm-bell scarcely ceases to strike the ear, when only two hours before forty thousand men in arms sur|rounded the convention, and petitioners threatened its

members from the bar, the assembly is not permanent!— Surely then it is completely subjugated! it has done every thing, that it was ordered! The revolutionary power is so predominant, that the convention dares not oppose it, and it stands itself in no need of the convention!

'CITIZENS,' said I to some fans-culottes collected round a cannon, 'has every thing gone well?'—'O wonderfully! they embraced each other, and sang the hymn of the Marseillois, there, under the tree of liberty.'— 'What, then, is the right side appeased?'—'Faith, it was obliged to listen to reason.'—'And what of the committee of twelve?'—'It is kicked into the ditch.'—'And the twenty-two?'—'The municipality will have them taken up.'—'Ay, but can the municipality?'—'Why, body o' me, is not the municipality the sovereign? It is high time it should, to set those b—of traitors to rights, and support the common-wealth.'—'But will the departments be well pleased to see their representatives * * * *'—'What are you talking about?—the Parisians do nothing but in concert with the departments: they said so to the conven|tion.—'That however is not quite so certain, for, to know their will, the primary assemblies were wanting.'— 'Was there any want of primary assemblies on the 10th of August? Did not the departments approve what Paris did then? They will do the same now: it is 〈◊〉〈◊〉 that is saving them.'—'Or rather, it is Paris that is ruining itself.'

I had crossed the court, and was returning to my ••|ney-coach, while concluding this dialogue with an old fans-culotte, who was well paid no doubt for tutoring the dupes. A pretty dog followed close at my heels:—'Is the poor brute your's?' said the coachman with a ••one of sensibility very uncommon amongst his fol|lows,

which struck me exceedingly.—'No: I am not acquainted with him:' answered I gravely, as if speaking of a man, but in reality thinking of something very dif|ferent: 'you will set me down at the galleries of the Louvre.' There I meaned to call on a friend, with whom I intended to concert the means of conveying Ro|land out of Paris. We had not gone a dozen yards be|fore the coach stopped. 'What is the matter?' said I to the coachman.—'Ah, he has left me; like a fool; for I wanted to keep him for my little boy. They would have been rare company for one another. Here! Here! my little fellow.'—I recollected the dog, and was highly pleased at having for my coachman, at such an hour, a good-natured man, possessed of a feeling heart, and a father. 'Endeavour to catch him:' said I: 'you shall put him into the coach, and I will take care of him. —The honest fellow, quite delighted, caught the dog, opened the door, and gave him to me for a com|panion. The poor animal appeared sensible, that he had found protection and an asylum, and caressed me with great affection. I recollected the tale of Sandi, in which he describes an old man, who being weary of his fellow-creatures, and disgusted with their passions, retired to a wood; and there constructed himself a dwelling, of which he enlivened the solitude by the society of several animals, who repaid his cares with testimonies of affection, and w•• a species of gratitude, with which he contented him|••, for want of meeting with its like among mankind.

••IER was just gone to bed. He rose; I submitted to him my plan; and we agreed, that he should call on me the next day a little after seven, when I would let him 〈◊〉〈◊〉 where his friend was to be found. I stepped into

my coach again, and was proceeding home, when I was stopped by the sentry, at the post of the Samaritaine* 1.4. 'Have a little patience:' said the honest coachman in a whisper, and turning round on his seat: 'it is the custom at this time of night.'—The serjeant came and opened the door. 'Who have we got here?'—'A woman.'— Whence do you come?'—'From the convention.'— It is very true:' said the coachman, putting in his word, as if he were afraid I should not be believed.—'Whither are you going?'—'Home.'—'Have you no bundles?'— 'Nothing at all, as you may see.'—'But the assembly is broke up.'—'Yes: to my sorrow, for I had a petition to present.'—'A woman! at this hour! it is extremely strange: it is very imprudent.'—'It certainly is not a very common occurrence, nor is it with me a matter of choice. I must have had strong reasons for it.'—'But, madam, alone?'—'How, sir, alone! Do you not see that I have innocence and truth for my companions? what would you have more?'—'Well! I must be contented with your reasons.'—You are quite in the right:' replied I, in a gentler tone: 'for they are good ones.'

THE horses were so tired, that the coachman was obliged to pull them by the bridle, to get them up the steep part of the Rue de la Harpe. At length, how|ever, I reached home, paid my coach, and had asce•• eight or ten steps, when a man, who had flipped in a•• the gate unperceived by the porter, and who was close 〈◊〉〈◊〉 my heels, begged me to conduct him to citizen Roland▪ —'To his apartment I will conduct you with pleasure, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 you have any thing advantageous to impart: but to him i••

impossible.'—'Why, I came to let him know that they are absolutely determined to put him in confinement this very evening.'—'They must be cunning indeed if they accomplish their purpose.'—'I am very happy to hear it; for it is an honest citizen you are speaking to.'—'Well and good,' said I, and went up stairs, without well know|ing what to think of the matter.

I MAY be asked, why, under such circumstances, I re|turned to the house? nor is the question irrelevant; for slander had attacked me too, and malevolence might direct its shafts against my bosom; but to give a proper answer to it, the state of my mind ought to be com|pletely developed; and that would require details, which I reserve for a future period: their results will be all I shall notice at present. I have naturally an aversion to every thing inconsistent with the grand, bold, and ingenu|ous proceedings of innocence: an effort to escape from the hand of injustice would be to me more painful, than any thing it can inflict. In the last two months of Roland's administration, our friends often urged us to quit the hotel, and three several times they found means to make us sleep from home; but it was always contrary to my inclina|tion. It was an assassination that was then apprehended; but I was of opinion, that no one would readily under|take to violate the asylum of a man invested with a public office; and if there were villains bold enough to attempt such a crime, it appeared to me, that its perpetration would not be altogether useless. At all events, it was incumbent on the minister to be at his post, for there his death would cry aloud for vengeance, and be a lesson to the republic; while it was possible to reach his life when abroad, with equal advantage to the devisers of the deed, but with less benefit to the public weal, and less glory to

the victim. Such reasoning, I am well aware, will be deemed absurd by those who prefer life to all things: but he, who sets any value on his existence in a period of revolution, will set none on virtue, on honour, or on his country. Accordingly I refused to leave the hotel in the month of January; Roland's bed was in my chamber, that we might both undergo the same fate: and under my pillow I kept a pistol, not to kill those who might come to murder us, but to secure myself from their out|rages, if they offered to lay hands upon my person.

WHEN out of office the obligation was no longer the same, and I thought it right in Roland to shun the fury of the populace, and the clutches of his enemies. As to me, they had not an equal interest in doing me a mischief: killing me would be incurring an odium they did not desire; and my commitment to prison would be of little service to them, and to me no great misfortune. If they should feel any sense of shame, wish to proceed accord|ing to form, and begin the business by making me un|dergo an examination, I should find no difficulty in con|founding them; and my answers might even serve to dispel more rapidly the delusion of those who were only misled in regard to Roland. If they should dare to go the length of another second of September, it could only be because all the honest members of the convention would be also in their power, and because all would be lost at Paris. In that case I should prefer death, to living a witness of my country's ruin; and glory in being comprehended among the glorious victims sacrificed to guilty fury. That fury, glutted by my destruction, would be less violent against, Roland, who, if once saved from this crisis, might still tender great services to the public in other parts of

France. Thus, of two things one was sure to happen: either I might only risque imprisonment and a trial, which would redound to my husband's and my country's good; or else, if I were doomed to perish, it would be under cir|cumstances in which life itself would be a burthen.

I HAVE an amiable daughter. I 〈◊〉〈◊〉 her myself* 1.5. I have brought her up with the enthusiastic anxiety of maternal love. I have set before her such ex|amples, as at her age will not be forgotten; and doubt not but she will make a good and accomplished woman. Her education may be completed without my assistance, and her father will derive consolation from her existence; but she will never feel my strong affections; she will never know my pains, nor my pleasures: and yet were I to be born again, and to have my choice of disposi|tions, I would not change my temper of mind, but would ask of the gods to make me such as I am. Since Roland's resignation, I had lived so secluded from the world, that I had scarcely the smallest in|tercourse with any human creature: the family at one house, in which I might have concealed myself, was gone into the country; in another there was a sick person, which rendered the admission of a new guest difficult; and that in which Roland lay hidden, could not accommo|date me without the greatest inconvenience; it would be|sides have been suspicious, if not impolitic, for me to have been in the same place with him; and, in the last place, I should even have been sorry to abandon my ser|vants. I therefore returned home, quieted their uneasiness, already excited to a considerable degree, kissed my

child, and took my pen, to write a note, which I intend|ed to dispatch early in the morning to my husband.

SCARCELY had I sat down, when I heard a knock at the door. It was about midnight. A numerous deputation of the commune appeared, and inquired for Roland.— 'He is not at home.'—'But,' said the person who wore an officer's gorget, 'where can he be? when will he re|turn? You are acquainted with his habits, and can judge of the hour of his coming home.'—'I known not,' repli|ed I, 'whether your orders authorise you to ask such ques|tions; but this I know, that nothing can oblige me to answer them. As Roland left the house while I was at the convention, he had it not in his power to make me his confidante. This is all I have to say.'

The whole troop withdrew much dissatisfied; but I perceived that a sentry was left at my door, and a guard at that of the house. I therefore inferred, that I had nothing to do but to summon strength to support the worst that might happen. Being overcome with fa|tigue, I ordered supper, finished my letter, entrusted it to my faithful maid, and retired to bed. I slept soundly for about an hour, when a servant came into my chamber, to inform me, that some gentlemen of the section re|quested me to step into the adjoining apartment. 'I un|derstand what it means,' replied I: 'go, child; I will not make them wait.' I sprung out of bed, and was dressing myself when my maid came in, and expressed her surprise at my being at the pains to put on any thing more than my bed-gown,—'When people are going abroad,' said I, 'they should at least be decent.'—The poor woman looked in my face, and the tears gushed from her eyes. I went into the next room.

'WE come, Citoyenne, to take you into custody, and to put seals upon your property.'—'Where is your autho|rity?'—'Here,' said a man, taking out of his pocket a warrant from the revolutionary committee* 1.6, ordering me to be committed to the abbey, without specifying any mo|tive for my arrest. 'I have a right to tell you, like Roland, that I know nothing of your committee, that I will not obey its orders, and that you shall not take me hence, unless by violence.'—'Here is another order,' said a little hard-featured man, in great haste, and in a commanding tone of voice, reading to me one from the commune, which directed also, without alleging any charge, the commit|ment of both Roland and his wife. In the mean time I deliberated, whether I should carry my resistance to the utmost, or quietly resign myself into their hands. I had a right to avail myself of the law, which prohibits nocturnal arrests; and if the law, which authorises the municipality to seize suspected persons were urged, I might retort the illegality of the municipality itself, cashiered and created anew by an arbitrary power. But then this power is in a manner sanctioned by the citizens of Paris; the law is no more than an empty name, employed for the purpose of trampling more securely on the most ac|knowledged rights; and violence prevails, to which, if I had compelled these brutes to resort, they might have preserved no bounds in its application. Resistance there|fore was vain, and could serve only to expose me to in|dignities and insult.

'How do you mean to proceed, gentlemen?'—'We

have sent for a justice of peace of the section, and you see here a detachment of his armed force.'—The justice of peace came, went into the parlour, and sealed up every thing, even to the windows and the drawers containing linen. One strange fellow would have had the forte piano sealed up too, but he was told it was a musical in|strument; he then drew out a foot rule, and took its dimensions, as if he intended it for some particular place. I asked leave to take out my daughter's clothes, and made up a small packet of night-clothes for myself. In the mean time fifty or a hundred persons were passing backwards and forwards continually, completely filled two rooms, crowded every place, and might easily have concealed malevolent persons disposed either to deposit or to carry any thing away. The atmosphere became in|fected with noisome exhalations, and I was obliged to retire to the window of the anti-chamber for a little fresh air. The officer not daring to lay his commands upon this crowd, requested them now and then in gentle terms to withdraw, which only served to produce the exchange of one set of persons for another. Sitting down at my bureau, I wrote to a friend concerning my situation, and to recommend my daughter to his care. I was folding up the letter, when Mr. Nicaud, the bearer of the order from the commune, told me it was necessary I should read what I had written to them, and let them know to whom it was ad|dressed.—'I have no objection to read it, if that will satisfy you.'—'No, it would be better to let us know to whom you are writing.—'I shall do no such thing: the title of my friend is not of a nature, at present, to induce me, to name the person on whom I bestow it:' and on my saying this I tore the letter to pieces. While I turned myself

from them, they gathered up the fragments, in order to seal them up: a stupid precaution, which tempted me to laugh; for the letter was without an address.

AT length, at seven in the morning, I left my daughter and my servants, after having exhorted them to be pa|tient and calm, and feeling myself more honoured by their tears, than dejected by the oppression of which I was the victim.—'You have people there, who love you:' said one of the commissioners.—'I never had any about me who did not:' replied I, while walking down stairs. From the bottom of the stair-case to the coach, which was drawn up on the opposite side of the street, I found two ranks of armed citizens; and proceeded gravely with measured steps, and with my eyes fixed upon these pusillanimous or deluded men. The armed force fol|lowed the coach in two files; while the wretched po|pulace, deceived, and massacred in the persons of its true friends, stopped as I passed by, attracted by the sight, and several of the women exclaimed, 'Away with her to the guillotine.'—'Shall we draw up the blinds?' said one of the commissioners very civilly.—'No, gentlemen, innocence, however oppressed, never puts on the guise of criminality: I fear not the eye of any one, nor will I conceal myself from any person's view.'—'You have more strength of mind than many men: you wait pa|tiently for justice.'—'Justice! Were justice done, I should not be now in your hands: but should an ini|q••tous procedure send me to the scaffold, I shall walk to it with the same firmness and tranquillity with which I now go to prison. My heart bleeds for my country; and I regret my mistake in supposing it qualified for liberty and happiness: but life I appreciate at its due value; I never

feared aught but guilt; and injustice and death I despise.'— The poor commissioners understood but little of this lan|guage, and probably thought it very aristocratic.

WE arrived at the Abbey, the theatre of those bloody scenes, the revival of which the jacobins have for some time preached up with so much fervour. Five or six field-beds, with as many men stretched on them, in a dark and dreary room, were the first objects that struck my sight. After passing the wicket, every thing seemed in motion; and my guides made me ascend a dirty and narrow stair-case. At length we came to the keeper's apartment, and found him in a kind of little parlour, kept tolerably clean, where he offered me a seat. 'Where is my room?' said I to his wife, a corpulent woman, of an agreeable countenance.—'Madam, I did not expect you; I have no room as yet: but in the mean time you will remain here.'—The commissioners went into the adjoining room, directed an entry of their warrant to be made, and gave their verbal orders. These, I after|wards learnt, were very severe, and often renewed after|wards, but they durst not give them in writing; and the keeper knew his trade too well literally to observe what he was under no obligation to perform. He is an active, obliging, and civil man: and in fulfilling his official duties does every thing that humanity or justice can demand.' —'What would you choose for breakfast?'—'A little capillaire and water.'

THE commissioners withdrew, observing to me, that if Roland were not guilty, there could have been no oc|casion for him to abscond.—'It is so strange to suspect a man, who has rendered such important services to the

cause of liberty; there is something so abominable in ca|lumniating, and persecuting with such bitter rage, a mini|ster whose conduct is so open, and whose accounts are so clear, that he is fully justified in avoiding the last outrages of envy. Just as Aristides, and severe as Cato, it is to his virtues he is indebted for his enemies. Their fury knows no bounds: but let them satiate it on me: I defy its power, and devote myself to death. It is incumbent on him to save himself for the sake of his country, to which he may yet be capable of rendering important services.' An awkward bow, in which their confusion was evident, was the only answer the gentlemen thought fit to make me.

As soon as they were gone, I sat down to breakfast, and in the mean time a bed-chamber was hastily put in order, into which I was introduced.—'You may remain here, madam, the whole day; and if I cannot get an apartment ready for you this evening, as we are rather crowded, a bed shall be made up in the parlour.'—After saying this, the keeper's wife made some civil observations on the re|gret she felt whenever a person of her own sex arrived, 'for,' added she, 'they have not all your serene counte|nance, madam.'—I thanked her with a smile; and she locked me in.

WILL, then, I am in prison, said I to myself, sitting down and falling into the deepest reverie. The mo|ments that followed, I would not exchange for those which others may esteem the happiest of my life, nor will they ever be erased from my memory. In a critical situation, and with a stormy and precarious period in view, they made me sensible of the value of honesty and fortitude, in union with a good consci|ence,

and firm temper of mind. Hitherto impelled by circumstances, my actions, in this crisis, had been the result of strong feelings, hurrying me away. How grate|ful to find their effects justified by the sober operation of reason! I recalled the past to my mind: I calculated future events: and if while listening to a tender heart, I sometimes felt too powerful an affection, I did not dis|cover one that could suffuse my cheek with a blush; not one, but what served to keep alive my courage, nor one that my reason was not able to subdue. I de|voted myself, if I may so say, voluntarily to my destiny, whatever it might be: I defied its rigour, and fixed my|self firmly in that state of mind, in which we only seek employment for the present, without giving ourselves any concern about the future. But this tranquillity with regard to what concerned me alone, I did not even en|deavour to extend to the fate of my country, and of my friends: I waited for the evening paper, and listened to the noise in the street with inexpressible a••xiety. I did not however neglect to make enquiry concerning my new situation, and what portion of liberty was left me.— 'May I write? May I see any body? What will be my ex|pences here? were my first questions. Lavacquerie, the keeper, acquainted me with the directions given him, and the liberty he could venture to take with orders of that kind. I wrote to my faithful maid, to come and see me; but it was agreed that she should keep this indulgence a secret.

THE first visit I received at the Abbey was from Grand|pré on the day of my arrival.—'You should write to the assembly,' said he; 'have you not yet been think|ing of it?'—'No: and now you put me in mind,

I do not see how I shall be able to get my letter read?' —'I will do all I can to assist you.'—'Very well: then I will write.'—'Do so. I will return in two hours.'— He left me, and I wrote as follows:

'Madame ROLAND to the National Convention.

Abbey Prison, June 1, 1793.

"LEGISLATORS! I have just been torn from my home, from the arms of my daughter, a girl of twelve years of age, and am detained in the Abbey, by virtue of orders which assign no cause for my con|finement. Those orders were issued by a revolutionary committee; and commissioners of the commune, who accompanied those of the committee, shewed me others from the council-general, which were equally defective.* 2.1" Thus am I placed in the light of a culprit before the eyes of the public. I was dragged to prison with great parade, in the midst of an ostentatious guard, and of a misled populace, some of whom were for sending me to the scaffold; without my conductors being able to as|sign to me or to any other person the reason why I was presumed a criminal, and treated accordingly. This is not all. The bearer of the orders of the commune made no use of them except in regard to myself, and to make me sign minutes of what passed: as soon as I quitted my apartment, I was delivered over to the commissioners of the revolutionary committee, who conducted me to the Abbey; and on their warrant alone I was constituted a prisoner. An attested copy of that warrant, signed by

a single individual possessing no office, is here sub|joined. Every thing in my house has been sealed up▪ and while that was doing, which was from three o'clock in the morning till seven, a crowd of citizens filled my apartment. If, among the number, there were any ma|licious person, capable of privately slipping false evi|dence into a library open in every part, he could not want an opportunity.

'As early as yesterday, the same committee sought to put the late minister under arrest, though the laws ren|der him accountable to you alone for the acts of his administration, and though he has been incessantly so|liciting an enquiry.

'ROLAND had protested against the order, and the bearers of it had withdrawn. He had afterwards left his house, to spare Errour a crime, while I was on my way to the convention, to give it information of those at|tempts; but it was in vain that I procured the transmission of a letter to the president: it was not read. I went thither to demand justice and protection: I demand them again, and with stronger claims, for I too am oppressed. I demand of the convention, to order an account of the cause and the manner of my being apprehended, to be laid before it; and I demand its decision. If it confirm my arrest, I appeal to the law which ordain•• the declaration of the crime, and the examination of the prisoner within twenty-four hours from the time of his caption. And in the last place, I demand a report on the accounts of that irreproachable man, who exhi|bits an instance of persecution unheard of before, and who seems destined to give to all Europe the terrible

lesson of virtue proscribed by the blindness of infuriate prejudice.

'IF to have shared the strictness of his principles, the energy of his mind, and the ardour of his love of liberty, be a crime; I plead guilty, and await my pu|nishment. Pronounce sentence, legislators: France, freedom, the fate of the republic, and of yourselves, depend on this day's distribution of that justice, which it is yours to dispense.'

THE agitation, in which I had passed the preceding night, made me feel extreme fatigue. I desired to have a chamber that very evening; and obtained one, of which I took possession at ten o'clock. When I en|tered it, and found myself surrounded by four dirty walls, in the midst of which was a bed without curtains; when I perceived a double-grated window; and when I was as|sailed by that smell, which a person accustomed to an apartment extremely clean, always finds in those that are not so, I was sensible that I was indeed an inhabitant of a prison, and that I had no pleasure to expect from such a situation. My room, however, was sufficiently spacious; there was a fire-place; the bed cloths were tolerable; a pillow was given me; and estimating things, in themselves, without entering into comparisons, I deem|ed myself not altogether badly accommodated. I went to bed fully resolved to remain in it as long as I should find myself comfortable there; and was not up at ten in the morning, when Grandpré arrived. He did not appear less affected, but more uneasy, than the pre|ceding evening; and cast a mournful look around the

wretched room, which already appeared tolerable to me, for I ••d slept in it.

'How did you pass the night?' said he with tears standing in his eyes.—'I was repeatedly waked by the noise; but fell asleep again as soon as it was over, in spite even of the alarm-bell, which I thought I heard this morning.—Ha!—is it not sounding still?'—'Why I thought so:—but it is nothing.'—'Be it as it pleases heaven: if they kill me, it shall be in this bed; for I am so weary, that here I will expect my fate. Is any thing new brought forward against the members?'—'No. I have brought back your letter. It is my opinion, as well as Champagneux's, that the beginning should be softened. Here is what we propose to substitute; and then you should write a line or two to the minister of the home department, that he may transmit your letter officially, which would enable me the better to solicit its being read.'—I took the paper; looked at it; and said to him, 'if I thought my letter would be read as it now stands, so it should remain, even were I sure of its be|ing attended with no advantage to myself; for it is hardly possible to hope for justice from the convention. The truths addressed to it are not for an assembly which is at present incapable of putting them in practice; but they should be uttered, that they may be heard by the departments.'

I PERCEIVED, that my exordium might prevent the reading of the letter, and that consequently it would be a folly to let it stand: I therefore omitted the first three paragraphs, and substituted what was proposed to me in their stead. As to the minister's interference, I was sensible it would render the proceeding more re|gular:

and though Garat scarcely deserved the honour of being written to, I knew how to do it without lessening myself, and addressed him in the following lines:

'To the MINISTER of the Interior Department.

'THE part of administration allotted to you, citi|zen, gives you a right to superintend the execution of the laws, and to denounce their violation by authorities that hold them in contempt. I am persuaded, a sense of justice will make you happy to transmit to the convention the complaints I have but too much occa|sion to make against the oppression, of which I am the victim.'

RISING about noon, I considered how I should ar|range my new apartment. With a clean napkin I covered a little paltry table, which I placed near my window, intending that it should serve me for a bureau, and resolved to eat my meals on a corner of the chim|ney-piece, that I might keep the table clean, and in order, for writing. Two large hat-pins, stuck into the boards, served me as a port manteau. In my pocket I had Thomson's Seasons, a work which I was fond of on more than one account; and I made a memo|randum of such other books as I should wish to pro|cure. First, Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Persons▪ which at eight years of age I used to carry to church instead of the Exercises of the holy week, and which I had not read regularly since that early period •• then Hume's History of England, and Sheridan's Di••+tionary,

in order to improve myself in the English lan|guage. I would rather have continued to read Mrs. Macaulay; but the person who had lent me some of the first volumes, was not at home; and I should not have known where to enquire for the work, as I had already tried in vain to get it from the book|sellers. I could not avoid smiling at my peaceful prepara|tions; for there was a great tumult in the town: the drums were continually beating to arms, and I knew not what might be the event. At any rate, said I to myself, they will not prevent my living to my last moment: more happy in my conscious innocence, than they can be with the rage that animates them. If they come, I will advance to meet them, and go to death as a man would go to repose.

THE keeper's wife came to invite me to her apart|ment, where she had directed my cloth to be laid, that I might dine in better air. On repairing thither, I found my faithful maid, who threw herself into my arms, bathed in tears, and half suffocated by her sobs. I could not avoid melting into tenderness and sorrow. I almost upbraided myself with my previous tranquillity, when I reflected on the anxiety of those who were at|tached to me; and when I described to myself the an|guish first of one friend, and then of another, my heart was rent by the keenest sensations of grief. Poor wo|man! how many tears have I caused her to shed! and for what does not an attachment like her's atone? In the common intercourse of life she sometimes treats me roughly, but it is when she thinks me too negligent of what may contribute to my health or happiness; and when I am in distress, the office of complaining is her's,

and that of consoling mine. There was no getting rid of so inveterate a habit. I endeavoured to prove to her that, by giving way to her grief, she would be less ca|pable of rendering me service; that she was more use|ful to me without, than within the walls of the prison, where she begged me to permit her to remain; and that, upon the whole, I was far from being so unfortunate as she imagined, which indeed was true. Whenever I have been ill, I have experienced a particular kind of serenity, un|questionably proceeding from my mode of contemplat|ing things, and from the law I have laid down for my|self, of always submitting quietly to necessity, instead of revolting against it. The moment I take to my bed, every duty seems at an end, and no solicitude whatever has any hold upon me: I am only bound to be there, and to remain there with resignation, which I do with a very good grace. I give freedom to my imagination; I call up agreeable impressions, pleasing remembrances, and ideas of happiness; all exertions, all reasonings, and all calculations, I discard; giving myself up entirely to na|ture, and, peaceful like her, I suffer pain without impati|ence, and seek repose or cheerfulness. I find that imprison|ment produces on me nearly the same effect as disease; I am only bound to be in prison, and what great hardship is there in it? I am not such very bad company for myself.

I SOON learnt that I must change my habitation.— Victims were abundant, and the chamber into which I had been put would contain more than one bed.— That I might be alone, I was obliged in the evening to be shut up in a little closet; and consequently to remove the whole of my establishment. The

window of my new apartment is, I believe, over th•• sentry, who guards the prison-gate. All the night I heard, Who goes there?—kill him!—guard!—patrole!— called out in a thundering voice. The houses were illuminated; and from the number and frequency of the patroles it was easy to infer, there had been some commotions, and that more were to be feared. I rose early, and employed myself in my household affairs; that is to say, in making my bed, in cleaning my little place, and in rendering my person and every thing about me as neat as I could. Had I desired these things to be done for me, I knew that I should not have been re|fused; but I was aware, I must have paid for them dearly, waited a long time, and had them done in a very slovenly manner at last. By taking the office on myself I was sure to be a gainer: I was sure that I should be better and sooner served, and that the trifling presents I might make would be rated the higher, because they would be altogether gratuitous. I waited with impatience to hear the massy bolts of my door opened, that I might ask for a newspaper. I read it: the decree of impeach|ment against the twenty-two was passed: the paper fell from my hands, and in transport of grief I exclaimed, 'My country is undone!'

FIRM and tranquil, while I imagined myself alone, or nearly alone, beneath the yoke of oppression, I formed wishes for the future, and was not without hope that the defenders of liberty would triumph. But guilt and error have obtained the ascendancy; the national representation is violated; its integrity is destroyed; every one in it remarkable for probity, spirit, and talents, is proscribed; the commune of Paris overawes the legislative body;

Paris is undone; the torch of civil war is lighted up; the enemy is about to avail himself of our divisions; free|dom is lost to the north of France; and the whole re|public is become a prey to the most dreadful dissensions. Farewell my country! sublime illusions, generous sacri|fices, hope, and happiness, farewell! At twelve years o•• I lamented, in the first expansions of my youthful bosom, that I was not born a citizen of Sparta, or of Rome, and in the French revolution I thought I saw the unhoped for application of the principles impressed upon my mind. Liberty, said I, has two sources; good manners, which produce sage laws; and knowledge, which leads us to both, by making us acquainted with our rights: my soul will no longer be afflicted by the spectacle of mankind debased: the human race will improve; and the happiness of all will become the foun|dation and the security of that of each individual. Splen|did chimeras! dear delusions, from which I reaped so much delight, you are all dispelled by the horrible cor|ruption of this vast city. I despised life: the loss of you makes me detest it, and defy the utmost fury of the men of blood. Anarchists, savages, for what await you? You who have proscribed virtue, why do you not spill the blood of those who obey her laws? when shed upon the earth, it will make her open her devouring jaws, and swallow you up.

THE course of things ought to have made me foresee the event: but I could not easily bring myself to believe, that the bulk of the convention would not pause at the magnitude of the danger; nor could I help being astonished at the decisive act, which tolled its passing bell.

