Paris, December, 1821. SITTING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY-ROBESPIERRE. THE sittings of the National Assembly excited an interest to which those of our Chambers are far from approaching. It was necessary to rise early to find a place in the crowded tribunes. The deputies arrived, eating, talking, and gesticulating; they formed groups in the different parts of the hall, according to their opinions. There was the reading of the minutes; after that the development of the question fixed for discussion, or some extraordinary motion. The discussions did not turn upon an insipid clause of a law; and the order of the day scarcely ever was without a destruction. Members spoke for or against; every one delivered his opinion well or ill. The debates grew stormy; the galleries took part in the discussion, applauded, cheered, or hissed and hooted the speakers. The president rang his little bell; the deputies addressed one another from bench to bench. Mirabeau the younger seized his competitor by the collar; Mirabeau the elder shouted "Silence aux trente voix !" One day I was sitting behind the royalist opposition, and before me there was a gentleman from Dauphiny, of a dark countenance and diminutive figure, who leaped in fury upon his seat, and said to his friends, "Let us fall, sword in hand, upon those beggars there," pointing to the side of the majority. The dames of the hall, knitting in the tribunes, heard him, rose, and shouted all at once, with their stockings in their hands, and foaming mouths, "A la lanterne !" Viscount Mirabeau, Lautrec, and some other young nobles, were eager to make an attack upon the tribunes. This fracas was soon stifled by another; petitioners, armed with pikes, presented themselves at the bar. "The people are perishing from hunger," said they; "it is time to adopt measures against the aristocrats, and to rise to the height of circumstances." The president assured these citizens of his respect in the following terms:"An eye is constantly kept on the traitors, and the Assembly will do justice." Thereupon arose a new tumult; the deputies of the right shouted that every thing was going into a state of anarchy; the deputies of the left replied that the people were to express their wishes, that they had a right to complain of despotism, seated even in the bosom of the national representation. Thus they designated their colleagues to the sovereign people, which reechoed the denunciation. The evening sittings far exceeded in scandalous excesses those of the morning; people speak better and more boldly by the light of lamps. The hall of the riding-house then became truly a theatre, in which one of the greatest dramas of the world was being acted. The leading personages still belonged to the ancient order of things; their terrible antagonists, concealed behind them, said little or nothing. Towards the close of a discussion, I saw ascending the tribune a deputy of a very ordinary appearance, dull and inanimate figure, with his hair regularly arranged, and appropriately dressed, like the steward of a good mansion, or a village notary, attentive to his personal appearance. He made a long and tedious report, to which no one listened; I asked his name; it was Robespierre. The people with shoes were ready to go out of the halls, and the sabots were already kicking the door. Paris, December, 1821. SOCIETY-ASPECT OF PARIS. BEFORE the Revolution, whenever I read the history of public disturbances, I could not conceive how persons had been able to live in those times. I was astonished that Montaigne wrote in a château of which he could not make the circuit without the risk of being carried off by bands of leaguers or of Protestants. The Revolution has enabled me fully to understand the possibility of such an existence. Moments of crisis produce an increase of life among men. In a society which is going through the process of dissolution and reconstruction, the struggle of the two geniuses, the shock between the past and the future, the mixture of the old and the new manners, form a transitory combination, which leaves not a moment of ennui. Passions and characters set at liberty exhibit a vigour which never appears in a well-regulated city. The infraction of laws, freedom from duties, usages, and civility, even dangers, add interest to the disorder. The whole people in the universal respite of occupation, walk in the streets, freed from its demagogues, relapse for a moment into a state of nature, and only begin to feel the necessity of the social rein, when it is forced to bear the yoke of new tyrants called into existence by license. I could not more fully describe the society of 1789 and 1790, than by comparing it to the architecture of the time of Louis XII. and of Francis I., when Grecian orders began to be mixed with the Gothic style, or rather, by comparing it to a collection of the ruins and tombs of all ages heaped together pell-mell, after the reign of terror, in the cloisters of the Petits-Augustins; only, the wrecks of which I speak were living and varied without intermission. In every corner of Paris there were literary réunions, political societies and theatres; the men of great future renown wandered about in the crowd without being known, like souls on the banks of Lethe before having enjoyed the light. I have seen Marshal Gouvion-St.