We left Peronne early, and, being so fortunate as to encounter no accidental delays, we arrived within a league of Soissons early in the afternoon. Mad. de F____, recollecting an acquaintance who has a chateau not far out of our road, determined to stop an hour or two; for, as she said, her friend was so "fond of the country," she should be sure to find him there. We did, indeed, find this Monsieur, who is so "fond of the country," at home, extremely well powdered, dressed in a striped silk coat, and engaged with a card party, on a warm afternoon on the third of August.—The chateau was situated as a French chateau usually is, so as to be benefited by all the noises and odours of the village—built with a large single front, and a number of windows so judiciously placed, that it must be impossible either to be cool in summer or warm in winter.
We walked out after taking some coffee, and I learned that this lover of the country did not keep a single acre of land in his own hands, but that the part immediately contiguous to the house was cultivated for a certain share of the profit by a farmer who lives in a miserable looking place adjoining, and where I saw the operations of the dairy-maid carried on amidst pigs, ducks, and turkeys, who seemed to have established a very familiar access.
Previous to our arrival at Soissons, the Marquise (who, though she does not consider me as an aristocrate, knows I am by no means a republican,) begged me to be cautious in expressing my sentiments, as the Comte de ____, where we were going, had embraced the principles of the revolution very warmly, and had been much blamed by his family on this account. Mad. de F____ added, that she had not seen him for above a year, but that she believed him still to be "extremement patriote."
We reached Mons. de ____'s just as the family were set down to a very moderate supper, and I observed that their plate had been replaced by pewter. After the first salutations were over, it was soon visible that the political notions of the count were much changed. He is a sensible reflecting man, and seems really to wish the good of his country. He thinks, with many others, that all the good effects which might have been obtained by the revolution will be lost through the contempt and hatred which the republican government has drawn upon it.
Mons. de ____ has two sons who have distinguished themselves very honourably in the army, and he has himself made great pecuniary sacrifices; but this has not secured him from numerous domiciliary visits and vexations of all kinds. The whole family are at intervals a little pensive, and Mons. de ____ told us, at a moment when the ladies were absent, that the taking of Valenciennes had occasioned a violent fermentation at Paris, and that he had serious apprehensions for those who have the misfortune to be distinguished by their rank, or obnoxious from their supposed principles—that he himself, and all who were presumed to have an attachment to the constitution of eighty-nine, were much more feared, and of course more suspected, than the original aristocrates—and "enfin" that he had made up his mind a la Francaise to the worst that could happen.
I have just run over the papers of the day, and I perceive that the debates of the Convention are filled with invectives against the English. A letter has been very opportunely found on the ramparts of Lisle, which is intended to persuade the people that the British government has distributed money and phosphoric matches in every town in France—the one to provoke insurrection, the other to set fire to the corn.* You will conclude this letter to be a fabrication, and it is imagined and executed with so little ingenuity, that I doubt whether it will impose on the most ignorant of the people for a moment.
* "The National Convention, in the name of violated humanity, denounces to all the world, and to the people of England in particular, the base, perfidious, and wicked conduct of the British government, which does not hesitate to employ fire, poison, assassination, and every other crime, to procure the triumph of tyranny, and the destruction of the rights of man." (Decree, 1st August, 1793.)
The Queen has been transferred to the Conciergerie, or common prison, and a decree is passed for trying her; but perhaps at this moment (whatever may be the result hereafter) they only hope her situation may operate as a check upon the enemy; at least I have heard it doubted by many whether they intend to proceed seriously on this trial so long threatened.— Perhaps I may have before noticed to you that the convention never seemed capable of any thing great or uniform, and that all their proceedings took a tinge from that frivolity and meanness which I am almost tempted to believe inherent in the French character. They have just now, amidst a long string of decrees, the objects of which are of the first consequence, inserted one for the destruction of all the royal tombs before the tenth of August, and another for reducing the expences of the King's children, particularly their food, to bare necessaries. Had our English revolutionists thus employed themselves, they might have expelled the sculptured Monarchs from the Abbey, and waged a very successful war on the admirers of Gothic antiquity; but neither the Stuarts, nor the Catholic religion, would have had much to fear from them.
We have been wandering about the town all day, and I have not remarked that the successes of the enemy have occasioned any regret. When I was in France three years ago, you may recollect that my letters usually contained some relation of our embarrassment and delays, owing to the fear and ignorance of the people. At one place they apprehended the introduction of foreign troops—at another, that the Comte d'Artois was to burn all the corn. In short, the whole country teemed with plots and counterplots, every one of which was more absurd and inexplicable than those of Oates, with his whole tribe of Jesuits. At present, when a powerful army is invading the frontiers, and people have not in many places bread to eat, they seem to be very little solicitous about the former, and as little disposed to blame the aristocrates for the latter.
It is really extraordinary, after all the pains that have been taken to excite hatred and resentment against the English, that I have not heard of a single instance of their having been insulted or molested. Whatever inconveniencies they may have been subjected to, were acts of the government, not of the people; and perhaps this is the first war between the two nations in which the reverse has not been the case.