The stranger in France

by Sir John Carr

A neat remark was made upon the abbè Sieyes, to whose prolific mind the revolution and all its changes have been imputed. This extraordinary man has a noble house in the Champs Elisées, and is said to have the best cook in Paris. As a party in which I was, were passing his hotel, a near relation of the abbè, who happened to be with us, commented upon the great services which the cloistered fabricator of constitutions had afforded to France, and adverted to his house and establishment as an unsuitable reward for his labours. A gentleman, who was intimate with the abbè, but was no great admirer of his morals, said, "I think, my dear madam, the abbè ought to be very well satisfied with his destiny; and I would advise him to live as long as he can in the Champs Elisées; for when he shall happen to experience that mysterious transition to which we are all hastening, I think the chances will be against his finding good accommodations in any other Elysium."

As I was passing one morning through the hall of the Thuilleries, the great door of the council chamber was opened, and the second and third consuls, preceded and followed by their suite in full costume, marched with great pomp to business, to the roll of a drum. This singular procession from one part of the house to the other, had a ridiculous effect, and naturally reminded me of the fustian pageantry which, upon the stage, attends the entries and exits of the kings and queens of the drama.

I have often been surprised to find that the injuries which the cornice of the entrance, and the capitals of the columns in the hall of the Thuilleries, have sustained from the ball of cannon, during the horrible massacre of the 10th of August, 1792, have never been repaired. Every vestige of that day of dismay and slaughter ought for ever to be effaced; instead of which, some labour has been exercised to perpetuate its remembrance. Under the largest chasms which have been made by the shot is painted, in strong characters, that gloomy date.

In the evening of that day of devastation, from which France may date all her sufferings, a friend of mine went into the court-yard of the Thuilleries, where the review is now held, for the purpose of endeavouring to recognise, amongst the dead, any of his acquaintances. In the course of this shocking search, he declared to me, that he counted no less than eight hundred bodies of Swiss and French, who had perished in that frightful contest between an infatuated people and an irresolute sovereign. I will not dilate upon this painful subject, but dismiss it in the words of the holy and resigned descendant of Nahor, "Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it; let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it."

I have before had occasion to notice the promptitude and activity of the french police, under the penetrating eye of Mons. Fouche. No one can escape the vigilance of this man and his emissaries. An emigrant of respectability assured me, that when he and a friend of his waited upon him for their passports to enable them to quit Paris for the South of France, he surprised them by relating to them the names of the towns, the streets, and of the people with whom they had lodged, at various times, during their emigration in England.

Whilst I was at Paris, an affair happened very near the hotel in which I lodged, which in its sequel displayed that high spirit and sensibility which appear to form the presiding features in the french character, to which may be attributed all the excesses which have stained, and all the glory which has embellished it. A lady of fortune, and her only daughter, an elegant and lovely young woman, resided in the Fauxbourg St. Germain. A young man of merit and accomplishments, but unaided by the powerful pretensions of suitable fortune, cherished a passion for the young lady, to whom he had frequent access, on account of his being distantly related to her. His affection was requited with return; and before the parent suspected the attachment, the lovers were solemnly engaged. The indications of pure love are generally too unguarded to escape the keen, observing eye of a cold, mercenary mother. She charged her daughter with her fondness, and forbade her distracted lover the house. To close up every avenue of hope, she withdrew with her wretched child into Italy, where they remained for two years; at the expiration of which, the mother had arranged for her daughter a match more congenial to her own pride and avarice, with an elderly gentleman, who had considerable fortune and property in the vicinity of Bourdeaux. Every necessary preparation was made for this cruel union, which it was determined should be celebrated in Paris, to which city they returned for that purpose. Two days before the marriage was intended to take place, the young lover, wrought up to frenzy by the intelligence of the approaching nuptials, contrived, by bribing the porter whilst the mother was at the opera with her intended son-in-law, to reach the room of the beloved being from whom he was about to be separated for ever. Emaciated by grief, she presented the mere spectre of what she was when he last left her. As soon as he entered the room, he fell senseless at her feet, from which state he was roused by the loud fits of her frightful maniac laughter. She stared upon him, like one bewildered. He clasped her with one hand, and with the other drew from his pocket a vial containing double distilled laurel water: he pressed it to her lips, until she had swallowed half of its contents; the remainder he drank himself.—The drug of death soon began to operate.—Clasped in each other's arms, pale and expiring, they reviewed their hard fate, and, in faint and lessening sentences, implored of the great God of mercy, that he would pardon them for what they had done, and that he would receive their spirits into his regions of eternal repose; that he would be pleased, in his divine goodness, to forgive the misjudging severity which had driven them to despair, and would support the unconscious author of it, under the heavy afflictions which their disastrous deaths would occasion. They had scarcely finished their prayer, when they heard footsteps approaching the room. Madame R——, who had been indisposed at the opera, returned home before its conclusion, with the intended bridegroom. The young man awoke, as it were, from his deadly drowsiness, and, exerting his last strength, pulled from his breast a dagger, stabbed the expiring being, upon whom he doated, to the heart; and, falling upon her body, gave himself several mortal wounds. The door opened; the frantic mother appeared. All the house was in an instant alarmed; and the fatal explanation which furnished the materials of this short and sad recital, was taken from the lips of the dying lover, who had scarcely finished it before he breathed his last. Two days afterwards, the story was hawked about the streets.