AT present a sullen sort of indgnation prevails over every other sentiment: as indifferent as ever to what concerns myself, my hopes for others are feeble; and I wait for events with more curiosity than desire: I no longer live to feel, but to know. It was not long ere I learnt that the revolutionary movement which was or••ed on purpose to extort the decree of impeachment, had excited some uneasiness about the prisons. That was the cause of the strict and noisy guard during the night: and that the reason why the citizens of the section of Unity would not obey the beat of drum, which called them to the convention; but remained at home, to watch over their property, and the prison within their precinct. I discovered the motive of Grandpré's alarm and dis|quietude, and the next day he confessed his apprehen|sions. He had repaired to the assembly, to obtain the reading of my letter; and, during eight successive hours, he, as well as several of the members, had repeatedly requested it of the president in vain: it was therefore evident, that I should not be able to get it read at all. Finding by the Monitor, that my section (that of Beaure|paire) had expressed its sentiments in my favour, even after my imprisonment, it occurred to me to write to it; and I did so in the following terms:

'Citizens,

'THE public papers inform me, that you have placed Roland and his wife under the safeguard of your section. This I knew not when I was dragged from my family: on the contrary, the bearer of the orders of the commune represented the armed force, by which he was

accompanied, as that of the section, ••ed him o•• his requisition, and so it was stated in 〈◊〉〈◊〉 minutes that were taken down. The moment that I w•• ••ut up in the Abbey, I wrote to the convention, and applied to the minister of the interior department, to forward my com|plaint. I understand he complied with my request, and that the letter was delivered; but not read. I have the honour to transmit you an attested copy. If the section think it not beneath its dignity to plead the cause of suffering innocence, it will be easy to send a de|putation to the bar of the convention, there to make known my just complaints, and to add weight to my re|clamations. This point I submit to its wisdom: I add no intreaty, for truth has but one language, and that is the exposition of facts. Citizens who love justice are not fond of having supplications addressed to them, and inno|cence is incapable of assuming the character of a suppliant.

'P. S. This is the fourth day of my detention, and I have not yet been examined. I must observe, that the order of arrest assigned no reason for my confinement; but imported, that I should be interrogated on the fol|lowing day.'

SEVERAL days elapsed without my hearing any thing and still I underwent no examination. I had however received a great many visits from administrators with foolish faces and dirty ribbands, some of whom said they belonged to the police, others to I know not what; violent sans-culottes, with filthy hair, and strict observers of the order of the day, who came to know whether the pri|soners were satisfied with their treatment. I had ex+pressed

myself to them all with the energy and dignity sui••|ble to oppressed innocence; and had noticed among the•• two or three men of good sense, who understood me, with|out daring to take my part. I was at dinner, when five or six were announced to me all at once. One came a little forward: he, who assumed the office of speaker, appeared to me, before he opened his lips, one of those empty-headed babblers, who judge of their merit by the volubility of their tongue.—'Good morrow, Citoyenne.'—'Good morrow, sir.'—Are you satisfied with this house? Have you any reason to complain of your treatment, or any particular demand to make?'— 'I complain of being here; and demand my enlarge|ment.'—'Is your health impaired? or does solitude af|fect your spirits?'—'I am in good health, and not at all out of spirits. Ennui is the disease of hearts, without feel|ing, and of minds that have no resources in themselves. But I have a strong feeling of injustice, and protest against the lawless oppression, which took me into custody with|out cause, and has since detained me without examina|tion.'—'Why, in a period of revolution, there is so much to be done, that there is not time to attend to every thing.'—'A woman, to whom king Philip made nearly the same reply, answered him: "if thou hast not time to do me justice, thou hast not time to be king." Take care you do not oblige oppressed citizens to say the same thing to the people, or rather to the arbitrary authorities, by which the people is misled.'—'Adieu, citoyenne!'—'Adieu!—And away went the flippant gen|tleman, not knowing what answer to make to my reasons. These people appeared to me to have entered purposely to see how I looked in my cage; but they

might go a great way, before they would find dolts like themselves.

I HAVE already mentioned my having inquired into the way of living in these places. Not that I set any great value on what are called the comforts of life. I make no scruple of enjoying them when it can be done without inconvenience, but it is always in moderation; and when it is necessary, there is no one of them that I cannot forego. It is from a natural love of order that I desire to know the amount of my expences, and to regulate them according to the circumstances of my situation.

I WAS informed that Roland, when minister, thought that five livres [4s. 2d.] a head, the daily allowance of the prisoners, a great deal too much, and reduced it to two [1s. 8d.]: but the excessive rise in the price of provi|sions, which within these few months has been tripled, ren|ders this allowance scanty enough: for the nation allowing nothing but straw and the bare walls, twenty sous [10d.] are deducted in the first place, as an indemnification to the keeper for his expenses, that is to say, for the bed and trifling furniture of the room. Out of the twenty sous remaining, candles, fire, if necessary, and meat and drink, are to be provided. The sum is insufficient for the purpose; but every prisoner is free, of course, to make what addition he pleases to his expense. As I am not fond of spending much on myself; and take a pleasure in trying my strength at privation, I felt a desire of making an experiment how far the human will is ca|pable of diminishing our wants; but to go any great length, it is necessary to proceed by degrees. At the end of four days, I began by retrenching my breakfast, and

substituting bread and water for coffee and chocolate: I desired to have for dinner one plain dish of meat, with a few greens; and vegetables for my supper without a desert. To break myself of drinking wine, I took first to beer, and then I left off that also. As this re|gimen, however, had a moral purpose, and as I have as much aversion as contempt for useless economy, I began by giving a certain sum for the use of the miserable wretch|es, who were lying upon straw; that, while eating my dry bread in a morning, I might have the satisfaction to reflect, that the poor devils would owe to me their being able to add something to their's at dinner. If I remain here six months, I will engage to leave the place with a healthy complexion, and a body by no means emaciated, having reduced my wants so far as to be satisfied with soup and bread, and deserved a few benedictions incognito. I made some presents also, but with quite a different view, to the servants belonging to the prison. When a person is, or appears to be, rigidly economical in point of expense, he ought to be generous to others, if he would wish to avoid blame, particularly when the people about him derive from that expense their only emolument. I require neither attentions to be paid me, nor purchases to be made on my account; I send out for nothing; I employ nobody: I should be consequently the worst of prisoners to the domestics, who make their little profits on what they are commissioned to provide or procure: it is fitting therefore, that I should pay for the state of independence in which I place myself: by so doing I render it more perfect, and am moreover a gainer in good will.

I HAVE received several visits from the excellent Cham|paneux and the worthy Bosc. The former, father of a numerous family, was attached to liberty from principle, and had professed its sound doctrines from the very commencement of the revolution, in a journal, intended for the information of his fellow citizens. A good judgment, gentleness of manners, and great industry, are the most prominent features of his character. Roland, when minister, placed him at the head of the first division of the home department; and it was one of the best appointments he made: though by the way he was not less happy in other principal clerks, such as the active and ingenuous Camus, the able Fépoul, and se|veral more. Never were offices better filled; nor could any thing but their excellent organization enable Garat to support a burden so far beyond his strength. It is to the honesty and capacity of such agents that he is indebted for the tranquillity he is allowed to enjoy. Of this he is sensible; and he said with good reason, that he would give up his situation, if he were obliged to make any change in his official establishment. Notwithstanding this, he will be forced to quit his post, for no talents in assistants can compensate a minister's want of firmness: irresolution is the worst of faults in those who govern, particularly in the midst of jarring factions. Garat and Barrère, a•• private individuals, would not be deemed deficient in sen•• or honesty: but the one charged with the executive power, and the other empowered to legislate, would r•• all the states in the world by their half-measures: th•• rage for what they term conciliatory plans propels th•• in that oblique path, which leads directly to mi••

and confusion. There would be nothing conciliatory about a statesman but his manner; I mean his mode of behaviour to those whom he employs; he ought to avail himself of the very passions and faults of those whose conduct he directs, or with whom he transacts business: but rigid in his principles, firm and rapid in action, no obstacle, no consideration, should make him waver in the former respect, or alter his course in the latter.

COULD Roland unite with his extensive views, his strength of mind, and his prodigious activity, a little more artfulness of manner, he would easily govern an empire: but his faults are prejudicial to himself alone, while his good qualities are infinitely valuable in the administration of public affairs.

BOSC, our old friend, a man of an ingenious disposi|tion, and enlightened mind, came to me the first day of my imprisonment, and lost no time in conducting my daughter to madame Creuzé-la-Touche, who gave her a kind welcome, and treated her like one of her own chil|dren, with whom it was settled that she should remain un|der her fostering care. To be fully sensible of the value of this step, it is necessary to be acquainted with the persons. It is necessary for a man to describe to himself the feeling and open-hearted Bosc, running to the house of his friends, taking possession of their child, and intrusting her of his own accord to the most respectable family, as a deposit which he felt himself honoured in confiding to their hands, and which he knew would be received with the pleasure experienced by delicate minds, when an opportunity is offered them of doing good. It is

necessary to have been acquainted with the patriarchal man|ners, the domestic virtues of Creuzé and his wife, and with the gentleness and goodness of disposition for which they are remarkable, to judge of the welcome they gave my girl, and to be sensible of what it was worth.

WHO, then, is to be pitied in all this? Roland alone; Roland, persecuted and proscribed; Roland, to whom the examination of his accounts is denied; Roland, com|pelled to conceal himself like a criminal; to avoid the blind fury of men misled by his enemies; to tremble for the safety even of those who give him shelter; to drink in silence the bitter cup of his wife's imprisonment, and of the sequestration of all his property; and to await, in a state of incertitude, the reign of justice, which can ne|ver indemnify him for all that perversity will have made him suffer.

MY section, actuated by the best principles, had come on the third of the month to a resolution, which breathed the spirit of justice, and which established the right of citizens, to protest against arbitrary imprisonment, and even to resist it if attempted. My letter was read there, and listened to with concern. The debate, that took place in consequence, having been prolonged to the next day, the mountaineers laid their heads together: the alarm was given to their party; and a whole host of furious depu|ties arrived from the other sections, with a view to disturb the proceedings, and deliberations, and, if possible, to pervert the spirit of mine, or else in the hope of terrifying it by menaces, and of engaging a majority of the sections to deprive it of its arms.

IN the mean time, being urged by Grandpré to neglect

no means of shortening the term of my captivity, I wrote again to Garat, and to Gohier also. The latter, whom I scarcely ever saw or knew, with at least as much weakness as Garat, appeared to me inferior to him in every other re|spect. I could not easily write to such men, without giving them lessons; and they were severe. Grandpré thinking them mortifying, though just, I softened some of the ex|pressions, and contented myself with the following words:

'Madame ROLAND to the MINISTER of Justice.

Abbey Prison, June 8, 1793.

'I AM suffering oppression; I am therefore entitled to remind you of my rights, and of your duties.

'AN arbitrary order, without specifying any charge, has plunged me into this dungeon prepared for criminals. I have inhabited it a week, and as yet I have not been exa|mined.

'THE decrees of the convention are known to you. They direct you to visit the prisons, and to enlarge those who are detained without just cause. Another has also lately been passed, enjoining you to require the communi|nication of all the warrants that are issued, to see that they be grounded upon some specific charge, and take care that all persons in custody be examined.

I transmit to you an attested copy of that warrant by virtue of which I was taken from my home, and brought hither.

'I demand the execution of the law, on my own ac|count, and even on your's. Innocent and firm, injustice may reach, but cannot debase me, and I can submit

to it with pride, at a time when virtue is proscribed.* 5.1 As to you, placed as you are between the law and dis|honour, your inclination cannot be doubted; and you are to be pitied, if you have not courage to act according to its dictates.'

To the MINISTER of the Home Department.

June 8, 1793.

'I KNOW that you have transmitted my complaints to the legislative body; but my letter has not been read. Have you fulfilled the whole of your duty by forwarding it at my request?—I have been apprehended, without the specification of any reason; and I have been detained a week, without examination. It behoves you, as a man in office, when you have not been able to save innocence from oppression, to endeavour at least to bring about its delivery.

'YOU are more interested, perhaps, than myself, in the task I request you to undertake. I am not the only victim of prejudice and envy; and their present attacks upon every one remarkable for the union of a firm mind with virtue and talents, renders the persecution honourable, of which I am the object, and for which I am indebted to my connexion with the venerable man, whose cause posterity will revenge. But you, who are now at the helm, if incapable of holding it with a firm hand, wi••

not escape the reproach of abandoning the vessel to the waves, the disgrace of having occupied a post which you could not maintain.

'FACTIONS pass away, justice alone remains unalterable: and of all the faults of men in place weakness is the least pardonable, because it is the source of the greatest dis|orders, particularly in troublesome times.

'I NEED not add any thing to these reflections, if they reach you in time for you and for myself, or urge their application to my own concerns; since nothing can supply the want of courage and of good-will.'

MOST certainly the ministers, who neglected and de|spised the decrees, that enjoined them to prosecute the authors of the massacre of September, and the conspira|tors of the 10th of March; men, whose weak and un|worthy conduct on those occasions emboldened guilt, favoured its enterprises, and insured this new insur|rection, in which blindness and audacity, prescribing laws to the national convention, call forth all the evils of civil war; such men certainly will not be the impeachers of oppression. From them I expect nothing; and the truths I address to them are rather intended to show them what they ought, and what they have failed, to do, than to procure me that justice, which they are incapable of rendering, unless a little shame should chance to produce a miracle.

ESOP represents all the animals, who usually trembled at the aspect of the lion, coming, every one in his turn, to insult him when he fell sick: in like manner 〈◊〉〈◊〉 ••ob of little minds, actuated either by delusion or jealousy, fall with fury upon those, whom oppression holds captive

or whose means of defence it diminishes, by lowering•• them in the opinion of the world. Of this the Thermo|meter of the Day, for the 9th of June, No. 526, afford•• an example. Therein appears, under the title of exami|nation of L. P. d'Orleans, a series of questions, amongst which the following charge is worthy of remark: 'Of having been present at secret cabals, held by night in the apartment of Buzot's wife, in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, whither Dumouriez, Roland and his wife, Vergniaux, Brissot, Gensonné, Gorsas, Louvet, Pétion, Guadet, and others used to repair.'

WHAT atrocious wickedness! and what excess of im|pudence! The deputies here named are precisely those, who voted for the banishment of the Bourbons. Those high-spirited defenders of freedom never considered d'Or|leans as a leader possessed of capacity; but he always appeared to them a dangerous tool. They were the first to dread his vices, his wealth, his connexions, his popu|larity, and his faction; to denounce the latter, and to hunt down those, who appeared to be its agents. Lou|vet marked them out in his Philippic against Robes|pierre; a valuable piece, as is every thing from his pen. In that composition, which history will carefully pre|serve, he follows them step by step to the electoral assembly, whence d'Orleans issued a deputy. Buzot, whose persevering energy has procured him the hatred of the factious, embraced the first favourable opportunity, to demand the banishment of the Bourbons; a mea|sure which he looked upon as indispensable, from the moment the convention resolved to pass judg|ment on Lewis. Neither Roland, nor I, ever saw d'Orleans. I even refused to receive Sillery, thoug••

he was mentioned to me as a good and amiable man, because his connection with d'Orleans rendered him suspicious. I remember two curious letters on the subject; one of which was written by madame Sillery to Louvet, after he had supported Buzot's motion. 'Here,' said Louvet, communicating the letter to me, 'is a proof that we are not mistaken, and that the Orleans party is no chimera. Madame Sillery would not write in such terms, if it were not a thing agreed upon between her and the parties concerned. If they be so much afraid of banishment, it must be because exile will defeat some of their schemes.' In fact, the object of the studied letter of madame Sillery was to prevail upon Louvet to change his opinion; to persuade him, that the republican principles, in which the children of d'Orleans had been educated, rendered them the most zealous partizans of a commonwealth; and that it was both cruel and impolitic to sacrifice individuals, who might certainly be made useful, to prejudices alike unjust and absurd.

The other letter was Louvet's answer: replete with wit and dignity, it set forth the reasons on which he founded his opinion in terms equally forcible and polite. Among other things he said, that the monarchical principles, the aristo|cratical and other prejudices, which appeared in the works of madame Sillery herself, were far from satisfying him with respect to those of her pupils; and he persisted with all the spirit of a free man in an opinion which the love of his country inspired.

As to the pretended cabals at Buzot's wife's, nothing in the world can be so ridiculous. Buzot, whom I had frequent occasions of seeing at the time of the constituent assembly,

and with whom I had remained in friendly intercourse; Buzot, whose spirit, sensibility, purity of principles, and gentleness of manners, inspired me with infinite esteem and attachment, came frequently to the Hotel de l'Interieur: his wife I have visited only once since they came to Paris on the meeting of the convention; nor had they ever the slightest connexion with Dumouriez.

Indignant at these absurdities, I took up my pen to write to Dulaure, the editor of the Thermometre du jour, a worthy man, with whom I lived on friendly terms until the moment he was seduced by the mountaineers* 6.1.

Madame ROLAND to the Deputy DULAURE, Author of the Thermometre du jour.

Abbey Prison, June 9, 1793.

'IF any thing could add to the astonishment of inno|cence, when it finds itself under the yoke of oppression, I should tell you, citizen, that I have just read with the greatest surprise, the absurdities contained in your paper of this day, under the title of examination of Philip d'Orleans, which chance his thrown in my way. It would appear very strange, had not experience proved it to be only very impudent, that those persons who first feared, denounced, and watched the manoeuvres of the ••ction of d'Orleans, should be represented as having formed it themselves.

'TIME will unquestionably clear up this mystery of iniquity: but while waiting for its justice, which may be t••rdy in the midst of such dreadful corruption, it appears to me incumbent on your's, when publishing the questions of an inter••gatory calculated to excite suspicions, to publish at the same time the answers, which must have been made, and which may serve to show the degree of credit they deserve.

'THIS act of justice is the more strictly requisite, as calumny and persecution closely pursue the persons named in those questions; and as most of them are fast held in the toils of a decree, extorted by audacity and prejudice from the hands of weakness and error. I myself have been confined a week, by virtue of a man|date which specifies no reason for my arrest. I have never been examined: I have not been able to obtain a hearing of my complaints from the convention; and when they were told, that those complaints had been suppressed, they passed to the order of the day, under the pre••ence of its not being their concern. What! then new authorities act in the most arbitrary manner, while the con|stituted powers bow before them, and the acts of injustice they commit are not to be represented to the convention▪ It is not then to the legislative body that complaints should be addressed, when there remains none other to hear them▪ It can interest itself in favour of persons confined by order of the tribunal of Marseilles; while I, who are confined 〈…〉〈…〉 revolutionary committee, have no longer any right —and the commune makes the newspapers repe••t▪ 〈◊〉〈◊〉 the prisons of Pari••tain nothing but assass•• thi•• and counter-revolutionists!—Citizen, I have 〈◊〉〈◊〉 you•• •• ••eve you honest: how will you grieve on some

future day!—I transmit to you some notes, which I b•• you to peruse: and I request you to insert in your pap•• that letter, which I could not get read at the convention▪ You owe me this piece of justice, as circumstances suffi|ciently demonstrate; and if your own feelin•• do not tell you so, I should urge the matter in vain.

'P. S. NEITHER Roland nor I ever saw Philip d'Or|leans: and I can moreover say, that I have always heard the deputies mentioned in the interrogatory, as quo ted by the Thermometer of this day, profess for him a contempt similar to that with which he inspired me. If, in short, we ever talked of him at all, it was to speak of the fears which the true friends of liberty might feel on his account, and of the consequent necessity of banishing him from the republic.'

As circumstances have led me to mention Dumouries, I will say what I know of him, and what I think: but this carries me back to Roland's first administration, and ••eads me to relate here how a man so austere in his man|ners came to be nominated to a place, which kings seldom fill with similar characters. I shall take up the thread of my narrative at a period somewhat remote; and shall be indebted to my captivity for leisure to record facts, and re|collect circumstances, which otherwise, perhaps, would never have employed my pen.

ROLAND executed the office of inspector of commerc•• and manufactures in the generality* 7.1 of Lyons, with th••

knowledge and those administrative views, that ought 〈◊〉〈◊〉 have distinguished the body of inspectors, if government had known how to keep up the spirit of the institution, of which Roland was almost the only example. Superior to his place in every respect, fond of employment, and not insensible to the allurements of fame, he digested in ••e silence of the closet the materials with which his ex|perience and activity had furnished him; and continued the Dictionary of Manufactures for the new Encyclo|pedia. Some of Brissot's works were sent to him from the author, as a testimony of the esteem with which he had been inspired by the principles of liberty and justice, that appeared in Roland's writings. That testi|mony was received with the usual sensibility of authors, and with the feelings natural to a man of worth, who finds himself praised by a person of congenial mind. It gave birth to a correspondence at first very unfrequent; but afterwards supported by that of one of our friends, who became acquainted with Brissot at Paris, and spoke of his habits of life in a very favourable manner; as pre|senting a practical proof of the philosophical and moral theory contained in his writings. This correspondence was still further encouraged by the revolution of 1789; for events, succeeding each other with rapidity, called forth the most vigorous exertions of the minds and souls of philosophers prepared for liberty; and produced in|teresting communications between those, whose bo•• were enflamed with the love of their fellow-creatures, and the hope of seeing the universal reign of just•• ••d happiness arrive. Brissot having at this juncture begun a periodical paper, that will be often consulted on account of the ••cellent reasoning it contains, we sent him every

thing, of which circumstances seemed to make the pu••+licity useful. Ere long our acquaintance received its last degree of improvement; and we became intimate and confidential friends, without ever having seen one another's faces.

AMID those struggles unavoidable in a period of re|volution, when principles, prejudices, and passions, rais•• insurmountable obstacles between persons, who had be|fore appeared well disposed to agree, Roland was elected a member of the municipality of Lyons. His situation in life, his family, and his connexions, were such as might be supposed to attach him to the aristocracy: while his turn of mind and reputation rendered him interesting to the popular party, to which he was naturally led to devote himself by his philosophy, and the austerity of his manners. No sooner had he taken a decided part, than he made himself many enemies, so much the more violent, as his inflexible integrity laid open without reserve the numerous abuses that had crept into the administration of the finan|•• of the town. They exhibited an epitome of the d••pidations of those of the state, the debt of the city of Lyons amounting to no less than forty millions of livres [£1,666,667.] It was become indispensably necessary to solicit assistance, for the manufactures had suffered in the first year of the revolution, and twenty thousand workmen had been out of bread during th•• whole of the winter. It was therefore resolved to send a d••ty extraordinary to the constituent assembly, to 〈◊〉〈◊〉 known the circumstances, and Roland was the person chosen. We arrived at Paris the 20th of February, 1791. I had been five years absent fro•• the place of my nativity; I had watched the progress 〈◊〉〈◊〉

the revolution, and the labours of the assembly; and had studied the characters and talents of its leading mem|bers, with an interest not easily to be conceived, and scarcely to be appreciated, except by those who are ac|quainted with my ardent and active turn of mind. I hastened to attend their sittings; and there I saw the powerful Mirabeau* 7.2, the astonishing Cazalés, the dar|ing Maury, the artful Lameths, and the frigid Barnave: I remarked with vexation that kind of superiority on the side of the blacks † 7.3, that dignified habits, purity of language, and polished manners, give in large assemblies; but the strength of reason, the courage of intregity, the lights of philosophy, the fruits of study, and the fluency of the bar, could not fail to secure the triumph of the patriots of the left, if they were all honest, and could but remain united.

BRISSOT came to visit us. I know nothing so plea|sant as a first interview between persons, who have grown intimate by means of an epistolary correspondence, without being personally acquainted. They gaze upon each other, curious to observe whether the features of the face accord with the physiognomy of the mind, and whe|ther

the person's outside confirm the opinion of him th•• had been previously entertained. The simple manners, natural negligence, and frankness of Brissot, appeared to me in perfect harmony with the austerity of his prin|ciples; but I found in him a sort of levity of mind and disposition, which was not equally suitable to the gravity of a philosopher. This always gave me pain, and of this his enemies never failed to take advantage. In proportion as I became more acquainted with him, I esteemed him the more. It is not in human nature to combine more complete disinterestedness with greater zeal for the public welfare, or to pursue the general good with more entire forgetfulness of private interest: but his writings are better fitted to effectuate it than his person; for they carry with them all the authority, which reason, justice, and intelligence can give; while in person he can assume none, for want of dignity. He is the best of men. A good husband, an affectionate father, a faithful friend, and a virtuous citizen; his company is as agreeable, as his temper is easy: con|fiding even to imprudence, and as gay, as simple, and as ingenious, as a boy of fifteen, he was formed to live with the wise, and to be the dupe of the wicked. Learned in the science of law, and devoted from his youth to the study of social duties, and the great means of human happiness, he judges well of man, but of men he has no sort of knowledge. He knows, that vice exists; but he cannot believe any one vicious, who speaks to him with an open countenance: and when he has discovere•• a ••an to be so, he treats him as an idiot, who is to be ••ied, without harbouring the least mistrust. Of hatr•• he is incapable: one would suppose that his mind, with a•• its sensibility, possesses not sufficient strength for a ••+timent

of such energy. Extensive in his knowledge, he writes with extreme facility, and composes a treatise, as another would copy a song: hence the discriminating eye discerns in his works the hasty touch of a quick, and often light mind, though the ground-work itself is ex|cellent. His activity and good-nature, which make him ready to do any thing, which he conceives may be of use, have given him an appearance of interferring in every thing; and have drawn upon him the charge of in|triguing, from those who are in want of a subject of ac|cusation. What a curious intriguer is a man, who never attends to himself, or those belonging to him; who is alike incapable of, and averse to, consulting his own in|terest; and who is no more ashamed of poverty, than afraid of death, looking upon both of them as the usual rewards of public virtue. I have seen him dedicating his whole time to the revolution, for no other end than to forward the triumph of truth, and to promote the welfare of the public; and assiduously employed in the com|position of his journal, which he might easily have made a matter of speculation, if he had not chosen to be content with the moderate recompence made him by his partner. His wife, as humble as himself, with a great deal of good sense, and some strength of mind, judged more properly of things. Ever since their marriage, her views had been turned towards the United States of America, as the abode most suita|ble to their taste and manners, and a place wh•• it was easy to settle with very slender means. Brissot had made a voyage thither in consequence; and they were on the point of embarking for that distant shore, when the revolution came and chained him to his native land.

Born at Chartres, and a school-fellow of Pétion, who is a native of the same town, Brissot became still more inti|mate with him in the constituent assembly, where his labours and information were often of use to his friend. He made us acquainted with him, as well as with several other members, whom old habits of friendship, or the mere similitude of principles, and zeal for the public good, brought often together to compare their views. It was even agreed upon, that they should meet at my apartment four evenings in the week, because I was a very domestic, and could afford them good ac|commodations, and because my lodgings were so situ|ated, as to be at no great distance from any of the per|sons who composed the little club.

THIS arrangement suited me perfectly: it made me acquainted with the progress of public affairs, in which I felt myself deeply interested; and favoured my taste for pursuing political speculations, and studying mankind. I knew what part became one of my sex, and never stepped out of it. The political debates passed in my presence, without my taking any part. Sitting at a table without the circle, I employed myself in working at my needle, or writing letters, while they were deliberating; and yet if I dispatched ten epistles, which was sometimes the case, I did not lose a single syllable of what was saying, and more than once bit my lips, to restrain my impatience to speak.

WHAT struck me most, and distressed me exceedingly, was that sort of light and frivolous chit-chat, in which men of sense pass three or four hours, without coming 〈◊〉〈◊〉 any conclusion. Taking things in detail, you wou•• have heard excellent principles maintained, good 〈◊〉〈◊〉

started, and some good plans proposed; but upon bring|ing the whole together, there appeared to be no path marked out, no fixed result, nor any determinate point, towards which it was agreed upon that each person should direct his views.

SOMETIMES for very vexation I could have boxed the ears of these philosophers, whom I daily learnt to esteem more and more for the honesty of their hearts, and the purity of their intentions: excellent reasoners all, and all philosophers, and learned politicians in theory; but being totally ignorant of the art of managing mankind, and con|sequently of swaying an assembly, their wit and learning were generally lavished to no end.

AND yet I have known some good decrees thus plan|ned, which have afterwards passed. But soon the coa|lition of the minority of the nobility compleatly weaken|ed the left side, and produced the evils attendant on a re|visal of the constitution. There remained but a small number of inflexible men, who durst contend for prin|ciples; and towards the conclusion, these were reduced to little more than Buzot, Pétion, and Robespierre.

