A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792
Date: 2007-01-07T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paris (France) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; France -- History -- 1789-1793

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Title: A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792

Author: Richard Twiss

Release date: January 7, 2007 [eBook #20304]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TRIP TO PARIS IN JULY AND AUGUST 1792 ***

A

TRIP

TO

P A R I S,

IN

JULY and AUGUST,

1792.

LONDON:

PRINTED AT THE

Minerva Press,

AND SOLD BY WILLIAM LANE,

LEADENHALL-STREET,

AND BY MRS. HARLOW, PALL-MALL.

M.DCC.XCIII.

PRICE THREE SHILLINGS
Entered at Stationers Hall.

FRONTISPIECE EXECUTIONS at PARIS with a Beheading Machine. Vide page 32.

CONTENTS.

Road from Calais, Unneccessary Passports. Chantilly. | 1
Expenses | 6

Miscellaneous observations. Chess-men. Tree of Liberty.
Crucifixes. Virgins. Saints.
Bishops, Old Women

8

Wall round Paris. New Bridge. Field of the Federation. Bastille | 15
Coins and Tokens | 19
Theatres | 24
Pantheon. Jacobins. Quai Voltaire. Rue Rousseau. Cockades | 27
Execution of two criminals with a beheading machine | 32
Versailles. Botany, Sounding meridians | 38
Dogs and Cats. Two-headed Boy | 50
Dress. Inns | 65
Assignats | 66
Battle and massacre at the Tuileries | 71
Statues pulled down. New names | 84
Beheading. Dead naked bodies | 90
Courage and curiosity of the fair sex. Massacre in 1572 | 93
Miscellanies. Number of slain | 99
BBreeches. Pikes. Necessary Passports | 105
Miscellanies. Dancing. Poultry, Taverns. Wig | 111
Extent, Population, &c. of France | 116
Emendations and Additions. Return to Calais | 123
Epilogue. | 129

A TRIP
TO
PARIS.

ROAD FROM CALAIS. UNNECESSARY PASSPORTS. CHANTILLY.

THE following excursion was undertaken for several reasons: the first of which was, that though I had been many times in Paris before, yet I had not once been there since the Revolution, and I was desirous of seeing how far a residence of a few years in France might be practicable and agreeable; secondly, a Counter-Revolution, or, at least, some violent measures were expected, and I was willing to be there at the time, if possible; and lastly, I wanted to examine the gardens near Paris.

I must here premise that I sent for a passport from the Secretary of State's office, which I knew could do no harm if it did no good, thinking I should have it for nothing, and obtained one signed by Lord Grenville, but at the same time a demand was made for two guineas and sixpence for the fees; now, as I have had passports from almost all the European nations, all and every one of which were gratis, I sent the pass back; it was however immediately returned to me, and I was told that, "A passport is never issued from that office without that fee, even if the party asking for it changes his mind." I paid the money, and that is all I shall say about the matter.

Mr. Chauvelin (the minister from France) sent me his pass gratis; those which I afterwards received in Paris from Lord Gower, and the very essential one from Mr. Petion, were likewise gratis.

That of Mr. Chauvelin has at the top a small engraving of three Fleurs de Lys between two oak branches, surmounted by a crown: at the bottom is another small engraving, with his cypher F. C. it was dated London, 17th July, 1792, 4th year of Liberty.

No passport of any kind is necessary to enter France. At Calais one was given to me by the magistrates, mentioning my age, stature, complexion, &c. and this would have been a sufficient permit for my going out of France by sea or by land, if the disturbances in Paris, of the 10th of August, had not happened.

I embarked at Dover on the 25th July, at one in the afternoon, and landed at Calais after a pleasant passage of three hours and a half.

I immediately procured a national cockade, which was a silk ribband, with blue, white, and red stripes; changed twenty guineas for forty livres each, in paper, (the real value is not more than twenty-five livres) hired a cabriolet, or two wheeled post-chaise of Dessin, (which was to take me to Paris, and bring me back in a month) for three louis d'ors in money, bought a post-book, drank a bottle of Burgundy, and set off directly for Marquise (about fifteen miles) where I passed the night.

The next day, 26th, I proceeded only to Abbeville, and it was ten at night when I got there, because a gentleman in the chaise with me, and another gentleman and his wife, who had not been in France before, and who accompanied us all the way to Paris, wished to see Boulogne. We accordingly walked round the ramparts, and then went on.

The 27th we remained a few hours at Amiens, and saw the cathedral and the engine which supplies the city with water, called La Tour d'Eau. We slept at Breteuil which is a paltry town (Bourg.)

The 28th. We were five hours occupied in seeing Chantilly. This palace is the most magnificent of any in Europe, not belonging to a sovereign. In the cabinet of natural history, which has lately been very considerably augmented, by the addition of that of Mr. Valmont de Bomare (who arranged the whole) I observed the fœtus of a whale, about fourteen inches long, preserved in spirits; and the skin of a wolf stuffed. I saw this identical wolf at Montargis, a palace beyond Fontainebleau, in 1784, soon after it had been shot. The carp came, as usual, to be fed by hand. Some of them are said to have been here above a century. As to the gardens, they are well known; all that I shall say is, that they do not contain a single curious tree, shrub, or flower. We hired a landau, at the inn, to drive us about these gardens, and in the evening proceeded to St. Denis, which is only a single post from Paris, where we remained, as it would not have been so convenient to seek for a lodging there at night.

The next day, Sunday 29th, early in the morning, we entered Paris, and put up at the Hôtel d'Espagne, Rue du Colombier, and in the evening went to the opera of Corisandre.

EXPENCES.

THE whole expences of our journey from Calais to Paris was as follows. The distance is thirty-four posts and a half, the last of which must be paid double.[1] The two chaises were each drawn by two horses, at 30 sous per horse, and 20 sous to each postillion per post, is 35 and half posts, at eight livres, is Livres 284.

Greasing the wheels and extra gratifications to drivers, about | 32
The fees for seeing Chantilly, including the hire of a carriage, | 24
Inns on the road, four days and four nights, about | 200
| ————
| £. 540

This, at 40 livres per guinea, amounts to thirteen guineas and a half; to which must be added, for the hire of the two chaises to Paris, three Louis in money, adequate to three pounds sterling, which altogether does not amount to four guineas each person, travelling post above two hundred miles, and faring sumptuously on the road, drinking Burgundy and Champagne, and being as well received at the inns as if the expences had been quadrupled. One hot meal a day, at three livres a head, one livre for each bed, and the wine paid for apart, was the customary allowance. After this manner I have travelled several times all over France, to Bourdeaux, Toulouse, Montpelier, Marseille, Toulon, Hieres, Avignon, Lyon, &c.

Had the exchange been at par, the expence would have been doubled, in English money; but even then would have been very reasonable, compared to the cost of a similar journey in England.

At Paris I received 42 livres 15 sous for each guinea; soon after which I was paid forty-two livres for every pound sterling which I drew on London: on my return to Calais I found the exchange to be forty-four livres per guinea, and once it was as high as forty-nine. This, of course, very much injures the trade between England and France; but, for the same reason, English families residing in France at present, more than double their income, by drawing bills on London for such income, and it will probably be many years before the exchange will be at par again.

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. CHESSMEN. TREE OF LIBERTY. CRUCIFIXES,VIRGINS. SAINTS. BISHOPS. OLD WOMEN, &C.

THE whole way from Calais to Paris the land was in the highest state of cultivation.

The sandy soil near the gates of Calais abounded with the Chelidonium Glaucium, or common yellow horned poppy.

The first vines on this road are about a mile on this side of Breteuil.

Between St. Just and Clermont is a magnificent château and garden belonging to the ci-devant Duc de Fitzjames: this seat has never been described; it is not shewn to strangers at present, as the proprietor is emigrated.

The country all around Chantilly, consists of cornfields; formerly it appeared barren, because the immense quantity of game which infested and over-ran it devoured all the crops and ruined the farmers, who were sent to the gallies if they shot a bird.

I passed this way in 1783 and 1784, and saw vast numbers of pheasants, partridges, and hares cross the road, and feed by the side of it, as tame as poultry in a farm-yard; but at present the game is all destroyed; neither are there any more wild boars in the forest, which is of 7600 acres. These animals still inhabit the forest of Fontainebleau. This forest (which covers almost four times as much ground as that of Chantilly)[2] contains a greater number of trees, of a more enormous size, than I have seen in any other part of Europe, growing amongst rocks and stones equally remarkable for their dimensions. I know not of any parallel to the sublime-beautiful, and to the wild and romantic grandeur of the scenery here displayed. The landscapes of Salvator Rosa appear to have been taken from natural objects, similar to those which are here seen. It is only forty miles from Paris.

In the treasury of the Abbey at St. Denis were formerly preserved the Chess-men of Charlemagne; these I described in the first volume of Chess, published in 1787; they are now either stolen or strayed, and will probably never more be heard of.

All the horses (many of which were stone-horses) we had occasion to make use of along this road were very gentle, and so were the cattle which were feeding on the grass growing on the borders of the cornfields, (without any inclosure) which they were prevented from entering by a string tied to their horns, one end of which was sometimes held by a child of five or six years old. The people here are very merciful and kind to their beasts. I have seen droves of oxen walking leisurely through the green markets in the cities, smelling at the vegetables, and driven to the slaughter-house by children. There are no instances here of mad oxen, mad dogs, or run-away horses.

In every one of the towns between Calais and Paris a full-grown tree (generally a poplar) has been planted in the market-place, with many of its boughs and leaves; these last being withered, it makes but a dismal appearance; on the top of this tree or pole is a red woollen or cotton night-cap, which is called the Cap of Liberty, with streamers about the pole, of red, blue and white ribbands.

I saw several statues of saints, both within and without the churches (and in Paris likewise) with similar caps, and several crucifixes with the national cockade of ribbands tied to the left arm of the image on the cross, but not one with the cockade in its proper place; the reason of which I know not.

I was both surprised and sorry to see the wooden images, many of them as large as the life, on crosses, painted with the natural colours, to the amount of perhaps twenty between Calais and Paris, still suffered to remain nuisances on the side of the road. The perpendicular of each cross being seasoned, by having been exposed many years to the open air, might make a couple of excellent pike staves;[3] but the remainder would, as far as I know, be of no other use than for fuel.

Another absurdity which has not been attended to as yet is, that most of the almanacks, even that which is prefixed to Mr. Rabaut's Account of the Revolution, contains against every day in the year, the name of some saint or other, male or female; some of them martyrs, and others not, others archangels, angels, arch-bishops, bishops, popes, and virgins, to the number of twenty-four, and of these, four were martyrs into the bargain; and this at a time when churches are selling by auction and pulling down, when the convents are turned into barracks, when there is neither monk nor nun to be seen in the kingdom, nor yet any Abbe, and when no priest dares appear in any sacerdotal garment, or even with any thing which might mark him as an ecclesiastic. It must however be acknowledged, that the saints have lost all their credit in France, and of course so have the Bienheureux, or Blessed. In order to arrive at saint-hood, the candidate must first have died en odeur de Sainteté, which, were it not too ludicrous, might be translated smelling of holiness; he was then created a Bienheureux, and after he had been dead a century, the pope might canonize him if he pleased; after which he, the saint, might work miracles if he could, or let it alone.

France formerly contained eighteen arch-bishopricks, and one hundred and thirteen bishopricks; the Arch ones are all abolished, and likewise forty-seven of the others; there are, however, plenty remaining, no less than seventy-three, which includes seven new ones, and one in Corsica.

The churches in Paris are not much frequented on the week days, at present; I found a few old women on their knees in some of them, hearing mass; and, at the same time, at the other end of one of these churches commissaries were sitting and entering the names of volunteers for the army.

The iron rails in the churches which part the choir from the nave, and also those which encompass chapels and tombs, are all ordered to be converted into heads for pikes.

On Sundays, before the 19th of August, the churches were still resorted to, but by no means crowded; I know not whether this be the case now.

All the jours de fête, holidays, are very judiciously abolished, and likewise les jours gras, et maigres, (Flesh and meagre days.)

All shops are allowed to be open, and every trade carried on on Sundays, notwithstanding which, few are open excepting those where provisions are sold; the inhabitants choosing to have one day's relaxation in seven, to take a little fresh air, and to appear well dressed.

WALL ROUND PARIS. NEW BRIDGE. FIELD OF THE FEDERATION. BASTILLE.

THERE is a Wall which encompasses Paris, of about twelve feet high and two feet thick, about nine miles long on the North side, and five on the South side; this was built just before the Revolution, and was intended to prevent goods from being smuggled into Paris. On the North side are thirty-six barriers, and on the other side eighteen; of these fifty-four I saw only ten. They were intended for the officers of the customs; at present they are used as guardrooms. Most of them are magnificent buildings, of white stone, some like temples, others like chapels; several of these are described in the new Paris Guides; but views of none of them have as yet been engraven.[4]

A bridge of white stone was just finished and opened for the passage of carriages; it was begun in 1787, it is of five arches, the centre arch is ninety-six feet wide, the two collateral ones eighty-seven feet each, and other two seventy-eight, each of these arches forms part of a circle, whose centre is considerably under the level of the water; it is thrown over the river from the Place de Louis XV. to the Palais Bourbon.

