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THE
FEMALE
R Evo LUT I on ARY
PLUTARCH,
contaising
BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL,
REVOLUTIONARY SKETCHES, CHARACTERS,
AND
ANECDOTES.
- . By THE AUTHOR of
the RevolutionARY Plutarch, AND MEMOIR3 Q&
' . T4LEEYRAND...
IN THREE VOLUMEs.
VOL. III.
Lo ND on tº -
PRINTED FOR John MURRAY, 32, FLEET-strº EET,
.* * 1805. ~ - S,
- By B. MºMillan, Bow-Street, Covent-Garden,
*\ ſ
Vºlºvº
- *.*.*.*.*. -
tº ~ : * * *
was waa
CONTENTs.
-vOL. III.
- - Page
THE Princess of Lamballe, born Princess of
Savoy-Carignan. . . . … … 1
H. R. H. Princess Elizabeth, Sister of Louis
The Duchess of Angouleme, the Daughter of . ,
Louis XVI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
The Imperial Princess, Letitia Buonaparte, the
Mother of the Buonapartes............. ºn 98
Her Imperial Highness Princess Joseph Buona-
Parte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Madame Lucien Buonaparte. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 --
Princess Louis Buonaparte, an Imperial High-
ness... . . . . . . . . . . . . * e º q & © e • - - - - - - - - - - - 134
Madame Jerome Buonaparte, ci-devant Miss
Patterson, no Imperial Highness. . . . . . . . . . . 153
Her Imperial Highness Princess Eliza Buona-
parte, Sovereign Princess of Piombino, alias
Madame Bacchiochi, , , , , , , , , . . . . . . . . . . . 179
- - Charlotte
CONTENTS.
. - Page
Charlotte Buonaparte, Princess of Santa Cruce,
no Imperial Highness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189:
Her Imperial Highness Maria Paulette Buona-
parte, Princess of Borghese, ci-devant Ma-
dame Le Clere......................... 199
Her Imperial Highness Annunciade Caroline
Buonaparte, Princess (ci-devant Madame)
Murat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . . . . • . . . . . . . . ... 213.
The French Prisons—the Royal Bastille, the Re-
publican Gaols, and the Imperial Temple... 232
The French Republican and Revolutionary Flat-
terers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - 336. ,
Madame Talleyrand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .353
Agnes Barbe Gerard, the Arras Orphan... .. . 374,
Madame Roland......................... 390
Thereigne de Mericourt, the Jacobin Harlot... 419.
Mademoiselle La Rochefoucault, the Vendean
Heroine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … 434
. . . The
THE
V. FE MA LE
REVOLUTIONARY PLUTARCH.
| THE PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE,
| BoRN PRINCEss oF sAvox-cARIGNAN.
-•m，iam-
O Mort ! O Destinée ! O Dieu de la lumiere!
Createur incrée de la nature entiere !
Etre immense et perfait, seul etre de bouté,
As tu fais les humaines pour la calamité ?
Quel pouvoir execrable infecta Ton ouvrage ? -
La nature est ta fille et l'homme est Ton image.
Oº the sovereign houses that have fallen by
1 the treachery and barbarity of revolutionary
France, none excites greater interest than the
house of Savoy. The honourable part which
| this secondary monarchy took in former wars,
voL III. B the
2 : THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
the importance of its position, the able employ-
ment of its resources, and the charaćter of most
of its sovereigns and princes, had cast a lustre
upon its politics and its arms. The considera-
tion in which itstood was superior to its strength;
a certain proof of a respectable and firm govern-
ment. - .
Amon g the monarchs who have rendered the
eighteenth century illustrious, none appears with
a better title to esteem than Charles Emanuel,
the grand-uncle of the unfortunate Princess of
Lambajie. He was an ačtive warrior, replete
with valour, emulation, and prudence; a labo-
rious, well-informed, and circumspect ruler; a
discreet and discerning reformer; a popular and
beneficent king; no O iſ: 62 possessed in a higher
degree the spirit of order, coherency, and justice.
His colitt was regulated like his states; his ap-
plication extended to every thing ; no disorder
was unknown to him; there was no unforeseen
perplexity which he did not remedy. He was
firm but not despotic, and never suffered himself
to be moved by personal considerations. His
army, that had seen him fighting at their head
with uncommon intrepidity, particularly at the
bloody battle of Notre Dame de Lorme, among
. . - ‘. . others, -
PRINCESS OF IAMBALLE. 3
others, loved him enthusiastically. Nor was he
less dear to the people, whose interests and wants
daily engaged his attention. With no branch of
government was he unacquainted. After Saving
Piedmont by his courage in the war of 1741, he
negotiated gloriously and successfully at the
congress of Aix-la-Chapelle: he aggrandized his
states, repaired his fortresses, and increased their
number; and notwithstanding the burthen left
by the war, he reinstated his finances in a few
years. All payments were secure and punétual,
and the arrears of the public debt discharged
with invariable regularity. His subjećts were
indebted to him for the excellent effects of regis-
tering estates, the exemption from mortmain, the
establishment of highways, and a vast number of
useful institutions. - -
While the petty Princes of Germany were
ruining themselves by pomp, by the opera, by
dances, and in imitation of Louis XIV. and
Louis XV. Charles Emanuel considered himself
as the steward of his states. All profusion was
forbidden under this restorative reign. The
public expenditure never exceeded the annual
receipts. If any unforeseen accident happened
to make a difference in the fixed balance, the
. . . . B 2 deficit
4 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
A
deficit was covered by retrenchments. Every
year the King spent six weeks of the summer at
his palace of La Venerie, near Turin, where the
sum of a thousand livres (401) was settled for
his daily expences. It once happened, that the
day after the court arrived, there was a dreadful
storm of hail, by which the country round about
was laid waste. Charles Emanuel sent for the
steward of his household, and ordered prepara-
tions to be made for returning to his capital in
twenty-four hours. “ Yes,” added he to the
astonished officer, “we must comfort these un-
fortunate poor people who are ruined by the
hail. The forty thousand livres I should have
spent here I give to them, and let it be set down
in the usual account of the year !”
The methodical life of this Prince was a series
of similar traits. He gave to his desires and
political speculations, the moderation and regu-
larity he had introduced into his finances. No
projećt of ambition disturbed his plans of order,
and the peace of his states. One day the Mar-
quis de Fontane, who was his minister at Berlin,
'was relating to him, in the hearing of many per-
sons, that Frederic the Great, as he was looking
over a map of Italy, assured him, that in the year
1745
~"
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 5
1745 it was in the King of Sardinia's power to
have reduced the Pope to the situation of his
almoner. “Oh ſ* replied the King, “I do not
doubt if he had been in my place but he would
have done it.” - - - “.
Such were his discernment and information,
that he never deceived himself in the choice, the
qualifications, or the faults of his ministers, of
whom he was the coadjutor, the inspector, and
sometimes the friend. He invariably protected
the Marquis of Ormea against all the attacks of
his numerous antagonists; and he raised the cele-
brated Count Bogin, who survived him. The
office for foreign affairs was, under his reign,
the best ordered, best served, and most exact in
Europe. It should be remembered, that at the
pacification of 1762, the court of Turin had the
honour of being the medium of the negotiations
which reconciled the belligerent princes.
Such is an imperfeót sketch of the public life
of a monarch, whose private history would be
a monument and school for the art of reigning.
To the most sincere piety, to the most honour-
able and constant integrity, Charles Emanuel
united the qualities of the best of fathers, of the \,
* * ~ B 3 best
• THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
best of relatives, of the best of citizens, and of
the most moral of princes.
At the court of such a Sovereign, under the
eyes of such a relation, Marie Theresa Louisa,
Princess of Savoy-Carignan, passed her youth,
and received her education. Her accomplish-
ments more than her beauty, induced the late
virtuous Duke of Penthievre, a prince of the blood
in France, to demand her in marriage for his
only son, Louis Alexander Joseph Stanislaus de
Bourbon Penthievre, Prince of Lamballe. At
her arrival in France, Louis XV. reigned, but
his mistresses governed in his name. In a country
where vice holds the reins of the state, and the
sovereign himself sets an example of wickedness,
corruption must necessarily diffuse itself widely
and shamefully. But notwithstanding that her
eonsort had been carried along with the seducing
current of profligacy, the condućt of the Princess
of Lamballe was so exact, that it left no room for
malignity to report, for envy to rumour, or for
scandal to whisper.
The young Prince of Lamballe had the mis-
fortune to be on friendly and intimate terms with
the late Duke of Orleans, who passed his youth
in gross and open debauchery, which at once
- astonished
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 7
astonished and corrupted the city of Paris, never
much famed for its morality. His wealth af-
forded means of unbounded gratification, and his
birth made his excesses the fashion, the haut ton,
and gave an air of superior consequence to those
libertines who frequented his society; most of
whom injured their fortunes and their health,
and some even lost their lives, by the pernicious
influence of his example. In his debauchery
there was none of that courtly elegance which,
making the pursuit of pleasure the objećt of re-
fined minds, produces, with the evils attendant
Ołł licentiousness, those finished manners which
improve the age, and those spirited effusions
which delight posterity. His was of that coarse
description whose. only aim was gratification:
the established system of morals, the revered
customs of decency, and the sprightly effort of
exuberant fancy, were equally disregarded. -
Among the most remarkable vićtims of the
late Duke of Orleans' sedućtion and depravity
was the Prince of Lamballe, who, before he ar-
rived at the age of twenty, expired in conse.
quence of an infamous disease and mortal disor-
der, contračted where he had been led by his
faithless, interested, and culpable friend, who,
- . B 4 by
.*
8 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
by his death, opened a new view to his own ava-
rice and ambition, by forming a matrimonial al-
liance with the only surviving child of the Duke
of Penthievre, in hopes of securing to himself
the family estate, as well as the office of Lord
High Admiral of France, held by his father-in-
law.”. -
Thus, ere she had seen a fourth lustre, the
Princess of Lamballe became a widow in a foreign
country, and obtained her first lessons in the
school of misery. Submissive to the will of
Providence, instead of murmuring she resigned
herself to her fate, and sought in religion and in
retirement, that consolation which is never to be
found by the truly afflićted in the selfish and
unfeeling society of the world. She passed nearly
her whole time in a convent, until the arrival of
the late unfortunate Marie Antoinette in France,
who seleóted her for a friend as well as for a con-
fidante and companion. When, in May 1774,
upon the accession of Louis XVI. to the throne
of France, the Queen was establishing her new
household, she appointed the Princess as her
. See Playfair's History of Jacobinism, p. 81, note.
superin-
$.”
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 9
superintendant, or to the first place of the first
lady near her person. -
This friendship, this confidence, begun and
formed at such an early period of life, between
these two illustrious Princesses, continued un-
ciouded and uninterrupted in prosperity as well
as in adversity, in exile, in distress, and in capti-
vity. But what had and would, among all other
civilized people, have excited admiration and
commanded respect, in revolutionary France,
where all noble, generous, and even humane
feelings were banished, invited hatred to calum-
niate, calumny to proscribe, and guilt to murder.
- Although from the beginning of the French
rebellion, the favourites of the Queen were among
those marked out as the first sacrifices to the
fury of the sovereign people, and in consequence,
the Duchess of Polignac, and most other ladies
of the Queen's court, more terrified by the atro-
cities they witnessed than by the threats they
heard, had by flight and emigration saved them-
selves from the daggers and lamp-posts of rege- -
nerated Frenchmen, the Princess of Lamballe
continued firm at her post. Neither the bleed-
ing heads of the King's garde du corps, nor the
menacing language and the cannibal procession of
- - B 5 - their
ºf G THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
their murderers, intimidated her courage, relaxed
her zeal, shook her fidelity, or abated her af-
fection. She remained inseparable from her
Sovereign, consoling her in the midst of her
afflićtions, and alleviating her sufferings by
sharing them. It was not until June 1791,
when the unfortunate journey to Varennes had
been resolved on, that she, by the desire of the
Queen, went over to England, with the intention
of joining the Royal Family again at Montmedy,
whenever Louis XVI. had, according to his plan,
erected there the standard of royalty. -
As soon as the Princess of Lamballe heard of
the arrest of the Royal Family at Varennes, and
their subsequent imprisonment in the Thuilleries
by La Fayette, she sent by a trusty messenger,
who had the good luck to escape the vigilance
of this general's spies, the following note to the
- "Queen: - v
- “ Brighton, June 27th, 1791.
** MADAM, - - * , -
“Though quiet here under the protećtion of
a most hospitable and generous Prince, and re-
spected by a loyal public, who endeavour to di-
vert my melancholy and calm my apprehensions,
I am more agitated, and more desolate, than
• when
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. i i
when by your Majesty's side, surrounded by
traitors, conspirators, and assassins. I therefore
only wait your Majesty's command, and I will
hasten back to Paris to participate in your Ma-
jesty's captivity. When your Majesty wears fet-
ters, can liberty be of any value to me? When
your Majesty is bathed in tears, can any tranquil-
lity enter into the bosom of
- “Madam,
“ Your Majesty's &c. &c. &c.
- “M. T. L. DE LAMBALLE.”
On the 8th of the following month the mes.
- senger returned; and as La Fayette had deprived
the Queen of pen, ink, and paper, her Majesty had
written on the back of the note only these words
with a pencil: “ Remain, my friend, where you
are * !” - -
Several more messengers carried other notes
from the Princess to the Queen, all containing
the same demands, and answered in nearly the
same terms, the Queen being determined not to
be surpassed by her friend in generosity. That
magnanimous Sovereign, though well knowing **
her own perilous situation, tried in most of her
letters to persuade the Princess of Lamballe the
* See Lacorrespondence des Femmes Marquante,<e P. do.
. . . . # 6 very
12 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
very reverse, and that the accounts published in
journals, or disseminated by emigrants concerning
France and the Royal Family, were false and ex-
aggerated. She even hinted, that the less the
patriots saw her attended by her former friends,
whose absence they were well aware that she felt
severely, the more she hoped they would be con-
vinced of her sincere wishes of avoiding giving
them any cause of complaint or even of umbrage.
“Continue,” wrote the Queen, “my friend, to
enjoy, among the hospitable islanders, the plea-
sures offered you. I ask you this as a friend, or
if you will not listen to me in that character, I
command you as a sovereign. You are neither ~.
a wife nor a mother, and you have not the mis-
fortune of being a sovereign, and therefore have
not to fulfil the duties which all those titles im-
pose. As to your attachment and friendship to
me, my husband, and children, of them you have
during so many years given me so many, and
such repeated proofs, that you cannot inspire
me with a higher opinion of your own worth,
nor increase my grateful and sincere affection for
you. I conjure you, lay aside your gloomy ideas;
try to instil into my mind a hope of better days,
rather than to depress my spirits with apprehen-
sions
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 13
sions of future and greater wretchedness. I am
certain, my friend, it would grieve you exceed-
ingly, were you to see the effect which your letters,
however unintentionally on your part, frequently
produce. Your “I tremble!” or what is worse,
Your TEARs on your paper, speak so strongly
and so evidently what you internally feel, that
they always provoke my own, which, God knows,
do not want fićtion or imaginary evils to cause
their flowing in abundance. Change therefore the
subjećts of your correspondence; write of Eng-
land, should you even think of nothing but
France; relate to me your amusements, what
company you see, what theatres you visit, and
what societies you frequent. Inform me of the
differences you observe between the etiquette,
customs, and manners of those with whom you
live and those whom you have left. Your ge-
nius, your knowledge of the world, present
~ a thousand obječts worthy your attention, and
for narration to a friend, who, in reading them,
might steal some moments from her great
troubles. How kind, how charitable such an act
would be * !” - -
3r see La correspondence des Femmes Marquantes, &c. P.62,
and 63, - t *
&
In
14 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
In another letter the wretched Queen says:
“I flatter myself no longer; I am and ever shall
remain an objećt of pity I do not open a letter
(and I receive none but from those who are dear
to me) that does not aggravate my calamities,
and show me the whole horror of my terrible
situation. Their affectionately tender expres-
sions, their kindly cruel compassion, 2.Te 3TTOWS
incessantly piercing my wretched heart. Cruel
friends ! I stand in need of palliatives; I ask for
relief, and you send me poison did I not pos-
sess religion, had I not connubial and maternal
ties that bind me to a world in which I am be-
come the most wretched of all miserable creatures,
Heaven alone knows to what despair might not
reduce me ! I do not, my friend, mean this as
a reproach to you—no I thank you kindly for
your last amiable letter. I found it so entertain-
ing, that I read it aloud to my husband, sister,
and children, and they all unite with me in
thanking you; but—but they did not like to
observe the tear on the cover *.”
In the latter part of March 1792, the Queen
wrote thus: “You have no doubt heard, my
* See La Correspondence des. Femmes Marquantes, &c. p. 66,
--- dear
PRINCESS OF LAMRALLE. 15
dear friend, of the new loss I have to deplore in
the death of my brother Leopold. It seems as
if Providence in its wrath would fill to the brim
the measure of my sufferings. By unusual mis-
fortunes deprived of every means of conveying
support as formerly to the persons dear to me,
all those who interest themselves in my welfare,
to whom I am dear or related, and whose power
or influence might ameliorate the cruel position
of my family and myself, are carried off by pre-
mature death, in the prime of their lives
“This last stroke of the Almighty has very
much afflićted my good and poor husband, par-
ticularly as it happened at this critical period,
when a war between France and Austria is the
arduous wish of all parties here. The esteem of
the late Emperor for the King might have allevi-
ated the usual horrors of war, and shortened the
enmity of the two nations; but although my
nephew, the present Emperor, has inherited the
liberal and philanthropical sentiments of his fa-
ther, young as he is, he must confide in some
counsellors or ministers, perhaps not so well in-
tentioned and just as himself, and that is what
grieves my husband. s -
“Unwilling and impossible as it is any longer
to
16 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
to conceal any thing from my friend, I will avow
to you frankly, that our situation is truly lament-
able, and daily, nay almost hourly, grows worse.
My husband is attacked direétly and indireétly by
the factious and seditious in a most wicked, scan-
dalous, and atrocious manner: for my part, I
dare not stir out of the palace, or show myself
any where, nor even breathe fresh air for an in-
stant in the windows of my apartment, without
exposing myself to the most illiberal abuse; nay,
I dare not even open my windows over the gar-
den, for fear of hearing bawlers purposely placed
there, utter against me such diabolical libels, that
I must, against my will, pity the authors of them,
notwithstanding the injury they do me; because,
to judge from their produćtions, they must be
more miserable than myself. All these absurd
calumnies make, however, a great impression on
the minds of the people, who, I am informed from
good authority, never mention my name but
with curses and imprecations, or threats of the
most dreadful vengeance for unknown or in-
vented wrongs. Oh if they would but spare
the King and our children, and restore them a
happiness of which they are so deserving, if it
would gratify their thirst for blood, I would this
- instant
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 17
instant deliver myself over to their rage, and tell
them—ill treat me, stab me, kill me, tear me to
pieces, roast me, devour rne, carry my head upon
a pike, or drag my corpse, my remnants in the
street or in the kennel; I will submit to all
these barbarities: I will do more, I forgive them,
and I pray to God to forgive them also but
respect your virtuous King, and have compassion
on his innocent offspring !
“But pardon me, my friend, these melancholy
refle&tions: situated as I am, they are natural.
Congratulate yourself on your absence, and on
not being exposed to witness the shocking occur-
rences passing under my eyes and tormenting
my soul. Be happy, you deserve and shall be
so #.” -
... To this letter the Princess of Lamballe an-
swered by the return of the courier : “Madame,
I have too long obeyed the commands of your
Majesty as my sovereign, I therefore apply to
your Majesty's feelings, as honoured with your
friendship. Is England the post of honour for
me, while in France libellers distil their poison,
and the assassins sharpen their daggers against
* See La Correspondence des Femmes Marquantes, &c. p. 75.
your
is THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
your Majesty, against my friend and benefactress?
No ; pardon my perhaps misguided zeal, but
having so bountifully shared your Majesty's fa-
vours when all powerful, should I not be the
most contemptible wretch in the creation, were
I to desert your Majesty's sacred person, when
unjustly oppressed, or sinking under undeserved
calamity ? I am therefore preparing myself to
set out for Paris, expecting only a line of consent
to throw myself at the feet of the best of sove-
reigns and most magnanimous of friends.
“By your Majesty's side I fear no danger, and
to expire in placing myself between you and
your murderers, would be to me such an enviable
and glorious death, that the religious would soon
worship me among saints, and the valiant revere
me among heroines. Pray, Madame, do not
deprive me of the sole happiness to which I as-
pire; the sole reserved for me this side of the
grave. Permit me once more to salute my sove-
reign and embrace my friend, were it even at the
foot of the scaffold * !”
In three weeks afterwards the Writer of this
sketch was honoured by the unfortunate Queen
*See La Correspondence des Femmes Marquantes, &c. p. 77,
J. : * of
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 19
of France with the commission of carrying a
letter of recall to the amiable Princess of Lam-
balle, whom he found at Brighthelmstone. She
read it with an expression of joy beaming on her
beautiful countenance. “God be praised,” ex-
claimed she, “I am at last permitted to return.
The Queen says, that every step I take towards
France is towards my place of destrućtion, and
that I must make up my mind to die. I am
convinced of the truth of this prognostic, but for
the sake of my distressed friend I fly to martyr-
dom with greater satisfaction than I attended her
at her coronation, waited on her in her drawing-
room, enjoyed her banquets, or delighted in her
festivals.” . . . . . .
On the next day the Princess was in her car-
riage on her way to France; and during that
part of the journey I had the honour to accom-
pany her, she betrayed no symptoms of weakness,
but spoke with rapture of death, as a subjećt
already familiar with her mind. She repeatedly
said, that she had a strong presentiment of
soon falling a vićtim to popular prejudice, injus-
tice, and violence, but that she was totally pre-
pared and resigned. She observed, that accord-
ing to the usual length of human existence, she
º ^. had
20 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
had already passed two-thirds, and the most
pleasing parts of life; that she always dreaded
decrepitude, old age, and surviving her strength,
health, and those persons whom she loved more
than herself. “Oh, my God!” repeated she often,
“how many millions of beings have not numbered
so many days as I already do ; and how few, if .
any, have possessed my happiness of having such
valuable friends, and the heavenly consolation
of expiring for them, for those so deservedly
dear.” These and similar sentiments, seemed
exclusively to engross her thoughts, although her
cheerfulness was always the same, and never for-
sook her. In rendering an account to the Queen
of my mission, her Majesty said, shuddering, her
eyes full of tears: “Poor friend she too, then,
is to be one of the sacrifices to that fatality which
so unrelentingly pursues me.” x ..
Two days after the dreadful 10th of August
1792, when the Princess of Lamballe heard that
the Royal Family were to be transferred to the
Temple, she wrote to the infamous Petion, re-
questing as a favour to be shut up with the
royal captives in the same prison. He sent her
note to the Commune, and a mandate of arrest
was immediately issued against her. Being con-
…”
veyed
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 2 :
veyed to the town-hall, she was asked concerning
the motives which induced her to desire im-
prisonment with the Royal Family “ Honour,
duty, attachment, friendship, and gratitude,”
was her answer. She was informed, that the
same policy which prevented a compliance with
her demand with regard to the Temple, also re-
quired her detention in another prison, until it
could be discovered whether she was guilty or
involved in the conspiracy of the Court against
the Nation.
“Even those traitors,” said she, “who these
four years past have made a practice of spitting
out their venom upon the most spotless charac-
ters, never levelled a single taunt at my reputa-
tion; it is pure and irreproachable, and I insist,
therefore, either upon the recovery of my liberty,
or an imprisonment with the Royal Family in the .
Temple.” Without any further ceremony she
was delivered over to the Commissary Jeannot,
who was ordered to see her safe in the prison
La Force. The hackney coach in which she was
conveyed, accompanied by the Commissary and
four gens d'armes, having stopped either de-
signedly or by chance under the arch of St. John,
opposite to one of the doors of the Maison Com-
*114716,
22 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH. -
mune, or town-hall, the patriotic rabble gathered
about, and she was insulted with the most abu-
sive and threatening language: one of the ban-
ditti even proposed to dervuiller, or what is
the same, to take the rust off the fatal lanthorn-
post of 1789, nearly opposite the town-hall, by
drawing the unfortunate Princess up to be hanged
A
upon it. The Commissary, in showing them
his scarf, ordered the law to be respected, which
sent her to prison and protećied her as a prisoner;
and he called to some armed federates to assist
in dispersing the crowd, which they did. During
the whole time the Princess was calm ; and at
{}}}e moment, when the banditti were very clamor-
ous, and tried to seize her, she said to the Com-
missary, “Do not expose yourself for my sake;
I am ready and resigned ; ask them only not to .
make my agony too long, and not to outrage my
person before I am a corpse!” Arrived at La
Force, she was shut up in one of the darkest
dungeons, where bread and water was her only
food, and some straw spread on a filthy stone
floor, her bed. Having in her pocket twenty-
five Louis, and on her finger a ring worth ten
times that sum, left her by the Commissary,
she asked for the gaoler, and gave both the
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE, 28
money and the ring to him, saying, “Though
I am to be deprived of all comforts, here
are probably some other prisoners less unfor-
tunate, but who have no means of supplying
themselves with their wants; distribute among
them the money, and what you obtain for the
ring. I trust to your humanity for execut-
ing faithfully what I desire.” This act of bene-
gaoler, who, though
at great risk to himself, placed a small bed in her
volence even touched the
dungeon, lighted a lamp, and brought her from
her apartment in the Pavilion of Flora, in
the palace of the Thuilleries, Young's Night
Thoughts, and Harvey's Meditations, two books
she had asked for *.
The judge of the mock tribunal at the prison
La Force, during the massacres of the prisoners
in September 1792, was the so cruelly notorious
Hebert. The barber of a small village, he came
to Paris in quality of candle-snuffer to a theatre,
and was afterwards promoted to the receipt of
entrance-money at one of the doors; but being
discharged for dishonesty, he had recourse to
a less unprincipled mode of robbery, that of
- *See Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 103, and 104. .
picking
THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
picking pockets. The Revolution raised him
from obscurity and indigence, to a celebrity and
fortune to which neither virtue nor talents en-
abled him to aspire". Such was the low and
unprincipled man before whom the most vir-
tuous and amiable of her sex was to appear like
a criminal.
Of the cruel catastrophe which ended a life
devoted to honour and friendship, several nar-
ratives have been written by French republicans,
and published in France, all agreeing in the in-
nocence and purity of the Princess of Lamballe;
all admiring her magnanimity, and deploring her
shocking destiny. •- - -
“ On the 3d of September 1792, in the
morning,” says one of them #, “the Princess of
Lamballe was informed that she was to be trans-
ferred to the prison of the Abbey, and that she
must immediately come down to the gate. She
- was still in bed, and answered, that she liked the
º prison she was in as well as any other. A man
in the uniform of a national guard approached
the bed, rudely telling her that she must obey,
* See the Conspiracy of Robespierre, p. 124. Miss williams's
Letters, in 1794, vol. iii. p. 68, note; and Tableau des Prisons. -
# Anecdotes of Women, p. 161, &c. f
. - 9r
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 25
or her life was in danger. She replied, that she
would do what they requested; and beseeching
those that were in her dungeon to withdraw for
a moment, she hastily threw on a gown, and
then called the national guard , who gave her his
arm, and condućted her to the gate. She was
- instantly in the midst of the Sanguinary tribunal.
The sight of arms, and of assassins whose hands,
faces, and clothes were covered with blood, with
the cries of the unhappy persons whom they were
murdering in the streets, made her tremble with
horror. Hebert affected to begin an examinº-
tion of the Princess. “ I have nothing to an-
swer,” said the Princess; “to die a little sooner
or a little later, is perfeótly indifferent to me; I
have been long prepared for death.” “O, she
refuses to answer,” said the monster who pre-
sided over this horde of murderers; “ take her
away to the Abbey.” This word was the signal
of death at the prison of La Force. The assassins
seized on their vićtim, and dragged her out. • . She
had scarcely passed the threshold of the door,
when she received a blow with a sabre on the
back of her head, which made the blood flow:
a plaintive cry was the only expression of this
unfortunate lady! Being dragged into the
* . vol. III. * C Street,
26 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
street, two men, who each held an arm, com-
pelled her to walk over the carcasses of the dead!
she fainted at almost every step. When at
length she was so enfeebled, that it was impos-
sible any more to raise her up, the assassins pro-
faned her person with barbarous and wanton
excesses. It is impossible to relate all the atro-
cities committed towards this virtuous Princess.
It seemed as if hell, and all the furies of hell,
were contending for portions of her body, which
they dragged through the kennel, having first
torn out her bowels | Adding derision to fero-
city, the tiger-monkies compelled a hair-dresser
to dress her head, which they carried in triumph,
and by its side, her breasts, which were cut off,
and her heart, still bleeding, and other fragments
of her body ſ” .
Mercier, in his New Pićture of Paris", an
author and a fanatical republican, whose asser-
tions cannot be doubted when he speaks well of
royalists, writes thus: “The sincere attachment
of the Princess of Lamballe for the Queen, was
her sole crime. In the midst of our agitations,
she remained quiet, meddling with nothing.
* Besides Mercier's Pićture, see Le Dićtionnaire Biogra-
phique, vol. ii. p. 306, and 307. --
. . . - * Nothing
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 27
Nothing could make her suspected by 3. people
to whom she was only known by her numerous
charitable acts of beneficence and munificence.
Even in the prison of La Force, her sole occu-
pation was to succour the wretches daily im-
prisoned there. The most ferocious writers, the
most violent declaimers, had never accused or
signalized her in their journals or publications.
On the 3d of September 1792, she was dragged
from the dungeon where she was confined, to
appear before the sanguinary tribunal. At the
sight of so many executioners covered with blood,
it required a supernatural courage, not to sink
under the load of misery. Some voices in the
crowd demanded and called out pardon and pity:
undecided, the assassins stopped for a moment,
but soon after, wounded by several blows, she
fell, and expired bathed in her blood! Imme-
diately her head and her breasts were cut off, and
her body was cut open. * Her heart was torn out,
and with her head, carried upon pikes round the
capital, followed at some distance by her corpse.
The tigers who had torn her to pieces, gave them-
selves the barbarous pleasure of exhibiting her
head and her heart to the King, Queen, and
. . Royal Family. I must tell the whole truth—
ºf
C 2 when
28 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
when the Princess of Lamballe was mutilated in
a hundred different ways, and the assassins had
partaken of the bleeding morsels of her corpse,
one of the monsters* lui coupa la partie virgi-
male et ſ'en ſit der mouſtacher, in the presence of
spectators seized with fright and horror!!!”
“At the gates of the prison of La Force,”
publishes a third writer:#, “ the assassins were
placed in two rows; the two ruffians called
judges, who gave the signal of death, were placed
at the gate ; and, as soon as the prisoner passed
them, the assassins dispatched him with their
knives or sabres, throwing their bodies in a heap
at the end of the line. At the foot of this trophy
of dead bodies,” says the historian, “we must
now exhibit a scene of a different kind, in the
murder of the Princess of Lamballe. She had
retired in safety to London, but her attachment
to the Royal Family would not suffer her to re-
main in her asylum while they were exposed.
Her fidelity was a crime that the infidelity of her
enemies could never forgive. -
“This monster was his Serene Highness Murat, Buonaparte's
worthy brother-in-law, who had also a wig made of the hair
of the Princess of Lamballe. See Les Annales du Terrorisme,
#See I’Histoire du Clergé Francois, by Abbé Barruel, p.318.
“When
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 29
“When this illustrious vićtim was brought
forth, she was asked to swear eternal hatred
to the King, to the Queen, and to Royalty.
“The oath,” said she, “is foreign to the senti-
ments of my heart, and I will never take it.”
She was instantly delivered over to the ministers
of death. These ruffians pretended to caress
her, patted her cheeks with their hands, yet
reeking with human blood, and thus conducted
her along the line. Amidst all these insults her
courage never deserted her. When arrived at
the heap of dead bodies, she was ordered to kneel
and ask pardon of the nation. “H have never
injured the nation,” she replied, “nor will I ask
its pardon.” “ Down,” said they, “ and ask
pardon, if you wish to live.” “No,” said she,
“I scorn to ask pardon from assassins that call
themselves the nation. I will never bend my
knee or accept of a favour at such hands.”
“Her soul was superior to fear. “Kneel and
ask pardon,” was heard from a thousand voices,
but in vain. Two of the assassins now seized her
arms, and pulling her from side to side, nearly
dislocated her shoulders. “Go on, scoundrels,”
said the heroic Princess, “I will ask no pardon!”
Enraged at seeing their cruelty surpassed by the
C 3 constancy
20 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
constancy of a woman, they dashed her down,
and rushed in upon her with their knives and
poniards. Her head soon appeared hoisted
upon a liberty pike, and her heart, after being
bit by one of the ruffians, was put into a bason;
both were carried in triumph through the streets
of Paris. At last, after having feasted the eyes
*
of the multitude, the bearers took their bloody
trophies to the Temple, now become a prison,
when one of the two Commissaries that guarded .
the King, called him to the window that he
might see it ; but his companion, a little more
humane, prevented the unfortunate Monarch
from approaching. A fainting fit, on hearing
of the event, fortunately saved the Queen from
the heart-rending sight. The body stripped
naked, and the bowels hanging out, were ex-
posed to view on the top of the murdered vic-
tims, where they remained until the massacre .
was over.”
Though these several narratives differ in some
particulars, as to the barbarities that accompa-
nied the murder of the Princess of Lamballe,
they all agree that her firmness and resignation
did equal honour to her death, as her eminent
virtues and inviolable loyalty had done to her
- life.
PRINCESS OF LAMBALLE. 31,
life. She died as she had lived, worthy her
rank, and the attachment of that royal friend
for whom she sacrificed herself; a worthy de-
scendant of kings, and a faithful friend of a
queen ; a glory to the royal house of Savoy, as
well as to that of Bourbon.
“We will,” says a publication *, “here pre-
serve the memory of a courageous ačt of Madame,
de Lowendal, one of the friends of this unfor-
tunate Princess. Hearing of the danger she was
in at La Force, this lady hastily assembled some,
friends, dressed them in the livery of the assassins
of the prisoners, furnishing them with sabres and
* See Anecdotes of Women, p. 164, and 165. .
'The Writer of this was at Paris during the terrible catas- -
trophe of the massacre of prisoners, and he narrowly escaped
himself becoming a victim of French republican barbarities.
He saw the head of the Princess of Lamballe on a pike in the
rue de Richelieu, on Monday, September 3d, about ten
o'clock in the forenoon, and heard, with all Paris, the atroci-
ties related that accompanied her murder, as well as her con-
stancy and grandeur of soul. He can, therefore, affirm, that
incredible as they appear, they are not exaggerated, much less.
fabricated. The sole error he has discovered, is the day of the
Princess's imprisonment in La Force, where she was not car-
ried before the 19th of August, after having passed a week.
with the Royal Family in the Temple. - . . .
c 4 pikes,
32 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
pikes, covering their faces with blood and dust;
and, thus disguised, put herself at their head, and
marched to the prison of LaForce, with the design
of entering it, and rescuing the Princess from
impending danger. She arrived too late ; the
genius of friendship was less ačtive than the
damon of Orleans. This Prince hated the Prin-
cess of Lamballe, and had long vowed her de-
struction; and his desire of revenge was height-
ened by his rapacity, as he gained an hundred
thousand crowns annually, a dowry which was
assigned to the Princess on the fortune of the
Duchess of Orleans, her sister-in-law. It being
betrayed to him, that a sum of fifty thousand
crowns had been offered to Manuel for the li-
beration of the Princess, the Duke dispatched a
band of assassins, paid by himself, to the prison
of La Force. An Italian, of the name of Ro-
tondo, and who for two years before had lived on
terms of the closest intimacy with the Prince,
placed himself at their head; and unfortunately,
those murderers arrived at La Force before the
faithful troop of Madame Lowendal, who had
the afflićtion to see the remains of her friend dis-
puted by the ferocious horde - -
No reader can peruse those shocking details
- - without
PRINCEss of LAMBALLE. 83.
without abhorring the savage tribe that perpe-
trated them. Who would not scorn with in-
dignation and horror, the very idea of associating
with such inhuman wretches | But, notwith-
standing these natural, just, and becoming feel-
ings, no person visits modern France, or is intro-
duced at Buonaparte's court, without exposing
himself to fraternize with those abominable cri-
minals, most of whom are not only still alive,
hardened by impunity, but employed in high
offices, and decorated with the most imposing
titles. Prince Murat, Buonaparte's brother-in-
law ; Fouche, his Minister of Police; Real, his
Counsellor of State; Thuriot, his J udge; Barrere,
Mehée, Chenier, David, &c. with other members
of the Legion of Honour, are all known Septem-
brizers, all figuring in 1805 with the same im-
pudence, in his usurped palaces, and at his
levees, as they did in 1792 at the doors of the
prisons of La Force and the Abbey. The
COlliºt dress, the regimentals, the livery of the
Corsican usurper, cover more assassins than rob-
bers and rebels; no person wears them who is
not morally corrupted, or legally and politically
guilty. - - . - -
The Princess of Lamballe was born on the
c 5 - ...' 8th
34 - THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
8th of September, 1749. Her manners were
elegant, dignified, and accomplished; her mind
noble, generous, and sensible to the highest de-
gree. So beautiful was this illustrious Princess, - .
that it was difficult to see her without loving
her ; and such the brilliancy of her genius, and
amiableness of her conversation, that nobody
left her but with a regret blended with surprise,
admiration, and esteem. -
H. R. H.
35.
H. R. H. PRINCESS ELIZABETH,
- sistER of Louis xvi. -
ELIZABETH PHILIPPINE MARIE HELENE
de France, was born at Versailles on the 3d of
May, 1764, the youngest and eighth child of the
Dauphin, father of Louis XVI. of Louis XVIII.
and of his Royal Highness Monsieur, ci-devant
Count d’Artois. Her Royal Highness was
usually known in France by the name of Ma-
dame Elizabeth, the sister of the King,
This Princess evinced from her youth, more
inclination to be a recluse of a convent than to
show herself an ornament of a court; but though.
matters of policy prevented her from taking the
veil, as well as from marrying, her devotion was
as sincere, and more praise-worthy in a palace
than in a cell; and the tenderness and the affec-
tion which a husband might have a right to claim.
undivided, she shared disinterestedly and libe-
C 6 rally
36 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
rally between brothers, sisters, relatives, and
every unfortunate person upon earth, whose mi-
Sery she could alleviate, whose distress she could
relieve, who wanted the recommendation of the
powerful, the support of the wealthy, or the
prayers of the truly pious.
Of all the atrocious crimes of the French re-
bels and regicides, the murder of the Princess
Elizabeth will for ever appear the most odious and
detestable, and which can never be pardoned,
having been wanton; politically unnecessary, as
well as morally barbarous. All the amiable and
brilliant qualities that make a woman at the
same time estimable and interesting, were united
in the person of this Princess; who was there-
fore the admiration and the idol of all those who
had the honour and happiness of approaching her.
Genius, accomplishments, softness, goodness,
and modesty, gave a new charm to that sublime
courage, to that becoming and calm dignity,
which commanded reverencefrom gaolers, judges,
assassins, and even in her last moments from the
executioner. .
. She passed her life so retired, and was so
averse to every thing that had the shadow of in-
- ... * trigue,
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 87
trigue, that envy and malignity, slander and ma-
lice, for once were at a loss to find any plausible
cause to injure, much less to blast with their
venom, a reputation as spotless as deservedly
great. - . . . . . . . -
Before the revolution in her income, one half
was distributed in charitable donations. She al-
lowed pensions to fifty-two fathers of large fa-
milies, to sixty-six widows, and one hundred
and twenty-four orphans, whom she clothed,
educated, and when of age, settled or provided
for. In the number of those, who were all
strangers recommended to her, are not included
persons attached to her household, menial ser-
vants, or their families. “Generous and cha-
ritable as Madame Elizabeth,” was the common
saying in France, when the necessitous compl.-
mented a benefactor or benefactress; and the
best wishes the best of mothers expressed for their
daughters were, “that they may resemble Ma-
dame Elizabeth in honour and virtue *.*. -
After the shocking scenes at Versailles on the
5.h and 6th of October 1789, when the mob
murdered the gardes du corps of the King, in de-
* Lettres des Femmes Marquantes, preface, p. iv.
: fending
38 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
fending the entrance to the bed-room of the
Queen, and afterwards carried upon pikes the
heads of these loyal men before the carriage of
the Royal Family, in their journey from Versailles
to Paris, the King's aunts were alarmed, and de-
manded and obtained his Majesty's permission to
retire to Rome. They also desired their niece,
the Princess Elizabeth, to accompany them as
far as Turin, where her sister, the late Queen of
Sardinia, had invited her, and made preparations
for her reception. When the unfortunate Marie
Antoinette was informed of the proposal of her
aunts, she rushed into the apartment of the
Princess, and threw herself into her arms, say-
ing, “And you too will desert me, and leave
me to my cruel fate P−" No ; never, never!”
answered the virtuous Elizabeth: “ your troubles,
your torments, your gaol, and your scaffold,
shall be mine.” She kept her word. To those
who repeated their demands and exhortations.
she replied, “A woman has nothing but cares,
and consolations to offer ; it is a duty the Divi-
nity itself has imposed upon me, to bestow them
on those who stand in need of them. Alas ! I
never thought that those so near and dear t();
me as a brother and sister, should one day re-
- - •' quire
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 39
quire them more than any other created being
in the universe *.” . …” . -
During the return from the ominous journey
to Varennes, her tender attention to her brother,
her sister, and their children, and her total in-
difference about herself, forced tears of respect
even from the eyes of the National Deputy Bar-
nave, whose feelings, to judge from his ex-
pressions in the Assembly, were not over nice.
He was obliged to acknowledge the existence of
virtue, and the sublimity of religious resignation.
But every heart that is accessible to the senti-
ments of humanity, must applaud the grandeur
of her soul, and her heroism, on the 20th of
June 1792 +. ...~" - - -
On that day upwards of twenty thousand Pa-
risian and revolutionary banditti made a sangui-
nary irruption into the palace of the Thuilleries, v.
threatened the lives of all the Royal Family,
and committed scenes of brutality and horror
equally disgraceful and disgusting. To prepare.
the popular mind for acts of blood, the hall
of the Jacobins had resounded with speeches
z
* See Lettres des Femmes Marquantes, preface, p. v.
t Idem, the preface, p. v.
and'
40 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and petitions, and the walls of Paris had been
covered with placards, describing the King as a
traitor to the country, and a monster not fit to
reign or to live. The insurre&tion was regularly
projećted and organized several days before, and
the King had received numerous intimations,
that he could only avoid the intended massacre
of himself and family, by agreeing to sančtion
some obnoxious decrees. But what conscience
forbade, terror could not compel him to do ; he
rejećted with disdain all such applications, and
resolved to encounter every danger rather than
comply. When the mob, by the treachery of
the National Guard, had effected an entrance
into the palace, the King, who had from a win-
dow observed their proceedings, repaired to a
room called the Oeil-de-baeuſ, the door of which •
was immediately assailed with every engine
of force which the occasion supplied ; and,
among others, with a cannon which had been
dismounted from its carriage, and was now car-
ried up stairs by manual strength, and used as a
battering-ram. The brave Swiss guards, who
were with the King, drew their Swords, and
were preparing to shed their blood in an un-
availing defence ; but he commanded them to
r- - S desist.
f
- PRINCESS ELIZABETH, 41
desist. He then called for four grenadiers to
support him, and advancing to the door, un-
barred it, and presented himself defenceless to
this furious multitude. His friends, fearing
that he would be borne down by the rapidity
and violence of the mob, placed him in the }*@-
cess of a window, where a few grenadiers form-
ed round him to resist the torrent. The mob
was fortunately so numerous, and poured in SO
rapidly, that no one could effect the premedi-
tated purpose; but after venting a portion of
fury in words and menacing gestures, were
obliged to give place to others. It was on this
occasion that the King said to the dastardly trai-
tor Petion, who assured him that he had no-
thing to fear, “Nothing to fear !” replied his
Majesty with indignation; “ the man whose
conscience is pure, and free from reproach, can
never fear. Here, my friend,” he added, tak-
ing the hand of a grenadier, and pressing it
to his bosom, “feel, and tell that man if my
heart beats faster than usual.” This was not the
only instance of supernatural firmness which the
King displayed in the course of this dreadful day.
The mob frequently pressed him with furious
hustlings and menaces to Sanétion the decree,
*. - - - and
#2. THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and to recall the Jacobin ministers. His Ma-
jesty's reply was, “I shall do what I consider to
be right; but this is not the moment for you to
ask, or for me to grant favours.” -
The behaviour of the Princess Elizabeth in
this trying scene, was truly sublime and heroic.
When the King went to the Oeil-de-baeuſ, to
meet the banditti who were sent, and who he
knew came to murder him, she would not leave
his side for a moment. The mob pouring into
the palace, and eager to begin the work of regi-
cide, at a distance mistook her for the Queen
(against whom, as usual, great part of the popu-
lar rage was direéted), and loaded her with in-
sults and threats, crying out, “Where is the
Austrian wh–! we will have her head upon a
pike in an instant tº Elizabeth turned towards
the assassins, and said with calmness, “People
I am the Queen.” Sabres were already lifted,
pikes and Sabres pointed against her, when some
of her terrified attendants, in spite of her en-
treaties to the contrary, pressed forward to ex-
plain the mistake and mistatement : “For God’s
sake I beseech you, gentlemen P said the Prin.
cess, “ do not undeceive these misled men. Is
it not better that they should shed my blood than
• 2 - that
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 43.
that of my sister " In the whole course of the
day she never left her brother's side, nor even
lost her presence of mind; but when a Deputy
named Lesueur, who stood by the King's side,
fainted from extreme agitation, she ačtively as-
sisted in means for his recovery.
Under the date of the 23d of June, 1792, the
Princess Elizabeth wrote thus to her aunts:
“Three days ago I was for some hours happy,
in the thought that Providence had numbered
me among the selečt few who are permitted to
sacrifice themselves for those they love more than
life, and whose death, by preventing their un-
timely end, make their existence less miserable;
and less exposed, by throwing a merited odium
on their enemies and persecutors, for their cruel
mistake, the consequence of a savage and blood-
thirsty disposition. It was ordered otherwise
from above, and I am still among the living.
“Notwithstanding these late dreadful occur-
rences, and the new insults and horrors with
which we are treated, I am thankful that I did
not see my good and unhappy brother, and his no
less unhappy wife and children, murdered. Now
their afflićtion, as well as my own, has dissolved
the last ties that attached me to earth. My God
k. - . . . . . . and
44 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and his Heaven are now my only hope, my only
occupation, and my only meditation. I am now,
thanks to the Virgin and her Son, what I never
would have been in an uninterrupted continuance
of prosperity. Detached from all earthly consi-
derations, I am now, if I may be permitted to
say so with propriety, already with one foot in
Paradise. Yes! I know that I am ; because in
serving and consoling, instead of leaving to them-
selves, my so unjustly and cruelly treated rela-
tives, I am only doing my duty; I serve the Di-
vinity in obeying strićtly its commands. -
“I beg your Royal Highnesses not to think,
that I intend by this assertion, the most distant
reproach on account of your absence and de-
parture. No ; when my good and beloved aunts
quitted us, France was more quiet, the dangers
of the King and the Royal Family not so im-
minent, and if it had not been for the reasons I
then explained to your Royal Highnesses, I
should not myself have hesitated to accept of .
your kind offer, and to accompany you. As
things now are, God be thanked I did not I
would perhaps then have been more happy in
this world, but how many impediments might I
not have encountered in the way of my salva-
- tion ?
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 45
tion ? And what, comparatively, is an existence of
fifty, sixty, seventy, or at the utmost of eighty
years, to an eternity, any more than the meanness,
the littleness, of human beings, to the great-
ness, to the immensity, of an Almighty Creator
“As far as I can, by my weak reason, pene-
trate into the secret views of an often severe, but
always just Providence, of whose lashes we feeble
mortals frequently complain, but which are al-
ways properly applied to our final happiness ; the
time-of our delivery from all evils here is ap-
proaching with rapidity, and will soon be at
hand. The King is totally resigned; the Queen
also is perfeótly resigned, and my fortunate young
nephew and niece, who suspect nothing, who
have no sins to repent of, and no chastisements
to apprehend, will also, I expect, share our fate.
I say fortunate—and indeed they are most happy.
They quit life as pure, as unpolluted, as they
entered it. They know of no regrets, no re-
pentance, and no fears. Oh if I had been cut
off so early, so blessed as they, I would then
have long, long, before the throne of my Saviour,
sung hymns with his saints | But what do I
write, wretch as I am Oh, my God, pardon
me this unintentional thoughtless murmur. You,
you
46 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
you alone know my submission, as well as my
weakness Call me to thee Thy servant is
ready | Yes! I never lay down at night, or get
up in the morning, without thinking, hoping,
and desiring to be called to my God but my
first and last prayer is always, and shall always
be, ‘My God, thy will be done !’
“ I entreat your Royal Highnesses to implore
the Holy Father for the continuance of his bless-
ings and prayers, and that he will in his good-
ness issue orders, that in all the churches of his
capital, be added to the usual prayers for us all,
the service for persons in the agonies of death.
God alone knows whether we shall exist when
this letter reaches our good aunts *.” -- " -
Thus wrote in confidence a Princess in the
prime of life, a descendant of the Kings who
had ruled France during fourteen centuries.
Thus was situated the beautiful sister of a once
all-powerful King. Thus thought a Princess,
whom the splendour of rank, and glitter of af.
fluence, had never bewildered during prosperity;
who was well acquainted with their little value
when fortune Smiled, and therefore was not de-
pressed at her frowns in unexampled adversity.
* Lettres des Femmes Marquantes, p. 31, 32.
As
2^
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 47
As many may suppose that the above letter
was merely dićtated by necessity, from being so
cruelly circumstanced, or that God was, as is
too often the case, her refuge only when op-
pressed by misfortunes, or threatened by assas-
sins, the following extraćt proves that she was
truly religious long before she was really unfor- *
tunate : it is taken from a work containing a
kind of inventory of the apartments occupied by
the Princess Elizabeth in the palace of the
Thuilleries *. y
“We next went up (after the 10th of August)
to the apartments of Madame Elizabeth : very
little of the furniture was broken ; two looking-
glasses and a lustre had here satisfied the popular
fury. The bed-chamber, which we examined
the first, presented us with two curious objećts.
On one side of the chimney stood a screen of
walnut wood, of about three feet in height ; its
shape told us what it was, but its amazing weight
bespoke that it was not simply intended to keep
off the fire. The Commissary placed the screen
in the middle of the room, and after having
* See The Castle of the Thuilleries, printed for Longman
& Co. voll.ii. p. 291, et seq.
pushed .
As THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
pushed down a knob, and unfastened three little
hooks, the machine unfolded itself, and doubling
in height, and growing four times as large as it
before was in breadth, became a complete con-
fessional, of a perfeótly light construction, and
•, easy to be moved about. In the inside was a
seat and a shelf placed under a little wicket,
which was closed with a wooden grating, and
every thing else found in those in the Roman
atholic churches. Its mechanism was artfully
contrived, but its whole construction proved that
it was designed for mortification. Instead of
kneeling before this confessional upon a velvet
cushion, she used a lump of black marble, paint-
ed yellow round the edge, upon the top of which
many holes of different depths were cut, which
must have hurt her as much as if she had been
kneeling upon sharp flints. Such a refinement -
upon mortification would have been seldom
found in a convent, and had certainly never . r
before decorated apartments in a royal palace.
“The Commissary now opened a prayer desk;
it was full of books of devotion. We looked at
them one after another, stopping at such pages
as had ribbands between them. They were al-
most all such as contained prayers adapted to the
• ... -- - present
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 49
present unhappy situation of the Royal Family.
These books were all full of little paintings, such
as flaming hearts, and heads of Christ, done by
the Princess herself. Under each she had written
some Christian sentence, such as this, for instance,
extracted from St. Gregory: “Regard nothing
as an evil in this life, not to lose sight of God.'
A little paper-case of blue leather, informed us
that she had been accustomed to employ herself
in a similar manner for her brother, the King ;
that is to say, in copying or composing prayers.
Out of the hundred leaves which this book con-
tained, half of them were covered with similar
sentences, all in her own hand-writing. Seve-
ral appeared to have been written expressly
adapted to the circumstances to which they re- -
ferred.” - ! .. -
“Among the prayers, the following, written
since the declaration of war in April 1792, car-
ries with it a particular chara&ter, which distin-
guishes it from all those of the same kind found
in the books of devotion of the Roman Catho-
lics. It is to the same purpose, but the turns
are different, and bespeak it to have been dic-
tated by a pious heart, but proceeding from a
VOL. III. 30 - pen
so THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
pen little accustomed to that kind of composi-
“ consecKATION OF FRANCE TO THE Holy .
VIRGIN. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Oh! Holy Virgin, who hast always so especi-
ally protećted France! so many proofs are existing
how very dear it has always been to thee; at pre-
sent it is in misery, in greater misery than it ever
was before, and thou appearest to have forgotten
it. True it is, that France is blameable, but
often before has it been so, and thou hast ob- , x
tained its pardon. How is it, then, at the pre-
sent moment, that you do not speak in its fa-
vour For were you only to say to your Divine
Son, ‘They are overwhelmed with misfortunes,”
soon we should cease to be so. Why then
dost thou delay, O Holy Virgin oh why dost
thou delay to change our unhappy situation ?
Ah, perhaps God wishes us to renew a vow
which one of our kings once made, of con-
secrating France to you. Well then, O Ma-
ria Oh most Holy Mother of Jesus Christ, we
give it, we consecrate it to you afresh. Oh
that my individual voice might prove the pre-
lude to a re-consecration more solemn and uni-
versal.
~
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 51.
versal. Oh that it could but cause to sound
again from the throne to the very extremities of
the kingdom, that voice which drew down upon
it so many benedićtions. Holy Virgin we all
devote ourselves to you s cannot the desire of an
individual supply the defe&t of the whole ? Can-
not the sacred bonds that unite us to all the in-
habitants of this kingdom, as to our brothers ;
cannot the charity which extends our views, and
opens our hearts to admit them all into our of
fering; cannot it render them common with us?
Cannot it give to the consecration of an individual,
the merit and efficacy of a general consecrati on?
We beseech you, O Holy Virgin we conjure
you ! we hope, and in this confidence we offer
you our King, our Queen, and their family ; we
offer you our Princes; we offer you our armies,
and those who command them; we offer you
our magistrates; we offer you every rank and
condition of the state; we offer you all such ‘āS
are charged. with the maintenance of religion and -
morals. In short, we give to you all France.
Oh take up again, Holy Virgin your ancient
rights over it; restore to it faith, restore to it
your former protećtion, restore to it peace
Restore to it Jesus Christ, whom it seems to -
4. . .” D 2 have
52 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
have lost. Lastly, may this kingdom, re-adopted
by you, become entirely the kingdom of Jesus
Christ. So be it * !!!” --
“In the same paper-case we found proofs of
the Prineess having for a long time been most ar-
dently devoted to the culture of religion. In
turning over the papers with the most scrupulous
attention, we found in her own hand-writing, two
resolutionſ, or rules of condući, one dated the 23d
of June 1790, the other the 10th of July fol-
lowing. This last had been written after a short
retirement, which terminated on that day. The
first of these contained a general plan of condućt
for every day of her life; in the second was
comprehended what the Princess laid down to
herself to perform every day in the week; she
fulfilled the duties of religion as follows:
“Sunday—I will so regulate all my ačtions, as
to show my desire of repenting of my sins.
“ Monday—In order that I may not fear the
last judgment, I will ačt towards freeing myself
from all apprehensions of its horrors.
“ Tuesday—In order to avoid going to hell,
* See Castle of the Thuilleries, vol. ii. p. 296,297, Note.
' ' . . . - I will
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 53.
I will fill my mind with the idea, that the
greatest evil is to lose sight of God.
“ Wednesday—I will reflect on Paradise, and
the happiness that the Saints enjoy there.
“ Thursday—I will think of the divine Sa-
crament instituted by God, beg of him the fa-
vour of often receiving it, and of not dying
without having taken it. ~ * -
“ Friday—I will abstraćt my thoughts from
all worldly happiness, to embrace the Cross of
Jesus Christ, and to prepare myself for death.
“ Saturday—I will implore the intercession of
Maria for me with her Son, and give myself up
to worshipping her and all the Saints *.”
In this manner the Princess, like her royal
brother, raised her eyes from earth to heaven. * -
The infidel may despise, and the philosopher
sneer, at those and other acts of devotion, of
penitence, of faith, and of Sanétity; but placed in
those trying circumstances, though without de-
scending from the same elevation, and sinking
so low as her Royal Highness, despair would
seize both : he who sees nothing but anni-
hilation beyond life, as well as he who sees
* Castle of the Thuilleries, vol. ii. p. 298, 299.
D 3 every
84 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
everything on this side of the grave: he who
expects nothing, must naturally at the approach
of an inevitable death, be equally wretched with
him who has only enjoyments to regret.
The Princess's library was composed of books
suited to her taste. Many holy fathers’ com-
mentaries: upon the bible and : liturgy ; some
works of history, of the arts, and of the sciences,
but not a volume of the French philosophers,
such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Hel-
vetius, Raynal, &c. At the bottom of the
room was a table, upon which were scattered
compasses and other mathematical instruments,
which made it evident that she had employed:
herself in the study of these abstruse sciences.
another table, covered with pencils, colours, and
all the apparatus for painting, It was at J this that
the Princess amused herself in following the art
of Apelles. From the different paintings and
sketches, it is to be supposed that she preferred
landscapes, or at least that she had lately been
much attached to that style. Her performances
were far above mediocrity. A little piece of
thirteen lines high, and eleven wide, was well
worthy attention. It contained eighteen gro-
* * -- - --v, tesque
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 55
2.
tesque figures very distinétly drawn; in the dis-
tance was a house and a landscape. The finish-
ing of it was so much the more curious, as it was
painted upon a piece of playing-card (the kin g of
diamonds). She mustindeed have had a great dif-
gº on
S-
culty in preventing her colours from runnin
so spungy a substance. The piece upon which she
appeared to have been at work down to the fatal
10th of At gust, was a landscape of four inches.
by five. It was half finished : a flat country in
the distance, a wood on one side, and in the
foreground a road, along which two travellers
were passing on horseback, constituted its com-
position *. º oº:: “. . . . . . . . . . . .