AT that time Robespierre had to me the semblance of an honest man; and for the sake of his principles I for|gave the defects of his language, and his tiresome way of speaking. I had, however, remarked, that he was always reserved in these committees, hearing the opinions of all, and seldom giving his own, or when he did, not being at the pains to set forth the reasons on which it was grounded. I have been told, that the next day he was the first to mount the tribune, and to avail himself of the argu|ments which the evening before he had heard delivered

by his friends. When he was sometimes gently reproved for this conduct, he would get off by a joke; and his artifice was forgotten, as the effect of that devouring self-love, by which he was so cruelly tormented. This how|ever was in some degree destructive of confidence; for if any expedient were to be devised, any mode of proceed|ing to be determined upon, and any cast of parts to be adopted in consequence, there could never be any cer|tainty that Robespierre would not come, as it were in a freak, and thwart the business; or else with a view of ascribing the honour to himself, bring forward the affair inconsiderately, and by so doing ruin all. Persuaded at that time that Robespierre was passionately fond of liberty, I was inclined to atribute his faults to an excess of fiery zeal. That kind of reserve, which seems to in|dicate either the fear of being seen through, because we can get nothing by being known, or the distrust of a man who can find no reason in his own bosom, for giving others credit for virtue; that kind of reserve, for which Robespierre is remarkable, gave me pain; but I mistook it for modesty. Thus it is that, with a fa|vourable prepossession, we transform the most untoward indications into symptoms of the most amiable qualities. Never did the smile of confidence rest on the lips of Robespierre, while they were almost always contracted by the malignant grin of envy, striving to assume the fea|tures of disdain. His talents, as an orator, were below mediocrity; his vulgar voice, ill chosen expressions, and faulty pronunciation, rendering his discourse extremely tiresome, but he maintained principles with warmth and perseverence; and there was some courage in con|tinuing to do so, at a time when the defenders of the

cause of the people were greatly diminished in number. The court detested and calumniated them: to support and encourage them, was therefore the duty of a patriot. I esteemed Robespierre on this account; I told him as much; and even when he was not very assiduous at the little club, he occasionally came to take his dinner at our house. I had been much struck with the terror that seemed to have taken possession of his mind on the day of the king's flight to Varennes. That afternoon I found him at Péti|on's, where he said with great alarm, that the royal family would never have taken such a step, without having a coalition in Paris, to direct a massacre of the patriots; and that he did not expect to live four and twenty hours. Pétion and Brissot on the contrary said, that the flight would be the king's ruin, and that it ought be turned to good account: they observed that the people were per|fectly well disposed, and would be more clearly convinced of the treachery of the court by this step, than they would have been by the ablest publications: that this single fact rendered it evident to all, that the king was adverse to the constitution, which he had sworn to maintain; that this was the moment to secure a more homogenous form of govern|ment; and that it would be proper to prepare men's minds for a republic. Robespierre, with his usual sneer, and biting his nails, asked what was a republic? The plan of a paper entitled the Republican, of which two numbers only were published, was then devised. Du|mont of Geneva, a man of considerable abilities, was the editor; du Chátelet, an officer in the army, lent his name; and Condorcet, Brissot, and others, were pre|paring to give their assistance. The seizure of the king's

person gave Robespierre great pleasure; he saw in it the prevention of much mischief, and laid aside the fears he entertained on his own account; but the rest of the party were sorry for the event: they were of opinion that it was bringing back a pest into the government; that in|triguing would revive; and that the effervescence of the public mind, allayed by the pleasure of seeing the culprit detained, would no longer serve to second the efforts of the friends of freedom. They judged aright; and with the less risk of being mistaken, as the reconciliation of Lafayette with the Lameths proved the existence of a new coalition, which could not have the public good for its foundation. It was impossible to counterbalance it, unless by the force of opinion displayed in a powerful manner; for which the patriots never had more than their pens, and their voices; but when any popular commotion came to their aid, they welcomed it with pleasure, without inquiring how it was produced, or giving themselves much trouble about it. There was behind the curtain a party, whom the aristocrats accused with so much vehemence, that it was impossible for the patriots not to be tempted to forgive him, so long as they perceived nothing, but what might be made to contribute to the public advantage: besides, they could not persuade themselves that the person in question was any way formi|dable.

IT is not easy to command our passions in the time of a revolution: there is indeed no instance, of one accom|plished without their assistance. Great obstacles are to be overcome; and this cannot be effected without as ardour, and a devotion to the cause, bordering upon e••+thusiasm, or tending to produce it. Hence it is that 〈◊〉〈◊〉

grasp with avidity at every thing that seems to serve our purpose, and lose the faculty of perceiving what may prove injurious. Hence that confidence, that eagerness to avail ourselves of a sudden movement, without tracing it to it's origin, in order to know how to direct it aright: and hence the indelicacy, if I may use the expression, of suffering the co-operation of agents whom we do not esteem, but whose proceedings we tolerate, because they appear to tend the same way as our own. D'Orleans standing singly was surely not to be feared; but his name, his connexions, his wealth, and his advisers, gave him great influence; and he unquestionably acted a secret part in all popular commotions. Men of pure intentions suspected him: but all this they considered as a fermen|tation necessary to set the inert mass a working: they contented themselves with taking no share in them, and flattered themselves, that they should make every thing turn to the advantage of the public: they were, besides, more inclined to ascribe to d'Orleans the desire of reveng|ing himself on a court, by which he had been despised, and which he was inclined to humble, than any design of his own elevation.

THE jacobins proposed a petition to the assembly, re|questing it to pass judgment on the traitor who had fled, or to take the sense of the nation concerning the treat|ment he might deserve; and in the mean time to declare, that he had lost the confidence of the people of Paris. Laclos, that Laclos so remarkable for the powers of his mind, whom nature formed for the management of great affairs, but whose vices had made him dedicate all his faculties to intrigue; Laclos, devoted to d'Orleans, and of great weight in his council, made this proposal to the

jacobins, who entertained it favourably, and among whom it was abetted by some hundreds of motion-ma|kers* 7.4 and strollers, who came thronging from the Palais-Royal into the place of their meeting at ten o'clock at night. I saw them arrive. The society de|liberated in the presence of that mob, who were also al|lowed to give their votes; settled the fundamentnl points of the petition; and appointed a committee to draw it up, of which Laclos and Brissot were members. They were busied about it till a late hour of the night: for it had been resolved, that a deputation of the society should on the following day carry it to the Champ-de-Mars, there to be shown to all, who might wish to examine or to sign it. Laclos pretended that he had a head-ach pro|ceeding from want of sleep, which would not suffer him to hold the pen: he therefore requested Brissot to take it; and, while conversing with him about the composition, proposed, for the last article, some clause, I know not what, which called for the restoration of royalty, and opened a road for d'Orleans to the throne. Brissot re|jected it with warmth and astonishment; and the other, like an able politician, gave it up, under the pretence of his not having sufficiently considered its consequences: well aware, that he should still find means to get it foist|ed in; which in fact he did, since it made part of a printed paper that was dispersed as the plan agreed upon by the jacobins. But when the society which assembled the next morning to examine the draught of

the petition, and send it away, was informed, that the national assembly had decided on the fate of the king, it dispatched its commissioners to the Champ-de-Mars, to inform the people, that the decree respecting the king having passed, there was no longer any occasion for the intended petition. My curiosity had carried me to the Champ-de-la-federation* 7.5, where there were not more than two or three hundred persons scattered about the environs of the national altar, upon which deputies of the cordeliers, and of the fraternal societies, bearing pikes with pompous inscriptions, stood haranguing small groups, and exciting their indignation against Lewis XVI. It was said, that as the jacobins had suppressed their petition, it was proper that such citizens as were zealous in the people's cause should draw up another, and assemble for that purpose on the en|suing day. Then it was that the partisans of the court, feel|ing the necessity of employing terror, concerted the means of striking a decisive blow. They prepared their mea|sures accordingly; and the unexpected proclamation of martial law, and its prompt execution, produced what has been justly called the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars. The terrified people durst not stir, while part of the national guard, seduced or deceived, seconded Lafayette, either out of obsequiousness to the court, or blind confidence in his pretended patriotism, and served as a rampart against their fellow-citizens; the standard of death was displayed from the town-hall; and the revision of the constitution was effected under its influence. The formation of the club of Feuillans had been planned much about the same

time, to weaken the jacobins; and most assuredly the whole proceedings of the coalition at that period, proved how much the court and its partisans were superior to their adversaries in weaving a tissue of intrigues.

I NEVER knew affright comparable to that of Robes|pierre under these circumstances. There was indeed a ru|mour of putting him on his trial, which was probably meant only to intimidate him; and it was said, that there was a plot at the Feuillans both against him, and the committee, who drew up the petition at the jacobins. Ro|land and I were really uneasy on his account, and drove to his house, at the farther end of the Marais, at eleven at night to offer him an asylum: but he had already quitted his habitation. Thence we proceeded to Buzot's to tell him, that perhaps it would not be amiss, if without leaving the society of the jacobins, he were to enter into that of the Feuillans, in order to see what was going forward, and to be ready to defend those whom they might wish to persecute. 'There is nothing I wou•• not do, said Buzot, after some hesitation, and speaking of Robespierre, to save that unhappy young man; though I am far from entertaining the same opinion of him that many others do: he thinks too much of himself, to be greatly in love with liberty; but he serves its cause, and that is enough for me. The public must never|theless take place of him; and I should be inconsistent in my principles, and exhibit them in a false po•• of view, if I went to the Feuillans. I have too mu•• repugnance to act a part that would oblige me to put •• two different faces. Grégoire is gone thither: he will us know what is going on; but after all, nothing ca•• done to affect Robespierre, without the interventio••

the assembly, and there I shall at all times be ready to undertake his defence. As to the Jacobins, where I have been little of late, because my regard for our species makes me grieve to see it more than usually hideous in that noisy assembly, I shall be constant in my attendance, as long as the persecution is kept up against a society, which I believe to be useful to the cause of freedom.' These words of Buzot were exactly descriptive of the man: he acts, as he speaks, with truth and rectitude, the strictest probity, adorned with the pleasing forms of sensibility, being the leading feature of his character. He had distinguished himself in our little committee, by the soundness of his understanding, and by that decided man|ner which bespeaks a man of integrity. As he lived at no great distance from our house; and his wife, though she did not appear to possess a mind congenial to his, was an affable woman; we visited each other frequently. When the success of Roland's mission with respect to the debt of the commune of Lyons allowed us to return to Beaujolois, we kept up a correspondence with Buzot and Robespierre. That with the former was the more re|gular: there was a greater familiarity between us, a wider foundation for friendship, and a rich stock of materials to keep it from flagging. Our friendship became inti|mate and unalterable. Elsewhere I shall say how this connection grew closer still.

ROLAND's mission having detained him seven months at Paris, we quitted that city in the middle of Sept. after his obtaining every thing for Lyons that it could desire; and spent the autumn in the country, employed in the vintage.

ONE of the last acts of the constituent assembly was the suppression of inspectors. We considered, whether we

should determine to remain in the country, o•• whether 〈◊〉〈◊〉 would be better to go and pass the winter in Paris, where Roland might prefer his claim to a pension, as a reward for forty years service; and at the same time con+tinue his labours for the Encyclopedia, which he would be sure to find more easy in the focus of science, amidst arti•• and men of letters, than in the depth of a desert.

WE came back to Paris in the month of December. A•• the members of the constituent assembly had returned to their several homes; and Pétion, who had been chosen mayor, was wholly occupied with the cares of that office, we no longer had any rallying point, and saw Brissot himself much less frequently than before. The whole of our attention was concentrated at home. Roland's active mind inspired him with the idea of establishing a journal of useful arts; and by the charms of study we en|deavoured to divert our attention from public affairs, which seemed to be in a lamentable state. Several de|puties of the legislative assembly used however to me•• sometimes at the apartments which one of them oc|cupied in the Place Vendome; and Roland, whose patriot|ism and knowledge were held in high esteem, was in|vited to make one of the party: but he disliked the distance, and seldom went. One of our friends, who was frequently there, informed us, about the middle of March, that the court, full of alarm and perplexity, was desirous of doing something to regain its popularity; that it would have no great objection to appoint jacobin ministers; and that the patriots were busied in endea|vouring to make the choice fall upon men of steadiness and ability; which was of the more importance, as 〈◊〉〈◊〉 might only be a snare on the part of the court, whi••

would not be sorry to have wrong-headed persons forced upon it, who might become just objects of complaint or derision. He added, that several persons had turned their thoughts towards Roland, whose rank in the republic of letters, administrative knowledge, and reputation for jus|tice and vigour of mind, afforded a prospect of stability. Roland at that time went frequently to the jacobin society, and was one of the persons employed in its committee of correspondence. The idea however seemed to me to be visionary, and made but little impression on my mind.

THE 21st of the same month, Brissot called upon me in the evening, and repeated the same thing in a more positive manner; asking at the same time whether Roland would consent to take such a burden on him. I said in answer, that, having mentioned the matter to him in the course of conversation, when the idea was first started, it had ap|peared to me that after taking all the difficulties and danger into the account, his zeal and activity would not object to such a field for exertion; but that it was a business which required further consideration. Roland did not shrink from the task: the idea he entertained of his own abilities inspired him with a hope of being serviceable to the cause of freedom and to his country: and such was the answer that was given to Brissot on the following day.

ON Friday, the 23d, at eleven in the evening, I saw him walk into our department with Dumouriez; who came on the breaking up of the council, to inform Roland of his being appointed minister for the home-department, and to salute him as his colleague. They stayed a few minutes; and an hour of the following

day was fixed for Roland to take the oaths. 'The•• goes a man,' said I when they went away, speaking of Dumouriez, whom I had never seen before; 'there go•• a man of a subtle mind, and a deceitful look; against whom perhaps it will behove you to be more upon your guard than against any man whatever: he expressed great pleasure at the patriotic choice he was employed to announce, and yet I shall not be surprised if on some future day he bring about your dismission.'—Dumouriez, indeed, at the first glance, appeared to me so widely different from Roland, that I could not suppose it possi|ble for them to act long in concert. On one side I beheld integrity and frankness personified, with rigid justice devoid of all courtly arts, and of all the dexterous manoeuvres of a man of the world: on the other I fan|cied I could recognize a libertine of great parts, a deter|mined adventurer, inclined to make a jest of every thing, except his own interest and fame. It was not difficult to infer, that such elements would act repulsively upon each other.

ROLAND's incredible industry, his readiness in business, and his methodical turn, soon enabled him, when mi|nister, to make an arrangement in his head of all the various branches of his department. But the principles and habits of the chief clerks rendered his employment extremely laborious. He was obliged to be on his guard, and to contend most strenuously to prevent any thing con|tradictory from taking place in his official proceedings; he was engaged in short in one continued struggle with his agents. He strongly felt the necessity of changing them; but he was too prudent to do so, before he had become ••|miliar with affairs, and secured proper persons to supply th••

places. As to the council, its sittings rather resembled the chit-chat of a private party, than the deliberations of statesmen. Each minister brought with him ordinances and proclamations to be signed; and the minister of justice presented decrees to be sanctioned. The king read the gazette: questioned each of them about his private affairs, thus testifying with no small share of address that sort of kind concern, of which the great knew how to make a merit; talked like a plain man about affairs in general; and at every turn professed, with an air of frankness, his desire to put the constitu|tion in force. For the first three weeks, Roland and Claviere appeared almost enchanted with the king's ex|cellent disposition of mind, giving him credit on his bare word, and rejoicing, like honest men, at the turn that things were about to take. 'Good God!' said I, 'when I see you set out for the council with all that delightful confidence, it always seems to me that you are on the point of committing some egregious act of folly.'—I never could bring myself to believe in the constitutional vocation of a king born and brought up in despotism, and accustomed to exercise arbitrary sway. Lewis XVI must have been a man above the common race of mortals, had he been sincerely the friend of a constitution that restrained his power; and if such a man, he would never have suffered those events to occur which brought about the revolution.

THE first time Roland appeared at court, the plainness of his apparel, his round hat, and his shoes tied with ribbands, were matters of astonishment and offence to all the court valets; to those beings, who, deriving their sole consequence from etiquette, believed that the safety

of the state depended on its preservation. The mas•• of the ceremonies, stepping up to Dumouriez with alarm in his countenance, and a contracted brow, pointed 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Roland by a glance of the eye: Oh dear! Sir, said he in a whisper, he has no buckles in his shoes!—O•• Lord! Sir, answered Dumouriez, with gravity truly laughable, we are all ruined and undone.

A COUNCIL being held four times a week, the ministe•• agreed to dine on those days at one another's houses by turns; and every Friday I received them as my guests. Degrave was then minister of war. He was a little man, in every sense of the word: nature had made him gentle and timid; his prejudices prompted him to be haughty, while his heart inspired him with the desire of being ami••|ble; and in his perplexity to reconcile these jarring af+fections, he became nothing at all. I think I see him now, walking on his heels like a courtier, with his head erect on his slender body; turning up his blue eyes, which he could not keep open after dinner without the help of two or three cups of coffee: speaking little, as if out of reserve, but in reality for want of ideas; and at length so bewildered in the labyrinth of his official business, as to ask leave to retire. Lacoste, a true jack in office of the old order of things, of which he had the insignificant and awkward look, cold manner, and dog|matic tone, wanted none of those advantages which a man hackneyed in the routine of public business seldom fa•• to acquire; but his apparent reserve and discretion concealed a violence of temper, which he carried wh•• contradicted to the most ridiculous excess. He was 〈◊〉〈◊〉 deficient both in the extensive views, and activi•• necessary for a minister. Duranthon, who had been 〈◊〉〈◊〉

for from Bourdeaux to be made minister of justice, was an honest man, according to common report; but he was very indolent; his manner indicated vanity; and his timid disposition, and pompous prattle, made him always appear to me no better than an old woman. Claviére, whose coming into office was preceded by a reputation of great skill in finance, was, I make no doubt, well in|formed upon that subject, of which I am no judge. Ac|tive, industrious, of an irritable disposition, obstinate, as most men are who live much in the retirement of the closet, and cavilling and uncomplying in debate, he could not do otherwise than clash with Roland, who was dry and peremptory in dispute, and not less stiff in opinion than himself. These two men were made to esteem, without loving each other; and they have not belied their destiny. Dumouriez had more of what is called parts than all of them put together, and less morality than any one of the number. Diligent, brave, an able general, an artful courtier, writing well, speaking fluent|ly, and capable of great undertakings, he wanted nothing but strength of mind proportioned to his genius, and a cooler head to execute the plans he had conceived. Agreeable in his commerce with his friends, and ready to deceive them all; attentive to women, but by no means calculated to succeed with those, whom a tender passion might seduce; he was made for the ministerial intrigues of a corrupt and faithless court. His brilliant qualities, and love of fame, gave room to hope, that he might be employed with advantage in the army of the republic; and perhaps he would have proceeded in the right path, if the convention had been prudent; for he is too wise

not to act like an honest man, when his doing so is con|ducive to his interest and reputation.

DEGRAVE was succeeded by Servan, an honest man, in the fullest signification of the term, of an ardent tem|per and excellent moral character, with all the austerity of a philosopher, and all the benevolence of a feeling heart; an enlightened patriot, a brave soldier, an an active minister, he stood in need of nothing, but a more sober imagination, and a more flexible mind.

THE troubles on the score of religion, and the prepara|tions of the enemy, calling for decisive decrees, the refusal of sanctioning them completely tore away the veil from Louis XVI, whose sincerity was already strongly suspected by such of his ministers as had before been inclined to be|lieve it real. At first the refusal was not positive: the king being desirous of considering the subject, put off the sanc|tion till the following council, when he always found rea|sons for deferring it still longer. This procrastination gave his ministers an opportunity of speaking out. Roland and Servan, in particular, remonstrated incessantly, and spoke the most striking truths with becoming spirit.

THEIR situation became critical: the public weal was in danger: and it was incumbent on ministers truly patriotic, either to provide the means of its salvation, or to retire, that they might not be assisting in its ruin. Roland proposed to his colleagues a letter to the king purporting as much; but Claviere cavilled at the ex|pressions, and Duranthon, who was fond of his place, was unwilling to risk the loss of it, if he could possibly keep it, without being a confest traitor. Lacoste did no••

approve of strong measures, and the will of the king appeared to him, upon the whole, the best of all possible rules; while Dumouriez left them to settle the matter among themselves, that he might be more at leisure to play his own cards, and to revenge what he considered as a vexatious affront. The fact was as follows.

THAT kind of rumour, which does not as yet amount to the opinion of the public, but which foreruns and an|nounces it, was afloat against Bonnecarrere, whom Du|mouriez had made director-general of the department of foreign affairs. He had the reputation, the talents, the disposition and the manners of an intriguer: so at least I have been told by men of probity, who related various circumstances of his life, and lamented the choice that Dumouriez had made.

A REPORT was spread of some place being bestowed or affair settled, by Bonnecarrere, on his receiving a consider|ation of a hundred thousand livres [£4167] part of which was to be given to madame de Beauvert. That lady was Dumouriez's mistress, and lived in his house, where she did the honours of the table, to the great displeasure of men of sense, the friends of morality and freedom; for such licentiousness in a servant of the public, charged with the conduct of affairs of state, too plainly indicated a contempt of decorum; especially as madame Beauvert, the sister of Riverol, a man unfortunately but too well known, lived in the midst of the sworn friends of aristocracy, people little entitled to commendation in any point of view. Dumou|riez's conduct, even if it had not been fundamentally wrong, was impolitic, and calculated to excite suspicion.

I WAS frequently visited by Brissot, and several other

members of the legislative assembly. They sometimes m•• the ministers at my house; and kept up that kind of inti|macy with them, which is requisite among men who, being devoted alike to the cause of the public, stand in need of an intercommunity of views and information, in order to serve it the more effectually. The story of Bonnecarrere was related to one of them; and the parties were mentioned by name, as well as the notary in whose hands the money was deposited, or who was at least appointed to receive it; but these particulars have escaped my memory. I only recol|lect, that two men of character came to my house and affirm|ed them in the presence of three or four members of the legislative body, one of whom, a friend of Dumouriez, was desirous of hearing the whole story from their mouths. It was resolved to repeat to Dumouriez, with a degree of so|lemnity, the arguments that had already been urged to him in private, concerning the necessity both on the public ac|count and his own, of making his conduct, and the choice of his agents, more conformable to the political principles which he pretended to entertain. The conversation consequently took place in the presence of his colleagues and of three or four members of the assembly. Roland, availing himself of the authority given him by his years and character, pointed out to Dumouriez the necessity of his con|ducting himself with more propriety and prudence, and every one agreed, that this last trait of Bonnecarrere ought to open his eyes, and induce him to put some other person in his place. Dumouriez, who turned Bonnecarrere's talents to good account, and gave himself little concern on the score of morality, treated the observations of his friends with great levity, and at length rejected them with

anger. From that moment he discontinued all inter|course with the members, behaved with greater coolness to his colleagues, and, without doubt, no longer thought of any thing, but overturning those by whose gravity he was the most displeased. I foresaw the effect of this conference, and said to Roland: 'if you were an in|triguer, and capable of conducting yourself according to the policy of the old court and government, I should tell you, that the moment to ruin Dumouriez is at hand, if you wish to prevent his playing you a trick.' But honest men understand not this petty warfare; and Roland was as incapable of having recourse to it, as he would have been ill-fitted to carry it on.

THE postponement of the sanction was nearly become a refusal; the utmost limit of delay was at hand* 7.6. We were sensible, as the council was neither sufficiently unani|mous nor energetic to speak out in a collective shape, that it became the integrity and courage of Roland to step for|ward alone; and between us two we determined on his famous letter to the king. He carried it with him to the council, with the intention of reading it aloud, the very day when Louis XVI, on being pressed anew for his sanc|tion, required each of his ministers to give him his opinion written and signed, and proceeded rapidly to discuss other affairs. Roland returned home, added a few introductory lines to his letter, and delivered the whole into the king's hands, on the morning of the 11th of June.

THE next day, the 12th, at eight in the evening, Servan walked into my room with a smiling countenance, 'give

me joy', said he, 'I have just had the honour of being turned away.'—'That is an honour,' answered I, 'that my husband will soon share; and I am not a little mortifi|ed that you should get the start of us.' He then related to me, that, having been with the king in the morning on particular business, he had strenuously insisted on the ne|cessity of the camp of twenty thousand men, if it were sin|cerely his attention to oppose the designs of the enemy; that the king had turned his back upon him in very ill-humour; and that Dumouriez, at the very same instant, was com|ing out of the war office, whither he had been to take his portfolio from him, by virtue of an order, of which he was the bearer.—'Who? Dumouriez? He is acting a vile part; but I am not at all surprised at it.'—The three preceding days Dumouriez had been frequently at the Tuileries, and had held long conferrences with the queen; with whom, it may not be impertinent to remark, that Bonnecarrere had some interest, by means of her women. Roland, be|ing informed that Servan was in my apartment, quitted the persons to whom he was giving audience, and on hear|ing the news, requested his colleagues, Dumouriez excep|ted, to repair to the hotel.

IT was his opinion, that they ought not to wait for their dismission: but that in consequence of Servan's being de|clared, it became all those who professed the same prin|ciples to give in their resignations; unless the king should recall Servan, and dismiss Dumouriez, with whom they could no longer sit at the council-table. Had the four ministers acted thus, the court, I have no doubt, would have been not a little embarrassed to replace them; 〈◊〉〈◊〉 would have done honour to Lacoste and Duranthon, and the affair would have had a more striking effect upon 〈◊〉〈◊〉

public mind: but it was destined to have that effect after|wards in a different way.

THE ministers came and debated for a long-while, without coming to any resolution, except that they would meet again the next morning at eight, and that Roland should prepare a letter in the mean time. I could never have believed, had not circumstances put me in the way of knowing it, that soundness of judgment, and a firm temper of mind, are things so uncommon, and consequently that so few men are fit for the trans|action of business, particularly that of the state. Would you wish to meet with the above qualities in con|junction with perfect disinterestedness?—"That were in|deed the Arabian bird," scarcely seen once in a long suc|cession of ages. I no longer wonder, that men superior to the herd, and placed at the head of empires, com|monly entertain a sovereign contempt for their species: it is the almost inevitable consequence of an extensive knowledge of the world; and to avoid the errors, into which such a sentiment may lead those to whom the welfare of a nation is entrusted, requires a fund of philo|sophy and magnanimity very extraordinary indeed.

THE ministers came at the appointed hour; expressed their doubts about the letter; and at length concluded; that it would be better to go to the king, and declare their sentiments in person. This expedient appeared to me no better than an evasion; for certain it is, that a man never speaks so boldly as he may venture to write, to a person, who, by virtue of his rank, and the force of custom, lays claim to particular respect. It was agreed upon that they should take Lacoste, who had not yet made his appearance, along with the••, or at least that they

should invite him to be one of the party. But scarcely had these gentlemen assembled at the admiralty-office, when a messenger from the king brought Duranthon an order to repair to the palace immediately and alone. Clavière and Roland told him, that they would go and wait for his re|turn at the chancery. They had not been there long before Duranthon made his appearance in solemn silence, with a long face, and a hypocritical appearance of sorrow, taking slowly out of his pocket an order from the king for each of the other two.—'Give it me,' said Roland, with a smile: 'I perceive already that our delays have made us lose the start.'—In fact he brought their dismissions.

'WELL! I am turned out too,' said my husband on his return.—'I hope,' answered I, 'that it is better deserving on your part, than on that of any one else; but you should not by any means allow the king to announce it to the as|sembly; since he has not profited by the lesson given him in your letter, you ought to render that lesson useful to the public, by making it known. Nothing appears to me more consistent with the courage evinced by writing it, than the hardihood of sending a copy to the assembly: on hearing of your dismission, it will also be acquainted with the cause.'

THIS idea could not fail to be agreeable to my hus|band. It was adopted; and every body knows the ap|probation which the assembly gave to the letter, by or|dering it to be printed and sent to the departments, as well as the honour they did to the three ministers, by declaring that the regret of the nation attended them in their re|treat. In my own mind I am convinced, and I think the event has proved it, that Roland's letter contributed greatly to enlighten the French nation; it exhibited to the king, with so much force and wisdom, what his o••

interest required of him, that it was easy to perceive he refused his compliance, out of a determined opposition to the maintenance of the constitution.

WHEN I recollect, that Pache was in Roland's closet while we were reading the rough draught of that letter, and that he deemed it an adventurous step; when I re|flect how often that man has witnessed our enthusiasm in the cause of liberty, and our zeal to serve it; and see him now at the head of that arbitrary authority, which oppresses and persecutes us as enemies of the republic: I ask myself, whether I be awake, and whether the dream must not ter|minate in the punishment of that infamous hypocrite.

THUS did we return to private life. Perhaps I may be asked, whether I never knew any further particulars con|cerning the manner, in which Roland was called into ad|ministration. I can safely say, I never did; and that I never even thought of enquiring about it: for it appeared to me to be brought about like many other things in this world; the idea occurs to some one person, many ap|prove it, and with this support it attracts the notice of people capable of carrying it into effect. I perceived, that the business in question had struck some of the members; but I know not who it was that first proposed it; nor by whom it was transmitted to the court. Roland knew no more of it, and gave himself no more concern about it, than I. When a successor to Degrave was thought of for the war department, the ministers and patriotic mem|bers did not know whither to direct their views, almost all the officers of the army of any repute, being looked upon as enemies to the co••stitution. Roland at last thought of Servan, a military man, who had earned the cross of St.