The Champ de la Federation, formerly Champ de Mars, is a field which served for the exercises of the pupils of the Royal Military School; it is a regular parallelogram of nine hundred yards long, and three hundred yards broad, exclusive of the ditches by which it is bounded, and of the quadruple rows of trees on each side; but if these are included the breadth is doubled. At one extremity is the magnificent building above-mentioned,[5] and the river runs at the foot of the others. In this field is formed the largest Circus in the world, being eight hundred yards long and four hundred broad; it is bordered by a slope of forty yards broad, and of which the highest part is ten feet above the level ground; the lower part is cut into thirty rows, gradually elevated above each other, and on these rows or ridges a hundred and sixty thousand persons may fit commodiously; the upper part may contain about a hundred and fifty thousand persons standing, of which every one may see equally well what is doing in the Circus. The National confederation was first held here, 14th July, 1790, and at that time a wooden bridge was thrown on boats over the river for convenience.

Of the Bastille nothing remains but the foundations; it was demolished and levelled with the ground in about eleven months; the expences at the end of the first three months amounted to about twenty thousand pounds sterling. The materials were sold for half that sum, and the nation paid the remainder. And on the 14th of July, 1790, the anniversary of the day of its having been taken, a long mast was erected in the middle of the place where it stood, crowned with flowers and ribbands, and bearing this simple and expressive inscription; Ici on Danse. Here is dancing.

COINS AND TOKENS.

IN the Hôtel de la Monnoye (the Mint) I procured some new coins. The silver crown piece of six livres has on one side the king's head in profile, round which is Louis XVI. Roi des François, 1792; over this date is a small lion passant, being a Mint mark. The reverse, is a human figure with an enormous pair of wings,[6] holding a book in its left hand, which book rests on an altar, and with its other is represented as if writing in it; the word Constitution is already seen there. The figure is naked, except a slight drapery on the left arm; behind the figure is a bundle of staves, like the Roman Fasces, surmounted by the cap of liberty, and behind the altar is a cock standing on one leg; the inscription is Regne de la Loi. L'An 4 de la Liberté. Besides this, there are two other Mint marks, one a small lyre, and the other the letter A; at the foot of the altar is Dupre, the name of the person who engraved the die; and on the edge is La Nation, La Loi, et le Roi, in Relievo.

There are no new half crowns. The dies of the new thirty and fifteen sol pieces are just like that of the crown, except that their value is stamped on them 30 Sols, 15 Sols, and that there is no inscription on the edge.

There are two other coins, made of a sort of bell-metal; one of two Sols, with the king's profile; inscription and date like those on the silver coin, and on the reverse the Fasces and cap, between two oak branches, and the inscription, La Nation, Le Loi, Le Roi. L'an 4 de la Liberté. 2 S. The other of half this size, and with the same impressions, except that its value is specified thus, 12 D. or Deniers, equal to one Sol.

I have not seen any new Louis. No paper money or assignats is known in the Mint; I bought some coins here, and paid for them in guineas, which are currant for twenty-five livres. There are twelve or fourteen mills, which were all at work in coining crown pieces, and likewise several hammering machines, one of which was coining 2 Sols pieces.

Besides the national coins, several tradesmen have been permitted to fabricate silver and copper medals or tokens, for public convenience, the most beautiful of which are those of M. Monneron. The largest is of almost pure copper, exactly of the size and thickness of the crown piece; in an oval is represented a female figure with a helmet on, sitting on an elevated place, on which is Dupre f. (or fecit) holding a book, inscribed Constitution des François; at her side is a shield with the arms of France, and at her feet an altar, on one side of which is the profile of the king; several soldiers are represented extending their right arms, as if taking the oath; at top is Pacte Federatif; at bottom 14 Juillet, 1790; round the oval vivre libres ou mourir, which is repeated in one of the banners carried by a soldier. On the reverse, in a circle, is Medaille de confiance de cinq-sols remboursable en assignats de 50L et au dessus. L'An IV. de la Liberté; round this is Monneron Freres Negocians à Paris, 1792; and on the edge is cut Departemens de Paris, Rhone et Loire. Du Gard.

I have another of these pieces, not quite so large nor so well executed; one of the sides is similar to that already described; on the other is Medaille qui se vend 5 Sols à Paris chez Monneron patenté. L'An IV. de la Liberté. Round this is, Revolution Française, 1792; and on the edge, Bon pour les 83 Departemens. I am told this was made at Birmingham.

The other token of the same merchant is rather larger and thicker than our halfpenny. On one side is a woman sitting, with a staff in her right hand with the cap of liberty; her left arm leans on a square tablet, on which are the words, Droits de l'Homme. Artic. V.[7] the sun shines just over her head, and behind her is a cock perched on half a fluted column; round the figure, Liberté sous la Loi, and underneath, L'An III. de la Liberté. On the reverse, Medaille de confiance de deux sols à echanger contre des assignats de 50L et au dessus. 1791. Round this the merchant's name, as in the first; and on the edge, Bon pour Bord. Marseil. Lyon. Rouen. Nant. et Strasb.

I have seen a silver token almost as big as a shilling. On one side is represented a woman sitting, leaning with her left arm on a large open book, at her right is a cock perched on half a fluted column; and the inscription round these figures is, Le Fevre, Le Sage et Compie. ngt. à Paris. On the reverse is B.P. (bon pour) 20 Sols à echanger en assignats de 50L and round this, et au dessus l'an 4 me de la Liberté, 1792.[8]

In this Hôtel is the cabinet of the royal school of mineralogy, which Mr. Le Sage has been four and twenty years in forming and analyzing; it is contained in a magnificent building, with a dome and gallery almost entirely of marble.

THEATRES.

AT this time there were ten regular theatres open every evening. The first and most ancient of which is the Opera, or Royal Academy of Music. The old house which was in the Palais Royal, was burnt in 1781, and the present house, near St. Martin's Gate, was built in seventy-five days. The number of performers, vocal and instrumental, dancers, &c. employed in this theatre is about four hundred and thirty. The price of admission to the first boxes is seven livres ten sous, about six shillings and eight pence, (or three shillings and four pence as the exchange then was.)

2. The French playhouse is at present called Theatre de la Nation. In the vestibule or porch is a marble statue of Voltaire, sitting in an arm chair; it is near the Luxembourg.

3. The Italian theatre behind the Boulevart Richelieu. Notwithstanding the name, nothing but French pieces, and French music, are performed here.

4. Theatre de Monsieur. Rue Feydeau. Comedies and operas are performed here, three times a week in the Italian, and the other days in the French language; for which purpose two sets of players are engaged at this house.

5. Theatre Français. Rue de Richelieu. At these four theatres the price of admission into the boxes was a crown.

6. Theatre de la Rue de Louvois.

7. Theatre Français. Rue de Bondy.

8. Theatre de la Demoiselle Montansier, au Palais Royal. The box price of these three last was half a crown.

9. Theatre du Marais, quartier St. Antoine.

10. Theatre de Moliere. Rue St. Martin.

To these must be added about five and twenty more; the best of which is the Theatre de l'ambigu comique, on the North Boulevarts; [9] box price was half a crown. The others were rope dancers, and such kind of spectacles as Sadler's Wells, &c. and the prices were from two shillings down to sixpence. The French themselves, laughing at the great increase of their theatres, said, "We shall shortly have a public spectacle per street, an actor per house, a musician per cellar, and an author per garret."

PANTHEON. JACOBINS. QUAI VOLTAIRE. RUE ROUSSEAU. COCKADES.

THE new church of Sainte Genevieve was begun in 1757; but the building was discontinued during the last war; in 1784 it was resumed, and is at present almost finished. The whole length of the front is thus inscribed in very large gilt capitals: Aux grands hommes: la Patrie reconnoissante. To great men: their grateful country. And over the entrance: Pantheon Français. L'An III de la Liberté.

As to the size of Paris, I saw two very large plans of that city and of London, on the same scale, on which it was said, that Paris covered 5,280,000 square Toises, and London only 3,900,000. A Toise is two yards; and from the plan it appeared to be near the truth.

The new buildings which surround the garden of the Palais Royal form a parallelogram, that for beauty is not to be matched in Europe. They consist of shops, coffee-houses, music rooms, four of which are in cellars, taverns, gaming-houses, &c. and the whole square is almost always full of people. The square is 234 yards in length, and 100 in breadth; the portico which surround it consists of 180 arches.

The celebrated Jacobins are a club, consisting at present of about 1300 members, and so called, because the place of meeting is in the hall which was formerly the library of the convent of that name, in the Rue St. Honoré, about 300 yards distant from the National Assembly. The proper name of the club is, Society of the Friends of the Constitution. There are three or four other societies of less note.

The Quai, which was formerly called des Theatins is at present named Quai Voltaire, in honor of that philosopher, who died there in the house of the Marquis de Villette, in 1778.

The street which was formerly called Platriere, and in which the general post-office is situated, is called Rue Jean Jaques Rousseau, in honour of this writer, who resided some time in this street. I found him here in 1776, and he copied some music for me; he had no other books at that time than an English Robinson Crusoe and an Italian Tasso's Jerusalem. He died 1st July, 1778, very soon after Voltaire, at the country seat of le Marquis de Girardin about ten leagues from Paris; and is buried there, in a small island.

And the street which was formerly called Chaussée d'Antin is now named Rue de Mirabeau, in honour of the late patriot of that name.

The church des Innocens was pulled down in 1786, and the vast cimetiére (burying ground) was filled up. Every night, during several months, carts were employed in carrying the bones found there, to other grounds out of Paris; it is now a market for vegetables. Very near this place was a fountain, which is mentioned in letters patent so long ago as 1273. It was rebuilt with extraordinary magnificence in 1550, repaired in 1708, and at last, in 1788, carefully removed to the center of the market, where it now stands.

The new Quai de Gesvres was constructed in 1787, and all the shops which formed a long narrow alley for foot passengers only, were destroyed.

At this time no person was permitted to walk in any other part of the Tuileries gardens than in the terrace of the Feuillans, which is parallel to the Rue St. Honoré, and under the windows of the National Assembly; the only fence to the other part of the garden was a blue ribband extended between two chairs.

Hitherto cockades of silk had been worn, the aristocrats wore such as were of a paler blue and red, than those worn by the democrats, and the former were even distinguished by their carriages, on which a cloud was painted upon the arms, which entirely obliterated them, (of these I saw above thirty in the evening promenade, in the Bois de Boulogne:) but on the 30th of July, every person was compelled by the people to wear a linen cockade, without any distinction in the red and blue colours.

EXECUTION OF TWO CRIMINALS, WITH A BEHEADING MACHINE.

ON the 4th of August a criminal was beheaded, in the Place de Grêve. I did not see the execution, because, as the hour is never specified, I might have waited many hours in a crowd, from which there is no extricating one's self. I was there immediately after, and saw the machine, which was just going to be taken away. I went into a coffee-house and made a drawing, which is here engraven. It is called la Guillotine, from the name of the person who first brought it into use in Paris: that at Lisle is called le Louison, for a similar reason. In English it is termed a maiden.[10]

I have seen the following seven engravings of such an instrument. The most ancient is engraven on wood, merely outlines, and very badly drawn; it is in Petrus de Natalibus Catalogus Sanctorum, 1510.

There was a German translation of some of Petrarch's Works, published in 1520; this contains an engraving in wood, representing an execution, with a great number of figures, correctly drawn.

Aldegrever, in 1553, published another print on this subject.

The fourth is in Achillis Bocchii Quæstiones Symbolicæ, 1550.

There is one in Cats's Dutch Emblems, 1650.

And the two last are in Golfrieds's Historical Chronicles, in German, folio, 1674. These five last are engraven on copper.

In all these representations the axe is either straight or semicircular, but always horizontal. The sloping position of the French axe appears to be the best calculated for celerity.

Machines of this kind are at present made use of for executions throughout all France, and criminals are put to death in no other manner.

The following is the account of an execution, which I had from an eye-witness.

The crowd began to assemble at ten in the morning, and waited, exposed to the intense heat of the sun in the middle of July, till four in the afternoon, when the criminals, a Marquis and a Priest, were brought, in two coaches; they were condemned for having forged assignats.

The Marquis ascended the scaffold first; he was as pale as if he had already been dead, and he endeavoured to hide his face, by pulling his hair over it; there were two executioners, dressed in black, on the scaffold, one of which immediately tied a plank of about 18 inches broad, and an inch thick, to the body of the Marquis, as he stood upright, fastening it about the arms, the belly, and the legs; this plank was about four feet long, and came almost up to his chin; a priest who attended, then applied a crucifix to his mouth, and the two executioners directly laid him on his belly on the bench, lifted up the upper part of the board which was to receive his neck, adjusted his head properly, then shut the board and pulled the string which is fastened to the peg at the top of the machine, which lifted up a latch, and down came the axe; the head was off in a moment, and fell into a basket which was ready to receive it, the executioner took it out and held it up by the hair to show the populace, and then put it into another basket along with the body: very little blood had issued as yet.