From this painful narrative, in which the French impetuosity is strongly depicted, I must turn to mention my visit to Mons. le G——, who lives in the Rue Florentine, and is considered to be one of the first architects in France; in which are many monuments of his taste and elegance. It is a curious circumstance that all artists exercise their talents more successfully for their patrons than for themselves. Whether it is the hope of a more substantial reward than that of mere self-complacency, which usually excites the mind to its happiest exertions, I will not pretend to determine; but the point seems to be in some degree settled by the conduct of a celebrated Bath physician, of whom it is related, that, happening once to suffer under a malady from which as his skill had frequently relieved others, he determined to prescribe for himself. The recipe at first had not the desired effect. The doctor was surprised. At last he recollected that he had not feed himself. Upon making this discovery, he drew the strings of his purse, and with his left hand placed a guinea in his right, and then prescribed. The story concludes by informing its readers, that the prescription succeeded, and the doctor recovered.—In adorning the front of his own hôtel, Mons. le G——, in my very humble opinion, has not exhibited his accustomed powers. In a small confined court-yard he has attempted to give to a private dwelling the appearance of one of those vast temples of which he became enamoured when at Athens. The roof is supported by two massy fluted pilastres, which in size are calculated to bear the burthen of some prodigious dome. The muscular powers of Hercules seem to be here exercised in raising a grasshopper from the ground. The genius of Mons. le G——, unlike the world's charity, does not begin at home, but seems more disposed to display its most successful energies abroad. His roof, however, contains such a monument of his goodness and generosity, that I must not pass it over. This distinguished architect is one of those unfortunate beings who have been decreed to taste the bitterness, very soon after the sweets of matrimony. Upon discovering the infidelity of his lady, who is very pretty and prepossessing, the distracted husband immediately sought a divorce from the laws of his country. This affair happened a very short time before the revolution afforded unusual acceleration and facilities to the wishes of parties, who, under similar circumstances, wished to get rid of each other as soon as possible. The then "law's delay" afforded some cause of vexation to Mons. le G——, who was deeply injured. Before his suit had passed through its last forms, the father of his wife, who at the time of their marriage lived in great affluence, became a bankrupt. In the vortex of his failure, all the means of supporting his family were swallowed up. The generous le G——, disdaining to expose to want and ignominy the woman who had once been dear to him, would proceed no further. She is still his wife; she bears his name, is maintained by him, and in a separate suite of apartments lives under the same roof with him. But Mons. and Madame le G—— have had no intercourse whatever with each other for eleven years. If in the gallery or in the hall they meet by accident, they pass without the interchange of a word. This painful and difficult arrangement has now lost a considerable portion of its misery, by having become familiar to the unfortunate couple.

In the valuable and curious cabinet of Mons. le G——, I found out, behind several other casts, a bust of Robespierre, which was taken of him, a short period before he fell. A tyrant, whose offences look white, contrasted with the deep delinquency of the oppressor of France, is said to be indebted more to his character, than to nature, for the representation of that deformity of person which appears in Shakspeare's portrait of him, when he puts this soliloquy in his lips:—

"I that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature, by dissembling Nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time, Into the breathing world, scarce half made up; And that so lamely and unfashionably, That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them."

History, enraged at the review of the insatiable crimes of Robespierre, has already bestowed upon him a fanciful physiognomy, which she has composed of features which rather correspond with the ferocity of his soul, than with his real countenance. From the appearance of this bust, which is an authentic resemblance of him, his face must have been rather handsome. His features were small, and his countenance must have strongly expressed animation, penetration and subtlety. This bust is a real curiosity. It is very likely that not another is now to be found, Mons. le G—— is permitted to preserve it, without reproach on account of his art. I can safely say, he does not retain it from any emotions of veneration for the original. It is worthy of being placed between the heads of Caligula and Nero. Very near the residence of Mons. le G—— is the house in which Robespierre lodged. It is at the end of the Rue Florentine, in the Rue St. Honore, at a wax chandler's. This man is too much celebrated, not to render every thing which relates to him curious. The front windows of his former lodgings look towards the Place de la Concorde, on the right of which his prime minister, the permanent guillotine, was quartered. Robespierre, who, like the revolting angel, before the world's formation, appears to have preferred the sceptre of Hell and chaos, to the allegiance of order and social happiness, will descend to posterity with no common attributes of distinction and preeminence. His mind was fully suited to its labours, which, in their wide sphere of mischief, required more genius to direct them than was bestowed upon the worst of the tyrants of Rome, and a spirit of evil which, with its "broad circumference" of guilt, was calculated to darken the disk of their less expanded enormity.