Lewis by his services; and whose principles were not doubt|ful, since he had displayed them before the revolution, i•• a publication called the Citizen-Soldier, which had been well received. We were personally acquainted with him, in consequence of seeing him at Lyons, where he enjoyed the well-earnt reputation of an active and sagacious man: he had besides, in the year 1790, lost a place at court, where his civism was not agreeable to Monsieur Guynard-St.-Priest. These considerations induced the members of the council to join in proposing him to the king, by whom he was accepted.

As soon as my husband was in the ministry, I came to a fixed determination, neither to pay nor receive visits, nor invite any female to my table. I had no great sacri|fices to make on that head: for, not residing constantly at Paris, my acquaintance was not extensive; besides, I had no where kept a great deal of company, because my love of study is as great as my detestation of cards, and because the society of silly people affords me no diver|sion. Accustomed to spend my days in domestic retire|ment, I shared the labours of Roland, and pursued the studies most suited to my own particular taste. The establishment of so severe a rule served then at once to keep up my accustomed style of life, and to prevent the inconveniences which an interested crowd throws in the way of people occupying important posts. Properly speaking, I never received company in my hotel: twice a week, indeed, I gave a dinner to some of the ministers, a few members of the assembly, and the persons with whom my husband had any thing to talk over, or which acquaintance he wished to preserve. Business was 〈◊〉〈◊〉

of in my presence; because I had not the rage of inter|ferring, and was not surrounded with such company as could excite distrust. Out of all the rooms of a spacious apartment, I had chosen, for my daily habitation, the smallest parlour, which I had converted into a study, by removing into it my books and a bureau. It often hap|pened, that Roland's friends or colleagues, when they wanted to speak to him confidentially, instead of going to his apartment, where he was surrounded by his clerks or by the public, would come to mine, and request me to send for him. By these means I found myself drawn into the vortex of public affairs, without intrigue or idle cu|riosity. Roland had a pleasure in afterwards convers|ing with me about them in private, with that confidence which we ever placed in each other, and which established between us an intercommunity of knowledge and opinions; and it sometimes happened also, that friends, who had only some information to give, or a few words to say, being always sure of finding me, came and requested I would make the necessary communication to Roland as soon as an opportunity might occur.

IT had been found necessary to counterbalance the influence of the court, the aristocracy, the civil list, and the ministerial papers, by information given to the people in the most public way. A daily paper, posted up in the streets, seemed well calculated for that purpose; but it was necessary to find a judicious and enlightened man, capable of following up events, and exhibiting them in their proper colours, to be the conducter. Louv••, ••+ready known as an author, a man of letters, and a po|litician, was pointed out, approved of, and undertook the task. Money was also wanting for its support; but that

was a thing not quite so easily to be obtained. Petion him|self was allowed none for the police; and yet in a town like Paris, and in such a state of things, when it was of importance to have people in pay, in order to gain timely information of every thing that happened, or that might be in agitation, it was indispensably necessary. To ob|tain any thing from the assembly, would have been difficult; for the demand would infallibly have given the alarm to the partisans of the court, and would have met with many obstacles. At last it occurred, that Dumou|riez, who had secret service-money for the department of foreign affairs, might allow a certain sum monthly to the mayor of Paris for the police; and that out of that sum might be taken the expences of the daily paper which was to be posted up, and which the minister of the home-de|partment was to superintend. The expedient was simple, and was adopted. Such was the origin of the Sentinel.

IT was in the course of the month of July, that per|ceiving affairs daily growing worse through the perfidy of the court, the march of the foreign troops, and the weakness of the assembly, we looked out for a place where liberty, threatened from so many quarters, might find an asylum. We frequently conversed with Barba|roux and Servan concerning the excellent spirit that pre|vailed in the South, the energy of the departments in that quarter of France, and the advantages its situation afforded for founding a republic, if the triumphant court should 〈◊〉〈◊〉 means to subjugate Paris and the North. We took a map, and traced the line of demarkation; Servan studied the military positions it offered; we calculated its strength; we examined the nature of its produ••

and the means of circulating that produce; every 〈◊〉〈◊〉 called to mind the places, or the persons, from whom we might expect to receive support; and every one re|peated, after a revolution that had afforded such great hopes, we ought not to relapse tamely into slavery, but should strain every nerve to establish a free government in some part of France. 'That shall be our resource,' said Barbaroux, 'if the Marseillois, whom I accompanied hi|ther, be not sufficiently seconded by the Parisians to sub|due the court. I hope, however, they will succeed, and that we shall have a convention, which will give a republi|can form of government to all France.'

WE understood very well, without his explaining him|self farther, that an insurrection was projected. It appear|ed indeed inevitable, since the court was making prepara|tions, that indicated a design of enforcing submission. It may be said, they were made in its own defence; but the idea of attack either would have occurred to no body, or if it had, it would not have been embraced by the people at large, if the court had really and truly enforced the constitution: for, though aware of all its defects, the most strenuous republicans desired nothing more for the present, and would have quietly awaited its improvement from the hands of time and of experience.

IT is true, at the period of a revolution, there will always be found, particularly among a corrupt peo|ple, and in large cities, a class of men destitute of the advantages of fortune, covetous of her favours, and in|clined to make any sacrifice to obtain them, or else ac|customed to supply the want of them by illicit means. If a daring mind, a courageous disposition, and some portion

of natural abilities, distinguish a man of that description, he becomes the chief, or the director, of a turbulent band; whose ranks are soon filled up by all those who, having nothing to lose, are ready to attempt any thing by all the dupes, they have art enough to make; and lastly, by the individuals dispersed among them by domestic politicians or foreign powers, interested in fomenting divisions, in order to weaken them by civil discord, that they may after|wards take advantage of their distracted state.

THE patriotic societies, those collections of men assembled to deliberate on their rights and interests, have exhibited to us a picture in miniature of what passes in the great soci|ety of the state.

FIRST we find a few men of ardent dispositions, deeply impressed with a sense of the public danger, and seeking sincerely to prevent it. These men the philosophers join because they conceive such a junction necessary to overturn tyranny, and propagate principles beneficial to mankind. Accordingly, great principles are developed, and disseminated; generous sentiments are called forth and diffused; and a vigorous impulsion is given both to the hearts and minds of men. Then come forward indivi|duals, who, by assuming principles that do not belong to them, which they decorate with the most captivating language, endeavour to gain the favour of the public, in order to acquire consequence or power. They pass the bounds of truth, to render themselves more remark|able; heat the imagination by false and exaggerated re+presentations; flatter the passions of the populace, ever disposed to admire the gigantic; urge it on to measu•• in which they have the means of making themsel•• useful, in order to be thought necessary upon all oc••+sions;

and employ themselves in the foul work of throw|ing suspicion upon those prudent or enlightened men, of whose merit they are afraid, and with whom they are not able to stand in competition. Calumny, at first employed without art, learns, from the humiliation it receives, to shape itself into a system; and at length becomes a pro|found science, in which they and their fellows alone can succeed.

UNQUESTIONABLY many people of this character joined the popular party against the court; ready to serve the latter for money, and as ready to betray it, in case it should become the weaker party. The court affected to believe that all those who opposed its designs were of the above description, and was fond of confounding them under the appellation of the factious. The real patriots suffered this noisy pack to go their own way, like so many hounds; and perhaps were not sorry to make them serve as a for|lorn hope, to receive the first fire of the enemy. In their hatred of despotism they did not recollect, that, if it be allowable in politics, to suffer good things to be effected by bad men, or to profit by their excesses for some useful purpose, it is infinitely dangerous to ascribe to them the honour of the one, or not to punish them for the other.

EVERY body is acquainted with the revolution of the 10th of August, of which I know no more than is known to the public; for, though well informed of the great outline of affairs while Roland was a servant of the pub|lic, and attending to it with interest when he was no lon|ger in place, I never was a confident of what may be called the manoeuvring of parties; nor was he himself ever concerned in that sort of business.

RECALLED to the ministry at that period, he re-entered it

with renovated hopes. It is a great pity, we us•• to 〈◊〉〈◊〉 that the council should be contaminated by th••t Dan•• who has so bad a reputation.—'What can we do?' said some friends to whom I whispered the same re|mark; 'he has been useful in the revolution, and the people love him: there is no prudence in making mal|contents: it will certainly be better to make the most of him as he is.'—There was some reason in this; but still it is much easier to deny a man the means of influence, than to prevent his putting it to a bad use. There be|gan the faults of the patriots: the instant the court was subdued, an excellent council should have been formed, all the members of which being irreproachable in their conduct, and distinguished for their knowledge, would have conducted the government with dignity, and have impressed foreign powers with respect. To take Danton into the administration, was to deluge the government with such men as I have described; who harass it, when not in employ, and corrupt and debase it, when they par|ticipate in its operations. But who was to make these re|flections? who could have dared to announce and openly maintain them? The choice was made by the assembly, or its committee of twenty-one; among whom there were many men of merit, but not one leader; not one of those beings cast in the mould of Mirabeau, and made to com|mand the vulgar, to condense into one focus the opinions of the wise, and to present them with that force of genius, which compels obedience the moment it appears.

As they were at a loss for a minister of the mari•• Co••dorcet mentioned Monge, because he had seen hi•• solve geometrical problems at the academy of sciences;

and Monge was chosen. Monge is a kind of original, ad|mirably calculated to play tricks in the manner of the bears that I have seen dancing in the ditches of the town of Berne. There cannot be a more awkward buffoon, or one who has less pretensions to wit and pleasantry. Formerly a stone-cutter at Mézières, where the abbe Bossut encoura|ged him, and set him to study mathematics; he got on by dint of industry, and ceased to visit his benefactor, as soon as he began to entertain hopes of becoming his equal. A good kind of man in other respects, or at least contriving to be so esteemed, in a small circle, of which the most satirical members had not wit enough to divert themselves by shewing that he was no better than a narrow-minded blockhead. But in short he passed for an honest man, and a friend of the revolution; and people were so tired of traitors, and so puzzled to find men of ability, that they began to put up with any body of whose good faith they were convinced. I need not speak of his ministry: the deplorable state of our navy too plainly evinces his imbeci|lity and insignificance.

ROLAND's first care was to make that reform in his office, of which he had felt the necessity. He collected about him a set of men attached to the principles of liberty, of active dispositions, and of enlightened minds; and, had he accomplished nothing more, he would have done great service to that branch of administration. He hastened to write to all the departments, with that force which reason gives, that authority which belongs to truth, and that ex|pression of sentiment that flows from the heart; shewing them the new order of things that must necessarily result

from the revolution of the 10th of August; and the ne|cessity for all parties to rally around justice, which prevents excesses; around liberty, which produces the happiness of all; around good order, which alone can insure it; and around the legislative body, which stands charged with the expression of the public will. Those administrative bodies which appeared to hesitate, were suspended, or cashiered. Great dispatch in business, and the most active and extensive correspondence, diffused a similar spirit through every part, restored confidence, and gave fresh life to the interior of the kingdom.

DANTON scarcely suffered a day to pass without coming to our house. Sometimes it was in his way to the council; he would arrive a little before the hour, and step into my apartment; or else he would call in his return, most commonly accompanied by Fabre-d'Englantine: at other times, he would invite himself to dine with me, on days when I was not accustomed to see company, in order that he might converse with Roland about some business.

NO man could make a show of greater zeal, of a greater love of liberty, or of a greater desire to concur with his colleagues in serving it effectually. I contemplated his forbidding and atrocious features, and, though I used to say to myself, that no one should be condemned upon hearsay evidence, that I had no certain knowledge of any thing to his prejudice, that the honestest man in the world must needs have two different characters when party-|spirit ran high, and that appearances were not to be trusted, I could not bring myself to associate the idea of a good man with such a countenance. I never saw a••••+thing that so strongly expressed the violence of 〈◊〉〈◊〉

passions, and the most astonishing audacity, half disguised by a jovial air, an affectation of frankness, and a sort of simplicity. My lively imagination represents every per|son, with whom I am struck, in the action that I conceive suitable to his character. I cannot see for half an hour a face not from the common mould, without arraying it in the garb of some profession, or giving it some part to play, the idea of which it revives or impresses on my mind. In this manner my imagination has often figured Danton, with a dagger in his hand, encouraging by his voice and his example a band of assassins, more timid or less ferocious than himself: or else, when satiated with his crimes, in|dicating his habits and propensities by the gestures of a Sardanapalus. I certainly would defy an experienced painter, not to find in the person of Danton all the re|quisites for such a composition.

COULD I have confined myself to a regular path, in|stead of abandoning my pen to the wandering course of a mind, that ranges at large over the wide field of events, I would have taken up Danton at the beginning of 1789, a miserable counsellor, more burdened with debts than causes; and whose wife was known to say, that she could not have kept house, without the assistance of a louis-d'or a week, which she received from her father. I would have exhibited him making his first appearance at the section, which was then called a district, and attracting notice by the strength of his lungs: a great sectary of the Orleans faction; acquiring a kind of competency in the course of that year, without any visible means of making money; and obtaining a little celebrity by excesses, which Lafayette was inclined to punish, but which he artfully found means to turn to his own advantage, by procuring himself the protection of the district, which he had rendered

turbulent. I should describe him declaiming with suc|cess in the popular societies, setting himself up for the defender of the rights of all, declaring, that he would accept no place of profit, till the revolution should be at an end; and succeeding nevertheless to that of substitute to the solicitor of the commune; preparing his influence at the Jacobins upon the ruins of that of the Lameths; making his appearance on the tenth of August among those who were returning from the palace* 7.7; and entering into the administration, as a tribune in high favour with the people, whom it was necessary to satisfy by giving him a share in the government. From that period his progress was equally bold and rapid. He attached to himself by largesses, or protected by his influence, those greedy and mi••erable men, who are goaded on by vice and want; he marked out the formidable persons whose ruin it was necessary to effect; he paid the hireling scribes, and in|flamed the minds of the enthusiasts, whom he intended to set upon them; he refined on the revolutionary inven|tions of headlong patriots, or artful knaves; he devised, promoted, and executed plans capable of striking terror, of removing numerous obstacles, of collecting great sums of money, and of misleading the public opinions concerning all these matters. He formed the electoral body by its intrigues, influenced it openly by means of his agents, and nominated the deputation from Paris to the convention, of which he became a member. He went to Belgium to augment his treasures; and had the hardihood to avow a fortune of 1400000 livres [£. 58333.] to wallow in luxury, whilst preaching up sans-culolitisme, and to sleep on heaps of slaughtered men.

As to Fabre d'Eglantine, muffled in a cowl, armed with a poniard, and employed in forging pl••ts to defame the innocent, or to ruin the rich, whose wealth he covets, he is so perfectly in character, that whoever would paint the most abandoned hypocrite, need only draw his por|trait in that dress.

THESE two men were very desirous of making me speak out, by vaunting their own patriotism. It was a subject on which I had nothing to conceal, or dissem|ble: I avow my principles equally to those, whom I suppose to participate in them, and to those, whom I suspect of not entertaining sentiments so pure: in regard to the former it is confidence—to the latter pride. I dis|dain to disguise myself, even under the pretence, or with the hope of being better able to fathom other people's mind. I form a first opinion of men intuitively, and judge them afterwards by their conduct compared at different times with the language they hold; but as to me, I lay open my whole soul, and never suffer a doubt to exist of what I really am.

As soon as the assembly had of its own accord passed a decree, allowing the minister of the home department 100,000 livres [£.4,167,] to defray the expences of useful publications, Danton, and Fabre more particularly, asked me by way of conversation, whether Roland were pre|pared on that point, and if he had writers in readiness to employ. I answered, that he was no stranger to those who had already attained any celebrity; that the periodi|cal works, composed according to right principles, would point out in the first place those whom it was proper to encourage; that it would be adviseable to see their au|thors; and sometimes to bring them together, that they

might be informed of facts, the knowledge of which it would be useful to diffuse, and that they might agree on the most essicacious method of leading men's minds to the same point. That if either of them, Fabre or Danton, knew any in particular, they should mention and bring them to the minister; where they might converse, once a week for instance, on what in existing circumstances ought more especially to occupy their pens.

'WE have the idea,' answered Fabre, 'of a paper to be posted up, entitled Compte rendu au Peuple souverain* 7.8, which shall exhibit a sketch of the late revolution, and for what Camille-Desmoulins, Robert, and some others, will write.'—'Very well! introduce them to Roland.'— This he took care not to do, and said no more about the paper; which was however set on foot, as soon as the assembly had given the council two millions [£.83,333] for secret expences. Danton told his colleagues, that it was proper for each minister to make use of it in his own department; but that as those of the war depart|ment and foreign affairs had already similar funds, the above sum ought to be at the disposal of the other four, who would consequently have so many hundred thousands of livres each. Roland objected strongly to this proposal. He showed, that the intention of the assembly had been, to give the executive power, at this critical period, all the necessary means of acting with promptitude; that it was the council collectively that had a right to decide on the employment of the monies, on the demand being made, and the purposes specified, by the head of each department; and he declared, moreover, that, for his own part, I

would never make any use of it, without producing vouchers to the councils, to whose care the money wa•• committed, and who had a right to watch over its expenditure* 7.9. D••n|ton in reply, swore according to custom, and talked of the revolution, of decisive measures, of secrecy, and of freedom; while the others, seduced perhaps by the plea|sure of dabbling each in his own way came over to his opi|nion, contrary to all justice, delicacy, and sound policy; and in spite of Roland's protest, and of his determined op|position, the harshness of which procured him ill-will. Danton quickly drew a hundred thousand crowns, [£. 20,833] out of the public treasury, and disposed of them as he thought proper: which did not prevent his getting 60,000l. [£. 2,500] from Servan, and a still lar|ger sum from Lebrun, out of the secret service money of their several departments, under various pretences. To the assembly he never gave any account; contenting him|self with affirming that he had accounted to the council: though he only told the council, at a meeting at which Roland was not present on account of indisposition, that he had given twenty thousand livres to one person, ten to ano|ther, and so of the rest, on account of the revolution, for their patriotism, or for reasons of a similar kind.

THIS is the way in which Servan related the story to me. The council, on being desired by the assembly to say, whether Danton had given them any account, an|swered simply yes. But Danton had acquired so much

power, that these timid 〈◊〉〈◊〉 were afraid of giving him offence.

IMMEDIATELY after t•• brave S••rvan went out of office, Danton, no longer 〈◊〉〈◊〉 opposition from the war-office, polluted the army with cordeliers* 7.10, as cowardly as they were avaricious, who promoted. plunder and de|vastation; rendered the soldiers as ferocious to their coun|trymen as to their enemies; made the revolution odious to the neighbouring nations, by excesses of all kinds, which they practised in the name of the republic; and by preaching insubordination in every quarter, laid the foundation of the misfortunes that have since attended our arms.

AFTER this no one will be astonished to hear that Dan|ton, wanting to send one of his creatures into Britanny, under pretence of visiting the sea-ports and examining the inspectors, prevailed on the minister of the marine to give him a commission. But commissions of this kind required the signature of all the members of the council, and Roland refused his. 'Either,' said he to Monge, 'your agents do their duty, or they do not; and of this you are competent to judge. If they do not, dismiss them without mercy; if they do, why damp their zeal and insult them, by sending a stranger among them, who has no connexion with your department, and would only prove your distrust. Such a proceeding by no means becomes the character of a minister: nor will I sign the commission.' The sitting of the council was unusually protracted, and towards the end of it the pa|pers to be signed presented themselves in rapid succession.

Roland perceiving, that he had just put his name, after those of all his colleagues, to the rejected commission, which had been slipt into his hand, cancelled it, and upbraided Monge. 'It is Danton who will have it so,' answered Monge in a whisper, and with fear pictured in his countenance: if I refuse, he will denounce me to the commune, and to the cordeliers, and get me hanged.'— 'Well! in my mind, a minister ought to die, rather than give way to such considerations.'

THE bearer of this commission was arrested in Brit|tany, by order of an administration which took offence at his conduct, and to which the cancelled signature of Roland appeared a sufficient reason to enter into a close examination of his conduct. Heavy charges were pre|ferred against him; but it was at the end of the year, when the cause of all anarchists was espoused by the mountain, which obtained a decree, directing that Guermeur should be set at large.

I HAVE suffered myself to be hurried away by circum|stances; let me now resume the chain of facts.

DANTON and Fabre ceased to visit me towards the latter end of August. No doubt they were cautious of exposing themselves to attentive eyes, while chanting the matins of September; and were well aware of the na|ture of Roland and the people he had about him. His firm temper of mind, his upright and ingenuous disposi|tion, the strictness of his principles, displayed without ostentation, and yet without constraint, and the uniform tenor of his conduct, are sure to strike every eye at the first glance. They concluded, that Roland was an ho|nest man, who was not to be tampered with in under|takings like their's: that his wife had no weak side,

through which he might be assailed; and that, ••ith an equal share of principle, she possessed perhap•• 〈◊〉〈◊〉 that penetration peculiar to her sex, against which d••itful people have the most reason to be upon their g••a•• Per|haps too they judged, that she could sometimes wield a pen; and that such a couple, en••owed as they were with the faculty of reasoning, a firm temper of mind, and some portion of talents, might stand in the way of their designs, and were sit only to be ruined. The events that ensued, illustrated by a number of circumstances, which it would be difficult for me to detail at present, but of which a lively impression remains upon my mind, give to these conjectures all the evidence of demonstration.

IT had been deemed expedient, as one of the first mea|sures to be taken by the council, to dispatch commissioners to the departments, for the express purpose of explaining the events of the 10th of August, and still more for that of inducing the people to prepare for defence, and to be expe|ditious in raising the necessary recruits for the armies oppo|sed to the enemy upon the frontier of France. As soon as the selection of proper persons, and the sending them upon their mission began to be agitated, Roland desired a day's delay to consider whom he should propose.—I will take it all upon myself,' exclaimed Danton: 'the commune of Paris will furnish us with excellent patriots.'—The indolen•• majority of the council accordingly intrusted him with the care of pointing them out: and the next day he came to the council with commissions ready made out, so that no|thing more was necessary than to fill them up with the names he recommended, and to affix the necessary signa|tures. The council made little inquiry about them, and

signed the commissions without going into any debate. Thus did a swarm of men scarcely known; intriguers of sections, or bawlers at clubs; patriots from fanaticism, and still more from views of interest; people destitute ••or the most part of all kind of consequence, except what they had assumed, or hoped to acquire, in public commotions; but entirely devoted to Danton their protector, and ena|moured of his manners and licentious doctrines; thus did these men, I say, become the representatives of the exe|cutive council in every department of France.

THIS business always appeared to me a great stroke of policy on the part of Danton, and a most egregious blun|der on that of the council.

A MAN must figure to himself the perplexity of each minister in the midst of affairs of his own department, in those turbulent times, to be able to conceive that upright and able men could act with so much inconsideration. The fact is, that the ministers of the home department, of war, and even of the marine, were overwhelmed with an excess of business, and that official details so com|pletely engrossed their thoughts as to allow them no time to reflect on the general system of politics. The coun|cil ought to be composed of men employed solely in de|liberating, and freed from all the cares of administration. Danton was in the department that gives the least trouble; and cared little about fulfilling the duties of his place: he gave his griffe* 7.11 to his clerks, who turned the wheel, and the machine went on its own way with|out his taking any concern in the matter. All his

time and attention were dedicated to intrigues, and schemes, tending to promote his views of aggrandizement, fortune, and power. Continually haunting the offices of the war department, he procured appointments in the army for people of his own description; and found means to give them an interest in the contracts and purchases made on the public account. In short, he neglected no line in which it was possible to promote these men, the dregs of a corrupted nation, of which they become the scum in political fermentations, and over which they domineer for a short space of time: with these he augmented his credit, and composed a faction, that soon became powerful, and are now lords paramount of all.

THE enemy advanced, and made an alarming progress on our territory. Men, who desire to govern the multitude, and who have studied the various means of working upon their minds, know terror to be one of the most powerful. This affection absolutely subjects those who experience it, to the men who allow it to hold no dominion over their minds; how much greater still are the advantages of those, who purposely inspire it by false rumours or pretences! That calculation had certainly been made by the instigators of the massacres of September; they must have had the two-fold object of producing a tumult, under cover of which, the violation of the prisons and the murder of the prisoners, would afford them an opportunity of gratifying their private animosities, of executing schemes of plunder, the produce of which held out a pleasing prospect to their avarice: and at the same time of diffusing that kind of stupor, during which a small number of bold and ambitious men might lay the foun|dations

of their power. Inferior agents were easily brought over by the lure of profit: the pretence of immolating supposed traitors, from whom conspiracies were to be feared, could not fail to delude men of weak understand|ings, deceive the people, and serve to justify an action from which its directors would derive the blind obedience of their well paid satellites, the attachment of all who shared the profits with the leaders, and the submission of an intimidated people, surprised at the energy, or persua|ded of the justice of an operation, which the perpetrators would find means to make it abet, by representing it as its own work. Accordingly whoever afterwards dared to re|probate those crimes was proclaimed a calumniator of the city of Paris, pointed out as such to the fury of a certain class of its inhabitants, and stiled a federalist, and a con|spirator. Such was the crime of the twenty-two, joined to the unpardonable guilt of superiority.

A LOUD and alarming report of the taking of Verdun got ab••oad on the first of September. The orators ac|customed to harangue the groups collected in the streets, said that the enemy was in full march to Châlons: ac|cording to them, three days more were sufficient to bring them to Paris; and the people, who calculated nothing but the distance, without taking into the account the various things necessary to the march of an army, for its sustenance, and the conveyance of its baggage and ar|tillery; every thing, in short, that renders its progress so very different from that of an individual, already beheld the foreign troops triumphant amid the smoaking ruins of the capital.

NOTHING was neglected, that could inflame the imagi|nation, amplify objects, or augment the apprehension of

danger; nor was it difficult to get the assembly to adopt measures calculated to promote such designs. Domicili|ary visits, under the pretence of searching for concealed arms, or discover••ng suspected persons, so frequent since the tenth of August, were resolved upon as a general regu|lation, and made in the dead of night. They gave occa|sion to fresh and numerous captions, and to vexations un|heard of before. The commune of the tenth, composed in great part of men, who, having nothing to lose, have every thing to gain by a revolution: the commune already guilty of a thousand enormities, stood in need of more: for it is by the accumulation of crimes, that impunity is secured. The misfortunes of the country were solemnly announced. The signal of distress, the black flag, was hoisted on the towers of the metropolitan church. The alarm-gun was fired. The commune proclaimed, by sound of trumpet, a general assembly of the citizens, on Sun|day the second, in the Champ-de-Mars, in order to rally round the altar of the nation, those zealous patriots who would immediately set off for its defence. At the same time it directed the barriers to be shut, and yet no one was struck with these contradictory proceedings. There was a rumour of a plot hatching in the prisons by the aristocrats, (or the rich), of whom great numbers were confined; and of the uneasy and repugnant feelings of the people at quitting their homes, and leaving behind them those rave••|ous wolves, who were about to break their chains, and would fall with fury upon their dear and defenceless relatives.

ON the first symptoms of commotion, the minister of the interior, whose business it is to watch over the general tranquillity, but who has neither the im|mediate exercise of power, nor a right to employ the

public force, wrote in an urgent manner to the commune, through the medium of the mayor, pointing out the vigi|lance that it became them to display. Nor did he content himself with this step; but applied also to the com|mandant-general, exhorting him to strengthen the posts, and keep an eye on the prisons. He did still more; for hearing they were threatened, he called upon him in the most formal manner, to keep a strict guard over them, making his head responsible for events: and to give more efficacy to a requisition, to which his authority was confined, he had it printed and posted up at the corner of every street. That was hinting to the citizens at large, to be watchful themselves, in case the commandant should neglect his duty.

AT five in the evening of Sunday, nearly at the very moment when the prisons were invested, as I have since been informed, about two hundred men repaired to the hotel of the home department, calling loudly for the mini|ster, and for arms.

I WAS sitting in my own apartment, and as I thought I heard a noise, I rose, and perceiving the mob from the rooms that overlook the court, stepped into the anti-chamber, and enquired what was the matter. Roland was gone out; but the persons who asked for him not being satisfied with that information, insisted upon speaking with him at any rate. The servants refused to let them come up, and told them over and over again the real state of the case. Perceiving those assurances ineffectual, I sent out a domestic, to invite ten of them in my name to walk up stairs; they came in, and I asked them calmly what they wanted. They told me, they were honest citizens, ready to set off for Verdun, but being in great want of

arms, they were come to ask the minister for a supply, and were resolved to see him. I observed to them, that the minister of the interior never had arms at his disposal; and that it was at the war-office, to the minister of that depart|ment, they should address their request. They said in reply, that they had been there, and had been told there was no such thing; that all the ministers were ras|cally traitors, and that they wanted Roland.—'I am sorry he is gone out, for his solid arguments would have some weight with you: come along with me and search the hotel, and you will soon be satisfied that Roland is not at home, and that there are no arms here; nor indeed ought there to be any, as upon reflection you must needs suppose. Return to the war-office, or make your complaint to the commune: and if you wish Roland to speak to you, re|pair to the hotel of the marine, where all the council is as|sembled.'—On their withdrawing, I went into the balcony over the court, and thence beheld a furious fellow in his shirt, with his sleeves tucked up to his shoulders, and a broad-sword in his hand, declaiming against the treachery of the ministers. The ten deputies dispersed themselves among the crowd, and at length prevailed on it to retreat by beat of drum; but they caraied the valet-de-cham|bre away with them as an hostage, made him follow them through the streets for an hour, and then let him return.