The Priest was now taken out of the coach, from which he might have seen his companion suffer; the bloody axe was hoisted up and he underwent the same operation exactly. Each of these executions lasted about a minute in all, from the moment of the criminal's ascending the scaffold to that of the body's being taken away. It was now seen that the body of the Marquis made such a violent expiration that the belly raised the lid of the basket it was in, and the blood rushed out of the great arteries in torrents.

The windows of the Place de Grêve were, as usual on such occasions, filled with ladies.[11] Many persons were performing on violins, and trumpets, in order to pass the time away, and to relieve the tediousness of expectation.

I have on several other days seen felons sitting on stools on this scaffold, with their hands tied, and their arms and bodies fastened to a stake by a girth, bareheaded, with an inscription over their heads, specifying their crimes and punishment; they are generally thus exposed during five or fix hours, and then sent to prison, or to the gallies according to the sentence.

VERSAILLES. BOTANY. SOUNDING MERIDIANS.

I went once to Versailles; there is hardly any thing in the palace but the bare walls, a very few of the looking-glasses, tapestry, and large pictures remaining, as it has now been near two years uninhabited. I crossed the great canal on foot; there was not a drop of water in it.

In the Menagerie I saw the Rhinoceros, which has been 23 years there; there is likewise a lion, with a little dog in the same den, as his companion, and a zebra.

The collection of orange trees cannot be matched in any country where these trees do not grow naturally; the number is about six hundred, the largest trunk is about fifteen inches in diameter, and the age of the most ancient of these trees exceeds three centuries.

The Jardin Potager, or kitchen garden, is of fifty acres, divided into about five or six and twenty small gardens, of one, two, or three acres, walled round, both for shelter to the plants, and for training fruit trees against. One of these gardens, of two acres, was entirely allotted to the culture of melons, and these were all of the warty rock cantalupe kind, and were growing under hand-glasses, in the manner of our late cucumbers for pickling.

The season had been so unfavourable for wall-fruit, that (as the gardener told me) all these gardens had yielded less than a dozen peaches and nectarines.

The fruit was sent regularly to the Royal Family in Paris.

There is a botanical garden at the Petit Trianon in the park of Versailles, but the person who shews it was out of the way, so that I did not see it.

I passed several mornings in the Botanical National Garden, (ci-devant Jardin du Roi.) That part of the garden which contains the botanical collection is separated from the other part, which is open to the public at large, by iron palisades. The names of the plants are painted on square plates of tin, stuck in the ground on the side of each plant. I saw a Strelitzia, which was there called Ravenala, (probably from some modern botanist's name) Mr. Thouin, who superintends this garden, said to me, "We will not have any aristocratic plants, neither will we call the new Planet by any other name than that of its discoverer, Herschel." I neglected to ask him why the plant might not retain its original and proper name of Heliconia Bihai?

Anastatica or Rose of Jericho

I here found the Anastatica Hierochuntica or Rose of Jericho, which I sought for in vain for several years, and advertised for in the Gentleman's Magazine, for January 1791, and in the newspapers. Many descriptions and figures of this plant are to be found in old books, and the dried plants are frequently to be met with. Old Gerard very justly says, "The coiner spoiled the name in the mint, for of all plants that have been written of, there is not any more unlike unto the rose." The annexed figure represents a single plant; it had been transplanted into a deep pot, which had been filled with earth, so as to make it appear like two plants. The stalks are shrubby, the leaves are fleshy, and of a glaucous or sea-green colour. The corolla consists of four very small white petals. Its scientific description may be found in Linnæus[12]. One of the silicles is drawn magnified.

Mr. Thouin pointed out to me a new and very beautiful species of Zinnia, of which the flower is twice the size of that of the common sort, and of a deep purple colour: a new verbascum, from the Levant; it was about four feet high, the leaves were almost as woolly as those of the Stachys lanata, and terminated in a point like a spur; it had not yet flowered. And a new solanum, with spines the colour of gold.

He recommended the flower of the spilanthus brasiliana, which our nurserymen call Verbesina acmella as an excellent dentifrice.

I also found here the amethystea, cœrulea: this annual has been lost in England above twenty years.[13]

The datura fastuosa, the French call Trompette du jugement à trois fleurs l'une dans l'autre; I have myself raised these with triple flowers, both purple and white, though some of our nurserymen pretended the flowers were never more than double. The anthemis arabica, a very singular and pretty annual. A zinnia hybrida, which last has not yet been cultivated in England. Twenty-two sorts of medicago polymorpha, (snails and hedgehogs) of these I had seen only four in England.

Here was a small single moss-rose plant, in a pot, which is the only one I ever saw in France. The air is too hot for those roses, and for the same reason none of the American plants, such as the magnolia (tulip tree) kalmia, &c. thrive in France, though kept in pots in the shade and well watered; the heat of the atmosphere dries the trunk of these trees. But there are many other plants, to the growth of which the climate is much more favourable than it is in England. In the open part of this garden are a great number of bignonia-catalpa trees, which were then in flower, resembling horse-chesnut flowers at a distance, but much larger and more beautiful; and many nerium oleander trees, in wooden chests; several of these trees are about eight feet high and the trunk a foot in diameter; they were then full of flowers of all the sorts, single and double, red and white; these are placed in the green-house in the winter.

On a mount in this garden is a meridien sonnant (sounding meridian) this is an iron mortar which holds four pounds of gunpowder, it is loaded every morning, and exactly at noon the sun discharges the piece by means of a burning glass, so placed that the focus at that moment fires the powder in the touch-hole. The first meridian that was made of this kind is in the garden of the Palais Royal, at the top of one of the houses; I could not see it, but it is thus described in the Paris Guide: "The touch-hole of the cannon is two inches long and half a line (the twentieth part of an inch) broad, this length is placed in the direction of the meridian line. Two transoms or cross-staves placed vertically on a horizontal plane, support a lens or burning glass, which, by their means, is fixed according to the sun's height monthly, so as to cause the focus to be exactly over the touch-hole at noon. It is said to have been invented by Rousseau." Small meridians of this sort are sold in the shops; these are dials of about a foot square, engraven on marble, with a little brass cannon and a lens.

The market for plants and flowers in pots, and for nosegays, is kept on the Quai de la Megisserie, twice a week, very early in the morning; the following were the most abundant: Nerium double flowering pomegranate, vinca rosea, (Madagascar periwinkle) prickly lantana, peruvian heliotropium (turnsole) tuberoses, with very large and numerous single and double flowers, and very great quantities of common sweet basil, which is much used in cookery.

I visited the apothecaries garden, and also two or three nursery gardens in that neighbourhood, but found nothing remarkable in them.

There are many gardens in the environs of Paris which are worthy of notice, but I was prevented from seeing them in consequence of the disturbances hereafter mentioned. In the books which describe these places, I find the village of Montreuil-sous-le-Bois particularly mentioned on account of its fertility. In the Tableau de Paris it is said, "Three acres of ground produce to the proprietor twenty thousand livres annually, (near 800 guineas.) The rent of an acre is six hundred livres, and the king's tax sixty (together about six and twenty guineas.) The peaches which are produced here are the finest in the world, and are sometimes sold for a crown a piece. When a prince has given a splendid entertainment, three hundred Louis d'ors worth of these fruits have been eaten." It is situated on a hill, just above Vincennes, about three miles from the fauxbourg Saint Antoine, and is likewise celebrated for its grapes, strawberries, all sorts of wall fruit, pease, and every kind of esculent vegetables. In the garden called Mouceaux which belongs to the ci-devant Duke of Orleans; at the extremity of the fauxbourg du Roule are, it is said, magnificent hot-houses, of which I have no recollection, though I was in the garden in 1776. There is a description of these gardens in print, with sixteen copper plates. In the Luxembourg gardens only common annuals were growing, such as marigolds, sun-flowers, &c. probably self sown; neither were there in the Tuileries gardens, which I afterwards saw, any remarkable plants.

I bought very large peaches in the markets at 30 sous each, the ordinary ones were at 10 sols. The melons (which are brought to market in waggons, piled up like turnips in England) were all of the netted sort, and of so little flavor, that they would not be worth cultivating, were it not for the sake of cooling the mouth in hot weather; they were sold at 15 or 20 sous each. Strawberries were still plentiful (second week in August.) Cerneaux, which are the kernel of green walnuts, were just coming into season.

I had now no opportunity of acquiring any more knowledge of the plants in France, and shall only add, that I passed the winter of 1783 and 1784, at Marseille and at Hieres; and that besides oranges, lemons, cedras, [14] pistachios, pomegranates, and a few date palm trees, I found several species of geranium, myrtles, and cactus opuntia, (Indian fig) growing in the soil, and likewise the mimosa farnesiana, sweet scented sponge tree, or fragrant acacia, the flowers of which are there called fleurs de cassier; these flowers, together with those of the jasmine, and those which fall from the orange and lemon trees, are sold to the perfumers of Provence and Languedoc.

Among the small plants, the arum arisarum, (friar's cowl) and the ruscus aculeatus (butcher's broom) were the most conspicuous, this latter is a pretty ever-green shrub, and the berries were there as large as those of a common solanum pseudo capsicum, (Pliny's amomum, or winter cherry) and of a bright scarlet colour, issuing from the middle of the under surface of the leaves; I never saw any of these berries any where else. Parkinson, in his Theater of Plants, 1640, says, after describing three or four species of this genus, "They scarse beare flower, much lesse fruite, in our land." Perhaps the berries might ripen in our hot-houses.

Many arbutus, or strawberry-trees, grow here, but they are not equal in size and beauty to many which I saw both in Portugal and in Ireland.

In 1784, M. J. J. de St. Germain, a nurseryman in the Fauxbourg St. Antoine, published a book in 8vo of 400 pages, entitled Manuel des Vegetaux, or catalogue in Latin and French, of all the known plants, trees, and shrubs, in the world, arranged according to the system of Linnæus; those plants which grow near Paris are particularly specified, and a very copious French index is added to the Latin one. The author died a few years ago; the plants were sold, and the nursery ground is at present built upon.

DOGS AND CATS. TWO-HEADED BOY.

LION Dogs and Cats are common in Paris.

The lion-dog greatly resembles a lion in miniature; the hair of the fore part of its body is long, and curled, and the hinder part short; the nose is short, and the tail is long and tufted at the extremity; the smallest are little larger than guinea-pigs; these are natives of Malta, and are the most valuable; those which are produced in France are considerably larger, and the breed degenerates very soon. Their general colour is white; they are frequently called Lexicons, which word is derived, not from a dictionary, but from a French compound word of nearly the same sound, descriptive of one of their properties.

The lion-cat comes originally from Angora, in Syria. It is much larger than the common cat; its hair is very long, especially about the neck, where it forms a fine ruff, of a silvery whiteness and silky texture, that on the tail is three or four inches long; these cats frequently spread their tails on their backs, as squirrels do. The colour is generally white, but sometimes light brown; they do not catch mice. This beautiful species does not degenerate speedily, and it appears to thrive better in Paris than in any other part of Europe. The figures of both these animals are in Buffon's Natural History.

About the Palais Royal persons are frequently found who offer for sale white mice in cages; these are pretty little animals, their fur is snow white, and their eyes are red and sparkling. Other persons carried for sale canary-birds, linnets, and two or three other sorts of small birds, perched on their fingers; these birds had been rendered so tame that they did not attempt to fly away.

But the greatest curiosity in Natural History which I saw there, was a male child with two heads and four arms; it was then three months old, the two faces were perfectly alike, the noses aquiline, the eyes blue, and the countenances pleasing; the two bodies were joined together at the chest, and the remainder was just like that of a common male child; one navel, one belly, one penis one anus, and two legs. The two bodies were face to face, so that they could embrace and kiss each other; in their natural position they formed an angle of 65 degrees, like the letter Y. I remained above an hour with this child, it's mother and the nurse, and saw it suck at both breasts at the same time. It was tolerably strong, the skin was very soft, and almost transparent, the arms and legs were very lean, and the latter were crossed, and appeared incapable of being extended voluntarily; so that if the child should live two or three years, which I do not think probable, it is not likely it will ever be able to walk. One head would laugh while the other cried, one head would sleep whilst the other was awake; the inspiration and expiration of the breath, in each, was alternate, that is to say, one inspired while the other expired its breath. There was nothing remarkable in the mother (a peasant's wife) except her obstinacy in refusing to disencumber these two poor heads from a couple of thick quilted blue sattin caps with which they had dressed them, and which I endeavoured to convince both her and the nurse would heat the heads, so as to be the means of shortening the child's life, and consequently of curtailing the profits arising from this unique exhibition.

To this description an English physician, who likewise saw it, adds, "It must have had two brains, as motion and sensation were equal, and apparently perfect, in each head and chest, and in all the four arms. It had two hearts, and two sets of lungs; it had also two passages into the stomach, but, as was supposed, only one set of abdominal viscera, as the belly was not larger than that of a common child of that age usually is. The hearts and arteries beat more strongly than was consistent with a long continuance of health. The action of the arteries was plainly seen under the skin."

Mr. Buffon, in the Supplement to his Natural History, has given the figure and description of a monster something similar to this, part of which description I shall give in a note, as a parallel to that of the living child.[15]

I went several times to the National Assembly; the Tribunes, or Galleries, (of which there are three) entered warmly, by applauses and by murmurs and hisses, into the affairs which were treated of.