It is to be remembered, that all the furniture,
and everything else contained in the rooms of
the Princess Elizabeth at the palace of the
Thuilleries, had. been brought from the apart-
ments.She occupied in the palace of Versailles,
and bespoke therefore the sentiments as well as
the occupation of her whole life. In Protestant
countries it may not be generally known, that
the Roman Catholic religion exacts humility, in-
flićts penitence, and commands self-denial, both
Castle of the Thuilleries, vol. ii. p.300,361.
D 4 from
56 THE FEMALE PLUTARefī,
from the king on his throne and the peasant in
his cot, and that however every thing indicated
the habitation of a sincere and devout Christian,
nothing could occasion even a suspicion that the
Princess was a superstitious fanatic. Ill nature,
selfishness, uneharitableness, and pride, are the
usual accompaniments of superstition, while fa-
naticism is unforgiving, intolerant, persecuting,
and frequently sanguinary. The latter part of the
Princess's life has proved her eminent and laud-
able qualities to be the very reverse; the bene-
volence of no person was more indiscriminate;
nobody forgave their foes, and prayed for their
conversion, with more sincerity.
But even at a period when her family and her-
self were at the height of Presperity (shortly
after the conclusion of the American war); when
her beauty no doubt had many admirers, her
virtue few imitators, and her rank numerous
adulators; when the innocence of her youth could
not have assumed the mask of hypocrisy, and no
necessity obliged a noble mind to disguise itself
in the garb of duplicity, she wrote a letter to
---
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 57
reign in favour of a young Swiss orphan, which
-carries with it its own commentary.
“ Persailles, April 23d, 1784.
“ My dearly beloved sister's Protegée is placed
as a cadet, and I am promised a rapid advance-
ment for him, when at an age to be serviceable,
should he conduct himself properly, which I do
not doubt.
“For a boy only twelve years of age, who
has been six years a destitute orphan, and there-
fore owes to charity, or to his own application,
what knowledge he possesses, I judged him,
from his answers to my questions, well behaved
and well informed. His naiveté, in asking me
not to be angry because he was a Protestant, and
would always remain so, made me almost smile.
I told him that I left it entirely to himself to
make his peace with his conscience and with his
God, in the best manner he thought would be
conducive to his happiness here and hereafter;
and that, provided his superiors approved of him,
from the manner he had been recommended to
me, I should not neglect any thing that might
be advantageous to him. -
“ Although I do not blame, I cannot approve
. . . . o 5 of
58. THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
of your husband’s, or, as I suspećt, his confes-
sor's zeal, to convert him to. Catholicism. I,
with all other good Catholics, know and deplore
the errors and danger of heresy, and that Pro-
téstants have adopted the innovations of three
centuries for the orthodoxy of eighteen, and for
the sole religion of the Christian world during
fifteen centuries. ... I pity and pray for them,
but do not hate or curse them ; nor do I con-
sent, as far as it lays in my power, that any hu-
man being usurps an authority over consciences,
which appertains to God alone. . . . . . -
.*. How many nations, still exist in the uni-
verse,' who have not the happiness to. be num-
bered amon g; the faithful, and who have not the
least knowledge of Christianity It would there-
fore be not only uncharitable towards our fellow-
sinners, but injurious to the mercy of a Diving
Providence, to suppose their i gnorance, or want,
of instruction or light, incurring an eternal per- w
dition. . . . … º is . . .'; º; -
J -
• ‘g a 5 - 3 ; ; } . . . tº
: . ." § 3 ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; a
former deprives the wretched of all hope of a
reward in an hereafter, for his sufferings in this
world; and the latter torments and makes him.
tº Next to infidelity I place intoleration: the
#
rº-. § 2". . * r * * * * • * : , , , - -- - - -, ºr * , ; 3. •*. - t ‘. . . . . - :* *: ‘5, I- -
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In ISérá
•. - - - - -- - - - -
*; ſ’’ s - > *. - - -
& . 3.
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 59
#
:
miserable here, though convinced that he will be
tormented and miserable in another world. . . .
* ...x' '
‘. . . . . . ** ... :- . . .
“. ." .* . ſº-
i . . Ah ! n’empoisonnons pas la douceur qui nous reste;
Je crois voir des forçats dans un cachot funeste,
Sepouvant secourir, I'un sur l'autreacharnés,
i. Combattre avec les fers dontils sont enchainés. . . .
* * * ... . . . . . * ‘. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Excuse me, dearest sister, that I employº
- ~ & - - * s - : .. - . - º,
so much of my letter on a religious subječt ; but,
it is your fault; ..I answer merely your questions 3
and I finish with declaring to you, I trust so
much to the bounty of the Divine Creator, that.
It hope few of any se&ts will be damned, although.
I.am firmlyconvinced; every true and sincere Ca-,
would have done honour to the philosopher as
. $º
** ,
tholic will be saved”.' … . . . . . . .
... - ¥ “...: *, *.” .
‘. . . . . -
. . . . . . *, * *
* The Princess Elizabeth was in her twentieth,
year, when she expressed sentiments which,
well as to the philanthropist; to a Confucius as,
well as to a St. Paul. Several other letters that
passed between those two, amiable sisters are pre-
served ; they are chiefly, on moral or religious
matters, and evince, strongly that piety and wir-.
ººgº.º. ººgºi ºriº - . . . . . . . . . .
*. See Les Lettres des Femmes Marquantes, p. 36, 37,
£, iº; i3 jºkº, º, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
*** * * *-ī-
60 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
the were the constant, if not the sole, objećt of
their lives. - --- - - * . . .
In this age of prosperity of crime, a kind of
fatality seems attached to every thing noble and
generous, elevated by birth or by sentiment.
Marie Adelaide Clotilde, this worthy sister of a
Louis XVI. and of a Princess Elizabeth, was mar-
ºried to Charles Emanuel IV. King of Sardinia,
who united in his person the private virtues of
his father and grandfather. His simplicity, his
goodness, the justness of his mind, his love of
his subjećts and of justice, his adherence to his
word, his attachment to his family and to his
people, would have made him the happy sove-
reign of a happy nation, were such precious
qualities enough in these depraved times to me-
rit crowns, or to preserve them. This Prince
has seen all his continental States, Savoy, Nice,
and Piedmont, become departments of a treache-
rous and regicide republic. From his accession
to the throne of his ancestors, he had however
formed a just judgment of the present and of the
future. “I shall not wear my crown of thorns.
a long while,” was his answer to those who at-
tempted to feed him. with hopes. His conscience
and religion ensure him consolations of which
- - - * . . . Buo-
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 61.
Buonaparte cannot rob him, and which that in-
famous man will never enjoy. Such was the
husband of that heiress to the melancholy events
of her family, who, after deploring the murders
of her brother Louis XVI. of her sister-in-law
Marie Antoinette, her nephew Louis XVII. her
sister Princess Elizabeth, and her cousin the
Princess of Lamballe, expired herself an exile at
Rome, on the 1st of March 1802. Her pure,
tender, and resigned spirit, considered itself as
a vićtim marked out by Heaven. Even before
the altar, she upbraided her own fate with the
misfortunes of her subječts, oppressed by the
tyranny of a Buonaparte. Three months after
the death of his heavenly consort, Charles Ema-
nuel IV. abdicated and transferred his sceptre to
his brother, Emanuel V. his present Sardinian
Majesty.
During her imprisonment in the Temple, with
the other members of the Royal Family, the
Princess Elizabeth's attention was chiefly direct-
ed to alleviate the pains, to keep up the hope,
and to console the minds of her fellow-prisoners
and sufferers. As to herself, she was as calm,
as patient, as enduring, as if she had been long
prepared to encownter the brutal ferocity of
gaolers,
62. THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
gaolers, and the refinements of barbarity of that
great nation to whose virtues the care of the
royal captives had been soosteritatiously confided.
Their cowardly degradations, afforded gratifica-
tion and triumph to the littlé, but culpable minds
of their tormentórs. º – , , , , ºi, º, . . .
e Even at an early periodiof their confinement,
one of the national guard boasted of the plea-,
sure he derived from the insults endured by the
Royal Family; he expressed hisjoy at seein gthem
bow to the wicket as they came out ; and added,
“ when: I' see Mada me:Elizabeth coining, I al-
ways take care to salute her with my pipe; iſ draw.
ray mouth-fall of smoke on purpose to have the
pleasure of puffing it in her face”.” Those, and:
more wanton and cruel indignities, when offered
to her, seemed not to be observed by the Prin-
cess; but such was her tender affection for her,
relatives, and total self-denial, that when she had
the least idea that any newinsults were meditated
- against them, she put herself as much as possible; -
in the way, to experience first, of, alone, all the
bitterness of low and popular rancour; malice,
malevolence, or vengeance, & 2, … ... is ºf
*
• ?: . * • ,
§ : ; - . . . . . . . . . ; - : , . * * : ***, * *- ::, ..., , .
. . * , is & ...* ~ * * * * * * * > . . .” “ ” # * > . . 2 : " : 4 × 4. * - *
..& Iº.
ournal de Clery.... . . . ;
.*
$º. " §
After
: . ." See Dernier's Regicides; and 3
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 63.
.*
After the murder of Louis XVI. and the re-
moval of Louis XVII. to another dungeon, and
of Marie Antoinette to the prison of the Con-
ciergerie, the Princess Royal was left under the
care of the Princess Elizabeth; who endeavoured,
by ačts of kindness to her niece, to lessen a mi-
sery common to them both. She was particu-
larly careful in imparting to the young Princess.
those sentiments of religion, humanity, benevo-
lence, and forgiveness, which have since made,
her Royal Highness a model of female perfeótion
and loveliness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 :, , -
In proportion as the afflićtion, of th
augmented by the cruel catastrophes which se-
parated her from those for whose comfort she
had sacrificed herself, the atrocities and outrages
of the republican government increased. ….She
was now. compelled to perform the most menial
offices herself: she dressed, the scanty meal al-
lowed her, and swept the floor of her prison with
her own, hands! The people seemed to have
forgotten that she existed, and to have consigned,
her, without consideration, to the brutality of
; * .*. > : . ,, ... * •, . . ~~ * . . . . . . .
- her gaolers...: ‘. . . gº. . . . . . . . . ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; “ . . . . . . . . . . $.5%
During the trial of the late Mayor of Paris
(the accomplice of La Fāyette), Băilly, in Novem-
. . . vember
e Princess, ,
54 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
ber 1793, the Princess was called as a witness to
prove some facts relative to the transačtion of the
Champ de Mars, in July 17 91, but she declined
giving any testimony. Her dignified answer to
the question put to her by the president of the
tribunal, was, “You know that the blood of
your Sovereign, of Bourbons, pardons, but does
not accuse”.” Her courage and magnanimity
surprised indeed the republican assassins, but
instead of exciting a deserved applause, were ac-
companied with murmurs and threats.
The removal to the Conciergerie, and the trial
of the Queen, had been determined on the day
when the National Convention was informed of
the surrender of Valenciennes, in July 1793 :
at the news, in May 1794, of the capitulation of
Landrecy, the murder of the Princess Elizabeth
WaS decreed. Whether defeated or vićtorious,
murderous decrees have always been the resort of
the revolutionary rulers, resolved both to silence -
by terror the complaints of the disaffected, and
to modify by terror the rejoicings and preten-
sions of associates or accomplices. -
Robespierre meditated also about this time
* 8ee Dernier's Regicides, and Journal de Clery, Debates,
the
and the Moniteur of November 1793,
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 65
the destruction of his rivals, the Cordeliers.
With his usual policy, he laboured to occupy the
public with some other event, to prevent the
friends of his vićtims from raising commotions to
revenge their fate. With this view, two days
after he had denounced the pretended conspi-
racy of the Cordeliers, and obtained the arrest
of their principal members, a deputation, headed
by Buonaparte's brother-in-law, Murat, tutored
for the purpose, attended at the bar of the Con-
vention, and required, that “the impure remains
of the family who butchered the people on the
10th of August, should fall under the avenging
and protećting sword of the law”.”
The Princess was found by the Commissary of
the Commune, who was to carry her from the
Temple to the Conciergerie, upon her knees,
saying her prayers previously to going to bed. It
was near midnight, and a rainy and stormy night,
between the 8th and 9th of May 1794. Instead
(as used with the other Bourbons sent to the
republican butchery,) of having a hackney coach
to bring her Royal Highness to her new gaol,
she was ordered to walk the whole way, near
* See Dernier's Regicides, Debates, and Moniteur of No-
rember 1793. - ,
. . ." three
66. THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
three miles, on foot, with a bundle under her
arm, surrounded by eight gens d’armes on horse-
back, headed by the Commissary. From her
long confinement, and from want of proper
nourishment, she could hardly keep herself upon
her feet, and asked therefore as a favour to have
a coach, but it was refused her. She walked con-
sequently very slowly, and often even stumbled,
but the ruffian escort, so far from showing com-
passion, struck her brutally with their swords
to oblige her to get up and walk faster. In
crossing the Place de Greve she fainted, and
after the gens d'armes had beat her in vain
with their swords to rise, one of them laid her
across his horse, and carried her for the re-
mainder of the way (near a mile) in that man-
ner, to the Conciergerie. * > When, º having re-
covered her senses, the gens. d’armes, gaolers,
and, turnkeys upbraided her for her cowardice,
“You are wrong, or mistaken,” replied the
Princess, “my weakness is bodily, not mental”.
This is the respeš civilized Frenchmen, citizens •
of the first an digreateſt nation in the world, show º
to misfortunes and to the sex; thus French
* Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 202,
gº ºf regeneratorf
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. 67
-
ar -
regenerators protećt innocence, pity misery, and
reverence constancy, grandeur, and resignation'
in distress, in undeserved, unheard of cala-
mity | | | - . . . .
The life of this truly amiable Princess had
been so virtuous, so beneficent, so exempt. from
blame, that it was a matter of some difficulty to:
frame her act of accusation. It contained many.
general allegations, couched in the most inde-
corous and insulting language, but nothing which
applied particularly to the condućt of the Prin-
cess, except a charge that she had sent her
diamonds to her brother, the Count d’Artois,
and that since the death of the King, she had
treated the young Prince with distinctions due.
to royalty”. . . . . . . . ,
On the 10th of May her Royal Highness ap-
peared before the Revolutionary Tribunal. Being
asked the usual question of her name and rank,
she replied, “My name is Elizabeth Philipine
Marie Helene de France, and I am the aunt of:
the King of France and Navarre.” This noble,
answer decided her fate; she was immediately !
declared guilty +. * It was so much the more
* See. Proces des Bourbons, vol. iii. p. 171.
+ Moore's View, vol. ii. p. 503,
'. s
- - - sublime,
63 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
sublime, as it was delivered by a woman deserted
by the universe, without friends or defenders,
and in the power of the regicide murderers of
her family. - - -
Four and twenty persons were tried at the
same time, and condemned for the same con-
spiracy. She was carried to the scaffold on a
cart, with her hands tied behind, the executioner
on her right, and the widow of the ex-minister
de Montmorin on her left, to whom she ad-
ministered that consolation she herself enjoyed.
As she passed to the place of execution her
handkerchief fell from her neck, and exposed
her in that situation to the eyes of the multitude;
she then addressed these words to the execu-
tioner: “In the name of modesty, I entreat you
to cover my bosom *.” She was the last exe-
cuted. - -
fier condućt on her trial, and till the moment
of her death, was calculated to prove before a
tribunal of atheists and a horde of assassins, the
firmness and composure which religion can com-
municate to a mind naturally timid ; even in
the greatest evils inflićted by Providence, the
* Anecdotes des Femmes Marquantes, vol. i. p. 13.
sincere.
PRINCESS ELIZABETH. '69.
sincere Christian is recompensed for his faith:
God did not forsake a princess when in adversity,
who had remembered him in her prosperity.
Her death was as edifying, as her life had been
pure and pious. - -
The Princess Elizabeth consoling upon a cart,
by the side of the executioner, a fellow-sufferer,
is more sublime than Socrates conversing with his
disciples, or Seneca dićtating to his secretaries;
and the Princess Elizabeth, kneeling upon her
marble slab in a royal palace, has more merit
than St. Simeon Stilite contemplating the
heavens from the top of his pillar in the midst
of a desert, . . . -- *
F#&
THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME,
* THE DAUGHTER OF LOUIs xvi.
~. - A r . . . . . . * * *
MARIE THERESA CHARLOTTE, Princess
Royal of France, and Duchess of Angouleme,
is the sole daughter and surviving child of
Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, King and
Queen of France and Navarre. Her Royal
Highness was born at Versailles on the 19th of
December 1778; and after being baptized, re-
ceived the title of Madame, Fille du Roi, though
the prevailing custom has been to call her Ma-
dame Royale. - -
The Queen's pregnancy with this daughter,
the first after a marriage of eight years, was
announced to the inhabitants of Paris by an act
of beneficence truly pious and royal, and which
Marie Antoinette often repeated in the course of
* her reign. She sent to the direétor of the office
for wet nurses, a large sum of money to be em-
ployed in procuring the liberty of unfortunate
. . * *
.*
parents,
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 71
parents, imprisoned for non-payment of the
debts, contračted for their children. Prayers for
her Majesty were offered up in all parts of the
kingdom ; and several companies, military, reli-
gious, and municipal, displayed their loyalty in
aćts of devotion and benevolence. After the
Queen's delivery, the prevote of the merchants,
and the municipal officers. at Paris, subscribed
and collečted subscriptions sufficient to release
from prison two hundred fathers of families con-
fined for debt, and her Majesty herself distri-
buted other charities"in a manner no less inte-
resting than engaging. She caused to be selected
a hundred young women, poor, and of good
charaćter, from the different parishes in Paris, to
each of whom she gave five hundred livres, as a
marriage portion ; two hundred livres to pur-
chase a suit of clothes for their husbands, and
twelve livres for a wedding dinner *.
| Such benevolent ačtions, and such loyal and
favourable occurrences accompanied and cele-
brated the brilliant birth of a princess, who was
# *desti ned, before she had reached her fifteenth year 3.
to undergo those uncommon vicissitudes, and to
/
experience
72 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH,
experience those unexampled losses and afflic-
tions, which are no where found in the history
of civilized Europe, to have overtaken the longest
life of the most culpable wretch. -
When her Royal Highness witnessed the first
SCenéS of horror; when she for the first time saw
her habitation invaded, plundered, and stained
with blood; when the first threats of regicide
assassins against her royal parents resounded in
her ears and alarmed her heart, she was not yet
eleven years of age. No; she was not eleven
when, on the 6th of Oétober 1789, she saw the
faithful gardes du corps of her father butchered
by a ferocious multitude, in defending the me-
naced and proscribed life of her mother; she
was not eleven when she was forced from Ver.-
sailles to Paris, and to join in a procession of
cannibals, who carried the heads of these gardes
du corps before and by the side of the royal car-
riage; who ate their hearts, and, savage-like,
danced round the bleeding corpse of their vic-
tims. In a letter written to her aunt, the late
Queen of Sardinia, she paints with all the inge-
nuity and naiveté of youth, the strong impres-
sion those atrocities made upon a humane and
noble heart, the feelings of which, to judge from
the
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 73
the sentiments expressed, had already arrived at
a maturity above her age.
* - - “ Paris, Ośtober 12, 1789.
“Oh!'my dearest aunt; how unhappy have I
been since I wrote to you last; how unhappy are
my papa and mamma, my grand aunts, Iny uncle,
my aunt, and even my little brother. We were
all so much frightened by the ugly looking
people that used such shocking words to us all,
but particularly to my good mamma, who never
did them any harm. Do you know that they
killed the gardes du corps, because they would
not let them kill mamma, and the whole way to
Paris they held their terrible heads to us, and
terrified us all, but my brother and myself more
than any body else. I cannot think of these
men and these heads without trembling. I have
dreamed of them every night since, and I am
sure I shall dream of them as long as I live. I
do not see in the Thuillery garden an ill-looking
man, without thinking of these heads, and that
he is perhaps waiting to cut off the head of SOjilé-
body, perhaps my own, my brother's, or my
papa's or mamma's. Is it not terrible I 31I]; .
however, no longer angry with them; the King
and my aunt Elizabeth have told me, if I do not
vol. III. F. forgive
74 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
forgive them, God will not forgive me my sins.
1 do forgive them, and have every day, with my
aunt, prayed God to forgive them too; but I am,
notwithstanding my prayers, unable to master
my feelings: the very idea of them made me
shudder. - - -
“I asked the King, who is always low-spirited,
if the gardes du corps had not sinned much, to
be killed and treated in that cruel manner He
said, that God knows that, but that he hoped
they were now happy in heaven. We have all
ever since prayed to God for the repose of their
souls; pray, my dearest aunt, do the same, they
fought so brave and suffered so much. My
mamma always says that she is indebted to them
for her life, and that if they had not sacrificed
themselves, the ill-looking people would have
done with her as they did with her bed, which
they cut to pieces. Good God, what a trembling
that horrid thought puts me into No, God will
not let them kill my mamma, who is so good and
so charitable to all; she has just given many
many thousands of livres to take out all the
pledges of all poor people, perhaps for many of
them who wished to kill her. Is it not very
good ; - .
. . . . “After
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 7s
“After having heard mass, and breakfasted,
we now walk between eleven and twelve in the
Thuillery garden, when it is fine weather, some-
times with my papa, mamma, and aunt, and some-
timesonly with my mamma and aunt. Mybrother
and I must not play together in the garden, but
only in our rooms. Indeed, though he is a boy,
he is more frightened than I, and always takes
hold of the hand of somebody when any ill-
looking people approach us. -
“I send my dearest aunt, with this long letter,
a small drawing of mine, and 3. prayer to the
Holy Virgin, to implore the mercy of her Divine
Son on us, and to procure an end to all our
troubles; we read it here all every morning and
every night : pray, my dearest aunt, do the same.
When my Papa, mamma, uncle, and aunt are
again happy, we shall then all say for you any
prayer you like; and, indeed, we shall do so
- now, though our misfortunes want so much the
- prayers of others. Indeed we do pray every
day for you and your husband, and for every
body, and we wish all with our hearts happiness
to every body upon earth, even those villanous
men and women who frightened us so much.
We do indeed. Oh how happy shall I be when
E 2 - H can
^.
76 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
3 can tell my aunt that my papa and mamma are
no more so very low-spirited and melancholy. I
have just now been crying, because my mamma
had been crying when she came here to look at
what I was writing. I hope before Christmas we
shall not be so afflićted. Do, my dearest aunt,
pray God that we may not *.” --
Poor unfortunate Princess ! or rather fortunate
delusion Her parents, her relatives, and her-
self to be happy or less afflićted before Christmas!
Alas! Providence had so ordered, that no more
happiness was reserved in this world for those so
dearly and affectionately beloved by her—their
felicity was only to be found on the other side
of the gravel. Every day, nay, almost every
hour, increased their troubles, and the audacity 's
and barbarity of conspirators, traitors, and rebels.
During the cannibal procession from Versailles
to Paris, in Očtober 1789, was not the only
occasion that her Royal Highness had to tremble
for lives so valuable, and to witness the dangers -
of licentiousness, and the ferocity of an unbridled
rabble. She accompanied and returned with
her royal parents from Varennes in J une 1791,
*See Lettres des Femmes Marquantes, p. 18, and 19.
- . and
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 77
and was by their side during the scandalous and
sanguinary scenes of the 20th of J une and 10th
of August 1792.
... It was during the first official imprisonment
of the Royal Family by La Fayette, after the
journey to Varennes, that the Princess wrote
thus to her royal aunt at Turin: -
- - “ Paris, June 30, 1791.
“My dearest aunt, how unfortunate we are
all here; we are now all truly prisoners; nobody
can visit us, and we are not permitted to visit
any body. My papa, my mamma, and my aunt,
are all truly miserable; and I and my brother,
we really cry more than play. Oh I God, God!
what have we done to be so wretched when
will our wretchedness end • .
“What a journey, my dearest aunt Re-
peated, incessant insults; want of all conve-
niences. Some loyal persons were killed by
our side, and my papa's garde du corpſ every
instant threatened with destrućtion. Good .
God, how my poor papa sighed, and my
mamma and my aunt cried Oh! we were all
so desolate, so miserable, that we could neither
eat nor sleep, neither speak nor hardly think.
I am sure I heard the sobbings of my mamma.
. . . E 3. and
78 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and aunt every night; they almost rent my very
heart. Pray, my good, my dear aunt pray
console them, and include us all in your prayers.
What a shocking people must those be, where
my uncles and the emigrants are, when those we
passed in the way to them were so bad Oh
how I pity them ; and what must they not en-
duze, when we suffered so much
“I can neither read, write, nor draw by
myself. I am so unhappy, and find therefore
no pleasure but in reading and praying with my
papa and my aunt. O how can they be so cruel:
to us? we never do harm to any body, My
aunt says that every thing is for our welfare, but
how long, how very long time, are we not al-
ready unfortunate Pray, dearest aunt, do
write to my papa, and my mamma, and my
aunt, and tell them that you pray for them, and
that you hope that God will soon cause their
troubles to be over *.” . . . . .
After the insurreótion of the 20th of June
1792, her Royal Highness wrote again to her
* Lettres des Femmes Marquantes, p. 19, 20,
~
* Paris,
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 79.
. . . . . .” “Paris, June 22, 1792. º -
* The day before yesterday, I thoug it that
we all should be killed. My mamma, my brother,
and myself, were the whole day separated from
our good papa and aunt. Judge of our anxiety,
particularly when the cruel Jacobins forced us to
put on the villanous red cap, under pain of having
our heads cut off and carried upon pikes. Al-
though my poor mamma bade me to fear nothing,
oh how I trembled. She told me to trust to the
protećtion of God; but if they killed her, to
tell my papa, that he, I, my brother, and aunt,
were her sole care and thoughts in her last no-
ments. Oh no, mamma, said I, you shall not
die; they shall not kill you. But should they do
it, replied my mamma, I pray God with all my
heart, to forgive them, provided they only spare
you, your papa, your brother, and aunt. My
mamma did not cry, but she was so pale, that I
am convinced she was not well. -
“You can form little idea, dearest aunt, how
much we were exposed. A very ill looking
shabby man, with a red cap, and his hands and
face stained with blood, said to my mamma, in
shewing his sword, ‘This is just sharpened to
cut off your head, Madame Veto.’, Good God,
E 4. how
ao THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
how the villain terrified me! but my mamma
said nothing but sighed, though all the mob -
Howled out at the same time, “Bravo! vive la
nation ſ” +
“Oh, mydear dearest aunt, how happy you are
to be far from this place. Oh if they would
permit me to carry my papa, my mamma, my
brother, and my aunt with me to you, I would
give them every thing I possess in this world,
even my favourite canary bird, provided they
did not kill it. ' Yes, I would even let them
kill that poor dear, dear bird, provided they
would spare us, and let us go to you. But no
I apprehend that we shall all be destroyed here.
My aunt says that our only hope and resource is
in God, and we pray together from morning to
night".” s.
This is the last letter published, and pro-
bably the last that her Royal Highness wrote to
her aunt before the catastrophe of the 10th of
August, which deprived her, with the other
members of the Royal Family, of their liberty, .
and exchanged their palace for a gaol.
* Lettres des Femmes Marquante, p, to, 51.
ExtJCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 81:
The following short account explains in what
manner the Tuchess of Angouleme passed her
time in the palace of the Thuilleries, and proves
that notwithstanding the disastrous situation and
the sufferings of the Royal Family, her educa-
"tion, so far from being neglected, was most care-
fully attended to. It is a relation of what was
observed in her apartment during a visit shortly
- - g; . - º
after the 10th of August.
“When we left the Dauphin's chamber, we
went into that of his sister : it was larger than
,”
his, and in greater order and neatness. On one
side, upon a broken piano-forte, lay some sheets,
of the first principles of vocal and instrumental
music, and a little further, upon a table nearly.
covered with pencils and papers, was a. large
portfolio filled with prints, and drawings. We
opened this portfolio, and found in it several
drawings made by the young Madame Royal;
at the bottom of every one of them she had
written these words, MARIE THERESE CHAR- .
LoTTE DE FRANCE fecit.; the date of the year.
and month followed them, which made it.easy
for us to judge of the progress she had made. A
woman's head, and a foot, tolerabi y well shade d.
dated July 1788, informed us that she had
E 5 handled
82 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH,
handled a pencil before she was ten years old.
Drawings in the following year proved to us,
from the manner in which they were finished,
that she worked with taste. Since the month of
March 1790, she had drawn landscapes with
figures; the last of her drawings was finished
the first of May 1792; it represented the view of
an aquedućt on the road from Naples to Salerno.
This piece evinced talents, and was done with
much taste. Besides her drawing-master, her
aunt, the Princess Elizabeth, gave her lessons,
and spurred her emulation by example.
“Some sheets of paper contained an extraćt
of the history of France, copied by her Royal
Highness. It proved that the useful was mixed
with the agreeable in her education. The King
her father had taken charge of her instruction,
and made her write out what she studied, that
she might be able to give him an account of it,
and these sheets of paper were only some parts
of her late studies. The hand-writing of the
Princess was very fine, but though it had a great
. resemblance to the Queen's, was much supe-
rior”,” -
* The Castle of the Thuilleries, vol. ii. p. 25 1,252, 253. - * *
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. S3
\
Her Royal Highness had also her fixed hours
for prayers, for reading, for walking, for needle-
work, for embroidering, for music, as well as for
writing and drawing ; and besides the direétion of
her masters or governesses, she was always either
under the inspection of the King, of the Queen,
or of the Princess Elizabeth. Her education
was therefore complete before she was deprived
of the authors of her days, and of her ami-
able aunt. The accomplishments of her mind
were as much admired as the elegance and
beauty of her person, but the dignity and firm-
ness of her character surpassed both. In the
dreary prison of the Temple, after the murder
of her royal parents and aunt, and her Separa-
tion from her brother, she condućted herself
with that becoming propriety, and with an ele-
vation of soul and behaviour, which, though it
could not prevent unfeeling brutality from in-
sulting her distress, forced it to respect and re-
were her person. She never entered into any
conversation with her gaolers, or the National
Commissaries, but always gave short and dignix
fied answers to their questions. Even the strićt
solitude in which she was kept during so many.
months, did not induce her to alter her condućt,
E 6 She
sº Tºº FEMALE PLUTARCH.
*~
She always remembered that she was the daugh-
ter of a king, and that those who guarded her
- were the most guilty and contemptible of her fa-
ther's barbarous subjećts. -
/ Some time after the death of Robespierre, Ma-
dame Mackau and a few other ladies formerly at-
tached to her person, were separately permitted to
visit the Princess in the Temple. What occurred
during one of these visits is thus related: “I was
one of the first persons formerly known to the
young Princess, and, after many difficulties, at
last obtained permission to see her alone in the
Temple, where I entered trembling and agitated.
I found her reading the history of France, but
instead of flying to meet me, she seemed to he-
sitate leaving her chair. The instant, however,
I attempted to throw myself at her feet, she
threw herself into my arms, saying, “Forgive
ine, my dear Madam, a reception you do not
deserve; but I have for so long time seen no
other persons but those who came to insult my
misfortunes, and humiliate my person, that I
cannot be too much upon my guard. I am very
glad, but at the same time very uneasy, at see-
ingyou here; I fear that your friendship for me
will probably expose you to many dangers.”
Upon
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 85
Upon my assurance that I had the permission of
government, she pressed my hands with kind-
ness, saying, “If that is the case, do and say
nothing, whatever consolation or pleasure you
think it may give me, that may excite their an-
ger or jealousy.' I avoided as much as possible
to touch on anything that might renew her re-
membrances, sorrow, or regret; but this was the
subjećt she seemed most pleased to dwell upon.
She told me such disgusting trials of wanton in-
dignities and brutak ferocity offered her, as
disgrace our age and our nation for ever. She
had for months been obliged to sweep her room,
make her bed, wash and mend her stockings
and dress; and her gaolers always took care,
when they knew that she was performing any of
these humble ačts, as honourable to her as de-
grading to France, to call in numbers of low
and vulgar persons to laugh at her, ridicule her, --
or abuse her. Even her scanty vićtuals she was
herself under the necessity of dressing. They con-
sisted for a long time of only two ounces of bad
meat, and a quarter of a pound of bread, dur-
ing each twenty-four hours. They for some
time, according to their caprice or orders, took
from her all her books, or exchanged them for.
86 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
bad ones; bringing her at the same time a quari-
tity of the very coarsest sack-cloth, to make
sacks for the armies. This she refused to do,
and was punished, by being deprived during
forty-eight hours of every thing but bread and
water. Another time they placed themselves by
her door during the night, singing the most
terrible songs to alarm her, and to prevent her.
sleeping. They even when she was in bed, en-
tered the room, and forced her to answer and
shew herself, to convince them that she had not
escaped. This cruel intrusion prevented her
for the future from undressing when she went
to bed. She did not, know of the murder
of her mother and her aunt till a month after
Robespierre's execution, and till that time she ---
always continued to pray for them as if alive;
though the one had been dead eleven months,
and the other five. She was not certain of her
brother's existence until I informed her that this
young Prince was still confined in the same pri-
son with her, perhaps in the next room. She
was exceedingly moved during the whole con-
versation, and from her eyes being so red, I am
sure she was accustomed to pass a great part of
her time in tears. She inquired after her aunts
*- - 3t.
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 87
J. *
. . . - Princess,
at Turin and N aples, and charged me to express
her dutiful and affe&tionate sentiments to them.
She entreated me, in the most tender manner,
to employ my zeal in procuring her an oppor-
tunity to see her brother, if only for a quarter
of an hour in the day, and in presence of wit-
nesses. She deplored much his situation, on ac-
count of his inexperience and youth, and the
neglect of his education for so long a time.
What will surprise every body, but which is
nevertheless a truth, I found her really improved
in amiableness, as well as in elegance and in-
formation. From want of exercise she was grown
rather corpulent, but her gait, her manners, her
conversation, the turn of her ideas, with an
agreeable inexpressible je me fgaiſ quoi, are ali
those of the lovely Marie Antoinette's, and re-
minded me of that inimitable model of beauty,
grandeur, and condescension”.”
This simple narrative, in confirming the for-
mer relations, concerning the refinement of .
cruelties to which all the members of the Royal
Family were exposed in the republican bastille,
the Temple, also displays the character of this
* See Anecdotes des. Femmes Marquantes, vol. ii. p. 169,119.
• ; ; , . . . . . . . . . . . ; ; ; ; ; ; T : . . . "… . . . . . . . . . . .
* *
88 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH. .
Princess to an advantage, not flattered, but me-
rited. When this lady visited her she was in
her seventeenth year, had passed two years and
two months in close confinement, and fourteen
months without seeing or speaking to any hu-
man being but her gaolers and tormentors, the
assassins of her family—ruffians that had nothing
human about them but the shape. What
strength of mind. must she not have possessed •
what constancy, what resignation, and what
piety, did it not require, to endure, without
despair or weakness, but to support with firm-
ness, such a calamity, such afflićtion | What in-
nate greatness of mind, what innate courage, was
not necessary, to keep at a distance, and to
brave those assassins and their accomplices,
whose hands were still reeking with the blood of
a murdered father, mother, and aunt, and in
whose power, and at whose disposal, were her
own person and existence Monsters, known.
‘to be capable of perpetrating any enormities,
and certain of impunity, whether they stabbed
her in her bed, poisoned her during her meals,
or dispatched her. publicly on a scaffold. . . . . . .
After the French regicides of the National
•- . Convention, by another crime, had in June
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 89
1795 destroyed Louis XVII. they ventured to
dismiss their fears of returning royalty, and
- passed a decree, that so soon as the late minister
at war, and the deputies delivered up by Gene-
ral Dumourier, or by other means fallen into
the hands of the allies, should be restored to
France, Madame Royal, the daughter of Louis
xv. I, should be placed in the hands of corn-
missioners appointed by the Emperor of Ger-
many to receive her. After a considerable time
spent in negotiations, her Royal Highness, on
the 25th of December 1795, was secretly con-
veyed to Basle, and there surrendered to the
Prince de Gavre, the principal Imperial com-
missioner, waiting there at the head of a nume-
rous suite, to receive her with that respe&t due
to her rank and misfortunes. Her Royal High-
ness's reception at the Imperial court at Vienna
was most brilliant and cordial. The Austrian
hero, Archduke Charles, demanded her hand;
but this splendid and auspicious alliance could
not divert the mind of the young Princess from
that which she considered her duty, the accom-
plishment of a promise made by her parents to
his Royal Highness Monsieur, of uniting her to
her cousin the Duke of Angouleme. -
On
90. THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
On the 10th of June 1799, the marriage of
his Royal Highness the Duke of Angouleme
with the Princess Royal of France, was cele-
brated at Mittau in Courland, in the presence
of his Most Christian Majesty, the King of
France and Navarre, Louis XVIII. the Queen
his consort, a great number of French nobility
and gentry faithful to their God and King, and
the most considerable inhabitants of the town.
His Eminence Cardinal Montmorency, High Al-
moner of France, blessed this affecting union,
which Heaven seems to have designed, and to
have favoured, amidst the unparalleled misfor-
tunes that have befallen a sovereign house, re-
served to fill again the throne, and to add new
lustre to the sceptre, which was wrested from
them by unnatural French rebels, and an auda-
cious Corsican adventurer. s -
The Princess had not previously experienced
the consolation of seeing her august relatives
since she escaped from her native land, that had
been so barbarously inundated with the blood of
her family and loyal countrymen. The moment
of their meeting was marked by an effusion of the
sentiments of nature, of tenderness, and of sor-
row, which so many cruel recolle&tions mingled
with
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME, 91
with this pleasing overflow of heart. The Prin-
cess was going to throw herself at the King's feet,
when his Majesty caught her to his boson, and
bathed her with his tears: she wept aloud, and
as soon as she could recover herself, assured her
adopted father of the warmth of her gratitude.
It was several hundred miles from the king-
dom governed for so many centuries by their
ancestors, that the buds of Henry IV, and Louis
KVI. met to form at the altar, these ties so de-
sired and so desirable. The Emperor of Russia,
Pauli signed the marriage contrač, and deposited
the trust in the archives of his Senate. What an
age is this, in which we witness such vicissi-
tudes in which the frozen regions of the north
offer the last asylum to a King of France, amidst
monarchies shaken or overthrown by the usurper
of his crown ; in which, from the recesses of a
tower, that became the tomb of her brother,
and whence she had seen the authors of her life,
and the heavenly consolers of her sorrows pass ‘s.
to the scaffold, the heiress of the house of
France, the grand-daughter of Maria Theresa,
goes into Courland, to unite herself with a con-
sort of her blood, who, like herself, is the sport
of
#2 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
of the fury of a band of regicides and rebels,
and of adversity without example. --
Mr. Guilhermi, a deputy of the Tierr-effat
in the National Assembly of 1789, was among
the guests who were present at the marriage
dinner. The King, ever attentive to acknow-
hedge and to notice loyalty, as he is to admit re-
pentance and to pardon offences, said to him, in
the affectionate tone natural to his Majesty, “I
should have been still happier, could I have as-
sembled here all who, like you, distinguished
themselves by a courageous fidelity to the King,
my brother.”
Unfortunate Frenchment abused, degraded,
chained, mocked, oppressed, plundered, poison-
ed, shot, drowned, and guillotined by your Buo-
napartes, Talleyrand and Fouche, you are much
more to be pitied than these innocent young
heirs of a throne which you have suffered to be
overturned, which you have not the courage to
re-establish, and under the shade of which alone
you will recover that repose you lost with so much
indifference; you are mad enough to look for in
your slavery to every kind of tyrant and tyranny,
and patience enough to hope from a miracle
May the less untoward auspices under which -
- - - this
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME. 93
this ceremony of Mittau was celebrated, be a
presage of the destiny which the justice of Pro-
vidence reserves for a pair so worthy of the re-
spe&t and of the love of their country. All that
can embellish the crown, and remove the fears
of the French, deceived as to the consequences
of its re-establishment, the charms of person and
of mind, mildness, kindness, sincerity, the glow
of youth, clemency, the instruction of adversity,
the remembrance of the admirable lessons of
Louis XVI, and the example and sentiments of
Louis XVIII. all are here added to the sacred
rights of birth, to fix the interests and wishes of
France on those two remaining shoots of an an-
cient stock, destined to cleanse, purify, and adorn
those palaces and that throne which are now
given up to guilt, filth, and despotism.
Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Angour
Heine, has ever since her marriage continued to
reside, with her uncle the King of France, an d,
with her royal consort, received from their Sove-
reign, lessons both to support with fortitude un-
deserved distress, and instruction how to govern
with glory, should Providence place them. one
‘day upon the throne of their ancestors. Not
being yet blessed with any offspring, the do-
, , ; ' '. - mestic
94 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
mestic cares of the Duchess are few, and her
whole time is employed in fulfilling her religious,
connubial, and social duties. She enjoys, and is
worthy of enjoying, the most tender affection of
her consort and relations, and the most unaffected
respe&t and admiration of all who have the
honour to approach her, of foreigners as well as
of Frenchmen. With the piety and rectitude
of her father, she has inherited the graces and
charitable benevolence of her mother. Numbers
of anecdotes are related of this Princess, which
do equal honour to her head and to her heart,
to her religion and to her rank.
In 1798 Louis XVIII. was acknowledged by
the Emperor of Russia, Paul the First, as King of
France and Navarre, and was invited by him to
reside in the ducal castle of Mittau, until he
could restore him to his throne. In this former
capital of Courland his Most Christian Majesty
was at first treated with all the honours due to a
'sovereign, which another more fortunate, liberal-
minded sovereign could bestow. He had a
guard of honour of two hundred Russians in his
castle, besides a body-guard of French noblemen,
paid by the Emperor. The Russian commander
at Mittau was entirely under his orders, and his
. . . . . . . -- levees
DUCHESS OF ANGOUEEME. 95
levees were crowded by the nobility of Courland,
Livonia, and Russia. As the pecuniary bounties
of Paul were more than sufficient for a prince,
economical from principle and custom, as well
as from delicacy, a number of ruined emigrants
flocked to Russia to share them. The duration
of this prosperous adversity, however, was not -
long. The generous but weak Emperor, misled
by republican intriguers, suddenly changed his
condućt, and, adopting the ignoble sentiments of
his new ignoble friend Buonaparte, sent the
King, whom he had acknowledged and invited
to his dominions, orders to leave the Russian
territory within a week. Three months previous
to this order, the payment of the usual pension
had been withheld; Louis XVIII. and all the
Frenchmen at Mittau were, therefore, reduced
to the greatest distress, because they had all been
ordered to depart with their King.
Thus situated, his Majesty informed the
Duchess of Angouleme of his determination “to
quit within twenty-four hours a country, where
insult and humiliation had taken the place of
hospitality; and that as he had not the means.
to travel as he had formerly done, and the little
that he possessed was necessary for the assistance
. . - of
96 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
of those of his subjećts who had accompanied
him, he would the next day, on foot, leave
Mittau, and shew the unfortunate emigrants an
example how to support misfortunes! -
At her marriage, her Royal Highness had
received from her first cousins, the Emperor and
Empress of Germany, a valuable ecrim, or jewel-
box: without mentioning to any body her inten-
tion, she sent for some Jews, and obtained upon
these jewels a sum of money, sufficient not only
for her uncle’s travelling expences, but to pro-
vide for the present wants of her countrymen at
Mittau. When her uncle, the next morning,
found out this generous act, the tears of all re-
lieved Frenchmen told this Prince, that by press-
ing his niece to his bosom, he should reward.
instead of resenting, the first ačt of her life which
she ever concealed from him. This young Prin-
cess had, in the dungeons of the Temple, early
learned to know the little value of either jewels,
rank, or life, as well as the real duty of huma-.
nity and the worth of undeserved wretchedness.
Three days prior to the marriage of the
Duchess of Angouleme, another princess of her
family, scattered by the storms of the revolution,
died at Triest. Her grand aunts, when they left
*
France,
.**
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME, 97
France, had retired to Rome, and from Rome
to Naples. Still followed by the assassins of
their race, after the invasion of Naples they had
sailed for Corfu, whence they had proceeded to
Trieste, where the eldest of these Princesses ended
her life. The other went to Vienna, and ex-
pired there in exile two years afterwards. Six
Bourbons have within some few years perished
by violent deaths in France, and the Countess
d’Artois died lately in Carinthia, preceded by
her sister-in-law the Queen of Sardinia, who
died at Rome. The other surviving Bourbons
are dispersed in different and distant countries.
Some reside in England, some in Spain, some in
-- Germany, in Poland, and in Russia. They are all
equally proscribed and equally unfortunate, and
would cease to exist the day hospitality refused
them a home, or generosity a support. '•
Let private individuals cast their eyes upon
these descendants of St. Louis, and they will,
with reason, bless Heaven for having placed them
in their birth far from greatness.
VOL. III. F THE
^.
98
- THE IMPERIAL
PRINCESS LETA. BUONAPARTE,
THE Morrier OF THE BUONAPARTES.
->
IT is no common fortune that has changed -
a mistress of one of the governors of the King
of France into a mother of an Emperor of the
French ; and transformed an obscure, poor, and
guilty Corsican adulteress into a conspicuous and
wealthy French Imperial Princess. Such a sur-
prising occurrence, is another evidence of the im-
morality of our age, of the perve 'sity and de-
gradation of republican Frenchmen, and of the
selfish and dangerous policy of many continental
cabinets. What hereditary rank can hereafter
pretend to respect; what virtue hope for re-
wards; what honour expect distinction; what
talents advancement; and what eminence con-
sideration or admiration ? In a time when the
highest authority is seized, ſaluted and revered in
- the
PRINCESS LETITIA BUONAPARTE. 99
the greatest of criminals, who with audacity and
impunity elevates native meanness ; bestows
titles on corruption and vileness, and surrounds
an imperial throne with the dregs of society ;
what encouragement has honesty, what support,
what consolation has loyalty, and what dread has
rebellion and infamy There is no gaol in the
universe that could not furnish a purer Emperor
than Napoleone the First, and no house of cor-
rečtion, no brothel can be discovered in the
world, from which might not be dragged forwards
a more innocent Empress than Josephine, and a
- mor º innocent and worthier Imperial Princess than -
Letitia Buonaparte, and the other Imperial Prin-
cesses of the same vile race. - *...,
In a former publication * has already been re-
lated, all the particulars that could be collected
of Letitia Raniolini, the widow of the Corsican
Carlo Buonaparte; of her faux par before, and
her adultery after her marriage; of her igno-
rance, poverty, bigotry, and Superstition; that all
her sons were brought up to figure in iniquity,
and all her daughters to pollute even prostitution.
This sketch therefore contains only some anec-
" See the Revolutionary Plutarch, vol. ii. p. 156, et Seq. third
edition. • --
F 2 dotes
100 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH. .
dotes of the first twelve months of the life of her
Imperial Highness the Princess Letitia Buona-
parte. , -
When Napoleone had determined to place an
Imperial diadem on his guilty head, though he
was certain of the submission of his slavish sena-
tors, legislators, and tribunes, he feared some ex-
plosion, or at least some resistance, from Mo-
reau, Le Courbe, and other discontented gene-
rals, and therefore, under different pretences,
sent his nearest and dearest relatives either abroad,
or into the provinces on the frontiers, to wait
quietly there for the issue. To his brother J oseph
he gave a commission in the army on the coast,
and made him president of the Electoral College
at Brussels; Lucien had already retired to Italy
in disgrace, on account of his marriage with an
honest woman who was no princess ; and Louis
was made president of the Electoral College at
Turin ; Jerome was wandering for pleasure on
the other side of the Atlantic; and his sisters
travelling for their health on the other side of .
the Alps. The cause of these measures of safety
was easily perceived and penetrated into, even
by the Corsican's French subječts; he could
therefore, without adding deception to suspicion
. . . . . - and
PRINCESS LETITIA BUONAPARTE. 101
and fear, send his dear mother to Italy. But
thinking, no doubt, that those who in such a
cowardly manner had renounced their liberty,
could not have much sense left, and that they
would easily be induced to adopt as realities even
the greatest absurdities and improbabilities, he
exiled his mother to Rome; and his pensioners
and spies disseminated, that this dutiful act of
her affectionate son, was a punishment for her
disobedience in not opposing with vigour her other
son, Lucien Buonaparte's improper marriage. It
also told his favourites and courtiers to be upon
their guard, not to incur the displeasure of a des-
pot whose severity did not spare even those most
beloved by him *. . . . .
Du ing her journey to and in Italy, Madame
letitia was attended by a numerous suite in six
carriages, and an escort of twenty-five guides.
Her manner of travelling from Paris in 1804,
forms a curious contrast to her manner of tra-
velling to that capital in 1794: at that period
she had taken only three places for herself and
five of her children in the waggon from Toulon
to Paris, so that when three of her party were
* See Bulletin Imperial, &c. 220.*
F 3 riding,
102 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
riding, the other three were walking; and not-
withstanding this economy, when arrived at her
destination, the clerk at the waggon-office de-
tained her and her children's bundle of clothes,
she being unable to pay thirty lºwres, 11. 53. due
for her journey. In 1804 she was addressed
and complimented every where, lodged in cha-
teaus or palaces, and feasted by governors, gene-
rals, and prefe&ts. In 1794, she was suspećted,
from her colour, of being a wandering gypsey;
stopped and insulted in every village, often lodged
in prisons, or half starving with her children in
the receptacles for the lowest vagabonds. The
cannons of the Fort St. Angelo announced, in
1804, her arrival at Rome; where, after being
hailed by cardinals, she fraternized with a Pepe,
dined with princes, and slept in a princely hotel
fitted up for her reception. Different indeed
was her modest entry at Paris in 1794 : after
being detained and stript at the waggon-office,
she was for hours repulsed, and refused shelter
in garrets or in cellars, and would probably
have passed the night in the street, had not the
pretty eyes of her daughters inspired charitable
sentiments in the bosom of a national officer
on duty in a guard-house near the Palais Royal,
- - where
PRINCESS LETITIA BUONAPARTE. 103
where he, upon certain conditions, allowed them
to share a part of his supper, and of the straw
upon which he reposed *. -
After violence, treachery, and cruelty had de-
livered into Buonaparte's hands the Duke of
Enghien, Pichegru, Georges, and Moreau, and
the three former had been murdered, ºf and the
latter disgraced, terror silenced discontent, des- ^.
potism banished opposition, and tyranny crushed
patriotism; and no person in France dared mur-
mur; much less complain, at the death-blow given
to the rights of subjects, as well as to the prero-
gatives of legitimate sovereigns, by the Corsican
Napoleone the First proclaiming himself Em-
peror of the French. To organize this abomi-
nable usurpation, and to effeót both a religious
and political revolution, the succours of the Pope
were necessary. To delude this pontiff, whose
mental and corporeal weakness are not inferior to
his spiritual power, could not be a very difficult
task, since all his cardinals and counsellors were
‘bribed, and all his favourites and relatives pur-
‘chased. The newly created Imperial Highness
Letitia was, however, charged by her son to em-
ploy her pious zeal in this affair. . . * -
see Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 296, and 2.97.
F 4. - Devout
*:
* .
104 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
Devout from idleness and habit, more than
from sincerity and convićtion, being above the
age of temptation; charitable because she had
more money than she wanted, and not because
she had herself been poor; and diffident, not
from modesty, but from knowing her own inca-
pacity and origin; her condućt at Rome, from
not being searched through, had not only been
considered as prudent, but edifying, and had often
obtained the applause of Pius VII. She never
missed a religious ceremony, matins, masses, ves.
pers or processions; and her brother, Cardinal
Fesch, took care that her piety should not pass un-
noticed. She was never refused any private au-
diences of the Pope when she demanded them, and
he always istened to her conversation not only
without suspicion, but with pleasure. He had
presented her with relicks of the most famous
Saints of Rome; she received his blessing when
with him, and his prayers accompanied her when
absent. He had for her sake condescended to
consecrate with his own hands not only a double
velvet helmet she had made for Napoleone, but
some part of her own and of all her other chil-
dren's wearing apparel. His Holiness had himself,
during her first six weeks' residence in his capital,
given -
A
PRINCESS LETITIA BUONAPARTE. 105
given her four general absolutions of all her sins;
and in a secret bull, written with the miraculous
blood of martyrs, absolved Napoleone as a renegade
from all his sins of apostacy, as a rebel from his
sin of perjury, and as an assassin from the sins of
all his murdering and poisoning deeds.
... To augment with his mother the number of
his emissaries round the Pope, was therefore not a
bad speculation of the revolutionary Emperor.
And indeed, if report be true, after his Holiness
had repulsed the unanimous council of the Sacred
College, he could not feel strength enough to re-
sist the devout supplication of Madame Letitia,
who alone, by her influence, occasioned the Pope's,
sacrilegious journey to Paris, where she, at her
return, on her first interview with Napoleone,
in reward for the service she had rendered him,
was kicked out of the room, because she dared to
implore his forgiveness and ask for his reconcili-
ation with his brothers Lucien and Jerome".
The allowance of this revolutionary Princess
amounts now to six millions of livres a year
(250,000l.) Her jewels and diamonds are
valued at four millions of livres (170,000l.)
. . * See Le voyageur Italien Palermo, 1804, vol. iv. p. 46, and
47. - - *
. . . ; F 5 Her
106 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
Her plate, china, vases, and pićtures are estimat-
ed at two millions and a half of livres (100,000l.)
She is lodged gratis in the Imperial palaces, and
one hundred and fifty persons, including four
confessors, are attached to her household”. .
* See Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 302, and Les Nouvelles a la
Main, Germinal, year xiii, No, iii. p.6, in the note,
HER
lions of livres, or 420,000l.
PRINCESS Jos. BUONAPARTE.
MARIA JULIACLARY, daughter of a chand-
ler in a village in the south of France, was, at the
age of seventeen, on the 24th of September 1794, y
married to the then clerk of a pettifogging attor-
ney, Napoleone Joseph Buonaparte, at present an
Imperial Highness, a Grand Elector of the
French Empire, a Grand Officer of the Legion
of Honour, &c. &c. with a revenue of ten mil-
The Princess Joseph had in her youth many
admirers, and Prince Joseph, during his court-
ship, many rivals. In her native village the Prin-
- cess was an heiress... An uncle, who had been a
property, amounting to six hundred livres (251.)
No wonder, therefore, if all the beaus of the
neighbourhood were enamoured, and striving
who
F 6
10s THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
who should be foremost, at the same time to
seize a treasure and to possess so many charms.
Among the principal amateurs with whom his
Imperial Highness Prince Joseph the Grand
Elector had to contend for his Imperial consort,
a master chimney-sweeper, a master barber, and
a journeyman tailor, presented themselves. Al-
though the lowest, the journeyman tailor was not
the less dangerous rival. He had made Made-
moiselle Clary a great-coat which fitted her so
well, that it excited the envy of all the other vil-
lage beller; and she, in return, at the Sunday four-
sous, or twopenny balls, at the inn of the Grand
Monarque, seemed to prefer romping and dancing
with her journeyman tailor rather than with
Prince Joseph. To get rid of him by force, his
Imperial Highness dared not attempt, having al-
ready experienced the strength of his fist ; he
resorted therefore to stratagem. A Captain of a
recruiting party had for some days established his
head-quarters in the vicinity. This officer hap-
pened to be a friend of the then sans-culotte Co-
lonel Napoleone Buonaparte, and was applied to.
The register of the parish being destroyed, the
journeyman tailor was unable to prove his age,
and was therefore claimed by the Captain as a
CQºlae
PRINCESS JOSEPH BUONAPARTE. 109
conscript, and as such, notwithstanding the op-
position of the municipality, carried off, and
marched to join the army of the Pyrenées *.
This ačt of vigour terrified the barber, who,
being of the same age with the tailor, immediately
decamped. The sweep still bravely kept the field,
and continued his courtship, until the fair ob-
jećt of his affection had fixed on the next decade
(the republican holiday) as the day on which her
nuptials with Prince Joseph were to be cele-
brated at the municipality, and her union sanc-
tioned by the reputable mayor of the village, a
learned schoolmaster, though he understood nei-
ther Latin nor Greek. The marriage-contračt
of their Imperial Highnesses was witnessed and
signed by the bride's father, and mother, or ra-
ther they put their mark, not being able to write
or read, as did two maternal uncles, Citizens
Timothée Galliard, a wooden shoemaker ſsabo-
tier), and Francois Galliard, a groom, . An ele-
gant wedding ball was bespoken at the inn of
the Grand Momarque for twelve livres (ten shil-
lings) including music and twelve bottles of wine,
at three sous (three halfpence) a bottle. There
" See Bulletin Imperial, &c.p. 175.
the
tº e
© e
* s e ©
• e e o e > *
* e s e :
Q
*- • : " :
- to
• 3
110 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
the new married couple and their relations and
friends continued to dance until next morning,
when Monsieur and Madame Clary gave the
signal of retreat”. . . . . . .
Besides six hundred livres in ready money
(251) the Princess brought with her to her hus-
band's apartment (a back room, two pair of stairs,
at a blacksmith's), two gowns, two shifts, two pet-
ticoats, two neckcloths, one pocket-handker-
chief, one comb, two pair of shoes, one pair of
wooden shoes (a present of uncle Timothée's),
and a horse-whip, another present of uncle
Thus his Imperial Highness Prince Joseph be- -
gan his matrimonial career with triumph and
glory. Keen observers predićted thence, that the
able politician, who, in a love affair of such con-
sequence, had been clever enough to defeat the
•, conspiracies and plans of his powerful rivals
and carry his point, would certainly in state af-
fairs, one day prove himself to be the first negó-
tiator in the world, overthrow the common ef-
forts of the enemies of the French Republic, and
see Bulletin imperial, &c. p. 17, 17s.
f Idem, p. 179, in the note, . .
- £Ollll-
PRINCESS JOSEPH BUONAPARTE. 111
counterbalance the intrigues of neutrals, and the
jealousy of allies.
Six months after their marriage, her Imperial
Highness presented her husband with a son and
heir ; the gossips of her village with an objećt of
slander ; the prudes with a subjećt of malice, and
the devotees with an example of scandal. - All
parties exerted their tongues, and whilst the fa-
ther was proud of a son in so short a time, they
pretended and disseminated, that he resembled
the tailor, the barber, and even the sweep, more
than Joseph Buonaparte. In a week this hope of
the family, this Emperor in petto, died, and the
Imperial parents, according to the advice of the
- midwife, an aunt of her Imperial Highness, to
silence all farther tittle-tattle, consented to an-
nounce and regard this birth—a miscarriage.