IMMEDIATELY after I got into a coach, and hastened to the admiralty, to inform my husband of what had just passed. The council was not yet sitting; but I found a numerous circle, in which were several members of the assembly. The ministers at war and of justice not being

arrived, the others were conversing in the council cham|ber like a private party. I related my story, on which each made his remark, most of them supposing it the fortuitous result of circumstances, and the effervescence of the public mind.

WHAT was Danton doing all that time?—I knew not till several days after; but it is worth while to mention it here, in order that facts may be compared. He was at the mairie* 7.12, in the committee of vigilance, as it was styled, whence issued the orders of arrest that were be|come so numerous within the last few days. There a reconciliation had just taken place between him and Marat, after they had made a parade of a feigned quarrel for four-and-twenty hours. He went up to Pétion's apartment, took him aside, and said to him, in his cus|tomary language, interlarded with energetic expressions: 'Can you guess what they have taken into their heads? Why, may I die, if they have not issued a warrant against Roland?'—'Who do you mean?'—'Why, that mad-headed committee, to be sure. I have the warrant in my possession: look, here it is. We can never suffer them to go on at this rate. What, the devil! against a member of the council!'—Pétion took the warrant, read it, and returned it to him with a smile: 'Let them pro|ceed,' said he: 'it will have a good effect.'—'A good effect!' replied Danton, examining the mayor's counte|nance with an earnest eye. 'Oh! no, I can never suffer it: I'll find means to make them listen to reason.'—And so he did; for the warrant was never carried into execu|tion. But who so blind, as not to see, that the two

hundred men were sent to the minister of the home depart|ment by the devi••r•• of the warrant? Who so dull, as not to suspect, that the failure of their attempt, by delay|ing the execution of the project, might give time to pause to those by whom it was conceived? And who so wanting in penetration as not to perceive, in Danton's conduct with the mayor, that of a conspirator endeavouring to discover what effect such a blow would produce, or to ascribe the honour of having parried it to himself when once it has failed, or been rendered dubious, by involuntary delay.

IT was past eleven, when the ministers left the coun|cil; nor was it till the next morning that we learnt the horrors, of which the night had been witness, and which still contiued to prevail in the prisons. Distressed beyond measure at these abominable crimes, the inability of preventing them, and the evident participation of the commune and the commandant general* 7.13, we agreed that

there remained nothing for an honest minister to do, but to denounce them in the most public manner, to engage the assembly to put a stop to them, to rouse the indigna|tion of all honest men, to do away in this manner the dishonour of consenting to them by silence, and to ex|pose himself, if need be, to the daggers of the assassins, in order to avoid the guilt and shame of being in any way their accomplice.—'It is equally true,' said I to my husband, 'that a courageous determination is not more consonant to justice, than conducive to safety. Firmness alone can repress audacity. If the denunciation of these enor|mities were not a duty, it would be an act of prudence. The people who perpetrate them must necessarily hate you, for you have endeavoured to obstruct their pro|ceedings: nothing remains for you now, but to inspire them with fear.' Roland wrote to the assembly his let|ter of the third of September, which became equally ce|lebrated with that he had addressed to the king. The

assembly were delighted, and ordered it to be printed, post|ed up, and sent to the departments: it applauded, as weak men applaud acts of courage they cannot imitate, but which affect their feelings, and inspire them with hope.

I remember to have read a little work strongly ari|stocratic, published since that aera at London, I believe by Pelltier: the author is greatly astonished, that the same person, who had been so audaciously wanting in re|spect to his king, should afterwards display so much justice and humanity. Either the spirit of party must render a man extremely inconsistent, or virtue is so scarce, that its very existence is become questionable. The friend of freedom and his fellow-creatures holds in the same thorough detestation, and denounces with equal energy, the tyranny of a mob, and the tyranny of a king, the despotism of a throne, and the disorders of anarchy, the wiles of a court, and the ferocity of a lawless ban|ditti.

THAT same day, the 3d of September, a man, formerly a colleague of Roland, and to whom I had imagined I owed the civility of inviting him to dinner, took it into his head to bring with him the orator of the human race, without giving me any notice, or enquiring whether it would be agreeable. I considered his behaviour as attribu|table to the want of breeding of an honest man, imposed upon by the noisy fame of the orator. I gave a polite re|ception to Clootz, of whom I knew nothing but his bom|bast orations, and of whom I had heard nothing else un|favourable; but one of my friends on seeing him, whis|pered in my ear, 'Your guest has introduced to you an insufferable parasite, whom I am sorry to see here.'

THE conversation turned on the events of the day. Clootz attempted to prove, that they were indispensable and salutary measures; made many common-place ob|servations on the rights of the people, the justice of their vengeance, and its subserviency to the happiness of man|kind; spoke loud, and long; ate still more than he spoke; and tired more than one of his auditors. Being soon after chosen a member of the convention, he return|ed occasionally of his own accord; seating himself in the first place, and helping himself to the nicest dishes, without ceremony. My extreme and cold politeness, accompanied with the care of always helping several persons before him, was calculated to make him speedily perceive, that he had been "weighed in the scale, and found wanting." He felt it, came no more, and revenged himself by calumnies. I should not have mentioned this contemptible fellow, but for the distinguished part he acted amongst the slanderers of better men, and the art which he contrived to make federalism a scarecrow for fools, and to set up as a title of proscription against men of understanding, who refused to adopt his chimera of an universal commonwealth.

THE last time he came to visit me he mounted his hob|by-horse, and rehearsed all his extravagancies concern|ing the possibility of a convention formed of deputies from every corner of the world. Some of the company answered him with a jest, while Roland, tired of the noise and pedantry, with which Clootz maintained his opinion, and attempted to make converts to it, had the goodness to assail him with a syllogism or two, and then turned away to another part of the room. The conversa|tion cooled, and branched out into a variety of subjects.

Buzot, whose solid understanding never amuses itself long with attacking castles in the air, was astonished, that feder|alism should be treated as a hearsay in politics. He observed, that Greece, so celebrated and so prolisic of great men and heroic actions, was composed of small confederate repub|lics: that the United States, whch in our days exhibit the most interesting picture of a good social organization, are a composition of the same nature: and that Switzerland afforded a similar example. That at the present moment indeed, and in the actual situation of France, it was im|portant for it to preserve its unity; because in this way it presented a more formidable mass to foreign powers, and a singleness of action which it was highly expedient to keep up for the completion of those laws on which it d••pended for a constitution: that it could not however be denied; there would ever be a laxity in political bands, uniting a Fleming and a native of Provence; that it was difficult to diffuse that attachment, in which the strength of a repub|lic consists, over a surface so extensive; because the love of our country is not strictly that of the land we inhabit, but of the citizens with whom we live, and the laws by which they are governed, without which the Athenians would never have transferred their existence from their city to their ships; that we can never thoroughly love any but those whom we know; and that the enthusiasm of men separated by a distance of six hundred miles can never be general, uniform, and lively, like that of the inhabi|tants of a little state.

THESE sage reflections, esteemed as such by most of those who heard them, were reported and denounced by Clootz as a conspiracy to federalize France, and to

detach the departments from Paris. He represented Buzot as the most dangerous of the conspirators, Roland as their chief, and the members who visited me most frequently as abettors of this liberticide project. I know not whether a madman like Clootz may have been sincere in his appre|hensions. I cannot persuade myself of it; but rather, that he saw, in the fabrication of his lie, an opportunity of revenging his vanity, offended at not being admired; a subject for declaiming in his own way, extremely suitable to the turgidity of his style, and the disorder of his imagi|nation; the occasion of injuring men, whose reason must necessarily displease him, and of making a common cause with those in whose vices he delights: even supposing him to have no secret mission to embroil France, by the help of extravagant patriots, in order to clear the way for his countrymen, the Prussians.

IN the mean time the massacres continued; at the Abbey, from Sunday evening till Tuesday morning; at the Force, still longer, and four days at Bicètre. To my present abode, in the first of those prisons, I am indebted for a knowledge of particulars, at which humanity shud|ders, and which I have not the heart to relate. One circumstance, however, I will not pass over in silence, because it helps to demonstrate, that it was a deep-laid scheme. It is this: the police having a receiving-house in the Fauxbourgh St. Germain, where it deposits the prisoners which the Abbey cannot admit, when too much crowded, chose Sunday evening for their removal, the very instant before the general massacre. The assassins were prepared, fell upon the carriages, which were five or six hackney coaches, and with their swords and pikes

stabbed, and murdered, all that they contained, in the middle of the street, and unrestrained by their sad and heart-rending cries. All Paris witnessed these horrible scenes, perpetrated by a small number of cut-throats: so small indeed, that they scarcely exceeded a dozen at the Abbey, the gate of which was guarded by two national guards only, notwithstanding the requisitions made to the commune and the commandant. All Paris looked on— all Paris was accursed in my eyes; and I could no longer entertain hopes of the establishment of liberty among cow|ards, insensible to the last outrages that can be committed on nature and humanity, and coolly contemplating enor|mities, which the courage of fifty armed men could have prevented with ease.

THE public force was badly organized, as it is still; for a lawless banditti, when determined to domineer, take care to oppose all kind of order, that may obstruct their proceedings. But is it necessary for men to know their captain, and march in battalion, when called upon to fly to the assistance of victims who have the knife of the assassin at their breast? The fact is, that the rumour of a pretended conspiracy in the prisons, improbable as it was, and the affected annunciation of the uneasiness and rage of the people, kept every one in a state of stupefac|tion; and made him believe, while trembling within doors, that it was the people who were the actors: whereas, it appears from the best accounts, that there were not two hundred villains concerned in the whole of those infamo•• proceedings. It is not the first night, therefore, th•• astonishes me: but four whole days!—and curious peop•• went to the spectacle!—No! I know of nothing in 〈◊〉〈◊〉

annals of the most barbarous nations, comparable to those atrocious acts.

ROLAND's health was impaired by it. The disturbance of the nervous system was so great, that his stomach re|jected every thing, and the bile, obstructed in its course, diffused itself over the surface of the skin. He grew yel|low and weak, but retained his usual activity; and while unable to eat, or sleep, continued his labours without in|termission. He was still ignorant of a warrant having been issued against him; for though it had come to my knowledge, I took great care to keep the secret, as it could only have tended to feed an affection that had al|ready gained too much ground: somebody, however, I know not who, took it in his head to mention it the following week. It must be confessed, that it some|times happened to him to state the particular fact in such a way, that his enemies affected to believe, his in|veighing against those massacres arose only from the fears he had entertained of being comprehended in the number of the victims; while, in reality, to the just horror, with which they had inspired him, he only join|ed his indignation, at having been included in the number of the proscribed.

DANTON was the man, who took the most pains to re|present Roland's opposition to these events as the fruit of an ardent imagination, and of the causeless terror with which he was struck. I always thought much might be inferred from that circumstance.

HISTORY will no doubt preserve the infamous circular letter of the committee of vigilance of the commune, containing an apology for the September massacres, and an invitation to perpetrate the like throughout

France; a letter of which great numbers were dispatched from the office of the minister of justice, and counter|signed by his own hand.

VARIOUS circumstances concurring to shew that the prisoners from Orleans, whose removal had been order|ed, and who were already on the road, could not be brought to Paris without danger, the minister of the interior gave orders, in conformity with the opinion of the council, to conduct them to Versailles; and a numerous escort was sent off for that purpose. Men who affected horror at the assas|sinations of Paris, contrived by means of that disguise, to make part of it, and were the directors of the slaughter that took place on the arrival of the prisoners at Versailles.

THE gold, silver, jewels, and other valuables, which abounded at that time in the prisons, in consequence of the wealth and condition of their inhabitants, were pillaged, as may be supposed.

AND much more considerable still was the plunder col|lected by the members of the commune after the 10th of August, from the palace of the Tuileries, from the royal houses in the environs of Paris, to which it sent commis|sioners, and from the houses of private persons who were termed suspected, on whose property it had affixed its seal▪

THE commune had received considerable deposits, and had ordered the removal of considerable treasures, and yet no account appeared; nor could the minister of the interior obtain the information he had a right to demand concern|ing these matters. He complained to the assembly; as he did of the negligence of the commandant-general, from whom he requested in vain a more numerous guard for •• post of the Garde-meuble. In the mean time the brig••

went every length, making a forcible seizure of watches, shoe-buckles, and ear-rings, upon the boulevards, and in the market-places, in open day. The assembly, as usual, commended the minister's zeal: directed him to make a report of the state of Paris; and took no measures what|ever.

THE robbery of the Garde-meuble was effected, and millions fell into the hands of persons, who would natu|rally employ them to perpetuate that anarchy from which they derived their power.

ON the day that succeeded this important theft, d'Eg|lantine called at our house at eleven in the morning; d'Eglantine, who had never made his appearance there since the matins of September; and who the last time he came, told me, as if from a deep conviction of the critical situation of France, that 'things would never go well without a concentration of powers: the executive council, said he, must have the dictatorship; and the president must be the man to exercise it▪ —D'Eglantine did not find me at home; for I had just gone out with madam Petion. He waited two hours; and at my re|turn, I found him in the court-yard. He walked up stairs with me, uninvited; and stayed an hour and half, without being asked to sit down. He lamented in a hy|pocritical tone the robbery of that night, which deprived the nation of so much real wealth; inquired, whether any information concerning the parties had been obtained; and wondered much at its not having been foreseen. He talked afterwards of Robespierre and of Marat, who had begun their attacks upon Roland and myself, as

of hot-headed men, who must be permitted to go on i•• their own way, who meant well, were extremely zealou•• and took umbrage at every thing, but whose conduct ought to excite no alarm. I let him talk on, said very little and took care not to speak out. At length he withdrew and I have never seen him from that day to this; nor could I ever clearly comprehend the purpose of this singular visit. It is a mystery that time must unfold.

I HAVE just said, that Marat was beginning to slander us; and it should be said also, that, the moment the as|sembly had ordered a sum to be left at the disposal of the minister of the home department for printing useful works, Marat, who, the day after the 10th of August, had got his people to carry away four presses from the royal printing house, by way of indemnifying him for those which had been seized by the hand of justice, wrote to Roland for fifteen thousand livres [£. 625], to enable him to publish some very excellent things. Roland made answer, that the sum was too great to be delivered, without knowing the purpose for which it was to be employed; but that if Marat would send him his manuscripts, he would lay them before the council, who would determine whether it were proper to publish them at the expence of the nation. Marat replied in a bad style, a thing he is very capable of, and sent a heap of manuscripts, the very sight of which was enough to frighten one. There was an essay on the chains of slavery, and I know not what besides, bearing evident marks of the author's pen, which is characterising them sufficiently.

I HAD sometimes doubted; whether Marat were not

a fictitious entity: but I was then convinced, that such a being really existed. I spoke of him to Danton, ex|pressed a desire to see him, and begged he would bring him to our house; for monsters are deserving of attention, and I was desirous of knowing whether he were out of his wits, or a well-prompted actor. Danton declined it, as a thing perfectly useless, and even disagreeable, since it would be only making me acquainted with an original like nothing else in the world. Judging from the manner in which he excused himself, that he would not gratify my longing, even if I insisted on it, I pretended not to have been serious in my request.

THE council decided, that Marat's manuscripts should be put into the hands of Danton, who would find means to settle the matter in some way or other. This was cutting the gordian knot, instead of untying it. It did not become the minister of the home department to ex|pend the public money in feeing a madman, nor was it prudent to make him an enemy: but a plain and direct refusal from the council would have set the question at rest. Entrusting this office to Danton was affording him fresh means of ingratiating himself with the mad dog in question, and of turning him loose upon every body he might wish him to worry.

THREE weeks more had passed away, and the business of Septembrizing was at an end. Marat had the im|pudence to post up a demand of fifteen thousand livres from d'Orleans, complaining bitterly of the want of civism which Roland showed by refusing him that sum, and this when he had just stuck up a bill, in which I was attached by name. I was not to be so deceived.—

'This,' said I to my husband, 'is Danton all over: in|tending to attack you, he begins by prowling round your house. With all his sense he has the folly to imagine that I shall be hurt by his abuse; that I shall take up my pen to answer it; that he shall have the pleasure of bringing a woman forward upon the stage; and thus ex|pose the man to whom she is allied to the shafts of ridi|cule. These people may form a tolerable opinion of my abilities, but are utterly incapable of judging of the temper of my soul. Let them continue their calumnies as long as they please—they will never make me stir a step, nor call forth my complaints, nor excite my uneasiness.

ROLAND made his report concerning the state of Paris on the 22d of September. It was exact and spirited: that is to say, it depicted the disorders that had been committed, and the impropriety of suffering any longer the want of subordination that prevailed among the con|stituted authorities, and their dangerous exercise of ar|bitrary power. He did justice to the zeal of the com|mune of the 10th, and acknowledged the great services it rendered to the revolution on that important day: but he shewed, that the prolongation of revolutionary measures produced precisely the reverse of what was hoped for; since tyranny was only destroyed with a view of introducing the reign of justice and order, not less averse from anarchy than from despotism itself; he con|cluded by pointing out the propriety and difficulty of ob|taining accounts from the commune, from which he had repeatedly demanded them in vain.

THE assembly, sound in its intellect, but of a weak temper of mind, applauded the report, ordered it to be

printed, passed a few insignificant decrees, and rectified nothing. It is scarcely possible to conceive a situation more painful, than that of a firm and upright man, who, while at the head of an important department, appearing to pos|sess considerable power, and lying under a heavy respon|sibility, is obliged to be the daily witness of shocking abu|ses, of which the denunciation alone belongs to him, and which the legislative authority either wants means or cou|rage to repress. To cashier the commune, to order a new municipality to be elected according to the forms pre|scribed by law, to organize the public force, and to have a commander appointed by the sections; these were the only measures capable of restoring order, without which the laws would be appealed to in vain, and the convention would necessarily become subject to the municipal autho|rity, which defied all restraint. In this state of things, I would rather have wished Roland to dedicate his talents to his country as a representative of the people, than as mem|ber of a council without energy, and minister of a govern|ment without power. I did not conceal this way of thinking from a few persons capable of estimating it properly; for as to the vulgar, they would never have been able to un|derstand how any one could prefer a modest situation to the "pride, pomp, and circumstance," of a place in the mi|nistry; and for want of seeing the matter in a proper light, would have been apt to form very silly conjectures.

THE department of the Somme, in which Roland had long resided, elected him a member of the conven|tion. This choice excited almost universal regret. It appeared inconsiderate and absurd to take from the helm a man of integrity, courage and understanding, whom it

would be difficult to replace; in order to put him into an assembly, where so many others might serve the state by their votes as well as he, without possessing equal abilities. Roland saw no room for hesitation. He wrote to the as|sembly in consequence, requesting that his place might be filled up, and pointing out the person whom he thought best qualified to succeed him. This news occasioned extra|ordinary agitation: great was the outcry on all sides; and a motion was made, that he should be invited to remain in the ministry. The convention had already formed itself into a body, composed of the great number of members of the legislative assembly who were re-elected, and of the new members who arrived first from the country; or else the latter took their seats in the legislative assembly. Which of the two was the case I do not perfectly recollect at this moment, when I have no documents by me: but Danton was present* 7.14, and rose to oppose this invitation with great warmth. His impetuosity betrayed his rancour, and led him to say many ridiculous things: among others that they ought to adddess the invitation to me also, as a person by no means useless to Roland's administration. Murmurs of disapprobation repelled the invidious in|sinuation; but the decree did not pass, though the ge|neral wish was strongly expressed. Neither was the offer of resignation accepted, and Roland remained still

free to make his option. A crowd of members repaired to his house, to entreat him not to quit the ministry. They pressed the matter home to him, as a sacrifice he owed to his country, and assured him that the convention, when once complete, would bring the public affairs to a grand and decisive issue, which his spirit and activity would help to advance, and by which he would be supported. Two days had passed in these solicitations, when news was brought, that his election was void, because made in lieu of another erroneously supposed to be null; and that conse|quently he had no reason to quit the ministry.

ACCORDINGLY he resolved to keep his place; and wrote to the assembly in a courageous and dignified style, which was crowned with the plaudits of the majority, and made his enemies tremble. His election proved void in rea|lity, but this was a circumstance; that Danton's party en|deavoured to conceal till he should have quitted the mi|nistry, in order that he might be thrown out of every situation. That party no longer gave him any quarter; every day produced some fresh attack: Marat's journal, pamphlets composed for the purpose, and denunciations at the Jacobins, kept repeating incessant calumnies and accu|sations, each more stupid or more atrocious than its pre|decessor. But effrontery and perseverance in things of this kind are sure to succeed with a people naturally fickle and suspicious. They even went so far as to im|pute to him as a crime, what ought to have procured him praise; and had the art of inspiring honest men of weak nerves with alarm at that very solicitude, which tended most to the safety of the republic; I mean his care to inform the public mind. It requires no profound

skill in politics to know, that the strength of a government depends upon opinion; and accordingly all the difference that exists in this respect between a tyrannical administra|tion, and one which takes justice for its guide, is, that the former is employed wholly in contracting the sphere of knowledge, and suppressing truth, while the latter makes it a rule to diffuse them as widely as possible.

THE assembly rightly judged that the events of the 10th of August would produce different impressions, according to the prejudices or interests of individuals, and the man|ner, in which they should be represented, directed a nar|rative of the facts to be drawn up, decreed that it should be printed, supported it by the publication of all the do|cuments that tended to prove its accuracy, ordered the mi|nister of the home department to dispatch them to every part of France, and enjoined him to promote the writing of pamphlets conducive to the same end.

ROLAND felt that, in the circumstances of the times, the art of diffusing information needed improvement, and that it was requisite to produce a stream of light, that might in some measure supply the want of public in|struction, ever too much neglected. By means of the inquiries he set on foot in the departments, he found out and retained a small number of zealous and enlightened men, on whose fidelity, in distributing such writing as might be sent to them, he thought he could rely. He made it a rule to answer every body, and to keep up a correspondence with all the popular societies, country clergymen, and private persons, who might apply to him. He sent to the societies a circular letter, remind|ing

them of the spirit of their institution, and calling them back to the fraternal care of instructing and enlightening each other, from which they had but too great a tendency to depart, in order to debate on public measures, and in|terfere with the government. He selected from among his clerks three or four intelligent men to carry on this pa|triotic correspondence, and dispatch the printed tracts, in|trusting the principal management to him among them who had most sensibility of heart, strictness of principle, and amenity of style; and this correspondence he frequent|ly animated by his own circular letters, dictated by cir|cumstances, and always breathing that morality, and couched in those terms of affection, which engage men's hearts. It is impossible to conceive the excellent effect that these things produced: troubles of every kind subsided; the administrative bodies executed their functions with re|gularity; and five or six hundred societies, and a consider|able number of country clergymen, employed themselves with laudable zeal in diffusing instruction, and in attaching to the public weal men hitherto occupied in their manual labours, but at the same time lost in ignorance, and more disposed to hug their chains, than to maintain that free|dom, of which they neither knew the extent, nor the limits, nor the duties, nor the rights.

THIS patriotic correspondence is a valuable monument, equally attesting the pure principles and enlightened vigi|lance of the minister, the good will of a great number of intelligent citizens, and the admirable fruits of wisdom, patriotism, and reason.

IN the thing itself, and in its effects, suspicious and jealous men saw less the triumph of freedom the main|tenance

of tranquillity, and the consolidation of the re|public, than the fame and reputation that might accrue to the first mover. From that moment Roland was repre|sented as a dangerous man, who had offices of public spirit; soon after as a corruptor of the people's opinions, and a man ambitious of the supreme power; and last of all, as a conspirator.

ALL that was wanting was to read his writings, and examine his correspondence. The departments, that re|ceived his letters, answered him with their warmest thanks; but the banditti of Paris, always calumniating, and never proving any thing, excited by means of a thousand strata|gems, a sort of distrust in the public mind, which the ja|cobins seconded with all their power, for they were no longer swayed by any body but the Dantons, the Robes|pierres, and the Marats.

NOTE.

St. Pelagie, August 8, 1793.

MORE than two months have I been imprisoned, be|cause I am allied to a worthy man, who thought proper to retain his virtue in a revolution, and to give in exact accounts though a minister. For five months he solicited in vain the passing of those accounts, and the pronouncing of judgment on his administration. They have been examined; but, as they have afforded no room for blame, it has been deemed expedient to make no report on the subject, but to substitute calumny in its place. Roland's activity, his multifarious labours, and his in|structive writings, had procured him a degree of con|sideration which appeared formidable; or so at least en|vious

men would have it, in order to effect the downfal of a man whose integrity they detested. His ruin was resolved upon, and an attempt was made to take him into custody at the time of the insurrection of the 31st of May; the epoch of the complete debasement of the national re|presentation, of its violation, and of the success of the decemvirate. He made his escape, and in their fury fasten|ed upon me; but I should have been arrested at any rate; for though our persecutors know that my name has not the same influence as his, they are persuaded that my temper is not less firm, and are almost equally desirous of my ruin.

THE first part of my captivity I employed in writing. My pen proceeded with so much rapidity, and I was in so happy a disposition of mind, that in less than a month I had manuscripts sufficient to form a duodecimo volume. They were intitled Historical Notices, and contained a variety of particulars relative to all the facts, and all the persons, connected with public affairs, that my situation had given me an opportunity of knowing. I related them with all the freedom and energy of my nature, with all the openness and unconstraint of an ingenuous mind, setting itself above selfish considera|tions, with all the pleasure which results from describing what we have experienced, or what we feel, and lastly with the confidence, that, happen what would, the collec|tion would serve as my moral and political testament.

I HAD completed the whole, bringing things down to the present moment, and had entrusted it to a friend, who rated it at a high price. On a sudden the storm burst over his head. The instant he found himself put under arrest, he thought of nothing but the danger, he

felt nothing but the necessity of averting it, and without casting about for expedients, threw my manuscript into the fire. This loss distressed me more than the severest trials have ever done. This will easily be conceived, when it is remembered that the crisis approaches, that I may be murdered to-morrow, or dragged, I know not how, before the tribunal which our rulers employ to rid them of the persons they find troublesome; and that these writings were the anchor to which I had com|mitted my hopes of saving my own memory from re|proach, as well as that of many deserving characters.

AS we ought not, however, to sink under any event, I shall employ my leisure hours in setting down, without form or order, whatever may occur to my mind. These fragments will not make amends for what I have lost, but they will serve to recall it to my memory, and assist me in filling up the void on some future day, provided the means of doing so remain in my power.

PORTRAITS AND ANECDOTES.

BUZOT.

A MAN of an exalted mind, high spirit, and impetuous courage, endowed with great sensibility, ardent, melan|choly, and indolent, cannot but sometimes run into ex|tremes. A great admirer of nature, feeding his imagi|nation with all the charms she has to offer, and his mind with the principles of the most amiable philosophy, he seems formed to taste and to confer domestic happiness: he would forget the whole world in the placid enjoy|ment of private virtues with a heart worthy of his own. But, thrown into public life, he attends to nothing but the laws of rigid equity, and defends them at all ha|zards. Easily roused to indignation against injustice, he assails it with ardour, and is incapable of entering into a composition with guilt. The friend of human nature, susceptible of the tenderest seelings, and capable of the sublimest flights and most generous resolutions, he loves his fellow-creatures, and, like a true republican, is ever ready to sacrifice himself for their good: but a severe judge of individuals, and cautious in selecting the objects of his esteem, he bestows his friendship upon few. This reserve, added to the energetic freedom with which he

expresses himself, has drawn upon him a charge of haughtiness, and made him many enemies. Mediocrity scarcely ever forgives merit; but vice detests and per|secutes that courageous virtue, which sets it at defiance. Buzot is the gentlest man on earth with his friends, but the roughest adversary a knave can have to do with. While yet a young man, the ripeness of his judgment, and purity of his morals, obtained him the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens. Their confidence and esteem were justified by his devotion to truth, and by his firmness and perseverance in speaking it. Men of vulgar minds, who depreciate what they cannot attain, call his penetration a revery, his warmth passion, his strong re|marks satire, and his opposition to all violent measures a revolt against the majority. He was accused of royalism, because he asserted, that morals were necessary in a re|public, and that nothing should be omitted that may tend to maintain or correct them; of calumniating Paris, be|cause he abhorred the massacres of September, and ascrib|ed them to a handful of cut-throats hired by robbers; of a aristocracy, because he wished to call upon the people to exercise its sovereignty by passing judgment on Lewis XVI; of federalism, because he insisted upon the maintenance of equality among all the departments, and opposed the municipal tyranny of an overweening com|mune. Such were his crimes. He had his errors also. Possessing a nobleness of countenance, and elegance of shape, he dressed himself with that care, neatness, and decorum, which bespeak a love of order, a sense of pro|priety, and that respect which a well-bred man owes to the public and to himself.