Letters are franked by the assembly as far as the frontiers, by being stamped with red printers ink, Ass. Nationale.

About this time many hundreds of folio volumes of heraldry, and of the registers of the nobility, were publicly burnt in la Place Vendôme, after due notice had been given of the time and place by advertisements pasted against the walls. A wicked wag observed, that it was a pity all their books of divinity, and almost all those of law and physic, were not added to the pile but he comforted himself with reflecting that ça viendra.

All the coats of arms which formerly decorated the gates of Hôtels are taken away, and even seals are at present engraven with cyphers only.

The Chevaliers de St. Louis still continue to wear the cross, or the ribband, at the button-hole; all other orders of knighthood are abolished. No liveries are worn by servants, that badge of slavery is likewise abolished; and also all corporation companies, as well as every other monopolizing society; and there are no longer any Royal tobacco nor salt shops.

I went once to the Café de la Regence,[16] with the intention of playing a game at chess, but I found the chess-men so very little different in colour, that I could not distinguish them sufficiently to be able to play. It seems it is the fashion for chess-men at present to be made of box-wood, and all nearly of the same colour. I then went to another coffee-house frequented by chess-players, and here the matter was worse; they had, in addition to the above-mentioned fashion, substituted the cavalier, or knight, for the fou, or bishop, and the bishop for the knight, so that I left them to fight their own battles.

Books of all sorts are printed without any approbation or privilêge. Many are exposed on stalls, which are very improper for the public eye. One of these was called the Private Life of the Queen, in two volumes, with obscene prints. The book itself is contemptible and disgusting, and might as well have been called the Woman of Pleasure. Of books of this sort I saw above thirty, with plates. Another was on a subject not fit even to be mentioned.

I read a small pamphlet, entitled "le Christ-Roi, or a Parallel of the Sufferings of Lewis XVI. &c." I can say nothing in favor of it.

I found no new deistical books, the subject has already been exhausted, and every Frenchman is a philosopher now; it may be necessary here to recollect, that there are gradations in philosophy.

Since the Revolution, monarchs and courts are not quite so respectfully mentioned in books as they were formerly. The following few examples are taken from Mr. du Laure's Curiosities of Paris, in two volumes, 1791, third edition.[17] "Louis XIV. has his bust in almost every street in Paris. After the most trifling reparation of a street it was customary to place his great wig-block (tête à perruque) there. The saints have never obtained such multiplied statues. That bully (Fanfaron) as Christina, Queen of Sweden, used to call him, wanted to be adored even in turn-again alleys (culs-de-Sac.") Courtiers are here termed canaille de la cour (the rabble of the court;) the former aldermen of Paris (echevins) machines à complimens (complimenting machines;) and monks des bourreaux encapuchonnés (cowled executioners.)

All the following articles of information are taken from the same work: The colossal statue of St. Christopher is no longer in the church of Notre-Dame; "He was, without doubt, the greatest Saint Christopher in all France. This ridiculous monument of the taste and devotion of our ancestors has lately been demolished."

"The court before the porch of this church was considerably enlarged in 1748, and at the same time a fountain was destroyed, against which leaned an old statue, which had successively been judged to be that of Esculapius, of Mercury, of a Mayor, and of a Bishop of Paris, and lastly, that of J.C."

"Entering the street which leads to the Pont-rouge, by the cloisters of this church, the last house on the right, under the arcades, stands where the canon Fulbert, uncle to Eloisa, lived. Although it has been several times rebuilt during 600 years, there are still preserved two stone medallions, in basso-relievo, which are said to be the busts of Abelard and Eloisa."

The number of inhabitants in Paris is computed at one million, one hundred and thirty thousand, (including one hundred and fifty thousand strangers) two hundred thousand of which are, through poverty, exempt from the poll-tax, and two hundred thousand others are servants.

In 1790 there were in Paris forty-eight convents of monks, containing nine hundred and nine men; the amount of their revenue was estimated at two millions, seven hundred and sixty thousand livres; five abbeys or priories, estimated at six hundred and twelve thousand livres; seventy-four convents of nuns, containing two thousand, two hundred and ninety-two women, their income two millions and twenty-eight thousand livres. When to these we add the revenue of the archbishoprick, and of the fifteen collegiate churches, of one million, six thousand and five hundred livres, we shall have a total of upwards of seven millions of livres for the former ecclesiastical revenue in Paris only.[18]

There are about six hundred coffee-houses in Paris.

In the saloon of the Louvre every other year is an exhibition of pictures, in the months of August and September.

The Pont-neuf is one hundred toises in length and twelve in breadth.[19]

The cupola of the Halle au Bled, or corn and flour market, is one hundred and twenty feet in diameter; it forms a perfect half circle, whose centre is on a level with the cornice, forty feet from the ground. The vault or dome is composed merely of deal boards, four feet long, one foot broad and an inch thick.[20]

Describing the church of St. John of the Minstrels, so called, because it was founded by a couple of fidlers, in 1330. M. du Laure says, "Among the figures of saints with which the great door is decorated, one is distinguished who would play very well on the fiddle, if his fiddle-stick were not broken."

There is a parcel-post as well as a letter penny-post in Paris.

The salary of the executioner was eighteen thousand livres per annum;[21]
his office was to break criminals on the wheel, and to inflict
every punishment on them which they were sentenced to undergo.

There are no longer any Espions de Police, or spies, employed by government. "That army of thieves, of cut-throats, and rascals, kept in pay by the ancient police, was perhaps a necessary evil in the midst of the general evil of our old administration. A body of rogues and traitors could be protected by no other administration than such a one as could only subsist by crimes and perfidy. Those were the odious resources of despotism. Liberty ought to make use of simple and open means, which justice and morality will never disavow."

There is a school at the point of the isle of St. Louis, in the river Seine, to teach swimming; persons who chuse to learn in private pay four louis, those who swim among others, half that sum, or half-crown a lesson; if they are not perfect in that art in a season, (five summer months) they may attend the following season gratis.

DRESS. INNS.

THE common people are in general much better clothed than they were before the Revolution, which may be ascribed to their not being so grievously taxed as they were. An English Gentleman who has gone for many years annually from Calais to Paris, remarks, that they are almost as well dressed on working days at present, as they were on Sundays and holidays formerly.

All those ornaments which three years ago were worn of silver, are now of gold. All the women of the lower class, even those who sit behind green-stalls, &c. wear gold ear-rings, with large drops, some of which cost two or three louis, and necklaces of the same. Many of the men wear plain gold ear-rings; those worn by officers and other gentlemen are usually as large as a half-crown piece. Even children of two years old have small gold drops in their ears. The general dress of the women is white linen or muslin gowns, large caps which cover all their hair, excepting just a small triangular piece over the forehead, pomatumed, or rather plaistered and powdered, without any hats: neither do they wear any stays, but only corsets (waistcoats or jumps.) Tight lacing is not known here, nor yet high and narrow heeled shoes. Because many of the ladies ci-devant of quality have emigrated or ran away, and that those which remain in Paris, keep within doors, I saw no face that was painted, excepting on the stage. Most of the men wear coats made like great-coats, or in other words, long great-coats, without any coat: this in fine weather and in the middle of summer made them appear to me like invalides. There is hardly any possibility of distinguishing the rank of either man or woman by their dress at present, or rather, there are no ranks to distinguish.

The nation in general is much improved in cleanliness, and even in politeness. The French no longer look on every Englishman as a lord, but as their equal.

The inns on the road from Calais to Paris, are as well furnished, and the beds are as clean at present as almost any in England. At Flixcourt especially, the beds are remarkably excellent, the furniture elegant, and there is a profusion of marble and of looking-glasses in this inn. The plates, dishes, and basons which I saw in cupboards, and on shelves in the kitchen, and which are not in constant use, were all of silver, to which being added the spoons and forks of the same metal, of which the landlord possesses a great number; the ladies and gentlemen who were with me there, going to and returning from Paris, estimated the value at, perhaps, a thousand pounds sterling. Now, if we allow only half this sum to be the value, it is, notwithstanding, considerable. Every inn I entered was well supplied with silver spoons, of various sizes, and with silver four pronged forks; even those petty eating-houses in Paris, which were frequented by soldiers and sans-culottes.

There are no beggars to be seen about the streets in Paris, and when the chaise stopped for fresh horses, only two or three old and infirm people surrounded it and solicited charity, whereas formerly the beggars used to assemble in hundreds. I did not see a single pair of sabôts (wooden-shoes) in France this time. The table of the peasants is also better supplied than it was before the revolution.

ASSIGNATS.

EXCEPTING the coins which I purchased at the mint in Paris, I did not see a piece of gold or silver of any kind; a few brass sols and two sols were sometimes to be found in the coffee-houses, and likewise Mouneron's tokens.

The most common assignats or bills, are those of five livres, which are printed on sheets; each sheet containing twenty of such assignats, or a hundred livres; they are cut out occasionally, when wanted for change. I do not know that there are any of above a thousand livres. The lowest in value which I saw were of five sols, and these were of parchment. Those of five livres and upwards, have the king's portrait stamped on them, like that on the coins.

Besides the national assignats, which are current all over France, every town has its own assignats, of and under, but not above five livres; these are only current in such town and its neighbourhood.

The assignats of and above five livres are printed on white paper, those which are under, are for the convenience of the lower class of people, of which few can read, printed on different coloured paper according to their value; for instance, those of ten sols on blue paper, those of thirty on red, &c. though this method is not correctly adhered to.

I had projected many excursions in the neighbourhood of Paris, which were all put a stop to, in consequence of the events of the tenth of August, of which I shall give a true and impartial narrative, carefully avoiding every word which may appear to favour either party, and writing not as a politician, but as a spectator.

I had written many anecdotes, as well aristocratical as democratical, but as I was unable properly to authenticate some of them, and that others related to excesses which were inevitable, during such a time of anarchy, I thought it not proper to prejudice the mind of the public, and have accordingly expunged them all. I have only recounted facts, and the readers may form their own opinion.

Some particulars relative to the massacre in August, 1572, are inserted to corroborate the description of the similar situation of Paris, in August, 1792, though not from similar causes. The execrable massacre above-mentioned was committed by raging fanatics, cutting the throats of their defenceless fellow-creatures, merely for difference in religious opinion.

BATTLE AND MASSACRE AT THE TUILERIES.

ON Thursday, the 9th of August, the legislative body completed the general discontent of the people, (which had been raised the preceding day, by the discharge of every accusation against la Fayette) by appearing to protract the question relative to the king's déchéance (forfeiture) at a time when there was not a moment to lose, and by not holding any assembly in the evening.

The fermentation increased every minute, in a very alarming manner. The mayor himself had declared to the representatives of the nation, that he could not answer for the tranquillity of the city after midnight. Every body knew that the people intended at that hour to ring the alarm-bell; and to go to the château of the Tuileries, as it was suspected that the Royal Family intended to escape to Rouen, and it is said many trunks were found, packed up and ready for taking away, and that many carriages were seen that afternoon in the court-yard of the Tuileries.

At eight in the evening the generale,(a sort of beat of drum) was heard in all the sections, the tocsin was likewise rung, (an alarm, by pulling the bells of the churches, so as to cause the clappers to give redoubled strokes in very quick time. Some bells were struck with large hammers.)

All the shops were shut, and also most of the great gates of the hotels; lights were placed in almost every window, and few of the inhabitants retired to their repose: the night passed however without any other disturbance; many of the members of the National Assembly were sitting soon after midnight, and the others were expected. Mr. Petion, the mayor, had been sent for by the king, and was then in the château; the number of members necessary to form a sitting, being completed, the tribunes (galleries) demanded and obtained a decree to oblige the château to release its prey, the mayor; he soon after appeared at the bar, and from thence went to the commune (mansion-house.)

It was now about six o'clock on Friday morning (10th) the people of the fauxbourgs (suburbs) especially of St. Antoine and St. Marcel, which are parted by the river, assembled together on the Place de la Bastille, and the crowd was so great that twenty-five persons were squeezed to death.[22] At seven the streets were filled with-armed citizens, that is to say, with federates (select persons sent from the provinces to assist at the Federation, or confederacy held last July 14) from Marseille, from Bretagne, with national guards, and Parisian sans-culottes, (without breeches, these people have breeches, but this is the name which has been given to the mob.) The arms consisted of guns, with or without bayonets, pistols, sabres, swords, pikes, knives, scythes, saws, iron crows, wooden billets, in short of every thing that could be used offensively.

A party of these met a false patrol of twenty-two men, who, of course, did not know the watch-word. These were instantaneously put to death, their heads cut off and carried about the streets on pikes (on promena leurs têtes sur des piques.) This happened in la Place Vendôme; their bodies were still lying there the next day. Another false patrol, consisting of between two and three hundred men, with cannon, wandered all night in the neighbourhood of the theatre français: it is said they were to join a detachment from the battalion of Henri IV. on the Pont-neuf, to cut the throats of Petion and the Marseillois, who were encamped on the Pont St. Michel (the next bridge to the Pont-neuf) which caused the then acting parish assemblies to order an honorary guard of 400 citizens, who were to be answerable for the liberty and the life of that magistrate, then in the council-chamber. Mandat, commander-general of the National Guard, had affronted M. Petion, when he came from the château of the Tuileries, to go to the National Assembly; he was arrested and sent to prison immediately.