From that period until 1801 the Princess had no
children, and as the visit of Eugenius de Beau-
harnois had become very frequent at his uncle's,
during 1800, calumny ascribed to his presence
the appearance of one daughter on the 8th of
July 1801, and another on the 31st of O&tober
1802. Prince Joseph then asked his nephew,
Prince Eugenius, to confer his civilities some-
— ` where
112 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
where else, and with his absence sterility again
returned”. - . -
It was in 1796 that the Princess Joseph was, -
for the first time, introduced into the revolu-
tionary court circles of the Dire&tory; but the at-
tention paid her by the Direétor Barras occa-
sioned her journey to Italy in 1797, when, after
the peace of Campo Formio, her husband had
been nominated an ambassador to the Court of -
Rome. Having succeeded in his mission to de-
throne and imprison a respectable Pontif, and to
organize in the name of liberty and equality, the
worst of all tyrannies, that of a sovereign mob,
he went back to Paris with his wife, and settled.
there, being elected a Deputy in the Council of
Five Hundred. When Napoleone had seized on
the throne of the Bourbons, he appointed Joseph
a Counsellor of State, and gave to the Princess
Joseph, in December 1799, as a Christmas-box,
the elegant hotel she occupies, upon condition
that she should improve her educationſ.
Before that time her Imperial Highness knew
very well how to knit and mend stockings, how
* See Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 180, and Les Nouvelles a la
Main, Vendemaire, year xi. No. 1. p. 7. . . . . .
+ Idem, p. 183, and La Saint Famille, p. 210. -
- t{}
PRINCESS JOSEPH BUONAPARTE. 113
to work and get up linen, how to starch and
bleach, how to cook and preserve, how to brush
and scour; but she was entirely unacquainted with
those petty acquirements—that agreeable little-
ness—those vicious frivolities—that studied
meanness, which were intended to constitute at
the revolutionary Imperial Court good breeding
and haut ton, Madame Napoleone was therefore .
ordered to spare her teacher of languages, a writ-
ing and a dancing-master, a master of ceremo-
nies, a coeffeur, and a governess. Such were the
assiduity and application of Princess Joseph, that
within three months the good-natured Empress
Josephine began to think that she had done too
much for her sister-in-law, and therefore recalled
all the teachers she had lent her. But the change
both in her gait and manner evinced that she had
already learned enough,and gained the admiration
of all the revolutionary courtiers in the palace of
the Thuilleries. Before that, she was rather awk-
ward (by courtesy called timid), and inclined to
devotion (called by courtesy, simplicity); now
--- she is the very reverse—as free, as easy, as bold,
as daring and as gallant as Josephine or any other
of her sisters-in-law. It was even shortly after-
wards whispered, that - during her husband's ab-
. . . . . . Sence
114 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH. . .
sence at Luneville and Amiens, she continued to
take every night at Montfontaine, the private
lessons of her dancing-master; so much so, that
Prince Joseph; from motives of gratitude no
doubt, demanded, in the summer 1802, an order-
from Napoleone for sending this active citizen to
Cayenne, with the exclusive privilege of continu-
ing during his life, an exclusive dancing-master
of honour to all transported persons of both sexes
in that colony". . . . . .
The Princess Joseph, with her deep, cunning,
reserved, and truly Corsican husban d, sees now
little other society but those of his family. She
lives, however, in great splendour, both at his
country seat Montfontaine and in her hotel at
Paris. Her private and annual allowance from
the Emperor amounts to three millions of livres
(125,000l.) Her jewels and diamonds are valued
at two millions, and her plate, china, and pictures
at one million and a half. A bishop is her almo-
ner, and two grand vicars her chaplains. Ma-
dame Girardin (the ci-devant Marchioness) is her
lady in waiting, and Madame Dessoles, Madame
- - - - r . º - r | … . - * : : - -
Dupuy, and Madame Miot, are her maids of ho-
* See Bulletine Imperial, &c. p. 185.
nour.
PRINCESS JOSEPH RUONAPARTE. 115 -
nour. The Senator Jaucour is her first chamber-
lain, and the Counsellor of State Dumas her se-
cond chamberlain. The tribune, ci-devant Mar-
quis Girardin, is her master of horse, and the
Colonels Cavaignac and . Lafond–Blaniac her
equerries. The tribune Villot Freville is her
secretary, and Mr. James the steward of her
household, to which, besides, sixty-two other
persons are attached". - &
* * Bulletin Imperial, p. 190, In a note is stated, that the
Prince and Princess Joseph Buonaparte were re-married by
the Pope on the 9th of J anuary 1805, having never before re-
ceived the nuptial benedićtion from the hands of a clergyman,
but had, according to the republican laws, been only united
by the officers of the municipality. . . . . . . .
JMADAME
1 16
MaD. LUCIEN BUoNAPARTE.
2
THE former wife of Lucien Buonaparte,
whom he married against the consent of her
parents, when a clerk to a store-keeper, was the
daughter of a petty innkeeper at St. Maximin, a
village in the south of France. Her portion was
one hundred Louis d'ors, a large sum for a ci-
tizen sans culotte, with a salary of six hundred
livres (251, only). In the summer of 1800, when
a minister of the home department, possessing a
fortune of fifteen millions of livres (625,000l.),
he presented her some ice-cream, which she ate,
and died. That she had swallowed poison, her
brother, relations, and all Paris proclaimed.
The motive for this act of barbarity, proposed
and encouraged by Napoleone Buonaparte, was
a hope of marrying into some princely family,
, when
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 117
when any foreign princess could with safety be
put in requisition for such a match”. -- T.
In expe&tation of such an event, the First
Consul gave his brother all possible opportunities
of enriching himself, among others the lucrative
mission to Spain, in order to sell the kingdom
of Etruria; and to Portugal, to extort a consi-
derable sum for the purchase of a peace. By
these means, and by selling his protećtion in the
interior, to emigrants and to state creditors, his
wealth increased within three years to forty-four
millions of livres, or nearly two millions ster-
ling+.
As fortune continued to favour Napoleone's
ambitious views and unbounded ambition, his
hope of forming alliances with sovereign houses
increased. It is said that he had fixed on a young
Princess of Baden (who afterwards suddenly
married a Prince of Brunswick), a sister of the
Empress of Russia, of the Queen of Sweden,
and of the Ele&tress of Bavaria, as a future sister-
in-law, when Lucien, consulting his own feel-
ings more than policy or prudence, disappointed
• Les Nouvelles a la Main, vendemaire, an ix. No.2.
p. 9. Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 315.”
f Idem, p. 318. - -
t all
118 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
all the hopes of the Buonapartes, by marrying
the young and rich widow of an army contračtor,
whom the revolution found a starving porter, -
and who died in 1802 worth eighteen millions
of livres (750,000l.).
Napoleone is indebted to the presence of mind
of his brother Lucien, for his success in placing
him on the throne of the Bourbons; because, º
when on the 9th of November 1799, Arena and
other Deputies of the Council of Five Hundred,
in the sitting at St. Cloud, shewed their daggers,
and demanded a decree of outlaw against the
usurper, Buonaparte lost all recollection, and was,
trembling, retreating out of the hall. At that cri-
tical moment Lucien, who was the President of
the Council, called to the grenadiers not to desert
or suffer their general to be insulted. This ap-
peal decided the fate of Napoleone and of France.
The very grenadiers who were ready to dispatch
their commander as an outlaw, turned their bay- -
onets against the representatives of the people
as against conspirators.
After this event it cannot be surprizing that Lu-
cien obtained great influence in his brother's go-
vernment, and that he supposed that sentiments
of gratitude, more than ties of consanguinity,
bound
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 119
borind his brother to: him for life. But perhaps
the Emperor Napoleone thought the obligation
of the First Consul Buonaparte too heavy, and
therefore sought an occasion to rid himself of
and disgrace a benefactor, for whose services he
blushed as blemishes, or hated them as reproach- -
ful. Whatever were the motives that determin-
ed Napoleone's behaviour, certain it is, that no
sooner did he hear of Lucien’s marriage, than
he refused to acknowledge Madame Lucien as a
sister-in-law, and forbade her the court. The
priest who had married them was transported to
Cayenne; his sister the Princess of Santa Cruce,
and her husband, who had been present at the
wedding, were banished to Italy; five senators,
three tribunes, and three generals, who had also
signed the marriage-contračt, and witnessed the
reciprocal settlements of the bride and bride-
groom, lost their places, and were exiled forty
leagues from Paris. The notary by whom these
aćts had been deposited, after being confined in
the Temple, was deprived of his offices, ordered
to reside at Angers, and under pain of death to
come no more to Paris, or transact business in
the country”.
Les Nouvelles a la Main, vendemaire, an ix. p. 9. Bul-
letin Imperial, &c. p. 317, - - -
- - This
120 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
This eclat convinced Lucien that his brother
was highly irritated, but he did not expe&t that
he was irreconcilable. He therefore wrote him
several letters, expostulating with moderation on
the Emperor's unkindness to himself and his
friends. To these he received no answer, but -
a verbal order by the prefect of the palace, Du-
roc, not to trouble Napoleone with his correspon-
dence, as his letters would remain unopened.
The same evening Lucien, who now saw his
brother's intention, rushed hastily through a
private back-door to which he had the key, into
the imperial closet, and drawing a pistol from
his pocket, after pointing it at his brother's
head, pulled the trigger, but it missed fire.
His presence so much astonished Napoleone,
that he did not call for assistance before another
pistol pointed at his head had also missed fire. He
then rang a bell, and two of his aides-de-camp,
Savary and Rapp, entered, and to them he de-
livered up Lucien as a prisoner, with orders to
carry him to the Temple immediately, and to
have him tried the next day as a regicide conspi-
rator. To prevent the interference of his mo-
ther, brothers, or sisters, in behalf of the cri-
minal, they were excluded from his presence
- *. until
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 121
until the sentence of the Military Commission
was carried into execution. -
In this dilemma, all the other Buonapartes as-
sembled, and wrote an united petition to Napo-
Jeone. It was presented to him by his favourite
Mameluke, Rostan, who, though he was igno-
rant of its contents, was put under arrest for
delivering it. Another petition, still more pa-
thetic, was then written, to be laid by his bed-
side, but all his pages and chamberlains refused
to place it there. None of the Buonapartes but
Napoleone went to bed that night, aii being up
contriving how to save Lucien, but in vain. It
was near the hour when the Military Commissioa
was to assemble, before any resolution was agreed
on. Madame Louis Buonaparte then took upon
herself to write, in the name of the Emperor,
an order to dissolve the Commission, and to re-
store Lucien to liberty. But no sooner had she
signed Napoleone's name, than from terror she
fell into fits, and as her life was in danger, Ge.
neral Murat informed him of it, without men-
tioning what had caused this sudden indisposi-
tion. The Emperor flew in an instant to the
hotel of his dearest beloved daughter-in-law,
conjured her to calm herself, and promised for
#OL. III. - G her
122 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
ber sake not only to pardon Lucien, but to per-
mit him to retire and live in Italy with all his
property. This his wife thought a fit moment
to avow her daughter's fault. After a silence of
some moments, during which his agitation was
visible, he at last stammered out, as in a rage,
“You have taken the advantage of my weak-
ness. For this time I forgive you; but even
this hea shall tumble under the axe of the
y
guillotine,” said he, touching the head of Ma-
dame Louis, “ if I hear of such an unpardon-
able audacity a second time.*.”
The next day Lucien received a pass for him-
self and his wife for Milan, but he could not ob-
tain an audience, though he desired it to take
place in the presence of his mother and his bro-
ther Joseph. He therefore set out for Italy,
where he bought several estates for ready mo-
ney, and exchanged his estates in France for
others. Until the Senatus Consultus of the 18th
May 1804 was published, when he saw himself’.
excluded not only from all hope of succeeding to
the throne, but even from the rank of an Imperial
Highness, he remained quiet, and lived retired.
* Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 830,831.
f But
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 128
But after he was informed of it, he disposed of
the greatest part of his Italian property for bills
of exchange on Hamburgh and London ; and
it is supposed that he has, under a fiétitious
name, money to an immense amount in the
English funds. After this measure ºf precau-
tion, he wrote to his brother Napoleone the fol-
lowing letter :
“Rimini, June 2d, 1804.
“You cannot possibly think me such a fool
as to suppose that my marriage with an honest and
respe&table woman, though of no high birth, oc-
casioned your late ungrateful and furious con-
dućt. No you, as well as myself, must re-
member who we were by birth, who our own
mother is, and who were our father and grand-
parents. No l you wanted to degrade, to mur-
der, the benefactor you had insulted. You
knew also, that I was master of the birth
and exit of the first and noble Madame Napo-
leone *; and that it was impossible for me to ac-
cept of a wife from your hands—already stained
* Bulletin Imperial, &c., p. 386. In the note is stated, that
- * \ - - -- - &
the author had been unable to find out who this first Ma-
dame Napoleone was, and the secret of her exit. '
G 2 with
124 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
with the blood of your own wife, and that put the
poison into my hands which made me a widower.
H was too well acquainted with your cruel dispo-
sition, without so much scandalous behaviour,
to attempt, after your threats, to reside near you,
and expose my wife to the stilettoes of your bra-
woes, or the draughts of your other accomplices.
Had you, even after the first explosion, con-
sented to a reconciliation, I should, notwith-
standing, have dreaded the treachery and fero-
city of your dark and barbarous heart, and re-
sided at a distance from you, had I deferred to
remove the objećt of my just fear. .’
“A patricide and liberticide has no parents,
no relations, and no country. He is outlawed
by the law of Nature as well as by the law of
nations. Every body has a right, and is com-
manded by self-defence, to purge the earth of a
monster, dishonouring and vilifying its species.
Had my attempt on your life succeeded, I should
have been hailed as a Brutus, instead of being
arraigned as a fratricide. Mankind, however,
was ignorant of the real cause that put the bul.
lets in my pistols.
“I had long in my own mind resolved to re-
duce to dust the pagan idol I had erected. Yes!
*{ADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 123
you know that the first day of your Consulate
would have been the last, had not my misguided
affection commiserated the pale and trembling
conspirator, and preserved a cowardly impostor.
from the national vengeance. I repented of my
work very soon indeed; because I very soon ob-
served that all liberal ideas of fiberty, generosi-
ty, and humanity, were excluded from your
despotic, depraved, and unfeeling bosom. I
was, however, until lately, weak enough to ex4
pećt an amendment ; but every public and pr:-
vate transaction of yours, during these last two
years, convinced me finally that my expectation.
would be vain. Then Iny duty as a citizen, as
a patriot, and as a philosopher, called on me to
annihilate tyranny, by destroying the tyrant.
“The late Senatus Consultus of your base and
slavish Senate, in making the distance between
you and me—a tyrant and a patriot—so immea-
surable, will reconcile me to all friends of real
liberty ; and present and future generations, in
cursing you and your memory, will bless me,
and mine, only for having intended to punish
you. -
“But tremble, tyrant tº though I am absent,
near your own person, among your own. guards,
- G 3 among
126 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH. . . .
among your own courtiers, in your own palace,
the avenger of violated freedom, of outraged
humanity, and of oppressed nations, resides.
He accompanies you as your shade. Depend
upon it, your tyranny is at an end the moment
you least expect it. Perhaps even at this in- .
stant you reign no more—you have reigned.”
( . - .* -
It is said that this letter was stopped by Ma-
dame Buonaparte the mother, and never reached
Napoleone ; but copies of it were circulated by
Lucien and his adherents, both in Italy and
France, at Milan and at Paris". -
At the same time that Lucien wrote thus to his
Imperial brother, he sent a confidential person
to Warsaw with another letter to Louis XVIII.
wherein he offered his Sovereign “ all his riches,
his influence, and his arm ; with the influence
and arms of his numerous friends; all ready to
sacrifice themselves with him for the restoration
of their legitimate King to the throne of his
ancestors.” He protested “ that his brother
had solemnly declared, on the 7th of November
7
1799, in the presence of himself, Talleyrand,
* Bulletin Imperial, &c, p. 340, 341, and Le Voyageur
Italien, vol. iv. p. 22, 23. . . . . . -
Volney,
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 127
Volney, Roederer, Moreau, MDonald, Murat,
and Lasmes, that he would only keep the su-
preme authority, could he obtain it, until a fit
occasion offered itself to restore it to its lawful
owner with safety to all parties. From that pe-
riod until his return from the battle of Marengo,
he had frequently held the same language. It
was only after that event that he evinced an in-
tention of establishing his usurpation for himself
on a permanent footing,” &c. To this tardy and
selfish repentance, the King of France could not
listen, nor was any notice taken, either of the
letter or the messenger".
By his ill acquired wealth, and political hospi-
tality, Lucien however gained many partizans
in Piedmont, in Lombardy, and in the Papal
territory. Holding himself out as a deliverer,
all persons suffering from, or detesting the Re-
volution, or wishing to break the yoke under
which they groaned, were assiduous in paying
their devoirs to him. Watched as he was by
his brother's spies, those manoeuvres could not
remain unnoticed or escape suspicion. His mo-
ther warned him, by command, to cease his ma--
\ - - -
* Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 343.
G 4 . . . china-
128 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
chinations, but without effect. On the 19th of
Jétober 1804, his house near Rimini was there.
fore surrounded by the staff officers of General
Jourdan's army. By this general he was arrested,
and carried under safe escort a prisoner to the
citadel of Mantua, where he was delivered up
to its commander, General Mainoni, who, on
his own head, was to answer for his confinement.
When the Pope in the following month arrived
at Fontainbleau, the first favour he asked the
Emperor, according to Madame Buonaparte,
the mother's instrućtions, was the liberty of Lu-
eien, and a permission for him and his wife and
children to reside at a retired country seat in
the Ecclesiastical States. To this Napoleone con-
sented with repugnance and bad grace; and only,
on condition that his brother should see few stran-
gers, keep up no correspondence, and bind him-
self never more to visit the territories of the
French and Italian Republics”. \
During her husband’s imprisonment Madame.
Lucien was closely guarded in her own room by
some gens d'armes d'Elite. For fear of being
poisoned, her children's and her own nutriment
* Le Voyageur Italien, vol. iv. p.25.
con-
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 129
consisted only of vegetables, eggs, milk, and
biscuits baked with her own hands, and of flour
ground by her servants in her presence. As she
justly considers her apprehensions still the same,
she continues to follow the same diet, notwith-
standing her husband's dissuasions, who fears it
is injurious to her constitution. By her former
husband she had two children, who are still,
alive; and since her present marriage she has
been delivered of two. sons, baptized, according
to Lucien’s orders, Julius Brutus, and Junius.
Brutus”.
In March 1805, Madame Lucien Buonaparte.
was surprised by an unexpečted visit from Euge-
nius de Beauharnois, on a day when her husband
was absent on a hunting party with two neigh-
bouring noblemen. He informed her, “ that
he came on the part of the Emperor, to advise
her, if the lives of her children were valuable to
her, and if she had any real love for Lucien, to de-
part that day with her infants for France, where.
she and they should be treated with all possible.
delicacy and distinétion, her fortune safe, and the
advancement of her sons certain, upon her vo-
Le Voyageur Italien, vol. iv. p.40.
G. 5, lunta-
I 30 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
luntarily renouncing her marriage, which a bull
of the Pope should soon dissolve.” This pro-
posal she refused with firmness, and Eugenius
said on leaving her, “ Cne day, Madam, and
not very far distant, you will be obliged to sub-
scribe to harder conditions, and think it an impe-
rial favour not to end your days at Cayenne.”
1He left behind him a letter from Napoleone to
his brother, in which the latter was again ex-
horſed to give up or divorce his wife. As the
price of his obedience, he should directly be
created a Doge of Genoa, and an Imperial
Highness, an annuity of three hundred thousand
- livres settled on his two sons, and Madame Lu-
cien likewise enjoy her own property unmolest-
ed.”—“ In a month,” said Napoleone, “I hope
to be at Milan; if you, by submission to my will,
prove yourself worthy of the grandeur fortune
has bestowed on our family, come there and
embrace me. I shall then forgive you all that
has happened, and reinstate you in the same
rank and favour with Joseph and Louis. If you
continue obstinate and refračtory, you must eter-
nally renounce all hope of reconciliation, as I
renounce you for ever as a brother.” Instead of
answering this letter, Lucien sent the very next
*
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 131
day a trusty agent, to conclude, in his wife's
name, the purchase of an estate in Bohemia, for
which he had been bargaining near twelve
months”. - -
On his arrival at Turin in May 1805, Napo-
leone dispatched his aide-de-camp, Le Brun, with
another fraternal letter, but in it a sine qua non
to favour, was a divorce with Madame Lucien.
He again offered him “to be a Doge of Genoa,
and an Imperial Highness in France; and he was
given to understand, that the hand of a beauti.
ful Princess of one of the most ancient sovereign
families in Europe, would also recompense his
obedience and his repentance.” As no more no-
tice was taken of this letter than the former,
Napoleone in spite incorporated the Dogeship of
the Genoese with his Emperorship of the French.
This is not the only occasion, since Buonaparte's
reign, that a petty family quarrel, or a momen-
tary whim, has changed the destiny of a stateſ.
What can be the reason of this perseverance
of Napoleone to conciliate or to destroy Lucien?
A few words will explain the mystery. Of all
% Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 350, 351. .
f Idem, p. 352, and Les Nouvelles a la Main, Messidor,
an xiii. No. 11, p. 6. -
- . G 6 his
(
j 32 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
his brothers, Lucien is the most enterprising,
the most audacious, the ablest, and most crimi-
nal ; of a disposition as obstinate, Inalicious, and
revengeful, as his own. Could he persuade or
command him to acknowledge a favour; to stoop
to be looked upon in France as a reprieved fe-
}on, and to renounce a wife he loves for another
forced on him, the usurper's vanity would be as
much flattered as his safety and interest promot-
ed. But those worthy brothers well know each.
other, and therefore must either be soon friends
again, or one of them will in a short time cease
to pollute the earth with his guilty existence. -
After the many astonishing changes witnessed
within the last sixteen years, it would not be very
surprizing if a Julius Brutus or a Junius Brutus.
; : A-2 I I { * \ . ~ -? - ? & -
Buonaparte should one day proclaim himself, by
the support of the same bayonets that have ele-
vated Napoleone, an Emperor of the French,
and a King of Italy. As to Lucien's present pa-
triotic jargon, of its value every loyal man is
well aware, and it cannot make many dupes.
Beeanse he is disagreeing with his upstart bro-
ther, he speaks now of liberty and philosophy,
with the same sincerity, when quarrelling with
his fellow-regicides, as Robespierre, in 1794
(when
MADAME LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 133
(when thousands of vićtims perished daily by the
guillotine, by shooting, and drowning), spoke of
his humanity and patriotism. French rebels al-
ways become patriots and philanthropists when
their popularity begins to decrease, or the day
of their punishment approaches. Liberty, equa-
lity, and fraternity, are words always in their
mouths when the daggers of rivals touch their
breasts, or the halters of suspended justice their
necks”. -
Madame Lucien Buonaparte is in her twenty-
third year; her person is handsome, her man-
ners accomplished, and her sentiments refined.
But she was no doubt uninformed, before her
present marriage, that in Lucien Buonaparte she
should embrace an assassin and a Septembrizer.
see a sketch of racien Buonaparte's life in the second.
volume of the Revolutionary Plutarch- - -
... . . . . Prywcess
134
PRINCESS Louis BUONAPARTE,
AN IMPERIAL HIGHNESs.
HORTENSE-EUGENIE, commonly called
Fanny de Beauharnois, is the daughter of Ma-
dame Napoleone Buonaparte by her first husband,
Viscount de Beauharnois, and was born on the
10th of April 1783. .
Princess Louis had scarce reached her first
Justre when she saw her father a rebel. She had
hardly passed her second lustre before she saw
him punished for his rebellion by his fellow-
rebels, and her mother prostitute herself in the
arms of one of the regicide assassins of her King
—an indirect assassin of her father. Before she
was thirteen she witnessed her mother exchang-
ing the adulterous embraces of a regicide Barras
for those of a sanguinary terrorist, Buonaparte;
a murderer, stained with the blood of eight
. . thousand men, women, and children, just but-
chered
PRINCESS LOUIS BUONAPARTE. 135
*º-
chered by him in the streets of Paris. If, after
such examples of depravity before her eyes, she
was preserved from the common contagion, it is
to be ascribed to that innate worth, on which
both sedućtion and corruption sometimes in vain
throw out their venom, their insinuations, and
their allurements. - - -
Immediately after her marriage, Madame Na-
poleone observing her revolutionary husband's
particular attention to his daughter-in-law, who
was tall and much grown of her age, inquired
after some boarding-school, in the vicinity of
Paris, where she might place her. The repub-
lican philosophers of the National Convention and
of the Jacobin Club, in destroying and selling
the public schools, academies, and colleges
of France, had openly declared all education,
private as well as public, both hurtful and un-
necessary. “Children destined to be the de-
fenders of the rights of man, and of liberty and
equality,” said these wiseacres, “should learn
nothing but the republican constitution.” Seve-
ral schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, who con-
tinued, nevertheless, to instruct youth, were tried,
condemned, and executed, as conspirators against
the Republic, because they had permitted their
- . pupils
f 36 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
pupils to read books in which Kings Wel'e pºëzie.
tioned with other epithets than those of tyrants.
These examples of national justice, abolished all
private instruction sooner than the decrees of
the legislature or the threats of the Jacobins. At
Robespierre's death, in July 1794, not a single
school existed in the French capital *. Had his
reign been of some few years longer duration,
Buonaparte would at present have tyrannized
over slaves as ignorant and brutalized as they
would have been base, corrupted, and wicked.
The Direátory, which succeeded the National
Convention, permitted the establishment of pri-
vate schools, under the inspection of the repub-
licans, who were members of these public schools,
called then, in their revolutionary jargon, Nor-
mal schools, free-thinkers in politics and mora-
lity as well as in religion. But though these
establishments were permitted, they were neither
* See Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 311. The philosopher
Hebert made one day a motion to proscribe and burn ali
books and all libraries, as the relics of aristocracy. Another
day the philosopher Le Roux, demanded in the tribune of the
Cordeliers, a mandate of arrest against the aristocratic Cicero,
accused by several children of having taught them all their
aristocratical sentiments. Such were some of the Freuch rº-
- water. of the first year of the Republic. Idem, p. 312, note.
* * - - numerous
PRINCESS LOUIS BUoNAPARTE. 137
numerous nor well condućted when Madame
Buonaparte went in search of one for her
daughter. She fixed, however, on that house
at Versailles where an acquaintance of hers,
Madame Campan, boarded and lodged young
ladies. - - -
Madame Campan, a chambermaid of the late
unfortunate Queen of France, Marie Antoinette,
was from 1789 a secret admirer of the French
rebellion, and secretly served the French rebels
with whatever information she could pick up at
court. She was accused of being one of the
traitors who, in 1791, discovered to La Fayette
the intention of the King and of the Royal Fa-
mily to escape their gaolers at Paris ; she, of
course, shares with some others the cruel re-
proach of being one of the causes of all the enor-
mous crimes perpetrated since, and all the conse-
quences of the arrest of the Royal travellers at.
Varennes. This lady had hired at Versailles,
one of the spacious hotels confiscated by the
nation, as belonging to emigrants, where she had
organized, rather upon an extensive scale, a semi-
nary for young persons of her own sex. Having
had herself the advantage of a liberal education,
and at court numerous lessons of good-breeding;
she
13s THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
she was very fit for the undertaking, had not her
revolutionary mania, though she had suffered
from, and seen all the evils of the Revolution,
made her introduce, even in teaching youth,
some revolutionary innovations. It is very pro-
bable, that these very defe&ts procured the pre-
ference Napoleone Buonaparte gave her. But
although he approved of the general pian of her
institution, he too had his revolutionary mania.
Having his reasons for feating the existence of a
remunerator of virtue, and an avenger of guilt,
he was particularly zealous to overthrow all be-
lief in the Christian religion. He therefore gave
Madame Campan some private instructions con-
cerning the religious creed in which she was to
bring up his dear Fanny. They are too sacrile-
giously curious, as coming from the pen of the
present Most CHRISTIAN Emperor of the
French, to be left out. “I. He positively for-
bids all visits to his daughter-in-law of priests,
constitutional as well as refračtory, and all con-
versation with this class of fanatics or impostors.
2. He enjoins the governess to prevent all at-
tempts of instilling into the mind of her pupil the
usually erroneous ideas concerning Christianity;
a faith proved by historians false, by philoso-
- phers
PRINCESS LOUIS BUONAPARTE. 139
phers absurd, and by moralists dangerous. 3. The
religion of Nature is more than sufficient to im-
prove the wise, to console the good, and to ter-
rify the wicked. 4. The catechism, and other
works of the theophilanthropists, might be given *
his daughter to read and meditate on, were she
judged to harbour any natural inclination to
vice. 5. As it is however supposed, from what
has hitherto been seen of her, that Nature. has
created her originally good, and that her natural
instinét is for virtue, the reaſonable philosophy
and pure morality of Spinosa and of Helvetius
may be taught. 6, An implicit obedience to
her parents is to be implanted in her mind, and
she is to be taught always to submit her own
understanding and thoughts to their better and
maturer judgment; if she seems to hesitate
about obeying this duty, it will be necessary to
remind her often, that to them alone she is in-
debted for her physical and moral existence;
that they alone, not from duty but from generosity,
supply her necessities, and even procure her su-
perfluities at a time when so many other children
of her age are starving from want, or perishing
from diseases brought on by penury. 7. She is
never to be permitted or instructed to pray; if
. . . . . - she
#40 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH,
she believes in a God, her prayers are improper
and insulting; because by them she evinces no
confidence in, but doubts of his providence ;
her prayers in telling him her wants and desires,
reproach him with want of omnipotence, or of
bounty. 8. If she is found worthy of being
educated a Spinosist, she will soon be convinced
of the inefficacy and inutility of prayers; that
they procure no good and prevent no evil; that
destiny, with or without them, goes on in its usual,
train, determined from and for eternity. 9. Let
her weli consider, that if the Grand Mechanic
can prevent our troubles, and does not do it, he
is no good Being; if he will but cannot prevent
them, he is not all-powerful; but if he neither.
will nor can prevent our misfortunes, his impo-
tence is unworthy of the worship of such rational
beings as men and women. These hints are
sufficient to shew the ridicule of prayers, and to
whom—to a Nonentity”.”
Five other paragraphs follow these, but they
are too blasphemous to be laid before loyal and
religious readers. Those above translated, from
their puerility and absurdity, are unable to de-
• See Bulletia Imperial, &c. p. 860, and 361.
- • ‘ lude:
--~
PRINCESS LOUIS BUONAPARTE. 14;
lude even the weakest, to dupe even the most
ignorant, or to furnish arguments even to the
most sceptic. They are, however, undeniable
evidences of the impious sentiments of that in-
famous hypocrite and sacrilegious apostate, who
at present perverts the heavenly morality of the
Christian religion for the preservation of his
tyranny, as he formerly employed the sophistical
arguments of an abominable and dreadful atheism,
to seduce and deceive the vicious, vile, and foolish
instruments of his usurpation. +.
Madame Campan was too much attached to
her own interest, not to follow strictly the in-
structions of Buonaparte, who, at his return to
Paris, after the peace of Campo Formio, was
highly delighted to find his deareſt Fanny so
much improved in her mind, manners, and con-
versation. His first question to her was, “Do
you know, my dear girl, any thing of Jesus
Christ?” “No, papa,” said she ingenuously, “I
have not the honour of being acquainted with
such a citizen.” “And what do you think of
God " “Nothing; if he does not think of me
I never trouble my head about him.” “Are you
not afraid of him * “No, I do nothing to fear
any body.” Several similar questions followed,
- -- . and
142 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
\,
and received similar answers. They all per-
suaded Buonaparte that he had been punétually
obeyed, and he therefore rewarded Madame
Campan with a diamond ring, originally worth
twelve thousand livres (500l.), but which did
not cost him more than the signature of his
name to an order for stripping it off the finger of
a Madona at Vincenza. A gift presented by
Christian devotion to a Saint, was thus bestowed
by an atheistical zealot for propagating infideli-
ty *. M.
, In the winter 1796, during Buonaparte's ab-
sence in Egypt, his wife, contrary to his orders,
introduced Mademoiselle de Beauharnois in the
Direétorial and other fashionable circles. In
one of those she met with a middle aged, respect-
able looking man, who passed for a country far-
mer, whose relations were of the then haut tom.
Speaking to her of her own father, and of the
proscribed persons of the same claſs, he demand-
ed of her some trifling gift for children, who,
like herself, had been made orphans by the revo-
* See Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 363. In a note, it is said that
of Madame Campan's pupils, at that time seventy-two,
fourteen only were brought up in the Christian religion.
All the others were educated to be Atheists or philanthro-
pists. . . * ‘. . *
-- lutionary
PRINCESS LOUIS BUONAPARTE. 143
lutionary axe, but less fortunate—no succeeding
prosperous circumstances had restored lost wealth
or relieved present and pressing necessities. She
had no money in her pocket, but struck with his
conversation, and always commiserating the un-
fortunate, she asked his address, promising to
call on him early the next morning. Before her
mother was up, she dressed herself secretly, put
four Louis d’ors in her purse, and ordered her
maid to accompany her. When she presented
the money, the pretended farmer, Saunier,
who was a disguised priest, said, “ thank God
the success of the wretched infidels has not been
general; when charity has not excluded France,
Christ still has his adorers there.” She told
him that she was no Christian, and that she did
not even believe in a God. “Your own heart
and these Louis d’ors, Mademoiselle, contradićt
your assertion.” He then entered into a long
discussion about that genuine and disinterested
charity, which, without the example of our Sa-
viour, would have been unknown pon earth.
“Had Athens, Persepolis, and heathen Rome,”
said he, “like the Christian capitals, those hos-
pitals for age and disease, those orphan-houses
for deserted infancy and destitute youth, those
- asylums
144 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
asylums for correóting vice, for encouraging vir-
tue, and for relieving the wants and lessening
the misery which assail mankind from the cradle
to the grave What is become of the charitable
institutions of our own country, since ruled by
infidels our streets swarm with beggars, our
high roads with robbers, our gaols with crimi-
nals; and there is hardly a house in France.
where persons have not expired from neglect,
from desertion, from distress, or from despair ;
from that selfish insensibility, the chara&teristic
of infidelity, which sees with indifference a bro-
ther suffer without any attempt to succour or
console him, and a friend agonizing, without
even pitying him. Look round you, Mademoi-
selle, and I am sure it will almost rend your very
heart, to observe one generation descending into
eternity without faith, without hope, and an-
other entering the dreadful career of life, ex-
posed to all its vicissitudes and calamities in this
world, without any expećtation of remuneration
for virtue, or punishment for vice in another—
in an hereafter.” Her eyes confessed those sen-,
timents which her heart felt, but her mouth .
hesitated to pronounce. Profiting by the im-
pression, Saunier put a book into her hand, and
- w desired
PRINCESS LOUIS PUONAPARTE. 145
and desired her to read it with attention, and
to honour him with a visit as soon and as often
she was at leisure. -
Her maid was not less moved than herself by
what she heard. They read the book both with
application and edification. For two months
they continued regularly to see the worthy
ecclesiastic at the same hour, in the same way.
To this day Princess louis acknowledges that
the information she obtained from his conversa-
tion, the precepts of his doćtrine, and the con-
vićtion of the truth of the religion of her fore-
fathers, from his arguments and example, pre-
served her from many evils, particularly from
the sedućtion to which she was exposed by
young Rewbel, the son of the Director, who,
under pretence of marrying her, had free ad-
mittance to her private company, but whose
views, she had reason to suspect, were not ho-
nourable *. . .
- Even
# see Bulletin Imperial,&c. p. 366, 367. In a note it is said,
that the good Saunier was, in the spring of 1799, seized by
the police minister Fouché and transported to Cayenne. Af-
ter having, with four hundred other priests, suffered great
hardship during his passage, he was, after his landing, sent to
the interrior of the colony where, while he was at his
WOL. III. f prayers
146 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
Even after Buonaparte's usurpation, she, by
the same religious notions, resisted and escaped
the incestuous and unnatural attempts of this
her father-in-law, who was furious when he
heard of her conversion to Christianity. Po-
licy, however, soon got the better of lust, and
took advantage of her devotion and dutiful re-
signation, to marry her to his brother Louis,
whom she not only did not like, but who was
repugnant to her on account of his debauch-
eries and other vicious propensities. Whether
she afterwards was the dupe of her own sensibi-
lity, or became culpable, because she had been
obedient, her scrupulous conscientiousness is
evinced in a letter to her mother. In it she so
frankly explains her situation, and deplores her
errors, that early repentance makes it probable
that her continuance upon the road of perdition
will be but short. . . . . .
- “ Compiegne, August 19th, 1804.
“Yes, my dearest mother and only friend,
I am encompassed with every thing that can
make life not only agreeable but enviable. Of
prayers in a forest, a lion flew upon him, killed, and devoured
him. His piety, too pure for the earth, is now rewarded in
heaven, - - - . . .
my
PRINCESS LOUIS BUONAPARTE. 147
my sex, I am here the first by a rank I never
dreamt to attain, and I am hailed and compli-
mented by every body, as having no superior in
the beauty of my person, or in my mental ac-
complishments. *
, “ These gifts of fortune, of nature, are va-
luable, charming, and flattering indeed. I have,
however, experienced that they are unable to
confer what constitutes the sole blessing and
only worth of existence—content with one’s self,
and above all, peace and tranquillity of mind.
“How singular are those occurrences of my
life that have preceded and produced my pre-
sent brilliant misery At eleven years of age
the public executioner made me an orphan, and
at thirteen I had another father. From mis-
taken, ill-conceived, or criminal tenderness, he
ordered me to be educated without belief in
a Divinity. This was not easily effected. The
lessons, the prayers of my infancy, though the
giddiness and playfulness common to youth
made them often neglected, were never entirely
forgotten or erased. I found, I do not know
what consolation, in secretly confiding my wishes, -
my griefs, my joy, in my prayers to a Supreme
Being, to ačt as I thought would please him ; to
- H 2 g enjoy
3 #3 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
enjoy an heavenly satisfaction when I had done
right, and a tormenting anxiety when I had any
wrong with which to reproach myself: on the other
hand, an invincible horror seized me the instant
the idea of total annihilation put me on the level
with the brute, or insinuated to my bewildered
senses, that my produćtion and end were the same
with the plant in our garden, the dog tied in
our court-yard, or the inse&t I trampled under
my feet. I often made these remarks to Ma-
dame Campan, because they often perplexed
me. She in return shewed me my father’s in-
structions, to which she added her own com-
ments, corresponding with his desires. -
“But the fashion of impiety was to me the most
dangerous of teachers and seducers. All other
girls, my companions, strove who should be fore-
most to pride themselves of infidelity, and throw
ridicule on Christianity. They were always ap-
plauded—fatal applauses In two years I left
them all behind me, and was saluted the most
amiable atheist of the whole seminary, The
approbation of my father, on his return vićtori-
ous from Italy, did not at all tend to make me
change my opinions. . . -
“You know, since the unexpected light which
Provi-
PRINCESS Louis BUONAPARTE. 149
Providence gave me in the precepts of my ever
regretted virtuous instructor Saunier, how much
I changed for the better, in my behaviour to-
wards the best of mothers, and how much every
good person approved that decency of gait, of
language, which succeeded my presumptuous and
indecorous boldness. This, the only time of my
--- life I was truly happy, was short, too short.
“. After my father-in-law had been made a
First Consul, and continued those unnatural insi-
nuations I dreaded and detested, the pain it
caused ine to avoid giving offence, and to conceal
zny disgust and contempt, made me agitated when
alone, and uncomfortable when in company.
You know that he was insupportable to Iſher
from the day I heard him use such shocking
language to you. My innocent caresses, which
he took for affectionate sentiments, were only
the consequence of a duty my obedience to my
mother's commands imposed on me. But when
he had from jealousy so cruelly exiled my only
lover, the worthy choice of my heart, the dearest
De S–, when he murdered De S–’s friend,.
Frotté, I abhorred him. º
“You since know the daily combats of my
mind, and that they would long ago overcome
H 3. my
150 . THE FEMALE PLUTARCH. .
my strength, had not the hope relieved me, that
my power over a barbarian might prevent the
commission of more crimes. You know also, how
little he has kept that promise (which bound
me for life to a husband I must despise) of
sparing all Royalists : sacred shades of D'Eng-
Hien, Pichegru, and George, revenge on your
assassin the pangs of your friend, caused by
your murder. l, . . . .
“I many times wished that my principles of
religion, of morality, were as easily reconciled
with my condućt as your's, dear mamma. I
should not now deplore the pollution of my
nuptial bed by intruders; of not having resolution
enough to resist temptations Icondemn as culpa-
ble; of having permitted my passions to govern
my reason, and my senses to silence my duty, and
for some short and temporary enjoyments, en-
dure the perpetual reproaches of a guilty con-
science. These would be insupportable to me,
were my husband’s behaviour to me kind, and if,
in some manner, his repeated infidelities did not
extenuate my adultery. For one of my lovers,
he has twenty mistresses. The indelicacy of his
intrigues, of his amours, goes beyond what you
can imagine. The embraces of the common
. . . ~ harlots
PRINCESS LOUIS BUONAPARTE. 15t
harlots of the camp are often as acceptable to
him as those of the wives of his aids-du-camp,
and always preferable to mine. Is it not out-
rageous is it not provoking ! If your walks
are gown with thorns, you may guess that mine
are not strewed with roses.
“ Believe me, my sole friend, that the young
conscripts are nothing to me. Had I a husband
I could love, or only esteem, I should always
have remained pure and irreproachable. I am,
however, determined, if I survive my approach-
ing accouchement, to dismiss for ever, even those
consoler; you think so necessary to my comfort.
This is a vow I have this morning made before
the altar, and God will enable me to perform it.
As to Louis's jealousy, I fear it less than I suf-
fer from his negligence".” . . .
The Princess had frequent audiences of the
Pope during the winter of 1804, and his Holi-
ness bestowed on her indulgencies in abound-
ance. Her life has since been very retired, and
as she has perfeótly recovered from her accouche-
ment, it is supposed that her vow has not been
forgottent. . . . . .
see Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 24, et seq. f Idem, p. 30.
H 4 3. The
152 THE FEMALE PLUTARch.
The yearly allowance of the Princess Louis
amounts to four millions of livres; herjewels, plate,
thina, and pićtures, are valued at twelve millions;
a bishop is her almoner, and two grand vicars
her chaplains; Madame Deviry is her lady in
waiting, and Madame Boubers; Madame Vil-
leneuve, Madame Mollien, and Madame Lery,
are her maids of honour ; Mr. Darjuson is her
first chamberlain, and Colonel Caulincourt her
master of the horse; Mr. Turgot her equerry ,
Desprez her secretary; Dalichoux Senegra her
intendant; Robert Villars her librarian ; Ra-
guideau her notary; Le Roux her physician; A8-
saliny her surgeon, and Dufau her apothecary;
besides thcse, sixty-six other persons are attach-
ed to her household”. -
Her Imperial Highness has been delivered of
two sons. Napoleone Charles, born on the 18th
of Vendemaire, an xi. or 10th Oétober, 1802;
and Napoleone flouis, born on the 19th Vende-
maire, an xiii. or 11th Oétober, 1804. 3.Y
* See Bulletin Imperial, p. 375. In the same page it is
stated, that Buonaparte has promised to augment the allow-
ance of his dearest step-daughter with 600,000 livres (25,000l.)
for every daughter, and one million of livres for every son
of whom she is delivered. Her sons he regards as the certain
support of the Buonaparte dynasty in France and Italy.
- M.41)AME
153°
MAD. JEROME BUONAPARTE,
CI-DEVANT MISS PATTERSON.-NO IMPERIAL
HIGHNESS. . . . . -
. - - - º -
THE magistrates of the ancient republics of
Athens, Sparta and Rome, would have degraded;
disgraced, banished, or put to death, a citizen
who permitted his children to marry into a family
- either of tyrants or of slaves; either of foreign
princes, or of foreign upstarts. But his Excel-
lency Mr. President Jefferson is no more an
Aristides, a Lycurgus, or a Cato, than Citizen
Patterson is a Socrates, or a Brutus. In the free
commonwealth of the United States of America,
such is the general liberality. and hospitality, that ---
had a Spartan citizen, with his contempt of riches.
and stern principles. of freedom, presented him-
- self there, if he had refused to sell. himself for
a slave, he would have perished from want like a
wretch ; he would have found no choice between
bondage and death.
s H 5 On 3
Y.
F54 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
On the other hand, the example of Monsieur
Jerome Buonaparte, proves the unambitious disin-
terestedness of American citizens, and that any
foreign adventurer, let his relatives be ever so
vile or ever so wicked; let them owe their ele-
vation to the most enormous crimes, their power
to the basest treachery, and their wealth to the
most infamous plunder ; let himself be an ac-
complice of their guilt, provided he has a prospect
of sharing in the spoils, he is certain of being
adopted into the families even of those called
the most respectable citizens. The greedy trader
- will heap upon him hoarded treasures, renowned
beauty bestow her hand, austere virtue her ca-
resses, and ſtaunch republicans their commenda-
tions, their flattery—their cringing,
On a young person of Miss Patterson’s age and
republican education, love must generally ex-
clude air other considerations. The ambition of
the females of a commonwealth of equality, must
chiefly confine itself to obtaining for husbands
the most handsome or the richest among their
fellow-citizens. The shameful cupidity, and
foolish ambition of her parents, therefore, Il G.
doubt, dićtated her unbecoming marriage with a
. - - tow .
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 155
low Corsican. To suppose it otherwise, would
, be a libel on her heart, on her ſenſe, and on her
judgment. She was the wife of Monsieur Jerome
after an acquaintance of some few weeks only.
Was he a little more hairy, the yellow and dimi-
nitive figure of Monsieur Jerome would hardly
improve the ugliest monkey capering in the
forests either of the western or eastern world.
Monsieur Jerome is ill-bred as well as unin-
formed; possessing neither natural nor acquired
parts to recommend him. Parental despotism
alone could have united the beautiful and ac-
complished Miss Patterson with such an ignorant,
mean, vicious, and corrupted personage.
What could give Mr. and Mrs. Patterson the
hope of a fraternity with the Buonapartes ?—
Their worth, their credit. These may, perhaps,
be well known upon the exchanges of America,
but Napoleone despises and detests merchants.
Mr. Patterson has hitherto no military
achievements, no revolutionary crimes, to re-
commend him, and he is too honest a man, to be:
transformed hereafter, either into a bravo or an
accomplice of the Corsican usurper. The do-
mestic virtues of Mrs. Patterson —These are
the most pointed epigrams on the hereditary
H 6. vices
156 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH,
vices of the female Buonapartes. They mus
therefore resign themselves to see their pleas-
ing scheme miscarry, of being the parents of a re-
volutionary Imperial Princess.
In the creation of Imperial Highnesses in May
1804, Monsieur Jerome was excluded; and in the
subsequent dignities and distinétions thrown in
such a scandalous profusion, on every person re-
lated to the upstart tyrant, no mention is made
of this his younger brother. His name is not
found even upon the list of those French ban-
ditti forming a Legion of Honour. He is only
a captain of a frigate, without property and
without talents, and will remain in these nar-
row circumstances, in that humble station, until
he renounces a match he was not of age to con-
clude: Is it to be supposed that the feelings
of Jerome will oppose such a dishonourable,
though not unlawful act? Will his £foiciſm prefer
obscurity and penury to rank and riches To
judge of his present sensibility from his past tran-
saćtions, he is as unfeeling as a brute; and to
determine his firmness, constancy, and in-
consistency, from those of the other members of
the Buonaparte family, he must regard all ties
of honour and of honesty merely as steps to ad-
- vancement
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 157
vancement and gratification of passions, and dis-
regard them the instant they cease to be such,
whenever they do not promote or only oppose
his interest. Thus absurd ambition, as well as
all other unbecoming passions, carries with it its
own chastisement. The disappointment of the
Pattersons is certain, while their design of gran-
deur and splendour is problematical, if not im-
probable. Should also their good and sacrificed
daughter suffer from affection, love, or defeated
confidence, her misfortunes must be to them
tormenting and unrelenting reproaches.
The only event that could make Monsieur
Jerome continue the husband of Miss Patterson,
is of such a nature, that had it occurred in 1802,
her parents would never have permitted her to
bestow her hand on him. Was Providence in
its justice, to precipitate the sanguinary Napo-
leone from the blood-stained throne which he
so treacherously seized, and so illegally occupies,
and let the punishment due to his enormities
overtake him in this world, Jerome would then
certainly be fortunate, to seek in America a
refuge from the proscription of his criminal re-
latives in Europe. -
When, in the beginning of January 1805, the
Pope
458 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
*~
Pope was busy at Paris, in marrying again all
the Buonapartes, who had previously only been
coupled according to the impious code of the
Republic, and the riteſ of atheism, he is said also
to have signed a bull dissolving the marriage of
Jerome, as contraćted by a minor, against the
consent of his relations, and contrary to the
canon laws, with an heretic”. As Jerome did
not set sail from America before the April fol-
lowing, it cannot be doubted but that he was
acquainted with this his family arrangement, and
that he left his wife in the Tagus, with an intent
never to see her again without the consent of his
brother Napoleone. That this was his deter-
mination, his supplications before the Imperial
throne when at Genoa, shortly afterwards, and
when they were unavailing, his. acceptance of
the inferior command of a frigate, as a penance
for past offences and an indication of future
amendment, clearly evince. He shewed that
he was determined, at any rate, to merit indul-
gencieſ of the Pope, and to obtain indemnities
from the mock Emperor, his sovereign and his
master +. . . . . . !' .
see Appendix of Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 44; and Les
Nouvelles a la Main, Messidor, an xiii. No. 3. p. 5,
t idem, No. 4, p. 9. * -
-- h Nothing
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 139
Nothing has, however, happened, or can hap-
pen in this business, or rather intrigue, which
the Pattersons should not have prepared them-
selves to expect, both from the so well known,
outrageously vain charaćter of Napoleone, and
from the letters intercepted by British cruizers,
addressed by the usurper's minister of the ma-
rine department, to Monsieur Jerome himself, as
well as to his political Trans-Atlantic emissary,
Pichon. . . . . . .
The following is an official and authentic copy
of the minister of the marine, Decré's letter to
his friend Monsieur Jerome Buonaparte. .
.. “ Paris, 30th Germinal, year 12 (April 18, 1804),
“I have just been fulfilling, my dear J erome,
a rigorous duty imposed upon me by the First
Consul; that of forbidding the Citizen Pichon
to supply you with money, and prescribing
to him to prohibit all the captains of French
vessels from receiving on board the young per-
son to whom you have attached yourself; it
being the intention of the First Consul, that she
shall on no pretext whatever come into France;
and should she happen to present herself, that
… . . . . she
160 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
she shall not be received, but be re-embarked for
the United States without delay.
“Such, my dear Jerome, are the orders which
I have been obliged literally to transmit, and
which have been given me, and repeated after
the interval of a month, with such a solemn seve-
rity, as neither allowed me to withhold them.
altogether, nor to soften them in the slightest
“After the discharge of this severe duty, f
cannot, my dear Jerome, dehy myself the pleasure
of lengthening my letter in a way which the
attachment I feel for you will warrant, and our
military association entitle me to. If I loved you.
less, if the sentiments with which you have in-
spired me did not so perfeótly accord with those
which I owe to your family; if there were not .--
between you and me a sort of companionship in
arms, and of intimacy which I delight in keeping.
up, I would confine myself to the dispatching of
the orders which I have received, and to an ac-
- curate official correspond ence; the result of
which would give me very little uneasiness. In-
stead of this, I am going to chat with you at a
great rate, and without knowing beforehand what
**.
I am.
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 16t
I am about to say; of one thing I am certain, F
shall tell you nothing of which I am nót well
persuaded. -
“War is carrying on, and you are quiet and
peaceable at 1200 ieagues from the theatre on
which you ought to act a great part. If unfor-
tunately you come not back in the first French
rigate which returns to Europe, and I have al-
ready given you that order by C-tds, an order
which I repeat to you by the Consul's command,
in the most formal manner : if, I say, you shall
not return to France till after the peace, what
f
**
r
dignity wiłł accompany your return ? How wiłł
men recognize in you the brother of the regula-
tor of Europe In what temper of mind will
you find that brother, who, eager after glory,
will see you destitute even of that of having en-
countered dangers; and who, convinced that
all France would shed its blood for him, would
only see in you, a man without energy, yielding
to effeminate passions, and having not a single
leaf to add to the heaps of laurels with which
he invests his name and our standards.
“O Jerome, this idea alone should deter-
--> mine you to return with all expedition amongst
us. The sound of arms is heard in every quarter,
- and
162 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and of the preparations for the noblest enterprise,
You are inquired for, and I vexed that I should
be at a loss what answer to give to those who
ask where you are—declare that you are just at
hand; give me not the lie, I beseech you,
“Your brother j oseph, father of a family that
he adores, possessed of a fortune proportioned to
his rank, invested with the highest civil honours
of the state; known throughout Europe for his
sagacity, and his diplomatic labours, wishes to add
to so much glory, that of sharing with the Consul
the dangers of war, and has just got one of the
regiments that are about to embark. Louis,
known by his military services, a general of di-
vision, is desirous of adding to that glory, that of
displaying talents for civil arrangements; he has
just entered into the Council of State—the sec-
tion of legislation. -
“Lucien, it is true, has just quitted France,
and has exiled himself to Rome, in consequence
of a marriage repugnant to the views of the First
Consul; but Lucien is known by the services he
has rendered, by his genius, by his talents, by
the dignity of a senator. He is possessed of a
great and independent fortune ; but notwith-
standing, the connexioms (disavowed by his lºc-
ther)
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 163
ther) which he haſ contračied, have been found in-
&ompatible with hiſ abode in France.
“What has taken place in your family, points
out to you sufficiently what the First Consul
expects of you, and his inflexibility concerning
what you shall do in opposition to his views.
Sole architeå of the glory of which he has at-
tained the summit, he acknowledges no family
but the French people, and in proportion as he
exalts his brothers, who press around him, so
have I seen him show coldness, and even aver-
sion, to those of his own blood, who push not
forward in the career which his genius traces out
for them. Whatever is foreign to the accom-
plishment of his great designs, seems to him
treason against his high destiny and believe
me, for I know your brother better than you
know him yourself, if you should persist in
keeping yourself at a distance from him, he
would get angry at it at first, and would conclude
by entirely forgetting you ; and Heaven knows
what regrets your obscurity would lay up in
store for you. Scarce can a more brilliant career
be opened to a man of your age. Shut it not
- up yourself. The union which you have formed,
has deeply affected him. While I, thought he,
3.11.
164 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
am doing every thing for glory, for my own, for
that of my name, for the happiness of the people
that have put their fate into my hands, by whom
may I hope to be seconded, if not by my bro-
thers ? and the youngest . among them forms an
inconſiderate connexion, on which he has not
even asked my opinion. He has disposed of
himself as a private individual; it is, therefore,
as a private individual he wishes me to consider
him. What claim does he show to my benefac-
tions —None; for instead of being useful to
me, he takes the route diametrically opposite to
what I wish him to follow. In vain availing,
myself of the freedom which the First Consul
permits in domestic privacy, did I wish to make
the voice of natural affection be heard; I became
sensible, from his conversation, that he neither
felt, nor was liable to feel, any pliancy of that
“I will receive jerome, if, leaving in America
#he young person in queſtion, he shall come
hither to asſociate himself to my fºrtune. Should
he bring her, along with him, she shall not put a
foot on the territory of France, and you must
answer to me for this, by the orders which you.
are bound to give. to prevent her landing. If he
• - comes
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 163
comes alone, I shall never recall the error of a
moment, and the fault of youth. Faithful ser.
vices, and the condućt which he owes to himself,
and to his name, will regain him all my kind-
‘ness; such, my dear Jerome, are nearly the
words of the First Consul. Bethink yourself,
my friend, that he is only your brother, and that
:as I have already told you, a brother feels not
the yielding condescension of a father, who
identifies himself in some measure with his son—
Consider that you have as yet done nothing for
him, and that in order to obtain the advantage
attached to the honour of being connected
with him, you have not a moment to lose for
deserving them. For it is his chara&ter, that.
merit and services rendered, or to be rendered,
are the only things on which he sets a real and
‘solid value. - -
“In truth, I am frightened at the regrets you
are preparing for yourself, and the person with
whom you have commečied yourself, should you
go the length of opposing the views of your brd-
ther; your passions will pass away, and you
will reproach yourself with the injury which you
will have done yourself. Perhaps you will ac-
cuse, ever, involuntarily, #he young person who
will -
166 . . . THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
will have been the occasion of it. Listen to rea-
son, and she will tell you, that at any rate you
have committed the fault of failing in respect for
your brother, and for a brother fed for a length
of time with the love and veneration of all
France, and with the RESPECT of Europe. You -
will be sensible how happy it is for you, that you
are able, by returning to France, to obtain the
pardon of this fault; that it would be inconsist-
ent with your personal dignity to carry thither a
woman who would be exposed to the mortifica-
tion of not being received. I know not whether
you can hope to overcome your brother's unfa-
vourable dispositions towards her ; and, to deal
frankly with you—I see no probability of such a
thing; but if there be any means of obtaining it,
it must be by your presence—by your compliance
with his views, by proofs of your devoted attach-
ment to him, you can bring it about. You are
so young, that if you unhappily let slip the op-
portunity of placing yourself about the Consul,
...you will have many years of regret steal up-
on you. The obscurity to which you would thus
condemn yourself, would be long; and long and
bitter the comparison between the lot you had
chosen for yourself, and that which once awaited •
* you,
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 167
you. Without distinétion, fame, or even for-
tune, how could you bear the weight of the
name with which you are honoured To you,
a stranger to the glory attached to it, it would
become an insupportable burthen. I repeat it
for the last time, my dear Jerome, come hither,
come hither by the first French frigate which
shall sail from the United States, and you will
meet with such a reception as you could desire ;
but I regret that you know not the Consul suffi-
ciently, because you would then be persuaded that
you cannot regain his good will but by this ex-
pedient, and his good will is essential to your
happiness and your glory. I conclude with the
expression of the most sincere attachment, which
I shall never cease to retain; happy, if I have
been able to influence your determination in the
way I could wish, more happy still, if my letter
was unnecessary for that purpose. A thousand
good wishes.
r
r
(Signed) “ Decres.”
