The Luxembourg is divided into five separate habitations for the Directory, besides the apartments that are used for their sittings, audiences, and other public business.
The Council of Ancients hold their sittings in the Palace of the Tuileries, and the Council of Five Hundred meet in what was formerly the riding-house of the King; but this is considered as merely a temporary chamber for this last body, until the Palais Bourbon, which is now undergoing great alterations and additions, is ready for their reception. This building is in the Faubourg St. Germain, in front of the new bridge called Pont de la Révolution. I shall take an opportunity hereafter of giving your Lordship a description of the interior of these several places.
The scene of any great revolutionary event continues still decorated with the national flag and other emblems of their glorious Revolution, accompanied with an inscription; that where the Bastille stood is, 14 Juillet 1789, la Bastille détruite, et elle ne se relevera jamais; and that in the Place du Carrousel, opposite the Tuileries, is, 10 Août 1792, La Royauté française est abolie, et elle ne se relevera jamais. There are several marks of cannon-balls, but they have made but little impression on this front of the Tuileries; and under each of them is written, 10 Août 1792.
The garden of the Tuileries is, I am told, kept as well as ever it was; some of the largest trees in it, however, have been cut down since our arrival, but they were chiefly decayed. Of the Bastille nothing remains, except a very small part of the foundations; and near it is a newly-erected powder magazine, and much of the remainder of the space is a depôt for firewood.
The churches are many of them open, and have Divine service performed in them without restraint; but a great many more of them are shut, and some used as casernes, storehouses, &c.; but they have all been stripped of every internal decoration, and nothing suffered to remain but the bare walls. Sometimes, indeed—and it appears to be by an oversight—a piece of painting, or perhaps a little image, may have escaped injury; but such a thing is a curiosity, and to be found in a situation not readily to be observed, or difficult to be reached. The favourite mode of mutilating a statue seems to have been to break off the head. In the church of St. Sulpice there is a tolerably good statue of a Virgin and Child remaining, but of this the Child's head is taken off, and that of the Virgin seems to have met with the same fate, but to have been restored. It is wonderful the industry that has been used in the destruction of everything in the way of inscription, of sculpture, or coats of arms, which could possibly remind the people of the ancien régime; and I cannot help being much surprised that all this was done with so much care as to remove merely these particular objects of their enmity, without in the least damaging the adjacent parts. In defacing armorial bearings and things of this sort, the reformers have been at the trouble of cutting them away, so as to leave the shield quite plain, although they were carved in stone. I should have supposed that mischief done in the moment of frenzy would not have been so methodical.
Upon all the public buildings, the public offices, and many others, is written in large characters—Unité indivisibilité de la république, liberté, égalité, fraternité, ou la mort; but in general the last word is rubbed out. The nation took it into their heads not to like death upon the downfall of Robespierre. Upon many of the churches is this inscription—Le peuple français reconnait l'être suprême et l'immortalité de l'âme. This was a decree of the Convention for the people at large, and your Lordship will allow that this must have a ridiculous effect upon the walls of a church entirely in ruins, as is often the case. Another modern inscription is—Citoyens, respectez le bien d'autrui, c'est le fruit de son travail et de son industrie; and perhaps close by it you may read propriété nationale à vendre, in direct violation of the other, offering to sell property of which some unfortunate person has been robbed by the very preachers of this doctrine.
I am obliged to break off suddenly, for reasons which will be very soon known to your Lordship.
I have the honour to be your Lordship's most obedient, faithful, humble servant,
James Talbot.
The last line of this letter is written in an agitated hand, which the circumstance that compelled Mr. Talbot to break off so abruptly sufficiently accounts for. At that moment a note had arrived at the embassy from M. de la Croix, giving Lord Malmesbury notice to depart from Paris in eight-and-forty hours, adding that if the British Cabinet were desirous of peace, the Executive Directory were ready to carry on the negotiations, on the basis they had already laid down, by the reciprocal channel of couriers.