-Cyr play a character at the Théâtre du Marais, in De Beaumarchais Mère Coupable; and one went from the club of the Feuillons to that of the Jacobins, from balls and gambling-houses to the gatherings of the Palais Royal, from the tribunes of the National Assembly to open air meetings. Deputations of the people, pickets of cavalry, and patroles of infantry, passed and repassed each other in the streets. Close beside a man in a French dress, with powdered hair, a sword at his side, his hat under his arm, pumps and silk stockings, there walked a man with cropped hair without powder, an English frock-coat, and an American cravat. The news was published by the actors at the theatre; and the pit resounded with patriotic songs. Occasional pieces attracted multitudes; an abbé appeared on the stage, the people shouted at him, "Coxcomb! coxcomb!" and the abbé replied, "Gentlemen, vive la nation!" Mandini and his wife, Viganoni and Rovedino might be heard at the Opera- Buffa, after having listened to the howling of ça ira. One might have gone to admire Madame Dugazon, Madame St. Aubin, Caroline, the little Olivier, Mademoiselle Contat, Molé, Fleury, and Talma, just then a débutant, after having seen Favras hanged. The promenades on the Boulevard du Temple and des Italiens, surnamed Coblentz, were crowded with showy women, among whom three young daughters of Grétry were conspicuous, white and red as their attire; the whole three soon died. "She fell asleep for ever," says Grétry, speaking of his eldest daughter, "seated upon my knee, and as beautiful as when alive." A multitude of carriages rolled over the crossings or bedaubed the sans-culottes; and there was to be seen the beautiful Madame de Buffon sitting alone in the Duke of Orleans' phaeton at the door of some club. The elegance and taste of the aristocratic society was to be met with at the Hôtel de la Rochefaucault, at the evening parties of Mesdames de Poix, d'Hénin, de Simiane, de Vaudreuil, and in some of the drawing-rooms of the high magistracy, still remaining open. At the houses of M. Necker, Le Comte Montmorin, and the various public functionaries, were to be seen (with Madame de Staël, La Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Mesdames de Beaumont and de Sérilly) all the new ornaments of France, and all the freedom of the new manners. The shoemaker, in the uniform of an officer of the National Guard, on his knees, took the measure of your foot; the monk, who on Fridays wore his white or black robe, on Sundays wore a round hat, dressed like a citizen; the shaven Capuchin read the newspapers in the wine-shop or the tea-garden, and in the midst of a circle of frivolous women, there appeared a grave nun; this was some aunt or sister turned out of her convent. Crowds visited the convents open to every body, just as travellers in Granada run through the deserted halls of the Alhambra, or as they stop at Tibur, under the columns of the temple of the Sibyll. Finally, there were duels and amours, friendships in prison, and political brotherhood, mysterious rendezvous, under the clear sky, in the midst of the peace and poetry of nature; there were retired, silent, solitary walks, mixed with eternal oaths and unspeakable affections, in the midst of the hollow noise of a vanishing world and the distant sound of a crumbling society, which threatened with its fall the destruction of all those sources of happiness placed at the feet of events. Whenever any thing was lost sight of for four-and-twenty hours, no one could be sure of ever finding it again. Some engaged in revolutionary turmoils, others thought of civil war; others again set out for Ohio, whither they sent before them plans of châteaux to be built among Indian savages; others, again, went to join the princes; all this cheerfully, often without a single sous in their pockets-the royalists alleging that the whole would end some morning by a decree of the Parliament; the patriots, equally vain in their hopes, announcing the reign of peace and happiness with that of liberty. The following song was heard everywhere: La sainte chandelle d'Arras, S'ils ne nous eclairent pas Mais on espère les moucher. And mark what opinions were formed of Robespierre and Mirabeau ! "It is as little in the power of any earthly faculties," said l'Estoile, "to prevent the French people from speaking, as it is to bury the sun in the earth, or to shut it up in a hole." The palace of the Tuileries, a great gaol filled with convicts, rose in the midst of these fêtes of destruction. Those, also, sentenced to death, enjoyed themselves whilst they were waiting for the cart, the shearing time, or the bloody shirt, which had been put out to dry, and they could see through the windows of their prison the dazzling illuminations of the queen's circle. Pamphlets and newspapers multiplied by thousands; satires, poems, and the songs of the Acts of the Apostles replied to the Ami du Feuple, or to the Modérateur of the Monarchical Club, edited by Fontanes; Mallet Dupan, in the political articles of the Mercure, was in opposition to Laharpe and Chamfort in the literary portion of the same paper. Champoenetz, the Marquis de Bonnay, Rivarol, Mirabeau the younger (the Holbein of the sword, who levied the legion of Hussars de la Mort on the Rhine), and Honoré Mirabeau the elder, amused themselves, while dining together, by drawing caricatures and getting up the Petit Almanach des grands hommes; after which Honoré went to propose martial law or the seizure of the possessions of the clergy. He passed the night at the house of Madame Jay, after declaring that he would not quit the National Assembly till driven thence at the bayonet point. Egalité consulted the devil in the lists of Montrouge, and returned to the garden at Monceaux to preside at orgies instituted by La Clos. The future regicide was worthy of his race; exhausting his powers by debauchery before giving himself up to ambition. Lauzun, already sated and withered, supped in his little house at the barrier du Maine with some opera dancers, whose favours were divided between MM. de Noailles, de Dillon, de Choiseul, de Narbonne, de Talleyrand, and some other exquisites of the day, two or three mummies of whom are still in existence. Most of the courtiers celebrated for their immorality in the latter part of Louis XV.'s reign, and during that of Louis XVI., were enrolled under the tricolor; they had almost all been engaged in the American war, and had bedaubed their |