Paris, 1st Floreal, year 12, April 19th, 1804.
Not unnecessarily to swell the volume, ano-
ther letter from the same minister to the French
chargé
...,’
163 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
chargé d'affaires in America, Pichon, is left out,
as being nearly a repetition of the above.
A French periodical paper, published on this
subječt some other curious particulars, under the
head of +
<3
“IMPERIAL FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE.
(From Les Nouvelles a la Main, Vendemaire, an xiii. or
Oćtober, 1804, No. 4. p. 3, et seq.)
st British cruizers on the coast of America
have intercepted a parcel containing original,
confidential, and official letters from Napoleone
Buonaparte to his brother Jerome, and from
Talleyrand to the French agents in America.
The names under some of these letters are signed
at full length, others only with initials. Among
the latter is one signed J. B. supposed Joseph
Buonaparte, and another L. B. supposed Letitia
Buonaparte, addressed to Monsieur J erome.
“In the letter from Napoleone, Jerome is se-
verely reproached for his degrading marriage in a
family of la canaille marchande, or of the mercan-
tile rabble; ordered immediately to renounce
his wife, and embark for France, where honourſ,
. . ; rank,
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 169
&
rank, and riches await him, if obedient ; whilst,
on the contrary, if refractory, poverty and ob-
scurity are to be his only lot, as a Senatus Con-
rulius which, were he in France, would proclaim
him an Imperial Highness, shall otherwise pre-
vent him and his posterity for ever from uſing
and dishonouring the great name of Buonaparte.
The sword of the Grand Admiral, intended for
him, shall then be disposed of to distant, though
more worthy relatives. -
“ Joseph's letter to Jerome is merely a copy
of Napoleone's. Though he presses Jerome to
obey the Emperor's commands, he does it with so
bad a grace, as if he seemed apprehensive that
the arrival of a younger brother in France, would
diminish his own ambitious views or avaricious
expectations. Two-thirds of the letter are said to
express, in the strongest terms, the terrible anger,
and the terrible effects, of the terrible Napoleone’s
dis pleasure, which require years of good conduct in
Jerome, before the Emperor's fraternal affection
can be restored.
“ The letter of Madame Buonaparte the mo-
ther, to her Jerome, is full of Catholic sentiments.
As a true Christian of the Catholic church, she
fears as much the damnation of her son in the
VOA, III, I - next
->
170 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
next world, as his disgrace in this, for having
married into a family of heretics, and united
himself to a woman educated in the same prin-
ciples of eternal perdition as her parents. She
exhorts her son not to go to France, but to join
her in Italy, where she will endeavour to make
his and Lucien’s peace at the same time with his
imperial brother. She hints that his Holiness the
Pope has shewn no objection to pronounce his
marriage with an heretic void, and that she has
fixed upon a young Roman Princess of the Co-
lonna family as his future wife, whose religion is
as pure as her birth is illustrious. To console
the temporary Madame Jerome, she offers to
settle upon her an annuity of six thousand livres
(250/.), if she will become a Roman Catholic,
and retire into some Spanish or Italian-convent.
“ The French agents in America are inform-
ed by Talleyrand, that the Emperor's command
is, that they shall try all means in their power to
persuade Jerome to take his passage immediately
for Europe, and if without success, stop the Im-
perial allowance; entice him on board, and even
use secret violence in forcing him to embark
without his pretended wife, to remove whom out .
of the way, the agents have full authority to
- employ
—”
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 171
employ whatever secret means they think neces-
sary. The principal agent is ordered to repeat
to the President Jefferson, the Emperor's dis-
pleasure for not having interfered with regard to
his brother's match, which, if lawful according
to the laws of America, is illegal according tC
the laws of France: to these alone Frenchmen
are subjećted, wherever they reſide. He is to be
requested tacitly to permit those measures of vi-
gour, which the family honour of the Buonapartes
requires on this occasion, and to equip an Ame-
rican frigate to carry Jerome, without his ir-
cumbrance, to France at the expence of the Em-
peror, who in return will ensure his re-elec-
tion as President, and even, upon certain condi-
tions, a presidency for life over the American
States. General Turreau (of terrorist memory),
- whom the Emperor has appointed his represen-
tative in America, will inform the President of
his Majesty's demands and intents. This gene-
ral ambassador has instructions to support him,
and even to head any party that shall take up
arms against the Angloman federalists, who are
to be exterminated, should they dare to oppose
his re-election. Should his future conduct be
approved of, Turreau will let Mr. Jefferson
- 12 more
*
172 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
more into the secret views of his Imperial Ma-
jesty with regard to Spain and her colonies,
which, when Europe is pacified, may easily be
partitioned between the ſubječi; of the President .
and those of the Emperor.”
“These are the principal contents of the
INTERCEPTED IMPERIAL FAMILY coRRESPOND-
ENCE, of which we have obtained copies from
our correspondent at Baltimore : there, as well
as every where else in America, they are cir-
culated by English emissaries, enemies to the
quiet and glory of our illuſtrious, revolutionary,
Corsican sans-culotte Dynasty; which with so
much modeſty, and so many virtueſ, has put the
rank, the throne, the palaces, and the property
of the French Bourbons in requisition for them-
selves. -
“When Monsieur Jerome is safely arrived in
France, and Madame J erome is ſafely removed to
America, we shall publish a panegyric on the
former, and a funeral sermon on the latter.”
The inveteracy of the Emperor against the
premature marriage of Jerome, is besides evident,
from the strićt order he gave his minister at Lis-
bon, to prevent the landing of Madame Jerome
*
w }}} .
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 173
in that neutral kingdom, and the civil departure
she was forced to take from the allied Batavian
Commonwealth : an indelicate insult, which the
becomingly-proud republicans of old would have
considered as an ačt of premeditated hostility,
had it been offered to one of their fellow-citizens.
But it may be repeated again, that the Americans
are modern republicans, more ready to worship
Plutus than to draw their swords in the service of
Mars. Their political consciences are not so
nice or scrupulous as those of the republicans of
antiquity. They would sell and dispose of all the
Helens, all the Venuses in the world, with the
same indifference as any other commodity, pro-
vided the bargain was profitable.
Another occurrence has not lessened the
wrath of Madame Jerome's barbarous brother-
in-law, Napoleone. Her husband, according
to report”, in announcing his arrival in Europe
with the young person his wife, had also stated,
that although she had the misfortune of being un-
der the Emperor's ban, his enemies were her’s.
She would expe&t with submission his gracious.
direétions in neutral Embden, where she was
* Les Nouvelles a la Main, Messidor, anxiii. No, 2. p. 2.
I 3 friend-
174 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
*:
£2 2s. * º * > e - * - ...- -
friendless, instead of landing in hostile Eng-
*.
land, where her relatives were many, and the
friends of her parents numerous. His revolu-
tionary Majesty had hardly finished the reading
of this letter, when the public prints informed
him that Madame Jerome was quietly landed op-
posite to where his Army of England bravely,
but quietly encamped. ... . w
As he, however, at the same time was shewn
translations of some English prints, mentioning
t
he distinguished reception she had met with at
¥
$
I}over ; that an honourable gentleman had per-
formed the part of his Imperial Majesty’s
grand master of the ceremonies, and handed her
on shore; that generals, colonels, and mayors
had waited on her ; that their wives had com-
plimented her ; that her anti-chambers had been
crowded with fashionable amateurs, and her
hotel surrounded with greeting John Bulls; his
fury was somewhat softened, and his rage less
violent than usual, particularly when homest Tal-
leyrand, the Emperor's grand sycophant of ho-
nour, had addressed him thus: “Sire and my
most gracious Sovereign, Emperor, and King !
notwithstanding the ungenerous endeavours of
the British Government to cloud your Majesty’s
* . . . -- glory,
MADAME JEROME BUON APARTE. 175
glory, to diminish the inestimable value of your
Majesty's great ačtions, to calumniate your Ma-
jesty's patriotism, disinterestedness, and libera-
lity, and to excite the people of Great Britain
against your Majesty's sacred person, Englishmen
of all classes strive who shall be foremost to
bow to a lady, who had no other claims to their
veneration, than that of having usurped the
brilliant name of Buonaparte. Sons of peers
cringe to touch her hand; superior and confi-
dential officers of his Britannic Majesty, with
their wives, emulate to be admitted and re-
marked in her drawing-room; and his subjećts
of every rank are anxious to pay their devoirs to
the soi-dirant Madame Jerome Buonaparte, who,
had she landed as Miss Patterson, would not
only have been unnoticed, but perhaps insulted.
From this voluntary and flattering behaviour,
your Imperial and Royal Majesty may conclude
what a reception he would have obtained, had
he graciously condescended to land in the Bri-
tish Islands. Sire some little more patience,
and the Sovereign who has lately been conse-
crated Rex Italicus, will soon be saluted, nay
hailed, Rex Britannicus* *
- - - Whether
". • See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Messidor, an xiii. No. 4. p. 6,7.
I 4 In
176 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
Whether this speech of Talleyrand is fabri-
cated or real, whether it is composed as a com-
pliment to Buonaparte, or as a censure on the
condućt of certain British subjećts, who suffered
their curiosity or politeneſs to get the better of
their duty and policy, it is equally just, proper,
and pointed. What a disgrace to the charaćter
of a free, dutiful, and loyal nation, to have pub-
lished accounts of persons of rank and eminence
dancing attendance on a Madame Jerome (the
wife of a petty insignificant rebel and adventu-
rer, brother of an usurper, tyrant, and assassin,
the sworn enemy of their country), who, as
Talleyrand truly observed, would scarcely have
been regarded or spoken to, had she arrived here
as Miss Patterson. Her misfortune of having
accepted for a husband Jerome Buonaparte, cer-
tainly deserves compassion and pity, but cannot
be alleviated by an unexpe&ted and undeserved
attention and troublesome bustle. As to her
In a note it is said, that T alleyrand delivered this speech at
Milan, in the presence of all the grand officers of state of the
kingdom of Italy, who all immediately exclaimed, “Vivat
Napoleonus Rex Britannicus!” To this compliment Buo-
naparte answered, with a gracious smile, in laying his hand
on his sword. - . . . .
~
Sex,
MADAME JEROME BUONAPARTE. 177.
sex, it would have been respected the same, less.
pompously indeed, but perhaps more sincerely,
by all true Britons, had she set her feet upon
British ground as the unmarried daughter of an
American trader, instead of the disappointed
and deserted wife of a revolutionary Imperial.
Highness in petto. Our laws, our manners, our
civilization, and our gallantry, protećt it, without
all the impolitic and ridiculous show and parade
witnessed at Dover, and transmitted thence
to fill the columns of London newspapers,
or to announce to continental nations our rapid
advancement towards a degradation which we
have so often censured in them, when prostrat-
ing themselves before a Napoleone, Joseph, Lu-
cien, or Louis Buonaparte, before a revolution-
ary Emperor, or before a revolutionary Empress.
In what light have the Emperors of Germany.
and Russia considered such an humiliating infa-
tuation | Have they not reason to believe that
the conclusions drawn by Talleyrand, though
exaggerated, may not be improbable 2 States
that know nothing of our loyalty, resources, and
public spirit, but from the libels in the Moni.
ºeur, may they not suppose that our extravagant
aćts of good breeding are the dićtates of fear, and
- ! 5 . . r- that
178 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
that our necks are stretched out ready to receive
the Corsican yoke Will not the loyal and disin-
£ereſted cabinet of Berlin rejoice at such pro-
gression towards Corsican fraternity? Britons are
but little aware of the hateful effects such ridi-
culous scenes here, produce on the still indepen-
dent continental nations. - ~~
Had Madame Jerome, like a Madame Tal-
lien, shewn herself bold, daring, vain, and pre-
sumptuous, instead of being modest and amiable,
she would have been visited by our great folks,
invited by our fashionables, followed by crowds
in her walks, gaped at in churches, stared at in
theatres, and, finally, after being caressed by our
first people, envied by her equals of the middle
classes, and hooted and abused by the rabble. Her
prudence and good sense in avoiding publicity,
are as praiseworthy as her marriage is deplorable.
All persons who have enjoyed the pleasure of
her company, are unanimous in their admira-
tion of the charms of her person, as well as of
the ornaments of her mind. -
HER
HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS
E L I Z. A BUONAPARTE,
sovereign PRINCEss of PIOMBINO, alias
-. MADAME BACHIOCCHI, -
“IF any farmer wants an able housewife,
any cattle-keeper a good dairy-maid, any inn-
keeper an attentive and clean bar or chamber-
maid, or any bleacher an expert laundress, my
Eliza,” said Madame Buonaparte the mother,
“ is a valuable match. She will keep at home
for months, never going out but to hear
mass or to make her confession, continually
looking after the house, watching, instrućting,
and, when necessary, scolding the servants.
She can milk the cows or goats to perfection,
churn butter to a nicety, discover cows lost in
the woods, or runaway goats capering upon
the mountains. She can bake bread, brew beer,
feed pigs, and nurse lambs or kids. She is a
competent judge of all sorts of good wires, spirits,
& * - - 16 and

1so THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and liquors; can mix negus, punch, or sylla-
bubs, lemonade, coffee, or chocolate ; can make
feather or straw beds ; can sweep to perfection
sitting and bed-rooms, and by splashing and
mangling, spare the washing of sheets and cur-
tains for years. By a method her own, and in-
vented by herself, she hangs up, lays down, or
spreads out her linen in such a systematic man-
ner, that not a drop of rain, or a ray of the sun, is
lost to whiten or dry them. For citizens of such
description, of such occupation,” repeated Mo-
ther Buonaparte, “ my Eliza is an irrestimable
treasure *.” -
Thus spoke the simple, plain, and poor Le-
titia Buonaparte, when cultivating a small farm
near Ajaccio in Corsica ; when following the
- plough, or guarding flocks of goats; when Sur-
rounded with nine ragged or naked children;
calling, and often calling in vain, for bread.
Notwithstanding her faith in the predićtions of
gypsies, and in the prescience of her own dreams,
she then little supposed that thrones, grandeur,
and wealth were in store for those brats,
whom she expected to vegetate in penury, mean-
# See Bulletin Imperial, &c. P. 179, et Seq, -
Kuč383,
PRINCESS ELIZA BUONAPARTE. 181
ness, and obscurity; whom she would have
thought rich, if not experiencing immediate
want, and exalted, if necessity or misery did not
force them to become troublesome to the parish ;
to augment the number of needy vagabonds beg-
ging on the highways, or the sturdy, starving
beggars infesting and asking for alms in the
streets of cities and towns. - \
A countryman of her Imperial Highness Prin-
cess Eliza, considered affluent, because he pos-
sessed property to the amount of twelve thou-
sand livres (500l.), was struck with the boasts
of Mother Buonaparte, of this her daughter's
domestic qualities, which her friends in charity
circulated all over the island of Corsica. He
therefore hired a jack-ass to go to Ajaccio, where
he surprised her Imperial Highness’ occupied in S.
gelding pigs. As he wanted a wife of all work,
this did not frighten or dishearten him. With-
out being captivated by a beauty, that, if it ever
had existed, had not been improved by the
scorching rays of a burning climate, he was
pleased with her sensible conversation and rustic
accomplishments. For him to demand and ob-
tain the hand of a virgin, already the mother of
a child of many fathers, was the same. Their
. . . . nuptials
~
182 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
nuptials were celebrated with a pomp that made
Mother Buonaparte weep for joy, and all the
other raggamuffins of Ajaccio envy her felici-
ty”. - - -
The adventures of Princess Eliza's husband,
Citizen Felix Bachiocchi, his present Serene
- Highness, Sovereign Prince of Piombino, were
no less extraordinary than her own qualities were
wonderful. The son of a shoe-black at Bastia,
or at least of the wife of a shoe-black (whose very
frequent visits to a neighbouring convent of
Recollets scandalized the devotees, and furnish-
ed matter for the chat of gossips), he was gra-
tuitously brought up by one of the friars, until, ‘. .
when about twelve years of age, he eloped, and
engaged himself as a drummer in the regiment
of Royal Italien. Destined, no doubt, to
make a noise in a higher sphere, he was in some
few months tired of the military service, and
deserted into Switzerland. After four weeks'
wanderings, during which he subsisted by begg-
ing and pilfering, he was received into a coffee-
house at Basle, in the capacity of a waiter, and
marqueur, or marker at a billiard table. Being soon
- s See Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 183. .
expert
PRINCESS ELIZA BUONAPARTE. Iss
expert in playing, he won considerable sums and
bets, particularly from English travellers, who
then visited the Swiss Cantons. Within six
years he had money enough to set up a manu-
facturer of chocolate. In that situation he mar-
ried the daughter of a cotton manufacturer, who
took him into partnership, which, however, the
death of his wife shortly dissolved. When he
became the husband of Princess Eliza Buona-
parte, he was in business for himself. As from
compassion he behaved very generously towards
the distressed relatives of his wife, he had nearly
ruined himself, when the plunder of Italy en-
riched the sans-culotte Napoleone Buonaparte.
He was then indeed relieved of a part of the
incumbrance which he had supported; but until
Napoleone had usurped the Consulate, he was not
indemnified for his liberality, or paid his advances,
Even then a great objećtion was harboured in the
Consular bosom against him. He had no crimes
with which to reproach himself; his hands were
neither polluted by pillage, nor stained with blood;
his quiet submission, and his wife's patient assidui-
ties about her powerful brother, made him, how-
ever, at last, in 1803, within twelve month, a Co-
lonel, a General, and a Senator; in 1804 a Serene
Highness,
184 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
Highness, and in 1805 the Sovereign Prince of
Piombino, a petty principality on the borders of
Tuscany, which Napoleone seized and bestowed
on this his awkward brother-in-law, that he might
no longer with his presence disgrace, at Paris,
the Imperial reviews, levees, drawing-rooms, and
circles *.
Since her elevation to an Imperial Highness,
Eliza Buonaparte has much altered her foibles as
well as her habits. Formerly by turns devout and
amorous, her occupations and passions were di-
vided between heaven and earth; at present she
is transformed into an invincible coquet, and a
disbelieving infidel, notwithstanding that she was
the first and the last of her family to demand
and obtain from his Holiness the Pope, indul-
gences and relics, absolution for former sins,
consolation for past troubles, and hope for future
happiness + -
The reason for this unaccountable change, is
reported to be a disappointment of having chil-
dren, and a temporary folly occasioned by the
surprizing and unheard of successes of her guilty
brother. She is said to have, in the beginning
* See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Prairial, an xiii. No. 1, p. 3.
* Idem, No. 2. P. l. - . .
PRINCESS ELIZA BUONAPARTE. 18s
of April 1805, invited Cardinal Caprara to wait
on her. When his Eminence arrived, he was,
by her orders, shown into the innermost room
of her hotel. Believing that a repenting sinner
would unbosom her frailties before him, he with-
out suspicion went through six rooms before he
entered the apartment of the penitent, which
was her boudoir. As soon as he was seated, she
told her chamberlain, that she was visible to
nobody before she rung the bell. She then
bolted the door, placed a brace of pistols by her
side, and ordered the Cardinal to approach her.
Instead of imagining the real cause of this state
of siege, his Eminence supposed her in a state
of religious despair; he began, therefore, to talk
of the bounty of our Saviour, of the power of his
vicar at Rome, and the example of the crucified
robber, which proved that sincere repentance,
however tardy, was not too late. Here she in-
terrupted him abruptly, with “none of your
nonsense, Eminence you are not asked here to
preach, but to act. I am told, that for these thirty
years past you have never slept with a woman;
you are short and ugly, it is true, but it is no
matter to me; a child I want, and a child I will
have; here I am laying myself down on the sofa
" ... - .. 3t
f
186 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
at your service. No retreat, Cardinal, if you
hesitate a moment, if you begin speaking instead
of obeying, here are the pistols, and you 21°C 3.
dead man.” “But,” said the trembling Cardi-
ºnal, “my vows to my God, and my dignity in
the church.” “Your God,” answered the Prin-
cess, “what does he care about you making me
a child, when he has made Napoleone an Em-
peror and a King. Your dignity | did not your
superior in dignity, the Pope, consecrate the
same Napoleone on his Imperial throne, he who
is so deserving and so fearful of the gallows.” As
the Cardinal all the time she was raving had
been ringing the bell, her whole household was
in an uproar, and, headed by chamberlains,
ladies in waiting, maids of honour, prefečts of
palace, equerries, and pages, forced open the
door. They were all unanimous in laying their
hands upon the poor pale Cardinal, suspecting
from the position of her Imperial Highness, that
he attempted to commit a sacrilegious and high
- treasonable rape. She, however, soon undeceived
them, by caliing. out to them to get out of the
way, that she might shoot the ungallant coward,
for refusing to procure her a child, a future heir
to the thrones of France and Italy. This avowal
of
PRINCESS ELIZA BUONAPARTE. 187
of Princess Eliza procured Cardinal Caprara his
release, and an opportunity to escape to the castle
of the Thuilleries, where he informed the Em-
peror of the curious indisposition of his sister.
The consequence was, that his Majesty forced
her Imperial Highness Princess Eliza, and his
Serene Highness her husband, to set out with an
escort of honour, within four days for Italy.
Arrived at Milan, Prince Bachiocchi alone went
to Piombino, his princely consort being in a
most deplorable situation, screaming out every
instant, “Is Napoleone an Emperor and a King!
am I an Imperial Highness are my brothers
and sisters to have children, and am I to have
Princess Eliza continued indisposed at Milan
even in June 1805, and was attended by her
physician, Dr. Husson, member and secretary
of the Vaccine Committee +.
The yearly allowance of her Imperial High-
-ºš
none” (''
, ness, in France, amounts to three millions of
livres, and at Piombino, to two hundred thousand
livres. Her diamonds, plate, and china, are
* See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Prairial, an xiii. No. 3. p. 6,
and 7. - * , -
# See Le Publiciste of June 18, 1805, p. 4, -
- - valued
188 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
valued at six millions of livres. Ninety-two per-
sons form her household, of whom a bishop is
her almoner, and two grand vicars her chaplains.
Madame la Place is her lady in waiting; Madame
Brehan-Pelo de Crecy, and Madame Chambau-
douin, her maids of honour ; Messrs. D'Esterno
and Phillippi, are her chamberlains; De Mon-
trose, is her master of horse, and Picault her
equerry; Lesperut is her private secretary, and
Villeneuve, her intendant *. -
* See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Messidor, an xiii. No. 1. -
p. 2.; and Bulletin Imperial, &c, p. 79. -
Since the above was written, the ancient republic of Lucca.
has been incorporated with Bachiocchi's principality.
CHARLOTTR
189
CHARLOTTE BUoNAPARTE, - --"
PRINCESS OF SANTA CRUCE,
NO IMPERIAL HIGHNESs. |
~sº---
WHEN Lucien Buonaparte had deter-
mined to marry according to his own inclination,
but contrary to the ambitious views and absolute
orders of Napoleone, he invited his brothers
Joseph and Louis, and his four sisters, with
their husbands, to assist at his nuptials. Through
fear of the Imperial wrath, most of them, how-
ever, under different pretexts, declined the invi-
tation. Joseph was tormented by the gout ;
Louis suffered from rheumatism ; Bachiocéhi was
suddenly taken ill, and Murat had a very bad
cold : in such circumstances, the wives could not
leave their husbands, and he received their com-
mon apologies at the same time. The Prince
and Princess Borghese were not among the num-
ber
190 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
ber of these ; they had no excuse, no complaint,
being unexpectedly visited by Lucien, and found
all well, an hour before the ceremony was to take
place. A message to the Emperor informed -
him of their dilemma, and begged for advice how
to get out of it. His Majesty immediately and
graciously invited himself to dine, and to pass
the day with them. The Prince and the Princess
Santa Cruce, less prudent, or more independent,
were the only relatives of Lucien who were pre-
sent at his condemned wedding”. -
The family quarrels of the petty Buonapartes,
whose usurped rank has been unable to alter
their native sans-culotte minds, have often caused
their friends uneasiness, their rivals pleasure,
their enemies satisfaction, and the good Parisians
of all classes and parties wonderful amusement.
Since Napoleone seated himself on the throne
of the Bourbons, hardly a week has elapsed,
that one or more of the members of his fami-
ly have not been disgraced, insulted, caned,
kicked, or exiled by him. Sometimes their fre-
quent attendance at court was thought unbecom-
ing, as bordering on familiarity; at other times
* See Bulletin Imperial, &c. p. 205. -
their
PRINCESS OF SANTA CRUCE. 191
their long absence was construed into negle&t:
one day, when they presented themselves, they
were refused admittance; the next day, for nCt
calling, they were accused of want of attention,
of duty. When they appeared often at the
Thuilleries, or at St. Cloud, they were told that
they were troublesome ; when some days went
over without their being there, they were sus-
pećted of being mutinous, or at least discontent-
ed. When they attempted to speak in their own
defence, they were called audacious ; when they
submitted in silence, they were despised as mean.
When they petitioned for places or emolument,
they were informed that they must wait their Sove-
reign's pleasure ; when they waited with patience -
and silence, they were reprobated as having no ho-
nourable desire of rising from their original obscu-
rity, no perception of the dignity of elevation,
and no notions of the comfort and influence of
wealth. It should also be stated, that they were
often recompensed for all these contrarieties,
for all their chastisements and anxiety. The
capricious tyrant, during one moment of good
humour, overpowered t
hern with his benefac-
}
tions, and indemnified them, in part, for their
endurance of several years’ pains and humilia-
tions.
192 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
tions. He frequently squanders away, in fifteen
minutes, upon his mother, brothers, and sisters,
more profitable offices and valuable.gifts than the
Sovereigns of the House of Bourbon had during
five centuries bestowed on their royal relatives”.
The improper and forbidden marriage of Lu-
cien Buonaparte did not decrease nor put an end
to those vexations and disagreements of the other
Buonapartes with their supreme chief Napo- -
Jeone, who, the next day, forbade the Prince and
Princess Santa Cruce his court. This ačt of des-
potism highly offended their Serene Highnesses
the Prince and Princess of Santa Cruce ; and, in
consequence, the latter is said to have written
the following letter to her brother, the revolu-
tionary Emperor:#. : A
“You have often told me, dear Napoleone,
that you found me an apprentice in the shop of
a mantua-maker, and placed me as the mistress
of the palace of a Prince; that from a sans-culotte
servant, your vićtories made me a wealthy Prin-
cess. You have so long and so frequently re-
peated to me what you have done for me, that
* See Bulletin Im perial, &c. p. 207.
t idem. Apendix, p. 50, et seq. and Le Voyageur Italien,
&c, vol. ii. p. 7, et seq. -
- you
PRINCESS OF SANTA CRUCE, 193
you must excuse, that I in my turn call to your
remembrance what I have suffered from you.
I do not deny, that, with US all, I was poor and
reduced ; that I worked hard, and gained but
little ; but it is also a fact, that during the few
hours I could spare for diversions, I was happier
than I have ever, been since; and I went again
behind the counter, with greater satisfaction than
I ever entered your wife's drawing-room, or sat
down at your dinners of state. I had a mistress in-
deed, but when she had done scolding me for a
fault, or a mistake, I heard no more of it; you,
on the contrary, like an old ill-natured woman,
when once irritated, repeat over and over again
all my frailties; every thing that has displeased
you from my infancy to the present moment.
“I have experienced that you have a good
memory to preserve in remembrance the errors
of others, but the worst in the world for recall-
ing your own mistakes, your own absurdities,
your own extravagance, your own ingratitude, -
TY
ardon my frankness, even your own crimes.
Have you forgotten when, in 1792, you spoke
of engaging in the English service under Paoli
when, in 1793 your execution of the Toulonese
excited horror; and when, in consequence, you
voi. Iti. K . h
~
Were
194, THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
were the following year arrested as a terrorist
Has it escaped your memory who it was that, by
her prayers, prevented you from serving the
Grand Turk in 1795, as well as Great Britain
in 1791; who complained of to you, but palliated
to others, the atrocities you perpetrated at Tou-
lon in 1793, and who, at the expence of her own
necessaries of life, supported you, when a terro-
rist prisoner at Nice in 1794 When you were
made a General of Brigade by Barras in Septem-
ber 1795, can you not recolle&t who pawned her
own wearing apparel, not only her gowns, but her
very shiftſ, to pay for your first regimentals as a
general What did you say, when at Campo
Formio, in 1797, fortune enabled you to dićtate
a peace to the Emperor did you not tell me,
that as I had been your most tender and affec-
tionate sister, I should be the best as well as the
first provided for The Prince my husband, I
flatter myself, judging from his expressions, was
more taken by my trifling natural charms, than
induced to marry me from the renown of your
vićtories. I am confirmed in this opinion by his
kind conduct during your wanderings in Egypt
and in Syria, at a time when nobody in
Europe ever expected that you would return
: . . . . - from
PRINCESS OF SANTA CRUCE. 19
from Africa and Asia. When after having es-
caped the effects of the climate, and the dangers
of the waves; the mutinous disposition of your
own troops, the fire and sword of your Turkish
foes, and the vigilance of English cruizers, you
again landed in France, where, instead of punish-
ment for your desertion, you were rewarded with
the Supreme authority, how did you behave to
me your deareſt sister : How did you ačt by
my husband, who, in uniting himself with our
family, had sacrificed the friendship of his own ;
who, deluded by your duplicity and hypocritical
jargon of liberty and equality, was maimed in
fighting at the head of the Roman patriots 2
The places of your government, the treasures
of state, you threw away on every one related
tC) you, however low, ignorant, Or unworthy.
We alone were left unnoticed, unrewarded.
What have you done for us since : In propor-
tion as your usurped power augmented, your
insulting indifference about us increased. When
you made a Bachiocchi a general and Senator, a
Murat a governor of Paris; when you gave a
cardinal’s hat to a Fesch, diamonds worth millions
to the wives of our brothers, to Eliza, to Pau-
lette, and to Caroline ; what rank did you be-
K 2 … " StGW
z'
196 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
stow on my husband; what presents were offered
to me ! You may say, that you have no title to
confer that would not disgrace a Prince of Santa
Cruce, and no gifts of value for the rich Princess
his wife. Those excuses might have been ad-
missible in better times, when Sovereigns and
Princes knew their own dignity, and did not ad-
mit the fraternity of upstarts; but in our deprav-
ed age, supremacy, if ever so unjustifiably and
treacherously seized, and riches, if ever so in-
famously acquired, are not despised and abhorred
as the reward of barbarity and meanness, but
considered as if they were the well-earned fruits
of worth and virtue. You should have left to
us the choice of accepting or declining, but not
have treated us as if we were the outcast even
of the vilest of the Buonapartes. Excuse my
warmth, but your unkind treatment makes me
regard myself as belonging no more to the
Buonaparte family than the Prince my hus-
band. -
“As to your late fury against Lucien, it is
unjust and unnatural, as well as cruel and inso-
lent. He is indeed not pure, but what are his
vices and crimes, compared to your outrages and
enoimities 3 His wife is an honest woman: can
"-- - the
PRINCESS OF SANTA CRUCE, 197
4.2/
7.
the same be said of your's 2 Even scandal has re-
spe&ted Madame Lucien, while incredulity and
guilt itself must blush in recoilećting the pro-
-2
*3
fligate deeds that transformed Josephine de
Beauharnois into a Madame Napoleone Buona-
£31°te,
**
** {}o, not exped that I will ever supplicate
you to revoke the order which forbids me
your court, Your court I can scarcely re-
frain laughing Degrade there as much as
you please the representatives of Emperors
gºd Kings, but, depend upon it, you shall
never more be honoured with my presence.
As soon as we have arranged our affairs, my
husband and I intend to join at home our wor-
thier relations, and better bred equals”.”
Within four honrs the Prince of Santa Cruce
received the following note from the Minister
of Police Fouché : “Sir, by superior command,
I enclose for your Serene Highness, for your
consort, and attendants, passes to leave Paris with-
in twelve hours, and France within six days. I
* In a note of the Appendix of Bulletin Imperial, p. 53, it is
stated that the Princess gave a copy of this letter to Lucien,
who circulated it all over France and Italy. s
K 3 - - In U.St
398 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
must inspect the execution of these orders. I
have the honour, &c.
(Signed) “ Fouche.”
In two hours the Prince and Princess Santa
Cruce were in their carriages for Rome, where
they have resided ever since. The allowance of
one million of livres, which they had from Napo-
leone, was stopped; and althe diamonds the Prin-
- cess had received from her brother, were, by his
orders, seized on the frontiers, as by chance, by the
custom-house officers, All the Roman nobility
that formerly shunned her, now visit and caress
her. From the riches of her husband she is en-
abled to live in great splendour in his hotel at
Rome". - -
* See Bulletin Imperial. Apendix, p. 55,
HEr
199
-- HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESs
MAR4 PAULETTE BUONAPARTE,
PRINCESS OF Borgh ESE—cI-DEVANT
- MADAME LE CLER C.
Quand on ignore tout, pourquoi done enseigner
Quand on port des ſers, pourquoi wouloir regner
THE Emperor of the French had invited
his Holiness the Pope, for the 15th of January
1805, to a family party in the Empress's apart-
ments of the castle of the Thuilleries, where
none but the Buonapartes, and some favourite
and selećt friends, were admitted. During a
moment's silence, when the tea was handed
about by their revolutionary Majesties’ chamber-.
lains, her Imperial Highness Princess of Bor-
ghese suddenly burst out a laughing, so loud
and so long, that Napoleone the First command-
ed her to cease, or to leave the room. c. Please
K 4. your

2.00 THE FEMALE PLC'ſ. Aſ CH.
your Majesty, be not offended,” said she, with
naiveté, “I am not always mistress of myself,
when any laughable ideas occur to me. I was
just thinking how it would edify our contempo-
raries, and astonish posterity, had the Holy Fa-
ther, who sits there so grave, received the gift
of converting me to Christianity, or if I possess-
-
ed the spirit of perverting him to infidelity.”—
“It is too much,” interrupted Cardinal Fesch; I
“cannot, ſought not to suffer such a scandal, such
a blasphemy. I will tell your Imperial Highness,
robable as it seems to you, that it is more
easy to make you a Christian proselyte, than an
honest and Inodest woman.”—“ Out, out with
*
§
h, Princess and Eminence P’
cried his
Majesty the Emperor in a rage. “Am I not
&-
you bot
the sovereign master in my own palace as well as
in my own empire Am I not here the only per-
son competent to judge of indecencies as well as
of impertinences ; of improprieties as well as of
indecorous demeanour, to correót the former
and chastise the latter. The Princess is in the
wrong, but you, Cardinal, * are very much to
blame for daring to reprimand her in my pre-
sence. I command you both to retire instantly
from the company, and to remain confined to
* your
PRINCESS OF BORGHESE. 291
your own hotels, and there await my good plea-
sure and pardon.”—“ Most gracious Monarch,”
said Pius VII. “forgive them for my sake, and let
them remain where they are. They sinned unin-
tentionally, and not deliberately. I pardon them,
do your Majesty graciously do the same. And you,
Princess,” continued his Holiness, “ as con-
vinced as I am of my Cardinal’s orthodoxy, as
certain I am that you, before your death, will
become one of my flock.”—“ Then, Holy Fa-
ther,” retorted the Princess, “you must live to a
great age.”—“Silence, Imperial Highness,” ex-
claimed the Emperor with a stern voice. “Throw
yourself down and beg his Holiness's pardon this
instant, or I will in an hour send you away from
my dominions, never to return again.”—“If that
3.
is the case,” stammered the Princess, kneeling,
“ then permit me to kiss the Holy Father's feet,
and to implore his forgiveness and indulgencies.”
The Pope, in giving her his blessing, raised her,
and presented his hand to kiss. In returning to
her seat by the side of her Imperial Highness
Princess Louis, the Princess of Borghese mut-
tered loud enough to be heard by most persons
present, “What avillanous wrinkled hand has that
Monsieur Vice-Christ; and how ridiculously un-
K 5 gallant
202 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
gallant he is how rude, to think of offering me
his old dirty hand to kiss, instead of taking ad-
vantage of his situation, and embracing such a
handsome gay lady as myself—me, who have
turned the heads of all the beaux of France, St.
Domingo, and Italy; of the army, of the navy,
and of the church tº Napoleone, with one of
those terrible and significant looks, which be-
long exclusively to his Majesty himself, put a
stop to her soliloquy ; and the happiness and en-
joyment of the evening was not interrupted by
any other accident, except that Madame D'Ar-
berg, the Empress's lady in waiting, to the great
alarm of all the party, scalded with hot tea the
Imperial lap-dog of her sovereign, Bijou. The
bulletin of the following day announced, how-
ever, to the sincere consolation of fifteen thou-
sand visitors, who inquired after its health,
“ that the Imperial beast was in a fair way of
convalescence”.” .
• This scene of the Imperial family party, is translated from
£es Nouvelles a la Main, Ventose, an xiii. No.4, p. 2, et seq.
In a note is stated, that it was communicated to the Editors
by one of the pages in waiting, and that Madame D'Arberg,
after the accident of the dog, fainted away; all the maids of
honour fell into fits, and all the chamberlains turned pale;
according to the etiquette established by the Emperor's Coun-
cil of State,
. Before
PRINCESS OF BORGHESE. 203
Before the Princess of Borghese was up the
next morning, a message was left for her from
the Emperor her brother, informing her that
she was expected by his Majesty, who would gra-
ciously see her at three o’clock in the afternoon
On that day. After having dressed herself in a
very coquetish manner, she went to the palace
of the Thuilleries, nd was ushered into the
most secret closet of his Majesty, who at her en-
trance through one door, let out his favourite
Mameluke through another. “Sans façons,
brother Napoleone,” said the lively and giddy
Princess Borghese, “what can you want with -
me at this hour, and particularly at this moment,
when your bon ami, Rostan, has just left you ? I
understand you want variety—the tete-à tête of
an infidel is therefore to follow that of a Mus-
suiman.”—“Can you, sister,” interrupted Na-
poleone, “be serious for the ten minutes I in-
tend and must speak seriously with you ? You
know too well, that next to my dear Princess
Louis, you have the greatest power over me of
all our relatives ; that if you are complaisant
sometimes to me, I am always kind and ge-
nerous to you. You know also, because I have -
often explained it to you, that next to the mili-
-- K 6 - tary
201 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
tary support of my brave and devoted troops,
I trust to the spiritual authority of the Pope,
and his supremacy over the Christian Catholic
church, for the preservation of my Imperial
throne, and for its continuance in the possession
of the Buonaparte dynasty: X-Y
J.es Rois n'ont plus de trome ou Dieu n’a plus de temple:
Que la Religion qui soutient ma couronne -
Recoive de mon bras, Pappui qu’elle me donne.
You smile at my poetic declamation, but Porta-
lis bas so often repeated these lines, that I know
them by heart; and whenever the avarice, bi-
gotry, or superstition of the clergy put me out
of humour, I get the better of my anger in re-
colle&ting the political justness of these lines.
It was the infidelity of Frenchmen, as much
as the imbecility of the ministers of the
too good Louis XVI. that overturned the throne
of that prince, sent him to the scaffold, and ba-
nished and excluded for ever from France the
Bourbon race. }, a sovereign of four years only, -
have I not much to apprehend from the sacrile-
gious monster that subverted a dynasty of four-
teen centuries standing, and almost uninterrupt-
cd prosperity You cannot conceive all the
diffi-
PRINCESS OF BORGHESE. 205
difficulties I had to surmount; all the discussions,
all the obstacles, all the arguments and all the so-
phistry, which pretended philosophers,revolution-
ary fanatics, depraved reformers, immoral republi-
cans, and sanguinary atheists, opposed to the re-
storation of religion in the French empire. I was
obliged to cajole and bribe some, to terrify and
exile others, and to remove and punish the most
refractory of the indiscreet and impolitic crew of
infidels. I am well aware, that all enlightened
persons, with you, understand how to estimate
truly my Christian zeal; consider my Catholi-
cism as mere mockery, and my Catholic Pope
as a superstitious ideot, my political puppet. But
even those who, with you and me, do not be-
lieve in a Göd, are convinced of the utility and
necessity, as well as of the policy, of implanting
religious notions into the minds of a fickle, vain,
unprincipled, and naturally ferocious people.
They remember the shocking and barbarous
scenes of 1793 and 1794, and therefore prefer
the military and ecclesiastical, to the popular and
atheistical yoke. More people perished by the
republican guillotine of infidels and unbelievers,
during eighteen months, than during the eight
preceding centuries had been reduced to ashes
by
206 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
by the faggots of religious persecutors and inqui-
sitorial tormentors. Last night I was as highly
offended as every body else was scandalized, by
your inconsistent and improper etourderie. I am,
as well as you, acquainted with the contemptible
character of modern Frenchmen, my dutiful Sub-
jećts; and that at a given signal from me, they
would all be ready to prostrate themselves with
the Mussulman, pray with the Protestant, howl
hymns with the Methodist, kneel before the
rising sun with the Indian, worship the cow or
the crocodile with the Egyptian, plunge them-
selves into the Ganges with the Bramin, adore
the Devil with the Abyssinians, lay down
offerings to the moon with the Icelanders, go
to mass, confess, and communicate with the
Roman Catholic. But I hope that the perver-
sity of the present generation, should my reign
continue prosperous and long, will not descend
to its descendants, to future generations and ages.
In our private party last night, I do think, that,
with the exception of Pius VII. and one of his
six Cardinals, there was nobody who was a real
Christian in his heart. You observed, however,
how much they all felt themselves hurt by your
imprudent sortie, your indiscreet sally; because
all,
PRINCESS OF BORGHESE. 207
all, for the preservation of civilized society,
were, with myself, persuaded of the necessity,
at least of being externally Christians, of not
saying any thing to be reprobated by the piety
of the faithful, or scandalizing the scruples of
the conscientious or devout. Let me therefore w
conjure you to be hereafter more decent, pru-
dent, and discreet. Believe me, that notwith-
standing my sincere affection for you, should
you not cease your profane and irreverent lan-
guage and expressions when in company with
strangers, or with our family and visitors at my
court, I shall, for the safety of us all, be obliged
to silence my own inclinations, and listen to
my duty as a sovereign, by ordering you into
exile on one of your husband's estates on the other
side of the Alps; and renounce for ever all the
satisfaction and pleasure I have promised myself
from your conversation and tenderness.” -
“Admire my patience, brother,” replied the
Princess of Borghese, “ in listening with atten-
tion and silence to your excellent sermon and
eternal capucinade. It is very easy for you, dear
Napoleone, who are so enthusiastically fond of
your rank and authority, and who from your
"youth have studied dissimulation, and made du-
plicity habitual, to stifle your real sentiments,
- and
208 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and be as much at your ease in the company of
impostors and hypocrites of every description
as with men of honour, veracity, and integrity.
But as to me whom from a prostitute you have
made a princess, and who do not care a pin
about it, were you to make me a harlot again,
provided I can gratify my passions and inclina-
tions; I who never concealed my real thoughts,
nor spoke what I did not think, was I to promise
you to esteem what I scorn, and to scorn what I
esteem, I should deceive you, and for the first
time in my life not ačt frankly with you. For
- example, was it not disgusting, last night, to see
the apostate and atheist Talleyrand, who has so -
frequently confirmed me in my infidelity, throw
himself down at the feet of a pontiff (who has
not so much sense in his whole body as the
ex-bishop and minister has in his little finger),
and to remain on his knees, during a good quan-
ter of an hour, until Pius VII. had finished his
mummery 3 was it not enough to excite one's
laughter, to see this same grave Pope placing
his old and ugly hands to be kissed by the
most beautiful women of France? who could
help smiling at observing your own charte and
religious J osephine so devoutly demand, and so
- - readily
PRINCESS OF BORGHESE. 209
readily obtain his Holiness's blessing 2 and when
our own dear and imbecile uncle Fesch, moving
in his brilliant cardinal’s dress, as if he had been
shut up in a sack, after the departure of the
Pope, began in his turn his ridiculous solemn
grimaces, was it possible to be serious, or rather
was not laughter irresistible : Do you not sup-
pose that many others besides myself remarked
these and other absurdities and contradićtions,
repugnant to the eyes, and repulsive to the mind?
and do you imagine that their respečt for the
visible head of the Roman Catholic religion was so
much augmented, that they went away improved
or even satisfied ? As a friend, I advise you not
to expose this idol of the faithful to their view
too often, for fear that they may discover its
deformities, or their own fallacy. If you do not
wish to have your own works undermined and
perhaps blown up, send away as soon as possible,
or shut up as closely as you decently can, the
Roman Pontiff. Without the least intention of
hurting your pride, vanity, or policy, I tell you
with sincerity, that by his consecration of you
as an Emperor, he certainly has lost a great deal
of the veneration formerly paid to the tiara and
to his holy office. * * - -
. 2 & & As
2 10. THE FEMALE PLUTARCH,
“As to your menaces of banishing me from
your presence, or of exiling me to the country
seats of my husband in Italy, when you call to
your remembrance that you alone have made
me what I am, and such as I am, I do not fear
them much. I do not think it possible that you
could thus treat a sister who is and has always
been your confidential and trusty friend; whom
you converted to an atheist, and seduced to be-
come incestuous; who, without your reasonings
and your persuasion, might still have been among
the number of the select pure and chaste few.
But I see that what I say affects you, and I be-
lieve even afflićts you, let us therefore embrace
each other and make peace; as, however, the rati-
fications of treaties of peace are always accom-
panied with presents, I expect from you some-
thing more substantial than an embrace.”—The
Emperor immediately took from a closet a
diamond necklace, worth half a million of livres
(20,000l.), which he fastened round the ivory
neck of the Princess, assuring her, “that when
in future displeased with her words or transac-
tions, he should not use his own power, but apply
to her own feelings.” The same day the Prince
of Borghese was made a grand officer of the
Legion
PRINCESS OF BORGHESE. 211
Łegion of Honour, and was presented with a
watch set with diamonds, as valuable as the neck-
lace given to his wife”. -
The Princess Borghese is now (1805) in her
twenty-eighth year, and has been married
two years to her present husband, and was
three years the wife of General Le Clerc,
who died in the spring of 1803, by whom she
had two sons, who have survived him. The
Prince of Borghese is not yet a father. Her
yearly allowance from her brother amounts to
four millions of livres; her diamonds, plate,
pićtures, china, &c. are esteemed worth ten
millions; and her property in the funds or in
estates, is calculated to be worth above fifteen
millions, of which ten millions were left her by
her former husband, of his plunder in Portugal
and St. Domingo. As well as all her brothers
and sisters, she has her chamberlains, maids of
honour, lords and ladies in waiting, equerries,
and pages; but she has not, as all her other
Imperial relatives, a bishop for an almoner, or
* In Les Nouvelles a la Main, Ventose, an xiii. No. 3. p. 4 ,
et seq. from which the above particulars are translated, it is
stated, that they were written by the Princess herself, and
circulated by her, to shew her influence over her brother.
. & - grand
212 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
rand vicars for her chaplains; she is, however,
he only Imperial Highness on whom Napoleone
as bestowed a suit of elegant apartments in the
castle of St. Cloud". --
tg
d
h
C
~.
- - º • ~ - . ,”
* See Bulletin imperial, &c. p. 222,
HER IMPERIAL HIGHNESS
ANNU.N. CARE BUONAPARTE,
PRINCESS (CI-DEVANT MADAME) MURAT.
*
Sous son rēgne indolent, bientot tout va changer;
Le bien s'y fait sans gloire et le mal sans danger.
“AS long as my sister Josephine remains
undisturbed upon the throne of the French em-
pire, she has no reason to complain either of
intrusion or usurpation, of vanity, or audacity, if
I am determined not to endure any rival upon
the throne of fashion, or permit any body else
to seize the light reins of my fickle dominions.”
Such was the contents of the official note deliver.
ed by the maid of honour, Madame La Grange,
in the name of her mistress, her Imperial High-
ness Princess Murat, to Madame Remüsat, a
lady in waiting of the Empress of the French,
in answer to the following official message :
- % With

#14 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
“With equal surprize and indignation, Madame
and my sister, have i heard of your vain, auda-
cious, and mutinous condućt, in daring to usurp
the power beionging to me exclusively, of regu-
lating the fashions of my empire. I am told that
you are conspiring night and day with certain
milliners and mantua-makers, to overthrow in
an hour what has cost myself and the members
of my privy council weeks and months’ delibera-
tions and industry to determine and conceive;
and that thence the bonnets a la joſephine, the
corsets a l’Imperatrice, the gowns a la Souveraine,
and the shoes a la Pagerie, have suddenly dis-
appeared to give place to those unbecoming and
ridiculous hats a PAlesse, petticoats a la Caroline,
veils a PAnnunciade, and Siippers a la Murat. I
am your sovereign—you are my subject; I com-
mand you, therefore, under pain of my displea-
sure, to cease your impertinent intrusion. -
(Signed) “JosFPHINE, Empress.”
No sooner had the Empress read the official
note of Princess Murat, than the natural crimson
which so seldom colours her Majesty's cheeks,
faded the lustre even of her most brilliant arti-
ficial rouge; the beating of her pulse almost
. surpassed
PRINCESS MURAT. 215
surpassed the palpitation of her Imperial heart.
Dr. Hallé, her physician, and Yvan, her sur-
geon, were sent for by Madame Duchatel, her
lady in waiting, who, however, mistook her
sovereign's situation : she required not the
assistance of the faculty, but the advice of her
council of state. All its members, consisting t
of her ladies in waiting and her maids of ho-
nour, were convoked; her Majesty presided,
and her favourite chambermaid, Fauve, ačted
as secretary. The discussions were long and
violent, before it was resolved to send another
official and admonitory epistle to Princess Murat,
informing her, that “if she did not directly re-
nounce her pretensions and plots, and deliver up
her accomplices, she must abide by, and feel the
fatal consequences of her refractory spirit.” Her
Imperial Highness retorted with this laconic
billet doux : “Eternal warfare, rather than such a
dishonourable and degrading peace.”
Upon this the Empress again assembled her
council of state, of which Madame Bertin, late
milliner of the late Queen of France, was sworn
a new member. Notwithstanding her advanced
age, this lady remembering her former exploits
and prosperous havock in the magazines of lace
. . . . merchants
216 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
merchants and muslin manufacturers, proposed
an immediate declaration of war, and herself as
quartermaster-general. She had nearly gained
over the council to her opinion, when the maid
of honour, the modest Madame Seran, asked her
Sovereign permission to make some few and
humble observations. “Were your Majesty,”
said she, “instantly to denounce war, without
even preceding it with an ultimatum, Princess
Murat would have some reason to cry out in-
justice, if not cowardice. She might say, that
not having capacity or valour enough to engage
in a fair contest, we wished to obtain vićtory by
unfair means and by surprise. I, therefore, sub-
rhit to your Majesty’s superior wisdom, whether
it would not be more honourable, and more ge-
nerous, to dispatch an official ultimatum, fixing
equitable terms, and a limited time for the Prin-
cess to submit. If not acceded to or accepted,
then open attack and direét hostilities should
follow.” - -
After an hour's further deliberation, her Ma-
jesty the Empress graciously consented to change
Madame Seran's motion into an Imperial decree,
and an ultimatum was thus drawn up : “ His
Majesty the Emperor of the French, our gracious
- consort
PRINCESS MURAT. 217
consort and lord, has the undisputed and un-
opposed right to ordain the colours, cuts, size,
and length of the dresses of all gentlemen at our
court, and of our household, of his public func-
tionaries, and of all persons serving him in his
armies, the form of their hats as well as of their
boots and shoes; so We, Josephine, Empress of
the French, have an equal right, from our rank
and supremacy, as well as from our taste and
genius, to regulate every thing concerning the
wearing apparel and accoutrements of our female
subjećts. To convince the universe, however,
of our sincere desire to avoid a rupture with
her Imperial Highness Princess Annunciade.
Caroline Murat, our dearly beloved sister-in-law,
we condescend to bestow the following indulgence
upon the following terms: -
“ 1. Her Imperial Highness Princess Murat,
may from this day regard herself as vice-regent.
in the empire of fashion, and accordingly, com-
mand, disseminate, invent, and establish every
thing belonging to the dresses of the higher and
lower bourgoirie, of the wives and daughters of
inferior magistrates, of the wives and daughters
of mayors and municipal officers, of sub-prefects,
of bankers, of merchants, of mechanics, &c. &c.
vol. III. L. “2. In
218 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
“2. In gratitude for this our munificent bounty,
her Imperial Highness Princess Murat shall re-
turn immediately to her duty, and promise from
this day and for the future, never to interfere,
alter, or conspire against those dresses, orna-
ments, and trappings, gala suits, or deshabiller,
arranged by us in our privy council, for the
-higher classes and haut tom, as well as for all in-
dividuals of distinétion, presented or presentable
at our Imperial court, for the ladies of the mem-
bers of the foreign diplomatic corps, or for the
wives and daughters of all civil and military
functionaries above the rank of a justice of peace,
or lieutenant-colonel. -- .
“ Although we by these liberal allowances
have already shown enough of our gentle and
pacific disposition, yet to remove all doubt even
from the most incredulous, of our sincere desire
to live in amity with our dearly beloved sister,
her Imperial Highness Princess Murat, we gra-
. ciously condescend to add this secret article to
the above treaty: - • .
“Besides the dresses of the persons already
mentioned in article the first, we also permit her
Imperial Highness Princess Murat, to regulate,
inspect, and guide the accoutrements and fineries,
->
* . . . - - - , -ãº- , of
PRINCESS MURAT. 219
of the pretty grisettes all over our empire. This
our Imperial permission ceases, however, the in-
stant our ladies of quality shew their bad tastes,
as has sometimes been the case, of adopting the
vulgar fashions of these same grisettes. .
“A precise answer must be delivered to this our
Imperial ultimatum within forty-eight hours.
Given in our Council Chamber of our palace of
the Thuilleries, the • 9th Pluviose, year xiii.
(29th January, 1805), four o’clock, P. M.
- (Signed) “Joseph.INE, Empress.
(Counter-Signed) “Louis A FAUve, Sec.”
The Empress's privy counsellor, Madame Ber-
tin, in the mean time laid before her Sovereign
a plan of campaign, in case hostilities were un-
avoidable. She proposed to fix her Majesty's
head-quarters in the milliners’ shops of the
Palais Royal, and in those of its vicinity in the
rue St. Honoré. Some flying camps were to be
formed in the green-rooms of the theatres, and
a corps of reserve placed in the shops of the
milliners on the Boulevards. Strong picquets
were to patrole Tivoli and Frescati, a corps of
observation quartered in the pavillion of Ha-
nover, the flying artillery scour the Thuillerie
L 2 -- garden,
220 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
garden, the Elysian Fields, and the Bois de Bou-
logne; and the mounted riflemen scout in the
Luxemburgh garden, and in the faubourg St.
Germain. The park of heavy artillery she
wished to establish in the Empress's drawing-
rooms at the palaces of the Thuilleries and St.
Cloud. But the good-natured Josephine, judg-
ing her rival after herself, never came to any
determination, notwithstanding the frequent re-
presentations of her privy counsellor and quar-
termaster-general, until too late, and when she
was informed that Princess Murat had opened
the campaign, by occupying the most advantage-
ous positions, and by having surprised several of
her Majesty's out-posts. -
The pale and trembling privy counsellors of
the Empress, hardly able to describe the ravages
caused in the empire of fashion by the machina-
tions of Princess Murat, were the first and un-
welcome messengers of that disagreeable news;
and as it generally happens, when any unexpected
disasters occur, in which the advisers of Sove-
reigns are equally guilty, and have an equal share
of reproach for not having foreseen or prevented
it ; instead of uniting all the talents and efforts
to combat a common enemy, they began to
quarrel
* PRINCESS MURAT. 22}
quarrel among themselves; divided and coalesced
with factions, partisans, and adherents of sans-
culottism, praising the nudity of our first pa-
rents, and of course were sworn foes of all
fashions as well as of all dress. . .
Of these unfortunate disagreements in the
Empress's cabinet, Princess Murat did not fail
to take advantage. Possessing the same spirit
of enterprise and intrigue as the Emperor her
brother, she planned the most artful ambuscades,
where those of the adverse party whom she
could not debauch to desertion, were caught
and made prisoners of war. Even the staunch
quartermaster-general of the Empress's army,
Madame Bertin, for fear that the precepts of the
fačtions of nudity and sans-culottism should be-
come fashionable, joined the colours of Princess
Murat, and put on the anti-Josephine regimentals,
which shortly became the haut ton, and were,
with a barefaced impudence, worn, not only in
all public walks, at the theatres, and in all gen-
teel places of resort, but even in the gardens of
the Thuillerie, under the windows of the Em-
press's pavillion, and at a ball given by Princess
Louis, where both the Emperor and the Empress
werepresent. In the mean time the Princess'slight
L 3 troops.
222 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
troops were continually on the alert, and her fly-
ing artillery were seen in all direétions. She
seized on her rival's advanced posts, cut off her
picquets, and captured numerous convoys of
Brussels lace, cambric, linen, and satin, destined
for the magazines of Josephine’s contračtors, but
which were carried to, and safely delivered into
the depôts of her Imperial Highness.
The good Parisians, naturally inclined to be
fačtious, were first secret well-wishers, and after-
wards, when vićtory accompanied her exploits,
the avowed adherents of Princess Murat, who,
wherever she shewed herself, either in the Im-
perial academy of music, alias the opera, in the
museums, in the national institute; or even in the
churches, was hailed, Notre Dame de Viéloire: 1
When the weather permitted, she had daily re-
views, in the forenoon, in the Bois de Boulogne,
and at night in the elegant apartments and de-
lightful garden of Frescati. Though she often
varied the accoutrements and manoeuvres of her
troops, their numbers increased, as the adroit-
ness and popularity of the chief made a recruit
of every spećtator. - -
It cannot be supposed that the Empress saw
the progress of her enemy without some chagrin,
Ol'
PRINCESS MURAT. 228
or that her depression banished all activity, and
her present humiliation excluded all future pro-
spects of vengeance. In hope of gaining time
to organize her dispersed army, she renewed
the negotiation with the Princess Murat; and
when these pacific overtures were repulsed by
the latter, she proposed a congress, composed
of all the other Imperial Princesses of the house
of Buonaparte, to accommodate their differences, -
and to decide on the contest. As, however, these
Princesses,instead of being neutral, as the Empress
pretended, were either envious of the superiority
which a Princess their equal had assumed ; or,
under promise of ample indemnities, bribed over
to J osephine's interest,they could not be consi-
dered as disinterested, unprejudiced, or impartial
powers, and their mediation was of course de-
clined. The Empress then applied to her dear
Napoleone, to use all his powerful influence, and
command a submission which her Majesty's arms .
and intrigues had been unable to obtain. The
Emperor at first refused to interfere, in what he
called a war of rags (chiffonſ); but on the repre-
sentation of his Imperial consort, that his own
dignity and glory required it, as he was an indi-
rečt partaker of the ridicule or contempt offered
. . . . L 4 her,
224 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
her, he ordered his aid-de-camp Rapp to inform
his sister, that she must immediately lay dowii
her arms, strip herself and her adherents of her
own colours, and put on those of the Empress.