The insurrection now became general; the Place du Carrousel (square of the Carousals, a square in the Tuileries, so called from the magnificent festival which Lewis XIV. in 1662, there gave to the queen and the queen-mother) was already filled; the king had not been in bed; all the night had probably been spent in combining a plan of defence, if attacked, or rather of retreat; soon after seven the king, the queen, their two children (the dauphin, seven years old, and his sister fourteen) Princess Elizabeth, (the queen's sister, about 50 years old) and the Princess de Lamballe, crossed the garden of the Tuileries, which was still shut, escorted by the National Guard, and by all the Swiss, and took refuge in the National Assembly, when the Swiss returned to their posts in the château.

The alarm-bells, which were incessantly ringing, the accounts of the carrying heads upon pikes, and of the march of almost all Paris in arms; the presence of the king, throwing himself, as it were, on the mercy of the legislative body; the fierce and determinate looks of the galleries; all these things together had such an effect on the National Assembly, that it immediately decreed the suspension of Lewis XVI. which decree was received with universal applause and clapping.

At this moment a wounded man rushed into the Assembly, crying, "We are betrayed, to arms, to arms, the Swiss are firing on the citizens; they have already killed a hundred Marseillois."

This was about nine o'clock. The democrats, that is to say, the armed citizens, as beforementioned, had dragged several pieces of cannon, six and four pounders, into the carousel square, and were assembled there, on the quais, the bridges, and neighbouring streets, in immense numbers, all armed; they knew the king was gone to the National Assembly, and came to insist on his déchéance (forfeiture) or resignation of the throne. All the Swiss (six or seven hundred) came out to them, and permitted them to enter into the court-yard of the Tuileries, to the number of ten thousand, themselves standing in the middle, and when they were peaceably smoking their pipes and drinking their wine, the Swiss turned back to back, and fired a volley on them, by which about two hundred were killed;[23] the women and children ran immediately into the river, up to their necks, many jumping from the parapets and from the bridges, many were drowned, and many were shot in the water, and on the balustrades of the Pont-royal, from the windows of the gallery of the Louvre.

The populace now became, as it were, mad, they seized on five cannon they found in the court yard, and turned them against the château; they planted some more cannon on the Pont-royal and in the garden, twenty-two pieces in all, and attacked the château on three sides at once. The Swiss continued their fire, and it is said they fired seven times to the people's once; the Swiss had 36 rounds of powder, whereas the people had hardly three or four. Expresses were sent several miles to the powder-mills, for more ammunition, even as far as Essonne, about twenty miles off, on the road to Fontainebleau. The people contrived however to discharge their twenty-two cannon nine or ten times.[24] From nine to twelve the firing was incessant; many waggons and carts were constantly employed in carrying away the dead to a large excavation, formerly a stone quarry, at the back of the new church de la Madeleine de la ville l'Eveque (part of the Fauxbourg St. Honoré, thus called.)

Soon after noon the Swiss had exhausted all their powder, which the populace perceiving, they stormed the château, broke open the doors, and put every person they found to the sword, tumbling the bodies out of the windows into the garden, to the amount, it is supposed, of about two thousand, having lost four thousand on their own side. Among the slain in the château, were, it is asserted, about two hundred noblemen and three bishops: all the furniture was destroyed, the looking-glasses broken, in short, nothing left but the bare walls.

Sixty of the Swiss endeavoured to escape through the gardens, but the horse (gendarmerie nationale) rode round by the street of St. Honoré, and met them full butt at the end of the gardens; the Swiss fired, killed five or six and twenty horses and about thirty men, and were then immediately cut to pieces; the people likewise put the Swiss porters at the pont-tournant (turning bridge) to death, as well as all they could find in the gardens and elsewhere: they then set fire to all the casernes (barracks) in the carousel, and afterwards got at the wine in the cellars of the château, all of which was immediately drank; many citizens were continually bringing into the National Assembly jewels, gold, louis d'ors, plate, and papers, and many thieves were, as soon as discovered, instantly taken to lamp irons and hanged by the ropes which suspend the lamps. This timely severity, it is supposed, saved Paris from an universal pillage. Fifty or sixty Swiss were hurried by the populace to the Place de Grêve, and there cut to pieces.

At about three o'clock in the afternoon every thing was tolerably quiet, and I ventured out for the first time that day.[25]

The quais, the bridges, the gardens, and the immediate scene of battle were covered with bodies, dead, dying, and drunk; many wounded and drunk died in the night; the streets were filled with carts, carrying away the dead, with litters taking the wounded to hospitals; with women and children crying for the loss of their relations, with men, women, and children walking among and striding over the dead bodies, in silence, and with apparent unconcern; with troops of the sans-culottes running about, covered with blood, and carrying, at the end of their bayonets, rags of the clothes which they had torn from the bodies of the dead Swiss, who were left stark naked in the gardens.[26]

One of these sans-culottes was bragging that he had killed eight Swiss with his own hand. Another was observed lying wounded, all over blood, asleep or drunk, with a gun, pistols, a sabre, and a hatchet by him.

The courage and ferocity of the women was this day very conspicuous; the first person that entered the Tuileries, after the firing ceased, was a woman, named Teroigne, she had been very active in the riots at Brussels, a few years ago; she afterwards was in prison a twelvemonth at Vienna, and when she was released, after the death of the Emperor, went to Geneva, which city she was soon obliged to leave; she then came to Paris, and headed the Marseillois; she began by cleaving the head of a Swiss, who solicited her protection, and who was instantaneously cut in pieces by her followers. She is agreeable in her person, which is small, and is about twenty-eight years of age.

Many men, and also many women, as well of the order of Poissardes (which are a class almost of the same species and rank with our fishwomen, and who are easily distinguished by their red cotton bibs and aprons) as others, ran about the gardens, ripping open the bellies, and dashing out the brains of several of the naked dead Swiss.[27]

At six in the evening I saw a troop of national guards and sans-culottes kill a Swiss who was running away, by cleaving his skull with a dozen sabres at once, on the Pont-royal, and then cast him into the river, in less time than it takes to read this, and afterwards walk quietly on.

The shops were shut all this day, and also the theatres; no coaches were about the streets, at least not near the place of carnage; the houses were lighted up, and patroles paraded the streets all night. Not a single house was pillaged.

The barracks were still in flames, as well as the houses of the Swiss porters at the end of the gardens; these last gave light to five or six waggons which were employed all night in carrying away the dead carcases.

STATUES PULLED DOWN. NEW NAMES.

THE next day, Saturday the 11th, about an hundred Swiss who had not been in the palace placed themselves under the protection of the National Assembly. They were sent to the Palais Bourbon escorted by the Marseillois, with Mr. Petion at their head, in order to be tried by a court-martial.

The people were now employed, some in hanging thieves, others with Mademoiselle Teroigne on horseback at their head, in pulling down the statues of the French Kings.

The first was the equestrian one in bronze of Lewis XV. in the square of the same name, at the end of the Tuileries gardens; this was the work of Bouchardon, and was erected in 1763. At the corners of the pedestal were the statues, also in bronze, of strength, peace, prudence, and justice, by Pigalle. Many smiths were employed in filing the iron bars within the horse's legs and feet, which fastened it to the marble pedestal, and the sans-culottes pulled it down by ropes, and broke it to pieces; as likewise the four statues above-mentioned, the pedestal, and the new magnificent balustrade of white marble which surrounded it.

The next was the equestrians statue of Lewis XIV. in the Place Vendôme, cast in bronze, in a single piece, by Keller, from the model of Girardon; twenty men might with ease have sat round a table in the belly of the horse; it stood on a pedestal of white marble of thirty feet in height, twenty-four in length, and thirteen in breadth. This statue crushed a man to pieces by falling on him, which must be attributed to the inexperience of the pullers-down.

The third was a pedestrian statue of Lewis XIV. in the Place Victoire, of lead, gilt, on a pedestal of white marble; a winged figure, representing victory, with one hand placed a crown of laurels on his head, and in the other held a bundle of palm and olive branches. The king was represented treading on Cerberus and the whole group was a single cast. There were formerly four bronze slaves at the corners of the pedestal, each of twelve feet high; these were removed in 1790. The whole monument was thirty-five feet high, and was erected in 1689, at the expence of the Duke de la Feuillade, who likewise left his duchy to his heirs, on condition that they should cause the whole group to be new gilt every twenty-five years; and who was buried under the pedestal.

On Sunday the 12th, at about noon, the equestrian statue, in bronze, of Henry IV. which was on the Pont-neuf, was pulled down; this was erected in 1635, and was the first of the kind in Paris. The horse was begun at Florence, by Giovanni Bologna, a pupil of Michael Angelo, finished by Pietro Tacca, and sent as a present to Mary of Medicis, widow of Henry IV. Regent. It was shipped at Leghorn, and the vessel which contained it was lost on the coast of Normandy, near Havre de Grace, the horse remained a year in the sea, it was, however, got out and sent to Paris in 1614.

This statue used to be the idol of the Parisians; immediately after the revolution it was decorated with the national cockade; during three evenings after the federation, in 1790, magnificent festivals were celebrated before it.

It was broken in many pieces by the fall; the bronze was not half an inch thick, and the hollow part was filled up with brick earth.

The fifth and last was overthrown in the afternoon of the same day; it was situated in the Place Royale; it was an equestrian statue in bronze, of Lewis XIII. on a vast pedestal of white marble; it was erected in 1639. The horse was the work of Daniel Volterra; the figure of the king was by Biard.

The people were several days employed in pulling down all the statues and busts of kings and queens they could find. On the Monday I saw a marble or stone statue, as large as the life, tumbled from the top of the Hôtel de Ville into the Place de Grêve, at that time full of people, by which two men were killed, as I was told, and I did not wish to verify the assertion myself, but retired.

They then proceeded to deface and efface every crown, every fleur de lis, every inscription wherein the words king, queen, prince, royal, or the like, were found. The hotels and lodging-houses were compelled to erase and change their names, that of the Prince de Galles must be called de Galles only; that of Bourbon must have a new name; a sign au lys d'or (the golden lily) was pulled down; even billiard tables are no longer noble or royal.

The Pont-royal, the new bridge of Lewis XVI. the Place des Victoires, the Place Royal, the Rue d'Artois, &c. have all new names, which, added to the division of the kingdom into eighty-three departments, abolishing all the ancient noble names of Bourgogne, Champagne, Provence, Languedoc, Bretagne, Navarre, Normandie, &c. and in their stead substituting such as these: Ain, Aube, Aude, Cher, Creuse, Doubs, Eure, Gard, Gers, Indre, Lot, Orne, Sarte, Tarne, Var, &c. which are the names of insignificant rivers; to that of Paris into forty-eight new sections, and to all titles being likewise abolished, makes it very difficult for a stranger to know any thing about the geography of the kingdom, nor what were the ci-devant titles of such of the nobility as still remain in France, and who are at present only known by their family names.

BEHEADING. DEAD NAKED BODIES.

BUT to return to those "active citizens, whom aristocratic insolence has stiled sans-culottes, brigands."[28]

On Sunday, they dragged a man to the Hôtel de Ville, before a magistrate, to be tried, for having stolen something in the Tuileries as they said. He was accordingly tried, searched, and nothing being found on him, was acquitted; n'importe, said these citizens, we must have his head for all that, for we caught him in the act of stealing. They laid him on his back on the ground, and in the presence of the judge, who had acquitted him, they sawed off his head in about a quarter of an hour, with an old notched scythe, and then gave it to the boys to carry about on a pike, leaving the carcase in the justice-hall.[29]

At the corner of almost every chief street is a black marble slab, inserted in the wall about ten feet high, on which is cut in large letters, gilt, Loix et actes de l'autorité publique (laws and acts of the public authority) and underneath are pasted the daily and sometimes hourly decrees and notices of the National Assembly. One of these acquainted the citizens, that Mandat (the former commander-general of the national guards) had yesterday undergone the punishment due to his crimes; that is to say, the people had cut off his head.

During several days, after the day I procured all the Paris newspapers, about twenty, but all on the same side, as the people had put the editors of the aristocratic papers, hors d'état de parler (prevented their speaking) by beheading one or two of them, and destroying all their presses.

They, about this time, hanged two money changers (people who gave paper for louis d'or, crowns, and guineas) under the idea that the money was sent to the emigrants.

On the Saturday morning, at seven, I was in the Tuileries gardens; only thirty-eight dead naked bodies were still lying there; they were however covered where decency required; the people who stript them on the preceding evening, having cut a gash in the belly, and left a bit of the shirt sticking to the carcase by means of the dried blood. I was told, that the body of a lady had just been carried out of the Carousel square; she was the only woman killed, and that probably by accident. Here I had the pleasure of seeing many beautiful ladies (and ugly ones too as I thought) walking arm in arm with their male friends, though so early in the morning, and forming little groups, occupied in contemplating the mangled naked and stiff carcases.