THUS, when the scum of the nation put the helm in

hands of men, who made patriotism consist in flattering the people, in order to mislead them; in overturning and invading every thing, by way of procuring consequence and wealth; in libelling the laws; that they might govern ac|cording to their own discretion; in protecting licentious|ness, as a mean of procuring impunity for their crimes; in cutting throats, on purpose to perpetuate their power; and in swearing, drinking, and dressing like porters, in order to fraternise with wretches like themselves; Buzot still pro|fessied the morality of a Socrates, and retained the polite|ness of a Scipio.—What a villain!—Accordingly the up|right Lacroix, the judicious Chabot, the gentle Lindet, the modest Thuriot, the learned Duroi, the humane Danton, and their faithful imitators, have declared him a traitor to his country: they have had his house razed, and his property confiscated, as in former days Aristides was banished, and Phocion condemned to die. I am astonished at their not passing a decree, making it felony to remember his name. It would have been more consistent with their views, than their attempts to preserve it coupled with epithets, that are disproved by the evidence of facts.

THEY cannot expunge from the page of history Buzot's conduct in the constituent assembly; nor suppress his judi|cious motions, and vigorous sallies in the convention. How|ever his opinions may be falsified by faithless journals, the principles by which they are supported are still to be per|ceived through the disguise. Buzot frequently spoke off|hand; was indolent in other respects; but never failed to stand up against all perverse systems of politics, and every plan that appeared prejudicial to liberty. His report on the departmental guard, a project so much decried, con|tains

arguments that have never been answered. That con|cerning the law proposed against instigators to murder dis|plays the soundest policy, and a spirit of philosophy, as true as it is natural, and as strong as the reason by which it is upheld. His proposal for the banishment of the Bourbons is developed with precision, supported by the most ac|curate reasoning, and written with equal elegance and feeling. His opinion on the judgment of the king, while it abounds with facts and arguments, is free from that declamation and irrelevance of matter in which so many others indulged in their harangues upon that im|portant subject. And lastly, his letters to his constituents, of the 6th and 22d of January, depict his mind with such truth as will make them long an object of attention. A few combatants of his strength might have given the con|vention the impulsion which is wanted: but the rest of the men of talents, keeping themselves back as orators for great occasions, were too neglectful of the petty warfare which was carried on every day; nor were they sufficient|ly aware of the tactics to which their adversaries were for|ced by their mediocrity to resort.

PETION,

A TRULY honest and good-natured man, is equally incapable of doing the least thing repugnant to justice, of inflicting the slighest injury, or of giving the smallest uneasiness to any one. In regard to himself, he can ne|glect many things, but knows not how to refuse a favour

to any person in the world. The serenity of a good conscience, the mildness of an easy temper, with frank|ness and cheerfulness, are depicted in his countenance. He was a prudent mayor, and faithful representative: but he is too sanguine, and too peaceable, to foresee or to lay a storm. Sound judgment, good intentions, and what is termed justness of thought, are the charac|teristics of his opinions and writings, which bear stronger marks of good sense than of talents. As an orator he is cold; as a writer his stile is loose. An equitable mini|ster, and a good citizen, he was formed for the practice of the social virtues in a republic, and not to found a republican government among a corrupt people, who for some time idolized him, and then rejoiced at his proscrip|tion, as at that of an enemy.

AT the time of the constituent assembly, during the revision of the laws, I was one day with Buzot's wife, when her husband returned at a late hour from the assembly, and brought Pétion with him to dinner. It was at that period when the court affected to consider them as factious men, and described them as intriguers entirely occupied in exciting disturbances. After din|ner, Petion, who was sitting on a large sofa, began to play with a young pointer, with all the earnestness of a child, till at length they both grew tired, and fell asleep in one another's arms. The conversation of four persons did not prevent Pétion from snoring. 'Do but look at that sower of sedition.' said Buzot, with a smile: 'we were eyed askance as we were quiting the hall; and our accusers, very busy about party intrigues themselves, imagine that we are engaged in similar manoeuvres.'

THE circumstance, and the remark, have often recor|red to my mind, since these unfortunate latter times when Pétion and Buzot are accused and proscribed as royalists, with as much reason as the court then had to charge them with intrigue. Always alone with their principles, or associating with none but men who professed the same, in order to discuss their opinions; they thought it would suffice to contend obstinately for justice, to speak the truth constantly, and to sacrifice themselves, or at least to run every hazard, rather than betray so good a cause.—And yet these are the men that are declared traitors to their country.

I WILL here record a fact of some consequence. It has been seen elsewhere, that during the first patriotic administration, it had been agreed upon, that the mi|nister for foreign affairs should take from the fund al|lotted to his department for secret service money cer|tain sums, which were to be put into the hands of the mayor of Paris, as well for the police, which was re|duced to nothing for want of means, as for publica|tions to counteract the influence of those of the court. Dumouriez having quitted that department, the matter was mentioned to d'Abancourt, that is to say, as far as regarded the money wanting for the police alone. D'Abancourt would do nothing in it himself; but pre|tended, that it was a business, which the king should be brought to approve, and of which his majesty would not fail to see the justice. The proposal was not at all to the taste of the king, who answered in direct terms, that he would not buy rods to whip himself. In this he spoke sensibly enough, as he was not a sin|cere

friend to the constitution; and such an answer might have been expected. But a few days after, La|croix, the present colleague of Danton, in concert with whom he is plundering Belgium; Lacroix, the perse|cutor of honest men, and the sovereign of the day, who then had a seat in the legislative assembly, and who was know to frequent the palace, called upon Pétion to promise him the free disposal of three millions of livres [£125,000] if he would employ them in such a way as to support his majesty; a proposition which must needs have been more offensive to Pétion, in his character of mayor, than the other could have been to Louis XVI. It was accordingly rejected, notwithstanding the peculiarly kind reception he met with at that very time from the king; for being sent for to the palace, instead of find|ing the monarch, whom he had never before seen alone, surrounded as usual, he was introduced into his closet, where there appeared to be no one else, and where Louis XVI. lavished upon him many marks of affabi|lity and regard, and even those little captivating cajo|leries, which he had the art of distributing at will. A slight rustling of silk behind the hangings made Pétion imagine that the queen was present without being visible, and the caresses of Louis convinced him of his hypo|crisy; he remained firm and honest, without yielding to the king, who was trying to corrupt him, in like manner as, without flattering the people, he wished to appeal to them on the trial of that very king; while Lacroix, who had served him, and had probably been well paid for his services, thought that he could not be too speedily condemned to die.

PACHE.

IT has been said with reason, that the talent of know|ing mankind is of the first importance to those who go|vern, their errors in that particular being always the most fatal. But the exercise of this talent, at all times so dif|ficult, becomes infinitely more so in the time of a revolu|tion; there is besides a degree of hypocrisy, by which it is no disgrace to be duped, since a man must be wicked himself to suspect its existence.

IN my youthful days, I had met, at the house of one of my relations, a clerk in the post office, of the name of Gibert, who possessed that mildness of manners which generally accompanies a taste for the fine arts. Gibert, a man of cultivated mind, and an affectionate father, amused himself with painting, made a study of music, and by his strict probity obtained the esteem of all his acquaintance. He was extremely attached to a man, his most particular friend, whose extraordinary merit he extolled with all the enthusiasm of an affectionate heart, and with all the modesty of a person who thought himself far his inferior. I was sometimes in company with this friend; in whom there was nothing remarkable at first sight, but his extreme simplicity. I had, however, no opportunity of forming a judgment of him, for I met with him but seldom, and did not often see Gibert himself; I only learnt that his friend, who was Pache, being enamoured of a country life, the only one suited to his patriarchal manners, and in love with liberty, of which his well-informed mind enabled him to estimate all the

advantages, was about to resign a genteel place under the French government, to settle with his family in Switzerland. I afterwards learnt, that having lost his wife, and perceiving that his children regretted Paris, and that the revolution was paving the way for our national eman|cipation, he had taken the resolution of returning; and that being satisfied with the independence he had derived from the sale of his former property, and the fortunate purchase of a national estate, he had sent back the grant of a pension to a quondam minister by whose interest it had been obtained.

IT was not necessary to be often in Gibert's company, and to know his intimacy with Pache, to be informed of every thing that could be said to the latter's advantage. In the month of January, 1792, he brought him to our house, and I saw him from time to time. Pache, as I have already observed, wears an appearance of the utmost modesty. It is so great indeed, that you would be tempted to adopt the opinion he seems to entertain of himself, and take him for a thing of no great value. But credit is given him for that modesty, when it is discovered that he reasons well, and is by no means wanting in information. As he is extremely reserved, and never unbosoms himself freely, people soon suspect him to know more than he says, and end with ascribing to him more merit than he posses|ses, because they were very near committing the injustice of allowing him none. A person who talks little, listens with an air of intelligence to every subject of discussion, and ventures a few well-timed observations, easily passes for a man of sense. Pache had made an acquaintance with Meunieurs and Monge, both members of the academy of

sciences; and had helped them to form a popular society in the section of the Luxembourg, the object of which, they said, was the diffusion of information, and the en|couragement of patriotic sentiments. Pache was very assiduous in this society; and appeared to dedicate to his country, as a citizen, all the time which he did not devote to his children, and which intervened between the public lectures, whither he attended them.

I HAVE related elsewhere how Roland was called to the ministry at the end of March of the same year. The of|fices were filled with agents of the old government, little disposed to favour the new; but they were ac|customed to the routine of business; and it would have been wrong to hazard unhinging the whole of a great ma|chine, in those troublesome times, for the sake of changing a few clerks. Nothing more then was to be done but to keep a strict eye over them, and to make preparations for their removal in due time. But in the multiplicity of business, the daily current of which hurries a man in office along with inconceivable rapidity, it cannot be denied, that he may easily commit himself, if he do not pay the most scrupulous attention to every thing, an attention which becomes infinitely irksome, when the consequence of dis|trust. In this situation, Roland was desirous of finding a trusty man, whom he might have always with him in his closet, and whom he might get to read over a letter, or a report, on any urgent business, when other business still more urgent, would not permit him to revise it himself: not to make any alteration in the composition, but merely to see that the adverse principles of the clerks had not influenced the manner of stating facts, or drawing conclusions; a man, in short, who might

be trusted to seek for a particular paper, in a particular office, or to deliver a verbal message on any matter of im|portance. The idea of Pache occurred. Pache had been a clerk in the admiralty; was well acquainted with the routine of office; possessed abilities, patriotism, morals, which would procure a man in office credit for his appoint|ment, and that simplicity which never excites ill-will. The idea appeared excellent. It was mentioned to Pache, who immediately expressed the utmost eagerness to serve Roland, by making himself useful to the public weal; but on con|dition of preserving his independence, by taking neither title nor salary. This was beginning well. It was supposed that, when a new arrangement should take place in the office, it would be easy to see for what he was particularly fit; and Pache came to Roland's closet every morning at seven, with his morsel of bread in his pocket, and staid till three, without its being possible to prevail on him to take any thing: attentive, prudent, zealous, doing his duty diligently, making an observation, putting in a word, to bring the argument back to the point in question, and soothing Roland, who was sometimes vexed at the aristocratical contradiction of his clerks.

ROLAND, whose disposition was ardent, and his feelings strong, rated the mildness and complaisance of Pache very highly, and treated him as a valuable friend: while I, grateful for the service I supposed him to render my hus|band, lavished on him marks of esteem, and proofs of attachment. The style of Pache was a bad one: it did not do to set him about composing a letter: it was sure to be dry and flat; but he was not wanted for that purpose, and was useful on those occasions which had been supposed to

require the superintendance of a trusty person. Our friend Servan, lately appointed minister at war, was alarmed at the complication and derangement of certain branches of his department, and envied us Pache. 'Let me have that honest man,' said he to Roland: 'you have no further oc|casion for him, you are above your business a hundred times over; and now that the chaos of the first outset has assumed shape and order, you no longer need the superin|tendance of another; but as to me, I am overwhelmed with business, and in the utmost want of persons in whom I can confide.'—These ministers were also of opinion, that some share of capacity was wanting to fill a place, and that a man ought not to be employed without reasonable grounds to suppose him possessed of the necessary qualifica|tions. Roland consented, and Pache, upon being consult|ed, yielded with as good a grace, on the same conditions that he had made with Roland. After his being thrown into this situation, we scarcely ever saw him; but Servan spoke highly in his praise.

A CHANGE in the ministry took place. Roland kept himself secluded from the world; and Pache returned to his section. The tenth of August followed soon af|ter; and the legislative assembly recalled the patriotic ministers. Roland arranged his offices; and as Pache persisted in his resolution to retain his independence, Ro|land appointed Fépoul, whom Pache had introduced; an intelligent, industrious, and careful man, very well calculated for the accomptant department, dexterous in his conduct, never setting himself up in oppo|sition to any one, and ever adhering to the strongest party.

ROLAND, elected a member of the convention, and disgusted at the horrors of September, was desirous of re|tiring from the ministry; and, knowing the extreme em|barrassment the wisest heads would have been in to find him a successor, thought he should render an essential service to the public by mentioning Pache. This he did with all the frankness that belonged to his character, and all the warmth of a feeling heart, proud of acknowledging merit, wherever it seems to reside.

PACHE, to whom he had not hinted his intention, and who had a little before refused the superintendance of the jewel office, a place for which he proposed Restout, whom Roland appointed upon his recommendation, appeared well satisfied to remain his own master. He accepted, how|ever, a mission from Monge for Toulon, repaired thither, and committed several acts of folly, as I was afterwards in|formed.

SERVAN's health obliging him to quit the war-office, the man whom Roland had recommended was appointed to fill that department, as the person on whom in point of principle the strongest dependance might be placed, and who, as to talents, could not but be sufficiently qualified for such a place. We wrote to Pache, to inform him of his appointment, and pressed him to accept it. But this was in all likelihood unnecessary; for, jealous as he was of his independence, he appeared not to have the least un|easiness concerning the burden about to be laid on his shoul|ders, and took it up without hesitation. On his return to Paris he came to see us, and we talked with him freely on the disposition of men's minds; of the party which the Parisian deputies were forming; of the enormities of the

commune; of the dangers that appeared to threaten the liberty of the convention, and particularly of those, which might arise from the predominance of immoral and guilty men, who only sought to acquire power in order to escape punishment or to gratify their passions; of the order to be established in his department, and of our joy at seeing him in the council, where his presence would preserve a union of will and singleness of action. Pache listened to the effusi|ons of confidence with the silence of a man who conceals his own sentiments; opposed every opinion of Roland at the council-table; and came to see him no more.

AT first we imagined, that this conduct arose from a movement of self-love, a sort of sear of appearing the creature of Roland. But I learnt, that this man, who never accepted the invitations of his colleague, u••r pretence of the retirement in which the multi|plicity of his business obliged him to live, received Fabre, Chabot, and other mountaineers at his table; that he paid his court to their friends; that he took their creatures into office, all of them, either as great knaves as the valet in a comedy* 7.15, or ignorant fellows, or in|triguers like themselves; and that honest men began to murmur and despair. I thought it right to try the only means that remained of opening his eyes, if he were merely misled, or of pulling away the mask if he were really acting with ill faith. I wrote to him then on the 11th of November, in a friendly style, to commu|nicate to him the murmurs that began to prevail, the causes to which they were owing, and what his own in|terest

seemed to require. I reminded him of what had been said in confidence on his entrance into the ministry; and I added a word or two concerning the unequivocal sen|timents we had expressed, the unanimity they promised, and the present state of things, so opposite to what they would have led one to expect.

PACHE made me not the smallest answer; and we soon after heard that his first clerks Hassenfratz, Vincent, and the rest (miserable beings, whom I would not mention, had not their enormities already insured their names a place in the history of the popular commotions of these latter times) were declaiming at the jacobins, and elsewhere against Roland, and holding him up as the enemy of the people. There could no longer then be any doubt but that Pache was seeking his downfall. The atrocity and baseness of this conduct filled me with indignation and contempt: sentiments, in which I was beforehand with se|veral who had become acquainted with Pache by means of us, and who were then inclined to charge me with le|vity, though their aversion to the man has since exceeded mine. The peculation, or the profuse expenditure at least, that took place in the war department during his administration, was horrible; every thing was disorgan|ised, owing to the bad choice of the persons employed; it was proved, that regiments reduced to a small num|ber of men were paid as if complete; it was not only impossible to furnish an account, but even to imagine the means of doing so, for more than 130 millions of livres [near five millions and a half sterling]. In the twenty-four hours that followed his dismission, rendered indispensable by so much mischief, he filled up sixty dif|ferent places, with all the persons he knew of who were

base enough to pay their court to him, from his son-in-law, who from a curate became commissary-general with a salary of 19,000 livres [£. 792], to his hair-dresser, a black|guard boy of nineteen, whom he made a muster-master. These are the exploits which the people of Paris rewarded by calling him to the mayoralty, where, supported by the Chaumets, Heberts, and other tatterdemalions, he favour|ed the oppression of the legislative body, the violation of the national representation, and the proscription of all virtuous men, and thus helped to seal the ruin of his country.

AND this was the man who was in search of a free country, who gave up pensions, and refused a place! But Pache went into Switzerland, where his family originally resided—(a circumstance that enabled his father to keep a great man's door at Paris* 7.16,) hoping there to lead a more agreeable life, than in a place which reminded him of the obscurity of his birth; and Pache received from Castries a pension, which bore witness to the state of dependence that he had lived in at his house, and might have excited suspicion, when the nobles and ministers of the old government were objects of persecution. This was a part of his history, which I was unacquainted with, and which is no way in|consistent with Pache returning to France after the tak|ing of the Bastile, currying favour in a little popular society well contrived for the acquisition of influence, obstinately refusing second-rate places, but not hesitating a moment to become a member of the council, and

take upon himself that department in the administration, which circumstances rendered most important. He is in politics the Tartuffe* 7.17 of Moliere.

WHILST I am writing this, Biron is confined in the prison that I inhabit. Towards the end of Pache's mi|nistry, Biron came to denounce him to the assembly, and was consequently provided with documents capable of proving his misdemeanours. Biron met with him; was seduced by his air of simplicity; persuaded himself that he had erred rather from unskilfulness than dishonesty; thought it cruel to bring a man to the block who might have been deceived; relinquished his design; and then mentioned it to Pache himself. Pache came to an explanation; contriv|ed to wheedle Biron out of all the information and docu|ments that related to the complaint of which he was the object; and then had him sent to the army of Italy, where he was left destitute of every thing. Biron obtained some advantages; they were never mentioned; he made com|plaints; no attention was paid to them: time ran on; the evils increased: he grew urgent: an order was sent him to repair to Paris: as soon as he arrived he was taken into custody, and confined at St. Pélagie. In this stroke he re|cognizes the hand of Pache, and has no doubt as to the the tyrant by whom he is oppressed.

GIRONDE.

 

GUADET and GENSONNE

LOVE each other, probably because there is no resem|semblance between them. Guadet is as impetuous as Gen|sonné is cool: but the violent sallies of his fiery temper are never succeeded by malice; nor is his soul susceptible of an intention to offend. Nature has made Guadet an orator; Gensonné has made himself a logician. The one frequently loses, in deliberating, the time which should be employed in action: the other dissipates, in bold, but short and transient, flights, that warmth, which ought sometimes to be concentrated, and always to be longer sup|ported, in order to produce a durable effect.

GUADET had brilliant moments in each of the two assemblies, the legislative and conventional: they were owing to the ascendancy of honesty, seconded by ta|lents: but possessed of feelings too strong to keep up a long struggle without tiring, he has drawn upon him|self the hatred of the wicked, without exciting much of their fear; nor did he ever attain the degree of influ|ence which his enemies were fond of ascribing to him, in order to render him an object of distrust. Gensonné, useful in debate, which, however, he has the fault of drawing out to too great a length, took an active part in the committees, and drew up part of the plan of the intended constitution. His speech on the business of the king is enlivened by sarcastic strokes, to which

an apparent coolness gave an edge, and which the sons of the mountain will never forgive.

BOTH of them tender husbands, good fathers, excellent citizens, virtuous men, and sincere republicans, they only sunk under the accusation of the conspirators, because they did not even know how to coalesce in favour of the good cause, the only one for which they contended, and for which they deserved to live.

VERGNIAUX

WAS perhaps, the most eloquent man in the assembly. He did not speak without preparation, like Guadet: but his made speeches, of great argumentative strength, full of fire, abounding in matter, resplendent with the most beauti|ful forms of oratory, and supported by a dignified delivery, may still be read with the greatest pleasure.

AND yet I love not Vergniaux: he appears to me a phi|losopher totally absorbed in self. Disdaining mankind, no doubt, because he knows them well, he gives himself no concern on their account: but with this way of thinking, a man should keep out of all public employs; if he do not, his idleness becomes a crime; and in this respect Vergniaux is highly culpable. What a pity, that talents like his should not have been employed with the ardour of a man devoted to the public weal, and with the perseverance of an active mind!

GRANGENEUVE

IS the best of men, with a countenance of the least promise. His understanding is of the common level; but his soul is truly great: and he performs noble actions with simplicity, and without suspecting how much they would cost any other but himself.

IN the course of July, 1792, the conduct and disposi|tion of the court indicating hostile designs, every one talked of the means of preventing or frustrating their execution. On this subject Chabot said, with that ardour which proceeds from a heated imagination, and not from strength of mind, that it was to be wished that the court might attempt the lives of some of the patriotic members, as it would infallibly cause an insurrection of the people, the only mean of setting the multitude in motion, and producing a salutary crisis. He grew warm on this head, on which he made a copious comment. Gran|geneuve, who had listened to him without saying a word in the little society where the discourse took place, embraced the first opportunity of speaking with Chabot in private. 'I have been struck with your reasons,' said he: 'they are excellent: but the court is too cunning ever to afford us such an expedient. We must make it for ourselves. Find you but men to strike the blow; and I will devote myself as the victim.'—'What! you will * * * *?'—'Certainly. What is there so wonderful in that? My life is of no great utility: my person of little account: I shall feel the greatest pleasure in offering myself up as a sacrifice for my country's good.'—'Ah, my friend, you shall

not fall alone:' exclaimed Chabot, with a look of enthusi|asm: 'I am determined to share the glory with you.'— 'As you please: one is enough: two may be better. But there will be no glory in the business; for it is necessary that it remain a secret to all the world. Let us then devise the means of execution.'

CHABOT undertook to provide them; and a few days after informed Grangeneuve, that he had found fit instru|ments for the purpose, and that every thing was prepared. —'Very well: let us appoint the time. We will repair to the committee to-morrow evening; I will leave it at half after ten: we must go through some unfrequented street, in which you will take care to have your people posted. But let them mind what they are about. It is their business to shoot us properly, and not to make us cripples for life.' —The hour was fixed, and every thing was agreed upon. Grangeneuve went to make his will, and arrange some domestic concerns, without any bustle; and was punc|tual to the appointment. Chabot did not make his appear|ance. The hour elapsed, and no Chabot came; whence Grangeneuve concluded he had given up his design of par|ticipation; but supposing that the project held good as to himself, he set off, took the road agreed on, walked with measured steps, met nobody on his way, walked back again, for fear of any mistake, and was obliged to return home safe and sound, much displeased at having made all his preparations in vain. Chabot saved himself from re|proach by some paltry excuse, taking good care not to de|part from the usual poltroonery of a priest, or the hypocri|sy of a capuchin friar.

BARBAROUX,

WHOSE features no painter would disdain to copy for the head of an Antinous, active, laborious, ingenu|ous, and brave, with the fiery spirit of a youthful Mar|seillois, was destined to become a man of merit, and a citizen, equally useful and enlightened. Enamoured of independence, proud of the revolution, rich in acquired talents, capable of assiduous attention, habituated to ap|plication, and thirsting after fame; he is one of those men, whom a great politician would seek to attach to himself, and who was made to flourish and distinguish himself in a happy republic. But who can venture to say, to what a degree injustice, proscription, and misfor|tune, may repress the generous efforts of such a mind, and how far it may tarnish its good qualities? Moderate success would have encouraged Barbaroux in his career, because he is fond of fame, and possesses every qualification ne|cessary to procure him reputation: but the love of pleasure is at hand▪ and if once it take the place of glory, in con|sequence of disappointment or disgust, it will debase an excellent temper, and turn him aside from his noblest destination.

DURING Roland's first administration, I had an oppor|tunity of seeing several letters from Barbaroux, addressed rather to the man than to the minister, and intended to enable him to judge of the means it would be proper to employ, in order to keep ardent and irritable minds, like those of the department of the mouths of the Rhone, in the paths of duty. Roland, a strict observer of the law, and like the law severe and inflexible, was incapable of

speaking more than one language, when charged with its execution. The administrators had gone a little astray: the minister had chidden them with severity; and their minds were irritated. It was then that Barbaroux wrote to Roland, to vindicate the purity of his countrymen's in|tentions, excuse their errors, and to make Roland under|stand, that gentler methods would bring them back to subordination with greater speed and effect. These letters were dictated by the best intentions, and by such con|summate prudence, that when I saw their author, I was astonished at his youth. They had the effect they could not fail to have upon an equitable man, who sought only to do good: Roland laid aside a little of his austerity, assum|ed a tone rather brotherly than ministerial, brought the Mar|seillois back to their duty, and gave Barbaroux his esteem.

AFTER Roland quitted the ministry, we saw him more frequently. His open disposition and ardent patriotism inspired us with confidence. It was then, that, reasoning on the bad state of affairs, and on the danger of seeing despotism revive in the north, we formed the conditional project of a republic in the south.—'That will be our last stake,' said Barbaroux with a smile: 'but the Marseil|lois who are here will prevent our recurring to such an ex|pedient.—From that speech, and some others of a like tendency, we conjectured, an insurrection was in agitation; but as his confidence did not lead him to be more com|municative, we asked him no questions about the matter. Towards the latter end of July, he almost entirely discon|tinued his visits; telling us, the last time he called, it would be wrong to judge of his sentiments in regard to us from any presumption furnished by his absence, as it was merely

meant to keep us out of harm's way. After the tent•• •• August he returned to Marseilles, and came back a men•• of the national convention, where he did his duty li•• man of courage. Many of his printed speeches display excellent argumentation, and considerable knowledge of the administrative department of commerce: that on the sup|ply of provisions, excepting the work of Creuze-la-Touche, is the best thing of the kind. But it would be necessary for him to labour if he would become an orator.

THE lively and affectionate Barbaroux is attached to the delicate and susceptible Buzot: I used to call them Nysus and Euryalus. May they meet with a better fate than those two friends! Louvet, more acute than Barba|roux, more gay than Buzot, and in goodness of heart equal to either, is intimate with both; but more particularly with the latter, who serves as a link to connect him with Barbaroux, of whom Buzot's natural gravity makes him in some sort the Mentor.

LOUVET,

WITH whom I became acquainted during Roland's first administration, and whose agreeable society I shall ever covet, may sometimes chance, like Philopoemen, to pay forfeit for his mean appearance. Little, slender, short-sighted, and negligent in dress, he seems of no consequence to the vulgar, who remark not the noble|ness of his forehead, nor the fire which animates his eyes

and features upon the utterance of an important truth, a generous sentiment, a witty saying, or a refined piece of raillery. His pleasing novels, where the graces of imagination are combined with fluency of style, philoso|phical remarks, and attic salt, are known to all men of letters, and to all persons of taste. Politics are indebted to him for more serious works, the matter and manner of which bear witness alike to the goodness of his head and of his heart. He has shewn, that his able hand can alternately jingle the bells of folly, hold the burin of his|tory, and launch the thunders of eloquence. It is im|possible to unite more wit with less pretension and greater good-nature. Bold as a lion, simple as a child, a man of feeling, a good citizen, and a vigorous writer; he can make Cataline tremble in the senate, dine with the graces, and sup with Bachaumont* 7.18.

HIS Philippic, or Robespierride, deserved to be pro|nounced in a senate possessed of energy to do jus|tice. His Conspiracy of the 10th of March, is another piece of value to the history of the times. His Sentinel is a pattern of that kind of bills, and daily instructions intended for a populace, whom it is meant to inform as to facts, without ever influencing them unless by the force of reason, moving them unless for the good of all, or inspiring them with any affections but such as do ho|nour to human nature. It is an excellent contrast to those atrocious and disgusting papers, whose coarse style and filthy expressions are well suited to the sanguinary

doctrine and impure falsehood for which they serve as common sewer; the impudent works of calumny, •• which intrigue pays the hire to imposture, in order •• complete the ruin of public morals, and by means of which the gentlest people in Europe has had its disposition per|verted to such a degree, that the peaceable Parisians, whose kindness of heart was proverbial, are become the rivals of those ferocious pretorian guards, who sold their votes, their lives, and the empire to the best bidder. Let us dismiss these sad images, and turn our attention to the Observations on St. Just's Report against the confined Deputies, by a Society of Girondines, printed at Caen the 13th of July. In it I re|cognized the style, the acumen, and the gaiety of Louvet: it is Reason in dishabille, sporting with Ridicule, without laying aside her strength or dignity.

LAZOWSKI,

A POLANDER by birth, came to France no one knows how, destitute of all fortune; but being rich in the in|terest of the duke of Liancourt, either because related to some person in his service, or because connected with him in some other way, Lazowski obtained the appointment of inspector of manufactures.