But few heroines, as well as heroes, have ex-
isted, whom repeated successes have not blinded,
and a long prosperity corrupted. Naturally tor-
mented by vanity and pride, her late fortunate
campaign had added imprudence and insolence to
her other foibles; and so far from obeying the or-
ders of her brother and sovereign, the Princess
Murat proved by her condućt that she dared
his power, and despised his threats. The very
next night, at the theatre of the Empress, cº-
devant Theatre de Louvois, her Imperial High-
ness, attended by her guides and Mamelukes,
had taken possession of all the principal boxes,
and introduced such innovations, under the
name of improvements, that every spe&tator
must have observed disobedience united with
scandal and audacity, and insult intended with
both. She wore a Ridicule a la Napoleone, a
fichu menteur a la josephine, a bonnet a la Pitt,
gloves a la Grenville, and a bosom-friend a la
Windham, and all her troops Were attired in the .
same manner. To crush an enemy she had al-
; ready
PRINCESS MURAT. 22.5
ready vanquished, and to give the death-blow to
the pretensions of the Empress in the reign of
fashion, she went from the theatre to the mas-
querade at the opera-house. There she ap-
peared at the head of her valiant warriors in a
dress a !’Arlequin, made up and put together in a
most laughable manner, of all the different in-
ventions and fashions of Josephine, or called
after her. To crown the whole, she wore a
mask an exact resemblance of the Empress's
face, with this inscription on the front: “W.ould
be Twenty ; past FIFTY.” All the officers of
her staff were more or less accoutred, so as to
expose to derision the adversary of their general.
From the time of her entrance she was sur-
rounded and admired by a crowd of amateurs
and applauders, so that the police commissary,
always present for fear of any serious disturbance,
interfered, and ordered the Princess to unmask,
or to withdraw with her companions. Bonneau,
General Murat’s aid-de-camp, who was in the
secret, informed the commissary to whom he
spoke, and that her Imperial Highness's mask
and masquerade dress was merely a badimage.
The tumult and jokes at the expence of the
Empress, however increased, and he thought it
L 5 his
~-
226 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
his duty to send a messenger to the police mi-
nister, Fouché, to ask for instructions how to
aćt. This senator and minister in his turn
waited upon the Emperor, to obtain his sove-
reign's order how to proceed in such a delicate
affair, where lenity might have been construed
into approbation, and severity punished as a
want of respect. About two o'clock in the
morning Fouché arrived at the opera-house, ac-
companied by fifty gens d'armes, masked as well
as himself. Without being discovered, they
encompassed the Princess and her suite, and
told them, that on the part of the Emperor
they were prisoners. Most of them seemed
willing to follow the gens d'armes without fur-
ther resistance, and to acknowledge the irre-
sistible power of bayonets even in the empire of
fashion, when Princess Murat called out,
“ Banditti, who is your leader "-" I, please
your Imperial Highness,” answered Fouché,
“ here is the Emperor's written order.” He
had no sooner uttered these words, than the
paper with the Imperial signature was torn to
pieces, and himself seized by the nose so rough-
ly, that he, to the great amusement of the spec-
tators, who called encore, bravo! howled in a
most
PRINCESS MURAT. 227
*
most doleful manner. What would have been
the end of this tragi-comical scene is uncertain,
had not General Murat arrived just in time to
cool the courageous fury of the Princess, his
wife, who did not desert her trembling troops,
or consent to surrender, but on a most honour-
able capitulation, that left her and them at li-
berty, while Fouché and his gens d’armes were
forced to retreat without their prey. -
During the remainder of the morning, seve-
ral messages passed between the contending par-
ties, and a parley was reci procally assented to. But
what was the Empress's surprise, when at the
first conference Princess Murat informed her,
that she had settled everything with the Empe-
ror at a private audience. She also laid the
treaty before her Majesty, who seeing the PRO-
- BATUM—Napoleonus EMPERATOR, signed it
without even reading it over. It was a kind of
partition treaty, rather favourable to the Princess
Murat, though she was obliged to give up her
pretensions of perpetual sovereignty in the em-
pire of fashion. She was to be a subjećt during
the months of Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivose, Plu-
viose, and Ventose, when the Empress was to *
sway; but who was in her turn to be a subject
s' L 6 during
228 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
during the months of Germinal, Floreal, Prai-
rial, Messidor, Thermidor, Frućtidor, and Ven-
demaire, when the Princess was to be seated on
the throne of fashion. The five complementary
days of the republican calendar were decreed an
interregnum, during which the maids of honour
of the Empress and of the Princess, to exert
their genius at emulation, were permitted to
contend by reciprocal ingenuity for a temporary
supremacy”. - - . . . -
The Editors of Les Nouvelles a la Main, from
which publication La guerre der moder, or this
fashion war, is translated, affirms what is known
to all Paris, that the main point of the story
and of the occurrences is a certain fačt, only de-
corated and composed by them in the jargon
used in the histories of political wars. It is
besides avered, that ever since Buonaparte
usurped the Consular authority in France, his
wife pretended to dićtate the fashion, in which
she has been often and successfully opposed by
her sister-in-law, Madame Murat, who has the
advantage of being twenty years younger than
her rival, being born on the 25th of March
* See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Germinal, an xiii. No. 3.
p. 3, et seq. * “.
- - - 1778,
PRINCBss MURAT. 229
1778, while Madame Napoleone Buonaparte was
born on the 24th of June 1758. r
Madame Murat, since her elevation to an Im-
perial Princess, has become the proudest, the
most arrogant and insufferable, of all the Buona-
partes, whom an unjust fortune has dragged from
obscurity. She continues, however, always to
profess herself a lover and admirer of liberty and
equality, and a sincere republican in her heart”.
These contradićtions and absurdities are not un-
common in degraded France, where, since
1789, every rebel pretending to, or seizing the
reins of government, has insulted those slaves
he plundered and oppressed, by assuming the
mask of patriotism, while every ačt of his was
that of an unconscientious tyrant.
It is whispered in France, that should any
sudden catastrophe put an end to the crimes of
Napoleone Buonaparte, Murat has laid his plans
So as to become his immediate successor, what-
ever wills to the contrary are deposited in the
Senate. The troops in and near Paris, under
Murat’s command as a governor of the capital,
have never been less than thirty thousand, all
* Bulletin Imperial, &c. Preface, p. ii. 5
attached
230; THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
attached to him, from his attention to them. He
is also the only general of Buonaparte's relatives
who is known to the army at large for any mi-
litary exploit; and the soldiers' general contempt
for all the other Buonapartes is proverbial
over France. If he finds himself unable to con-
tinue in power, it is supposed that he will play
the part of a Monk, and make the best terms he
can with the legitimate sovereign of France.
But in this scheme he has a rival in every French
general who commands or who has commanded
an army, all considering their present rank, and
their plundered wealth, unsafe until confirmed
and protećted by a Bourbon *. -
The property of General Murat and his wife
is valued at twenty millions of livres. Their
yearly allowance from Napoleone amounts to
six millions of livres; and their jewels, plate,
china, pićtures, &c. are estimated at seven mil-
lions. A bishop is the almoner of this revolu-
- tionary Princess, and two grand vicars are her
chaplains; Madame de Beauharnois is her lady in
waiting, and Madame Cara St. Cyr, Madame St.
Martin de la Motte, and Madame Le Grange,
* Bulletin Imperial, &c. Preface, p. xix.
are
PRINCESS MURAT. 231
are her maids of honour; Daligré is her cham-
berlain, and de Cambis her equerry”.
* Les Nouvelles a la Main, Frimaire, an xiii, No. 1. p. 12.
THE
THE FRENCH PRISONS:
THE ROYAL BASTILLE, THE REPUBLICAN GAOLs,
AND THE IMPERIAL TEMPLE. -
—wº-
A contriNENTAL writer has said, “ Even a
visit to the English prisons, will convince a for
reigner that he is in a land of rational liberty.”
An impartial description of the French royal and
revolutionary state prisons, will be sufficient to
convince even the most prejudiced reader, that
if France, under a monarchical government, was
not free, she is most barbarously enslaved under
a revolutionary tyranny ; and that, while under
the former, humanity and generosity tempered
severity; under the latter, suspicion and studied
ferocity exclude both justice and compassion,
and aggravate wretchedness as well as oppression.
The account of the Bastille is copied nearly
verbatim from the very interesting Memoirs of
Marmontel", who, as a renowned man of let-
- *: ters,
• See Memoirs of Marmonte, printed for Longman,
Hurst, Rees, and Orme, and John Murray, 1805, page 160,
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 233
ters, and an intimate friend of Voltaire, be-
longed to that philosophical sect, which, by its so-
phistical and anti-religious writings, prepared,
in part, the general overthrow which has deso-
lated France, and still threatens all other States;
but who, with Abbé Raynal, lived long enough
to be convinced of the dangerous impolicy and
eminent culpability of disseminating novel social
theories, ridiculing, or having a tendency to sub-
vert, the wise and pračtical experience of ages.
THE BASTILLE.
“Cury (a man of letters), notwithstanding his
adversity, had preserved as his friends the other
intendants of the Menus-Plaisirs (among whom
he formerly had been one). I was particularly
intimate with Gagny, one of them, an amateur
of painting and of French music, and one of the
most habitual frequenters of the opera-house.
He had taken a fair candidate of that theatre
et seq. vol. ii. . The Author recommends the reading of these
Memoirs to men of letters, as well as to their patrons. The
former will see with pleasure, how comparatively happy the
French savans were before the Revolution; and the latter
will learn, that bread and condescension are preferable to
marble and epitaphs. -
‘. . . for
234 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
for his mistress; and he wanted to bring her
out in the great parts of Lully, beginning with
that of Oriane. He invited Cury and myself,
and some other amateurs, to go and pass the
Christmas holidays (1762) at his country house
at Gorges, to hear the new Oriane, and give her
some instrućtion. You must take notice, that
Laferté, intendant of the Memur, and the beau-
tiful Rosetti, his mistress, were of this party of
pleasure. The good cheer, the good wine, the
kind looks, of our host, made us listen with ad-
miration to the voice of Mademoiselle St. Hilaire.
Gagny thought he heard Le Maure, and when
dazzled with wine we were all of his opinion.
“All went on very well, till one morning I
learnt that Cury was attacked with a violent fit
of the gout. I instantly went down to him. I
found him by his fire-side, with both his legs
wrapped up in flannels, but writing on his knee,
and laughing with the air of a satyr, for he had
all the features of one. I would have spoken to
him about his fit of the gout, but he made me a
sign not to interrupt him, and with a crooked
hand he finished what he was writing, ‘You.
have suffered very much,' said I to him, ‘ then ;
but I see that the pain is abated.’ ‘I suffer still,
- said
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 235
said he to me, ‘ but I do not laugh the less.
You shall laugh too. You know with what fury
the Duke of d'Aumont has pursued me ! I
think it is not too much to revenge myself by a
little malice; and here is what I have been rumi-
nating the whole night, in spite of the gout.’
“He had already written some thirty verses
on the famous parody of Cinna: he read them to
me; and I confess, that, having found them very
comic, I engaged him to continue. ‘Then let
me write,’ said he, “for I am in the humour for
it.' I left him; and when, on hearing the bell,
I descended to dinner, I found him (for he had
hobbled down by himself, muffled up in fur, be-
fore the company assembled) reading to Laferté.
and Rosetti what he had read in the morning to
me, and some more verses that he had added.
At this second reading I easily retained these
mischievous verses from one end to the other,
aided by the verses of Corneille, of which these
were the parody, and which I knew all by heart.
The next day Cury went on with his work, and
I was always his confidante; so that, on my return
to Paris, I carried away about fifty of these lines,
that my memory retained. ..
* * * * “With my head full of the parody -
. # See Memoirs of Marmonteſ, vol. ii. p. 167, et seq. s .
- . . . . . that
236 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
that had just been confided to me, I arrived at
Paris, at Madame Geoffrin's, and the next day
I heard this curious piece mentioned there. The
two first verses only were quoted: . . .
. . * Let each then retire, and none enter; do you, -
“Le Kain, stay with me, and you, d’Argental, too.”
But this was enough to persuade me that it
was already current in society; and I happened
to say, smiling, What I do you know no more
than that P They instantly pressed me to tell
what I knew of it. ‘There is no body present,’
said they, “but confidential friends; and Ma-
dame Geoffrin herself answered for the discre-
tion of her little circle. I yielded; I recited to
them what I knew of the parody; and the next
day I was denounced to the Duke d'Aumont,
and by him to the King, as the author of this
satire. - -
“I was listening tranquilly at the opera-house
to the rehearsal of Amadis, in order to hear our
Oriane, when some of my friends came to tell
me, that all Versailles was in arms against me,
and that I was accused of bein g the author of a
satire against the Duke d'Aumont; that the first
nobility of the court cried aloud for vengeance;
and that the Duke de Choiseul, the then Prime
Minister, was at the head of my enemies.
“I in-
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 237
“I instantly returned home, and wrote to the
Duke d'Aumont, to assure him that the verses
that were attributed to me were not mine; and
that never having written a satire against any
one, I certainly should not have begun with him.
I should have stopped there; but in writing, I
recollečted, that on the subjećt of V.enceslaus, and
the falsehoods that Were published against me,
the Duke d'Aumont had himself written to mes
to say that I ought to despise such trifies, and
that they would die of themselves if they were
not kept alive by controversy. I thought it na-
tural and just to return him his maxim, in which
H was very foolish ; and thus my letter was taken
for a fresh insult; and the Duke d'Aumont pro- , T
duced it to the King, as a proof of the resent-
ment that had dićtated the satire. Did I not ac-
cuse myself, by ridiculing him whilst I disavowed
it 2 My letter, then, did but influence his an-
ger, and that of the whole court. I did not fail
to go immediately to V ersailies, and on arriving
there, I wrote to the Duke de Choiseul.
“My LoRD DUKE, - * :-.
“I am told that you lend your ear to the
voice that accuses me, and that solicits my ruin.
You
~.
238 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
You are powerful, but you are just ; I am unfor-
tunate, but I am innocent. I entreat you to
hear me, and to judge me.
* , . “I am, &c. &c.”.
“The Duke de Choiseul wrote, for answer,
at the bottom of my letter, in half an hour, and
sent it back to me. In half an hour I went to
his hotel, and I was introduced. &
“‘You are desirous that I should hear you,'
said he. ‘ I am willing to do so. What have
. you to say to me?”—“That I have done nothing
to merit the severe reception I experience from
your Grace, who have a soul too noble and ge-
nerous, to take a pleasure in humbling the un-
fortunate."— But, Marmontel, how do you ex-
pećt I should receive you, after the infamous
satire that you have just written against the Duke
d’Aumont ?”—“I never wrote that satire; I have
told him so himself.”—“Yes; and in your letter
you have added a fresh insult, by offering him,
in his own words, the counsel he had given
you.”—“As that counsel was wise, I thought that
I might be allowed to recall it to his memory; I
intended no insult by it.”—“But it is, neverthe-
less, an impertinence, let me tell you."— I felt it
SO
THE FRENCH PRISONS, 239
so too, after my letter was gone.”—“He is very
much offended at it, and with reason.”—“Yes,
to this I plead guilty; and I reproach myself
with it, as a total neglect of decorum. But .
would this neglect be a crime in the eyes of your
Grace P-- No ; but the parody.”—“The pa-
rody is not mine; I declare it to you as an
honest man’— Have you not recited it *—
Yes, what I knew of it, in a society where
each tells all he knows; but I would not per-
mit them to write it down, although they
were very desirous of it.”—“Yet it is current.”—
‘Then those who gave it currency have it from
some other person. And you, from whom had
you it º’ I was silent. “You,” added he, “are
said to have been the first who recited it, and
to have recited it in such a way as to discover
you were its author.”—“When I told what I
knew of it,' answered I, ‘it was already the sub-
jećt of conversation, and the first verses were
quoted. As to the manner in which I recited
it, it would prove as well that I have written the
Misanthrope, the Tartuffe, and Cinna itself; for
I boast, my Lord, of reading each of those pieces
as if I were its author.”—“ But, to be short, con-
cerning this parody, from whom did you hear
- .* it 2
240 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
it? this is what you should tell'— Pardon me,
my Lord, that is exactly what I should not tell,
and what I shall not tell.'— I would wager it is
from the author.”—“Well, my Lord, if it were
from the author, ought I to name him *—‘ And
by what other means will you be able to con-
vince the world that it is not yours ? appear-
ances are all against you; you have been irritated
against the Duke d'Aumont; the cause of it is
known ; you have sought to revenge yourself;
2 you have written this satire, and finding it comic,
you have recited it : this is what the world says,
this is what the world believes, and this is what
the world has a right to believe—what do you
answer to this ?”—“ I answer, that this condućt
would be that of a madman, of a fool, of a
wretched idiot, and that the author of the parody
is far from either of these charaćters. What I
my Lord, would the man who wrote it have had
the simplicity, the impudence, the extravagance
of going to recite it himself, without mystery, in
society. No ; disguising his hand-writing, he
would have made a dozen copies of it, which he
would have addressed to the players, and to other
malcontents about the court. I know as well as
another, these means of concealment, and had I
.* been
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 241
been culpable I should have adopted them. Be
pleased then to say to yourself—Marmontel, be-
fore six persons who were not his intimate friends,
has recited what he knew of this parody, there-
fore he is not its author. His letter to the
Duke d'Aumont is the letter of a man who fears
nothing; he therefore felt himself strong in his
innocence, and thought he had nothing to ap-
prehend. This reasoning, my Lord, is the very
reverse of that which is opposed to me, and is
not less conclusive. I have committed two
imprudent mistakes: one is, that of reciting
verses that my memory had caught, and of hav-
ing told them without the author's consent.”—
“Then you had really heard them from the
author *-* Yes, from the author himself; for
I will not tell you a falsehood : it is to him,
then that I am culpable, and that is my first
fault; the other is that of having written to the
Duke d'Aumont in a tone that seemed like irony,
and was not sufficiently respectful. These are
my two faults; I confess them, but I have no
others.”—“I believe you, said he, “ you speak
like an honest man; yet you are to be sent to
the Bastille. Call on M. de St. Florentin (an-
other minister of state), he has received the order
vol. III. M
from
242 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
from the King’— I will go to him,” said I, “but
may I flatter myself that you will no longer be
among the number of my enemies ' He pro-
mised it me with good grace, and I went to the
office of the minister who was to expedite my
ſettre de cachet.
“He was well inclined to favour me. With-
out the least hesitation he believed me innocent.
“But what can I do º said he to me; the Duke
d'Aumont accuses you, and insists on your being
punished; it is a satisfaction he asks as a recom-
pense for his services and the services of his an-
cestors. The King has chosen to grant it him.
Go to M. de Sartine's (the King's police mini-
ster); I address the order to him. You will tell
him that you come to receive it by my direction.’
I asked him if I might be allowed to dine first
at Paris; he permitted me to do so.
“I was invited to dine that day with my
neighbour, M. de Vandesir, a man of talents
and learning, who, under an unwelcome exterior,
united an exquisite fund of literature, much po-
liteness and much affability. Alas! his only son
was that unfortunate St. James, who, after hav-
ing madly dissipated the great fortune he had left
him,
THE FRENCH PRISON.S. 243
him, had gone to die insolvent in that Bastille to
which they Were sending IYT: €. 2
“After dinner I confided my adventure to
Vandesir, who bade me a tender adieu ; I then
went to M. de Sartine's, whom I did not find at
home: he had gone out to dinner, and would
not be back till six o'clock. It was then five.
I employed the interval in going to tell my good
friend, Madame Harene, of my misfortune, and
to comfort her. At six I returned to the mini-
ster of police. He knew nothing of my business,
or he feigned to know nothing. I related it to
him; he appeared concerned. “When we dined
together at Baron Holbach’s, who could have
foreseen that the first time I should see you again,
would be to send you to the Bastille ; But I have
In Ot received the order. Let us see if it has come
to my office in my absence.’ He sent for his se-
cretaries, and as they had heard nothing of it,
* Go and sleep quietly at home,' said he, “ and
return hither to-morrow at ten ; that will do just
as well.' ~ . . -
“I wanted that evening to prepare the Mer-
cure of the month. I sent then to ask two of
my friends to supper; and waiting their arrival,
I went into Madame Geoffrin's to announce my
- - M2 . calamity !
*
244 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
calamity to her. She already knew something
of it, for I found her cold and sorrowful. But
although my misfortune had taken its rise in her
society, and she herself had been the involuntary.
cause of it, I did not touch on that point, and I
believe she was pleased with me for it. ... 3
“The two friends I expected were Suard and
Coste; the latter a young Toulousian, with
whom I had been acquainted in his native city ;
the other, one whom I reckoned for life was the
friend my heart had chosen; he loved to keep
me in that gentle illusion, by freely offering me
opportunities of being useful to him.
“We passed a part of the night together in
disposing every thing for the printing of the next
Mercure; and, after having slept a few hours, I
rose, packed up my things, and went to M. de
Sartine's, where I found the officer who was to
accompany me. M. de Sartine wished that we
should go to the Bastille in separate carriages:
I refused this obliging offer, and my con-
dućtor and I arrived at the Bastille in the
same hackney coach. I was received there in &
the council chamber by the governor and his
staff officers; and there I began to perceive that
I was well recommended. This governor, M.
p : ... • . Abadie,
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 245
Abadie, after having read the letters which the
officer had presented to him, asked me whether
I wished my servant to remain with me, on con-
dition that we should be in the same chamber,
and that he should only quit the prison with me?
This servant was Bury. I consulted him about
it; he answered that he would not leave me.
My parcels and books were then lightly examin-
ed, and I was condućted into a large room, whose
furniture consisted of two beds, two tables, the
bottom of a chest of drawers, and three straw
chairs. It was cold ; but a jailer made us a good
fire, and brought me wood in abundance. At
the same time they gave me pens, ink, and paper,
on condition of giving an exact account of the
employment and number of sheets with which
they should furnish me.
“Whilst I was preparing my table to set my-
self to write, the jailer came back to inquire
whether I was satisfied with my bed. After
having examined it, I answe red that the mat-
tresses were bad, and the blankets dirty. In a
moment they were all changed : they sent to ask
too, at what hour I dined. I answered, at their
usual hour. The Bastille had a library; the
governor sent me the catalogue, giving me the
M 3 , choice
246 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH,
choice of the books that composed it. I thanked
him, for myself; but my servant asked for the
novels of Prevost, and they were brought him.
“ For my part, I had provision enough to
save me from weariness. I had long been im-
patient at the contempt that men of letters ex-
i
réSSèC
p
for the poem of Lucan, which they had
never read, and which they knew only by the
barbarous and bombastic version of Breboeuf;
and I had resolved to translate it more decently
and more faithfully in prose; and this employ-
ment, that would occupy, without fatiguing ine,
appeared well suited to the solitary leisure of my
prison. I had, therefore, brought with me the
Pharsalia; and to understand it better, I had
taken care to add Caesar's Commentaries.
“Here then I was by the side of a good fire,
meditating on Caesar's dispute with Pompey, and
forgetting mine with the Duke of d'Aumont.
There was Bury, on his part, as much a philoso-
pher as I, amusing himself with making our
beds, placed in the two opposite angles of my
chamber, which was at that moment lighted by a
clear winter's day, notwithstanding the bars of
two strong iron grates, that just left me a view
the fauxbourg Saint Antoine.
- * . . . “Two
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 247
* Two hours afterwards, the bolts of the two
doors that inclosed me, awoke me by their noise,
from my profound reverie; and two jailers, loaded
with a dinner, which I supposed mine, came and
served it in silence. One placed before the fire
three little dishes covered with plates of com-
mon earthen ware; whilst the other laid a coarse,
but clean cloth, on the table that was vacant.
I saw him put on the table a clean pewter spoon
and fork, some good household bread, and a
bottle of wine. Having done this, the two
jailers retired, and the two doors were again
closed with the same grating sound of locks and
bolts. -
“Bury then invited me to place myself at the
table, and he served me up the soup. It was on
a Friday. This soup, en maigre, was a white bean
soup, made with the freshest butter, and a dish
of these same beans was the first that Bury
put on my table. I found all this very good.
The dish of cod-fish that he brought me for my
second course was still better. A little point of
garlic seasoned it with a delicacy of flavour and -
of smell, that would have flattered the palate of
the most dainty Gascon. The wine was not ex-
• M 4 cellent,
248 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
cellent, but it was passable. No dessert; it was
requisite to be deprived of something, or I
should not have thought myself in prison : on
the whole, I found that one dined very well in
prison. -
“As I rose from table, and as Bury was go-
ing to seat himself at it (for there was enough
for his dinner in what remained), behold my
tºy O. jailers, who re-entered with pyramids of new
dishes in their hands. At the appearance of
this service in fine linen, in beautiful porcelain,
silver spoon and fork, we recognized our mis-
take, but we took no notice of it, and when our
jailers had set all this down, and had retired,
‘Sir, said Bury to me, ‘you have just ate my
dinner; allow me, in my turn, to eat your’s.’
—‘That is but just,’ answered I; and the walls
of my chambers were, I believe, quite astonished
to re-echo a laugh.
“This dinner was graſ; it consisted of an ex-
cellent soup, a slice of juice beef, the legs of a
boiled capon swimming in its gravy, and melting
in the mouth, a little dish of fried artichokes in
marinade, one of spinage, a very fine Cresanne
pear, some grapes, a bottle of old Burgundy, and
- - - Some
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 249
***
some of the best Moca coffee. This was Bury's
dinner, with the exception of the coffee and the
fruit, which he chose to reserve for me.
“In the afternoon the governor came to see
me, and inquired if I was satisfied with my din-
ner, assuring me that it should be served from
his table; that he would take care to carve for me
himself, and that no other person should touch
it. He proposed a chicken for my supper; I
thanked him, and said that the fruit I left at my
dinner would suffice for me. You see what was
my ordinary fare at the Bastille.
“I had every day a visit from the governor.
As he had some tinéture of literature, and even
of Latin, he took pleasure in observing the pro-
gress of my works ; he was delighted with it.
But soon stealing himself from these little recrea-
tions, ‘adieu, said be, ‘I am going to console
those who are far more unfortunate than you.’—
The attentions he shewed to me might well be no
proof of his humanity ; but I had besides a very
faithful testimony of it. One of the jailers had
conceived a friendship for my servant, and he
soon became familiar with me. One day then,
as I was speaking to him of the feeling and com-
passionate disposition of M. Abadie ;— Ah P
M 5 said
250 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
said he, “ he is the best of men; he has taken
this place, which is so painful to him, only tö
soften the lot of the prisoners. He has succeed-
ed a cruel and avaricious man, who treated them
very ill; so that when he died, and M. Abadie
took his place, the change was felt even to the
dungeons; you would have said (a very strange
expression in a jailer's mouth), ‘that a sun-beam.
had penetrated into these cells.’ People to whom
we are forbidden to tell what passes without, asked
us what then had happened In short, Sir, you
see how your servant is fed ; almost all our pri-
soners are as well fed as him; and the comforts it
depends on the governor to give them, comfort
him, for he suffers when he sees them suffer.’
“ I need not tell you, that this jailer was him
self a good man in his profession ; and I took
great care not to disgust him with his profession,
in which compassion is so precious and so
rare. -
“ The manner in which I was treated at the
Bastille, made me conceive that I should not
be there long ; and my translation, intermixed
with interesting reading (for I had with me
Montaigne, Horace, and La Bruyère), left me
but few weary moments. There was one thing
\ . - - only
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 231
only, that sometimes plunged me in melancholy ;
the walls of my chamber were covered with in-
scriptions that all bore the charaćter of the sad
and sombre refle&tions, with which, before me,
Some unhappy sufferers had doubtless been op-
pressed in this prison. I used to think, I still
saw them wandering and lamenting, and their
shades encompassing II]. C. - -
“But a circumstance that was personal to me,
occurred to torment my fancy more cruelly. In
speaking of the society of Madame Harene, I
have not mentioned an excellent man, whose
name was Durant, who had some friendship for
me, but who was otherwise only remarkable for
a charming simplicity of manners. -
“One morning, then, on the ninth day of
my captivity, the mayor of the Bastille entered
my chamber, and with a grave and cold air,
without any preamble, asked me if a man of
the name of Durant was known to me. I an-
swered that I knew a man of that name. Then
seating himself to write, he continued his in-
terrogatory. The age, the height, the features
of this Durant; his profession, his abode, how
long I had known him, in what house; nothing
was forgotten ; and at each of my answers the
M 6 mayor
252 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
*,
mayor wrote with a face of marble. At last,
having read my interrogatory to me, he present-
ed to me the pen in order to sign it; I signed it,
and he withdrew. *s - *
“He had scarcely left my room, when all the
most sinister possibilities seized on my imagina-
tion. What can this good Durant have done :
He goes every morning to the coffee-house; he
has there undertaken my defence; he has
spoken with too much warmth against the
Duke d'Aumont; he has indulged in mur-
murs against a partial, unjust, oppressive autho-
rity, that crushes a feeble and innocent man to
gratify the powerful. On the imprudence of
these remarks he has been arrested; and on my.
account, and for my sake, he will groan in a
prison more rigorous than mine. Weak as he is,
being much younger, and much more timid than
- myself, melancholy will seize him, and he will
sink under it : I shall be the cause of his death.
And poor Madame Harene, and all our good
friends, in what a situation must they be! Great
God! what evils my imprudence will have
created . It is thus, that in the fancy of a cap-
tive, isolated, solitary man, in the bonds of ab-
solute power, refle&tion aggrandizes all evil pre-
** - sages,
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 253
sages, and encircles his soul with dire presenti-
ment. From that moment I did not get one
gentle sleep. All the dishes that the governor
reserved for me with so much care, were steeped
in bitterness. All that was most vital in me felt
wounded; and if my detention at the Bastille
had continued a week longer, it would have
been my tomb. . . .
“ In this situation, I received a letter that
was forwarded to me by M. de Sartine. It was
from Mademoiselle S–, a beautiful and in-
teresting girl, with whom I was on the point of
being united before my imprisonment. In this
letter she expressed to me, in the most touch-
ing manner, the sincere and tender interest she
took in my misfortune, assuring me that it had
not alarmed her courage, and that, far from en-
feebling her sentiments for me, it rendered them
more lively and more constant.
“I answered first by expressing all my sensi-
bility for so generous a friendship. But I added,
that the great lesson I received from adversity,
was never to associate any one to the unforeseen
dangers, and sudden revolutions to which the
perilous condition of a man of letters exposed
me ; and that if, in my situation, I felt some
2-
courage,
254 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
courage, I owed it to my isolated existence;
that my senses would have been already lost,
if I had left without the walls of my prison a
wife and children in afflićtion ; and that at least
on that point, which to me would be the most
cruelly tender, I never would give adversity any
hold on me. Mademoiselle S– W3S II, Ore
stung than wounded at my answer; and a little
while afterwards she consoled herself by marry-
ing M. S.–. ,” . .
“At length, on the eleventh day of my de-
tention, at the close of the day, the governor
came to announce that my liberty was restored
to me; and the same officer who had condućted
me, took me back to M. de Sartine's. This mi-
nister expressed some joy at seeing me again,
but his joy was mixed with sadness. “Sir,’ said
I, ‘in your kindness, for which I am very grate-
ful, there is something that still afflićts me;
while you congratulate me, you have the air of
pitying me. Have you some new misfortune to
announce to me?”—I thought of Durant.—
* Alas! yes,” answered he, “the King has taken
the Mercure from you”.’ These words comfort-
* The Mercure de France was a periodical publication,
which rendered Marmontel six hundred guineas in a year.
ed
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 255
ed me, and expressing my resignation by gently
inclining my head, ‘So much the worse for the
Mercure,' answered I. ‘The evil, added he,
“is perhaps not without remedy. M. de Saint-
Florentin is at Paris; he interests himself for
you ; go and call on him to-morrow morning.’ *
“ On quitting M. de Sartine's, I ran to Ma-
dame Harene's, impatient to see Durant. I
found him there, and amid the joyous acclama-
tions of the whole society, I saw only him. “ Ah!
there you are, said I, throwing myself into his
arms, ‘ then I am indeed comforted P. This
transport at the sight of a man for whom I had
never before discovered any very particular at-
tachment, astonished the whole company. They
thought that the Bastille had disordered my
brain. “Ah! my dear friend,' said Madame
Harene, embracing me; ‘what heartfelt joy it
gives me to see you again at liberty l—And the
Mercure ?”—“ The Mercure is lost,” said I ;
“but Madam, permit me to occupy myself a mo-
ment with this unfortunate man. What can he
have done to cause me so much afflićtion ?' I
related the history of the mayor. The truth .
was, that Durant had gone to solicit from M.
de Sartine permission to see me, and he had
- - - said
| -
r
256 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
said that he was my friend. M. de Sartine had
sent to inquire of me who this Durant was ;
and of this very simple question the mayor had
made a string of interrogatories. Enlightened
and tranquil on that subjećt, I employed my
courage in raising the hopes of my friends.”
So much for the extract from Marmontel's
Memoirs. It should be remembered, that at
the period this celebrated savans was thus treat-
ed, Louis XV. reigned, and though not a tyrant
himself, was surrounded by unprincipled mis-
tresses, by intriguing courtiers, and ignorant
ministers, who in his name committed ačts of
injustice with which he was unacquainted, but
which at the same time were severely felt, and
loudly complained of. When the Duke d'Au-
mont was convinced of Marmontel's innocence,
to repair his wrongs he demanded of the King,
and obtained for him, the place of Historiogra-
pher of France ; a situation of more honour and
profit than the patent of the Mercure, of which
he had deprived him. > - . . .
According to the Registers of the Bastille,
published in 1789 by the French rebels, there
had been confined in that prison, So much de-
cried, only three hundred persons in the course
of
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 257.
of three centuries. During eighteen months of
the republican Robespierre's reign, two hundred
and fifty thousand families were shut up in pa-
triotic state prisons; and during the first five
years of Napoleone Buonaparte's mild reign, the
TEMPLE alone contained mine thousand five
hundred prisoners of both sexes *. ^-
To the satisfaction of all enemies of arbitrary
power, the Bastille existed no more ; when the
pretended regenerators and friends of liberty in
France, instead of one bastille, which they de-
stroyed, constructed or decreed thousands.
Every city, every town, every village, nay,
every street, had its official bastille filled with
persons ſuſpečied of political crimes ; that is to
say, loyal and religious subječts, or men of pro-
perty. -*. - -
REVOLUTIONARY PRISONs.
As soon as the good and unfortunate Louis
XVI. had been transferred from his throne to
a loathsome prison, the gaols of Paris were fill-
ing with persons arrested on frivolous and va-
# Les Nouvelles a la Main, Frimaire, an xiii. No. 1, p.2.
rious
%58 º
THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
rious charges of counter-revolutionary inten-
tions, and many had been shut up from mo-
tives of personal dislike, or from no other
motive but the reputation of being - rich, or be-
cause they were nobles or priests. The means
of incarceration were greatly increased by a
measure resulting from a proposal of Danton to
the Assembly. He had proposed to equip a vo-
lunteer army of sixty thousand men, who should
sally forth from Paris to meet the Prussians,
then in Champagne. To obviate the difficulty
of supplying them with arms, he proposed that
individuals who possessed any should be com-
pelled to furnish them ; and for this purpose
domiciliary visits were direéted to be made. In
the course of these irruptions into the dwellings
of individuals, many were carried to prison with-
out the allegation of a crime, merely because
their personal property tempted the avarice, or
their talents or loyalty excited fear in the par-
ties of the conspirators against the altars and the
throne. Arrests were executed in all quarters,
in the houses, streets, squares, and gardens. The
hackney coaches and the soldiers, at the com-
mand of the officers of justice, were too few for
the purpose of taking all the persons pointed out
' ' , & - into
THE FRENCH PRISONS, 259
into custody, and for conveying them to prisons.
The priests and ex-nobles were given to under-
stand, that it was in contemplation to transport
them to the coast of Africa, and in that persua-
sion colle&ted as many of their valuables as they
could, to procure such comforts as their sudden
expatriation would permit. This was merely
reported, that their assassins might have an op-
portunity of gratifying their avidity by plunder,
as well as their thirst of blood by murder. Ma-
nuel, a municipal officer, and a representative
of the people, attended at the prisons daily, to .
number and call over the prisoners; and encou-
raged them to colle&t their property, by an am-
biguous declaration, that they would be liberated
the 2d of September”. -
That day was fixed for the muster of the le-
vies intended to be sent out of the capital to meet
the invaders; they were ordered to present them-
selves at the Champ de Mars, to be enrolled, and
march from thence in a body. In the course of
the day the most alarming reports were circu-
lated, and the most fatal jealousies excited. It
was falsely asserted that the Prussians had taken
* Peltier's late Pićture, vol. ii. p. 230.
- - y Chalons,
260 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
Chalons, and were within ten leagues of the
gates of Paris; that they were to be joined by an
immense force in the departments, and rein-
forced by a party in the capital, who, as soon as
the new levies had left the city, were to rise,
open the prisons, and, being joined by the pri-
soners, tC) perpetrate many horrid cruelties on
the patriots ; to murder one-tenth of the other
citizens, and to release the Royal Family, and
reinstate the King in the plenitude of his pris-
tine power. At one o'clock the cannons were
fired, the tocsin sounded, the barriers shut, and
the country proclaimed to be in danger. The
citizens, panic struck, and torpid with surprize,
retired to their places of abode, while a prepared
band of ruffians went to the various prisons,
where they commenced a scene which will form
an eternal stigma on the nation. They massa-
cred in cold blood, one by one, every confined
person, with the exception of sixteen from the º
number of several thousands. They instituted
in each prison a pretended court of justice, com-
posed of self-constituted judges, many of whom
could not read. These ruffians ordered the exe-
cution of those brought before them ; and it was
the melancholy employment of those confined,
---, - s and
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 26.
and who were expecting their fate, to examine
the various modes of receiving the stroke of
death, and calculate in which position it appear-
ed to give least pain, or occasioned the fewest
struggles. The sentence of acquittal pronounced
in favour of some, was drowned in the yell of the
exterminators around the doors, and thus they
were inhumanly butchered. The same fate awaited
some who attended as witnesses, but whose ter-
rors overcoming their presence of mind, were
murdered amongst the vićtims they came to
rescue. These horrible scenes continued the
whole of the 2d, 3d, 4th, and even 5th of Sep-
tember; and the torpid indifference of the mili-
tary and civil authorities, are undeniable evi-
dences of their participation and culpability in
these horrid transačtions. The prisons were at
length emptied, and the assassins satiated with
blood and plunder. Besides the thousands whom
the contagion of example, and the extension of
the plan of murder into the departments, and
whom private animosities in Paris, deprived of
life, upwards of eight thousand were sacrificed
during these days of horror and indelible in-
famy”. . . -
* Peltier's late Pićture, vol. ii. p. 234, 236, and 318, Ga-
rat's Memoirs, p. 35. Conjuration d’Orleans, vol. iii. p. 212.
Of
. . . .”
262 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
Of the imprisoned priests, one hundred and
eighty were confined in the convent of the Car-
melites. A troop of assassins commenced the
massacre in the garden, where the priests were
permitted to take the air ; but while they were
proceeding, a commissary arrived, and informed
them that the work was not to go on in that way.
There were now about a hundred left alive, who
were all ordered into the sanétuary of the church;
but to get thither, they had to pass through a .
crowd of their murderers. One received a ball,
another a blow, and another a stab ; so that,
when arrived in the sanctuary, they presented a
scene the most heart-piercing that eyes ever be-
held, or the imagination could conceive. Some
were dragged in wounded, others quitedead. Even
here, though surrounded by a detachment of sol-
diers, the blood-thirsty mob rushed in upon
- them, and murdered several at the very altar.
The sanétuary of a Christian church was, for the
first time since the blessed Redeemer appeared
anzong them, filled with a promiscuous group
of the living, the dying, and the dead. The
marble pavement was covered with dirt and
gore, and mangled carcasses, and the sides of the
altar splashed with blood and brains. º -
The soldiers had not been brought to save the
A
lives
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 253
lives of the priests; the civil commissary who
headed them, was to execute a plan of more de-
liberate murder. The surviving priests were *
called out two at a time, and murdered in the
presence of the commissary, who took their
names down in a book, as he was answerable for
their assassination. Of all that were found here,
only four or five escaped.
The same indiscriminate carnage was carried
on at the other prisons. Every one of these
men might have saved his life by taking the
proffered oath of apostacy; yet not one of them
condescended to do it. Let the infidel show, if
he can, any thing like this, in the annals of his
impious sect”. .
Thus were the prisoners treated in the first
month of the French Republic one and indivi-
sible, or in September 1792. The vićtories of
the French armies, which increased the security
and assured the impunity of the French rebels
and assassins, instead of alleviating their barbari-
ties, augmented their enormities; and the mas-
sacres of 1792, which their patriotic adherents in
foreign countries called the momentary irruption
% This last article is translated from I’Histoire du Clergé
François, by Abbe Barruel, p. 266, .
- of
264 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
sº
of popular vengeance or misguided patriotism,
were continued in 1793 and 1794, according to
the organized revolutionary laws of the legisla-
ture. Some few individuals could therefore not
be criminated for transačtions that inculpated the
humanity and morality of all the citizens of the
whole French commonwealth.
Although some of the descriptions inserted
hereafter are taken from particular prisons, yet
divested of their localities, they apply, in general,
to all the gaols at Paris during the plenitude of
Robespierre's power. “In all the prisons,” says
a released prisoner, “where I have been con-
fined, I have always observed the same abuses,
always experienced the same uneasiness, the
same constraint. It is hardly possible to form
an adequate idea of the hard-heartedness and
apathy of the gaolers, the grinding rapacity of
the attendants and servants; the treacherous
watchfulness of the spies; the repeated opposi-
tions to the most trifling requests; and the con-
tinual subjection to a minute and unprofitable
vigilance: deprived of all communication from
without, no news public or private, kept in ig-
norance even of the successes of the armies of
our country, and even of the existence of those
- most
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 265
most near and dear to us by consanguinity and
attachment: not a word of peace or consola-
tion within; insulted, threatened without cause,
by administrators intoxicated with wine and
pride; subjected to their caprices, and to those
of their creatures, the gaolers; transferred from
place to place, to humour the whims of any of
them ; dragged from prison to prison, amidst
the hootings and invečtives of a deluded mob;
no relief for the indigent, either in the most
necessary articles of clothing, or in medicines if
they happen to be indisposed".” -
The activity of the agents of tyranny tended
in a most astonishing manner to populate these
abodes of despair. From every corner of France
vićtims were daily sent to the prison called the
Conciergerie. It was filled by the aëtivity of
the missionaries in the departments, and the ad-
ministrators in Paris, and emptied by the mas-
sacre of its unfortunate tenants, or their trans-
fer into other houses of confinement. To this
place women, without number, were brought,
without respect to their sex, or state of preg-
C. wºrks: he --> --, ~~~~ -
nancy, for w hich the most sanguinary savages
... * Memoirs d'un Detenu, p. 3.
vol. III. - N generally
366 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
generally retain some sympathy. They were
brought in loaded with fetters, and sometimes
even with a collar of iron about their necks, fa-
tigued, astonished, and dispirited. Some fainted .
at the sight of their dungeons, and were carried
away in the arms of brutal turnkeys, who laughed
at their condition; some were dissolved in un-
availing tears; some frozen into a state of torpid
stupefaction, the harbinger of madness.
The place in which prisoners were at first
dodged, was called the Souriciere, or mouse-trap,
a dungeon impervious to the rays of the sun, and
exhaling an infectious odour from the accumu-
lated filth of persons who had previously occu-
pied it. The straw provided for a bed was rot-
ten with damp and dirt, and the rats ate the
shoes, the clothes, and even the very flesh of
the unhappy tenant. In this infernal abode,
they were sometimes left for thirty-six or forty-
eight hours without relief, without communica-
tion, and without food. They were afterwards
transferred to some other chamber, or to a dif-
ferent prison. There their state was somewhat
changed, though very little ameliorated. On
their arrival the gaoler asked them in a rough
voice, “Have you got any billiº” a cant word
for
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 257
for money. If answered in the affirmative, he
provided a small cistern for water, a mug, and
two or three cracked plates, for which he exacted
three times their original cost. If the prisoner
had no money, he was told, “ so much the worse
for you, citizen, you’ll get nothing here without
money.” He was in that case obliged to part
with any thing of value which he possessed, at all
extremely reduced price, to pay for the trifles
above mentioned, at an exorbitant rate. For
example, a person gave a gold ring which cost
a hundred crowns (121. 10s.), for twenty-five
livres (1/. 10d.), which barely paid for the ne-
cessaries furnished by the rapacious gaoler; and
this was before the law took place authorizing
their search and robbery; after that, every thing
they had was taken from them. . -
They all dined together, but this meal, the
only one in twenty-four hours, instead of being
a pleasure, merely served to prolong a wretched -
and precarious existence. The introdućtion of
any food from without was strićtly forbidden; a
table was established in the prison, at which t
those confined fed a la gamelle, or catch they who
catch can 5 about a hundred plates were Set at a .
table covered with three dishes; the prisoners,
. -- N 2 deprived
26S THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
.*
deprived of their knives and forks, were obliged
to tear the meat with their fingers, and their
whole sustenance for the remainder of the day
was merely what they could reserve from this
scanty and disgusting meal, a little bread and
water. The legislature allowed for food to
each individual fifty sols a day, in assignats,
which would not produce a penny in money,
and according to the price of provisions in Paris,
afforded a miserable subsistence, and was ren-
dered still worse by the rapacity of the traiteurs
or cooks. In some of the prisons they gave half
a bottle of adulterated wine, a dish of French
beans stewed in 'stinking grease or tallow, a salt
herring, rotten and worm-eaten; in some a little
putrescent meat, and vegetables full of dirt, hair,
and worms. What will scarcely be believed had
it not been proved, even the sacrifices of the guillo-
time supplied the repart of the prisoners. When
a suspicion of the fact was mentioned to Hali,
the keeper of the prison Dupleſsis, he laughed
extravagantly, and called it a dish of ci-devant 1.
Even Barrere, then a member of the Committee
of Public Safety, and at present one of Buona-
parte's Legion of Honour, avowed it to Vilate,
and shewed him also a pair of boots, tanned into
r .*. - leather,
&
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 269
j
leather, from the skin of the guillotined ci-devant,
by a tanner at Meudon, who had invented a
manner of preparing it *. . . . -
All narrators agree, that during this period
their bread was abominable, their wine adulte.
rated, their meat and fish full of maggots, and
their garden-stuff bad of its kind, ill dressed,
and full of dirt, ashes, and coals. To complain
was not only useless but dangerous: a murmur
produced ill-usage, threats of closer confinement,
or of a transfer to a worse prison : if the corn-
plainants were numerous, they were denounced
to the administrators as having formed a con-
i.
spiracy; and a youth of sixteen was actually SČ):
to the guillotine as a conspirator, for having
petulantly expressed dissatisfaction that his salt
herring was rotten and full of worms. Even
before the strićt regulation took place, which
prevented the introdućtion of provisions from
without, they were far from comfortable: if they
sent to a tavern for a fricassee, the turnkeys
would take up a leg or a wing, and if the bearer
remonstrated that the piece would be missed,
sometimes contented themselves with sipping
* See Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 15i, and 152, and in
the note p. 153. r s
N 3 the
270 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
the sauce, and dipping their fingers in what re-
mained in the dish, facts which they took no
pains to conceal from the prisoner. The fruit
which was sent by their friends, or which they
contrived to purchase at almost its weight in
gold, passed through the hands of those harpies,
who never failed to diminish the quantity, with-
out fear of reproach, or even of remonstrance.
This treatment produced a general state of
health; most of the prisons were crowded with
sick; some of them had no infirmary, and in
those the state of the prisoners was truly dread-
ful ; they could not, without great expence, and
an express application to the Committee of Pub-
lic Safety, attended with much delay, obtain a
physician; and the most ordinary drugs were
not procured without similar expence and delay.
All this while the patient lay on his bed of straw
in a crowded room, exhaling pestilence, and
without succour. Where there was an infir-
mary, the fate of the sick was not much ameli-
orated ; this hospital differed nominally rather
than really from a prison; the walls were bare
and damp, the windows small, and the bars so
thick and so transversed, as to exclude the air.
The patients, without regard to the difference
~
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 27t
of their complaints, were placed two in a bed.
The physicians, chosen not on account of their
knowledge, but on a certificate from their sec-
tion, that they were genuine Sans-culottes, ad-
ministered their panacea, the tisan barley-water,
without variation, or considering the cause or
state of the disorder. When the want of drugs
was represented to one of the administrators,
“Well, well,” he answered, “we shall have:
some of the apothecaries guillotined soon, and
then you will have plenty.” Death made the
most frightful ravages, his vićtims were numer-
ous beyond calculation : it is hardly necessary to
suppose, as one narrator has done, and supported
it with some cogent instances arising within his
own observation, that it was part of the system.
of the day, to get rid of great numbers of pri-
soners by poison; the regimen above described
carries in itself certain and almost inevitable de-
struction, without the necessity of recurring to
laudanum or aconite. - -
Montgalliard gives an account of the general
situation of the prisoners, which cannot be pe-
rused without sentiments of abhorrence. “ For
these four months (in the spring of 1794),”
says he, “ the prisoners have been forbid all.
N 4 communi-
272 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
&
have not been yet long enough in a situation that maker
communication with mankind. They expc-
rience the most barbarous treatment, and the
coarse food now allowed, the privation of which
is often threatened, is examined by commis-
ºsioners from the Committee of Public Safety,
and thrown in through openings which are after-
wards carefully shut. Women with child have
... died in the English convent, now a prison, rue
des Fossés St. Victor, in the Luxembourg, and in
the Grand Carmer, from want of the relief neces-
sary in their condition. ‘’Tis ſo much trouble
ſaved to the executioner,’ said Billaud Varennes,
when he was asked to order a physician for the
prisons. In one single chamber forty persons
were confined. Many petitioned the Commit-
tee of Public Safety, and the Public Accuser
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, to send them to
the scaffold. Couthon wrote the following an-
swer on one of these petitions: “Woman, you .
you wiſh fºr death”.” -
They were surrounded with spies, who endea-
voured, by ačts of the most brutal insolence, to
force them to complain ; and if they did not
\
* Suite de l’Etat de la France, p. 67.
succeed,
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 273
succeed, invented circumstances they could not
occasion, rather than fail in gratifying their em-
ployers. This rendered communication inse-
cure, and added a terrible restraint to those un-
der which they already laboured. The language
of their gaolers led them to dread another mas-
sacre like that of September 1792, and harassed
them by continual fears; which were increased
by the excavations made in the yards of most
of the prisons at the same period. The gaolers
pretended they were meant for sess-pools, but
the prisoners dreaded they were designed for
their graves. - . * .
When retired to their cells at night, by virtue
of the compulsory edićt for their separation,
their miseries were not terminated ; the only
cries in the streets which were permitted near
the walls, were those calculated to inspire hor-
ror. In the night the furies of the guillotine,
with piercing voices, would cry, “ A list of the
fifty, or threescore persons, who drew prizes to-
day in the lottery of the guillotine.” If the
butchery had been less numerous, they would
say, “A list of the twenty, or five-and-twenty
aristocrats who were guillotined to-day. We
hope the number will be greater to-morrow.”
• N 5 Some-
274 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
Sometimes in the middle of the night the prison
bell was rung, and all the prisoners summoned
into the yard, where administrators, by torch-
light, attended by guards, waited with a list of
persons to be carried to other prisons, or to the
Conciergerie, till they should be tried. These
transfers were effected with the utmost brutality;
age, sex, or situation, procured no compassion.
A lady near her time of lying-in, terrified by the
bell, from her ignorance of the cause of its
ringing, was seized with the pangs of child-birth.
She was compelled to descend into the yard, her
name being on the list: it was in vain she en-
treated and remonstrated ; two soldiers dragged
her towards the cart, till her increasing agonies
at length compelled them to place her in the first
room they could find, where she was prema-
turely delivered, without attendance or assist-
3 Il Cé. -
These were not the only means. contrived to .
murder sleep. By a diabolical mockery of jus-
tice, the acts of accusation were delivered late
in the night before the day of trial. A fellow ~-
hawked them about the prison with a loud voice,
calling them in barbarous pleasantry, the Evening
Post. This noise disturbed all the prisoners,
and
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 275
and made some hundreds partake of the misery
intended perhaps only for ten or a dozen. Those
to whom they were delivered sometimes could.
not read them from want of light, and if they
could, it would have availed them but little, as
they were generally the same in substance ; the -
crime alleged, and the witnesses the same.
They were made out by the inferior agents of .
Fouquier Tinville, written in a hand scarcely
legible, and unspelt. The petulance of these
wretches often indicated the fate of the person.
accused by some jocular expression, as, “ Let
uſ ſend this woman to her beloved spouſe ;” and at
the top of one of the ačts of accusation was writ-
ten, “A head to be chopped off without mercy.”
The change of the abode of prisoners, dićtated.
by caprice, and unrecorded, often rendered the
delivery of these ačts a matter of difficulty;.
but the impatience of the messengers, and the
promptitude of the revolutionary system, ob-
viated delay. If the person marked for destruc-
tion was not to be found, some one whose name
was similar in sound, or who had some relation.
Or connexion with him, supplied his place. It
was in vain to remonstrate, the answer was ready 3.
“We were ordered to take ten, twelve, or fif.
N.6, teel?:
276 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
~.
teen persons from this house, and will not go
away without our number; you may as well take
this ačt of accusation as not, for you certainly
must have one, sooner or later *.” -
Horrible as the sufferings were in the Parisian
gaols, the persons confined in the provinces, par-
ticularly in LaVendee and at Nantz, were still
more cruelly treated. The atrocities perpetrated
by republican ruffians in those parts, have not
come to the knowledge of the public by the re-
ports of prisoners escaped from the hands of
their assassins, but are the original depositions
upon oath of witnesses before the republican tri-
bunals, and published by order of the French
government in the capital of France.
“The revolutionary hospital at Nantz, says
the witness George Thomas, an officer of health,
was totally unprovided with every necessary.
The gaol-fever made terrible ravages in all the
houses of detention ; seventy-five persons, or
thereabout, died daily in this hospital. There
were nothing but rotten mattresses, and on each
* See Tableau des Prisons sous Robespierre. Memoires
d'un Detenu, par St. Riouff. Conjuration de Robespierre.
Penth Correspondence; and Miss Williams's Letters of 1794.
t of
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 277
of them more than fifty prisoners had breathed
their last. -
“I went to Chaux, one of the Committee, to
ask relief for the unhappy wretches that re-
mained here. ‘We cannot do any thing,
said Chaux; but if you will, you may contri-
bute to the cause of humanity, in a manner I will
point out to you. That rascal Phillippes has two
hundred thousand livres (8000l.) in his clutches,
which we cannot come at. Now, if you will ac-
euse him in form, and Support your accusation
by witnesses that I will engage to furnish you
with, I will grant you out of the sum, all that
you want for the revolutionary hospital.’ At
the very mention of humanity from Chaux I was
astonished : the latter part of his proposal, how-
ever, brought me back to my man. I rejected
it with the indignation that it merited.
« I attest, that the Revolutionary Committee
of Nantz seized and imprisoned all those who
were esteemed rich, men of talents, virtue, and
humanity. I accuse this Committee of having
ordered, to my knowledge, the shooting and
drowning of between four and five hundred
children, the oldest of whom were not more than
fourteen years of age,
e Mina
278 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
“Minguet, one of the Committee, had given
me an order to choose two from among the
children, whom I intended to save from death,
and bring up. I chose one of eleven years old,
and another of fourteen. The next day I went
to the prison called the Entrepot, with several of
my friends, whom I had prevailed on to ask for
some of these children. When we came, we
found the poor little creatures stood no longer in
need of our interposition—they were all drowned /
I attest, that I saw in this prison, but the evening
before, more than four hundred.
“ Having received an order from the military
commissioners to go to the same prison, the Em-
trepot, to certify as to the pregnancy of a great
number of women, I found, on entering this,
horrible slaughter-house, a great number of dead.
- bodies strewed about the place. I saw several
infants, some still palpitating, and others suffocated: * - ?
in tubs of human excrement. I hurried along
through this scene of horror. My aspect fright-
ened the women; they had been accustomed to
see none but their butchers! I encouraged,
them ; and addressed them in the language of
humanity. I found that thirty of them were
with child; several of them seven or eight
. - months.
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 279
months gone. Some few days after, I went
again to see those unhappy creatures, whose situ-
ation rendered them objećts of compassion and
tenderness ; but—(adds the witness with a faul-
tering voice) shall I tell you, they had been moſt
inhumanly murdered - -
“The farther I advanced, continues the wit-
ness, the more was my heart appalled. There
were eight hundred women, and as many children, in
the prisons Entrepot, and in the Mariliere. There
were neither beds, straw, nor necessary vessels.
The prisoners .* were in want of every thing.
Dočtor Rollin and myself saw five children ex-
pire in less than four minutes. They received no
kind ºf nourishment. We asked the women in
the neighbourhood, if they could not lend them
some assistance.—“What would you have us
do ’’ said they ; “Grandmaison (one of their na-
tional commissaries) arrests every one that at-
tempts to succour them.*.* . .
“The same witness says, I accuse the Com-
mittee in general of the murder of seven prison-
ers, whom, from want of time to examine them,
* See Procès Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutio-
naire de Nantes, et du ti-levant Representant du Peuple Car-
rier, vol. ii. p. 147, •' . . . .