The fair sex has been equally courageous and curious, in former times, in this as well as in other countries; and of this we shall produce a few instances, as follows:

COURAGE AND CURIOSITY OF THE FAIR SEX. MASSACRE IN 1572.

ON the 24th of August, St. Bartholemew's day, 1572, the massacre of the Hugonots or or Calvinists, began by the murder of Admiral Coligni the signal was to have been given at midnight; but Catherine of Medicis, mother to the then King Charles IX. (who was only two and twenty years of age) hastened the signal more than an hour, and endeavoured to encourage her son, by quoting a passage from a sermon: "What pity do we not shew in being cruel? what cruelty would it not be to have pity?"

In Mr. Wraxall's account of this massacre, in his Memoirs of the Kings of France of the Race of Valois, compiled from all the French historians, he says, Soubise, covered with wounds, after a long and gallant defence, was finally put to death under the queen-mother's windows. The ladies of the court, from a savage and horrible curiosity, went to view his naked body, disfigured and bloody.

"An Italian first cut off Coligni's head, which was presented to Catherine of Medicis. The populace then exhausted all their brutal and unrestrained fury on the trunk. They cut off the hands, after which it was left on a dunghill; in the afternoon they took it up again, dragged it three days in the dirt, then on the banks of the Seine, and lastly carried it to Montfaucon (an eminence between the Fauxbourg St. Martin and the Temple, on which they erected a gallows.) It was here hung by the feet with an iron chain, and a fire lighted under it, with which it was half roasted. In this situation the King and several of the courtiers went to survey it. These remains were at length taken down privately in the night, and interred at Chantilly."

"During seven days the massacre did not cease, though its extreme fury spent itself in the two first."

"Every enormity, every profanation, every atrocious crime, which zeal, revenge, and cruel policy are capable of influencing mankind to commit, stain the dreadful registers of this unhappy period. More than five thousand persons of all ranks perished by various species of deaths. The Seine was loaded with carcases floating on it, and Charles fed his eyes from the windows of the Louvre, with this unnatural and abominable spectacle of horror. A butcher who entered the palace during the heat of the massacre, boasted to his sovereign, baring his bloody arm, that he himself had dispatched an hundred and fifty."

"Catherine of Medicis, the presiding demon, who scattered destruction in so many shapes, was not melted into pity at the view of such complicated and extensive misery; she gazed with savage satisfaction on the head of Coligni which was brought her."

Sully only slightly mentions this massacre of which he was notwithstanding an eye-witness, because he was but twelve years of age.

Mezeray gives the most circumstantial account of it; he says, "The streets were paved with dead or dying bodies, the portes-cochêres, (great gates of the hotels) were stopped up with them, there were heaps of them in the public squares, the street-kennels overflowed with blood, which ran gushing into the river. Six hundred houses were pillaged at different times, and four thousand persons were massacred with all the inhumanity and all the tumult than can be imagined."

"Among the slain was Charles de Quelleue Pontivy, likewise called Soubise, because he had married Catherine, only daughter and heiress of Jean de Partenay Baron de Soubise: this Lady had entered an action against him for impotence; His naked dead body being among others dragged before the Louvre, there were ladies curious enough to examine leisurely, if they could discover the cause or the marks of the defeat of which he had been accused."

Brantome, in his memoirs of Charles IX. says, "As soon as it was day the king looked out of the window, and seeing that many people were running away in the fauxbourg St. Germain, he took a large hunting arquebuse, and shot at them many times, but in vain, for the gun did not carry so far."[30]

"He took great pleasure in seeing floating in the river, under his windows, more than four thousand dead bodies."

A French writer, Mr. du Laure, in a Description of Paris, just published, says, "About thirty thousand persons were killed on that night in Paris and in the country; few of the citizens but were either assassins or assassinated. Ambition, the hatred of the great, of a woman, the feebleness and cruelty of a king, the spirit of party, the fanaticism of the people, animated those scenes of horror, which do not depose so much against the French nation, at that time governed by strangers, as against the passions of the great, and the ill-directed zeal of the religion of an ignorant populace."

A few more modern instances of female fortitude are given in a note.[31]

MISCELLANIES. NUMBER OF SLAIN.

ON that same Saturday morning the dead Swiss, the broken furniture of the palace, and the burning woodwork of the barracks, were all gathered together in a vast heap, and set fire to. I saw this pile at twenty or thirty yards distance, and I was told that some of the women who were spectators took out an arm or a leg that was broiling, to taste: this I did not see, but I see no reason for not believing it.

On the afternoon of this day, the coffee-houses were, as usual, filled with idle people, who amused themselves with playing at the baby-game of domino.

No coaches except fiacres (hackney-coaches) were now to be seen about the streets; the theatres continued on the following mornings to advertise their performances, and in the afternoon fresh advertisements were pasted over these, saying, there would be relâche au theatre (respite, intermission.) A few days after, some of the theatres advertised to perform for the benefit of the families of the slain, but few persons attended the representation, through fear; because the sans-culottes talked of pulling down all the theatres, which, they said, gataient les mœurs, (corrupted the morals) of the people.

Ever since the 10th, I knew the barriers had been guarded, to prevent any person from leaving Paris, but I now was informed that that had been the case, three days previous to that day, which may seem to imply that some apprehensions were formed, that violent measures would take place somewhere.

About this time the officers were obliged by the sans-culottes to wear worsted instead of gold or silver shoulder-knots; and no more cloudy carriages were to be seen in the streets.

Portraits of the king, with the body of a hog, and of the queen, with that of a tygress were engraven and publicly sold. A book was published, entitled, Crimes of Louis XVI. the author of which advertised that he was then printing a book of the Crimes of the Popes, after which he intended to publish the crimes of all the potentates in Europe.

As I could not get out of Paris, to make any little excursions to nursery and other gardens, to Vincennes, to Montreuil, and as the inhabitants of Paris were too much alarmed to retain any relish for society, (public places out of the question,) I was desirous of getting away as soon as possible, and applied first to the usual officers for a pass, which was refused. That of Lord Gower (the ambassador) was at this time of no use, but it became so afterwards, as shall be mentioned.

On the Monday (13th August) I wrote a letter of about ten lines to the President of the National Assembly, soliciting a pass. This I carried myself, and sent it in by one of the clerks. The President immediately read the letter, and the Assembly decreed a pass for me; but the next day, when I applied for it to the comité de surveillance, (committee of inspection) it, or they, knew nothing of the matter. I then went to the mairie (mayoralty house) but in vain.

Here an officer of the national guard who had been present during the whole of the battle of the 10th, said to me, "La journeé a eté un peu forte, nous avons eu plus de quinze cens des notres de tués," (the day was rather warm; we have had more than fifteen hundred of our own people killed.) This was confirmed by many more of the officers there, with whom I had a quarter of an hour's conversation, and they all estimated the number of the slain at above six thousand, which may probably be accounted for in the following manner, but a demonstration is impossible.

Some assert that there were eight hundred Swiss soldiers in the château of the Tuileries; others but five hundred: let us take the medium of six hundred and fifty. They had, as every one allows, six and thirty charges each, and they fired till their ammunition was expended. This makes above three and twenty thousand shot, every one of which must have taken place, on a mob as thick as hailstones after a shower: but allowing for the Swiss themselves, who were killed during the engagement, which diminishes the number of shot, and then allowing likewise, that of two thousand persons who were in the palace, we here say nothing of the remaining thirteen or fourteen hundred, most of whom were firing as well as they could, perhaps it may not appear exaggerated to say, that out of above twenty thousand shot, four thousand must have taken place mortally; and this includes the fifteen hundred of the national guard, which were certainly known to be missing. Of the other two thousand five hundred slain, the number could not so correctly be ascertained, as they consisted of citizens without regimentals or uniform, and of sans-culottes, none of whom were registered. All the persons in the palace were killed; of these, few, if any, were taken away immediately, whereas when any of the adverse party were killed, there were people enough who were glad of the opportunity of escaping from this slaughter, by carrying away the corpse. We must then reflect on the number of waggons and carts employed all night in the same offices, and then we shall see great reason to double the number of the slain, as has been done in various publications.

No idea of this number could be formed by seeing the field of battle, because several bodies were there lying in heaps, and of the others not above two or three could be seen at a time, as the streets were after the engagement filled with spectators, who walked among and over the carcases.

Of the feelings of these spectators, I judge by my own: I might perhaps have disliked seeing a single dead body, but the great number immediately reconciled me to the sight.

BREECHES. PIKES. NECESSARY PASSPORTS.

ANOTHER particular relative to the sans-culottes is their standard, being an old pair of breeches, which they carry on the top of a pike, thrust through the waistband: the poissardes likewise use the same standard, though it so happened that I never saw it. On the memorable 20th of June last, a pike-man got on the top of the Tuileries, where he waved the ensign, or rather shook the breeches to the populace.

The pike-staves for the army are of different lengths; of six, nine, and twelve feet: by this means three ranks of pike-bearers can use their arms at once, with the points of the three rows of pikes evenly extended.

The letter which I had written to the President, notwithstanding its eventual ill success, caused several English persons jointly to write a somewhat similar letter; in which, after having represented that their wives and children wanted them, they said, they hoped their reasons would appear vrai-semblables, or have the semblance of truth. The Assembly on hearing this burst into a laugh, and passed on to the order of the day.

On the 16th I carried a passport from Lord Gower to the office of Mr. le Brun, the minister for foreign affairs; here I was told to leave it, and I should have another in its stead the next day. The next day I applied for it, and was told, no passports could be delivered.

The matter now appeared to me to become serious, as the courier who had carried the account of the affair of the 10th to London was not yet returned, and that rumours were spread, that the English in Paris were almost all grands seigneurs & aristocrates; so that I saw only two probable means of safety; one of which was, to draw up a petition to the National Assembly, in behalf of all the British subjects, to get it signed by as many as I could find, and who might chuse to sign it, and to carry it to the Assembly in a small body, which might have been the means of procuring a pass; and in case this was refused, the other plan would have been for all the British to have incorporated themselves into a Legion Britannique, and offered their services according to the exigence of the case.[32] This petition was accordingly, on the 18th, drawn up by a member of the English Parliament; translated into French, and carried about to be signed; when at the bankers we fortunately met with a person who informed us, that our passes were ready at the moment, at Mr. Le Brun's: thither we went; I obtained my pass at two o'clock afternoon, the petition was torn and given to the winds; I took a hackney coach that instant, to carry me to the Poste aux chevaux, ordered the horses, and before three I was out of the barriers of Paris.

Here follows a copy of my passport.

At the top of the paper is an engraving of a shield, on which is inscribed Vivre libre ou mourir (live free or die,) supported by two female figures, the dexter representing Minerva standing, with the cap of liberty at the end of a pike; the sinister, the French constitution personified as a woman sitting on a lion, with one hand holding a book, on which is written Constitution Française, droits de l'homme, and with the other supporting a crown over the shield, which crown is effaced by a dash with a pen.

Then follows:

La nation, la loi, le roi; this is also obliterated
with a pen, and instead is written:

Liberté, Egalité
Au nom de la nation.

À tous officiers, civils et militaires, chargés de surveiller et de maintenir l'ordre public dans les differents departemens du Royaume, et à tous autres qu'il appartiendra il est ordonné de laisser librement passer T—— anglais retournant en angleterre, porteur d'un certificat de son ambassadeur.[33] Sans donner ni souffrir qu'il lui soit donné aucun empéchement, le present passe-port valable pour quinze jours seulement.

Donné à Paris le 16 aoust l'an 4 de la liberté

Vû à la Mairie le 17 aoust 1792.

L'an 4e de la liberté.

Petion.

Here is an impression, in red wax, of the arms of Paris, which are gules, a three-mast ship in full sail, a chief azur, semé with fleurs de lis, or, the shield environed with oak branches and the cap of liberty as a crest. The inscription underneath is Mairie de Paris, 1789. On one side of this seal is an escutcheon with the arms of France, crowned, and over the crown there is a dash with a pen. And underneath,

Gratis. Le ministre des affaires etrangeres.

Vu passer Abbeville en | Le Brun.
Conseil permanent le 20 |
Aoust 1792. | Signed by a municipal officer.

And on the back of the passport,

Vû au comité de la section poissonniere ce 18 aoust 1792.

Signed by two commissaries at the barriers of St. Denis, at Paris.

Permis d'embarquer à Calais le 22 aoust 1792.

Signed by a Secretary.

MISCELLANIES. DANCING. POULTRY. TAVERNS. WIG.

SOME days before the demolition of the statue of Henri IV. on the Pont-neuf, there was a flag placed near that statue, on which was painted citoyens la Patrie est en danger; (citizens, the mother-country is in danger) and it still remained there when I came away.

On the Monday after the Friday, I saw a paper on the walls, among those published by authority, wherein a person acquainted the public, that on the preceding Saturday, in consequence of some suspicions which had been entertained of his principles, his house had been visited by above thirty thousand persons;[34] and that notwithstanding masons and smiths had been employed in pulling down, breaking open and scrutinizing, the people had found nothing to criminate him, and he had found nothing missing in consequence of their scrutiny. I had the pleasure of reading this aloud to an assemblage of elderly ladies, not one of whom could see to read it, as it was placed out of their focus, or too high, as they said.

