Part 7 A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792

Part 7

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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 a.s.semblage 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.

[Note 34: _Poco mas o menos_,(a little more or less) as the Spaniards say when they are complimented with _Viva V. S. mil anos_ (may you live a thousand years.)]

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 _ca 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'embra.s.ser_) which they did, by gently touching my cheek with their lips. But a period was put to all these amus.e.m.e.nts by the occurrences of the 10th; after which day, most of my time was employed in endeavouring to obtain a pa.s.sport.

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'hote_ (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 gla.s.s, of which a quart-bottle may contain about fifteen. _Rhenish, Mountain, Alicante, Rota,_ and red _Frontignan_ at 6 livres. _Champagne, Claret, Hermitage,_ 4 _l._ 10_f._ _Port_ 3_l._ 10_f._ _Burgundy_ 3_l._ _Porter_ 2_l._ 10_f._ 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."

[Note 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 Abbe _Maury_ made in the National a.s.sembly, 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 3-1/4 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.]

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.

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

[Note 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.]

_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.

[Note 37: _Thousand_ must be read after all the following figures.

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]

[Note 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 n.o.body can understand any thing about the matter.

"Personne n'y entend rien."]

[Note 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 a.s.sembly, demanding five and twenty millions of livres. It was decreed that instant.]

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

[Note 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."]

"No city in the world can offer such a spectacle as that of Paris, agitated by some great pa.s.sion, 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_.

[Note 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 pa.s.sed, 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 _ca ira_.

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

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 Bishop.r.i.c.ks (page 14) I unaccountably omitted the ten metropolitan sees, which are those of _Paris, Lyon, Bourdeaux, Rouen, Reims, Besancon, Bourges, Rennes, Aix_ and _Toulouse_: Thus there are eighty-three bishop.r.i.c.ks, 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 cote 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, Provencal, Picard, &c._[42]

[Note 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 a.s.semblies, 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."]

The following paragraphs are taken from the new _Voyage de France_.

"During fourteen hundred years, priority in follies, in superst.i.tion, 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 sh.o.r.es the sc.u.m which covers them."

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