. • they
2so THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
they had hewn down with sabres, under the
window of their hall. Carrier, the representa-
tive of the people, and the Committee, as well as
their under murderers, used to turn the drown-
ings into jest: they called them, immersions,
mational baptisms, vertical transportations, bathings,
&c. I entered,’ adds he, “one day a public-
house, opposite the Bouffay, where I saw a water-
man, named Perdreau. He asked me for a pinch
of snuff; ‘for,” says the ruffian, “I have richly
earned it; I have just helped to dispatch seven
or eight hundred!’—‘How,” said I, ‘ do you
manage to make away with them so fast P− No-
thing so easy, replied he: “when I have a bath-
ing match, I strip them naked, two men with
their bayonets push them, tied two and two, into
my boat, whence they go souse into the water
with a broken skull".’ - -
“Vaujois, a witness, says ; I wrote ten times -
to the administrators of the distrićt, and went
often to the Revolutionary Committee, to re-
quest that something should be done for the poor.
children in prison; but could obtain nothing.
* See Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutio-
naire de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Car.
xier, vol. ii. p. 156, - . . . . .
- At
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 281
^.
At last I ventured to speak to Carrier, who re-
plied, in a passion;– you are a counter-revolu-
tionist; no pity: they are young vipers, that
must be destroyed.”—“If I had ačted of myself,’
says the witness, ‘ I should have shared their
fate.” -
“One day, on entering the Entrepot, a citizen
of Nantz saw a great heap of corpses: they were
all of children; many were still palpitating and -
struggling with death. The man looked at them
for some time; saw a child move its arm, he
seized it, ran home with it, and had the hap-
piness of saving it from death, and its more terri-
ble ministers. . . .
“Here Thomas was again questioned, and he
attested, that the Revolutionary Committee issued
an order, commanding all those who had taken
children from the prisons, to carry them back
again ; and this, adds the witness, for the role
pleasure of having them murdered”.
“ Cossirant, a witness, deposes, that it was
proposed to shoot some of the prisoners en masse,
but that the proposal was rejećted. ‘However,”
* See Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutio-
naire de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Car-
tier, vol. ii. p. 151. *. - -
. . . says
282 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
says he, as I was returning home one evening,
I met Ramor, who told me that the shooting was
at that moment going on. As I heard no noise,
I would not believe him, but I was not suffered
to remain long in doubt—a fellow came up to me,
covered with blood: that is the way we knock
them off, my boy, says he. Seven hundred had
been shot that afternoon *.
st Debourges, a witness, says ; I have seen,
during six days, flothing but drownings, guillo-
tinings, and shootings. Being once on guard, I
commanded a detachment that condućted the
fourth en maſte of women to be shot at Gigan.
When I arrived, I found the dead bodies of
seventy-five women already stretched on the spot.
They were quite naked. I was informed that
they were-girls from fifteen to eighteen years of
age. When they had the misfortune not to fall
dead after the shot, they were dispatched with
sabrest. - -
“ Labenette, a witness, informs the Tribunal,
that the Revolutionary Committee ordered a
* See Procés Crimineſ des Membres du Comité Revolutio-
naire de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Car-
rier, vol. iv. p. 245. .
# Idem, vol. iv, p. 256.
.*
decree
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 283
decree to be posted on the walls of the city,
forbidding all fathers, mothers, husbands, wives,
children, relations, or friends, to solicit the
pardon of any prisoners whatever. I was also
witness of the drowning of ninety priests, two
of whom, who were decrepid old men, by some
accident or other, escaped, but were retaken
and murdered. Indeed, I have been an eye wit-
meſſ of several drowning: of men, women with
child, girls, boyſ, infants, indiscriminately. I have
also seen people of all theſe descriptions shot in the
public squares and in other places. The national
guard of the city was employed, during six weeks,
in filling up the ditches into which the massacred
persons were thrown. I was dočtor to one of
the prisons, and was very near being deprived
of my situation, because I was too humane”.
“Carrier sent for the President of the Mili-
tary Commission. “It is you. then,’ said he,
* Mr. Son-of-a-b-h, that has dared to give
orders contrary to mine. Mind; if you do
not empty the Entrepot prison in two hours, I
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. i. p. 27. ,
will
284 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
will have your head, and the heads of all the
Commission.”—He was obeyed".
& 4 Tronjolly, a witness, says, that Chaux ex-
pressed his disapprobation of the law of the 14th
*September. ‘It is a great pity, said he, ‘it
ever was made; without it we should have re-
duced the inhabitants of Nantz to a handful.”
Carrier was consulted, adds this witness, with
respect to receiving money to save the lives of
the rich, but he answered : “No compositions;
the guillotine ; the guillotine, and take their
money afterwards.' Three women, too charm-
ing, certainly, since they attracted the desires of
the ferocious Carrier, had the misfortune to be
chosen for the tiger's pleasure. He first sacri-
ficed them to his brutal lust, and then sent
them to augment the mass of a massacreſ.
“ The widow Dumey, a witness, says, that
she is the widow of the late keeper of the Entre-
pot; that she saw fifty priests brought there, and
robbed of all their money and effects, and that
they were afterwards drowned with some women
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
wol, i. p. 60. . -
| # Idem, vol. i. p. 103. - -
º - * andº
"THE FRENCH PRISONS. 285
and little children. She adds, twenty-four men
and four women were taken out one day. A child
of fourteen years was tied with others to be
drowned ; his cries for his papa were enough to
pierce the heart of a tiger; Lambertye tied him,
however, and drowned him with the rest. Fou-
quet, the companion of Lambertye, said on this
occasion, that he had already helped to dispatch
nine thousand, and that if they would but let him
alone for twenty-four hours, he would sweep all
the prisons of Nantz”. *~~
« Lacaille, keeper of another prison, called the
Bouffay, gives a circumstantial account of one of
the drownings. “ The horrid night,’ says the
witness, of the 23d of Oétober, two soldiers
of the company of Marat came to the Bouffay,
each with a bundle of cords. About nine o’clock
they told me there were one hundred and fifty-
five prisoners, whom they were to transfer to
Bellisle, to work at a fortress. About an hour
after, thirty or forty more of these soldiers ar-
rived. An order from the Committee was pro-
*--w
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. ii. p. 175, - *
duced
2-
2s6 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
duced for the delivery of one hundred and fifty-
five of my prisoners. I observed to them, that
several of the prisoners on the list were now at
liberty, or in the hospital. They now sat down
to table, and after having supped and drank
heartily, they brought out their cords, and di-
verted themselves awhile in tying each other as
they intended to tie the prisoners. Ithen condućt-
ed them to the rooms where the prisoners were
lodged. They instantly fell to work, tying the
poor trembling wretches two and two. Grand-
maison now entered the court-yard, and hal-
looed out to them to dispatch. Goullin came
stamping and swearing, because the number on
the list could not be completed. There were SC)
many sick and dead, that they could not well be
made up. I sent you fifteen this evening, says
Goullin, what have you done with them I told
him they were up stairs. Down with them,
says he. I obeyed, and they were tied like the
rest. Instead of one hundred and fifty-five,
Goullin at last consented to take one hundred
and twenty-nine; but even this number not be-
ing complete, he ordered the remainder to be
taken from the prisoners indiscriminately, and -
when this was done, he marched off at the head -
. . . of
2-
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 287
of the assassins, to condućt them to the river,
where they were all drowned *. .
“The widow Mallet, who had first been robbed
of her property and then imprisoned, gives an
account of the manner in which she and her
companions in captivity were treated. “I com-
plained,” says this. poor woman, “ to Perro-
cheaux of a violent sore throat. ‘That is good,'
said he, ‘the guillotine will cure you of that.’
One day Jolly asked if I was not the widow
Mallet, and giving me a look that makes me
tremble even now, * Aye,’ says he, “she shall
drink out of the great cup, (meaning drown-
ing.) -
“ In the house where we were confined there
pićtures. Some
were a great number of beautiful
men were sent one day by the Committee to tear
them to pieces, which they did, leaving only
- one, which represented death, and jeering with
savage irony, ‘contemplate that image,’ said
they, “to cheer your hearts.” -
“We were in want of every necessary. Seven
hundred of us were confined in this house,
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. ii. p. 186. . . . . .
. . . . . . , - - which,
2ss THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
which, even as a prison, was too small for two
hundred ; forty were crammed into one little
chamber. During six or seven months we had
no infirmary, or rather each apartment was one.
The sick and dead were often extended on the
floor among the living. How many have I seen
struggling in the pangs of death by my side
“Grandmaison told me one day of an old
quarrel: * times are altered,’ says he, “now I
have you under my clutches.” Dunassier came
one day drunk, and began to make out a list for
execution. His oaths and imprecations made UIS
tremble; I was on the fatal list, and I know not
how I have escaped. My old servant went to
solicit for my removal, representing me as dan-
gerously ill. Perrocheaux said to her, ‘Let her
die, you silly b—h, and then we shall have her
house, and you will fare better with us than with
her *.’ - . -
“Mrs. Pichot, a witness, living by the water-
side at Nantz, says, that she saw the carpenters
busy constructing the lighters for drowning the
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. ii. p. 204, - -
prisoners:
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 289
prisoners; and soon after, says the witness, I
saw brought to be drowned at the Crepusile, a
great number of women, many of whom had
suckiing children in their arms; they screamed
Ö - 3. \ -
3.
we be put to death without being heard?' Seve-
ral poor women of the neighbourhood ran and
took a child each, and some two from them.
Upon this the poor creatures shrieked, and tore
their hair worse than before. “Oh my dear,
my love, my darling babe am I never to see
your dear face again Heavens prose& my poor
dear little love P Such heart-piercing cries
were surely never before heard; yet these could
not soften the hell-hounds that condućted
them. - - ~
“Many of these women were far advanced
with child. All were taken into the boats, a
part were immediately dispatched, and the rest
put on board the Dutch sloop till the next day.
When the next day arrived, says the witness,
though we were all panic-struck, many had the
courage to ask for a child each of those that
were left alive; but the hard-hearted villain,
Fouquet, refused, pretending his orders were
VoI. III. o changed,
nd cried most piteously. ‘ Oh,' said they, ‘must
&
290 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
changed, and all that remained on board the
sloop were drowned ! -
“The same witness says, “one day I saw seve-
ral prisoners, brought from the Entrepot, depo-
sited in a lighter with a head; they were fast-
ened under hatches, where they were left for
forty-eight hours. When the hatches were
opened there were sixty of them stified. Other
prisoners that were on board, were obliged
to take out the bodies. Robin stood on the
deck, with his drawn sword in his hand, and
superintended the work. This done, all the
prisoners on board were stripped naked, men,
women, and children of all ages, from fourscore
to five; their hands were tied behind them, and
they were thrown into the river P Here the
Judge asked the witness if this drowning was
performed by day or by night : “In open day
light,’ answered the witness. She adds, “I
observed that the drowners became very familiar
with the prettiest of the women; and some few
of them were saved, if it can be called Saving, to
S -
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et, du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. ii. p. 222, -
. endure
*
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 291
endure the more than infernal embraces of these
monsters *. -- -
“Coron, one of the company of Marat, in-
formed the tribunal that he had seven thousand
five hundred persons shot at the Gigan, and he
had assisted in drowning four thousand +. * --
“Mrs. Laillet informs the tribunal, that six
young ladies of the name of Lameterye, were
sent to the Bouffay prison. Carrier sent an
order to put them instantly to death. The
keeper of the prison commissioned-me to com-
municate to them the fatal tidings. I called
them into a room apart, and told them that the -
representative of the people had ordered their
execution. The youngest of them gave me this
ring (here she shewed the ring); they threw
themselves on their knees, and called on the
name of Jesus Christ. From this posture the
ruffians roused them to conduct them to the
place of death. They were executed without
ever being tried. While they were dispatching, -
ty enty-seven men awaited the fatal stroke at the
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. ii. p. 223. - - ', º
# Idem, vol. ii. p. 252.
o 2 foot
292 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
foot of the guillotine. It is said, to the honour
of the executioner, that his remorse for having
executed these young ladies was so great, tha
he died in a few days afterwards. , ---- •,
“I attest, adds this witness, that I have seen
numbers of naked bodies of women lying by
the side of the river Loire, thrown up by the
tide; I have seen heaps of human bodies gnawed
and partly devoured by the dogs and birds of
prey; which latter were continually hovering
over the city, and particularly near the water-
side. I have seen numbers of carcasses in the
bottoms of the lighters, partly covered with
water *. .
« Captain Baulet, a witness, says, that one
day on weighing anchor, he saw four or five huſ:-
dred dead bodieſ raised by the cable; and adds,
that there were one hundred and thirty women
confined at Mirabeau, who disappeared all at
once +. -
“I was present at a drowning, says the wit-
ness Tabouret, on board a lighter conducted
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carlier,
vol. iii. p. 14.
. - 2. ' - . . - by -
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 293
by Affilé. ‘Come on my lads,’ said he, “to the
island of Topsy-turvy. Before we got out to
the sinking place, I heard the prisoners make
the most terrible lamentations. ‘Save us! oh,
for pity sake, save us !' cried they ; ‘ there is yet
time; oh! pray, pray, save us !’ some of their
hands were untied, and they ran them through
the railing, crying, ‘Mercy, mercy !' It was
then that I saw the villain Grandmaison, chop
off their hands and arms with his sabre. Ten
minutes after I heard the carpenters, placed in
the little boats, hammering at the sides of
the lighter, and directly down it went to the
bottom *. -
“One time,” says Affilé (a witness who had
been one of the drowners), Fouquet had ordered.
me to go to Marie, to bespeak the two lighters
that were wanted for the night, and to engage
SOrić carpenters. This done, I went and got
cords, and the staples, to fasten the prisoners 2t
the bottom of the lighter. About nine o'clock
nearly five hundred were put on board. These
were pillaged and stripped in the lighter, and
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. iii. p. 38, . -
Q 3 -- - Fouquet
294 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
A
**.
which were always made in the name of the law,
he would drown me with the rest. Four little
boats attended each lighter. When the plugs
were pulled out, the prisoners cried mercy
There were some on the half-deck with their
hands tied only, and these, when they saw the
lighter sinking, cried, ‘Let us iump into their
** & 52 • J •. -
boats, and drown them with ourselves.” But all
that attempted it were hacked down with sabres.
When the expedition was completed we went
to Thomas’s hotel, where the effects of the
. }
prisoners had been carried, from thence we went
to Secher's, where we divided the spoil”.”
“Bourdin, a witness, gives an account of seve-
ral shootings. “The last that I saw was of
eighty women. They were first shot, then
~
stripped, and exposed on the spot for three days.
When the shooting en marre first began, the
prisoners were suffered to retain their clothes
till they were dead. As they were condućted
to the place of execution, and even after they
arrived on the spot, the old-clothes dealers were
- vol. iii. P. 50,
* Procés Crimine! des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
.*
Sękºń
Fouquet swore, if I did not obey his requisitions,
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 295
seen bargaining with the soldiers for their clothes.
The poor unfortunate creatures had the morti-
fication to see their own town's men and women
buying the poor remains of their fortunes on
their backs; and the instant they fell, the mon-
sters rushed in, tearing the new acquired pro-
- perty from their bodies, yet struggling in the
convulsive pangs of death. But the revolution- .
ary butchers found that this was but an unpro-
dućtive sale, for the clothes being shot through,
decreased their value, and this circumstance deter-
mined them to strip the prisoners naked before
their execution *. . . • *
“Crespin, a witness, and one of the company
of Marat, informs the tribunal, that he was at a .
drowning on board the lighter, where the pri-
soners were fastened down under boards, nailed
from side to side. They uttered, says he,
‘the most piteous cries. Some of them put their
hands folded in a supplicating posture through
the openings between the boards; and I saw
the members of the Committee chop off their
hands and fingers: one of them plunged his
** ~x
• * ...~ 2. k º * º - - - . g 2 - * & .
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
des Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. iii. P. 63. - - - “. - - s -
o 4 sabre
,”
296 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
sabre down in amongst the prisoners, and we
heard a man cry out, ‘Oh! the rascal he has
stabbed me!’ Our ears,’ adds the witness, “were
now stunned with the cry of “Oh you rascally
brutal savages! this is the mercy, this is the hu-
& P - -
thanity of the republicans Ş
“Fontbonne, a witness, informs the tribunal,
that he one day saw a number of persons con-
dućted from the Place Equality to be shot at
Mauves. There were women and children of
all ages among them. My heart could not sup-
port this spectacle; I ran home, saddled my
horse, and rode to the place of execution.
When I arrived, the poor creatures were all on
their knees, and the soldiers were prepared to
fire. I rushed through them, and had the good
fortane to save eight of the children, the oldest
of whom was twelve years of age. The rest
were shot with their fathers and mothers +.
“ Laurancy, a withess, attests, that he saw, at -
one time, three hundred men condućted to the
water. They were all naked, and had their
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
des Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. iii. p. 106. - . - -
f iden, vol. iii. p. 113.
hands
THE FRE NCH PRISONS. 297
Sy
hands tied behind them. I saw too, adds the
witness, several naked women and girls on
board a barge in the river, two of whom, aged
about eighteen years, I saw a young lad behead
with his sabre, while he sung the Carmagnole *.
“I saw, says the witness Girault, about
three or four hundred persons drowned. There
were women of all ages among them ; some were
big with child, and of these several were delivered
in the very lighters, among water and mud. The
most shocking circumstance was, their groans,
their heart-piercing shrieks excited no compas-
sion. They, together with the fruit of their
conjugal love, went to the bottom together+?
** From the moment the Revolutionary Com-
mittee was installed, says Berét, the imprison-
ments began; and they augmented daily. They
were all dićtated by animosity, hatred, and
avarice. To such a degree did terror prevail,
that every man trembled for his life. For my- º
part, my resolution was shaken. I always went
with two loaded pistols in my pockets; one for
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantz, et du ci-devant Representant du Petiple Carrier,
vol. iii. p. 114. . - -
# Idem, vol. iii. p. 279,280.
pºo
Q & . . . . the
298 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
the villain who should offer to seize me, and
the other for myself. Cruel expectation for a
man who had a small helpless family But I
had seen six hundred men, at one time, plunged
into the water, and had been a witness to the -
shooting of three thousand six hundred at dif-
ferent times at the Gigan: after this, what could
any man hope for -
« There is reason to believe that Carrier meant
w to murder the whole city; for, before his jour-
ney to Paris, he told one of the women whom
he kept, and whose husband he had put to death,
that he would make Nantz remember the name
of Carrier : * do not fear, my dear, said he, ‘ all
my friends shall follow me, but as for the city, it
shall be destroyed.’
“I was one day, adds the same witness,
sent by Bowin to see some bodies buried, that
were left on the puplic square. There were
upwards of thirty women all naked, and exposed
with the most horrible indecency *.
“ Fontbonne informs the tribunal, that he
was one. day invited to a dinner, in a pleasure-
* Procés Crimine; des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantz, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
- *. - ; : .
vol. ii. p. 122. - . . . A
- garden
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 299
garden belonging to Ducrois. Carrier, and an
Irish descendant, O'Sullivan, were of the party.
The conversation turned on the bodily strength
of certain persons, when O'Sullivan observed,
* yes, there was my brother, who was devilish
strong, particularly in the neck, for the execu-
tioner was obliged to give him the second stroke
with the mational razor, before he could get his
head off. This witness adds, “O’Sullivan told
us, that as he was going to drown a man much
stronger than himself, that the man resisted,
but was knocked down ; then, says O'Sullivan,
* I took out my knife, and stuck him as butchers
do sheep.’ .
“ Guedon informs the tribunal, that he was
at the same dinner mentioned by Fontbonne.
I was seated,’ says the witness, ‘ by the side of
O'Sullivan, and during the repast, he held up
his knife to me, and said, ‘this is a very good
thing to cut a man's throat with 3’ adding, ‘that
it had already done him much service in that
way.” He called on Robin as a witness of his
bravery, and told us the manner in which he
proceeded.”—“I had observed, says O'Sullivan,
“that the butchers killed their sheep by plung-
ing the knife in underneath their ear; so when
- • , or 6 I had
300 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
I had a mind to kill a prisoner, I came up to
him, and clapping him on the shoulder in a
jocular way, pointed to some objećt that he was
obliged to turn his head to see : the moment he
did this, I had my knife through his neck l’
“This O'Sullivan, in his defence, says, “that
as to his brother, he was an enemy of the Repub-
lic. When he saw,” says this human butcher,
‘ that there was no hope for him, he came and
threw himself into my arms; but, like a good re-
publican, I gave him up to the guillotine”.’
“Poupon deposes that he was witness of a
drowning, when the company of Marat went
and dragged sick persons from the hospitals, in
order to make up a lighter full. Some of these
persons,’ adds the witness, ‘could scarcely crawl
along, and I saw these murderers beat them
most cruelly with great Sticks, crying, along with
you, b—gers march 1 march we will give you
sweet air enough now. Others they dragged
along by the hair of the head; till they got them
on board of the lighter. All this time, says the
witness, ‘the condućtors of the expedition kept
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire
de Nantes, et du el-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
wel. ii. p. 276, 277. -
halloo-
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 301
hallooing out,'—‘Come, come, my lads, be
quick! along with the b–gers the tide falls
apace; there is no time to be lost”.’
“ Tronjolly, a witness, informs the tribunal,
that the company of Marat was at first composed
of sixty persons; Goullin openly proposed that
none but the most infamous villains should be
admitted into it; and at each nomination cried
out,’—* Is there no greater scoundrel to be
found f' r .
“ On the 24th of O&tober, says the witness,
I heard Goullin and his colleagues say, that
they were going to give a great example ; that
the prisoners should be all shot. I attest that
this scene was still more horrible than that of the
2d and 23d of September. The company of
Marat were carousing round a table, and at the
same time it was deliberated, whether the pri-
soners should not be massacred by hundreds. In
this deliberation, Goullin was for indiscriminate
slaughter; and thus were the prisoners, without
ever being interrogated or heard, condemned to
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Pevolutionaire
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. iv, p. 148, - - i
“$3,
º
- ~ die.
3O2 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
die. There existed no prooft of guilt against
these unfortunate prisoners; they were what
was called ſuspe&ied persons ; the felons and all
real criminals were set at liberty. -
“Old men, women with child, and children,
were drowned without distinétion. They were
put on board of lighters, which were railed
round to keep the prisoners from jumping over-
board, if they should happen to disengage them-
selves. There were plugs made in the bottom,
or sides, which being pulled out, the lighter
sunk, and all in it were drowned. These expe-
ditions were first carried on by night, but the sun
soon beheld the murderous work. At first the
prisoners were drowned in their clothes ; this,
- however, appeared too merciful; to expose the …”
two sexes naked before each other, was a pleasure
that the ruffians could not forego. -
. “I must now, says the witness, speak of a
new sort of cruelty. The young men and wo-
men were picked out from among the mass of
sufferers, stripped naked, and tied together, face
to face. After being kept in this situation about
an hour, they were put into an open lighter ;
and after receiving several blows on the skull
with
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 3O3:
with the butt end of a musket, thrown into
the water. These were called republican mar-
riage; *.”
But enough of those atrocities of new born re-
publicans. Hundreds of times has the pen drop-
ped from my trembling hand in transcribing
them. Should the fortitude of readers fail them
in perusing them, let them consider what the
writer must have felt, who, after witnessing some
of these abominations, must still, and for ever,
suffer as a vićtim of them. It is, comparatively,
but yesterday, since he enjoyed rank, distinétion,
and wealth, since he was surrounded by parents,
- relatives, and friends—all—all swallowed up in
the revolutionary abyss—to be recovered—to ap-
pear—no more! What has afflićted him, may also
afflićt the most elevated as well as the most hum-
ble in every part of the globe, should rebellion
and fačtion oppress or proscribe the quiet and
loyal ; and, above all, should a country admit the
curses of French fraternity *
* Procés Criminel des Membres du Comité Revolutionaire,
de Nantes, et du ci-devant Representant du Peuple Carrier,
vol. i. p. 66,68. Those who have strength to read more of these
borrors, may peruse the loyal and useful publication, “THE
Bloody Buox,” from which they have been extracted, after
the original in French was consulted and compared,
- i
304 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
This sketch shall conclude with a narrative of
state prisons under Buonaparte's reign of white
terror ; that is to say, the noon-day murderers
of his worthy revolutionary predecessors are by
him transformed into midnight assassins and
poisoners. The guillotine is now no longer in-
undated with blood in every public square, but
every gaol has its secret racks, its secret execu-
tioners ; Imperial improvements of N apoleone Buo-
naparte on the black terrors of his brother sans-
culotte, Maximilian Robespierre | Yes, it is
an undeniable fact, that the first Emperor of the
French, whom the regenerators, philosopherſ, and
friends of liberty and equality of France, salute
their sovereign, has in the first year of his usur- -
pation re-established those instruments of tor-
ture, which the last King of France, the virtu-
ous and humane Louis XVI. abolished in the first
year of his reign !! - What unfortunate pri-
soner would not prefer the expeditious guilio-
tining, shooting, and drowning of former rebels
in power, to the slow and excruciating death,
to the long and tormenting sufferings, of being
torn to pieces alive piece-meal, by the barbarous
. Buonaparte, and his barbarous accomplices! At
the death of Robespierre, who could have
supposed
...”
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 305
supposed that this monster would have been suc-
ceeded in authority by a low, sanguinary, and
infamous foreigner, who should cause him to be
regretted Such is, however, at present the
case. “ Robespierre's hurricane,” say Buona-
parte's subjećts, “threatened only the lofty trees
of the forest ; Buonaparte's tempest sweeps
away the humble creeping herb, as well as the
proud and elevated oak. Its ravages spare nei-
ther the valley nor the mountain *. -- --
THE TEMPLE,
As Buonaparte's state prison, the Temple, is
justly considered as the most cruel and execrable
gaol that ever despotism organized to torment its
vićtims, a description of its economy and horrors
cannot but be interesting, as an histºrical monu-
ment, and useful as a warning to travellers who
may be tempted, or under the necessity of visit-
ing, regenerated France. It is translated from a
work+ published upon the Continent, and though
its author, from motives of prudence, has not
* Les Nouvelles a la Main, Messidor, an xiii, No. 3. p. 5.
† La Police de Fouché devoilée, &c. p. 21–24, and the note,
b. 25. & -
- affixed
306 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
affixed his name, its contents have never been
contradićted. From what the writer of this ex-
perienced during his confinement in the same
prison, he can confirm the truth of many of the
particulars here related. .
’ says the author, “with
“ I arrived at Paris,’
the intent of examining modern France, her
museums, her institutions, her libraries; her
chef d'oeuvres of arts; but her policy, or poli-
tical plots and intrigues, had no more to do with
my journey, than if I had visited the unknown
negroes of the interior of Africa, or the Savage
tribes of the remotest part of America. Since
my dear country, wretched Helvetia, had lost
its liberty and independence, I was politically
dead; I was a social vagabond, or, to use the
revolutionary jargon, a citizen of the universe,
as indifferent about a First Consul in France as
about a Sultan of Constantinople, or a Landa-
mann in Switzerland. Being besides well known
in my own country, and well recommended in
France ; discreet both from prudence and from
inclination, I apprehended nothing, passing my
forenoons with artists or savans, and my even-
ings with friends; or at the opera, at the play-
houses, or in literary societies. . -
“ Among
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 307
“Among other persons to whom I had been
introduced at Paris, was my countryman, the
banker R—. In his house, near the Boulevards,
I had dined several times with the police minis-
ter Fouché, and the prefe&t of police, Dubois.
The wife of the former had invited me to seve-
ral of her routs and parties; an honour of which
I sometimes accepted. To tell the truth, how-
ever, I was not much at my ease in the house
of a known thief and assassin, though made a
minister, and styled his Excellency ; nor by the
side of his wife, a ci-devant harlot, accused of
incest and infanticide, and who, during 1793
and 1794, when her husband plundered and
murdered, performed the parts of a goddess of
reason or a fury of the guillotine; who had her
sister guillotined, and danced round the scaffold
on which her blood was still reeking. But my
{ repugnant sentiments, as well as my indignant
feelings, were always the secrets of my own bo-
SOm. . •
“ Avoiding all kind of discussions, and even
conversations, about government, I was as tran-
quil and as unsuspicious at Paris, as if I had re-
sided in my native city of Berne, before the tri-
coloured banditti encompassed with blood,
... • - - wrecks,
* , - \
sos THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
wrecks, and ruins, spoils of liberty and equality,
in inflićting destruction and death.
“I had just been at Paris three months, when
Madame Fouché one day invited me, with Mon-
sieur and Madame R–, the banker and his wife,
to a supper. It was near two o'clock in the
morning before I returned to my lodgings, and
a cold morning of February it was. I do not
think I had been in my bed an hour, when I
was suddenly alarmed by being commanded * {}
rise, by five men at the side of my bed. Of these
two had lights in their hands, and the other
three pointed pistols at my head and breast.
As I knew by their dress that four of them were
gens-d'armes, I was aware of their business, but
supposed that my arrest originated in mistake ; I
therefore informed them of my name and coun-
try, when the fifth person told me that he was a
police agent, ordered by his superiors to seize
me, my papers, and effects. I inquired in vain
of him as to the cause of my arrest, and of what I
had been accused, or where they were carrying
me: he gave me no other answer, than to make
haste and dress myself, and to deliver over to him
every thing belonging to me in my rooms, which
he packed up in two trunks, and put a seal on
^.
in
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 809
in my presence. A hackney coach was waiting
at the door of the hotel, into which the police
agent and two of the gens-d’armes entered with
me ; the other two went behind the coach. As
I observed that the coachman drove towards the
Boulevards, I suspected what proved to be the
fači, that they were conveying me to the Temple.
As we approached it, the outside sentinels chal-
lenged us. After our gens-d’armes had answered
the watch-word, they permitted us to descend,
and wait in a kind of portico the return of one
of the former, who had no doubt been sent to
inform the commanding officer of our arrival.
After an anxious expectation of about a quarter
of an hour, the outer gate was opened, where
our gens-d'armes had whispered the watch-word
a second time, and our police agent shewed his
orders. There another quarter of an hour passed
over before we were permitted to enter the
court-yard, and what they called Le Grºffe, or
register-office. There a man was sitting with a
large folio volume before him, in which he wrote
down a very minute description of my person;
how tall I was ; my age ; the colour of my eyes,
eye-lids, teeth, beard, and hair ; the breadth of
my mouth, and the shape of my nose ; the
- - length
slo THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
length of my face; the name of my country, of my
birth-place, of the day of my birth, of my profes-
sion, and with how many languagesſ was acquaint-
ed: he asked in what countries I had been travell-
". ing; in what lodgings I had resided at Paris; thro'
what cities and towns I had passed, and what
houses I had visited and frequented, since my
arrival in France. That done, he copied out of
the book, upon a sheet of paper, his questions
and my answers, which I signed, as well as what
was written in the book. Good God what an
extensive register of oppression and sufferings |
I was now ordered to strip to the skin, and
every part of my dress was searched ; the soles of
my shoes, and the collar of my coat, were cut
open. That I had marks of four wounds on my
body, was added in the folio volume, as well as
in the extračt from it, and I was ordered again to
sign my name under this addition, in both places.
“ When these tiresome and troublesome for-
malities were over, the police agent and the gens-
d’armes who had brought me to the Temple,
delivered me and my effects over to another
agent of the secret police, and two gens-d’armes
d'Elite, who in an insolent manner commanded
me to accompany them. After marching by the
- - - dim
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 311
dim light of Solitary lamps, through several
| Subteranneous. passages and filthy vaults, in
which, however, were visible, chains, fetters,
and two coffers, resembling, or real coffins, I
was almost blinded by being ushered into a room
lighted by a large chandelier, where I observed
Fouché's private secretary, Desmarett (who some
few hours before supped by my side at the mi-
nister's of the police), and another man, with
whom I was unacquainted. - - -
“Desmarett, after reading with affe&ted gra-
vity the paper I had signed in the Greffe, began
a hypocritical discourse, in which, among other
falsehoods, he solemnly asserted, that though go-
vernment was well acquainted with the danger-
ous and treacherous objećts of my arrival and
stay in France ; and though it possessed such
sufficiently convincing evidences, as in any
other country would have occasioned me to be
shot without any farther interrogatory or exami-
nation, its humanity surpassed even its justice,
and he had therefore been ordered to hear from
my own mouth an acknowledgment of my guilt,
and what I could say to alleviate it. Any denial
on my part would avail nothing but to augment
the criminality of eſpiomage and conspiracy.
- - ** I in-
312 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
“I interrupted him here, by asking him as a
favour not to keep me longer in suspense of what
I had been accused. ‘Your name,’ said he,
* is Louis De V– ?”—“My name is William
Louis De V—2– Your Christian name is only
Louis. I have here the extraćt from the regis-
ter of the parish where you were baptized.”—
* Then you know that my Christian names are
William Louis.”—“You have served formerly in
the Swiss regiment Ernest, in the service of the
last king of the French *—“Never.”—“ Recol-
lečt yourself,’ said he, repeating the same ques-
tion. ‘ I persist in my denial ; I have never
served in France.”—“Have you not, since you
quitted the French service, been a recruiting of-
ficer in Switzerland for Colonel Meuron in the
English service; and have you not still a com-
mission as a lieutenant from the King of Great
Britain *-* I have neither been in the Eng-
łish nor in the French pay or service. I never
récruited a man in my life.”—“Your obstinacy
to deny every thing shall soon be confounded to
your shame and perdition.’ - -
“Have you not received four wounds in mi-
litary service º'-' Yes, on the 4th of March
1798, when I combated the French troops, in-
vading
THE FRENCH PRISONS, 31
3.
wading my neutral country without any previous
declaration of war.’— You were wounded in
combating in the East Indies for the English?'—
* I have never been in England nor in the East
Indies; I have never yet seen a sea-port.’
“ Did you not, in the summer of 1797, come
over from London to Paris, with Roussillon
and other English agents, and intrigue here with
Pichegru and other conspirators º-' I have ne-
ver been in England, and never in France before
last December.”—“What was the motive of your
present journey to France 2'-' I wished to see
the monuments of arts, and was curious to visit
a capital of which I had heard so much talked,
both for its crimes and pleasures.’
“To whom were you recommended at Paris?”
‘You and the minister of police, Fouché, are
both well acquainted with those persons.”—
. Mention them.”—“ The diplomatic agents of
my country, Messrs. R— & Co. bankers, my
countrymen, and Mr. G–, my countryman, a
savans, and member of the National Institute.’
“But neither of them knew you any farther than
as recommended to them by some of your friends;
persons, perhaps, who did not know you more
than they do.’—‘I was recommended to them by,
vol. III. P friends
314 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
friends who are my relatives, and their friends.”
* The truth or falsehood of this assertion will
soon be proved; let us examine your papers,
they may perhaps furnish pieces of convićtion.”—
Of what am I then accused P- You will be
. acquainted with it time enough.”
“The first piece that fell under Desmarett's
inspection was a sheet of paper, containing, in a
confused manner, my remarks upon the different
pićtures in the museums, on statues, and on mo-
numents; to each of which I had annexed a
number, in the order I had visited them, or
as I had intended to set down in full length
the cursory observations I had written in the
margin. W ith a ridiculous gravity that, not-
withstanding my precarious situation, inclined
me to laugh, Desmarett exclaimed: “Citizen,
an innocent traveller, who has nothing to re-
proach himself with, never uses cyphers; and an
honest man, who has no dangerous Secrets, no
machinations to conceal, writes nothing that
he is ashamed of being read, or fearful of being
understood, even by his enemies. Where is the
key of these cyphers *-* They are no cyphers,
and can therefore have no key. But if you will
listen to me, I will explain to you what these
- - scraps
A
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 315
scraps signify, and for what they were destined.’
“Do you then even deny that those papers con-
tain cyphers ?”—“I tell the truth ; they con-
tain no cyphers.' . . -
“He then wrote hastily some words at the
top of the papers of the pretended cyphers, and
gave them to the person who wrote down his - *
questions and my answers. Among other scraps
of paper that excited his suspicion, was a rough
sketch of a mountain I had taken between Ge-
neva and Lyons; of the ruins of an ancient castle,
with a distant view of the Rhone ; which he in-
sisted was a drawing of one of the French sea-
ports, intended no doubt to be betrayed to, or
attacked by the English. My explanation avail-
ed nothing. It was added, as he said, to my
other pieces of convićtion.
“I suppose it was already day-light, when my
interrogatory was over, and at the ringing of a
bell two gens-d’armes d’Elite and a gaoler enter-
ed; in silence, but with a significant riod, re-
peated twice, he gave me in charge to them.
After half a minute's walk, or thereabout, from
what I afterwards learnt was the secretary’s office
of the secret police, I descended first twenty-two
steps, and in some few seconds thirty-nine steps
* . - p 2 . more.
316 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
- more. The farther I descended, the darker it
became ; and when the gaoler called out “Stop!’
we were entirely in the dark. I heard him
unbar two iron bolts, and heard him open with
a terrible noise two iron doors, before he pushed
rne into a dark hole, where, without saying a
word, he locked and boited the doors after me,
and where I instantly fainted away, from the in-
tolerable stench, which nearly suffocated me.
How long I continued in a state of insensibility
I do not know, but when I recovered my senses,
I felt myself supported by somebody, who said
in a mournful and fainting voice, “Unfortunate
wretch, whoever you are, innocent or guilty,
resign yourself to your fate, and hope nothing.
Few that enter this dungeon, ever leave it but
for execution. He who speaks to you, expečts
every moment to be his last. What have you
done, or of what are you accused ?– I have
done nothing, and am ignorant of what I am
accused.’—‘Young man (I can discover by
your voice that you are not old); confide your
misfortunes without reserve to a fellow-sufferer,
who has but Some few moments to live ; believe
my experience—confidence will relieve your
pangs—you will be convinced very soon, that it
- - - will
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 317
will make you breathe easier even in this impure
atmosphere.' I assured him with firmness and
sincerity, that I had nothing to reproach myself.
with. I asked him whence the insupportable
stench originated He said that this dungeon
was called the purgatory, and situated over the
common sewer, with which the secret police had
ordered imperceptible communication to be made,
in hopes of forcing obdurate prisoners to confess,
and of making the last moments of condemned
persons so much the more miserable. *
“This dungeon, or rather hole, was hardly
sufficient for two people to lay down in, and it
was impossible to stand upright in it. Some rot-
ten dirty straw covered a damp stone floor, and
water was dropping every moment from the roof
and the walls. But this was not enough, it was
also infested with rats and other vermin. It was a
place of confinement too horrid, too inhuman,
and too severe, even for the parricide or fratri-
cide. My companion informed me, that he
had heard of sixteen prisoners within twelve
months, who had from despair destroyed them-
selves by dashing their heads against the walls,
besides four who had bled to death from be-
ing bitten by rats. The truth’of this last asser-
. . P 3- tion
318 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
tion I really believe, being nearly expiringmyself
from a similar occurrence. When exhausted
nature could hold out no longer, I fell into a
slumber for some moments. I awoke suddenly
from finding my face inundated with blood, and
putting up my hand, I caught a rat eating the
powder from my front, where I had been bit by it.
“Shortly after this accident the gaoler came
to remove my fellow-prisoner, and as he had a
lamp with him, I could plainly perceive that the
floor was wet more from gore and dirt than from
damp. He brought me a pitcher with water,
and a small slice of black bread. Upon asking
him when I could be removed from a place
where a long stay would certainly kill me; he
only shook his head, without speaking a word.
“The adieus of my companion were moving
indeed. ‘My pains,’ said he, “will cease in
a few moments. Can I regret life, after a confine-
ment here 2 Is not death preferable to such an
existence " I felt his tears trickle down my
hand as he uttered these words. I pitied him
most sincerely, and his last words made such an
impression on my mind, that had I possessed a
pistol, I should have increased the number of
those miserable beings whom the oppression of
- . . the
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 319
the French government and its agents have re-
duced to despair, and caused to commit suicide.
This man, however, who inspired me with so
much interest, I afterwards discovered was only.
a mouton, or spy, confined with me by the police,
for the purpose of gaining my confidence and .”
then betraying it. As I never had heard of, so
I never suspected such a refinement of wicked- -
ness, of meanness, and of tyranny. He had
told me a long doleful story of his wanderings
as an emigrant, and that as such he was con-
demned to die. ." - -
“As far as I could guess, I remained in this
dungeon twenty-four hours longer, when the
gaoler, with two gens-d’armes d’Elite, removed
me to another, twelve steps higher up. It was
larger, and lighted by a lamp ; but its floor was
of stone, like the former, covered with filth and
gore, over which was spread some rotten and
damp Straw. In looking round me, I found the
wall covered with inscriptions the most discon-
solate and the most despairing. They were
chiefly traced with blood. One of them in
large letters stated: ‘Know, wretch, whoever you!
are that emier thiſ abode of mirery, that it is the anti-.
- chamber of death, and that you are deſigned for cer-
* - P 4 • `- tain
320 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
rain deſtručion. Your innocence will not ſave yotº,
I too, waſ innocent, but the executioner is waitingfºr
tne.’ By its side was written, “In reventeen mi-
nuteſ, though not feventeen years of age, Aurora de
Cuty will be no more. For happines; I have lived
ſeventeen years too long. I die faithful to my King
aſ well as to my God.”
r - - 5.
“The gaoler and two gens-d'armes interrupted
ſiſ
3.
y
-
..i
-*.
3
ãi
d
b
7 Incitations on these and other sentences,
rought me before a military commission,
presided by a chef de brigade, of the name of
Hulin, assisted by four inferior officers. A per-
son in a military dress, ačted as public accuser, and
" . icles of accusation against me. The
principal of these were allegations of espiomage,
and of being an English agent, and an embeau-
cheur, or an emissary engaging troops to desert.
I was again said to have been in the regiment
of Ernest, in the French service, and aćtually 3.
lieutenant in Meuron's regiment in the East
Indies, in the pay of England. To my terror
and surprise, two French gens-d'armes positively
swore that they had seen me at Marseilles in
1790, as an ensign in the regiment of Ernest;
but two Swiss soldiers of Meuron's regiment,
taken by a French privateer in the East Indies,
. . . declared
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 821
declared upon oath, notwithstanding the threats.
of the president and of the public accuser, that
I was not the lieutenant de V– who served -
in that regiment. My explication of the papers
with the pretended cyphers, was not looked upon -
as satisfactory; but after a trial of five hours I
was ordered to withdraw, and was taken back
again to my former dungeon. My request for
leave to bring witnesses from my own country to
prove my innocence, was refused, as contrary to
the laws for the expeditiour justice ºf military com-
missions and ſpecial tribunals.” *
“To a prisoner in the dungeons of the Temple,
certain death is preferable to a cruel suspense.
A man of honour and charaćter soon resigns
himself to die, if he has time calmly to consider
of the little value of life; but suspended, as it
were, between existence and death, if, flattering
himself with a delusive hope of escaping, he is
unexpe&tedly called on to perish, it requires an
unusually strong mind to evince in one's last
moments a tranquil resignation or a heroic
^- courage. The military judges of the Temple,
to prolong and embitter agony, never make a
prisoner acquainted with their decision before
he is to be released or executed. The sufferings
* - P 5 arising
322 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
arising from this uncertainty are so much the more
poignant, as it has frequently happened that
persons, three or four months after their trials,
when they had every reason to think themselves.
acquitted, have been called out to be shot as con-
demned. - -
“ In a week afterwards, I was visited by an-
other gaoler with. a milder countenance, who
asked me to follow him to another and better
room. It was time, if my tormentors wished
me to live. From want of proper nourishment,
of cleanliness, and of rest, which vermin and rats
every minute interrupted, I was so exhausted,
that I could not walk without leaning on the
arm of the gaoler; who, on entering a long but
narrow vault, said to the two gens-d’armes
escorting me, “ Citizens, you may stop here,
the prisoner is too weak to attempt any resist-
ance; I answer for him.’ ! . . . . ,
“In the midst of the vault he whispered to
me, ‘I am your countryman, and pity you; into
the grasp of what cruel tygers have you fallen
look here, on this rack expired this morning
another of our countrymen. See there a part
of his skull, mixed with his hair. There you
see five of his nails, and there lays one of his
a - - - - eyes.”
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 323
eyes.” All those horrible relics of barbarity I
saw before me. “Should you ever have the
misfortune, continued the gaoler, ‘to be con-
demned to undergo these tortures, I shall do you
the kindness of abbreviating your sufferings, by a
shock on your breast, which will soon dispatch
you when stretched out. I owe this service to
your father, who was my benefactor.” Heavenly
God I thought I, what an abominable COX lºs
fusion, even in moral duties, has the French
Revolution and its cruel rulers produced. It
would indeed have been an act of gratitude, nay,
even of humanity, in this gaoler thus to dispatch
the son of his benefactor. -
“The room I now occupied was provided with
a bed, on which was laid a dirty mattress, but it
was free from rats. My food was rather better,
and my gaoler told me, that from the orders he had
received to return me two of my shirts, he supposed
that I had some powerful persons interesting
themselves in my favour. After another fort-
night had elapsed, I got some books, and _W 3 S
permitted to join in the ordinary with forty-
five other prisoners, who, like myself, had been
tried, and under a sentence of which they were
ignorant. .
-- * p 6 . “At
t
324 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
“At my second dinner, I witnessed the fol-
lowing scene, which made me almost repent of
having got out of my dungeon. We had just
finished our soup when I observed all my com-
panions turn pale at the noise of the march of
some military on the staircase, who soon entered
the room, headed by a police agent. He called
out loudly, “Citizen Jean Francois de S–, you
are immediately to undergo the sentence of
death, to which the military commission has
condemned you. Follow us.” De S–, without
changing countenance, clasped his thunder-
struck mother, and fainting sister, to his arms,
bidding them an eternal adieu ! and to us—
Comrades, I recommend them to your kind
care. God bless you all, believe me, I am not
the most to be pitied P Away he went, and
when Mademoiselle de S– recovered herself,
and missed her brother, her cries pierced our
hearts; she refused all food and consola-
tion, and in six days expired, imploring the
- vengeance of Heaven on the assassins of her
brother. Madame de S–, more fortunate, never
spoke again ; she was carried a corpse from the
table; and after being opened, it was found that
her heart had literally burst. Such, or nearly
* . , - such
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 325
such dreadful occurrences, happened very often
at our dinner in the Temple. No person was
safe, and hardly any person was certain of his
existence for a moment. I saw, during fifteen
weeks, twenty-one prisoners carried to execution
from the table, by my side; and all went to die
with the same indifference as they had sat down
to dine; and as young De S– (who had been
a page to Louis XVI. for which he suffered death
before he was twenty) observed, the survivors
were certainly the most miserable.
“Five months had already elapsed since my
confinement in the Temple, when a countryman
of mine, with whose immorality I was well ac-
Quainted, and against whom I had been warned,
with the permisſion of Fouché, paid me a visit. He
informed me that the French Government was
now convinced of its mistake with regard to me,
and that I had therefore nothing to fear for my
life; but that it was a custom in France, never
to release a state prisoner who had talents enough
to expose the injustice he had undergone by the
too ačive vigilance of the police. That therefore,
if I did not petition to be transported to Cayenne,
I should probably still languish for years in gaol.
He would not, however, advise me to take the
format
326 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
former step, as it would be an indireét acknow-
ledgment of culpability; he knew one mode of
proceeding that would procure me immediate
release, but it was a delicate subject to mention ;
he meant pecuniary Sacrifices made with caution.
Inquiring what sum he thought would open the
gates of the Temple to me, he said one thousand
Louis d’ors (1000l.). After some discussion I
consented to pay this sum, if Mr. R—, \my
countryman and friend, approved of it. In six
days every thing was settled, and I was, under
the escort of two gens-d’armes, carried to the
frontiers of Switzerland. Thus ended my visit
to Buonaparte's and Fouché's bastille, where, I.
am tolerably certain, I must have expired, had
not Madame Buonaparte's and Madame Fouché's
avarice got the better of their husbands’ ferocity.
With the exception of fifty Louis, the thou-
'sand were divided between these two respectable
ladies. I often think that my imprisonment was
merely an excuse to extort and pillage me of my
money. -
“I have hitherto related little but what re-
garded myself, and what I have myself witnessed;
for the truth of which I can with safety take
upon me to be a guarantee. What I shall men-
- tion
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 327
tion hereafter, I heard from persons who could
have no interest in imposing upon me. I state it,
however, merely as hear-say. .
“A respectable person assured me, that every
month since the reign of Buonaparte, upon an
average, one hundred and twenty state prisoners
were taken up and imprisoned. Of these, in the
Temple, ten generally die in the month by Jud-
den death, suspected to be poisoned; twelve by-
suicides; ten by tortures on the rack; and an
equal number disappear nobody knowing exactly
what becomes of them; thirty are usually trans-
ported to the colonies, fifteen shot, and the re-
mainder detained until further orders, or till they
purchase their liberty. Of these individuals,
one-eighth are calculated to be females.
“I was told, that under the hall of the secret
police office, are dug several large wells, called
Der Öublietter; these are said to be of the depth of
several hundred fathoms. Any person con-
demned to be secretly removed, is ordered into
the hall, and placed over a trap-door, which, by
touching a spring, opens, and instantly preci-
pitates the vićtim into eternity. The prisoners
known to have suddenly disappeared, are all sup-
posed to have been swallowed up, and to have
- --- : perished
328 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
perished by this atrocious invention. A hall
called the Chamber of Hell, was also talked of,
but I was unable to colle&t any information on
this subjećt, upon which I could depend”. The
declarations, received by several individuals now
in this country, who were impeached in the
- spring of 1804, as pretended conspirators with
Pichegru and Moreau, supply this defečt{.
“ At Paris the following formality was ob-
served with a prisoner: “After being taken
from his home by the spies of the police, ac-
companied by the gens-d’armes d’Elite, he was
carried to the office of the secret police, which
is sitting night and day. If any other prisoner
was examined, or if it was intended to inspire.
terror, the arrested person generally continued
shut up, chained there, in what is called La
Chambre d'Em r, or the Chamber of Hell, for
forty-eight, and sometimes for ninety-six hours.
This room is a large hall under ground, where
no light penetrates, paved with stones, and in
the walls are large iron rings, to which the chains
of the prisoner, with which his hands and his
feet are bound, are fastened and locked with a
* See La Police de Fouché devoilée, &c. p. 27.
+ See the Revolutionary Plutarch, vol. iii, p. 8 14, et seq.
- - T°. padlock,
.*
THE FRENCH PRISONS, 329
padlock. He cannot move farther from the
ring than six feet. This dark hall is large enough
to contain one hundred and fifty prisoners at the
same time. Light is only admitted into this
abode of misery when the jailers are bringing a
new vićtim to be chained, as they then mostly
carry a lanthorn in their hands. Nothing but
sighs and lamentations are heard, and no conso-
lation can be given, is expećted, or will be re-
ceived, as, every where, the nearest person to
an innocent sufferer may be a mouton, or prison
spy, sent to obtain and betray confidence. Half
a pound of bread and two pints of water are
allowed each prisoner for every twenty-four
hours.
“When carried to his first interrogatory, he
does not leave the Chamber of Hell by the same
way that he entered it, but passes through other
large subterraneous rooms, where the stench.
Strikes one of his senses, and blood-stained rags,
instruments of torture, and coffins, another ;
for these rooms are so well lighted, that he can
see spots of blood, not only on the walls, but on
the floor. - - .."
“Arrived before the secret police magistrate,
- - - - - who
…”
830 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
who frequently is the infamous Real, or the fe-
rocious Fouché, sometimes both ; he is told that
his pretended crimes have long been known to
the government, he being watched for months
by the agents of the secret police, of course all
evasion or denial are of no other avail than to
expose himself to the rack, and certain death.
If he persist in his declaration of innocence, he
is carried back to the Chamber of Hell, and the
turnkeys shew him, en passant, the instruments
of torture, explain the manner of applying them,
the terrible sufferings they produce, and finish
by intimating that few persons have strength
enough to survive their torments.
“After being forty-eight hours more in the
Chamber of Hell, upon bread and water, he is
carried to a second interrogatory, under a Sup-
position, no doubt, that want of nourishment has
enervated the strength of his body, as well as an-
guish reduced the vigour of his mind.
“If he is not suspected of being a chief or a
principal confidante of the pretended chief con-
spirators, he is then, after having undergone the
interrogatory, sent to the Temple, or some other
prison, after signing made up examinations,
which,
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 33 i.
which, if he refuses to do, forty-eight hours
more in the Chamber of Hell teach him to be
less obstinate. -
“If he has been arrested by mistake, or no
evidence is found against him, he continues in
prison as long as it pleases the police, which
seldom opens the door of the gaols, if friends or
relations do not make pecuniary sacrifices, which
has been the case with those persons who have
had the good fortune of escaping to England.
If those arrested be related to suspected indivi-
duals, or supposed to possess great talents, or
known hatred against the Corsican family, a dose
of poison usually removes them from the prison
to the grave. Of the eight thousand three hun-
dred persons imprisoned in the spring of 1804,
not a fourth part have again made their appear-
ance in society ; and though the police agents
say that they have demanded a voluntary ba-
nishment to the colonies, the burial places at
Paris are known to be inhabited by most of
them. - ‘s
It is well known that George's servant, Picot,
before the criminal tribunal, in the presence of
the public, declared that his confession had been
extorted by tortures; and no one at Paris doubts
that
332 THE FEMALE PLUMARCH.
that the virtuous Pichegru received the reward"
of the great services he had done his degraded
country, by death upon the rack. A gens-d’armes
d’Elite, of the name of Jean Pierreaux, one of
his executioners, is now raving mad, and shut up
at Charenton, where he never ceases to exclaim—
* I have murdered Pichegru, the most honest
man in France P Before he was sent to Charen-
ton, he proclaimed this both on the Pont-neuf
and in the Palais Royal, Roland, the friend o
Pichegru, lost the use of his right leg on the
£,
f
fº
f
rack; but his discretion in not mentioning it be-
fore the tribunal saved his life, which is said to
be the case with other prisoners. -
“During all the interrogatories of George,
Pichegru, and Moreau, at the secret police office,
Buonaparte was with Murat, and his favourite
aid-du-camp Duroc, in an adjoining closet, where
he could hear what was going on ; and it was
him, in a fit of rage against Pichegru, who denied
every thing, and refused to sign the interrogato-
ries, who ordered the instantaneous and atrocious
murder of the General, who was more admired
in France for his greatness of mind, when sur-
rounded by Buonaparte's assassins, than for his
illustrious achievements, when leading on those
- vićtorious
THE FRENCH PRISONs. 333
vićtorious armies, to whom France is indebted,
not only for all her conquests, but for escaping,
perhaps, subjećtion to the confederate powers in
1794.
“Every person who has the good fortune of
being set at liberty, is, before he obtains his
release, obliged to sign a declaration, praising the
lenity, generosity, and humanity of the present
government, and of the persons employed by it ;
to which, and not to his innocence, he owes that the
doors of his prison have not been shut for ever
upon him. He is informed that this declara-
tion is in the hands of the police, a mandat d'arrêt,
which will be made use of the instant his condućt
becomes suspected.” -
Such are the faithful extraćts of several works
published in France, containing impartial ac-
counts of the Royal Bastille, of Republican Gaols,
and Imperial State Prisons. From them may be
learnt, that though under monarchy ministerial
despotism had its gaols, humanity and generosity
were blended with severity; while under a re-
publican and imperial tyranny, a refinement of -.
cruelty excludes all compassion, and makes a
grave preferable to a gaol. -
Foreigners may perhaps think that Frenchmen
alone
334 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
alone are subjećt to these horrors. Let them
then know, that the writer of this sketch has
been confined in the Temple with people of all
countries, subjećts of all states. Even some Al-
gerine merchants, who had claims for corn sold
to the French armies in Italy, were shut up there
with him, and thought themselves fortunate on
signing an acquittal, to obtain a release. Buona-
parte, Talieyrand, and Fouché, have often paid
their private creditors as well as those of the
state, in the same coin. -
Envy, malice, hatred, revenge, and oppression,
constantly accompany the unbounded avarice and
unlimited power of the revolutionary rulers.
Buonaparte and his accomplices stab with one
hand, and with the other seize plunder. They
imprison to pillage, and murder to extenuate
imprisonment or to conceal booty. Wealth
... oftener than loyalty, is the sole crime of the
arrested, condemned, transported, murdered or
executed”. , - - -
-* See a recent publication of the State of France, publish-
ed by Mr. Phillips, which mentions, p. 74, that Picot, George's
servant, said to the Judges, on reproaching him with his con-
tradićtory declaration, “Will you know the reason?” and pull-
ing up the sleeve of his coat, “ look at my arms and feet, and
- - - see
THE FRENCH PRISONS. 235
see how they treated me at the police, to extort a confession P.
Another prisoner also declared that he had been tortured,
How many other witnessess of Buonaparte's barbarous tyran-
my have not been removed, by expiring under the tortures, Or
by the hands of official assassins.
336
THE FRENCH REPUBLICAN
- - AND - - - *
REVOLUTIONARY FLATTERERs.
—- sºrºr-
AN able author has affirmed, “ that de-
based freemen were the worst of slaves.” May
it not as justly be said, “that the worst of free-
men are debased slaves * -
What has been witnessed in revolutionary
France within these last sixteen years, or since
1789, seems to confirm, that certain people are
by nature, more than by habit, intended to wear
fetters; to cringe, to fawn, and to flatter; to
dishonour the dignity of man; and to disgrace .*
humanity as well as liberty. Even in their first
moments of enthusiasm, the French did not
evince, with the energy of revolted and released
bondsmen, that liberality, that generosity and
justice, without which enfranchised men are un-
worthy of being freemen, and soon return to
- . slavery.
REVOLUTIONARY FLATTERERs. 337
slavery. They murdered, in cool blood, weak
and unarmed old men and women, and bowed
to the dićtates of a Duke of Orleans, and a Mi-
rabeau, with whose immorality and vices they
were well acquainted. The colours of French
liberty were dyed in the blood of innocence the
first day they were erected ; and the friends of
French liberty were only assassins when they had
the audacity to call themselves patriots.
In the same week that they butchered a Du
Launais, a De Flesselles, a Berthier, and some
old maimed invalids, they danced attendance
round a Necker, a De La Fayette, a Mirabeau,
and other vile and guilty revolutionary jugglers.
Necker they applauded as a modern Colbert; De
La Fayette was hailed as the hero of the two
worlds; and Mirabeau they saluted as a French
Demosthenes. For every popular rebel they had
an epithet, or some complimentary name of great
men, at all times ready. Bailly was a French
Livius; Abbé Sieyes, the Moses of liberty; the
Bishop Talleyrand, the Mahomet of the rights
of man; and the two brothers La Meth, the
apostles of the revolutionary gospel. Even their
unfortunate King they insulted with the imper- *
tinent appellation of a restorer of the liberty of
the French. . . -
vol. III, 2 In
aas THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
...’rr.