IT was one of those very inferior offices of administra|tion which conferred no authority; of which the salary was moderate, and the duties such as to require nothing

but honesty, and a certain share of merit; which conse|quently seemed to suit every body, or for which every one at least thought himself fit. Those places were in the gift of the king's council, on the presentation of the minister of the finances, and were subordinate to the superintendants of trade, petty magistrates of mighty pretensions, who give themselves great airs of impor|tance; who like many others obtained credit from the public on their own report; and who in reality, from multitude of affairs that came before them, had exten|sive connections, and gave audiences, at which, some|times, men of the first rank did not disdain to attend.

LIVELY, enterprising, and passing himself off for a man of understanding, Lazowski had persuaded his pa|tron, that it was not fitting for such a man to remain a simple inspector of manufactures. It is true, that, in order to find him employment, an inspectorship had been created at Soissons, where there was scarcely any manu|facture but of priests, and scarcely any objects of inspec|tion except nuns; for it was a town as full of convents as deficient in industry, and destitute of all commerce but that of the absolute necessaries of life. Mr. de Liancourt, who was led to desire the promotion of his dependant by the vanity common among courtiers, was further impelled by the native excellence of his heart. He was pressing with the minister, and still more so with the su|perintendants of commerce; for the secondary agents are always the really effective men. Calonne was compt|roller-general: he had an inventive mind, and was ready at taking up ingenious ideas. The creation of a travel|ling inspectorship was devised. That was no effort of

genius, since such a place had already existed, and its in|utility had been acknowledged: but it will readily be admitted, that the second creation was not without a mo|tive, since it afforded the means of obliging a man of consequence, while the number of places, which amount|ed to four, gave the operation something of the appear|ance of an affair of state, to say nothing of the advantage of three places remaining for favour and intrigue. They were soon filled. Salaries of 8000 livres [333l. 6s. 8d.] a year were given them; a residence in Paris four months out of twelve; excursions through the provinces during the remaining eight; the right of succeeding the inspectors-general on their decease, and permission to solicit gratifications in proportion to the length of their journies and the importance of their services. It is true, that this sapped the foundation of an institution, the spirit of which was excellent. It deprived the inspectors of the generalities of the hope of arriving at the inspector-generalship by merit or seniority: it discouraged them, by sending into their respective departments men for the most part strangers to the business: and it deprived the minister of the possibility of being well-informed of the state of arts, manufactures, and commerce; and in short of all the objects of industry; of which it was natural to expect a much better account from men settled in the several generalities for that purpose, than from these birds of passage, employed in running over them all. But the views of the old government did not extend so far: and who knows whether the individuals who com|pose the new, are of a more capacious mind, or more disinterested spirit.

THIS happened in the spring of 1784, when I was brought to Paris by family affairs. I heard mention made of a change in the inspections; and I learnt, that the inspec|torship of Lyons, given up by the ambitious Brisson for a travelling one, was conferred upon a very young man. I reflected, that Roland was always looking forward to his retirement, and intended to ask for it, as soon as he should finish his labours in the Encyclopedia, that he might go into his own country, forget Paris, and the meannesses to which a man must stoop for the preferment that was refused to merit. I thought it would be better for him to go home with a place, than without one; and it occured to me, to solicit the exchange of that of Amiens, where we then were, for that of Lyons, which would fix him in his own country. This trifling favour I sup|posed would be readily granted to an old servant, whose knowledge, and whose disposition especially, the super|intendants of commerce dreaded enough to be pleased with his removal. The commissions were already made out. I stated my reasons with all the advantage a woman had in those days in dealing with people who piqued themselves on their politeness: on the other hand were stated the objections, which I frankly rated at their due value; and I obtained the place, almost as soon as my husband was informed of the request I had thought fit to make.

In the public offices who should I meet with but La|zowski, then a fine gentleman, his hair well powdered, his clothes well put on, affecting a little stoop in his shoul|ders, walking upon his heels, sporting deep ruffles, giving himself in short, those little airs of consequence, which were then taken for claims to consideration by fools, and laughed at by men of sense.

THE constituent assembly, by overthrowing the no|bility and suppressing the inspectorships, deprived La|zowski at once of his place and of his patron. Not dar|ing to hope for a pension, which must have been reduced to nothing* 7.19, considering the short time he had been em|ployed, and finding himself without a shilling, he became a patriot, combed the powder out of his greasy locks, made speeches at one of the sections, and turned sans|culotte in good time, since he was really in danger of wanting breeches.

POSSESSED of vigour, considerable remains of youth, a thundering voice, and an excellent turn for intrigue, he soon distinguished himself, and was appointed a capitaine de quartier in the national guard. In that quality he served on the 10th of August, and boasted much of the dangers of the day, like many others who mixed in the tumult to reap some profit, and afterward stood boldly forward as the saviours of their country. But his ex|ploits date from the 2d of September, and from the ac|tivity he contrived to keep up in the section of Finistere, to which he belonged at the massacre of the priests at St. Firmin. He was of equal utility in dispatching the prisoners from Orleans.

HE had occasion to come, as deputy of his section, to the hotel of the minister of the home department, where I saw him, and had an opportunity to observe his aston|ishing metamorphosis The pretty gentleman, with his

affected smiles, had assumed th•• ••age aspec•• ••f a furi|ous patriot; the purple face of •• drunkard ••nd the haggard eye of an assassin.

DEAR to the Jacobins, who we•• knew his w••th, and meant to make him a great man, he was fixed upon to direct the conspiracy of the 10th of March; but he died suddenly, at Vaugirard, of an inflammatory fever, the fruit of debauchery, brandy, and bad hours.

WHO has not heard of the grief of the whole ••orde at this unexpected loss; of the funeral oration delivered by the high-priest Robespierre, his affecting lamentations, and his pompous eulogium of the great man unknown; of the splendid funeral celebrated by the venerable com|mune, and the holy societies; of the adoption of his child, whom papa Pache kissed in the town-hall; and lastly, of Lazowski's interment near the tree of liberty, in the square of the Carrouzel, where his humble grave, covered with turf, is still to be seen?

LET those who are astonished at his posthumous im|portance, recollect, that it emanated from the focus of the jacobins, when they were become as formidable to the timid Parisians, as they were atrocious; at the time that Marat was in all his glory, and Danton in the ple|nitude of his power.

ASSUREDLY the people who took the former for their prophet, and the latter for their lord, might well honour Lazowski as a saint or a hero, which in the religion of the Septembrizers are the same thing.

R••ERT.

'WHAT have you done to Robert?' said a person to me lately: 'his wife and he revile you more virulently than any of your enemies.'—'I have seen but little of them; I have done them some service; but I have not concurred in flattering their ambition, as you are about to hear.'

WHEN I was setting off from Lyons for Paris, in 1791, Champagneux asked me, if I was acquainted with madam Robert, a woman of wit, an author, and a patriot.— Not at all. I have heard indeed that mademoiselle Ke|ralio, whose father is a literary man, was lately married to M. Robert, and that between them they compose the Mercure national, of which I have seen a few numbers. This is all I know about her.'—'Do you wish to see her? If you do, I will give you a letter to her; for as fellow journalists we correspond.'—'A woman of wit, an author, and a republican, must be well worth seeing. Give me a letter.'

I ARRIVED at Paris, and had been there six weeks, when one of our friends, happening to mention ma|dam Robert, whom he had occasion to visit, I recollected that I had a letter for her. I told him so: he offered to accompany me to the house: and thither we went.

I FOUND a lively little woman of genteel address, and high spirit, who gave me a very pleasing reception; and there I found also her clumsy husband with a face as broad as a well-stalled priest's beaming health and self-complacency, and with cheeks whose ruddy tinge

no profound cogitation had ever impaired. They re|turned my visit; and there I suffered our acquaintance to rest. The 17th of July, on my return from the Jaco|bins, where I had been witness to the agitation produced by the mournful events of the Champ-de-Mars, whom should I find at home, at eleven at night, but M. and madam Robert.—'We are come,' said the wife to me, with all the confidence of an old friend, 'to ask you for an asylum. It is not necessary to be often in your company, to form a favourable opinion of your patriotism, and of the goodness of your heart: my husband was drawing up the petition on the national altar, and I was by his side: we have escaped the slaughter, and dare not take refuge in our own house, nor in that of any known friend, where search may be made for us'—'I am much obliged to you,' replied I, 'for having thought of me on so lamentable an occasion, and am proud of affording a shelter to the persecuted: but you will be badly conceal|ed here:' I was then at the Hotel Brittannique, Rue Guenegaud) 'this house is much frequented, and the land|lord is a great partisan of Lafayette.'—'It is only for to-night: to-morrow we will think of a retreat.'

I SENT to inform the mistress of the hotel, that a kins|woman of mine having arrived at Paris at the very mo|ment of tumult, had left her baggage at the coach-office, and would pass the night with me; and that I therefore requested her to make up a couple of field-beds in my apartment. They were accordingly spread in a parlour, and there our husbands lay, while madame Robert slept in my husbands bed, by the side of mine, in my own room. The next morning, I rose early, and hastened to

write letters, to my distant friends, to inform them of the events of the preceding evening. M. and madame Robert, whom I supposed to be very active, and as jour|nalists, to have a much more extensive correspondence than myself, dressed themselves very cooly, sat chatting, after the breakfast I had ordered for them, and placed themselves in the balcony facing the street. They even went so far as to call up a person of their acquaintance who was passing.

THIS conduct appeared to me very inconsistent in peo|ple who were hiding themselves. The person, whom they had called up, entered into earnest conversation with them concerning the events of the day before; boasted that he had run his sword through the body of a national guard; and talked very loudly, though in a room adjoining to a large anti-chamber common to my apartment and to another.

I CALLED madam Robert.—'I received you, madam, with that interest, which justice and compassion for wor|thy people in danger naturally inspire; but I cannot give an asylum to all your acquaintance. You expose your|self by conversing as you do, in a house like this with a person of so little discretion. I am in the habit of receiving members of the assembly, who might stand a chance of being brought into trouble, if seen to en|ter this hotel while it contains a person who boasts of having yesterday committed acts of violence. I beg you will desire him to withdraw.'—Madam Robert called her husband; I repeated my observations, in rather a higher tone, because it seemed to me that the duller personage stood in need of a stronger im|pression; and the man was dismissed. I learnt that his

name was Va••hard; that he was president of a society, called the indigent club; and ••uch praise was bestowed upon his excellent qualities, a•• ardent patriotism. I could not help lamenting inwa••ly its being necessary to set a value upon the patriotism of a person who had every appearance of what is termed a wrong-headed man, and whose heart I should not have imagined to be in the right place. I have since been imformed that he was one of the hawkers of Marat's paper, that he had never learnt to read, and that he is now an administrator of the department of Paris, where he makes a very good figure among his fellows.

IT was noon; and M. and madam Robert talked of going home, where every thing must needs be in confu|sion. I told them, that such being the case, if they would take a dinner with me before they went, I would order it at an early hour. They replied, they would rather return, and engaged themselves accordingly as they were going out of the room. Before three o'clock they made their appearance again in full dress: the wife had long plumes upon her head and plenty of rouge upon her cheeks; the husband had put on a suit of sky-blue silk, with which his black hair, hanging down his shoulders in large curls, formed a singular contrast: a long toledo by his side, added every thing to his dress, that could serve to make him remarkable.—'Why, my god!' said said I to myself: 'are these people mad?' and I listened to their discourse, to satisfy myself, that their brains were not really turned. The fat and portly Robert ate wonderfully well; and his wife prattled to her heart's

content. At length they took leave, nor did I ever see them, or speak of them afterwards to any body.

ON our return to Paris the following winter, Robert, meeting Roland at the Jacobins, made him some civil reproaches, or polite complaints, on account of our hav|ing broken off all intercourse with them; and his wife came several times to call upon me, inviting me in the most pressing manner to go to her house, where she re|ceived company twice a week, and where I should be sure to meet with meritorious members of the legislature. I went once, and there I found Antoine, with whose me|diocrity I was well acquainted, a little man, well enough to put upon a toilette, and a pretty poetaster writing agreeably upon trifling subjects, but destitute of every thing like spirit or consistency. There I found also sev|eral other members, sworn patriots, and several women of ardent civism, who with some honourable members of the fraternal society, completed a circle which suited me little, and to which I never returned.

A FEW months afterwards Roland was called to the administration of public affairs. Four-and-twenty hours had scarcely passed, when I saw madam Robert walk into my apartment.—So, your husband is in place: well, as patriots ought to serve one another, I hope you will not forget mine.'—'I should be very happy, madam, to render you any service; but I do not know how far it may be in my power: M. Roland, however, will no doubt attend to the interest of the public by employing persons of capacity. In four days time, madam Robert returned to pay me a morning visit; and in a few days after, another, always insisting upon the necessity of giv|ing

her husband an appointment, and upon his being entitled to one by virtue of his patriotism. I informed ma|dam Robert, that the minister of the home-department had no kind of places in his gift, except those in his own of|fice, which were all filled: that notwithstanding the advantages which might accrue from changing some of his agents, it behoved a prudent man to study things and persons, previous to alterations, lest the progress of the public business should be impeded; and that, from what she had said herself, it did not seem likely her husband would accept a clerk's place.—'Certainly Robert is qualified for some|thing better.'—'In that case, the minister of the home-department can do nothing to serve you.'—'But he can speak to the minister of foreign affairs, and get some mission for Robert.'—'I believe that it is contrary to the strictness of M. Roland's principles to solicit any thing, or to interfere in the departments of his colleagues: but as you probably mean nothing more than the bear|ing witness to your husband's civism, I will mention it to mine.'

MADAME Robert laid close siege to Dumouriez and Brissot: and three weeks after, returned to tell me, that the former had given her a promise, which she begged me to remind him of, whenever he might chance to come in my way.

IN the course of that week he came to dine with me, Brissot and several other persons being present.—'Have you not promised a certain very pressing lady,' said I to Dumouriez, 'to give her husband a place? She has requested me to remind you of it; and

so great is her solicitude, that I shall not be sorry to be able to quiet her with respect to myself, by telling her, that I have done what she desired.'—'Is it not Robert you mean?' asked Brissot immediately. —'It is.'—'Aye!' resumed he, addressing himself to Dumouriez, with his usual simplicity: 'you ought to give that man an appointment. He is a sincere friend of the revolution, a strenuous patriot, and not very easy in his circumstances: the reign of liberty ought to be beneficial to its friends.'—'What?' said Dumouriez, in|terrupting him, with great good-humour and vivacity, 'are you speaking of that little black-headed man, as broad as he is long? I have no inclination, faith, to disgrace myself; and should be sorry to send such a blockhead any where.'—'But,' replied Brissot, 'in the number of agents you have occasion to employ, all do not require equal capacity.'—'Pray, are you well ac|quainted with this Robert?' said Dumouriez.—'I am very well acquainted with Keralio, his wife's father, a man of infinite respectability, and at his house I have seen Robert. I know he is accused of a few follies; but I believe him to be an honest man, possessed of an excel|lent heart, actuated by the true spirit of patriotism, and standing in need of employment.'—'I employ no such madmen.'—'But you promised his wife?'—'Certainly: an inferior place, with a salary of a thousand crowns; which he refused. Do you know what she asks? the embassy to Constantinople.'—'The embassy to Con|stantinople!' exclaimed Brissot, with a laugh: 'impos|sible!'—'It is fact, however.'—'I have nothing more to say.'—'Nor I,' added Dumouriez: 'except, that I

will order that hogshead to be rolled into the street, the next time he comes, and shut my door in his wife's face.'

MADAME Robert returned once more to the charge. I wished much to get rid of her without coming to a quarrel, and could find but one way that was consistent with my natural frankness. As she complained bitterly of Dumouriez, on account of his tardiness, I told her I had spoken to him; and that I thought it incumbent on me to let her know she had enemies, who propagated ill reports concerning her; that I would advise her to trace them to their source, and destroy them, in order that a man in a public capacity might not expose himself to the detraction of the malevolent, by employing a per|son who was the object of unfavourable prejudices; and that for the above purpose nothing was wanting but an explanation, which I exhorted her to give. Madame Robert repaired to Brissot, who ingeniously told her, that she had been guilty of great folly in asking for an embas|sy, and that people with such ill-founded pretensions might expect, in the end, to get nothing at all.

WE saw her no more: but her husband wrote a pam|phlet against Brissot, to denounce him as a distributor of places, and a deceiver, who had promised him the em|bassy to Constantinople, and then forfeited his word. He entered into the club of Cordeliers, courted an ac|quaintance with Danton, submitted to be his clerk when the latter became minister on the 10th of August, was pushed by him into the eloctoral body, and into the de|putation from Paris to the convention, paid his debts, lived expensively, gave entertainments to d'Orleans, and a thousand others, is now rich, culumniates Roland,

and slanders his wife. All this is easily conceivable: he follows his trade, and earns his salary.

CHAMPFORT AND CARRA.

CHAMPFORT, a man of letters, living in the fashona|able world, familiar with the great people of the old government, and connected with men of talents who have made a figure in the revolution, is acquainted with the court and the city, with characters and intrigues, with politics and mankind, still better than the age in which he lives.

CHAMPFORT partook of that extreme confidence, with which I have always reproached the philosophers who have acted a part in the new order of things. He could not believe in the ascendancy of a few wrong-headed fellows, nor in the confusion they would find means to create.—'You carry things to an extreme,' he would say to me sometimes: 'because, placed in the centre of movement, you suppose its sphere of action extensive. It appears to you to be violent; and you therefore consider it as formidable. These fellows will ruin themselves by their own intemperance: they will never be able to extinguish the light of eighteen centu|ries.'—These fellows rule however; and Champfort is now a prisoner, with all those who will not idolize their power.

A GREAT stock of wit, a tolerable portion of morality, the graces of good breeding, the acquirements of litera|ture, and the philosophy of a sound and cultivated un|derstanding, rendered Champfort's conversation equally solid and entertaining. At first I thought he talked too

much; and I accused him of that exuberance of speech, and that sort of preponderance, which our men of letters very commonly assume. I liked him better in a select society of five or six persons, than in a mixed company of fifteen or twenty, of which I had to do the honours. But after all, I could not help forgiving him for speaking more than any body else, because he afforded me more amusement: he abounds in those happy sallies, which produce the rare effect of making you laugh and think at the same time.—'Do you believe Champfort to be a thoroughly sincere patriot?' said, one day, a man of more than Spartan austerity.—'Let us not misunderstand one another,' replied I. 'Champfort's views are good, and his judgment excellent: he has a sound understand|ing, and is never wrong as to principles: he acknow|ledges and reveres those of public freedom, and human happiness, nor will he betray them. But would he sa|crifice to them his peace, his enjoyments, and his life? That, indeed, is quite a different question; on which, I believe, he would take time to deliberate.'—'It is plain then that he is not a virtuous man.'—'Why he is vir|tuous, as Ninna was chaste: and amidst the corruption which preys on our vitals, it would be lucky for us if we had many such virtuous men.'—Our hypocrites and enthusiasts could never be brought to understand that men should be employed according to the compound ratio of their talents and civism, so that they should be interested in employing the former to the advantage of the latter. I have seen Servan in a rage for finding ex|cellent engineers, whom he had employed in the camp near Paris, dismissed, unde•• 〈◊〉〈◊〉 of their not being

ardent republicans, while sturdy patriots, so completely ignorant as not to know how to draw a line, were put in their place.—'I would not send for them,' said he very justly, 'to give their opinions on a form of go|vernment: but I am convinced they will serve him well who knows how to employ them. We are in want of redoubts, and not of motions.'—That was being too ra|tional: it was talking like the faction of statesmen; and thus it was, men of intellect acquired the title of con|spirators.

WHEN Roland was recalled to the ministry on the 10th of August, it was necessary to change the director of the national library. That place was held by one d'Ormesson, whose name gave umbrage to the new government, and whose mediocrity left no room for regret. The minister of the home department thought of dividing the duties of librarian between two persons; of reducing the salary from twelve thousand livres [£.500] a year to eight [333l. 6s. 8d.]; and of making it a rule to have the library open every day; so that the public would be a gainer, on the score of instruction; the nation, on that of oeconomy; and the government, by the employ|ment of two useful men. In the choice of persons, he fixed on Champfort, who, as man of letters and a phi|losopher, had openly declared for the revolution; and on Carra, already employed in the library, whose extreme zeal, if not his talents, seemed to entitle him to that re|ward. He had never seen either of them, and was determined solely by those considerations, to which was superadded, the necessity of making a choice agreeable to the public. I recei•• ••e visits of both of them, in

consequence of their appointment, and their necessary intercourse with the minister of the home department; and I should have continued to see Champfort with plea|sure, if circumstances had not kept us at a distance from each other.

CARRA, when he became a deputy, appeared to me a very good kind of man, with a very indifferent head. It is impossible to be more enthusiastic in favour of the rev|olution, liberty, and a commonwealth; or a worse judge of men and things. Giving way entirely to his imagi|nation; making his calculations accordingly, instead of grounding them upon facts; arranging in his mind the interests of foreign powers in the way that best suited our success; and seeing every thing in the most flattering point of view, he talked of his country's happiness, and the emancipation of all Europe, with inexpressible com|placency. It cannot be denied, that he contributed greatly to our political commotions, and to the insur|rections of which the object was the overthrow of tyran|ny. His Annals succeeded wonderfully with the popu|lace, by means of a certain prophetic style, which always has weight with the vulgar. When we behold such a man brought to trial, as a traitor to the republic, we are tempted to ask whether Robespierre be not doing the work of Austria. But it is evident that he is labouring for himself; and that, in his insatiate ambition to pass for the sole deliverer of France, he would wish to annihi|late all those who have gained any thing like fame or reputation in the service of their country.

DORAT-CUBIERES

Is a name I had so often seen in the Almanac of the Muses, and other compilations of equal importance, that I could not help laughing, when I found it connected with the title of secretary-register of the municipality. It seemed an absurdity; and so indeed it was. Cubières, faithful to that double character of insolence and baseness, which his forbidding countenance wears in a supreme degree, preaches sans-culotism as he hailed the graces, writes verses upon Marat as he did upon Iris, and san|guinary, as he was before apparenly amorous, without feeling any impulse of the passions, he prostrates himself humbly before the idol of the day, be it Venus or be it Tantalus. Provided he creep through life, and get bread what can it signify how; yesterday it was by writing "a sonnet to his mistress's eye-brow," to-day it is by copying a report, or signing an order of police.

GETTING, somehow or other, admission into my house, when my husband was minister, I knew him only as a wit, and had an opportunity of shewing him some little civility. He dined with me twice: the first time I thought him odd; the second, insupportable: an insipid sycophant, a fulsome flatterer, stupidly conceited, and meanly polite; he is more at variance with good sense and reason than any other being I ever saw. I soon felt the necessity of giving to my open manner that air of solemnity which lets a person, of whom we wish to get rid, know what he has to do. Cubières took the hint; but some time after he wrote to me notwithstanding, to beg permission to introduce a prince, who was desirous

of being admitted to my acquaintance. He dwelt on the title of prince in a manner truly laughable; and added the most disgusting praises of my person. I an|swered as I usually do when I wish to call people to order without putting them in a passion, and to make a jest of them without giving them a right to complain. As to the prince, and his introduction, I contented my|self with observing, that, in the retired life I led, a stran|ger to every thing that might be termed a circle, and avoiding company as much as possible, I made it a rule to receive only such persons as business, or long habits of friendship, made my husband wish to see now and then at his table. Cubières sent me in return excuses as tedious as his eulogium, and requested a single moment to explain himself at my feet. I made him no answer, nor did I ever throw away a thought upon him, till the day I was apprehended, when I perceived his signature to the order of the commune; for there were two: one from the committee of insurrection of the 31st of May, the other from the commune. Both were shewn to me, lest I should object to that of the committee: and yet the latter was the only one exhibited by my guards to the keeper of the Abbey, whither I was conveyed.

THE request of Cubières had led me to suspect some hidden views of interest, and I diverted my husband at the time by a recital of what had passed. I learned after|wards, that the prince of Salm-Kirbourg, the person in question, was then importuning the ministers, in order to obtain from the council an indemnification of some sort or other for his possessions in Alsace. Hence I con|cluded that I had guessed aright, and that the desire of

seeing me had arisen solely from an idea that the new system might resemble the old, when women were pre|vailed upon to ask favours of their husbands. I gave myself credit for my conduct, and found in this anecdote a fresh trait of the character of Cubières. It would be serving him properly to publish his servile letters, as contrasts to his affectation of frankness and a love of li|berty. I should have possessed curious pieces of that sort, if I had preserved all the trash I have received. How many relations and admirers, of whom I had never heard before, sprang up all at once, when I became the wife of a minister!—As I admitted no company, they wrote to me; and I had quite enough to do to read their letters; which I answered briefly and politely, but with great frankness, in order to leave them no room to sup|pose that I either could or would interfere in any thing, and to convince them of the perfect inutility of paying me compliments, or calling themselves my relations.

THE most curious circumstance is, that some of these people were angry, and made me very ungracious re|plies. I remember one M. David, who had planned some establishment, in favour of which he solicited my in|terest. It availed me nothing to answer, that he would accomplish his purpose by applying directly to the mi|nister; that my interference could be of no use; and that I never employed it, as it would be setting myself up for a judge of matters quite out of my way: he con|sidered my principles as abominable, and wrote to me in a very angry stile.

THUS in private was I persecuted for my perseverance in confining myself to my own sphere; and in public I was

assailed by envy, as if I had been governing the state. And yet people think it very pleasing and desirable to fill places of eminence! No doubt the wife of a good man devoted to the service of the public, who is proud of his virtues, and feels herself capable of supporting his courage, has her gratifications, and derives enjoyment from his glory; but these pleasures are not obtained gratuitously, and few are the people who could pay the price they cost, without regretting the purchase.

ANECDOTES.

WHEN I was brought to the Abbey, the family of Desilles was still there; but was soon after removed to the Conciergerie, whence several of the persons concerned in the conspiracy in Brittany were conducted to the scaf|fold. Angelica Desilles, the wife of Roland de la Fouchais, the similarity of whose name to mine led one of my friends into some curious blunders in an attempt to carry me off, was one of the victims. Her sisters were acquitted, and ought consequently to have enjoy|ed their liberty; but, as a measure of general safety, they were again taken into custody, and conveyed to St. Pélagié. I found them there, and conversed with them several times. They were young, amiable, and polite women, the elder of whom, a widow of twenty-seven, was neither destitute of personal charms nor energy of mind; the younger was in a very precarious state of health. At first, overwhelmed with grief, they appeared likely to sink under it: but being both mothers

of helpless children, to whom their existence was neces|sary, they called up all their courage.

THEY mentioned to me repeatedly the base treachery of Cheftel, a man of wit, well know at Paris, where he practises physic, a Breton by birth, who had insinuated himself into the most intimate confidence of their father, was acquainted with his wishes, and appeared to favour his schemes; but, connected at the same time with Danton, he received through his means a commission from the executive power, repaired to Brittany, to pay court to his friend, took up his abode at his country house, received entertainments from his relations, encou|raged his designs, and gave them fresh activity by his assistance. At the moment that appeared most conve|nient, he secretly informed against him, and sent for persons who were in waiting to take him into custody.

DESILLES escaped. But all his family were apprehend|ed; his effects were sealed up, and a strict search was made in all the places which might serve to conceal his correspondence, and which Cheftel had pointed out. The young women, who still thought him a friend to the family, begged his advice, and implicitly followed his directions. Not knowing what to do with a purse of two hundred louis intended for their father, they put it into his hands, ordered the best horse in the stable to be saddled, and pressed Cheftel to make his escape. He made a shew of being determined to share their fate; accompanied them accordingly, but not as a prisoner; and endeavoured to persuade the commander of the armed force, that had charge of the prisoners, to bring

them by day into the great towns. 'Surely you are not in earnest,' said the officer; 'it would endanger their lives'.

THEY arrived at Paris. The trial commenced. The name of Cheftel was erased from the correspondence, because he had disclosed the plot; and the poor victims then discovered the serpent they had fostered in their bosom. Tried, acquitted, detained notwithstanding, and destitute of money, the two young women recollected the purse of gold. They confided the circumstance to a man of courage and probity, who went to Cheftel, and demanded the two hundred louis. Cheftel, taken by surprise, at first denied the fact: but, terrified at the firmness of the demander, who threatened to expose him to the eyes of all the world, he stammered out a confes|sion of the receipt of half that sum, and repaid it in as|signats, but not till after repeated interviews.

CHEFTEL, formerly physician to madam Elizabeth* 7.20, affiduous in pursuit of fortune, had in like manner gained the confidence of a wealthy individual, whose name I believe to be Paganel, or something like it, and who, among other possessions, has immense estates in Limousin. Paganel, desirous of emigrating, to shelter himself from the storms of the revolution, made a fictitious sale of his property to Cheftel. He set off, and depended upon the income, which was to be remitted to him by his faithful friend; but Cheftel kept it for himself, and enjoys with Danton the pleasures of an opulence, which both have acquired by similar means.

