This, as well as many other instances of tenderness and heroism, which distinguished the Queen under her misfortunes, accord but ill with the vices imputed to her; and were not such imputations encouraged to serve the cause of faction, rather than that of morality, these inconsistencies would have been interpreted in her favour, and candour have palliated or forgotten the levities of her youth, and remembered only the sorrows and the virtues by which they were succeeded.
I had, in compliance with your request on my first arrival in France, made a collection of prints of all the most conspicuous actors in the revolution; but as they could not be secreted so easily as other papers, my fears overcame my desire of obliging you, and I destroyed them successively, as the originals became proscribed or were sacrificed. Desirous of repairing my loss, I persuaded some friends to accompany me to a shop, kept by a man of whom they frequently purchased, and whom, as his principles were known to them, I might safely ask for the articles I wanted. He shook his head, while he ran over my list, and then told me, that having preferred his safety to his property, he had disposed of his prints in the same way I had disposed of mine. "At the accession of a new party, (continued he,) I always prepare for a domiciliary visit, clear my windows and shelves of the exploded heads, and replace them by those of their rivals. Nay, I assure you, since the revolution, our trade is become as precarious as that of a gamester. The Constitutionalists, indeed, held out pretty well, but then I was half ruined by the fall of the Brissotins; and, before I could retrieve a little by the Hebertists and Dantonists, the too were out of fashion."— "Well, but the Robespierrians—you must have gained by them?"—"Why, true; Robespierre and Marat, and Chalier, answered well enough, because the royalists generally placed them in their houses to give themselves an air of patriotism, yet they are gone after the rest.—Here, however, (says he, taking down an engraving of the Abbe Sieyes,) is a piece of merchandize that I have kept through all parties, religions, and constitutions—et le voila encore a la mode, ["And now you see him in fashion again.">[ mounted on the wrecks, and supported by the remnants of both his friends and enemies. Ah! c'est un fin matois." ["Ah! He's a knowing one.">[
This conversation passed in a gay tone, though the man added, very seriously, that the instability of popular factions, and their intolerance towards each other, had obliged him to destroy to the amount of some thousand livres, and that he intended, if affairs did not change, to quit business.
Of all the prints I enquired for, I only got Barrere, Sieyes, and a few others of less note. Your last commissions I have executed more successfully, for though the necessaries of life are almost unpurchaseable, articles of taste, books, perfumery, &c. are cheaper than ever. This is unfortunately the reverse of what ought to be the case, but the augmentation in the price of provisions is to be accounted for in various ways, and that things of the description I allude to do not bear a price in proportion is doubtless to be attributed to the present poverty of those who used to be the purchasers of them; while the people who are become rich under the new government are of a description to seek for more substantial luxuries than books and essences.—I should however observe, that the venders of any thing not perishable, and who are not forced to sell for their daily subsistence, are solicitous to evade every demand for any article which is to be paid for in assignats.
I was looking at some trinkets in a shop at the Palais Royal, and on my asking the mistress of it if the ornaments were silver, she smiled significantly, and replied, she had nothing silver nor gold in the shop, but if I chose to purchase en espece, she would show me whatever I desired: "Mais pour le papier nous n'en avons que trop." ["In coin, but for paper we have already too much of it.">[
Many of the old shops are nearly empty, and the little trade which yet exists is carried on by a sort of adventurers who, without being bred to any one trade, set up half a dozen, and perhaps disappear three months afterwards. They are, I believe, chiefly men who have speculated on the assignats, and as soon as they have turned their capital in a mercantile way a short time, become apprehensive of the paper, realize it, and retire; or, becoming bankrupts by some unlucky monopoly, begin a new career of patriotism.
There is, properly speaking, no money in circulation, yet a vast quantity is bought and sold. Annuitants, possessors of moderate landed property, &c., finding it impossible to subsist on their incomes, are forced to have recourse to the little specie they have reserved, and exchange it for paper. Immense sums in coin are purchased by the government, to make good the balance of their trade with the neutral countries for provisions, so that I should suppose, if this continue a few months, very little will be left in the country.
One might be tempted to fancy there is something in the atmosphere of Paris which adapts the minds of its inhabitants to their political situation. They talk of the day appointed for a revolt a fortnight before, as though it were a fete, and the most timid begin to be inured to a state of agitation and apprehension, and to consider it as a natural vicissitude that their lives should be endangered periodically.
A commission has been employed for some time in devising another new constitution, which is to be proposed to the Assembly on the thirteenth of this month; and on that day, it is said, an effort is to be made by the royalists. They are certainly very numerous, and the interest taken in the young King is universal. In vain have the journalists been forbidden to cherish these sentiments, by publishing details concerning him: whatever escapes the walls of his prison is circulated in impatient whispers, and requires neither printing nor gazettes a la main to give it publicity.*
* Under the monarchy people disseminated anecdotes or intelligence which they did not think it safe to print, by means of these written gazettes.—I doubt if any one would venture to have recourse to them at present.