In proportion as they advanced in anarchy and
licentiousness, they became despicable and con-
temptible by their disgusting flattery. The stu-
pid traitor, Petion, was the virtuous Petion. Vive
Petion! No Petion! No nation was heard every
where in July 1792. Brissot was the modest
French Aristides, and the incorruptible Robes-
pierre a Cato of the eighteenth century. IDu-
mourier was an Achilles, Bournouville an Ajax,
Marat a Brutus, Collot d’Herbois a Publicola,
Roland a Socrates, Manuel a Phocion, Condor-
cet a Lycurgus, Hebert and Chaumette the bro-
thers Gracchus, and Danton the French Jo-
shua, carrying his countrymen safe through the
deserts and gulfs of equality to the promised land
- of liberty and equality”. - * .
The heavier their yoke of bondage, the more
tormented by crime, misery, and famine; the
more abjećt the French subječts, now transform-
ed into republican citizens, discovered them-
see the Preface of Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 30. This
base fury of ‘the French to flattery, went so far as to change, -
the names of streets, squares, villages, and towns. At Mar-
seilles is a street, called, since the Revolution, rue de Necker,
Mirabeau, La Fayette, Petion, Marat, Robespierre, and
Talien. When this last regicide lost his popularity, it was
called rue Sans Nomme; it is now rue Napoleone. Les Nou-
welles a la Main, Messidor, year xii. No. 1, p. 8.
selves.
REVOLUTIONARY FLATTERERS. 33g
selves. The more they were oppressed, plun-
dered, and murdered, the greater was their
meanness and depravity. At the death of Marat,
when no honest man was safe, no criminal pu-
nished; when property belonged to nobody, and
dread perplexed every body; when blasphemy
and profligacy walked barefaced, and hand in
hand, and honour and honesty, probity and in-
dustry, were immured in dungeons, or expired
on the scaffold—the French republicans paid the
following homage to the shade of this atrocious
charašter. - •
“The day after Marat’s death, the whole city
of Paris was in extreme agitation. Before the
Convention had commenced its sittings, the door
of the hall was besieged by petitioners, who
came from the sections to deplore the friend of
the people, and invoke vengeance on his assassins.
One of the petitioners expressed himself in these
words: “Representatives, the passage from liſe
to death is but a moment. Marat is no more
O crime ! the hand of a parricide has snatched
from us the most intrepid defender of the people.
Marat is no more | He constantly sacrificed
himself to public liberty, and that was his of.
fence. Our eyes still seek him in the midst
- Q2 of
340 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
of you, O dismal sight ! he is on the bed of
death. Where art thou, David 2 Thou didst
preserve for posterity the image of Lepelletier
dying for his country; thou hast now another
subjećt to employ thy pencil. And you, legis-
lators, decree a law founded on the circumstance;
the most horrible torments are insufficient to
avenge the nation for so enormous a crime. An-
nihilate for ever both villany and crimes ; in-
strućt hireling assassins in the value of life; and,
instead of cutting them off in a moment, let the
dread of torture disarm those parricides who
threaten the lives of the people's representatives.’
No decree followed this sånguinary petition.
The attention of the legislature was immediately
engaged by Chabot, who related the circum-
stances of Marat's death, and moved for a decree
of accusation against Duperret and Fauchet, as
accomplices with Charlotte Cordey, which being
supported by the arguments of Couthon, was
granted”. - ". . -
“The death of Marat was hardly announced,
when his partizans studied how to make his fu-
neral as grand and interesting as possible. His
house not being large enough to gratify the im-
- * Debate, Crimes de Marat, p. 48. . .
- - IIYCIl Sº
REVOLUTIONARY FLATTERERS. 341
mense concourse of people whom curiosity had
attracted, it was resolved to embalm his body,
and deposit it in the church of the Cordeliers.
The whole building was adorned with national
colours. In the middle of the nave was an ele-
vated state-bed, surrounded with cyprus, and
bearing this inscription: ‘Marat, the friend of
the people, assassinated by the enemies of the people.
Foes to the country, moderate your joy ; he will find
avengers.’ The crowd who attended to contem-
plate his features, were however disappointed ;
he was entirely disfigured, and his corpse was ab-
solutely disgusting. --
“His funeral ceremony, which was performed
by torch-light, was grand and solemn. Mourn-
ful music was heard at intervals, forming an ac-
companiment to songs of woe, written for the
occasion. All else was silence, save the speeches
made at stated intervals by orators, who came to
pay the last tribute of respect to the friend of the
people, and the occasional murmurs of the mob,
expressing regret at the loss of their friend. The
Convention and the Constituted Authorities at-
tended in costume, and the body was escorted by
a large detachment of the National Guard. Nu-
IſlerQUIS, groups of women, young girls, and chil-
- - 23 dren,
342 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
dren, were placed at proper distances, to feign
excessive grief; and nothing was omitted, that
could convey the appearance of woe and re-
gret. -
“ The body was deposited in the church-yard
of the Cordeliers. The evening of the ceremony,
a deputation of the club of Cordeliers attended
at the Municipality, to request leave to present a
petition to the Convention, in order to obtain
for Marat the honours of the Pantheon; but
Chaumette, though himself a Cordelier, opposed
this proposition. He exclaimed, ‘Let ci-devant
nobles repose in those superb temples; leave to
them their sumptuous pantheons. To sans-
culottes the temple of Nature belongs. I move,
that a stone, a rough stone, be placed on the
tomb of Marat, with this single inscription: .
Here rest; the friend of his country, aſſaſſinated
by the enemies of his country.’ This plan was
adopted, and the funeral ceremony concluded
with a grand and affecting piece of music in ho-
nour of the deceased. .. -
“On the 28th of J uly, 1793, the Cordeliers
thought proper to honour the heart of Marat
with a separate ceremony. They sought in the
Garde Meuble de la Couronne for the most precious
. and
REvoluTIONARY FLATTERERS. 343
and exquisitely ornamented urn, in which they
deposited the heart of Marat. The day preced-
ing this ceremony, Real (at present Buonaparte's
privy counsellor), a member of the club, read an
oration which he had prepared. It had for a
motto, O Corjesus! O Cor Marat' and began
thus: ‘Heart of Jesus' heart of Marat ye are
equally entitled to our homage.’ The blasphe-
mous orator proceeded to compare the life of our
blessed Saviour with that of the friend of the
people, Marat's apostles were the Jacobins and
Cordeliers; the publicans, the shop-keepers;
and the Pharisees, the aristocrats. ‘ Jesus was a
prophet,” said the orator; “Marat is a deity.’
Continuing his eulogy, he compared Marat's
concubine to the Virgin Mary; the one conceal-
ed the infant Jesus in Egypt; the other saved the
friend of the people from the sword of La Fay-
ette—This discourse was received with consi-
derable applause. But another member, Dubois.
(at present Buonaparte's prefect of police), found
cause for censure. ‘We must hear no more of
this Jesus, he said; “it is all nonsense. Repub-
licans own no God but philosophy and liberty.”
The speech was not declaimed, but the ceremony
took place. The urn, containing the heart, was
x. hung up with great pomp in the dome of the hall
2 - Q4 . of
.*
344 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
of the Cordeliers. Robespierre, and the princi-
pal members of the Mountain, attended ; the
whole audience were decorated with red caps,
and every ačt denoted extravagance and enthu-
siasm. Forty-eight feasts were given in honour
of him. On the 25th November it was decreed
that the bust of Mirabeau should be moved from
the Pantheon, to make room for Marat’s ; and
images of him were distributed all over France.
One of the se&tions of Paris assumed his name;
which was also given to Havre de Grace; to Port
Dauphin, in Madagascar; and to the Isle of Bouen.
His name was also applied to one of the com-
panies of the revolutionary army, to a ship of
the line, and assumed by many individuals in
revolutionary committees in various parts of the
-
sountry. David (a member of Buonaparte's Le-
gion of Honour, and now employed in painting
the coronation of this worthy successor of Ma-
rat) painted a pićture on the subjećt of his death,
and, in pronouncing his eulogium, mentioned
his acquaintance with Marat, as a conſolation for
having come into the world too late to be perso-
ºnally known to Cato, Aristides, Socrates, and
many other illustrious ancients”.
* See the entertaining and well written Biographical Me-
moirs, by Adolphus, vol. ii. p. 55, et seq, from which the
above particulars are taken.
- Robes-
~} --
REVOLUTIONARY FLATTERERS. 345
Robespierre placed the bust of Marat on
the altar of the Supreme Being, and the National
Convention afterwards decreed his canonization
in the Pantheon. At the beginning of the plays
at all the theatres it was also the custom to intro-
duce a bust of him, to receive the applauses of the
patriotic spectators. Even so late as 1796, were ob-
served in corners of streets, under the niches
that formerly contained the busts of Saints, these
words: “Sanée Marat ora pro mobiº.”
Atheism in its turn was proclaimed, flattered,
and idolized by the same great nation. A pro-
stitute, who had become the wife of a revolu-
tionary printer, Momoro, was adored as a God-
dess of Reason. She was worshipped by the re-
presentatives of the people, as well as by the
people at large. She was seated on altars highly
decorated, and perfumes were burned before her.
Processions of thousands accompanied, addressed
their prayers to her, and celebrated her deifica-
!
tion. She was treated and feasted in fraternal -
and sisterly banquets. While citizens of the
male sex prostrated themselves before her, fe-
male citizens petitioned to be accepted as her
/
* In 1796 the author observed this inscription remaining
in several places from which Marat's bust had been removed.
. . Q 5 priestesses.
346 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
priestesses. One of these petitions is too curious,
not to find a place in this sketch.
* Paris, November 12th, 1798, the second year of the French,
. Republic, one and indivisible.
“AMIABLE GoDDEss, - -
“My father was broken on the wheel, my
mother died under the gallows; I was myself de-,
bauched by a brother sans-culotte before I saw
my second lustre, and before twelve I was the
mother of a child of many fathers. I am now.
fifteen, and possess, with the birth of a true sans-
culotte, the sentiments of the purest sans-culot-
tism. I knew of no God, nor heard of any god-
dess before the 10th instant. You were the first
of all human and divine beings I ever adored.
I am a firm lover of liberty and equality, and
therefore will never stoop to serve an equal 3.
but you, whose universal virtues merit the altars.
you occupy, whose beauty eclipses a Venus, and
whose talents would make a Minerva blush 3.
who unite with the most brilliant qualities of a
human being, the supernatural powers of a hea-
-- venly goddess, accept me for one of your priest-
esses. My life shall be employed to invoke you.
i. shall make up in zeal what I am defective in ca-
pacity.
REVOLUTIONARY FLATTERERS. 34.7-
pacity. I shall then be an example of edifica-
tion, as I already am a model of staunch sans-
culottism. . -
“ Health, respect, and adoration, -
(Signed) “ MARGARITE BonRARD".”
Cloître Notre Dame. Mo. 34.
To pass over in silence all the other blasphe-
mies, immoralities, or absurdities, heaped upon .
a Danton, a Hebert, a Chaumette, a Pache, a.
Camille Desmoulin, and their numerous accom-
plices, another revolutionary idol, equally fa-
mous, presents himself, and claims an infamous
notoriety. Robespierre outdid all his predeces-
SQi'S in premeditated cruelty, and the French re-
publicans, in their offerings to him, outdid all
their former vileness of adulation. . . . -
Buonaparte's present member of his Legion of
Honour, De la Lande, finding nothing upon
earth worthy to eternize Maximilian Robespierre,
ransacks the heavens, where a new planet pre-
• * See the Preface of Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 32. In
the Revolutionary Plutarch, vol. iii. is a curious, letter.
of Buonaparte's brother-in-law, and Knight of the Prussian -
Eagle, Murat, who desired to change his name Murat for that
of Marat, - . . . - -
Q 6. º Sents,
848 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
sents itself, and humbly claims, by the divine
name of Maximilian, zo ſhare his immortality.
David, another member of Buonaparte's Legion
of Honour, deifies even a Supreme Being, by be-
stowing on him the face of Robespierre. One
hundred and sixty-six streets, ten villages, and
six towns, emulate in patriotism to be per-
mitted to assume his great name. Within ten
months four thousand and forty-four children
were baptized Robespierre, and sixteen churches
changed their former names to that of St. Maxi-
milian *. - ,”
The members of the Committee of Public
Safety, many of whom are now Buonaparte's se-
nators, privy counsellors, &c. in their reports
to the Convention, loaded him with the most
exaggerated praises, and the journalists extolled
him above all heroes of antiquity. Wherever
he went, he was surrounded by a crowd of offi-
cious, flatterers, who attended to . every one of
his motions, and seemed to place their whole
happiness in his smile. He received numerous
addresses from the departments, in which all the
modes and expressions of adulation were exhaust-
* See the Preface of Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 36.
ed.
REVOLUTIONARY FLATTERERS. 349
ed. He was styled the gloriouſ incorruptible
Robespierre, who protećts the republic by his
virtues and talents, as with a shield; who joins
to the self-denial of a Spartan or Roman of early
date the eloquence of an Athenian. Even the
tenderneſs and humanity of his disposition were
praised One man congratulated himself on a
personal resemblance to him ; and another, at
the distance of six hundred miles, declared he
was hastening to Paris to feast his eyes with a
sight of him. He was compared, not by an in-
dividual, but by a body of people, to the Messiah,
announced by the Supreme Being as the reformer
of all things; and afterwards he was said to ma-
nifest himself, like the Almighty, by miracles.
On one occasion a Te Deum was performed for
him, the burthen of which was, Vive Rolepierre,
Vive la Republique *! -
After the execution of this monster, of his
successors, Tallien was baptized a Coriolanus—a
Curtius; Barras a Scipio; Rewbel a Solon;
La Reveilliere Lepeaux a Fabius; and Carnot a
-- Vauban—a Marlborough. Pichegru also in his
turn was complimented as a Gustavus Adolphus;
a Tench's Correspondence, p. 194. Courtois's Report of
the 16th Nivose, an iii. (January 5, 1795).
- Jourdan
350 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
& Jourdan as a Turenne, and Moreau as a Xeno-
phon—a Bellisle. But it is particularly with N a-
poleone Buonaparte that enthusiasm of servility,
and servile adulation has been carried to its ex-
tremest height. Surpassing, with his hypocrisy
and duplicity added to his ferocity, even Robes-
pierrein enormities, his slaves also surpassthose of
that regicide tyrant in meanness and profanation.
He has proclaimed himself as the father and pro-
tector of the western family; and the execrable
Ex-Bishop Talleyrand has saluted him a provi-
dence of Europe. Degraded Senators, cardinals,
bishops, legislators, prefe&ts, and the whole pack
of revolutionary reptiles, have ran a race of infamy -
round the blood-stained throne of the sanguin-
ary usurper. Their disgusting addresses, their
dastardly speeches have often soiled even the
pages of a Moniteur, and are too numerous, too.
voluminous even to admit of extračts. The fol-
lowing letter, however, though short, is a chef
d'oeuvre of French republican baseness and flat-
tery. - - - - .
- “ sire! -
“You are only my Sovereign, but I adore your
Majesty as my God, I am only your Majesty's sub-
jećt,
REVOLUTIONARY FLATTERERS. 351
jećt, but I worship—I admire—I extol your
Majesty as my Creator, as the creator of univer-
sal happineſs, of universal liberty; as the faithful
representative upon earth of that Supreme Being -
ruling the heavens. Sire these expressions are
disinterested, dićtated by the innermost feelings
of my heart. I have from your Majesty's boun-
ty more than I desire—more than I deserve.
I shall live and die contented, if I continue to be
worthy of my Gracious Sovereign's good will.
To my last breath, I have the honour to remain,
.....… **
- “ SIRE, #.
“Your Majesty's most submissive, most
- t faithful and most humble subjećt,
. (Signed) “ GARY, Tribune.
* Paris, the 20th Prairial, year xii. -
june 10, 1804.” a
If the virtues of Napoleone cloud the glory of
a Marat and Robespierre, the adulators of Ma-
dame Napoleone rival the adorers even of the
Goddess of Reason. One writes thus: -
“ MADAME, - - .
“In the composition of your Majesty's house.
• See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Thermidor, year xii, No. 1. .
p. 6. The tribune, Gary, was the same month made a prefect:
of the department of Tata. , * . -- of -
- hold,
852 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
hold, condescend to remember a person who,
from her infancy, applauded your Majesty as the
model of your sex ; who, morning and night, has
prayed to Providence to bestow on her some of
your Majesty's many superfluous divine virtues.
They are more than sufficient to ensure her re-
spect and admiration here, and a paradise here-
after. s --
“ MADAME,
“Your Majesty's most humble, most at-
tached, , most faithful subječt and
*. servant,
/ . (Signed) “OcTAve SEGUR*.
“Paris, the 24th Prairial, year wii.
june 14th, 1805.”
--- • Les Nouvelles a la Main, Thermidor, year xii. No 2, p. 4.
Madame Oétave Segur is at present one of Madame Buona-
parte's maids of honour. Their revolutionary Majesties re-
ward flattery as liberally as they severely punish truth.
inabalue
AIADAME TALLEYRAND, .
THOUGH humbled or reduced by the Re-
volution, no lady in France, of any pure or spot-
less reputation, has hitherto degraded her native
worth, to unite herself either with the atheist
who denied his God, or with the traitor who
deserted his King ; with the rebel who made
philosophy a cloak for pillage; or with the regi-
cide who, under the mask of patriotism, stab-
bed his King as well as his fellow-subjećts. The
wife of Napoleone Buonaparte was a known
- adultress when married to the late Viscount de
Beauharnois, whose corpse was hardly cold, be-
fore she exchanged adultery for prostitution, in
becoming mistress of the married regicide Bar-
ras, who, with the command of the Army of
Italy, delivered her over to the Corsican adven-
turer as a worthy spouse. All Buonaparte's sis-
ters were courtezans or harlots, until the fortune
that made him a vićtorious general, made them
- honeſ:
->
934 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
hoſtest women, if vice allied to crime can be
called honeſty.
Who were a Madame Roederer, a Madame
Fouché, a Madame Chaptal, a Madame Genlis,
Madame Necker, a Madame Tallieſ #2, Cl2F]
a Mad Necker, a Mad Tallien, a Madame
de Stael; a Madame Roland, and most other
Frenchwomen, whose husbands, or who them-
selves, have figured in the French rebellion,
but matrimonial, and, what was worge, revolu-
tionary intriguers; and often both, the one and
the other? With Frenchwomen profigacy has
always accompanied disaffe&tion ; and the politi-
cal female has frequently been the abandoned
wife, the polluted sister, or the perverse daugh-
Madame Grand, the present Madame Talley-
Madame Grand, the present Madame , *
rand, was born in a Danish settlement in the
Fast Indies in 1764, and is one of the most
beautiful, but most debauched, women of her age.
With manners naturally easy, with passions natu-
With manners naturally easy, with passions natu
rally warm, and with principles light, unsettled,
- (v. - 4. > 2,4-3-3 - ~ - ? -- ~~~~ * ~
and unfixed, she unites something pleasing, some
**
thing seemingly unaffected, unstudied, simple,
innocent, and unpremeditated ingenuousness. She
has a tear or a blush always at her command, -
though her temper is even, and her nerves not
- – irritable.
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 355
irritable. She embraces her husband with the
same seeming candour the instant after she has
intrigued with her lover, or left the arms of her
gallant, as if she had during the whole time
been dutifully studying how to promote his hap-
pines, or how to perform ačtions the most meri-
torious and the most honourable *.
That Madame Talleyrand has no pretensions
to genius, every body who has frequented her
society knows, and she avows acutely, and with
naiveté herself, that she is a belle-bête, But a long
habit, perhaps from her infancy, has naturalized
to her an art to impose, a cunning to deceive,
an hypocrisy to delude, or an adrcitness to dupe,
that surpasses or supplants the ability and ex-
perience of the most crafty, of the most witty, of
the most voluptuous female intriguer; of the
vainest, most libertine female coquette F. -"
By her figure, as well as by her constitution
and temperament, she seems formed for love,
and for nothing else. She understands to great
perfection how to do the honours of her table;
but when inclined, and it is seldom she is not,
she is said to surpass every body else in doing
* See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Frimaire, an xi. No. 1. p. 3.
ºf Idem, Germinal, an xi. No. 3. p. 2,
- - the
356 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
the honours of her boudoirs. She has shewn
great taste in decorating and furnishing her
apartments; but undressed and unornamented
herself, she is stated to be a Venus de Medicis,
with a form as perfeót as her mind is vacant or
empty. Talleyrand is said to have declared with
his usual modest sincerity, “that having wit
and talents for two, he had married a woman,
who, almost destitute of common sense, had more
natural concealed and corporeal perfeótion, than
two dozen of other women, collečted, exposed,
or picked up together. That he did not take or
select a wife to be either a friend, a companion,
a counsellor, or a tyrant, but merely to fulfil that
office for which Nature had formed them—that
of being good bed-fellows; and thus far he had
obtained the matrimonial prize.” He added,
with resignation and philosophy, “ that he cared
little about whethe, she cuckolded him behind
his back, or was faithless in his absence, provided
in his presence she was complaisant, obedient,
insinuating, pleasing, good humoured, and ca-
ressing *.” -
* See Les Nowelles a la Main, Messidor, an xi. No. 1. p. 5,
asid 6. - ** - - - …
It.
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 857
It is pretended by some that Madame Talley-
rand’s first marriage was the consequence of in-
terest, and not formed by inclination ; while
others assert, that her and Mr. Grand's affection
was reciprocal, and long preceded an union,
which indiscretion, imprudence, and infidelity
on her part, forced her indignant husband to
dissolve *. - - -
Madame Grand had long been famous in the
annals of gallantry in Asia, before her name ap-
peared in the scandalous chronicle of Europe.
Mr. F-, then a member of the Supreme Council
at Bengal, was convićted and fined by the tribu-
mal of Calcutta, fifty thousand rupees, for crimi.
nal conversation with this lady, having intro-
duced himself, with the aid of a ladder, into her
bed-room, where Mr. Grand surprised him, ... x
while a friend of his was kindly watching in the
garden. After judgment had been pronounced
against Mr. F—, the good nature of Sir E. I–,
one of the judges, increased the worth of Ma-
dame Grand's virtue sixteen per cent. by order-
ing the damages to be paid in Sicca rupees. This
judge and Mr. F-, are said to have been invited
* See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Brumaire, an x, No. 4. p. 4.
858 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
s
by Talleyrand, during the last peace, to a dinner,
where Madame Talleyrand did the honours of
the table, and her ci-devant husband, Mr. Grand,
was one of the guests. It is difficult to carry
connubial toleration and revolutionary polite-
ness farther 1
But, notwithstanding the cause of her separa-
tion from Mr. Grand, the train of life she led at
Paris before her emigration, evinced that had
she been ever so culpable, her late husband
had not been ungenerous. Her retinue was
numerous and splendid, her hotel furnished in
the most fashionable style, and her expences in-
dicated wealth if not extravagance. But the
, society she frequented, and the depraved gallants
by whom she was surrounded, occasioned even
the most indulgent to lament that corruption and
vice should stain so much beauty, debase so many
charms, and cloud so much elegance. * -
Before her arrival in England in the summer
of 1792, Talleyrand had been in her company at
Paris, but if among her admirers there, he was
never supposed to be among the successful ones;
and in courting her in London, he was at first
* 3ee Les Nouvelles a la Main, Nivose, an xi. No. 1. p. 2.
more
~ f
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 359
more in love with her fortune than with her
person, or rather by enjoying the one, he hoped
to be enabled to dispose of the other. Could
he only gratify his passion for riches and lust, for
gluttony and debauchery, it was the same to him
whether saluted as the prime minister of an usur-
per, or despised as the male bawd of a brothel; his
morals and his principles did not oppose either,
- 3. * - - ...
and all impartial and loyal men must acknowledge,
that the present political pander is not more esti-
2-
mable than a defamed pimp would have been
respectable". -
Concerning Madame Talleyrand’s arrival in
this country, the author has been favoured by
Lieutenant Nath. Belchier, of the Royal Navy,
with the following interesting circumstances, in-
serted here in the very words of this gallant and
\,
loyal officer +: - -
“In August 1792, after the massacre of the
tenth, Madame Grand (the present Madame
Talleyrand), made her escape from France, after
seeing her porter, a Swiss, murdered under her
windows. In her flight she left every thing at
* See Les Nouvelles a la Main, Nivose, an xi. No. 1. p. 3. º
#See the Memoirs of C. M. Talleyrand, vol. i. p. 350, et seq.
the
360 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
the mercy of the republicans, and landed at
Dover, with her maid, a few changes of linen, and
not more than a dozen Louis d'ors in her pocket.
it was in this place I became acquainted with
the lady and her misfortunes, and that the na-
tional seal had been fixed on her property, and
placed at the disposal of the nation. - -
“Madame Grand had been married to a Mr.
Grand, an Englishman, in the East Indies, but
from some serious disagreement, had parted with-
out a divorce. It was, therefore, thought pos- -
sible, that her claims as a British subječt might
be attended to, and the seals taken off. On this
errand a Mr. O'Dwyer and myself set off for
Paris, invested with full powers by Madame
Grand, at a time when strangers of every nation
were leaving it as fast as possible. Luckily for
the objećt of our mission, the name of an Eng-
-lishman was then a passport of protećtion through
France, and my then situation in the English
navy, though but that of a midshipman, I believe,
was of service. However, after some trouble,
the seals were removed from her house, rue de
Mirabeau, seštion de Mirabeau, from her cabinet,
escrutoir, &c. &c. and we were desired to inform
her, that she might return without being called
: ; ... " - - - to
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 36i
to account for her flight. This was not enough ;
it was not the intention of Madame Grand to
return, but to get as many of her effects to Eng-
land as possible, and to remain there until affairs
might take a turn in her favour; we therefore re-
solved, at any risk, and in the face of a decree, de-
nouncing underpenalty of death, any person found
transporting the current coin, or plate, out of the
Republic, above the value of one hundred livres
(4!.), to rescue the whole of her portable pro-
perty. On the 19th of September, about sever,
o'clock, we left Paris, with her plate, mostly
gold, valued at eighty thousand livres (3300/.)
*
$
jewels at three hundred thousand livres (12,500/.); .
besides two thousand one hundred flouis d’ors
(21001.) secured in belts about our persons; and
aćtions, or demands, on the Caisse d’Escompte for
two hundred thousand livres (8000/.) more, which
3 should suppose were of but little use. After
much trouble, and constant danger of being
discovered, we arrived on the 25th with the
whole at Dover; and delivered to Madame
Grand the wreck of her fortune, refusing every
&
pecuniary recompense whatever, she defraying
our expences only, which amounted to about
sixty pounds. I can lay my hand on my heart,
vol. III. R - and
302 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and say, that the part of this business I under-
took, was from no other motive than that of
rescuing a beautiful suffering royalist from dis-
tress ; and though, at that time, not possessed of
ten pounds in the world, I rejećted every offer
of reward, thinking that I had a sufficient one
in the contemplation of what I had done. I was
then about twenty-one years of age. -
“Madame Grand honoured us with two other
commissions equally dangerous. The first was to
call on Madame Champion, then living concealed
in Boulogne, at a hair-dresser's, rue de Capucin, to
inquire if she had any commands for Paris. This
lady gave us letters for her husband, the ex-mini-
ster, then outlawed by the Convention, with a
**, 32-2 rºo ovº ſí"?. -, -, ...? * c → ~ *zc, “ --~~~~
Madame Champion. Though utter Strangers, I
§ . 6-? 3
~ &
an proud to say, he seemed conscious we would
*... ;- ... • - º, * * ***, *g, * * xx
not befray him—it was enoug
w -
F. ; : A441 2 . T}. <s go gº ſº)†, d r}~ ; .* ºr o a ri i &i-A **
Engliſpºſer!. J. He Sečon (i, which we nati ikewise
the good fortune to accomplish, was to assist the
& * - -
escape of Madame Grand’s friend, Madame
villmain, from Abbeville. We disguised her in
sailor’s clothes, and condućted her safe to Eng-
land; but, I am sorry to say, this lady soon after
returned
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 86s
/
returned to France, in hopes of sending thence
assistance to her friends at Coblentz, but she was
dete&ted and guillotined.” . . ; -
In the summer of 1798, the author was released
from prison in France, where he had gone to
claim his property, which had been sequestered
since the war. He was then often invited by
Madame Grand to her villa near Montmorency,
twelve miles from Paris. Here he regularly met
Talleyrand, and most of the foreign ambassadors
to the late court of Luxembourg; and as a curi-
ous coincidence, intending to go to England, was
asked by this lady, who had procured him a pass
from a neutral minister, to bring over with him,
on his return to France, those very jewels and
other valuables that Lieutenant Belchier had,
with so much risk and disinterestedness, saved
in 1792, but which were then deposited in the
Bank of England. His voyage was prevented by
a new imprisonment, and, of course, he could
not oblige Madame Grand, who then frequently
declared, “that the debauchée Talleyrand was
the last person upon earth she should like for a
husband.” 2.
After passing four years in England, Madame ... --
Grand returned to Paris under a fictitious name
- R 2 inserted
364 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
inserted in a neutral pass, the present of a friend,
a neutral ambassador to the court of St. James's;
and she continued to reside incognito with Talley-
rand until the spring of 1797. He then pre-
sented a petition to the Direétory, in the name
of Madame Grand, in which she proved herself
to have been born a Danish subjećt, though
married to an Englishman, whom she detested be-
sauſe he had made her unhappy *. This petition
was referred to Citizen Cochon, the then mini-
ster of police, whose approbation it obtained.
She could, therefore, without danger, shew her-
self at Paris and in the French Republic, but
from prudence she remained under the protećtion
of the Danish minister, Chevalier Dreyer, as
long as sle or Talleyrand were undecided about
transforming illicit adultery into legal prostitu-
tion. According to the laws of Great Britain, to
which she has not ceased to be amenable, she is
still the wife of Mr. Grand, from whom she
never has been divorced. . e
In the summer of the same year, when Talley-
rand, by his intrigues, had succeeded in pene-
trating into the revolutionary ministry, Madame
* Notice sur la Vie Publique de Citoyen Talleyrand, &c.
p. 43. . . * -
- Gr and
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 365
Grand was officially hailed as his favourite Sul-
tana, and her house at Montmorency became
the rendezvous of all those foreign diploma-
tic agents, or directorial courtiers, whom he
judged necessary to his designs, whose services
he expected, whose influence he knew, and whose
assistance he courted. --- - -
It is indeed difficult to say what could induce
Madame Grand to prostitute herself and her
reputation with a man of whose depravity she
had been informed, and with whose libertinism.
she was not unacquainted; who never made a
mistress happy, but who often had declared his
greatest satisfaction was to witness the misery of
those females he had ruined ". Some pretended
that it originated in a feeble mind, that knew
and detested him, but wanted courage to express
itself, and therefore accepted a faithless man as a
friend, and a disagreeable one as a lover. Others,
and those her apologists, in not denying her
own want of energy and her dislike of Talley-
rand, insinuate that gratitude for having by his
means recovered her sequestered property,
silenced all other feelings, and even changed
* Les Intrigues de C. M. Talleyrand, p. 67.
R 3 disgust
866 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
j
*
disgust into affection, and contempt into confi-
dence *. But her indiscreet friends do not See;
that in degrading her understanding they libel
her heart. She had always during her emigra-
tion, property enough even to live in affluence,
both from what Lieutenant Belchier, with such
Honourable disinterestedness, and at so much
risk, had saved for her, and from an unlimited
credit sent her by Mr. Grand from Switzerland;
who, hearing of her flight to England, and not
knowing her circumstances, forgot that he had
been injured by her, only remembering that she
bore his name, and had once been worthy of his
love as well as of his esteem, and that if she had
since been culpable, she then perhaps was un-
fortunate +.
This was a condućt which might naturally be
expe&ted from a Briton, because it is honourable
to the man. In what a different manner has
the delicate French citizen Talleyrand ačted
He has always openly, though not much to the
credit either of a mistress or of a wife, declared,
that she was just the woman he wanted, and that
of the whole female army he had known and
* Les N ouvelles a la Main, Floreal, an x. No. 4, p. 4, and 5.
ºf Les Intrigues de C. M. Talleyrand, p. 71,
COII]."
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 367
commanded, the person who best suited his pur-
poses: not having ſense enough to delude him.
by interfering in any political intrigues, but habit
enough to do sufficiently the honours of her
house. She was an inoffensive but pleasing
companion at table, but Venus herself in bed,
which was all that he looked for *.
Whether he much trusted in her fidelity, may
be concluded from the following anecdote. His
valet-de-charnbre, who was also his pirºp, intro-
# - F’
duced to his acquaintance, during his stay in
W.
Germany, a young daughter of a protestant.
clergyman, whom he soon debauched and car-
ried away with him in the disguise, first of a
jockey, and afterwards, as she grew taller, in that
of a private secretary. When Madame Grand
came back to Paris he made this girl assume the
dress of her sex, and recommended her to his
mistress as a chambermaid, or rather as a go-
verness, because she has been obliged to submit
to the rudeness as well as to the aukwardness of
^
ſ
this Abigail, who watched her words, reported
her ačtions, inspected her correspondence, and
embroiled her with her lover, or pacified him,
* {,es Intrigues de C. M. Talleyrand, p. 72.
R 4 - just
35s THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
just as humour, anger, malice, or caprice dic-
tated. This woman Talleyrand now calls the
prefečt of the female department in his house,
and Madame Talleyrand is to this time more
afraid of provoking her than offending her hus-
\
bałid #.
Though Madame Talleyrand cannot boast of
brilliancy of genius, she certainly does not want
that social capacity, that good sense, and those
ſight accomplishments, which good breeding and
good company always conſer. She commits more
blunders than errors. She often excites a laugh, a
but never contempt ; but what is most curious,
Talleyrand is the first to entertain his guests at .
the expence of his wife. As a proof of her in-
genuousness he often relates, that when in the
autumn of 1797, the Direétory negotiated a loan,
and Buonaparte gave England as security for its
acquitial, Madame Grand wrote to him, express-
ing her uneasiness on account of her jewels, plate,
&c. deposited in the Bank of England, and
begged him to inform Buonaparte of it. In re-
turn she was answered by him, “ that having
always her interest at heart more than his own,
* Les Nouvelles a la Main, Thermidor, an xi. No. 2. p. 4, 5.
he
º
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 369
he had obtained from the Direétory a special
decree, which exempted her property in England
from being included in Buonaparte's patriotic
pledge, and that it therefore was safe.” By his -
advice she was ingenuous enough to communi-
cate her demand and his answer to several per-
sons, to the great amusement of the then fashion-
able circles, and revolutionary wits”. :
Before his marriage, Talleyrand never neglećt-
ed, on the ninth day of every decade, to visit -
Madame Grand, at Montmorency, where he re-
mained until the first of the next decade. As
he was never fond of solitude, persons agreeable
or entertaining, those he could dupe, or those
he expected to amuse him, were informed a week
before by the hostess, that their presence would
be acceptable. The choicest dishes were served,
the finest wines were drank, and amusements
were numerous as well as- various. - Plays and -
farces were represented by comedians from the
capital, or by amateurs of the company, who
were chiefly good musicians, or amateurs able to
treat their friends with excellent concerts. A ~ *
bank of Rouge et Noir, another of Pharo, and
* Les Nouvelles a la Main, Thermidor, anxi. No. 2, in the
note of p. 5. -
. . . R 5 a third.
370 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
a third of La Roulette or Birribi, lightened the
pockets of those who found no pleasure in more
rational or less expensive amusements; more in-
nocent games, for pledges or fines, often inter-
vened. The grave ex-bishop, and the crafty
minister, sometimes even jumped about at Ma-
dame Grand’s favourite blindman's-buff, and
frequently set the party in a roar by his tricks
as much as by his clumsiness. He was witty and
cunning even when blindfolded”. , .
Although Buonaparte, before he sailed for
Egypt, had hinted to his dear moitié, that the
less she frequented this coterie the better; the
rouleaus on the gaming table, and the delicious
juice of the grape in crystal decanters, were too
tempting for a disconsolate, deserted wife, not
to prefer them to the admonitions of an absent
husband. Most of the ladies of these parties at
Montmorency, were either, like Madame Grand,
separated wives, living in open adultery, or like
Madame Buonaparte and Madame Tallien,
wives of many husbands. The manners, lan-
guage, and customs of fashionable revolutionary
companies, were so different from those of the
*see Le Voyageur Suisse, p. 35. . . . . . . .
*. - fashion-
*
MADAME TALLEYRAND. 371
fashionable societies of all other countries, that
a faithful and genuine description of them
would every where be thought an exaggerated
caricature. Buonaparte, since his usurpation,
has certainly improved them; but an attentive
observer will soon distinguish the mixture of up-
start valets fraternizing with their former mas-
ºters, whom they have ruined”.
It has been calculated, that the gambling banks
organized by Talleyrand at Montmorency, more
than paid him and Madame Grand for the ex-
pences of the house and table. Any person who
had not the politeness to lose from twenty to fifty
Louis d'ors, was seldom invited a second time.
The bankers, who were ruined emigrants, farm-
5 & 5 5
ed, in 1800, these banks, at the rate of twelve
hundred Louis d’ors (1200/.) per Inonth, and
gained often double that sum. Talleyrand boast-
ed to every body of this ačt of generoſity. One
of these emigrants was a relation of his, plunder-
ed by the revolution of sixty thousand livres
(2500/.) per annum. -
Because the former Kings of France, Louis
43). -
ministers cardinals, Buonaparte proposed to Tal-
* See Le Voyageur Suisse, p. 43. -
R 6 . - leyrand
*
XIII. Louis XIV. and Louis XV. made their
s72 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
leyrand in 1802, to procure him the same dig-
nity. From motives best known to himself, he
had however then determined to marry Madame
Grand ; when, therefore, this proposal was
made, he cunningly answered, that those cardi-
mals were prime ministers , but that the great
Henry IV. had no cardinal for a minister, but a
friend in his minister Sully. The same day he
obtained the usurper's permission to accept of the
- pure hand of Madame Grand, who shortly after-
wards became his wife.
That there is always something rough or
low in Buonaparte's way of expressing himself,
every body who has been unfortunate enough toº
be in his presence knows, as well as that he is
capable of using the most abusive and indelicate
language with the greatest indifference. He also
frequently makes use of terms only to be found
in the month of the upstart soldier, and proscribed
by all good company. Madame Talleyrand was
complimented by him on her first introdućtion,
into the circle of Madame Buonaparte, after this
lady was become a mock sovereign, in the fol-
lowing impertinent manner: “j'espere que Ma-
dame Talleyrand, fera oubliér Madame Grand.”
(Or, “I hope that Madame Talleyrand will
cause
~
jºiáº; Alº, E TALLEY RAND, 373.
cause Madame Grand to be forgotten.”) To
this grenadier compiment she answered pro-
perly enough, though somewhat in confusion,
“That she would always be proud to follow the
example of Madame Buonaparte.” If Madame
Talleyrand had been looked upon as a lady of
parts, her answer might have been thought a
witty one. § × . r
It is stated that Talleyrand now allows his wife
for her yearly expence six hundred thousand
livres (25,000l.), besides double that sum for
his establishment in town, and four hundred
thousand livres (16,000l.) a year for his esta-
blishment in the country. But she at present
imitates the condućt of her husband: what
money she does not lose in gambling, she hoards
up, and those persons who provide for her house
and table, for her dress and for her extravagance,
are left to shift for themselves; but should they
become too troublesome, their complaints are
forgot, or buried in the Temple, or removed to
Cayenne”. - . . . . . .
* Les Nouvelles a la Main, ventose, year xiii, No. 2. p. 6.
It is said in a note of the same page, that those tradesmen
who refuse or decline to deal with Talleyrand or his wife,
are as severely punished as those who, after giving credit, de-
raand payment, - - . . . . * - --- º --
I
374,
AGNES BARBE GERARD,
* * * *-.
THE ARRAS OF PHAN.
AMONG the many French revolutionary
monsters, that with a Buonaparte, a Fouché,
and their accomplices, have, under the human
shape, dishonoured and debased the human spe-
cies, was an ex-priest of the name of Joseph
Lebon. Whilst Buonaparte was cannonading,
cutting, and stabbing, at Toulon, and Fouché
shooting and drowning at Lyons, and in La
Vendée, Lebon murdered and guillotined at
Arras. . . . . . . • * *
With Fouché, Lebon was, before the Revo-
lution, a friar of the Order of Oratoire; and,
like Fouché, he deserted and denied his God,
betrayed and condemned his King. Nominated.
a member of the National Convention, he was
by the Committee of Public Safety sent as a
representative of the people to the department
of the North and of the Pas de Calais, and fix-
ed upon Arras for the theatre of his atrocities.
His first acts were to institute a revolutionary
… º. x- - . tribunal,
AGNES BARBE GERARD, 375
tribunal, and to force it to condemn some wo-
men to death for not wearing the national
cockade. To avoid all solicitations in favour of
suspe&ted or arrested persons, he had a paper
posted upon his door, with these words: “Those
who enter here to demand any favours, or the
liberty of aristocrats, will quit my apartment
only for a prison;” and, in fact, all those who
presented any petitions, were immediately in-
prisoned. - -
On the decade, or the republican holiday,
Lebon, accompanied by the executioner and re-
volutionary judges, went to the place of exe-
cution, where he had ordered an orchestra
to be placed by the side of the guillotine ;
from which he thus addressed all young girls
of the city and of the neighbourhood, whom he
had put in requisition to be present : “ Young
girls, do not listen to what your mothers tell
you; follow the voice of Nature; give your-
selves up to the embraces, and deliver your-
selves up to the arms and caresses of your
lovers”. - - • *
. See Prudhomme's Histoire Generale, vol. vi. p. 343, et
seq. and Les Annales de Terrorisme, p. 505, et seq, From
these two works are extracted the whole concerning Lebon in
this sketch. - - *-**-
By
376 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH. .
By his perfidious suggestions to deprave even
youth, numbers of young children were engaged
in the most disgusting licentiousness and de-
baucheries. Atheism, and the violation of all
natural and moral duties, were applauded and
encouraged by him; and his answer to parents
who dared to complain, was always, “ Hold
your tongues, or the guillotine shall silence your
aristocracy. Your children are true patriots,
true republicans, and true sans-culottes.” Some
of these young vagabonds became, therefore, so
audacious, as to denounce, and even strike, the
authors of their days. The usual epithets they
gave their mothers, were, d-d b—s, d-d
wh—s, or aristocratical fanatics. Some of them
formed a guard of honour to Lebon, and, al-
ready familiar with blood, carried with them
small guillotines, with which they beheaded
birds, dogs, cats, and rats, for amusement. . A
boy of the name of Damiens, only thirteen
years old, kept up a regular correspondence
with most other children, and received their
denunciations against their parents, or reports
of their own progress in depravity.
- Lebon's, as well as Buonaparte's and Fouché's
tyranny, extended even to the theatres, where he
- - . often
|
AGNES BARBE GERARD, 377
often ascended the stage, interrupted the play,
and drew his sabre in a threatening manner.
He spoke to the audience, praising the Agrarian
laws, and entreating them to leave their children
to themselves, to their natural passions. One
day he called out, “You have long enough,
brave sans-culottes, dwelt in caves and in gar-
rets. It is for you that those large houses, that
these beautiful hotels, are erected. I have in
my hands an expedient which shall soon enable
you to get possession of them; I mean the holy
guillotine.” “Sans-culottes,” exclaimed he ano-
ther day, “denounce bravely, that you may the
sooner quit your misery. It is for you that the
guillotine is so ačtive. If I did not guillotine,
you would be starved to death. Sans-culottes,
you must take the place of the rich. Formerly
they amused themselves all the day long. It will
hereafter be enough for you to labour some few
hours, and to divert yourselves the remaining :
part of the day.” “Stupid fool,” said he to a
sans-culotte, “ you complain of your poverty—
have you no nobleman, no rich aristocrat, no lº
wealthy banker or merchant, for your neigh- “;.
bour? Denounce them, I promise you that their
houses and property shall instantly be yours.” . . .
One
\
373 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH. -
Öne evening, on his arrival at the play-house, -
finding the ladies did not rise to compliment
him, he called out from his box, “Sans-culottes:
do you not see that these female aristocrats, who
formerly prostrated themselves before princes,
do not disarrange themselves before a represen-
tative of twenty-five millions of people. To pri-
son with them all to-night, and to-morrow to
the guillotine with them.” -
A young man, an ideot from his infancy, of
the name of Bacqueville, was arrested with his
parents, who were rich, and suspected of being fa-
natics. When brought before Lebon, he apos-
trophized him in thºse words: “Let us see if
your Jesus Christ will save you from the guillo-
tine;” and turning towards the trembling mo-
ther with a pistol pointed to her head, he said,
“Speak, or I will blow out your brains P’
ºt - - ºn 3 + ºr ºf 2. "#. ºr, M.º. ..? !” sº .i. * * : • * 2- gº 3-A ºr, sº - - ,”
She contented herself with furning her regards
%
t - x++ c, *::: i gº ºf 3.j (? §º x & 6 º' a c 3.} & 2 ºf $4 tº jº wº r * , 24% #
Gººd jºis .k. &#3 y & 3 { { } {3, 5, £3. 3.; $28.3. Aé,
- 2. ' - Çı. -
§ 3 - ?
** tº $ tº - £ - -, **, r*
* ałł aristocrats and fanatics expº staccours
from above; but d-r rae iſ they shall not be
* * onnoir 4. ri : 3. r";, e Tº: cºg # cir, ºr is c, *}” ed # b
(1183. pointed. * } {{. 3.3 \,...}}. . tº y ixº Carl Sed 4t t{} e
announced by the beating of drums and the
- ~ - “... ºr $* tº: #~ rv, *. sº * * * * ~ is 4. * .
sound of trumpets, that, before midnight, this
i :
family should perish ; and they were all guil-
* * - lotined
AGNES BARBE GERARD. 379
---
lotined by the light of flambeaux the same even-
ings . - . .
A young and beautiful girl, just fifteen, An-
nette Ausart, threw herself at Lebon's feet to
obtain the relief of her parents and brothers.
Though he kicked her and abused her, she
continued clinging to his legs, calling out in
the most doleful manner, “My father, my mo-
ther, my brothers, are all innocent P-4* As
you are so obstinate,” said the villain, “ come
into my room, we may arrange the affair.” His
first question to her was, whether she was still a
maid, and if her filial affection was so great as
to sacrifice her virginity to save the lives of her
parents and brothers ? After a long internal
combat, which pleased him the more, she con-
sented: “ . Go home,” said he, “wash and per-
fume yourself, and come back at ten o'clock to-
night. But do not attempt to impose upon me—
if you are not a maid, you shall not see to-mor-
row,” Trembling she returned at the appointed
hour. “Here,” said Lebon, “is my friend the
physician Blondel, who with his certificate must
verify whether you are the innocent girl you pre-
tend to be.” In his presence the infamous Blon-
del began his verification, which turned out in
favour of poor Annette, though it made her
faint
aso THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
faint away. She was then undressed and carried
to the bed of Lebon, with whom she passed the
night. Half an hour after day-light she awoke,
terrified at hearing some cannibal airs played
under the windows, Lebon then rung the bell,
and upon the entry of his aid-de-camp, Dupon-
chel, inquired if his orders of the evening before
had been executed. Being answered in the af.
firmative, he said, “ Then draw the curtains of
the windows.” Horrid to relate—the severed
heads of Annette's parents and brothers, with
those of twenty-two other individuals, presented
themselves to her sight ! In a fit of frenzy she
attempted to tear out Lebon's eyes, who, by of.
fering an assignat of five livres, added insult to
barbarity, telling her that for the same price he
might enjoy every maid in the department of the
Pas de Calais. By depriving Annette of her rea-
son, Providence preserved her from feeling her
shocking situation. In 1802 she continued con-
fined in a mad-house”! ... . . .
Women imprisoned as suspected, were searched
by him in the most indecent manner; stript of
every thing, even their shift, and exposed to the
most insolent lubricity. The blushes that co-
* Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 509, and Prudhomme's
History as before. .
- vered.
AGNES BARBE GERARD, 38 £
~
§
5 *.*.*
$3
dering they turned their eyes from the man who
vered their faces indicatd their alarms. Shºd
outraged them. He pursued, however, with
obstinacy his hideous design, and his guilty
hands, under pretence that some papers might
be concealed, left nothing untouched. By the
side of a girl who opposed some resistance to his
criminal projects, he placed two centinels, with
orders to pierce her with their bayonets if she
made the least movement. With another young
lady he ačted as a midwife with his proceedings
on her body, under pretence that he suspected
her to be in a state of pregnancy. “It is pity,”
said he, “ that after such an outrage, such ele-
gant forms are to become the prey of the execu-
tioner, but you will be guillotined this afternoon.
'The most obscene language insulted the ears of
all females, who were daily obliged to suffer these
and other revolting scenes. Even after death
had delivered these unfortunate ladies from the
hands of this monster, he ordered the execu-
tioner to exercise on their corpses the greatest
horrors, in placing them in the most indecent
positions*, &c. &c.
* Histoire Generale, &c. vol. iv. p. 377. ^,
But
3s2 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
But enough has already been related of the
atrocities of this patriotic regenerator, who within
seven months murdered, or caused to be mur-
dered, in 1794, at Arras and Cambrai, upwards
of two thousand persons of both sexes; who
crowded the prisons with six times that number,
and who besides removed by his plunder, or dis-
persed by his terror, fifty thousand families”.
May the reading of these abominations instruct
Britons in what they have to expect from French
fraternity, should disunion, indifference, disaf-
fečtion, or want of energy, ever permit revolu-
tionary Frenchmen to pollute this happy land
with their cursed presence It is true, that after
the death of Robespierre, Lebon was tried, and
in his turn guillotined; but did his punishment *.
restore virtue and innocence to life, property to
the plundered, and to France her former hap-
piness 2 Has she not, ever since she ceased to be
loyal and dutiful, been combating for the choice
of her tyrants only Does she enjoy more li-
berty under a Buonaparte than under a Robes-
pierre : Are not the life and property of every
Frenchman still as much at the disposal of a Buo-
* Histoire Generale, &c. vol. vi. p. 386.
112 parte
AGNES BARBE GERARD. as:
naparte as they were of a Robespierre Slavery
and misery are always the inseparable companions
of rebellion*. - ~ .
In the summer of 1802, the writer of this was,
one fine afternoon, walking in the Luxembourg
garden at Paris, a place less resorted to by the -
giddy and gay, by the coxcomb and coquette,
than the Thuilleries and the Palais Royal ; but
there are often found, meditating in mournful
silence, those vićtims of the revolution, who have
to lament the loss offortune, of friends, and of re-
latives. Observing some young
ig girls dressed nearly
gi
in the same manner, taking a walk in the grand
alley, under the care of an elderly lady, he went
up to her, and inquiring whether these young
persons belonged to some public institution :
with that polite and affable condescension which
distinguishes aii well-bred women in France, he
was answered, that they were the female deaf and
dumb, under the care of the inestimab
€
A
}}
&
Siccard, who has employed his life and talents
to alleviate the pains of suffering humanity.
* Lebon was guillotined on the 5th Gºtober 1796. See his,
defence in the Moniteur of 1795, No. 288, and article i.eboň
in Dićtionnaire Biographique, vol. ii. p. 371.
When,
384 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
When, as an apology for his intrusion, he in-
formed her that he was a stranger, and a British
subjećt, not guided by curiosity alone, the good
old woman, upon hearing his name, burst into
tears, saying, “Sir, I was a nun in the very same
English convent where your unfortunate sister,
so cruelly murdered at Orange, was educated;
two priests, my brothers, were guillotined the
same day with her.” Reader, pardon, if the
style of the author is sometimes rather passionate.
An only sister assassinated under twenty, is not
the sole, dear, and irreparable loss he has to de-
plore. Mournful remembrance, therefore, often
banishes calmness, excludes tranquillity as well
as happiness; but he never expresses a senti-
ment he does not feel to the bottom of his
heart. - .
It is unnecessary to explain that reciprocal
misfortunes, reciprocal sufferings, and reciprocal
compassion, nearly transformed acquaintance into
confidence. In the middle of the Luxembourg
garden is a coffee-house, where the old nun per-
mitted him to treat her pupils with some lemo-
made and biscuits. They amounted in the whole
to fifty-two ; but among them eleven were
dressed in a different manner, neat and even
^- ; - fashionable,
**
AGNES BARBE GERARD. 385
fashionable. These he was told were pensionnaires,
or boarders, for whose board, lodging, and in-
struction, their parents, or friends, paid the mo-
derate sum of six hundred livres (251). Two
of these boarders were extremely handsome, and
possessed the most interesting countenances.
The one, about sixteen, was born at Grenoble,
in Dauphiny; where, nine years before, at the
ight of her father and brother's execution, she /
from fright suddenly lost her voice and
hearing; the other, Agnes Barbé Gerard, aged
nineteen, had on witnessing, nine years before
(in May 1794), the murder of her grand-parents,
her parents, and two sisters, at Arras, been from
terror struck dumb, and almost deaf, though at
intervals she recovered her hearing, and could
speak some few words.
Of her calamity the nun gave me the follow-
ing account. All Mademoiselle Agnes's family
being religiously inclined, were shocked at the
excesses that infidels and atheists had perpetrated
against the faithful worshippers of Christ. They -
were, therefore, noted and stigmatized by the
impious, seditious, and rebellious, as fanatics.
Such were, however, their generosity, prudence,
vol. III. s and
“. -
386 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and innocence, that though they belonged to
the ci-devant privileged classes, and were masters
of considerable property, they remained unmo-
Hested until Joseph Lebon was, as a representa-
tive of the people, appointed by the National
Convention and by Robespierre, to make terror
the order of the day in his native city.
But even Lebon in the beginning, notwith-
standing that he was accompanied by a horde of
denouncers, informers, as well as executioners,
found, or could invent no cause to imprison or
bu cher the Barbé Gerards. At last, contempo-
raries can hardly believe it, and posterity pro-
bably may doubt it (though, independent of the
numerous printed authorities at this moment,
1805, hundreds of individuals and eye witnesses
. are still alive and can confirm the truth), a parrot
d
same street, to the number of one hundred and
e! This
bird belonged to a gentleman named Duvieux-
of both sexes and every ag
fort, and had been taught on board a ship that
brought it from St. Domingo, to call out fre-
quently, Vive le Roi! or, the King for ever. One
day, in passing through the street, the staunch
republican Lebon happened to hear this aristo-
*>
cratical
AGNES BARBE GERARD. 387
cratical voice. A domiciliary visit was imme-
diately ordered, and the criminal of high trea-
son against liberty and equality was soon dis-
covered. - - …
That the owners of the bird were arrested, is
not surprising to any body acquainted with the
spirit of revolutionary times, but that the de-
strućtive fury of regicide revolutionists should
extend its ravages to every individual of the same
street, as accomplices of this great revolutionary
crime, would hardly be credited, were it not
authenticated by the very trial and execution of
these unfortunate people. In their number were
included the whole of Agnes’s family, with their
servants. She would herself, though a child,
have shared their fate, had not the momentary
derangement of her intellects occasioned her to
be transferred to an hospital. The worthy re-
presentative of the Great Nation, Lebon, had,
however, the barbarity of forcing her to be
present at the judicial murder of all those who,
were dear, and united to her by ties of consan-
guinity and nature.
This ačt of savage ferocity had a most won-
derful effect upon Agnes. She suddenly re-
S 2 - * covered
388 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
covered her senses, but lost her voice. She
doubly felt her grief and her misery, because
she was unable to express it. She was wretched
beyond description, but had not power either to
demand or to receive consolation, -
When the good old nun was relating these
horrid particulars, poor Agnes listened with
great attention. She seemed in a convulsive
agitation, and with much difficulty, and with
a stammering, a faultering voice, hastily, or
rather abruptly exclaimed: “Yes, Sir—yes—
yes, Sir, those abominations are too true.” A
flood of tears accompanied this effort; and as
all her companions had their eyes fixed on her,
a kind of reciprocal tender sympathy seized
them all. They sobbed, groaned, and cried so
/loud as to excite the attention of all the pas-
sengers; and the writer of this, from fear of
any bad consequences, was under the necessity
of making a quick retreat. Though in time
of peace, and though a British subjećt, he had
reason to be apprehensive of another visit to
the Temple, well convinced that neither Buo-
naparte, nor Talleyrand, nor Fouché, would par-
don sentiments of loyalty which sufferings could
. . . IłOt
AGNES BARBE GERARD. 389.
not alter, or abhorrence of rebellion, which the
prosperity of crime increased ". –
* The anecdote of the parrot is related at full length in
Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 515, where it is stated that
the persons who perished in consequence of this bird calling
out Pive le Roi, amounted to one hundred and sixty, of whom
ninety-six were women or girls. . . . . . -
s 3 MADAME
MADAME ROLAND.
BESIDES what friends, se&taries, admi-
rers, gallants, and accomplices, have published
in favour of Madame Roland, her own memoirs,
give both contemporaries and an impartial pos-
terity, more information than can either be use-
ful or interesting, concerning a relatively insig-
nificant woman, whom the just and loyal of all
times will reprobate for her immorality, per-
fidy, ambition, plots, and intrigues. Most of
those, however, who in foreign countries have
written on the subjećt of the French Revolu-
tion, and who have mentioned this revolution-
ary heroine, instead of being historians or bio-
graphers, have become her panegyrists, extenu-
ated when they should have exposed her infamy,
and deplored her untimely end, without remark-
ing that it was well merited, brought on by her-
self, and a natural consequence of her foolish
and impertinent vanity to figure at the head, or
-- . - with
MADAME ROLAND. 89
with the chiefs of a treacherous fačtion. The
agreeable memorialist, and the unfortunate suf-
ferer, have been delineated by hundreds. The
faithless subječt, and the malignant conspirator,
remain still to be drawn. ~.
Marie-Jeanne Philipon was born at Paris on
the 7th of March, 1754. Her father was an en-
graver of some respectability; and, according to
her own account, her mother was a woman of
great prudence and exquisite sensibility. Born
with genius, her education, though indifferent,
and analogous to the profession and situation of
her father in life, was not entirely neglected.
She evinced an early inclination for literature
and gallantry. Before she was fifteen she had
lovers, and before sixteen she was an author.