Before the 10th I saw several dancing parties of the Poissardes and sans-culottes in the beer-houses, on the Quai des Ormes and the Quai St. Paul, and have played the favourite and animating air of ça ira, on the fiddle, to eight couple of dancers; the ceiling of these rooms (which open into the street) is not above ten feet high, and on this ceiling (which is generally white washed) are the numbers 1 2 to 8, in black, and the same in red, which mark the places where the ladies and gentlemen are to stand. When the dance was concluded I requested the ladies to salute me (m'embrasser) which they did, by gently touching my cheek with their lips. But a period was put to all these amusements by the occurrences of the 10th; after which day, most of my time was employed in endeavouring to obtain a passport.

On the Quai des Augustins, at six or seven in the morning, may be seen a market of above a quarter of a mile long, well stocked with fowls, pigeons, ducks, geese and turkies: these birds are all termed Volaille. Rabbits are likewise sold in this market. I also saw here a few live pheasants, red-legged partridges and quails in cages, for sale.

I did not see a louis d'or this time in Paris, it is probable that a new golden coin may be struck of a different value and name, and without the name of the die-engraver.

There are few, if any, tables d'hôte (ordinaries) in Paris at present, except at the inns. I have not seen any for many years, because the hour of dining at them is about one o'clock, and that is customary to be served in those coffee-houses which are kept by restaurateurs and traiteurs (cooks) after the English manner, at small tables, and there are bills of fare, with the prices of the articles marked. The most celebrated of these houses is called la Taverne de Londres, in the garden of the Palais-Royal: here are large public rooms, and also many small ones, and a bill of fare printed on a folio sheet, containing almost every sort of provision, (carp, eels, and pickled salmon are the only fish I have seen there.) An Englishman may here have his beef-steak, plum-pudding, Cheshire cheese, porter and punch just as in London, and at about the same price, (half the price as the exchange then was.) Thirty-five sorts of wine are here enumerated. That of Tokay is at two livres for a small glass, of which a quart-bottle may contain about fifteen. Rhenish, Mountain, Alicante, Rota, and red Frontignan at 6 livres. Champagne, Claret, Hermitage, 4 l. 10f. Port 3l. 10f. Burgundy 3l. Porter 2l. 10f. Most of the dishes are of silver, and I dined at two or three other taverns where all the dishes and plates were of silver.

The barbers or hair-dressers have generally written on their sign Ici on rajeunit: rajeunir means properly to colour or die the hair, but in this instance it only expresses, here people are made to look younger than they are, by having their hair dressed. I saw a peruke-maker's sign representing the fable of the man and his two wives, thus: A middle-aged gentleman is fitting in a magnificent apartment, between an old lady and a young one, fashionably dressed. His head is entirely bald, the old lady having just pulled out the black hairs, as the young one did the grey: and Cupid is flying over his head, holding a nice periwig ready to put on it.

EXTENT, POPULATION, &C. OF FRANCE.

THE authorities for a great part of what follows are Mr. Rabaut's History of the Revolution, 1792; Mr. du Laure's Paris, 1791, Geographie de France, 1792, second edition, and Voyage dans les Departemens de la France, 1792.

France is a country which extends nine degrees from North to South, and between ten and eleven from East to West, making six and twenty thousand square leagues, and containing twenty-seven millions of people. In 1790, "There were four millions of armed men in France; three of these millions wore the uniform of the nation." The number of warriors, or fighting men is very considerably increased since that time.

"In this immense population is found at least three millions of individuals of different religions, whom the present catholicks look upon with brotherly eyes. The protestant and the catholick now embrace each other on the threshold where Coligni was murdered; and the disciples of Calvin invoke the Eternal after their manner, within a few paces[35] of the balcony from whence Charles IX. shot at his subjects."

The capital, when compared to London, for extent is as 264 to 195, (nearly as 7 to 5) that is to say, according to the calculation beforementioned (p. 28) Paris stands on 6 99/121 square miles of ground, and London on 5 35/968.

It contains a million and 130 thousand inhabitants, which is fifty thousand more than it did two years ago; these formerly inhabited Versailles, and left it at the time the court did.

Lyon contains 160 thousand persons.

Marseille, the most populous, in proportion to the size, of any city in Europe, contains, in a spot of little more than three miles in circumference, 120 thousand persons, which includes about 30,000 mariners on board of the ships in the harbour.[36]

Bordeaux, 100,000. The population of many more cities is given in a note,[37] besides which there are others, the number of whose inhabitants I cannot learn, such as Toulouse, Toulon, Brest, Orange, Blois, Avignon, &c.

The nation gains five millions sterling per annum by the reduction of its expences, and by not having any unnecessary clergymen to maintain,[38] and the forfeited estates of the emigrants are estimated at immense sums.[39]

The heavy taxes on salt (la gabelle) and on Tobacco are suppressed, and those two articles are allowed to be objects of commerce.[40]

"No city in the world can offer such a spectacle as that of Paris, agitated by some great passion, because in no other the communication is so speedy, and the spirits so active. Paris contains citizens from all the provinces, and these various characters blended together compose the national character, which is distinguished by a wonderful impetuosity. Whatever they will do is done." Witness the taking of the Bastille in a single day, which had formerly withstood the siege of a whole army during three and twenty days. And witness the 10th of August.

I have been frequently told by persons in England, that a regular and disciplined army may easily crush a herd of raw and inexperienced rabble, such as they supposed the French were, although ten times more numerous. This may possibly be the event in small numbers, but if we state the case with large numbers, for instance fifty thousand men of the greatest courage, and of the most perfect discipline, and who are fighting for pay, without any personal motive, against five hundred thousand men, whom we shall suppose utterly ignorant of the art of war, but who conceive they are fighting for their liberty and their country, for their families and their property, and then reflect on the courage and bravery of these very men, on their impetuosity, their acharnement, or desperate violence in fight, which may be compared to the irresistible force of water-spouts, and of whirlwinds, it may not appear too partial to conjecture, that such persons may perceive some little reason for suspending, if not for altering, their opinion,[41] and may now estimate the degree of danger this nation may apprehend from the attacks of extraneous powers, provided its own people are unanimous.

EMENDATIONS AND ADDITIONS. RETURN TO CALAIS.

THE paragraph at the bottom of page 11, is intended to be merely descriptive, but not ludicrous, so that the reader is requested to expunge the word night.

In the enumeration of the Bishopricks (page 14) I unaccountably omitted the ten metropolitan sees, which are those of Paris, Lyon, Bourdeaux, Rouen, Reims, Besançon, Bourges, Rennes, Aix and Toulouse: Thus there are eighty-three bishopricks, or one for each department.

After what is said (in page 89) relative to the division of the country, there should, in justice, be added: "To the confused medley of Bailiwicks, Seneschal-jurisdictions, Elections, Generalities, Dioceses, Parliaments, Governments, &c. there succeeded a simple and uniform division; there were no longer any provinces, but only one family, one nation: France was the nation of eighty-three departments." Notwithstanding this, I regret the ancient names of the provinces. The old Atlas of France is become useless, as the whole of its geography is altered. The land is at present divided into nine regions, and each of these into nine departments; Paris and the country about ten miles around (24 square leagues) forms one, and the Island of Corsica another department. In the modern Atlas, after every new name, is put ci-devant, and then the old name, thus: Region du Levant, departement de la côte d'or, ci-devant Bourgogne. I called one day, after dining in a tavern, for a bottle of wine of the Departement de l'Aube, Region des Sources, the landlord consulted his Atlas, and then brought the bottle of Champagne I required. It will be some time before foreigners are sufficiently familiarized to the new phrases which must be used for Gascon, Normand, Breton, Provençal, Picard, &c.[42]

The following paragraphs are taken from the new Voyage de France.

"During fourteen hundred years, priority in follies, in superstition, in ignorance, in fanaticism, and in slavery, was the picture of France. It was just, therefore, that priority in philosophy, and in knowledge, should succeed to so many odious pre-eminences."

"The French people, to whom liberty is now new, are like the waves of the sea, which roll long after the tempest has ceased: and of which the agitation is necessary to depose on the shores the scum which covers them."

"The confusion inseparable from a new order of things, has necessarily caused Paris to swarm with vagabonds; so that far from being surprized that some crimes have been committed, we ought rather to wonder that they are not more frequent."

"When Louis XVI. was brought back to Paris (25 June, 1791) the inhabitants of fauxbourgs pasted a placard (advertisement) against the walls, saying, 'Whoever applauds him shall be cudgelled, whoever attacks him shall be hanged.' An awful silence was observed."

After the account of the Pantheon (p. 28) should be added: In April, 1791, the body or Mirabeau was deposited here; and in July following that of Voltaire. Soon after this it was decreed, that Rousseau had merited the honours due to great men, but that his ashes should remain where they were.

To the lift of engravings of the Maiden must be added another, prefixed to a little tract, called Gibbet-Law.

By premier An de l'Egalité,(first year of Equality) it is not to be understood that every person in France is equal, but that as they have no sovereign, no person is above, but every person is equally under the protection of the law. This matter has been both misunderstood and misrepresented in England.

On the 18th I was out of the barriers of Paris by three in the afternoon, and proceeded to Chantilly, where we[43] arrived at nine, and remained for the night. We were informed that two hundred Sans-culottes and Marseillois had walk'd here from Paris, (28 miles) two or three days before, had pulled down an equestrian statue, (probably that of the Constable de Montmorenci) cut off a man's head, carried it about the streets on a pike, à la mode de Paris, caught and eat most of the carp which had been swimming in the ponds which surround the palace above a hundred years, were then in the stables and intended to return to Paris the next day. They did no other damage to the building than breaking the Condé arms, which were carved in stone.

The night of the next day we passed at Flixcourt, and that of the Monday at the Post-house, at the foot of the hill on which Boulogne is situated.

On Tuesday the 21st we arrived at Calais in the morning; the wind was so violent and unfavorable that we were detained here till the 24th, when we failed, and had a passage of seven hours to Dover.

There was nothing to remark on the road from Paris to Calais, except that the harvest was not yet got in, for want of hands, that the corn was lodged, and sowing itself again; that every person and thing was as quiet as if nothing had happened in Paris, and that no one knew the particulars of what had happened.

At Calais many person wore trowsers, after the fashion of the Sans-culottes.

EPILOGUE.

SOON after my return to London the two following paragraphs appeared in the newspapers.

"T. has been over to France, botanizing, and has gotten what he went to seek."

"I'll tell you, my Lord Fool, From this Nettle danger we pluck the Flower safety."

This I insert merely on account of the Bêtise of the quotation. The Dutch inscription on sticks of sealing-wax would have been as applicable.

"T. the Tourist was the first to fly from Paris on the prospect of the tumults of the 10th of August. He is now writing a History of the Bloody Murders which distinguished that day."

I suspect that the ingenious Genius who wrote this knew he was mistaking as to the former part of this paragraph. He may say Trippist now.

I should not have seen either of these, had they not been pointed out to me by some of my "damned good-natured friends." I am in hopes of seeing a number of very pretty criticisms on the foregoing pages; many passages were written purposely to catch critics, as honey catches gnats; if just, they shall be attended to, should there be another edition; and if they are merely absurd, they shall be collected, and faithfully presented to the gentle reader. I have told the truth, and have not "set down aught in malice."

THE END.

*** There are a few trifling typographical errors in the foregoing sheets, which I shall leave to the correction of the reader, as not one of them affects the sense.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A post is about two leagues, or between four and six miles, as the posthouses are not exactly at the same distance from each other.

[2] It is about five square miles, or rather, eight miles in length from two to four miles in breadth.

[3] This was written after I had become familiarized to pikes.

[4] The Rotunda D'Orleans, in this wall, at the back of the gardens of the ci-devant Duke of that name is worthy of observation.

[5] In 1788 the school was suppressed, the scholars were placed in the army, or in country colleges, and the building is intended, when the necessary alterations are completed, to be one of the four hospitals which are to replace that of the Hôtel-Dieu. This hospital is in such a bad situation, being in the midst of Paris, that a quarter of the patients die. It contains only two thousand beds; each of the four new hospitals is to contain twelve hundred beds.

[6] There is to be a new coinage without the king's profile, and it is to be hoped these wings, or rather the whole figure, will be left out.

[7] This article is, "The law has the right of prohibiting only those actions which are hurtful to society."

[8] This and the former echanger, &c. and remboursable, &c. appear to be superfluous.

[9] These Boulevarts were made in 1536, and planted with four rows of trees in 1668; these beautiful walks are too well known to be described here; they are 2400 Toises (4800 yards, or almost three miles) long. The South Boulevarts are planted in the same manner, were finished in 1761, and are 3683 Toises, or fathom (above four miles) in length.

