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"Gay rainbow silks their mellow charms enfold, Nought of these beauties but themselves is old." |
I know if I venture to add a word in defence of Tabbyhood, I shall be engaged in a war with yourself and all our young acquaintance; yet in this age, which so liberally "softens, and blends, and weakens, and dilutes" away all distinctions, I own I am not without some partiality for strong lines of demarcation; and, perhaps, when fifty retrogrades into fifteen, it makes a worse confusion in society than the toe of the peasant treading on the heel of the courtier.—But, adieu: I am not gay, though I trifle. I have learnt something by my residence in France, and can be, as you see, frivolous under circumstances that ought to make me grave.—Yours.
Peronne, August 29, 1793.
The political horizon of France threatens nothing but tempests. If we are still tranquil here, it is only because the storm is retarded, and, far from deeming ourselves secure from its violence, we suffer in apprehension almost as much as at other places is suffered in reality. An hundred and fifty people have been arrested at Amiens in one night, and numbers of the gentry in the neighbouring towns have shared the same fate. This measure, which I understand is general throughout the republic, has occasioned great alarms, and is beheld by the mass of the people themselves with regret. In some towns, the Bourgeois have petitions to the Representatives on mission in behalf of their gentry thus imprisoned: but, far from succeeding, all who have signed such petitions are menaced and intimidated, and the terror is so much increased, that I doubt if even this slight effort will be repeated any where.
The levee en masse, or rising in a body, which has been for some time decreed, has not yet taken place. There are very few, I believe, that comprehend it, and fewer who are disposed to comply. Many consultations have been holden, many plans proposed; but as the result of all these consultations and plans is to send a certain number to the frontiers, the suffrages have never been unanimous except in giving their negative.— Like Falstaff's troops, every one has some good cause of exemption; and if you were to attend a meeting where this affair is discussed, you would conclude the French to be more physically miserable than any people on the glove. Youths, in apparent good health, have internal disorders, or concealed infirmities—some are near-sighted—others epileptic—one is nervous, and cannot present a musquet—another is rheumatic, and cannot carry it. In short, according to their account, they are a collection of the lame, the halt, and the blind, and fitter to send to the hospital, than to take the field. But, in spite of all these disorders and incapacities, a considerable levy must be made, and the dragoons will, I dare say, operate very wonderful cures.
The surrender of Dunkirk to the English is regarded as inevitable. I am not politician enough to foresee the consequences of such an event, but the hopes and anxieties of all parties seem directed thither, as if the fate of the war depended on it. As for my own wishes on the subject, they are not national, and if I secretly invoke the God of Armies for the success of my countrymen, it is because I think all that tends to destroy the present French government may be beneficial to mankind. Indeed, the successes of war can at no time gratify a thinking mind farther than as they tend to the establishment of peace.
After several days of a mockery which was called a trial, though the witnesses were afraid to appear, or the Counsel to plead in his favour, Custine has suffered at the Guillotine. I can be no judge of his military conduct, and Heaven alone can judge of his intentions. None of the charges were, however, substantiated, and many of them were absurd or frivolous. Most likely, he has been sacrificed to a cabal, and his destruction makes a part of that system of policy, which, by agitating the minds of the people with suspicions of universal treason and unfathomable plots, leaves them no resource but implicit submission to their popular leaders.
The death of Custine seems rather to have stimulated than appeased the barbarity of the Parisian mob. At every defeat of their armies they call for executions, and several of those on whom the lot has fallen to march against the enemy have stipulated, at the tribune of the Jacobins, for the heads they exact as a condition of their departure,* or as the reward for their labours. The laurel has no attraction for heroes like these, who invest themselves with the baneful yew and inauspicious cypress, and go to the field of honour with the dagger of the assassin yet ensanguined.
* Many insisted they would not depart until after the death of the Queen—some claimed the death of one General, some that of another, and all, the lives or banishment of the gentry and clergy.