A lively imagination and an ardent heart,
which stood in need of occupation and nou-
rishment, gave to her charaćter and to her ideas
a singular turn, even when young, and instilled
into her mind a kind of philosophy, which
sometimes made her support with patience the ab-
sence of those pleasures and enjoyments which
her birth and fortune refused her. It is very
probable that, placed in a more elevated sphere,
and in a more brilliant career, she would have
S 4 - - - - - been
.2
392 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
been contented with being considered a pleas-
ing and witty woman; but dissatisfied with the
narrow circle assigned her by Providence, and
envious of the rank and wealth to which she
could not pretend, she determined, if possible,
to humble the exalted and to beggar the rich,
and to force those to descend to a level with
her, whose height she was unable to attain.
If she is to be believed, the fame of her
charms and of her acquirements attracted a
whole host of suitors to the house of her fa-
ther ; and with two of them, matrimonial nego-
tiations were carried to a great length. These
were Gardanne, a physician, and La Blancherie,
a savans. How the match with the former was
broken off, she does not relate; but the latter -
was reječted by her father, on account of his po-
verty, and finally dismissed by herself, when
she found that he was so general an admirer of
women, as to be known by the appellation of the
lover of eleven thousand virgins. Neither of
these admirers made any impression on her ten-
der heart. Her liking for the savans was slight
and superficial; and to the physician she used
to say, that her fancy never could figure such a
thing as love in a peruke. -
- She
MADAME ROLAND. 893
She lost her mother when she had attained
her twentieth year; and her father, who found
but little entertainment in the society of a daugh-
ter so learned, and with so many pretensions,
became dissipated, kept his mistress, neglečted
his business, and squandered his fortune.
Some years after her mother's death, a Made-
moiselle Cannet, with whom she had been ac-
quainted during her temporary retreats in a con-
vent, introduced her to M. Roland de la Pla-
tiere, another savans, who travelled at the ex-
pence of government for the improvement of
the French manufactures, and who then held
the place of inspector of manufactures at Ami-
ens. An old batchelor near fifty, he wanted a
wife; and the society of Mademoiselle Philipon
inspired him with so much confidence and at-
tachment, that, in setting out for Italy, he first
deposited with her all his manuscripts concerning
his former travels, and afterwards, on his return,
demanded her in marriage from her father, who
prudently rejećted the proposal of a man of fifty
to marry his daughter, who was not yet twenty-
five. Mademoiselle Philipon, however, longed
for a husband as much as Roland did for a wife;
and her notions of filial duty did not prevent her
s 5 from
394 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
from concluding a match declined by, and disa-
greeable to, her father. She revolted, therefore,
against the parental authority; and—as an undu-
tiful child never can remain a loyal subjećt,
her future condućt can surprize nobody who has
studied the human heart, and observed how ea-
sily a domestic rebel is transformed into a poli-
tical conspirator. - -
Although Madame Roland brought her hus-
band no dowry, her attendance in anti-cham-
bers of ministers, and by her visits to their se-
cretaries and clerks, she procured for him the
place of an inspector of manufactures at Ly-
ons; 311 office more profitable than that of
the same description which he had occupied at
Amiens. -
\ Teeming with ambition and envy, and unfet-
tered by religion and loyalty, Madame Roland
hailed the French rebellion with enthusiasm;
and as her husband was more her slave than
her partner, what had her approbation, Inever,
met with any obječtion from him. By her in-
trigues he was, in 1789, elečted a municipal of
ficer at Lyons, and by her direétion he insti-
tuted, in 1790, a Jacobin Club in the same city,
no doubt as an indemnity for the loss of tran-
- - quillity
MADAME ROLAND. 395
quillity and prosperity. The same year, his
office being suppressed by the National As-
sembly, he repaired with his wife to the capital,
where, by her writing some patriotic articles
for Condorcet's paper, La Chronique de Paris,
and for Brissot's journal, Le Patriot François, he
became connected with those two revolutionists,
who then, with their associates, began to visit
his humble dwelling in a third story, where
every thing indicated mediocrity, if not want,
of fortune, and that the host and hostess were
rich in nothing but patriotism and philosophy. -
During the winter of 1791, Madame Roland's
habitation became the chief resort of the Brissot,
or what was the same, the republican faction, of
which not one of the members was a man of any pro-
perty. They regularly assembled three or four
evenings in the week. In the whole course of
the French Revolution, parties have been formed
and cemented by women. Madame Necker,
Madame de Stael, Madame de Genlis, Madame
de Beauvois, Madame de La Fayette, with a vast
train of subordinate females, had been oracles
and centres of revolutionary juntoes; and Madame
Roland aspired also to the same character. By
her arrangement with Brissot, she thus became
- s 6 - informed
2.
396 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
informed of the progress of a rebellion, with
which, from her past plots and future views, both
her safety and interest were deeply connected.
sº I knew,” says she, 46 the part which became
my sex, and never went beyond it. I took no
share in the debates which passed in my pre-
sence. Sitting at a table without the circle, I
employed myself with my needle, or in writing
letters; yet, if I dispatched ten epistles, which
was sometimes the case, I lost not a syllable of
what was passing, and more than once bit my lips
to restrain my impatience to speak! What
struck me most, and distressed me exceedingly,
was that sort of light and frivolous chit-chat, in
which men of sense waste two or three hours
without coming to any conclusion. Taking
things in detail, you would have heard excel-
ſent principles maintained, and some good plans
proposed; but, on summing up the whole, there
appeared to be no path marked out, no fixed re-
sult, nor determinate point, towards which the
views of every individual should be directed.
Sometimes, for very vexation, I could have boxed
the ears of these philoſopherſ, whom I daily learned
to esteem more for the honesty of their hearts and
the furity of their intentions. Excellent reason-
€13.
MADAME ROLAND. 897
ers all, and ALL philosophers, and learned theore-
tical politicians; but, totally ignorant of the art
of managing mankind, and consequently of
swaying an assembly, their wit and learning were
too generally lavished to no purpose.” Madame
Roland forgets to mention a fact, afterwards
avowed by Brissot himself, that in her apartments
were composed those declamations and writings,
in which the persons of Louis XVI. and Marie
Antoinette, and the government of the King of
France, and every other monarch, were vilified by
wanton abuse, or rendered odious by unsparing
calumny. y
All the homest republicans and pure philoso-
phers were also venal as well as poor; ready to
be bought, but unused to be bid for ; raising
systems for the purpose of gaining importance;
and disposed to sell themselves, their proječts,
and associates to the first who would offer an
adequate gratification. Many of them had com-
menced their political career as spies of the po-
lice, as literary adventurers, or pensioned ad-
herents of the Duke of Orleans. Some quitted
his party, because his patronage was previously
occupied by others, and their services neglected 3.
and some formed a new connexion, that, by ac-
quiri T] §
898 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
- quiring power conjunctively, they might either
use or dispose of it to the greater advantage.
The head of this party, Brissot, had been
tossed on the sea of speculation, frequently re-
duced to want, sometimes to meanness, and even
to crimes. Among other infamous courses of
life imputed to this French regenerator, it was
proved by his adversaries, that he had been a
pickpocket, which was so generally known, that,
in France, Brissoter was used as a term of syno-
nimous import with pilfer”. Ever disposed to
utter sentiments on the spur of the moment,
he was frequently under the necessity of con-
tradićting himself. The love of innovation more
than any fixed principle, guided him in politics.
At one time he was an admirer of the British
constitution, at another of American republican-
ism. - Sometimes desirous to depose the King to
make the Duke of Orleans a regent under the
minority of the Dauphin, and then again wish-
ing to place the crown on the head of his patron,
* See Brissot's Life and Character, in the excellent Me-
moirs by Adolphus. In 1791, a caricature represented
Brissot at Paris with his band in the pocket of a neighbour.
Under it was written: “ Brissot putting on his gloves.” So no-
torious was then his character. ‘. ... . . . -
-- - to
MADAME ROLAND. 899
to the exclusion of the other branches of the
Bourbon family. For all, or any of these pro-
jećts, he was willing to receive a compromise,
having, in fact, no principle, nor any patriotism,
but he was obliged to affect both, as the means -
of raising and attaching to himself a faction.
He gained many adherents by an appearance of
candour and mildness, but in his real chara&ter,
he was false, gloomy, vindićtive, and unrelent-
ing. This was displayed in his virulent perse-
cution of ministers who refused to pay, journal-
ists who refused to praise, and deputies who re-
fused to join him According to Bertrand's
Memoirs, it cannot be doubted that this staunch
republican and disinterested patriot offered, in
1792, to sell himself to the King, and to desert
his accomplices, for the modest sum of twelve
millions of livres (500,000l.) and a passport to
quit France. From this impartial chara&ter of
the chief, the charaćteristics of the other mem-
bers of the Brissot faction may, without diffi-
culty or mistake, be concluded.
By this party Roland (or more properly Ma-
dame Roland), was forced upon the King as a
minister of the home department, and Brissot
and Dumourier announced his appointment to
- - - - him
400 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
~
him on the 23d of March 1792. He was then
one of the pillars of the Jacobin Club, and em-
ployed in its Committee of Correspondence ; the
letters of which Madame Roland acknowledges
that she always read, and often answered. She
considered that the society of the Jacobins might
exert its influence in disseminating good prin-
ciples: “ Persuaded,” says she, “ that a revo-
lution is no better than a terrible and deſtructive
storm, if the improvement of the public mind
does not keep pace with the progression of the
events; and sensible of the good that might be
done by taking hold of men's imagination, and
giving them an impulse towards virtue; I em-
ployed myself with pleasure in this correspond-
ence.”
Roland, when left to himself, was an inoffen-
sive old man. Endowed with little talent, and
not much malice; choleric, not rancorous; he
was plain in his manners and habits, brief in his
speech, fond of reproving vice, and fancied him-
self a model of virtue, because his wife had told
him so. His early pursuits had rendered him
diligent, and having superintended some public
accounts at Lyons, he WaS by her flattered with
a belief that his abilities were equal to the con-
– duéting
f
MADAME ROLAND. 401
dućting of a state, and his virtues sufficient to re-
form a whole people.
From the first day he appeared at court, it was
evident that his wife had tutored him to insult
his Sovereign as much by his dress as by his lan-
guage. He presented himself accoutred in a
thread-bare old black coat, with his hair hang-
ing about his ears unpowdered, his shirt dirty,
his breeches torn, and his shoes mended, and
tied with strings. Madame Roland had deluded
him into a hope, that he might be the regenera-
stor in the fashions of the court as well as in the
morals of the people, and that the sans-culotte
etiquette once established at court, the sans-
culotte sentiments would inevitably follow, and
regulate the determinations of the cabinet. His
brutality and despotism over the King was how-
ever so insupportable, that even the liberal and
enduring Louis XVI, turned him out of his
place within three months.
The audacious and impertinent letter which
Roland shortly before his removal from the mi-
nistry read to the King, she prides herself on
having composed. She says on this subject:
“Studious habits, and a taste for letters, made
. me participate in the labours of my husband, as
- long
402 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
iong as he remained a private individual : I wrote
with him as I ate with him, because one was al-
most as matural to me as the other; when he be-
came a minister I did not interfere with his admi-
mistration; but if a circular letter, a set of instruc-
tionſ, or an important ſtate paper were wanting,
we talked the matter over with our usual free-
dom, and, impressed with his ideas, and pregnant
with my own, I took up the pen, which I had
the most leisure to condućt. Our principles and
turn of mind being the same, we were agreed as
to the form, and my husband risked nothing in
passing through my hands. I could advance no-
thing, warranted by justice and reason, which
- he was not capable of realizing, or supporting by
his energy and condućt. But my language ex-
pressed more strongly what he had done or pro-
mised to do. Roland without me would not have
been a worse minister; his ačtivity, his know-
ledge, his probity, were all his own ; but with me
he attrađed more attention, because I infused into
his writings that mixture of spirit and of soft-
ness, of authoritative reason and reducing senti-
ment, which are perhaps only to be found in a
woman endowed with a clear head and a feeling
heart, I composed with delight such pieces as I
~ º deemed
f
MADAME ROLAND. 4ö3.
deemed likely to be useful, and I felt in so doing,
a greater pleasure than had I been known to be
the author. I am covetous of happiness, and
with me it consists in the good I do.” While
Roland and his wife were reading over this
letter, another Jacobin, Pache, came in. “ Tis
a very bold step,” observed he, “Very bold,
without doubt,” answered Madame Roland,
“ but just and, necessary; what signifies any
thing else P. When Roland read this insolent
libel to the King, he prefaced it by saying that it
should remain an etermal secret between them,
but the next day he perfidiously transmitted co-
pies of it both to the legislature and to editors of
newspapers. This is one of the many proofs of
Roland's and his wife's honesty and honourable prin-
ciples.
.* Notwithstanding the threats and plots of the
Brissot faction, Roland never afterwards en-
tered into the King's council. When the throne
had been overturned on the 10th of August
1792, he resumed his place of a minister, but
he soon found the difference between serving a
legitimate King and a sovereign people; the lat-
ter fully avenged his treachery against the former.
His disgrace with them was followed by proscrip-
. . . * - - tion,
404 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
tion, and his proscription by suicide. This ačt
. of despair was not the consequence of the misery
into which his own and his wife's outrageous am-
bition had precipitated their country, but resort-
ed to only when he was informed of Madame
Roland's unfortunate exit on the scaffold. Egot-
ism, as well as profligacy and perfidy, was always
a characteristic of a French rebel. .
When the Robespierre faction had dethrone
their rivals of the Brissot party, and deprived
them of their popularity, Madame Roland 1°Cas
ceived a severe lesson of the dangers in which
ambitious women involve themselves, by undu-
tifully aspiring to notoriety in troublesome times,
and by interfering with what does not regard
their sex. In the latter part of her husband's
administration, conspiracies and threats succeeded
each other so rapidly, that their friends often
pressed them to leave the hotel which they then
occupied, at least during the night. Two or
three times they yielded to these entreaties, but
soon tired of this daily removal, they thought,
that if destined to fall, it would be more con-
ducive to public utility and personal glory for the
minister to perish at his post. Madame Roland,
that she might endure the same hazards as her
--- husband, y
MADAME ROLAND. 405
./
husband, had his bed brought into her room,
while she kept under her pillow a pistol, not to
use for a vain defence, but to save herself from
the outrages of assassins. In this situation she
passed three weeks, during which the hotel was
twice beset. * . .
“To-day on a throne, to-morrow in a prison.”
“Such,” remarks Madame Roland, “is the
fate of virtue in revolutionary times. .. Enlight-
ened men, who have pointed out its rights, are,
by a nation weary of oppression, first called into
authority. But it is not possible that they should
maintain their places; the ambitious, eager to
take advantage of circumstances, mislead the .
people by flattery, and to acquire consequence
and power, prejudice them against their real
friends. Men of principle, who despise adu-
lation and contemn intrigue, do not meet their
opposers on equal terms; their fail is therefore
certain; the still soft voice of sober reason amidst
the tumult of passions, is easily overpowered.”
These words would have been more proper in
the mouth of a La Fayette and his partizans,
than from the pen of an intriguing woman,
whose associates, the most low and immoral, had
treated their predecessors, men of talents, rank,
and
- ~~ *----
406 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
and some property, with the same severity, as
their successors, if possible of a still viler set,
had treated them. Robespierre retaliated upon
the Brissotines nothing but their own violence
against the constitutional faction, of which La
Fayette pretended to be a leader. . . -
After seeing all those attached to her impri-
soned, guillotined, saved by flight, and outlawed,
she was also arrested, and carried to the Abbey
prison, and from it to St. Pelagie: when her
trial approached she was transferred to the Con-
ciergerie. The day on which she was called up
to be examined, her firmness partly forsook her;
and when she returned, it was not with dry eyes,
because questions had been put to her injurious
to her honour. After her condemnation she
passed through the wicket with a quick step,
indicating something like cheerfulness, and in-
timating by an expressive gesture, that she was
condemned to die. She had as companion of
her fate, a man, Lamarche, director of the fa-
brication of assignats, whose fortitude did not
equal her own. She found means, however, to
inspire him with a certain degree of courage;
and this she did with a gaiety so cheering, so
real, as several times to force a smile on his coun-
- tenance.
MADAME ROLAND. - 407-
tenance. At the place of execution she bowed
before the statue of liberty, while she exclaimed,
“Oh Liberty what crimes are committed in thy
!” She had frequently said that her hus-
band would not survive her; and her predićtion
was accomplished. - *
name
The person of Madame Roland was not de-
void of attraction, though far from beautiful.
. She was rather tall for a woman; but her coun-
... " tenance was very animated, and her large black
eyes were full of that expression which makes
the irregularity of the traits of the face forgot-
ten. She was a woman of considerable talent.
She wrote with boldness and originality, and
made her opinions still more striking by the force
of her expressions and the vigour of her illus-
trations. Her style always agreeable, often ra-
pid and pićturesque, but sometimes incorreót
and trivial, became graceful and warm when she
spoke of love. She confesses, that her heart,
her imagination, and her inclination, carried
her, from her youth, in the most imperious
manner towards that passion, which the circum-
stances that accompanied her younger days, and
the occupations which she formed for herself,
were alone able to moderate. In the works she has
. . . left
40s THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
{
.--
will not pity the woman whom the factions sent
left behind her, are repeated indications of a
violent love for some objećt (not her husband),
which she is careful to conceal. - —
The title which she gave to her memoirs, of
an “Appeal to an Impartial Posterity,” proves
that her native vanity accompanied her, even in
a gaol, and how much she imagined herself in-
teresting and of consequence to occupy the at-
tention of future ages. They will remain mo-
numents of her talents as well as of her vices
and misfortunes; of her genius, as well as of
her corruption, ambition, and depravity. Who
to perish without cause But who will not also
abhor that female intriguer, whose machinations
undermined the throne, who calumniated loy-
, alty and outraged religion, and who was one of
the principal instruments in changing into a re-
gicide republic a monarchy of fourteen centuries?
All the facts, and most of the particulars, al-
ready related of Madame Roland, are extraćted
from her own publications, or from those of her
friends, as Louwet’s Memoirs, and Champag-
neux's Preliminary Discourse, prefixed to her
posthumous works. What now follows, is trans-
lated from an anti-revolutionary production, the
author
\
suthor of which refers for his authority of what
he has published of Madame Roland, to a French.
journal of 1795, called Le Courier de Paris ; in
which every thing was inserted, and remained
uncontradićted by her partizans, then again po-
pular and powerful". - -
“I had been a visitor at M. Philipon's house-
(the father of Madame Roland) a long time, be-
fore I hardly noticed his daughter. The first
thing I heard of her was not much to her ad-
vantage. One Daubert, a journeyman engraver
with her father, and who had a wife and three
children, either had surprized her inclination or
fixed her affections. She was seen with him
tête-à-tête in private parties, and at those houses
where no modest woman enters, who has any re-
putation to preserve, or any honour to lose.
These transactions excited some scandal and
much gossiping among all her neighbours.
“Some charitable persons informed Daubert's
wife of her husband's excursions with Mademoi-
selle Philipon, and she, without any farther cere-
mony, called, in a rage, upon Mr. and Madame
Philipon, upbraiding them for not looking better r
Anecdotes Des Femmes Marquantes, vol. iii. p. 37 9, sco,
381. - ... . .
vol. iii. ºr after
410 THE FEMALE PLUTAReH.
after their child, whom she threatened to flog
whenever she found her in Daubert's com-
pany.
“M. Philipon was a good-natured peaceable
kind of man, chiefly occupied with his own
business, caring little about what was going on
in his house, provided nobody complained of his
external intrigues, and that he had a good dish
of coffee for breakfast, good soup for dinner,
and some fresh eggs, with a salad or some other
vegetables for supper. What money he earned
was generally deposited with his wife, who had
inspected or at least paid for her daughter's edu-
cation. Madame Philipon was frequently in a
bad state of health, and very nervous. Any
thing disturbing her tranquillity, or agitating her
mind, was very hurtful to her. The visit of
- Daubert's wife caused her besides so much the
more vexation, as she was very apt to pride her-
self on her daughter's modeſty and accomplish-
ments, whom she also considered as a model both
of prudence and of virtue. - -
“ In this favourable opinion, she was still con-
firmed by Mademoiselle Philipon, whose hypocri-
sy and duplicity had outstript her years. She
- persuaded her parents, that Daubert's wife was a
. . . . . . . violent
MADAME ROLAND. 411
violent tempered and extremely jealous woman,
suspicious of her own shadow; and that so
far from having been in private parties, or in
bad houses with Daubert, she had never in her.
life spoken to him but in the presence of her
parents. She expressed herself in such an un-
concerned and artful manner, that she, without
much difficulty, imposed upon those whose wish
and interest it was to believe her.
“ In four months afterwards Mademoiselle
Philipon made a journey into the country, and,
according to the assertion of her parents, re-
sided some time in a convent. But this, as well as
several subsequent trips to convents, were report-
ed in the scandalous chronicle, and suspe&ted by
her acquaintances and neighbours, rather destined
to increase the population of her country, than
to console and meditate with the vićtims of celi-
bacy. -
“Besides one child by Daubert, she has been
accused of being the mother of two children by
the philosopher de Boismorel, and of one by
another philosopher, La Blancherie, who after-
-- wards refused to marry her. The list of her
gallants is, in the mean time, very long, and if all
who were her lovers had become fathers, poor
ºr 2 Philipon
412 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
would have counted more grand-children than
customers. - .
“Those and other faux pas occasioned her to
accept, with pleasure, Roland for a husband, a
man double her age, who found her philosophizing
in a garret, paid and furnished by de Boismorel,
already tired of her, but who, from compassion,
gave her a small pittance to subsist on. She was
indeed reduced to such distress, that she had
not a decent gown to put on, and whenever
charity invited her to a meal, she borrowed a
dress from Mademoiselle Chaupin, her neigh-
. d'Aumont. -
- “ After her mother's death, her father, who
bour, who was in the keeping of the Duke
was always a libertine, slept with his servant
maid, while his daughter went to bed with one
of his journeymen; and while she received her
gallants from abroad, he went to visit a mistress
of his whom he kept in rue de Nica ſe, but who,
during his absence, was the bonne amie of all
young men,h er neighbours, or acquaintances.
“It was generally believed, that Madame Ro-
land’ s' irregularities shortened the days of her
mother; and that her extravagance ruined, or
at least impaired the fortune of her father. Her
. - - parents
MADAME ROLAND. 413
parents were very frequently heard to say, that
though she was the only surviving child of seven,
she had caused them more troubles by her ex-
cesses, than the six others could have dene had
they been ever so wild and undutiful. -
“She was from her youth expensive in her
dress and indiscreet in her condućt, fond of
balls, masquerades, and shows, as well as of
reading. This latter improved the lively genius
with which she had been endued by nature, but
made her also very vain, and she looked with pity, ,
if not contempt, on the pretended ignorance
of the authors of her days, whom she treated
rather as her domestics than as her parents.
“ Always ambitious to shine and to be noticed,
ther envy was, however, greater than her ambi-
tion, and her hatred and malice surpassed both.
Every body who was not her admirer, she con-
sidered as her foe, and pursued with calumnies, -
rancour, and sarcasms. This accounts for her
cruel inveteracy against the Royal Family, whom
she could never forgive their neglect of inviting
her to court, when her husband was a minister.
Besides, every person superior to her in rank,
wealth, and talents, was judged by her an enemy ---
to be crushed. It is true, she seldom, if ever, ac-
knowledged herself inferior in capacity to any
T 3. body,
A
414 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
body, though she always complained, that for-
tune had neglected her great merit. .
“I remember, as early as 1772, when she was
only eighteen, my wife and I went with her
parents to the opera. The late Queen (who was
then only the Dauphiness), arrived with a nu-
merous retinue, and was very much applauded.
Mademoiselle Philipon sat by my side, and when
others applauded, I observed that she hissed,
being much agitated at the same time. Asking
her the reason of such unbecoming condućt, she
answered, “What has that young woman done
more than myself, to be so elevated and po-
pular * I remarked that every woman could
not be a princess. “True,” replied she, “ but
I flatter myself I have more sense in my little
finger than she possesses in her whole body; and
if fortune had been just, I should not been here,
nor she there (pointing at the Princess's box);
but she and her equals are only great, because
we and other people of merit are foolish enough
to remain in the mud.” I informed her mother of
this impertinent sally, who said, with tears in her
eyes, “What can I do I have no longer any
power over her : notwithstanding my entreaties,
she never ceases to abuse the rich and the great.
God knows what will finally become of her P’ As
- - - she
MADAME ROLAND. 415
she heard what her mother said, I asked her when
we, twenty-one years afterwards, were prisoners
together in the Conciergerie, if she remembered
it. “Yes, I do,” answered she, “my mother
was a good kind of woman enough, but without
any elevated ideas. I am now, indeed, myself
exposed to perish ; but have I not lived to see
that same Princess and her husband, and most
of those who attended them at the opera in 1772,
perish before me ; and were they not shut up as
prisoners in the Temple, while I resided in the
hotel of a minister, my husband; and have I not
contributed to bury them in the rubbish from
which I raised myself? I die content, since
France no longer contains either great or rich
- folks, either unnatural rank to humble, or un-
natural riches to insult her free inhabitants.” .
“Since the Revolution I have frequented the
company of Madame Roland but little, well
knowing both the shame and danger of her so-
ciety. Chance, however, placed us in the same
- prison. I am decidedly of opinion, that she was
a woman of no principles at all, and that her
love of liberty, her patriotism, her republicanism,
and even her courage, were affected and artifi-
cial. I spoke to her ten minutes before she
T 4: . - mounted
3.
416 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
mounted the cart which carried her to the scaf.
fold, and it did not require much penetration to
see that this artful woman had worked herself
into insensibility, in order to furnish her partizans
with an opportunity to proclaim her firmneſs or
ſtoicism. - - }
“Such is my opinion of a woman who expired
on the scaffold before she was forty years of age,
and whom I had known upwards of thirty years,
I have said nothing of her connubial infidelity or
intrigues, because her gallantries since her mar-
riage had been proverbial at Lyons as well as at
Paris. Who has not heard of her noćturnal
revels with a Saulieu, a Gauvion, a Louvet, a
| Barbaroux, and FIFTY others ? I owe this decla-
ration to the same impartial posterity whom she
has so artfully attempted to mislead.” Paris,
Germinal 30th, year 3 (April 21, 1795), -
“(Signed) Louis FRANcois MAURIENNE.
“Rue St. Dominique, No. 1192.” -
Madame Roland herself, in the memoirs she
wrote, does not conceal her inclination or admi-
ration of a Barbaroux, whom she found beau
comme Antinous ; and of a Louvet, who was aim-
able et complaitant, perhaps as his Chevalier Faublar.
of
MADAME ROLAND. 417
“- /
Of her intrigues with Barbaroux, the following
anecdote is related in another work”. “Such
nights as she wished to pass with this gallant,
she took care to get her husband out of the way,
by alarming him with pretended plots to assassi-
nate him in the dark, and advising him to con-
ceal himself. ... He, therefore, slept 2t SOrne
friend’s house, but asked the brave Barbaroux to
spy about his house during his absence, and
afterwards report to him what he observed. How
this confidante employed his time, need not be
explained.” - . . . . .
Another author seems to confirm the above
assertion, that so far from being calm. and re-
signed, she was extremely agitated, and endea-
voured by all means to conceal her agitation by
making herself insensible. “Madame Roland,”
says Kotzebue #, “ behaved very firmly on the
day of her execution, but was on the eve of it
uncommonly moved. Madame Talma, who was
likewise confined with her, related to me, that
the unfortunate woman was playing all night on
the harpsichord, but in so ſtrange, so ſhocking,
and so frightful a manner, that the sounds will.
* See the Castle of Thuilleries, vol. i. p. 123.
#See Kotzebue's Travels to Paris, vol. iii. p. 172,
... . T 5 never:
as THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
never escape her memory.” Did not this revo-
lutionary heroine, in these dreadful moments,
regret that happy obscurity in which Nature had
destined her to live and to die, but from which
her outrageous ambition and unprincipled vanity
dragged her, to perish like a wretch, by the hands
of a public executioner What a lesson, what a
warning ! - t
Had Madame Roland been such a subjećt of a
Buonaparte as she was of Louis XVI. she would
either have been transported to be devoured by
tigers in the wilds of Cyenne, or died on the rack
in the dungeons of the Temple, -
THER01GNE
419
\
THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT,
- THE JAcoBIN HARLot.
And I, too, was a French patriot!
THE French courtezans have not furnished
many recruits to the gang of female patriots,
whom ambition, intrigue, libertinism, and im-
morality sent to join the colours of rebellion.
Those unfortunate women shared that attention,
civility and politeness with other persons of their
sex, which, before the Revolution, made all
well-bred Frenchmen So agreeable, and so dis-
. tinguished. But gross and indelicate expressions,
rudeness, and brutality, became as much the
charaćteristic of French rebels and republicans,
as cupidity and cruelty; while they plundered and
murdered persons of one sex, they insulted and
ill-treated those of the other. Revolutionary
representatives of the people, revolutionary ge-
> . T 6 nerals,
420 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
nerals, senators, counsellors, commissaries, and
the whole crew of the revolutionary gentry, have
been seen, and are still seen, not only caning and
kicking women publicly in the Palais Royal, or
garden of the Thuilleries, but even beating, and
often wounding them with their swords; and
the public pass by and scarcely notice these
scandalous and degrading scenes. To such a
height of regeneration and civilization have French
reformers brought the most polite and polished
nation upon earth ! . .” -
This revolution in the manners of their
countrymen, affected particularly those poor and
pitiable Frenchwomen, who, from vićtims of
sedućtion, are transformed into agents of vice.
They found themselves both brutally used and
badly paid, and few of them therefore approved
of the new “Rights of Man,” or were hearty
in the cause of French liberty and equality. -
- Theroigne de Mericourt was born in a village
near the strong fort of Luxembourg, in 1772, a
country at that time belonging to the house of
Austria. Her father was a colle&tor of the cus-
toms, and a man of respectability, with a nu-.
merous family, and Theroigne was his sixth
child. Having lost his wife, the education of
- & • his
> *
THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT. 421
his children was entrusted to a sister, from whom
Theroigne eloped with a recruiting officer before
she had completed her fifteenth year; and the
French Revolution found her among the number
of prostitutes that crowded the cellars, the gar-
rets, the streets, and the gaols of Paris. Being .
a woman of a bold and daring charaćter, the
emissaries of the Orleans fačtion picked her
up, instructed her, and dispatched her, in July
1789, to revolutionize the troops then encamped
in the vicinity of the capital. Her zeal and her
success in this mission made her dear to many of
the leading members of the revolutionary party;
and she was frequently invited to public dinners
and to private tete-3-tetes, by a Mirabeau, Sieyes,
Sillery, Petion, and Populus. The name of this
last deputy occasioned many jests, and procured
Theroigne the appellation of the mistress of the
people en maffe. º -
During the insurrečtion of the 5th and 6th of
r Oćtober 1789, she was seen in the ranks of the
soldiers at Versailles, where she contributed
much to seduce from its duty, and to corruptº
the loyal principles of the regiment of Flanders,
to whom she introduced other girls under her
directions; she distributed also money to those
upon
~.
422 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
~s
upon whom the charms of her companions made
no impression. Veitard, an ecclesiastic of Cler-
mont, declared upon oath before the tribunal at
the Chatelet, that he saw Theroigne on the
morning of the 5th of Oćtober, dressed in a red
great coat, with a basket on her arm, which was
full of small parcels with money, which she gave
and divided among the soldiers as she passed
through their ranks.
In 1790, the French revolutionary propaganda -
employed her as an aid-de-camp to Bonnecarere,
On a mission to the sovereign people of the
bishopric of Liege, whom they incited to an
- insurrection against their prince. But when the
Austrians had dispersed the Belgian insurgents,
they also restored tranquillity to the Liegois,
among whom Theroigne was discovered, and
arrested in January 1791. After being con-
dućted to Vienna, under the escort of two of—
ficers in the same carriage with her, she was
at first shut up in a fort, but upon the report of
the commissary ordered to interrogate her, the
- Emperor desired to see her, spoke with her
some time, and in the November following re-
leased her, with an injunction never more to
enter the Austrian territory. .
In
THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT. 423
In January 1792, she exhibited herself again
upon the revolutionary stage at Paris. On the
26th and 27th, she was seen in the galleries of
the Jacobins and of the National Assembly, and
upon the terrace of the Feuillants in the garden
of the Thuilleries, where she harangued the
groups of people with audacity, exhorting them
to a moderate condućt, and to respect the prin-
ciples of the constitution. -
This condućt alarmed the Jacobins and the
- republicans. Petion, therefore, invited . The-
roigne to a patriotic dinner, at which Brissot, Ro-
land, and Condorcet, were present, with their
wives, and some other female patriots. Her
head heated with wine, she acknowledged that
she had promised the Emperor, and had been
paid by some agents of the civil list, to preach
obedience to the constitution. She assured them,
however, that as she found this constitution no
longer the order of the day of the patriots, she
should soon show herself more zealous in aiding
to overthrow it, than she had been to exhort its
observance. -
From that time she was frequently observed
at the head of the dregs of her sex, decorated
with a red cap, and a pike in her hand, address-
ing
424 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
ing the assembly, the clubs, and the populace.
On the 19th of June 1792, she mounted a table
in the Palais Royal, and thus spoke to her
audience, chiefly composed of women of the
to Wn :
“sistERS AND FRIENDs,
“The time approaches when liberty and equa-
lity will extend their comforts and blessings even
to you, and cause that aristocratical distinétion
between a legal and illegal prostitute, as well as
between a legitimate and illegitimate child, to
cease for ever. Are not all women equal by
birth as well as by passions, by nature as well as
by appetites ? Is not the woman who prostitutes.
her person to one man (and how few are satis-
fied with one), as much a harlot as she who
embraces twenty, fifty, or a hundred 2 or rather
neither are harlots, because they both obey the
dićtates of nature, and the impulse of their pas-
sions,given them by the same unknown being who
gave them life; and who by giving them pas-
sions from the day of their birth, and reason.
only when they are reaching maturity, tells them.
to silence the latter when it opposes the inclina-
tions or instinčts of the former. Yes, my sisters
Af
A
- : - f
THEROIGNE, DE MERICOURT. 425
and friends ! a sacred equality shall soon make
us all modest women, or all modest WOlyherº.
harlots. No woman shall hereafter have any
right to say this man is my husband; Nature
created man and woman to be free, and to be-
long to nobody exclusively, but to the grand
family of the universe in general. Husbands
and wives are therefore monsters in Society,
which our liberal-minded regenerators intend to
annihilate, in restoring to both sexes their so
long lost rights. - - ' ',
“But, sisters and friends, you must assist
them in their patriotic undertakings. You must
not remain quiet, lukewarm spectators of the
grand work of regeneration now preparing.
You must not impede, but push the wheels of
this heavenly machine. Follow my example—
arm? yourselves with courage and patriotism ; de-
nounce, repulse, or infe&# every aristocrat, every
enemy of liberty and equality; share your ca-
resses with nobody who is not a patriot, who
does not promise to assist us, to break our fet-
ters, or, what is the same, the fetters of man-
kind ; who does not swear, sooner than to see
the unnatural ties of marriage continued, to im-
molate the last husband upon the corpse of the
last
426 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
last wife. I say, imitate me, who am one of your
own class. , Yes, I, Theroigne de Mericourt,
rejoice in being among those called harlots by
aristocrats; I rejoice in prostituting myself to
every body, without belonging to any body. I
am free as the birds that wing the air, or the
animals that range the forests. Among them
are found no husbands, no wives, but lovers and
gallants by scores. Are they not created by the
same being who created man and woman And
without kings as well as without priests; with-
out impostors as well as without tyrants ; is not
their government more that of pure nature
than our shameful institutions, imposed by
rogues, and submitted to by fools; corrupted
instead of improved, age after age, generation
after generation, until our enlightened times at
last put a stop to the oppression of the powerful,
the folly of the weak, and the terror of the
timid, by proclaiming an unrestrained liberty and
- equality all over the world : -
“Yes, sisters and friends ! I say all over the
world ! I dined yesterday with Petion, at whose
fraternal banquet I met with patriots of all na-
tions upon earth, to one of whom, an English-
man, I presented that sword I captured at the
. - - - Bastille,
THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT, 427
Bastille, and with which I have so often led you
to oppose aristocracy. All those patriots shared
my sisterly embraces, and all took the oaths of
liberty and equality, and to bury all temples in
the rubbish of all thrones, and to crush the al-
tars of hymen under the sacred code of the
rights of man, of woman, and of Nature.”
Her eloquence on this occasion was thrown
away, as the audience was more inclined to
laugh than to listen. The fraternal society of
women ordered it however to be printed, posted
- up at Paris, and distributed in the provinces *.
She commanded a number of women mixed
with some federóeſ, during the insurre&tions,
both on the 20th of June and on the 10th of
August 1792; and it was this female demon,
who, in the dress of an Amazon, with pistols
, in her girdle, and a sword in her hand, in the
name of the people, reclaimed, in the morning
of this last day, Sulean and five other loyal per-
* The whole of this sketch is taken from Le Dićtionnaire
Biographique, vol. iii. art. Theroigne and Sulean; from Anec-
dotes des Femmes Marquantes; and from Les Annales du
Terrorisme. In this last work, p. 292, & 293, this speech is
found. a -
- SO!? §
42s THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
sons, detained in a guard-house, and caused
them all to be massacred. - -
This Sulean, formerly an advocate of the Par-
liament of Paris, was, with M. Peltier, one of
the first most active and ar ent defenders of the
altar and the throne, and in numerous pam-
phlets and journals exposed with energy the dan-
gerous conspiracy of French rebels and innova-
tors against civilized society and humanity,
against their countrymen, and against all states,
institutions, and nations. The factious, offend-
ed by his past zeal, and dreading his future ex-
ertions, honoured him with their hatred and
proscription. Hearing that he had been arrested,
under pretence of belonging to a false patrole,
his death was resolved on, and T heroigne exe-
cuted their vengeance so much the more will-
ingly, as he had in the public prints often turned
both her person and patriotism into ridicule.
A few months previous to the 10th of August,
Sulean had married a beautiful woman, a daugh-
ter of the celebrated Swedish painter Hall, whom
he left pregnant. When Theroigne with her
banditti had him in their power, to make his
agony so much the more painful, she thus ad-
dressed him: “ Sulean, you have long been my
x * * enemy,
THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT, 429
enemy, and the enemy of our patriots. we
will now take our revenge. You shall die.
You see the swords of my brave companions
lifted up over your head, waiting only for a sig-
nal from me to cut you to pieces; you see around
you the bleeding relics of those aristocrats, your
friends; would you not prefer this moment to
share the embraces of your young and lovely
wife, whom sans-culottes in a minute will make
a widow, and in an hour perhaps console for her
widowhood f" She had no time to proceed, as
Sulean rushed upon her, seized her sword, with
which he cut down three of his assassins, before,
overpowered by numbers, he fell under their
blows. His head was instantly cut off, and car-
ried about the streets of Paris upon a pike. It
remained exposed twelve hours before Sulean's
house, but fortunately his widow had taken re-
fuge at a friend's, and thus escaped this barba-
rous spectacle”. ! -
it seemed as if Providence had instantly pu-
nished this revolutionary heroine for her atroci-
ties. On the same day she was seized with a fe-
ver, during which she raved of nothing but
( , f -
* Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 294.
- bloody
430 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
bloody heads, and of devils demanding her as
their prey. “Do you not see,” she would ex-
claim, “hell open under my feet, ready to
swallow me up !—Do you not see Sulean with
his head on, though bleeding, calling out to me
—Theroigne, you are my assassin; the furies
of hell are waiting for you to torment you to all
eternity l’” In her rage and terror she entirely
fore her left bosom from her body, and she died
dashing her head against the bed-post, and be-
spattering the bed with her brains" W.
* Les Annales du Terrorisme, p. 294, in the note.
Mao,
431
MADºs LA ROCHEFOUCAULT,
- THE venDEAN HERoine. .
MADEMOISELLE LA RocłłEFoucAULT
was but eighteen, when the impious and anti-
social conspirators in France, after overturning
the altars, buried the throne in their rubbish.
In Brittany, the place of her nativity, and
where she had passed her youth (a province re-
mote from the corrupted Paris), the apostles of
innovation had no more success than the preach-
ers of infidelity. -
The Bretons equally abhorred the rebels and
the atheists; they defended their temples, like
sincere Christians, convinced that they were the
best ramparts of monarchy, and that their zeal
would convince the present and future genera-
tions of their loyalty as well as their piety.
When the news of the barbarous murder of
Louis XVI. arrived there, one sentiment per-
vaded the whole country, that of a general in-
digna-
432 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
dignation for the stain cast on the national cha-
raćter, and a detestation of the regicides who
had so audaciously plunged their sacrilegious
hands in the blood of the Lord’s anointed.
Shortly after this shocking catastrophe, com-
missaries from the National Convention arrived
in the western departments. They were en-
trusted to shut up, to confiscate, and to sell, the
churches and the church lands, and to force
upon the people those sanguinary decrees, which
attached an equal degree of guilt and punish-
ment to an indiscreet word or a criminal aćtion, ^
the citizens suspećted of incivism or the assassin
convićted of murder. To arms to arms there-
fore, were the call and the cry every where ; let
us fight and perish like brave men—defending
our violated rights, our outraged sentiments, ra-
ther than tamely submit like cowards, and ex-
* pose ourselves to be butchered, after being en-
slaved, dishonoured, and oppressed.
Among the first Vendean chiefs who reared ...”
the standard of royalty, was La Rochefoucault de
Beaulieu, a near relation of the heroine of this
sketch ; he was a member of the council direét-
ing the operations of the royalists, as well as a
military commander leading them on to battle;
. . . . . . . - and
MAD. LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. 433
and in both capacities he merits that commenda-
tion which the liberal and just never refuse those
engaged in a good cause, though their efforts
are finally not crowned with success. Hardly
had he colle&ted his peasants and neighbours,
and armed them with poles, pitchforks, and
scythes, when his amiable relation appeared be-
fore him in an Amazon dress, with a sword by
her side, and two pistols in her girdle: “Friend,” .
said she, “ my principles are known to you as
well as my sex; you shall soon be convinced that
the latter does not make me unworthy to com-
bat and die for the former. Do not oppose
my entering into campaign with you. I may
perhaps find occasion to shew the republicans,
that our countrywomen, if not so valiant, are at
least as religious and loyal as the men. Permit
JThe to present these embroidered standards to
our brave comrades. The CRoss, the CRowN,
and the ScEPTRE, announce both our hope and
principles. The motto, ‘For our God and for
our KING, proclaims that we are not guided by
earthly considerations, alone, but confide in a
blessed hereafter, should the Almighty, from
motives to which we must submit with resigna- t
tion, refuse us here a reward to our meritorious
vol. III. U under-
434 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
undertakings. The infidels and republicans, un-
fortunate wretches I cannot say the same.”
Such a demand could not be refused, and the
military achievements of Mademoiselle La
Rochefoucault were surpassed only by her social
virtues. She never missed an opportunity to be
foremost in battle, and the last to retreat : as
terrible during the contest, as generous and hu-
mane when it was over. She made no difference
between foes and friends, or rather, every suffer-
er was her friend; thus all equally shared her
tender care and kind attention. Frequently af-
ter repeated daily engagements for weeks toge-
ther, hardly allowing herself any time for rest,
she employed those moments her companions
gave to repose, visiting and consoling those
maimed in war, and perishing from disease. Not-
withstanding the entreaties of her relative, she
continued this train of life, which, had she not
possessed a strong constitution, might have
ruined a health so precious to all who knew her.
No. wonder, therefore, if she was the idol as
- well as the consoler of the royalist troops, and
that they fought under her with an enthusiasm
which astonished, in foiling and crushing the en.
thusiastic republicans themselves, -
. . . • The
MAD. LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. 43s
The noble self-denial, and liberal perform-
ances of Madame La Rochefoucault, towards
routed and wounded republicans, were the more
. praiseworthy, when it is considered that those
republicans were the most unrelenting foes ; that
they spared neither age nor sex; that they ne-
ver gave quarter, and often annihilated with the
same blow, three or four generations, defenceless
and disarmed. ... ' •
The loyal and able General Danican, who,
from most particular and untoward circum-
stances, seems to have been forced to serve with
republicans he abhorred, against royalists he pi-
tied and esteemed, has, in his interesting work,
“The Banditti Unmasked,” published the fol-
lowing account of only some of the savage trans-
aćtions in La Vendée during these calamitous
times. s,
“The Military Commission sent the munici-
pal officers of Laval, without apprizing me of
itheir intention, to the Pont de Cé, whither they
condućted at the same time fifty cart-load, of nuns,
priests, suſpected persons, federalists, and men of
property, who were all guillotined, drowned, ors
shot. The forty municipal officers were in-
cluded in this infernal expedition, by the order
- U 2 Z of
436 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
of one Milliere, who had been a member of the
Parisian commune during the massacres of Sep-
tember, and who was now a member of the Mi-
litary Commission. -
« During the siege of Angers, Milliere and
his accomplices caused three or four thousand
Frenchmen to be put to death at the Pont de Cé,
and among the number was my landlord. The
witnesses of these horrors were Hortode, clerk
to the Committee of War; Cristophe, a captain
in the eighth regiment of hussars; and La Croix,
adjutant-general, now attached to the Parisian
staff, who was the man that conveyed to Laval
the municipal officers that were drowned by the
order of Milliere *.” " . -
The revolutionary tiger-monkeys every where
united mockery and profanation with cruelty;
* Lepelletier, Brutus, Beaurepaire, Magnier,
(the pompous names assumed by the president
of a revolutionary tribunal at Rennes), break-
fasting,” writes the same author:#, “ on Good-
Friday with his colleagues, said to them, “ Bro-
thers and friends, we must put to death this
* See The Banditti Unmasked, by General paniºn,
p. 25, 26. - -
+ Idem, p. 171, 172,
- . day,
MAD. LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. 437
day, at the same hour that the counter-revolu-
tionist Jesus died, that young devotee who was
lately arrested.’ An order was immediately
signed for bringing her before him. The gaoler
made a mistake, and sent him a girl of the town,
whom the judges proceeded to question on her
fanaticism, on the relics, the agneses, and the
chaplets that were found upon her when she
was arrested, and on her predilećtion for refrac-
tory priests. The girl did not understand what
they meant, and began to laugh ; upon which
the clerk was ordered to write down, “ That she
did not deign to answer, and that she treated
the tribunal with contempt.” They were about
to pronounce sentence of death upon her, when
the girl exclaimed, with all her might, that she
was no devotee, but that she had been put in
prison for debauching and infecting a battalion of
volunteers. Brutus knit his brows, and thought
it was a subterfuge. The girl, in alarm, had
recourse to an indecent gesture, and was going
to shew the truth, as she called it, when the judges
perceiving their mistake, sent her back to pri-
son, and ordered the true devotee to be carried
before them, whom they devoted to the scaf-
fold, agreeable to a determination which they had
U 3 formed
438 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
formed while they were eating their breakfast.
Thiſ fač iſ known to the whole town of Rennes,
The battalion of young children, in the same
place, was employed to shoot the Chouans and
Vendeans. Dubois Crancé started the idea, in
order, as he said, to accustom youths to repub-
!can firmneſs. No man dare deny this. I was
of Rennes at the time, and the deputy Alquier,
no doubt, recolle&ts my observation upon the
subjeće. I take a pleasure in declaring that I
found him to possess some sensibility. He re-
peatedly said to me, with tears in his eyes, in
his own apartment, ‘You say too much, my
dear Danican ; you will bring yourself to the
gºofine.” The deputy Alquier was terribly
afraid on his own account. . . . .
“ Depopulation was at that time (in 1793).
the order of the day, and Carnot displayed his
judgment in the choice of General Vachat. Thé
only qualification requisite to form a good sans-
culotte general, was to know how to massacre.
Thus, the brave and celebrated Rossignol, suc-
cessor to General Biron, after having promised,
at the bar of the Convention, to purge La Ven-
dée in a fortnight, completely succeeded in ex-
termi-
MAD. LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. 439
terminating, in less than three monthſ—one hun-
dred thousand men of both parties".”
“Of twenty thousand persons who were shot in
the department of Main and Loire, it is proved
by five sentences, now before me, that five hun-
dred and ninety were not outlawed (hors la loi);
seventy-nine were executed on the 3d Nivose,
seventy-five on the 4th, two hundred and thirty-
three on the 6th, one hundred and five on
the 23d, and , ninety-nine on the 26th Ger-
minal. A very great number of children were in-
cluded in these five sentences. .
“ Francastel, in his letter on the establishment, . .
of the military commission, says, “That so long
as there exist great criminals or federalists in -
those countries, the ordinary tribunals ought not
to ačt’—Vial, addressing himself to the popular
club at Angers, observes, ‘You all know, ci-
tizens, that more than two-thousand women and
children have been assassinated in this infamous
manner.” Vacheron and Marin, members of
that detestable commission, drew up the lists.
Two women observed to Obrumier, that they
had only been arrested as suspected persons, but
* The Banditti Unmasked, p. 70.
.*
U 4 notwith-
440 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
notwithstanding this, he ordered them to be shot,
with seventy other females. When any of these
unhappy beings were observed to breathe after
the had been shot, the humane Goupil plunged
his sabre into their bellies. The citizens of An-
gers deposed, “That they saw all these vićtims
pass by their doors, accompanied by music play-
ing patriotic tunes ; that they observed girls of
fifteen and sixteen, doubly interesting by their
beauty and their youth, embracing the knees of
their executioners, and entreating them to spare
their lives; and that every body, even the troops,
shed tears, except the monsters of the military
commission, who had the barbarity to insult the
sensibility of the people”. .
“Yes, conquering people twenty townſ and
eighteen hundred villages or hamlets have been burn-
ed by you ! And your glory and your laurels have
cost you, in 17 94, three millions of men. T hese
afflićting truths cannot be repeated too often,
there are so many persons who do not believe
them. -
“ For instance, what people in Europe do
not take for a fable, the establishment of a tan-
* See the Banditti Unmasked, p. 78.
z ‘. yard
MAD. LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. 441
yard at Meudon, for tamming human ſking 2 It
cannot, however, be forgotten, that a man came
to the bar of the Convention to announce this
discovery of a new and simple means for pro-
curing leather in abundance ; that the Committee
of Public Safety assigned him a convenient place
for the execution of his plan at the castle of
Meudon, the gates of which were constantly
shut ; and, lastly, that Barrere, Vadier, Fouché,
were the first who wore boots made of human skin.
Robespierre did not flay his people figuratively :
and as Paris supplied the armies with shoes, it
is possible that more than one defender of their
country may have worn shoes made of the skin
of his friends and relations. This will appear
pleasant and incredible to certain miscreants,
and particularly to the propagandists. National
Convention | a tan-yard was established at Meu-
don for tanning human skins, and France was
indebted to your existence for a conception so
monstrous * ! -
“Turreau (Buonaparte's present ambassador in
America, and grand officer of his Legion of
Honour), during fifteen months, the accomplice
* See the Banditti Unmasked, p. 209,210.
of
442 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
of Bourbotte, and the incendiary of La Vendée,
which he termed the grand illumination, WantOrl-
ly consumed by fire one of the suburbs of Sau-
mur, when the enemy were twenty leagues from
the place; and at Laval gave me an order to put
The sick to death in their beds. The order was so-
licited by one Baleguier, who delivered to me a
copy of the deliberations, which are now in my poſſ-
session. This Turreau also made his cousin,
Turreau de Grambouville et de Limiere, a ge-
neral and burner in chief". - -
“A Madame de Civrac, an abbess, who was
taken before Francastel and Prieur, had a faithful
servant with her who refused to quit her, they
were accordingly both guillotined at Angers.
This lady was at leaſt eighty years of age. Fran-
castel caused several persons to be drowned, even
after the death of - Robespierre. At Savenay,
Prieur caused twelve hundred peaſants of La Ven-
dée, who had laid down their arms, to be shot:
after he put them all together in a church, he
ordered a republican column to halt, and the chief
of brigade, Carbon, was entrusted with the di-
rection of the massacre. This Carbon must still
* See the Banditti Unmasked, p.230.
be
MAD. LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. 443
be at Lanneau, where he informed me of the
circumstance, at a time when he was under
my command. At Noirmoutier, fifteen hundred
prisoners of war were shot. It was there that the
brave and virtuous Vendean chief d'Elbée perish- *
ed, with several other officers of merit. At
Mans all the women that could be found were
put to death. At Laval, nine months after all
these massacres, I had the good fortune to save
the life of a young girl at Maulevrier, who, at the
massacre of Mans, had received the last sighs
of her nother on the high road, after which she
had lived six months in the woods”.
“In O&tober 1793, in obedience to the de-
crees of the National Convention, the whole coun-
try of La Vendée was ſet fire to, and even the pa
triotic distrićts were not spared. Each column
was preceded by fire and sword, by the aid of
which an universal destručiion was effected, with-
out distinčion of age or sex. An immense popu-
lation fled before the republicans, in order to
escape the fury. of the flames, and joined the
catholic army, which was forced to pass the
Loire at St. Florent. Let those who are en-
• See the Banditti Unmasked, p.282.
U 6 dued
~
444 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
dued with sensibility, represent to their ima-
ginations, more than an hundred thouſand French
men, women, and children, casting their eyes in
despair on a tract of country twenty leagues
in circumference, where their houses and
cottages were in a state of conflagration, and
having but a few moments to escape from certain
death *.” -
But it is time to close this black list of enormi-
ties, which might be extended ad infinitum, and
to proceed to that catastrophe which ended the --
short but brilliant career of Mademoiselle La
Rochefoucault. - -
Sometimes repulsed, often conquering, she
always fought undaunted, no more elevated in
prosperity than depressed in adversity. At the
terrible affair at Chollet, where the number and
barbarities of the republicans occasioned some
confusion in the ranks of the Christian and royal s
army, she three times rallied her troops, and
headed them, to return to the charge; a fourth
time repulsed by enemies twenty times more
numerous than her friends, and encompassed by
dismay and death, she still rallied them again.
* See the Banditti Unmasked, p. 84. -
. Observing,
MAH). LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. 445
Observing, however, the desperate situation in
which she was involved, she ascended a small
elevation, and thus addressed about seven hun-
dred of her brave followers:
“Companions of misfortune, and of senti-
ments although our position is desperate, let
us not give ourselves up to despair. The brave
only dies once, while the coward dies a thousand
times before he expires. Our enemies are nu-
merous indeed—our dangers are imminent in-
deed; but with the assistance of that all-disposing
and all-governing Power, which knows the justice
of our cause, the cypress of defeat may easily be
transformed into laurels of vićtory. But we
must now do our duty, and instead of turning
our backs, face and oppose our irreconcileable
pursuers with a firm determination to vanquish
or to perish :
Le lache fuit en vain; la mort vole a sa fuite;
C'est en la defiant, que le brave l'évite, t
In a retreat our destruction is inevitable; by ad-
vancing we at least stand the chance of vićtory.
Yes, a vigorous assault on the lines of those
marching with so much confidence against us,
is our only preservation. - * -
“If you retreat, whither will you fly, where
- do
446 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
do you expe&t to find a place of refuge or of
safety at your houses, at your dwellings the
Smoke you see darken the firmament every
where around you, tells you that they are no
more, that they are reduced to ashes. Do you
hope to escape by crossing the river Loire your
atrocious republican foes have already made it
the scaffold and the grave of thousands of our
unfortunate partizans. -
Fathers, do you expečt again to caress your
offspring * husbands, do you once more hope to
embrace your wives 2 children, do you think
again to salute your parents : Know then, my
beloved and pitiable friends, that every thing
dear, affectionate, or consoling to you has dis-
appeared, and is swallowed up in this same river,
and that you are childless, widowers, and or-
phans. The republican monsters have torn to
pieces all your ties of consanguinity, as well 3S
of society. They have made you domestic as
well as social outlaws.
“No, no 1 comrades and fellow sufferers all
hope, all retreat is cut off; certain death, inevit-
able ruin, unavoidable wretchedness are behind
us, while perhaps vićtory and glory are waiting
before us. Come, come, let us march follow
}] e :
MAD. LA ROCHEFOUCAULT. 44r
me, Christians and Royalists Remember, re-
member that your God died on the cross, your
King on the scaffold, and that his assassins are
those of our friends and relations ! Follow me,
and before the end of the day we shall either
sing Te Deum upon earth, or hymns with saints
in heaven; we shall either be triumphant or
blessed tº :
Mademoiselle La Rochefoucault then led again
her brave and loyal companions towards the
enemy—but she did not return
The day before this decisive engagement, she
wrote to a female friend at Paris with a sad pre-
sentiment, and finished her letter with these
lines: “God knows that I do not fear death ; I
was prepared for it from the day I determined
to combat for the altar and for the throne, and
I have since daily braved it. May it only be of
some service to my King, to my fellow-subjects,
in restoring the one to his supremacy, and the
others to their too long lost happiness and tran-
quillity; may it only in some manner lessen the
stain, and palliate the disgrace thrown on my
family name by the La Rochefoucaults who have
conspired and betrayed; may the Bourbons re-
member that all La Rochefoucaults were not
traitors,
448 THE FEMALE PLUTARCH.
traitors, but worthy their ancestors, and to have
them for sovereigns ! But I hear the trumpet
sounding alarm, and I must bid my tender friend
a long, I fear too long adieu: .-- -
Que surma tombe solitaire
Ou pour jamais je vais dormir
On ecrive en beau caractere !
Elle savoit vivre—Elle sut mourir!"
* This sketch is translated in part from Les Annales Mili-
taires, p. 89, and 90, and in part from Recueil d'Anecdotes,
p. 37, 38, and the note, p. 39. - -
Of the La Rochefoucaults who have disgraced themselves, ... "
the Duke, an accomplice of La Fayette, was murdered by his
new sovereign, the sovereign people, in 1792; but every
.Emperor of Faëtion has had some valets or slaves of that name,
even Buonaparte has a La Rochefoucault for his diplomatic
emissary at Vienna. \
The writer of this has materials for honourable sketches of
many other Vendean heroines; but as they have relatives
residing in France, and in the grasp of the fell Corsican tyrant,
he has been desired not to publish them at present. They
shall appear, should he be happy enough to live to write Bug-
naparte's funeral sermon. .
FIN is.
‘Tº T.T.T.T.T., ;
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