AT length repeated solicitations, assisted, perhaps, by more prevailing arguments, procured the two sisters their

liberty. I saw them depart: but I did not know their secret on that head. I have just seen Castellane, how|ever, purchase his enlargement, at the price of thirty thousand livers [£.1250], paid to Chabot. Dillon got out of the Magdelonettes in the same manner. Both were involved in the charge of a counter-revolutionary plot. This very moment, August 22, I have before my eyes a certain Mademoiselle Briant, a kept girl, who lives at No. 207, Cloitre Saint-Benoit, and whose keeper is a forger of assignats. Having been informed against, apparent endeavours were made to apprehend him; but a shower of gold poured into the hands of the admini|strators. The man who sends out the armed force em|ployed to seek and take him into custody, knows where he is concealed; his mistress is apprehend for form's sake; the administrators, who appear to come in order to examine her, bring her accounts of her keeper; and very soon they will both enjoy their liberty, since they have wherewithal to pay for it.

FOUQIER-TAINVILLE, public accuser to the revolutionary tribunal, notorious for his dissolute life and impudence in drawing up articles of impeachment without cause, is in the habit of receiving money from the persons accused. Madam Rochechouart paid him eighty thousand livres [£.3333] for Mony the emigrant. Fouqier-Tainville pocketed the sum; Mony was executed; and madam Rochechouart was given to understand that, if she said a word about the matter, she would be instantly immured never more to behold the face of day. Is it possible? the reader will exclaim.—Well! hear more. In the hands of a late president of the department of the Eure

two letters exist, from Lacroix the deputy, formerly judge-fiscal of Anet. One contains an engagement for five hundred thousand livers [£.20833], to be applied to the purchase of national domains: the other is to with|draw the engagement, and stop the purchase, in conse|quence of the decree which obliges members of the con|vention to account for any increase of their fortune since the revolution. But this decree has been laid asleep since the troublesome twenty-two were expelled; and Lacroix possesses estates as well as Danton, after having pillaged in the same manner.

A DUTCHMAN went lately to the commune of Paris, for a passport to enable him to return to his own coun|try. It was refused. The Dutchman made no com|plaint; but, seeing which way the wind blew, took out his pocket-book, and laid an assignat of a hundred crowns upon the desk. The language was well understood, and he received his passport.

HERE Marat will be quoted to me, in whose house, at his decease, according to the public papers, no more than a single assignat of twenty-five sols [1s. 0d. ½] was found. What edifying poverty! Let us, however, cast an eye on his lodgings: it is a lady who is going to describe them. Her husband, a member of the revolutionary tribunal, is confined in the prison of La Force, for differ|ing in opinion from the ruling powers; and she has been sent to St. Pélagie, as a measure of safety, it is said; but probably because the active solicitations of this active lit|tle woman from the south were dreaded. She is a native of Toulouse, and possesses all the vivacity of the ardent cli|mate under which she first drew breath. Being strongly

attached to a handsome cousin, she was rendered quite disconsolate by his apprehension, which took place a few months ago. She had given herself much pains to no purpose, and knew not to whom to apply, when she thought of trying the effect of a visit to Marat. She asked to speak to him, and was told he was not at home: but he heard a female voice, and came out of his own accord. He had boots on, without stockings, an old pair of leather breeches, and a white silk waistcoat. His dirty shirt, open at the bosom, exhibited his skin of yellow hue; while his long and dirty nails displayed themselves at his fingers end, and his horrid face accord perfectly with his sordid dress. He took the lady by the hand; led her into a parlour newly sitted up, furnished with blue and white damask, and decorated with silk curtains elegantly drawn up in festcons, with a splendid chande|lier, and with handsome porcelain jars filled with natural flowers, then scarce, and of high price; sat down by her side on a voluptuous sopha; listened to her tale; ex|pressed his concern; kissed her hand; squeezed her knees a little; and promised her, that her cousin should be enlarged.—'I would have let him go any length he liked,' said the little woman, gaily, in her southern ac|cent, 'upon condition of his restoring me my cousin—I should only have been obliged to bathe myself afterwards.' That very evening Marat went to the committee, and her cousin left the Abbey on the following day. But ere four and twenty hours had passed, the friend of the people wrote to the husband, sending him a person who stood in need of a certain favour, which it would not have been safe to refuse.

M. DUMAS, a natural philosopher by profession, or rather a pedant by trade, waited upon the famous committee of public safety, some time in the month of June, in order to make some very important proposals. He offered to reconnoitre the army of the rebels in la Vendée, and to give an exact account of its situation and numbers; circumstances concerning which we have re|mained in the utmost ignorance, even since the com|mencement of the war. M. Dumas undertook to inspect the whole most accurately, by taking a bird's eye view of it from a balloon.—'Why, indeed, it is an ingenious thought,' said some of the profound politicians of the committee.—'Yes,' replied citizen Dumas: 'and it may be put into immediate execution. I know of a bal|loon, which is lying, with all its appendages, in the hotel of an emigrant; so that the nation need not be at the expence of the purchase.'—Bravo! He then pro|ceeded to give the necessary information, which was re|ceived with transport, and officially forwarded to the minister of the home department, that he might send for the balloon without delay. The minister's people took the field, and made a forced march to the emigrant's ho|tel. It was an inn, and the apartment he had occupied one little room, where not a rag remained. A report was made in consequence; the committee was distressed be|yond measure; Dumas was clamorous; and a fresh injunction was laid upon the minister, requiring him to make stricter search after the balloon. On this the mi|nister held a consultation with his principal clerk, and decisive measures were resolved upon. A letter was writ|ten to the department; the department turned the busi|ness

over to the municipality; and the municipality refer|red it to the administrators of police. Here the matter ended with the public functionaries; and I laughed hear|tily at the Abbey with Champagneux, who wrote the ministerial letter, at the charlatanry of the brazen-faced Dumas, the stupidity of the committee, the complaisance of the minister, and the whole of this long litany of follies; but I met with the sequel of the story at St. Pélagie.

CITIZEN Jubert, one of the administrators of the police, and one also of those who signed the contradictory or|ders for apprehending and setting me at liberty, a true section orator, of great corpulence, thundering voice, awkward gait, and forbidding countenance, found out a certain mademoiselle Lallement, a fine tall girl of fifteen, kept by St. Croix, an emigrant officer, who was a depen|dent if I recollect aright, of Philip d'Orleans. She was taken up, and sent to St. Pélagie, and in her apartment were found the cover of a balloon, the net, and every thing else belonging to it. This was the very prize de|scribed by Dumas; but the committee had forgotten the expedient; the philosopher had lost all hopes of mak|ing himself of consequence: the minister cared little about the result of the orders he had given; and the ad|ministrators had no objection to take possession of a thing that was now become valuable.

THE youthful Lallement's charms made an impression on the heart of Jubert, who had laid his hands upon several of her effects, seized Sainte-Croix's portrait, and thought her a fool for pretending to be faithful to her keeper. At length imagining, that kindness would ren|der her more tractable, he procured an order for her

enlargement, came to fetch her in a carriage, conducted her to her lodgings, ordered a dinner, restored, with great reluctance, the portrait of Sainte-Croix, of which he had put out the eyes, and then laid claim to his re|ward. The young girl laughed at his pretensions, as well as at his way of making love, shewed him the door, and repaired to the police office, to upbraid him publicly with his attempts, and claim the other effects that had been taken away. The adventure made some noise; but Jubert's colleagues are not likely to condemn it; and it passed along with a multitude of others, still more dis|gusting or atrocious, of which the legislators of the 2d of June daily set the example to all the constituted au|thorities.

August 22.

TO-D•• a misunderstanding has broken out between the tyra•• Hebert, dissatisfied at not being appointed minister, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 ••ather Duchesne* 7.21 upon the ringleaders of the faction, falls upon the fortune-making patriots, names Lacroix, and is paving the way for an attack upon Danton. Danton, more villainous than any of them, but more circumspect, endeavouring to keep some measure in the conduct of public affairs, is already styled a moderé: the committee of public safety abhors his society; the jealous Robespierre holds forth against him; and the cordeliers and jacobins are on the point of coming to a rupture. What a noble spectacle is prepar|ing for us miserable victims: the tygers are about to worry one another; and perhaps will forget us, unless agonizing rage impel them to exterminate us all before their own defeat.

CHABOT is desirous of transporting all suspected per|sons: of course the wives of Pétion and Roland, confin|ed under that appellation, are threatened with a voyage to Cayenne. What a charming destination!

September 23.

DO not my ears deceive me?—What! that wretched woman who lived unknown in the very heart of the country, and who came to Paris for the sole purpose of soliciting her daughter's enlargement, is condemned to die?—How villainous is such a condemnation!

PETION's proscription as a royalist, was one of the won|ders of the last revolution. His wife, whom the shafts of calumny had never reached, had retired to Fécamp, among her own relations, there to wait in silence and re|tirement for happier days; she was going to set off for the sea-side, that her son, a fine boy of ten years of age, and the sole fruit of her marriage, might have the benefit of a salt-water bath. She was taken up and imprisoned with her child; and both have since been brought to Paris, and confined at St. Pélagie. Daily examples teach the wives of the proscribed to expect persecution; and Pétion's has sufficient strength of mind to support her own misfortunes without murmuring; but the situa|tion of her son afflicts her, as equally detrimental to his health and education. She was desirous of trying the effect of solicitations; but how could she render them interesting? How was audience to be obtained?—She wrote to her mother, who lived at Chartres, requesting her to urge her prayer in such a way as became the feel|ings of the maternal mind. Her mother came; repaired

to the bar of the convention; presented her petition with a flood of tears; was referred to the committee; and waited upon all the members who composed it. Some of them seemed to give her hope, but from the greater number she experienced a very unfavourable reception. The inutility of her solicitations becoming evident, she resolved to depart, and repaired to her section, to get her passport signed. There she was denounced and taken into custody. She was then carried before the mayor: a man who resided in the hotel where she had taken up her abode, swore to her having said that the French stood in need of a king: two hired witnesses, natives of Liege, and deserters, gave the like testimony; she was con|demned to lose her head, and is now on her way to the scaffold.

I SAW the unfortunate woman several times, when she came to keep her daughter company. Madam Le|fevre was in her fifty-seventh year: she had been hand|some, and her features still retained some traces of their former regularity: she had also preserved an easy shape, and a beautiful head of hair. As the desire of pleasing had occupied the greater part of her life, but had not led her to acquire any accomplishment, there was nothing about her, but the remains of her former pretensions, and no small share of self-love, which was perceptible on every occasion. She had no political opinion: indeed she was incapable of forming one, for she could not reason two minutes together on any sub|ject whatever. It is possible, that, in a conversation excited by ill-designing people, she may have said, that she did not care whether there was a king or not, provided there were but peace; or words of a like

kind may have been laid hold of, in order to bring her to trial. But who does not perceive in this false and atro|cious application of the law, an intention to mislead the people, by making them suppose the family of Pétion royalists, and the persecution it suffers consequently just?

DREADFUL days of the reign of Tiberius, we not only see your horrors revived, but multiplied in proportion to the number of our tyrants and their favourites! This wretched people, whose morals are destroyed and whose instinct is perverted, thirsts after blood; and every thing except justice, is employed to satisfy its demand. I have seen in the prisons, during the four months that I have been their inhabitant, malefactors purposely for|gotten; and yet what haste is made to inflict the penalty of death on madam Lefevre, not because she has com|mitted any crime, but because she is guilty of having for her son-in-law, the worthy Pétion, whom the tyrants detest!

I CAN conceive nothing more ridiculous than the kna|vish impudence with which the advantages of a con|stitution decreed with equal zeal and rapidity are ex|tolled. But did not the very people who produced it, decree immediately after, that France was, and remained in a state of revolution? and may not the constitution be considered as abortive, since no part of it is put in force? What benefit then do we derive from it? It is a dead letter, which serves only to attest the impudence of those, who wish to make a merit of it, without car|ing whether we taste the sweets of it or no.

THE multitude who accepted it without examina|tion, merely through weakness and indolence, from the

hope of seeing peace, which they would not take the pains to deserve, are well rewarded for their apathy. Unfortunately it is with nations and their affairs, as with individuals and their undertakings: the folly and fears of the many lead to the triumph of villainy, and to the ruin of good men. Posterity will put every one in his place; but it is in the temple of memory. Themis|tocles died nevertheless in exile, Socrates in prison, and Sylla in his bed.

September 26.

THE decree, that orders the act of impeachment against Brissot to be presented to-morrow, was passed in the same sitting, in which it was proposed to shorten the forms of trial before the revolutionary court, and in which the four sections of that tribunal were organised: so that the means of proceeding to judgment are multipli|ed, sentence is enjoined to be passed more speedily, and the defence of the accused is circumscribed, at the very moment, when it is resolved to destroy Brissot, and the rest of the imprisoned deputies, that is to say, those men of talents, who might otherwise have confounded their accusers.

FOUR months have passed, without its having been possible to fabricate that act of accusation, the drawing up of which has been decreed several times over in vain. An increase of power, and the universal sway of terror, were necessary, to enable our tyrants to sacrifice the founders of liberty. But after the arbitrary impri|sonment of a fourth part of France, under the appel|lation of suspected persons, has been resolved upon; af|ter a silly people has been inspired with such a furious

fanaticism that it demolishes Lyons, as if the second city in the republic belonged to the emperor, and as if those whom it thinks proper to call muscadines were wild beasts; after an iron sceptre, held over all France has established the reign of guilt and fear; after a law has been enacted, by virtue of which those who are accused, are bound to answer simply yes, or no, without making any speech in their defence; then indeed they may venture to send to execution those guiltless victims, whose eloquence was still dreaded, so formidable does the voice of Truth appear even to those, who are power|ful enough, to refuse it a hearing.

WHAT care is taken to stifle it! But history stands there, and holds a graver in her hand, preparing in silence to take a tardy vengeance for the fate of the imita|tors of Barnevelt and Sidney.

October 4.

I AM reading a daily paper, and there I see that Robespierre accuses Roland and Brissot of having spoken ill of d'Aubigny, who stole 100,000 livres [£4167] at the Tuileries on the tenth of August, against whom a prosecution was meant to be set on foot, and whose wife in his absence brought the 100,000l. to the commune. I see that Robespierre asserts that Roland appointed Rest|out to the superintendance of the jewel-office, in order to pave the way for its being robbed; while in fact it was Pache, who upon refusing the place when offered to him by Roland, recommended Restout as a proper person to fill it. It is fact also, that the hall of the convention resounded with Roland's complaints against the commander of the national guard, for neglecting to

post sentries at the jewel-office, notwithstanding the re|peated injunctions of the minister of the home depart|ment.

THAT Robespierre, whom once I thought an honest man, is a very atrocious being. How he lies to his own conscience! How he delights in blood!

Infirmary of St. Pelagie. October 23.

WITHIN these solitary walls, where oppressed inno|cence has now dwelt near five months with silent re|signation, a stranger appears.—It is a physician, brought by my keepers for their own tranquillity; for to the ills of nature, as to the injustice of man, I neither can nor will oppose aught but calmness and fortitude. When he heard my name, he said he was the friend of a man, whom perhaps I did not like.—'How can you know that, and who is the person you mean?'—'Robe|spierre.'—'Robespierre! I once knew him well, and esteemed him much: I thought him a sincere and zea|lous friend of freedom.'—'Why, is he not so?'—'I am afraid that he loves power: perhaps from an idea, that he knows how to do good as well as any man, and desires it no less. I am afraid that he is very fond of revenge, and inclined to exercise it particularly upon those whom he considers as blind to his merit. I be|lieve that he is very susceptible of prejudices; that his resentment is easily excited; and that he is too ready to think every one guilty, who does not subscribe to all his opinions.—You never saw him above once or twice in your life!—I have seen him much oftener!—

Ask him: let him lay his hand upon his heart; and you will see whether he have it in his power to say any thing to my disadvantage.'

ROBESPIERRE, if I deceive myself, I put it in your power to convince me of my error. It is to yourself that I repeat what I have said of you, and it is to your friend that I mean to deliver this letter, which my keepers will perhaps suffer to pass, for the sake of the person to whom it is addressed.

I WRITE not to intreat you, as you may well suppose. I never yet intreated any one: and most assuredly I shall not begin to do so from a prison, while writing to a man who has me in his power. Prayers become the guilty, or the slave: innocence vindicates herself, which is quite sufficient; or complains, as she has a right to do, when the object of persecution. But even complaints accord not with my disposition; I can suf|fer, and dare look any shape of misfortune in the face. Besides I know that, at the birth of republics, revolutions, which are almost inevitable, and which give too great scope to the passions of mankind, frequently expose those who serve their country best to become the victims of their own zeal, and of the delusion of their country|men. They will have a good conscience for their conso|lation, and history for their avenger.

BUT by what strange chance is a woman like me, inca|pable of any thing but wishes, exposed to those storms, which generally burst upon the heads of none but effici|ent individuals? And what is the fate that I have to expect? These are two questions, which I beg you to resolve.

I DEEM them of small importance either in themselves, or as far as my individual person is concerned; for what is a single emmet more or less, crushed by the foot of the elephant, in the general system of the world? But they are of infinite interest in regard to the pre|sent liberty and future happiness of my country. For if its declared enemies, and its acknowledged friends and defenders be indiscriminately confounded; if the faithful citizen and generous patriot be treated in the same man|ner as the man of a corrupt and selfish soul, or the per|fidious aristocrate; if the woman of virtue and sensibi|lity, who is proud of the freedom of her country, and, who in her humble retirement, or in any other situation, makes every possible sacrifice to its welfare, find herself associated in punishment with the vain or haughty fe|male, who curses equality; surely justice and freedom do not yet reign, and future happiness is doubtful.

I SPEAK not here of my venerable husband. A re|port ought to have been made of his accounts, when he first gave them in: instead of refusing him justice at first, in order to retain the power of accusing him, when ca|lumny should have deprived him of the public esteem. Robespierre, I defy you not to believe, that Roland is an honest man. You may be of opinion, that he does not think justly, with respect to this or that measure: but your conscience must secretly do justice to his integrity and civism: he needs to be seen little, to be thoroughly known; his book is always open, and is intelligible to every one. He has the ruggedness of virtue, as Cato had its asperity; and has made by the harshness of his man|ner as many enemies as by his inflexible equity: but

these inequalities of surface disappear at a distance, and the great qualities of the public man will remain for ever. It has been reported, that he fanned the flames of civil war at Lyons: and this pretext has been brought forward as a reason for my apprehension! The supposi|tion was not more just than the consequence. Disgusted with public affairs, irritated by persecution, tired of the world, fatigued by his toils, and bending beneath the weight of years, what could he do but conceal his sor|rows in an obscure retirement, and save the unworthy age in which he lives from the commission of a crime?

HE has corrupted the public mind, and I am his accomplice!—This is the most curious of all reproaches, of all imputations the most absurd. You cannot wish me, Robespierre, to take the trouble of refuting them here: the task would be too easy, especially as you can|not be one of the well meaning people, who believe a story because it is in print, or because they have heard it related. My pretended implication in the guilt would be truly laughable, were not the whole rendered atrocious by the misty medium through which it is presented to the people, who, being able to perceive nothing distinctly, figure to their imagination a thousand monstrous forms. Great must be the inclination to injure me of those, who include me in this malicious and premeditated manner, in an accusation strongly resembling the charge of high treason, so often brought forward under the reign of Tiberius, against every one who was destined to destruc|tion, though guilty of no crime. Whence, then, does this animosity arise? It is what I cannot conceive: I, who

never injured any one, and who am even incapable of wishing evil in return for the injuries I receive.

BROUGHT up in retirement; devoted from my youth to those serious studies, which have given some degree of energy to my mind; blest with a taste for simple plea|sures which no change of circumstances has been able to pervert; an enthusiastic admirer of the revolution, and giving way to the energy of the generous sentiments it inspires; kept a stranger to public affairs by prin|ciple as well as by my sex, but conversing about them with warmth, because the public weal takes the lead of all other concerns as soon as it exists; I regarded the first calumnies invented against me as contemptible follies; I deemed them the necessary tribute levied by envy upon a situation, which the vulgar had still the imbecility to consider as exalted, and to which I would have preferred the peaceful state, in which I had spent so many happy days.

THESE calumnies, however, have increased with effron|tery proportionate to my calmness and security: I have been dragged to prison, and have remained there near five months; torn from the embraces of my helpless daughter, who can no longer recline her head on that bosom whence she drew her first nourishment; far re|moved from every thing dear to me; cut off from all communication with the world; the butt of all the ran|corous abuse of a deluded populace, who believe that my death would be conducive to their happiness; hear|ing the guards, who watch under my grated window, diverting themselves with the idea of my punishment; and reading the offensive reproaches cast upon me by

writers, who never saw my face, any more than the other persons of whose hatred I am the object.

I HAVE wearied no one with my remonstrances; I have hoped for justice, and an end to prejudice, from the hand of time; wanting many things, I have asked for nothing: I have made up my mind to misfortune, proud of trying my strength with her, and with tramp|ling her under my feet. My necessities becoming ur|gent, and afraid of bringing trouble upon those to whom I might have addressed myself, I wished to sell the empty bottles in my cellar, which had not been sealed ••p, be|cause it contained nothing of greater value. Immediately the whole town was in an uproar! The house was sur|rounded; the proprietor was taken into custody; the guards were doubled; and perhaps I have reason to fear for the liberty of a poor servant, who is guilty of no crime but that of having served me for the last thirteen years with affection, because I took care to render her life comfortable. So much does the people, misled with regard to me, and deluded by harangues against conspi|rators, think me deserving of that name.

IT is not, Robespierre, to excite your compassion, which I am above asking, and which I should perhaps deem an insult, that I present you with a picture far less melancholly than the truth; it is for your instruction.

FORTUNE is fickle; and popular favour is not less liable to change. Contemplate the fate of those, who have agitated, pleased, or governed the people, from Viscellinus to Caesar, and from Hippo, the harangue-maker of Syracuse, to our Parisian orators. Justice and truth alone remain, and are a consolation in every

misfortune, even in the hour of death itself; while no|thing can afford a shelter from strokes of conscience and remorse. Marius and Sylla proscribed thousands of knights, a great number of senators, and a multitude of wretched men. But could they stifle the voice of history, which has devoted their memories to execra|tion? or was content an inmate of their minds?

WHATEVER be the fate reserved for me, I will find courage to undergo it in a manner worthy of myself; or to anticipate the stroke, as may suit me best. After the honours of persecution, do those of martyrdom await me? am I destined to languish in protracted cap|tivity, exposed to the first catastrophe, that it may be judged requisite to bring about? or am I to be senten|ced to transportation as it is called, in order to experi|ence, when a few leagues out at sea, that trifling negli|gence on the part of the captain, which rids him of the trouble of his living cargo, and enriches the waves? Speak! it is something to know our fate, and a soul like mine is capable of looking it in the face.

IF you wish to be just, and attend to what I write, my letter will not be useless to you, and in that case it may possibly be of service to my country. But be it as it may, Robespierre, I know, and you cannot help feeling, that a person, who has known me, cannot persecute me without remorse.

ROLAND, formerly Phlipon.

NOTE. The idea of this letter, the care of compos|ing, and the intention of sending it, held their place in my mind for four-and-twenty hours: but what effect can my reflections have on a man, who sacrifices col|leagues, of whose integrity he is well assured?

IF my letter were to do no service, it would be ill-timed. It would only embroil me to no purpose with a tyrant, who may sacrifice, but cannot debase me It shall not go.

END OF THE FIRST PART.

Notes

• * 1.1

  That was not my strongest inducement: for, tired of the course of affairs, I feared nothing for myself; innocent and courageous, in|justice might reach, but could not degrade me; and to suffer it, was a trial, in the thought of braving which I felt pleasure; but another reason, altogether personal, and which some day perhaps my pen will disclose, determined me to depart.
• * 1.2

  Of the convention, which at this period were filled with ru•• from the jacobin club. Trans.
• * 1.3

  A Scotchman, who was usher to the convention, as well as to each of the preceding assemblies. Trans.
• * 1.4

  A fountain at one end of the Pont Neuf. Trans.
• * 1.5

  In France it was unusual for any but women of the very lowest ••sses to fuckle their children. Trans.
• * 1.6

  The author means the committee of insurrection of the commune of the 31st of May.
• * 2.1

  The words between double commas had been changed.
• * 5.1

  Here followed originally: 'But it was incumbent on you, pl•• between the law and dishonour, either to fulfil the duties of your p•• or resign it; you must otherwise incur that infamy, with which post•• will brand weakness like yours.'
• * 6.1

  I have since learnt, that the late excesses of the mountain have opened his eyes, and brought him to a proper sense of its principles.
• * 7.1

  Certain provinces, subject to the general laws of the empire, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 ••eraliti••, in contradistinction to the Pays d Etat, or Provinces •• ••ed to France with the reserve of their particular privileges.
• * 7.2

  The only man in the revolution, whose genius could guide the others, and sway the whole assembly Great from his talents, little from his vices; 〈◊〉〈◊〉 always superior to the multitude, and always master of himse••f, when 〈◊〉〈◊〉 would take the pains to command his passions He died soon after: ••hought seasonably for his fame, and for freedom; though events ••ve instructed me to regret him. The counterpoise of a man of such 〈◊〉〈◊〉 was wanting, to check the action of a pack of curs, and preserve 〈◊〉〈◊〉 the domination of ruffians.
• † 7.3

  The court party so called. The uniform of the emigrants ••+••d at Coblents with the princes was black. Trans.
• * 7.4

  In the early part of the revolution, the garden of the Tuileries, and the interior of the Palais Royal, were filled with groups of twenty or thirty people, in the midst of each of which a demagogue called a motion|••ir•• was holding forth. Trans.
• * 7.5

  The new name of the Champ de Mars. Trans.
• * 7.6

  By the constitution of 1789, the king was allowed to withhold his sanction during a certain number of months, at the end of which his ne|glecting to give his consent amounted to a refusal. Trans.
• * 7.7

  See Louvet's Narrative, p. 17. Trans.
• * 7.8

  An account rendered to the sovereign people.
• * 7.9

  He expended of this fund only 1 200l. [£. 50], in an order pay|able to Hell, formerly member of the constituent assembly, for the ex|pense of a body of instruction for the people, in the German language, for the departments of the Rhine.
• * 7.10

  A faction which took its name from a particular club, that far outw•• the Jacobins in revolutionary rage. Trans.
• * 7.11

  An iron stamp used in France by people in office to repeat their signature with greater dispatch. Trans.
• * 7.12

  The residence of the mayor.
• * 7.13

  Grandpre, who by his office is bound to give an account of the state of the prison•• to the minister of the home department, had found their sad inmates in the greatest affright, in the morning of the 2d of September. He had taken various measures to procure the liberation of many of them, and had succeeded with respect to a considerable number; but the ••umours that prevailed kept those who remained in the greatest consternation. That worthy citizen, on his return to the hotel, waited for the ministers at the breaking up of the council. Danton first made his appearance. He went up to him, told him what he had seen, related the steps he had taken, the requisitions made to the armed force by the minister of the home department, the little regard apparently paid them, the alarms of the prisoners, and the care which he, as minister of justice, ought to take on their account. Dan+ton, vexed at this unlucky representation, cried out in his bellowing voice, and appropriate gestures: 'I don't care a d—n for the prisoners: let them take care of themselves!' and walked away i•• •• rage. That was in the second anti-chamber, in the presence of twenty people, who shuddered at hearing such a savage speech from the minister of justice. Danton enjoys the fruits of his crimes, after having attained successively the several degrees of influence; and persecuted and proscribed that probity, which declared war against him, and that merit, of which he dreaded the ascendancy: Danton is become our master. His voice go|verns the assembly; his intrigues keep the people in motion; and his genius rules the committee, falsely denominated the committee of public safety, in which all the power of the government resides. Thus disorder every where prevails, the men of blood bear sway; the most rigid tyranny op|presses the people of Paris; and France, torn to pieces and degraded, un|der such a master, can no longer change its oppressors. I feel his hand rivet the fetters that bind me, as I perceived his inspiration in the first at|tack made upon me by Marat. It is incumbent upon him to ruin those who know him, and resemble him not.
• * 7.14

  I remember that, for more than a month, he continued to officiate at the council, while he went and voted in the assembly. This concentra|tion of power in one person appeared highly improper to Roland, who, du|ring the last fortnight that Danton proceeded in this manner, kept away from a council, influenced by a man who had no longer any right to sit there.
• * 7.15

  In the old French comedies, the lackey is invariably a knavish buffoo•• who sticks at nothing. Trans.
• * 7.16

  The reputation of the Swiss for probity was so great in France, that all the noblemen had them in their service as porters. A porter and a Swiss became at last synonimous words. Trans.
• * 7.17

  A consummate hypocrite. Trans.
• * 7.18

  A famous French wit, who, in concert with la Chapelle, wrote a cele|brated account, in prose and verse, of an excursion they made together. Trans.
• * 7.19

  In settling the amount of pensions for discarded placemen, the con|stituent assembly established a maximum and minimum, with intermediate degrees, according to their length of service; but gave nothing to those who had not been employed a certain number of years. Trans.
• * 7.20

  The king's sister. Trans.
• * 7.21

  The title of a daily paper replete with oath and vulgarity, of which Hebert was the author. Trans.