[10] Mr. Pennant, in the second volume of his Tour in Scotland, has given a long account of such a machine, from which the following particulars are taken. "It was confined to the limits of the forest of Hardwick, or the eighteen towns and hamlets within its precincts. The execution was generally at Halifax; Twenty five criminals suffered during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; the records before that time were lost. Twelve more were executed between 1623 and 1650, after which it is supposed the privilege was no more exerted.——This machine is now destroyed, but there is one of the same kind, in a room under the Parliament house, at Edinburgh, where it was introduced by the Regent Morton, who took a model of it as he passed through Halifax, and at length suffered by it himself. It is in form of a painters easel, and about ten feet high: at four feet from the bottom is a cross-bar, on which the felon laid his head, which was kept down by another placed above. In the inner edges of the frame are grooves; in these is placed a sharp axe, with a vast weight of lead, supported at the summit by a peg; to that peg is fastened a cord, which the executioner cutting, the axe falls, and beheads the criminal. If he was condemned for stealing a horse or a cow, the string was tied to the beast, which pulled out the peg and became the executioner."

[11] Mrs. Robinson tells me, that when she was at Paris, a few years ago, her valet de place, came early one morning, informing her there would be a grand spectacle, and wanted to know if he should hire a place for her. This superb spectacle was no other than the execution of two murderers, who were to be broken alive on the wheel, in the Place de Grêve, on that day. She however says, that she declined going.

[12] Genera plantarum, 798.

[13] The seeds which are sold in the London shops, for those of this plant, are those of the hyssopus bracteatis.

[14] These trees are planted as close together as possible, hardly eight feet asunder, and no room is left for any walks, so that these gardens are, properly speaking, orange orchards. The oranges were then sold at the rate of ten for a penny English.

[15] "In 1701 there were born in Hungary two Girls who were joined together by the loins; they lived above twenty-one years. At seven years old they were shown almost all over Europe; at nine years of age a priest purchased them, and placed them in a convent at Petersburg, where they remained till their death, which happened in 1723. An account of them was found among the papers of the surgeon who attended the convent, and was sent to the Royal Society of London in 1757. In this account we are told, that one of these twins was called Helen, the other Judith. Helen grew up and was very handy, Judith was smaller and a little hump-backed. They were joined together by the reins, and in order to see each other they could turn their heads only. There was one common anus, and of course there was only one common need of going to stool, but each had her separate urinary passage, and separate wants, which occasioned quarrels, because when the weakest was obliged to evacuate, the strongest, who sometimes would not stand still, pulled her away; they perfectly agreed in every thing else, and appeared to love each other. When they were seen in front, they did not differ apparently from other women. At six years old Judith lost the use of her left side by a paralytick stroke; she never was perfectly cured, and her mind remained feeble and dull; on the contrary, Helen was handsome, intelligent and even witty. They had the small-pox and the measles at the same time, but all their other sicknesses indispositions happened to each separately. Judith was subject to a cough and a fever, whereas Helen was generally in good health. When they had almost attained the age of twenty-two Judith caught a fever, fell into a lethargy and died. Poor Helen was forced to follow her fate; three minutes before the death of Judith she fell into an agony, and died nearly at the same time. When they were dissected it was found, that each had her own entrails perfect, and even, that each had a separate excretory conduit, which however terminated at the same anus." Linnæus has likewise described this monster. Many figures of double children of different kinds may be seen in Licetus de Monstris, 4to. 1665; and in the Medical Miscellanies, which were printed in Latin at Leipzig, in several quarto volumes, in 1673.

[16] Rousseau used to play at chess here almost every day, which attracted such crowds of people to see him, that the Lieutenant de Police was obliged to place a sentinel at the door.

[17] The same author has likewise published, Historical Singularities of Paris, in a single volume, and a Description of the Environs, in two volumes, 1790.

[18] Almost £300,000 sterling, about a tenth part of the Church income of the whole kingdom. The establishment for the Royal Family, or Civil List, is said to have been forty millions of livres. Thus the Religion and the Monarch cost one hundred and ten millions of livres annually (about five millions sterling) the greater part of which sum is now appropriated to other uses. The convents are converted, or perverted, into secular useful buildings, and their inhabitants have been suffered to spend the remainder of their lives in their former idleness, or to marry and mix with society. Annuities have been granted to them from thirty-five to sixty louis per annum, according to their age.

[19] 1020 feet by 72. Westminster-bridge is 1220 feet long, but only 44 feet wide.

[20] The inner diameter of the dome of St. Peter's, at Rome, 138 feet, which is the same size as that of the pantheon in Rome. St. Paul's in London 108. The Invalids in Paris 50.

[21] £750 sterling; I know not the present salary.

[22] According to the Journal de la seconde legislature, seance de la nuit ii Août.

[23] This is asserted on the authority of all the French newspapers, and of several eye-witnesses. It will never be possible to know the exact truth, for the people here said to be the aggressors are all slain.—These Swiss had trusted that they would have been backed by the National Guard, who, on the contrary, took the part of the people, and fired on the Swiss (who ran into the château as soon as they had discharged their pieces) by which several were killed.

[24] The balls did no other damage to the palace than breaking the windows, and leaving impressions in the stones, perhaps an inch in depth.

[25] The whole of the foregoing account is taken from verbal information, and from all the French papers that could be procured.

[26] Although I was not an eye-witness, I was however an ear-witness of the engagement, being only half a mile distant from it.

[27] At the taking of the Bastille, on the day of which only eighty-three persons were killed on the spot, though fifteen died afterwards of their wounds, these Poissardes were likewise foremost in bravery and in cruelty, so much, that the Parisians themselves ran away from them as soon as they saw them at a distance. They are armed, some with sabres and others with pikes.

[28] These are the words of a French newspaper, called, Journal universel, ou Revolutions des Royaumes, par J. P. Audarin. No. 994, for Sunday, 12 August, 4th year of Liberty, under the motto of Liberty, Patriotism and Truth.

[29] This is inserted on the authority of a lady, a native of the French West-India isles, who resided in the same hotel with me, and who, with two gentlemen who attended her, were witnesses to this transaction, which they told to whoever chose to listen.

[30] The king was shooting from the Louvre, and the Fauxbourg St. Germain is on the other side of the river.

[31] On the 28th of March, 1757, Damiens, who stabbed Lewis XV. was executed in the Place de Grêve, four horses were to pull his arms and legs from his body: they were fifty minutes pulling in vain, and at last his joints were obliged to be cut: he supported these torments patiently, and expired whilst the tendons of his shoulders were cutting, though he was living after his legs and thighs had been torn from his body; his right hand had previously been cut off. I was in Paris in 1768, and then, and at various times since have been assured by eye-witnesses, that almost all the windows of the square where the execution was performed were hired by ladies, at from two to ten louis each.

Mr. Thicknesse in his "Year's journey through France and Part of Spain," in a letter dated Dijon, in Burgundy, 1776, mentions a man whom he saw broke alive on the wheel by, "the executioner and his mother, who assisted at this horrid business, these both seemed to enjoy the deadly office."

I have formerly given an account of the Spanish ladies enjoying the barbarities of the bull-fights.

[32] Before, and on the 10th of August, there were not above thirty British travellers in Paris, but after that day, in less than a week it was supposed that above two thousand had from all parts of the kingdom resorted to the capital, in order to obtain passports to get away.

[33] What is here in italics is in manuscript in the original. There is no Monsieur nor Madame, the word anglais showing the gender of the person to whom the pass was granted, and is sufficient for the purpose.

[34] Poco más o menos,(a little more or less) as the Spaniards say when they are complimented with Viva V. S. mil años (may you live a thousand years.)

[35] The church of St. Louis du Louvre is at present made use of as a place of worship by protestants.

All the church lands are reverted to the nation.

In a speech which the Abbé Maury made in the National Assembly, about two years ago, he estimated the value of the property belonging to ecclesiasticks in France at two thousand two hundred millions of livres, (Deux milliards deux cens millions) near ninety-two millions sterling, the interest or produce of which, at 3¼ per cent. per annum, amounts to the three millions beforementioned.

France suffices to itself; it contains all the indigenous productions of Europe.

The French hope, that the number of foreigners who will resort to their country, after it shall be more settled, will abundantly compensate the loss of the emigrants.

[36] I was there in 1768, and again in 1783 and 1784, above four months. People of all nations are there seen in their proper habits; all languages are spoken; it is a free port, and the staple of the Levant trade, as well as of the West-Indian commerce.—There are regular vessels which sail monthly to Constantinople.

[37] Thousand must be read after all the following figures:

Dunkerque | 80 | Besançon | 26 | La Rochelle | 16
Rouen | 73 | Aix | 25 | Poitiers | 16
Lille | 65 | Bourges | 25 | Auxerre | 16
Nantes | 60 | Tours | 22 | Perpignan | 16
Nismes | 50 | Arras | 22 | Chalons | 15
Strasbourg | 46 | Limoges | 22 | Beauvais | 15
Amiens | 44 | Abbeville | 20 | Riom | 15
Metz | 40 | Verdun | 20 | Nevers | 14
Caen | 40 | Arles | 20 | Boulogne | 12
Orleans | 40 | Dijon | 20 | Bayonne | 12
Rennes | 35 | Valenciennes | 20 | Soissons | 12
Nancy | 34 | St. Malo | 18 | Angoulême | 11
Montpellier | 32 | Beziers | 18 | Pau | 11
Reims | 30 | Sedan | 18 | Alby | 10
Clermont | 30 | Carcassonne | 18 | Alais | 10
Troyes | 30 | Havre de Grace | 18 | Grasse | 10
Grenoble | 30 | Moulins | 17 | Versailles | 10

[38] By a decree in November, 1789, no curate is to have less salary than fifty Louis per annum, not including his house and garden. Many of the French at present think that clergymen should be retained like physicians, and paid by those only who want them. By this means, they say, religious quarrels would be avoided; of all quarrels the most absurd, because nobody can understand any thing about the matter. "Personne n'y entend rien."

[39] The civil list mentioned in page 62, was according to the old establishment. In January, 1790, the king was requested to fix a sum for the civil list himself, and in June following he sent a letter to the National Assembly, demanding five and twenty millions of livres. It was decreed that instant.

[40] Salt, which was formerly sold at fourteen sols per pound, is now at a single sol. Tobacco is permitted to be cultivated by "whoever will."

[41] I saw many thousands of these men (from my windows) on their way to the Tuileries, early on the Friday morning; their march was at the rate of perhaps five miles an hour, without running or looking aside; and this was the pace they used when they carried heads upon pikes, and when they were in pursuit of important business, rushing along the streets like a torrent, and attending wholly and solely to the object they had in view. On such occasions, when I saw them approaching, I turned into some cross street till they were passed, not that I had any thing to apprehend, but the being swept along with the crowd, and perhaps trampled upon. I cannot express what I felt on seeing such immense bodies of men so vigorously actuated by the same principle. I saw also many thousands of volunteers going to join the armies at the frontiers, marching along the Boulevarts, almost at the same pace, accompanied as far as the Barriers by their women, who were carrying their muskets for them; some with large sausages, pieces of cold meat, and loaves of bread, stuck on the bayonets, and all laughing, or singing ça ira.

The French writers themselves say, "In all popular commotions the women have always shown the greatest boldness."

[42] The author of the Voyage de France says, "The actual division of France may appear to geographers as defective as the ancient one. Perhaps artists should have been more consulted. Then there would not have been shown in it so much of the spirit of party, which, in great assemblies, too often smothers the voice of reason, nor so many effects of the ignorance of political measurers, who lightly stride over barriers which nature has opposed to them, and who appear to have forgotten the necessity of communications."

[43] The Gentleman who came with me, an English and an Irish Gentleman, with their Ladies, in their own chaises.

There is an octavo Description of Chantilly just published, with a map, and twenty mezzotinto views of the gardens.

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Table of Contents

- P A R I S,

- IN JULY and AUGUST, 1792.

- CONTENTS.

- A TRIP TO PARIS.

- ROAD FROM CALAIS. UNNECESSARY PASSPORTS. CHANTILLY.

- EXPENCES.

- MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS. CHESSMEN. TREE OF LIBERTY. CRUCIFIXES,VIRGINS. SAINTS. BISHOPS. OLD WOMEN, &C.

- WALL ROUND PARIS. NEW BRIDGE. FIELD OF THE FEDERATION. BASTILLE.

- COINS AND TOKENS.

- THEATRES.

- PANTHEON. JACOBINS. QUAI VOLTAIRE. RUE ROUSSEAU. COCKADES.

- EXECUTION OF TWO CRIMINALS, WITH A BEHEADING MACHINE.

- VERSAILLES. BOTANY. SOUNDING MERIDIANS.

- DOGS AND CATS. TWO-HEADED BOY.

- DRESS. INNS.

- ASSIGNATS.

- BATTLE AND MASSACRE AT THE TUILERIES.

- STATUES PULLED DOWN. NEW NAMES.

- BEHEADING. DEAD NAKED BODIES.

- COURAGE AND CURIOSITY OF THE FAIR SEX. MASSACRE IN 1572.

- MISCELLANIES. NUMBER OF SLAIN.

- BREECHES. PIKES. NECESSARY PASSPORTS.

- MISCELLANIES. DANCING. POULTRY. TAVERNS. WIG.

- EXTENT, POPULATION, &C. OF FRANCE.

- EMENDATIONS AND ADDITIONS. RETURN TO CALAIS.

- EPILOGUE.

- FOOTNOTES:

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE