Paris As It Was and As It Is by Francis W. Blagdon (page 12)

whether made use of in the markets, gaming-houses, taverns, or dancing-rooms.

CAROLINE and BRUNET, or BRUNET and CAROLINE. They are like two planets, round which move a great number of satellites, some more imperceptible than others. If to these we add TIERCELIN, an actor of the grotesque species, little more is to be said. Were it not for BRUNET, who makes the most of his comic humour, in playing all sorts of low characters, and sometimes in a manner truly original, and Mademoiselle CAROLINE, whose clear, flexible, and sonorous voice insures the success of several little operas, the _Theatre Montansier_ would not be able to maintain its ground, notwithstanding the advantages of its centrical situation, and the attractions of its lobby, where the impures of the environs exhibit themselves to no small advantage, and literally carry all before them.

We now come to the theatres on the _Boulevard_, at the head of which is to be placed

L’AMBIGU COMIQUE.

This little theatre is situated on the _Boulevard du Temple_, and, of all those of the third order, has most constantly enjoyed the favour of the public. Previously to the revolution, AUDINOT drew hither crowded houses by the representation of comic operas and bad _drames_ of a gigantic nature, called here _pantomimes dialoguees_. The effects of decoration and show were carried farther at this little theatre than at any other. Ghosts, hobgoblins, and devils were, in the sequel, introduced. All Paris ran to see them, till the women were terrified, and the men disgusted.

CORSE, the present manager, has of late added considerably to the attraction of the _Ambigu Comique_, by not only restoring it to what it was in the most brilliant days of AUDINOT, but by collecting all the best actors and dancers of the _Boulevard_, and improving on the plan adopted by his predecessor. He has neglected nothing necessary for the advantageous execution of the new pieces which he has produced. The most attractive of these are _Victor_, _le Pelerin blanc_, _L’Homme a trois visages_, _Le Jugement de Salomon_, &c.

The best performers at this theatre are CORSE, the manager, TAUTIN, and Mademoiselle LEVESQUE.

* * * * *

In regard to all the other minor theatres, the enumeration of which I have detailed to you in a preceding letter,[2] I shall briefly, observe that the curiosity of a stranger may be satisfied in paying each of them a single visit. Some of these _petits spectacles_ are open one day, shut the next, and soon after reopened with performances of a different species. Therefore, to attempt a description of their attractions would probably be superfluous; and, indeed, the style of the pieces produced is varied according to the ideas of the speculators, the taste of the managers, or the abilities of the performers, who, if not “the best actors in the world,” are ready to play either “tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited.”

[Footnote 1: The Theatre of the _Porte St. Martin_ not having been open, when this letter was written, it is not here noticed. It may be considered as of the second rank. Its representations include almost every line of acting; but those for which the greatest expense is incurred are melo-drames and pieces connected with pantomime and parade. The house is the same in which the grand French opera was performed before the revolution.]

[Footnote 2: See Vol. i. Letter XXI.]

LETTER LXXI.

_Paris, February 22, 1802._

The variety of matter which crowds itself on the mind of a man who attempts to describe this immense capital, forms such a chaos, that you will, I trust, give me credit for the assertion, when I assure you that it is not from neglect or inattention I sometimes take more time than may appear strictly necessary to comply with your wishes. Considering how deeply it involves the peace and comfort of strangers, as well as inhabitants, I am not at all surprised at the anxiety which you express to acquire some knowledge of the

POLICE OF PARIS.

In the present existing circumstances, it might be imprudent, if not dangerous, to discuss, freely openly, so delicate a question. I shall take a middle course. Silence would imply fear; while boldness of expression might give offence; and though I certainly am not afraid to mention the subject, yet to offend, is by no means my wish or intention. In this country, the Post-Office has often been the channel through which the opinion of individuals has been collected. What has been, may again occur; and in such critical times, who knows, but the government may conceive itself justified in not considering as absolutely sacred the letters intrusted to that mode of conveyance? Under these considerations, I shall beg leave to refer you to a work which has gone through the hands of every inquisitive reader; that is the _Tableau de Paris_, published in 1788: but, on recollection, as this letter will, probably, find you in the country, where you may not have an immediate opportunity of gratifying your curiosity, and as the book is become scarce, I shall select from it for your satisfaction a few extracts concerning the Police.

This establishment is necessary and useful for maintaining order and tranquillity in a city like Paris, where the very extremes of luxury and wretchedness are continually in collision. I mean _useful_, when no abuse is made of its power; and it is to be hoped that the present government of France is too wise and too just to convert an institution of public utility into an instrument of private oppression.

Since the machinery of the police was first put in order by M. D’ARGENSON, in 1697, its wheels and springs have been continually multiplied by the thirteen ministers who succeeded him in that department. The last of these was the celebrated M. LENOIR.

The present Minister of the Police, M. FOUCHE, has, it seems, adopted, in a great measure, the means put in practice before the revolution. His administration, according to general report, bears most resemblance to that of M. LENOIR: he is said, however, to have improved on that vigilant magistrate: but he surpasses him, I am told, more in augmentation of expenses and agents, than in real changes.[1]

In selecting from the before-mentioned work the following _widely scattered_ passages, and assembling them as a _piece of Mosaic_, it has been my endeavour to enable you to form an impartial judgment of the police of Paris, by exhibiting it with all its perfections and imperfections. Borrowing the language of MERCIER, I shall trace the institution through all its ramifications, and, in pointing out its effects, I shall “nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice.”

If we take it for granted, that the police of Paris is now exercised on the same plan as that pursued towards the close of the old _regime_, this sketch will be the more interesting, as its resemblance to the original will exempt me from adding a single stroke from my own pencil.

“D’ARGENSON was severe,” says MERCIER, “perhaps because he felt, in first setting the machine in motion, a resistance which his successors have less experienced. For a long time it was imagined that a Minister of Police ought to be harsh; he ought to be firm only. Several of these magistrates have laid on too heavy a hand, because they were not acquainted with the people of Paris; a people of quick feeling, but not ferocious[2], whose motions are to be divined, and consequently easy to be led. Whoever should be void of pity in that post, would be a monster.”

MERCIER then gives the fragment by FONTENELLE, on the police of Paris and on M. D’ARGENSON, of which I shall select only what may be necessary for elucidating the main subject.

“The inhabitants of a well-governed city,” says FONTENELLE, “enjoy the good order which is there established, without considering what trouble it costs those who establish or preserve it, much in the same manner as all mankind enjoy the regularity of the motions of celestial bodies, without having any knowledge of them, and even the more the good order of a police resembles by its uniformity that of the celestial bodies, the more is it imperceptible, and, consequently, the more it is unknown, the greater is its perfection. But he who would wish to know it and fathom it, would be terrified. To keep up perpetually in a city, like Paris, an immense consumption, some sources of which may always be dried up by a variety of accidents; to repress the tyranny of shop-keepers in regard to the public, and at the same time animate their commerce; to prevent the mutual usurpations of the one over the other, often difficult to discriminate; to distinguish in a vast crowd all those who may easily conceal there a hurtful industry; to purge society of them, or tolerate them only as far as they can be useful to it by employments which no others but themselves would undertake, or discharge so well; to keep necessary abuses within the precise limits of necessity which they are always ready to over-leap; to envelop them in the obscurity to which they ought to be condemned, and not even draw them from it by chastisement too notorious; to be ignorant of what it is better to be ignorant of than to punish, and to punish but seldom and usefully; to penetrate by subterraneous avenues into the bosom of families, and keep for them the secrets which they have not confided, as long as it is not necessary to make use of them; to be present every where without being seen; in short, to move or stop at pleasure an immense multitude, and be the soul ever-acting, and almost unknown, of this great body: these are, in general, the functions of the chief magistrate of the police. It should seem that one man alone could not be equal to them, either on account of the quantity of things of which he must be informed, or of that of the views which he must follow, or of the application which he must exert, or of the variety of conduct which he most observe, and of the characters which he must assume: but the public voice will answer whether M. D’ARGENSON has been equal to them.

“Under him, cleanliness, tranquillity, plenty, and safety were brought to the highest degree of perfection in this city. And, indeed, the late king (Lewis XIV) relied entirely on his care respecting Paris. He could have given an account of a person unknown who should have stolen into it in the dark; this person, whatever ingenuity he exerted in concealing himself, was always under his eye; and if, at last, any one escaped him, at least what produced almost the same effect, no one would have dared to think himself well-concealed.

“Surrounded and overwhelmed in his audiences by a crowd of people chiefly of the lower class, little informed themselves of what brought them, warmly agitated by interests very trifling, and frequently very ill understood, accustomed to supply the place of discourse by senseless clamour, he neither betrayed the inattention nor the disdain which such persons or such subjects might have occasioned.”

“FONTENELLE has not,” continues MERCIER, “spoken of the severity of M. D’ARGENSON, of his inclination to punish, which was rather a sign of weakness than of strength. Alas! human laws, imperfect and rude, cannot dive to the bottom of the human heart, and there discover the causes of the delinquencies which they have to punish! They judge only from the surface: they would acquit, perhaps, those whom they condemn; they would strike him whom they suffer to escape. But they cannot, I confess, do otherwise. Nevertheless, they ought to neglect nothing that serves to disclose the heart of man. They ought to estimate the strength of natural and indestructible passions, not in their effects, but in their principles; to pay attention to the age, the sex, the time, the day; these are nice rules, which could not be found in the brain of the legislator, but which ought to be met with in that of a Minister of the Police.”

“There are also epidemical errors in which the multitude of those who go astray, seems to lessen the fault; in which a sort of circumspection is necessary, in order that punishment may not be in opposition to public interest, because punishment would then appear absurd or barbarous, and indignation might recoil on the law, as well as on the magistrate.”

“What a life has a Minister of Police! He has not a moment that he can call his own; he is every day obliged to punish; he is afraid to give way to indulgence, because he does not know that he may not one day have to reproach himself with it. He is under the necessity of being severe, and of acting contrary to the inclination of his heart; not a crime is committed but he receives the shameful or cruel account: he hears of nothing but vicious men and vices; every instant he is told: ‘there’s a murder! a suicide! a rape!’ Not an accident happens but he must prescribe the remedy, and hastily; he has but a moment to deliberate and act, and he must be equally fearful to abuse the power intrusted to him, and not to use it opportunely. Popular rumours, flighty conversations, theatrical factions, false alarms, every thing concerns him.

“Is he gone to rest? A fire rouses him from his bed. He must be answerable for every thing; he must trace the robber, and the lurking assassin who has committed a crime; for the magistrate appears blameable, if he has not found means to deliver him up quickly to justice. The time that his agents have employed in this capture will be calculated, and his honour requires that the interval between the crime and the imprisonment should be the shortest possible. What dreadful duties! What a laborious life! And yet this place is coveted!

“On some occasions, it is necessary for the Minister of Police to demean himself like a true _Greek_, as was the case in the following instance:

“A person, being on the point of making a journey, had in his possession a sum of twenty thousand livres which embarrassed him; he had only one servant, whom he mistrusted, and the sum was tempting. He accordingly requested a friend to be so obliging as to take care of it for him till his return.

“A fortnight after, the friend denied the circumstance. As there was no proof, the civil law could not pronounce in this affair. Recourse was had to the Minister of Police, who pondered a moment, and sent for the receiver, making the accuser retire into an adjoining room:

“The friend arrives, and maintains that he has not received the twenty thousand livres. ‘Well,’ said the magistrate, ‘I believe you; and as you are innocent you run no, risk in writing to your wife the note that I am going to dictate. Write.

“‘”My dear wife, all is discovered. I shall be punished if I do not restore you know what. Bring the sum: your coming quickly to my relief is the only way for me to get out of trouble and obtain my pardon.”

“‘This note,’ added the magistrate, ‘will fully justify you. Your wife can bring nothing since you have received nothing, and your accuser will be foiled.’

“The note was dispatched; the wife, terrified, ran with the twenty thousand livres.

“Thus the Minister of Police can daily make up for the imperfection and tardiness of our civil laws; but he ought to use this rare and splendid privilege with extreme circumspection.

“The chief magistrate of the police is become a minister of importance; he has a secret and prodigious influence; he knows so many things, that he can do much mischief or much good, because he has in hand a multitude of threads which he can entangle or disentangle at his pleasure; he strikes or he saves; he spreads darkness or light: his authority is as delicate as it is extensive.

“The Minister of Police exercises a despotic sway over the _mouchards_ who are found disobedient, or who make false reports: as for these fellows, they are of a class so vile and so base, that the authority to which they have sold themselves, has necessarily an absolute right over their persons.

“This is not the case with those who are apprehended in the name of the police; they may have committed trifling faults: they may have enemies in that crowd of _exempts_, spies, and satellites, who are believed on their word. The eye of the magistrate may be incessantly deceived, and the punishment of these crimes ought to be submitted to a more deliberate investigation; but the house of correction ingulfs a vast number of men who there become still more perverted, and who, on coming out, are still more wicked than when they went in. Being degraded in their own eyes, they afterwards plunge themselves headlong into all sorts of irregularities.

“These different imprisonments are sometimes rendered necessary by imperious circumstances; yet it were always to be wished that the detention of a citizen should not depend on a single magistrate, but that there should be a sort of tribunal to examine when this great act of authority, withdrawn from the eye of the law, ceases to be illegal.

“A few real advantages compensate for these irregular forms, and there are, in fact, an infinite number of irregularities which the slow and grave process of our tribunals can neither take cognizance of, nor put a stop to, nor foresee, nor punish. The audacious or subtle delinquent would triumph in the winding labyrinth of our civil laws. The laws of the police, more direct, watch him, press him, and surround him mose closely. The abuse, is contiguous to the benefit, I admit; but a great many private acts of violence, base and shameful crimes, are repressed by this vigilant and active force which ought, nevertheless, to publish its code and submit it to the inspection of enlightened citizens.”

“Could the Minister of Police communicate to the philosopher all he knows, all he learns, all he sees, and likewise impart to him certain secret things, of which he alone is well-informed, there would be nothing so curious and so instructive under the pen of the philosopher; for he would astonish all his brethren. But this magistrate is like the great penitentiary; he hears every thing, relates nothing, and is not astonished at certain delinquencies in the same degree as another man. By dint of seeing the tricks of roguery, the crimes of vice, secret treachery, and all the filth of human actions, he has necessarily a little difficulty in giving credit to the integrity and virtue of honest people. He is in a perpetual state of mistrust; and, in the main, he ought to possess such a character; for, he ought to think nothing impossible, after the extraordinary lessons which he receives from men and from things. In a word, his place commands a continual, and scrutinizing suspicion.”

* * * * *

_February 22, in continuation._

“Even should not the Parisian have the levity with which he is reproached, reason would justify him in its adoption. He walks surrounded by spies. No sooner do two citizens whisper to each other, than up comes a third, who prowls about in order to listen to what they are saying. The spies of the police are a regiment of inquisitive fellows; with this difference, that each individual belonging to this regiment has a distinct dress, which he changes frequently every day; and nothing so quick or so astonishing, as these sorts of metamorphoses.

“The same spy who figures as a private gentleman in the morning, in the evening represents a priest: at one time, he is a peaceable limb of the law; at another, a swaggering bully. The next day, with a gold-headed cane in his hand, he will assume the deportment of a monied man buried in calculations; the most singular disguises are quite familiar to him. In the course of the twenty-four hours, he is an officer of distinction and a journeyman hair-dresser, a shorn apostle and a scullion. He visits the dress-ball and the lowest sink of vice. At one time with a diamond ring on his finger, at another with the most filthy wig on his head, he almost changes his countenance as he does his apparel; and more than one of these _mouchards_ would teach the French _Roscius_ the art of _decomposing_ himself; he is all eyes, all ears, all legs; for he trots, I know not how, over the pavement of every quarter of the town. Squatted sometimes in the corner of a coffee-room, you would take him for a dull, stupid, tiresome fellow, snoring till supper is ready: he has seen and heard all that has passed. At another time, he is an orator, and been the first to make a bold speech; he courts you to open your mind; he interprets even your silence, and whether you speak to him or not, he knows what you think of this or that proceeding.

“Such is the universal instrument employed in Paris for diving into secrets; and this is what determines the actions of persons in power more willingly than any thing that could be imagined in reasoning or politics.

“The employment of spies has destroyed the ties of confidence and friendship. None but frivolous questions are agitated, and the government dictates, as it were, to citizens the subject on which they shall speak in the evening in coffee-houses, as well as in private circles.

“The people have absolutely lost every idea of civil or political administration; and if any thing could excite laughter in the midst of an ignorance so deplorable, it would be the conversation of such a silly fellow who constantly imagines that Paris must give the law and the _ton_ to all Europe, and thence to all the world.

“The men belonging to the police are a mass of corruption which the Minister of that department divides into two parts: of the one, he makes spies or _mouchards_; of the other, satellites, _exempts_, that is, officers, whom he afterwards lets loose against pickpockets, swindlers, thieves, &c., much in the same manner as a huntsman sets hounds on wolves and foxes.

“The spies have other spies at their heels, who watch over them, and see that they do their duty. They all accuse each other reciprocally, and worry one another for the vilest gain.”

I cannot here avoid interrupting my copious but laboriously-gathered selection from MERCIER, to relate an anecdote which shews in what a detestable light _mouchards_ are considered in Paris.

A man who appeared to be in tolerably good circumstances, fell in love, and married a girl whom the death of her parents and accumulated distress had driven to a life of dissipation. At the end of a few months, she learnt that her husband was a spy of the police. “Probably,” said, she to him, “you did not take up this trade till after you had reflected that in following that of a thief or a murderer, you would have risked your life.” On saying this, she ran out of the house, and precipitated herself from the _Pont Royal_ into the Seine, where she was drowned.–But to resume the observations of MERCIER.

“It is from these odious dregs,” continues our author, “that public order arises.

“When the _mouchards_ of the police have acted contrary to their instructions, they are confined in the house of correction; but they are separated from the other prisoners, because they would be torn to pieces by those whom they have caused to be imprisoned, and who would recognize them. They inspire less pity on account of the vile trade which they follow. One sees with surprise, and with still more pain, that these fellows are very young. Spies, informers at sixteen!–O! what a shocking life does this announce!” exclaims MERCIER. “No; nothing ever distressed me more than to see boys act such a part…. And those who form them into squads, who drill them, who corrupt such inexperienced youth!”

Such is the admirable order which reigns in Paris, that a man suspected or described is watched so closely, that his smallest steps are known, till the very moment when it is expedient to apprehend him.

“The description taken of the man is a real portrait, which it is impossible to mistake; and the art of thus describing the person by words, is carried to so great a nicety, that the best writer, after much reflection on the matter, could add nothing to it, nor make use of other expressions.

“The Theseuses of the police are on foot every night to purge the city of robbers, and it might be said that the lions, bears, and tigers are chained by political order.

“There are also the court-spies, the town-spies, the bed-spies, the street-spies, the spies of impures, and the spies of wits: they are all called by the name of _mouchards_, the family name of the first spy employed by the court of France.

“Men of fashion at this day follow the trade of _mouchards_; most of them style themselves _Monsieur le Baron_, _Monsieur le Comte_, _Monsieur le Marquis_. There was a time, under Lewis XV, when spies were so numerous, that it was impossible for friends, who assembled together, to open their heart to each other concerning matters which deeply affected their interest. The ministerial inquisition had posted its sentinels at the door of every room, and listeners in every closet. Ingenuous confidences, made from friends to friends, and intended to die in the very bosom where they had been deposited, were punished as dangerous conspiracies.

“These odious researches poisoned social life, deprived men of pleasures the most innocent, and transformed citizens into enemies who trembled to unbosom themselves to each other.

“One fourth of the servants in Paris serve as spies; and the secrets of families, which are thought the most concealed, come to the knowledge of those interested in being acquainted with them.

“Independently of the spies of the police, ministers have spies belonging to themselves, and keep them in pay: these are the most dangerous of all, because they are less suspected than others, and it is more difficult to know them. By these means, ministers know what is said of them; yet, of this they avail themselves but little. They are more intent to ruin their enemies, and thwart their adversaries, than to derive a prudent advantage from the free and ingenuous hints given them by the multitude.

“It is entertaining enough to consider that, in proper time and place, spies are watching him who, at his pleasure, sets spies to watch other citizens. Thus, the links which connect mankind in political order are really incomprehensible. He who does not admire the manner in which society exists, and is supported by the simultaneous reaction of its members, and who sees not the serpent’s _tail_ entering its _mouth_, is not born for reflection.

“But the secrets of courts are not revealed through spies; they get wind by means of certain people who are not in the least mistrusted; in like manner the best built ships leak through an imperceptible chink, which cannot be discovered.

“What is interesting in courts, and particularly so in ours,” says MERCIER, “is that there is a degree of obscurity spread over all its proceedings. We wish to penetrate what is concealed, we endeavour to know till we learn; thus it is that the most ingenious machine preserves its highest value only till we have seen the springs which set it in motion.

“After having considered the different parts which form the police of the capital, we still perceive all the radii reaching from the centre to the circumference. How many ramifications issue from the same stem! How far the branches extend! What an impulse does not Paris give to other neighbouring cities!

“The police of Paris has an intimate correspondence with that of Lyons and other provincial cities: for it is evident that it would be imperfect, if it could not follow the disturber of public order, and if the distance of a few leagues skreened him from researches.

“The correspondence of the Parisian police is not therefore limited to its walls; it extends much farther; and it is in towns where imprudent or rash persons would imagine that they might give their tongue greater freedom, that the vigilant magistrate pries into conversation, and keeps a watchful eye over those who would measure their audacity by the degree of distance from the capital.

“Thus the police of Paris, after having embraced France, penetrates also into Switzerland, Italy, Holland, and Germany;[3] and when occasion requires, its eye is open on all sides to what can interest the government. When it wishes to know any fact, it is informed of it to a certainty; when it wishes to strike a serious blow, it seldom misses its aim.

“It may easily be conceived that the machine would be incomplete, and that its play would fail in the desired effect, did it not embrace a certain extent. It costs but little to give to the lever the necessary length. Whether the spy be kept in pay at Paris, or a hundred leagues off, the expense is the same, and the utility becomes greater.

“Experience has shewn that these observations admit of essential differences in the branches of the police. Weights and measures must be changed, according to time, place, persons, and circumstances. There are no fixed rules; they must be created at the instant, and the most versatile actions are not destitute of wisdom and reason.

“Of this wholesale legislators are not aware: it is reserved for practitioners to seize these shades of distinction. There must be a customary, and, as it were, every-day policy, in order to decide well without precipitation, without weakness, and without rigour. What would be a serious fault at Paris, would be a simple imprudence at Lyons, an indifferent thing elsewhere, and so on reciprocally.

“Now this science has not only its details and its niceties, it has also its variations, and sometimes even its oppositions. Ministers must have a steady eye and great local experience, in order to be able to strike true, and strike opportunely, without espousing imaginary terrors; which, in matters of police, is the greatest fault that can be committed.[4]

“LYCURGUS, SOLON, LOCKE, and PENN! you have made very fine and majestic laws; but would you have divined these? Although secret, they exist; they have their wisdom, and even their depth. The distance of a few leagues gives to matters of police two colours, which bear to each other no resemblance; and there is no principal town which is not obliged, in modeling its police on that of Paris, to introduce into it the greatest modifications. The motto of every Minister of Police ought to be this: _The letter of the law kills, its spirit gives life._

“The safety of Paris, during the night, is owing to the guard[5] and two or three hundred _mouchards_, who trot about the streets, and recognize and follow suspected persons. It is chiefly by night that the police makes its captions.”

The manner in which these captions are made is humorously, gravely, feelingly, and philosophically described by the ingenious MERCIER. Long as this letter already is, I am confident that you will not regret its being still lengthened by another extract or two relative to this interesting point; thus I shall terminate the only elucidation that you are likely to obtain on a subject which has so strongly excited your curiosity.

“The comic,” says our lively author, “is here blended with the serious. The fulminating order, which is going to crush you, is in the pocket of the _exempt_, who feels a degree of pleasure in the exercise of his dreadful functions. He enjoys a secret pride in being bearer of the thunder; he fancies himself the eagle of Jove: but his motion is like that of a serpent. He glides along, dodges you, crouches before you, approaches your ear, and with down-cast eyes and a soft-toned voice, says to you, at the same time shrugging his shoulders: ‘_Je suis au desespoir, Monsieur; mais j’ai un ordre, Monsieur, qui vous arrete, Monsieur; de la part de la police, Monsieur_.’—-‘_Moi, Monsieur_?’—-‘_Vous-meme, Monsieur_.’—-You waver an instant between anger and indignation, ready to vent all sorts of imprecations. You see only a polite, respectful, well-bred man, bowing to you, mild in his speech, and civil in his manners. Were you the most furious of mankind, your wrath would be instantly disarmed. Had you pistols, you would discharge them in the air, and never against the affable _exempt_. Presently you return him his bows: there even arises between you a contest of politeness and good breeding. It is a reciprocity of obliging words and compliments, till the moment when the resounding bolts separate you from the polite man, who goes to make a report of his mission, and whose employment, by no means an unprofitable one, is to imprison people with all possible gentleness, urbanity, and grace.

“I am walking quietly in the street; before me is a young man decently dressed. All at once four fellows seize on him, collar him, push him against the wall, and drag him away. Natural instinct commands me to go to his assistance; a tranquil witness says to me coolly: ‘Don’t interfere; ’tis nothing, sir, but a caption made by the police.’ The young man is handcuffed, and he disappears.

“I wish to enter a narrow street, a man belonging to the guard is posted there as a sentinel: I perceive several of the populace looking out of the windows. ‘What’s the matter, sir?’ say I.—- ‘Nothing,’ replies he; ‘they are only taking up thirty girls of the town at one cast of the net.’ Presently the girls, with top-knots of all colours, file off, led by the soldiers of the guard, who lead them gallantly by the hand, with their muskets clubbed.

“It is eleven o’clock at night, or five in the morning, there is a knock at your door; your servant opens it; in a moment your room is filled with a squad of satellites. The order is precise, resistance is vain; every thing that might serve as a weapon is put out of your reach; and the _exempt_, who will not, on that account, boast the less of his bravery even takes your brass pocket-inkstand for a pistol.

“The next day, a neighbour, who has heard a noise in the house, asks what it might be: ‘Nothing, ’tis only a man taken up by the police.’ —-‘What has he done?’—-‘No one can tell; he has, perhaps, committed a murder, or sold a suspicious pamphlet.’—-‘But, sir, there’s some difference between those two crimes.’—-‘May be so; but he is carried off.’

“You have been apprehended; but you have not been shewn the order; you have been put into a carriage closely shut up; you know not whither you are going to be taken; but you may be certain that you will visit the wards or dungeons of some prison.

“Whence proceeds the decree of proscription? You cannot rightly guess.

“It is not necessary to write a thick volume against arbitrary arrests. When one has said, _it is an arbitrary act_, one may, without any difficulty, infer every possible consequence. But all captions are not equally unjust: there are a multitude of secret and dangerous crimes which it would be impossible for the ordinary course of the law to take cognizance of, to put a stop to, and punish. When the minister is neither seduced nor deceived, when he yields not to private passion, to blind prepossession, to misplaced severity, his object is frequently to get rid of a disturber of the public peace; and the police, in the manner in which the machine is set up, could not proceed, at the present day, without this quick, active, and repressive power.

“It were only to be wished that there should be afterwards a particular tribunal, which should weigh in an exact scale the motives of each caption, in order that imprudence and guilt, the pen and the poniard, the book and the libel, might not be confounded.

“The inspectors of police determine on their part a great many subaltern captions; as they are generally believed on their word, and as they strike only the lowest class of the people, the chief readily concedes to them the details of this authority.

“Some yield to their peevishness; others, to their caprice: but who knows whether avarice has not also a share in their proceedings, and whether they do not often favour him who pays at the expense of him who does not pay? Thus the liberty of the distressed and lowest citizens would have a tarif; and this strange tax would bear hard on the very numerous portion of _prostitutes_, _professed gamblers_, _quacks_, _hawkers_, _swindlers_, and _adventurers_, all people who do mischief, and whom it is necessary to punish; but who do more mischief when they are obliged to pay, and purchase, during a certain time, the privilege of their irregularities.

“We have imitated from the English their Vauxhall, their Ranelagh, their whist, their punch, their hats, their horse-races, their jockies, their betting; but,” concludes MERCIER, “when shall we copy from them something more important, for instance, that bulwark of liberty, the law of _habeas corpus_?”

[Footnote 1: The office of Minister of the Police has since been abolished. M. FOUCHE is now a Senator, and the machine of which he was said to be so expert a manager, is confided to the direction of the Prefect of Police, who exercises his functions under the immediate authority of the Ministers, and corresponds with them concerning matters which relate to their respective departments. The higher duties of the Police are at present vested in the _Grand Juge_, who is also Minister of Justice. The former office is of recent creation.]

[Footnote 2: Voltaire thought otherwise; and he was not mistaken.]

[Footnote 3: I shall exemplify this truth by two remarkable facts. About the year 1775, when M. DE SARTINE was Minister of the Police, several forgeries were committed on the Bank of Vienna; Count DE MERCY, then Austrian ambassador at Paris, was directed to make a formal application for the delinquent to be delivered up to justice. What was his astonishment on receiving, a few hours after, a note from M. DE SARTINE, informing him that the author of the said forgeries had never been in Paris; but resided in Vienna, at the same time mentioning the street, the number of the house, and other interesting particulars!

A circumstance which occurred in 1796, proves that, since the revolution, the system of the Parisian police continues to extend to foreign countries. The English Commissary for prisoners of war was requested by a friend to make inquiry, on his arrival in Paris, whether a French lady of the name of BEAUFORT was living, and in what part of France she resided. He did so; and the following day, the card, on which he had written the lady’s name, was returned to him, with this addition: “She lives at No. 47, East-street, Manchester-square, London.”]

[Footnote 4: The same principle holds good in politics.]

[Footnote 5: The municipal guard of Paris at present consists of 2334 men. The privates must be above 30 and under 45 years of age.]

LETTER LXXII.

_Paris, February 26, 1802._

Referring to an expression made use of in my letter of the 16th of December last,[1] you ask me “What the sciences, or rather the _savans_ or men of science, have done for this people?” With the assistance of a young Professor in the _College de France_, who bids fair to eclipse all his competitors, it will not be difficult for me to answer your question.

Let me premise, however, that the _savans_ to whom I allude, must not be confounded with the philosophers, called _Encyclopaedists_, from their having been the first to conceive and execute the plan of the _Encyclopaedia_. These _savans_ were DIDEROT, D’ALEMBERT, and VOLTAIRE, all professed atheists, who, by the dissemination of their pernicious doctrine, introduced into France an absolute contempt for all religion. This infidelity, dissolving every social tie, every principle between man and man, between the governing and the governed, in the sequel, produced anarchy, rapine, and all their attendant horrors.

At the beginning of the revolution, every mind being turned towards politics, the Sciences were suddenly abandoned: they could have no weight in the struggle which then occupied every imagination. Presently their existence was completely forgotten. Liberty formed the subject of every writing and every discourse: it seemed that orators alone possessed the power of serving her; and this error was partly the cause of the calamities which afterwards overwhelmed France. The greater part of the _savans_ remained simple spectators of the events which were preparing: not one of them openly took part against the revolution. Some involved themselves in it. Those men were urged by great views, and hoped to find, in the renewal of social organization, a mean of applying and realizing their theories. They thought to master the revolution, and were carried away by its torrent; but at that time the most sanguine hopes were indulged. If the love of liberty be no more than a phantom of the brain, if the wish to render men better and happier be no more than a matter of doubt, such errors may be pardoned in those who have paid for them with their life.

It is in the recollection of every one that the National Convention consisted of two parties, which, under the same exterior, were hastening to contrary ends: the one, composed of ignorant and ferocious men, ruled by force; the other, more enlightened, maintained its ground by address. The former, restless possessors of absolute power, and determined to grasp at every thing for preserving it, strove to annihilate the talents and knowledge which made them sensible of their humiliating inferiority. The others, holding the same language, acted in an opposite direction. But being obliged, in order to preserve their influence, never to shew themselves openly, they employed their means with an extreme reserve, and this similarity at once explains the good they did, the evil they prevented, and the calamities which they were unable to avert.

At that time, France was on the very brink of ruin. _Landrecies_, _Le Quesnoy_, _Conde_ and _Valenciennes_ were in the power of her enemies. _Toulon_ had been given up to the English, whose numerous fleets held the dominion of the seas, and occasionally effected debarkations. This country was a prey to famine and terror; _La Vendee_, _Lyons_, and _Marseilles_ were in a state of insurrection. No arms, no powder; no ally that could or would furnish any; and its only resource lay in an anarchical government without either plan or means of defence, and skilful only in persecution. In a word, every thing announced that the Republic would perish, before it could enjoy a year’s existence.

In this extremity, two new members were called to the Committee of Public Welfare. These two men organized the armies, conceived plans of campaign, and prepared supplies.

It was necessary to arm nine hundred thousand men; and what was most difficult, it was necessary to persuade a mistrustful people, ever ready to cry out “treason!” of the possibility of such a prodigy. For this purpose, the old manufactories were comparatively nothing; several of them, situated on the frontiers, were invaded by the enemy. They were revived every where with an activity till then unexampled. _Savans_ or men of science were charged to describe and simplify the necessary proceedings. The melting of the church-bells yielded all the necessary metal.[2] Steel was wanting; none could be obtained from abroad, the art of making it was unknown. The _Savans_ were asked to create it; they succeeded, and this part of the public defence thus became independent of foreign countries.

The exigencies of the war had rendered more glaring the urgent necessity of having good topographical maps, and the insufficiency of those in use became every day more evident. The geographical engineers, which corps had been suppressed by the Constituent Assembly, were recalled to the armies, and although they could not, in these first moments, give to their labours the necessary extent and detail, they nevertheless paved the way to the great results since obtained in this branch of the art military. Nothing is more easy than to destroy; nothing is so difficult, and, above all, so tedious as to reconstruct.

The persons then in power had likewise had the prudence to preserve in their functions such pupils and engineers in the civil line as were of an age to come under the requisition. Whatever might be the want of defenders, it was felt that it requires ten years’ study to form an engineer; while health and courage suffice for making a soldier. This disastrous period affords instances of foresight and skill which have not always been imitated in times more tranquil.

The Sciences had just rendered great services to the country. They were calumniated; those who had made use of them were compelled to defend them, and did so with courage. A circumstance, equally singular and unforeseen, occasioned complete recourse to be had to their assistance.

An officer arrived at the Committee of Public Welfare: he announced that the republican armies were in presence of the enemy; but that the French generals durst not march their soldiers to battle, because the brandies were poisoned, and that the sick in the hospitals, having drunk some, had died. He requested the Committee to cause them to be examined, asked for orders on this subject, and wished to set off again immediately.

The most skilful chymists were instantly assembled: they were ordered to analyze the brandies, and to indicate, in the course of the day, the poison and the remedy.

These _savans_ laboured without intermission, trusting only to themselves for the most minute details. Scarcely was time allowed them to finish their operations, when they were summoned to appear before the Committee of Public Welfare, over which ROBESPIERRE presided.

They announced that the brandies were not poisoned, and that water only had been added to them, in which was slate in suspension, so that it was sufficient to filter them, in order to deprive them of their hurtful quality.

ROBESPIERRE, who hoped to discover a treason, asked the Commissioners if they were perfectly sure of what they had just advanced. As a satisfactory answer to the question, one of them took a strainer, poured the liquor through it, and drank it without hesitation. All the others followed his example. “What!” said ROBESPIERRE to him, “do you dare to drink these poisoned brandies?”—-“I durst do much more,” answered he, “when I put my name to the Report.”

This service, though in itself of little importance, impressed the public mind with a conception of the utility of the _savans_, a greater number of whom were called into the Committee of Public Welfare. There they were secure from subaltern informers, with which France abounded. Having concerns only with the members charged with the military department, who were endeavouring to save them, they might, by keeping silence, escape the suspicious looks of the tyrants of the day. There was then but one resource for men of merit and virtue, namely, to conceal their existence, and cause themselves to be forgotten.

In the midst of this sanguinary persecution, all the means of defence employed by France, issued from the obscure retreat where the genius of the Sciences had taken refuge.

Powder was the article for which there was the most urgent occasion. The soldiers were on the point of wanting it. The magazines were empty. The administrators of the powder-mills were assembled to know what they could do. They declared that the annual produce amounted to three millions of pounds only, that the basis of it was saltpetre drawn from India, that extraordinary encouragements might raise them to five millions; but that no hopes ought to be entertained of exceeding that quantity. When the members of the Committee of Public Welfare announced to the administrators that they must manufacture seventeen millions of pounds of powder in the space of a few months, the latter remained stupified. “If you succeed in doing this,” said they, “you must have a method of making powder of which we are ignorant.”

This, however, was the only mean of saving the country. As the French were almost excluded from the sea, it was impossible to think of procuring saltpetre from India. The _savans_ offered to extract all from the soil of the Republic. A general requisition called to this labour the whole mass of the people. Short and simple directions, spread with inconceivable activity, made, of a difficult art, a common process. All the abodes of men and animals were explored. Saltpetre was sought for even in the ruins of Lyons; and soda, collected from among the ashes of the forests of La Vendee.

The results of this grand movement would have been useless, had not the Sciences been seconded by new efforts. Native saltpetre is not fit for making powder; it is mixed with salts and earths which render it moist, and diminish its activity. The process employed for purifying it demanded considerable time. The construction of powder-mills alone would have required several months, and before that period, France might have been subjugated. Chymistry invented new methods for refining and drying saltpetre in a few days. As a substitute for mills, pulverized charcoal, sulphur, and saltpetre were mixed, with copper balls, in casks which were turned round by hand. By these means, powder was made in twelve hours; and thus was verified that bold assertion of a member of the Committee of Public Welfare: “Earth impregnated with saltpetre shall be produced,” said he, “and, in five days after, your cannon shall be loaded.”

Circumstances were favourable for fixing, in all their perfection, the only arts which occupied France. Persons from all the departments were sent to Paris, in order to be instructed in the manufacture of arms and saltpetre. Rapid courses of lectures were given on this subject. They contributed little to the general movement, which had saved the Republic, but they had an effect no less important, that of bringing to light the astonishing facility of the French for acquiring the arts and sciences; a happy gift which forms one of the finest features in the character of the nation.

Notwithstanding so many services rendered by the Sciences, the learned were not less persecuted; the most celebrated among them were the most exposed. The venerable DAUBENTON, the co-operator in the labours of BUFFON, escaped persecution only because he had written a work on the improvement of sheep, and was taken for a simple shepherd. COUSIN was not so fortunate; yet, in his confinement, he had the stoicism to compose works of geometry, and give lessons of physics to his companions of misfortune.

LAVOISIER, that immortal character, whose generosity in promoting the progress of science could be equalled only by his own enlightened example in cultivating it, was also apprehended. As one of the Commissioners for fixing the standard of weights and measures, great hopes were entertained that he might be restored to liberty. Measures were taken with that intention; but these were not suited to the spirit of the moment. The commission was dissolved, and LAVOISIER left in prison. Shortly after, this ever to be lamented _savant_ was taken to the scaffold. He would still be living, had his friends acted on the cupidity of the tyrants who then governed, instead of appealing to their justice.

About this period, some members of the Convention having introduced a discussion in favour of public instruction, it was strongly opposed by the revolutionary party, who saw in the Sciences nothing but a poison which enervated republics. According to them, the finest schools were the popular societies. To do good was then impossible, and to shew an inclination to do it, exposed to the greatest danger the small number of enlightened men France still possessed.

In this point of view, every thing was done that circumstances permitted. A military school was created, where young men from all the departments were habituated to the exercise of arms and the life of a camp. It was called _L’Ecole de Mars_. Its object was not to form officers, but intelligent soldiers, who, spread in the French armies, should soon render them the most enlightened of Europe, as they were already the most inured to the hardships of war.

Thus, a small number of men, whose conduct has been too ill appreciated, alone retarded, by constant efforts, the progress of barbarism and struggled in a thousand ways against the oppression which others contented themselves with supporting.

At length, the bloody throne, raised by ROBESPIERRE, was overthrown: hope succeeded to terror; and victory, to defeat. Then, the Sciences, issuing from the focus in which they had been concentered and concealed, reappeared in all their lustre. The services they had rendered, the dangers which had threatened them, were felt and acknowledged. The plan of campaign, formed by the scientific men, called to the Committee of Public Welfare, had completely succeeded. The French armies had advanced on the rear of those of the allies, and, threatening to cut off their retreat, not only forced them to abandon the places they had taken, but also marched from conquest to conquest on their territory.

The means of having iron, steel, saltpetre, powder, and arms, had been created during the reign of terror. The following were the results of this grand movement at the beginning of the third year of the Republic.

Twelve millions of pounds of saltpetre extracted from the soil of France in the space of nine months. Formerly, scarcely one million was drawn from it.

Fifteen founderies at work for the casting of brass cannon. Their annual produce increased to 7000 pieces. There existed in France but two establishments of this description before the revolution.

Thirty founderies for iron ordnance, yielding 13,000 pieces per year. At the breaking out of the war, there were but four, which yielded annually 900 pieces of cannon.

The buildings for the manufacture of shells, shot, and all the implements of artillery, multiplied in the same proportion.

Twenty new manufactories for side-arms, directed by a new process. Before the war, there existed but one.

An immense manufactory of fire-arms established all at once in Paris, and yielding 140,000 muskets per year, that is, more than all the old manufactories together. Several establishments of this nature formed on the same plan in the different departments of the Republic.

One hundred and eighty-eight workshops for repairing arms of every description. Before the war, there existed but six.

The establishment of a manufactory of carbines, the making of which was till then unknown in France.

The art of renewing the touch-hole of cannon discovered, and carried immediately to a perfection which admits of its being exercised in the midst of camps.

A description of the means by which tar, necessary for the navy, may be speedily extracted from the pine-tree.

Balloons and telegraphs converted into machines of war.

All the process of the arts relative to war simplified and improved by the application of the most learned theories.

A secret establishment formed at Meudon for that purpose. Experiments there made on the oxy-muriate of potash, on fire-balls, on hollow-balls, on ring-balls, &c.

Great works begun for extracting from the soil of France every thing that serves for the construction, equipment, and supplies of ships of war.

Several researches for replacing or reproducing the principal materials which the exigencies of the war had consumed, and for increasing impure potash, which the making of powder had snatched from the other manufactories.

Simple and luminous directions for fixing the art of making soap, and bringing it within reach of the meanest capacity.

The invention of the composition of which pencils are now made in France, the black lead for which was previously drawn from England; and what was inappreciable in those critical circumstances, the discovery of a method for tanning, in a few days, leather which generally required several years’ preparation.

In a word, if we speak of the territorial acquisitions, which were the result of the victories obtained by means of the extraordinary resources created by the men of science, France has acquired an extent of 1,498 square leagues, and a population of 4,381,266 individuals; namely, Savoy, containing 411,700 inhabitants; the County of Nice, 93,166; Avignon, the _Comtat Venaissin_, and Dutch Flanders, 200,500; Maestricht and Venloo, 90,000; Belgium, 1,880,000; the left bank of the Rhine, 1,658,500; Geneva and its territory, 40,000; and Mulhausen, 7,200.

P.S. Paris is now all mirth and gaiety; in consequence of the revived pleasures of the Carnival. I shall not give you my opinion of it till its conclusion.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. I. Letter XXXIV.]

[Footnote 2: The bells produced 27,442,852 pounds of metal. This article, valued at 10 _sous_ per pound, represents 15 millions of francs (_circa_ L625,000 sterling). A part served for the fabrication of copper coin, the remainder furnished pieces of ordnance.]

LETTER LXXIII

_Paris, February 28, 1802._

In all great cities, one may naturally expect to find great vices; but in regard to gaming, this capital presents a scene which, I will venture to affirm, is not to be matched in any part of the world. No where is the passion, the rage for play so prevalent, so universal: no where does it cause so much havock and ruin. In every class of society here, gamesters abound. From men revelling in wealth to those scarcely above beggary, every one flies to the gaming-table; so that it follows, as a matter of course, that Paris must contain a great number of _Maisons de jeu_, or

PUBLIC GAMING-HOUSES.

They are to be met with in all parts of the town, though the head-quarters are in the _Palais du Tribunat_, or, as it is most commonly called, the _Palais Royal_. Whenever you come to Paris, and see, on the first story, a suite of rooms ostentatiously illuminated, and a blazing reverberator at the door, you may be certain that it is a house of this description.

Before the revolution, gaming was not only tolerated in Paris, but public gaming-houses were then licensed by the government, under the agreeable name of _Academies de jeu_. There, any one might ruin himself under the immediate superintendance of the police, an officer belonging to which was always present. Besides these academies, women of fashion and impures of the first class were allowed to keep a gaming-table or _tripot de jeu_, as it was termed, in their own house. This was a privilege granted to them in order that they might thereby recover their shattered fortune. When all the necessary expenses were paid, these ladies commonly shared the profits with their protectors, that is, with their friends in power, through whose protection the _tripot_ was sanctioned. Every one has heard of the fatal propensity to gaming indulged in by the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. The French women of quality followed her pernicious example, as the young male nobility did that of the Count d’Artois and the Duke of Orleans; so that, however decided might be the personal aversion of Lewis XVI to gaming, it never was more in fashion at the court of France than during his reign. This is a fact, which can be confirmed by General S—th and other Englishmen who have played deep at the queen’s parties.

At the present day, play is, as I have before stated, much recurred to as a financial resource, by many of the _ci-devant_ female _noblesse_ in Paris. In their parties, _bouillotte_ is the prevailing game; and the speculation is productive, if the company will sit and play. Consequently, the longer the sitting, the greater the profits. The same lady who moralizes in the morning, and will read you a lecture on the mischievous consequences of gaming, makes not the smallest hesitation to press you to sit down at her _bouillotte_ in the evening, where she knows you will almost infallibly be a loser. No protection, I believe, is now necessary for a lady who chooses to have a little private gaming at her residence, under the specious names of _societe_, _bal_, _the_, or _concert_. But this is not the case with the _Maisons de jeu_, where the gaming-tables are public; or even with private houses, where the object of the speculation is publicly known. These purchase a license in the following manner. A person, who is said to have several _sleeping_ partners, engages to pay to the government the sum of 3,600,000 francs (_circa_ L150,000 sterling) a year for the power of licensing all gaming-houses in this capital, and also to account for a tenth part of the profits, which enter the coffer of the minister at the head of the department of the police. This contribution serves to defray part of the expense of greasing the wheels of that intricate machine. Without such a license, no gaming-house can be opened in Paris. Sometimes it is paid for by a share in the profits, sometimes by a certain sum per sitting.

These _Maisons de jeu_, where dupes are pitted against cheats, are filled from morning to night with those restless beings, who, in their eager pursuit after fortune, almost all meet with disappointment, wretchedness, ruin, and every mischief produced by gaming. This vice, however, carries with it its own punishment; but it is unconquerable in the heart which it ravages. It lays a man prostrate before those fantastic idols, distinguished by the synonymous names of fate, chance, and destiny. It banishes from his mind the idea of enriching himself, or acquiring a competence by slow and industrious means. It feeds, it inflames his cupidity, and deceives him in order to abandon him afterwards to remorse and despair.

From the mere impulse of curiosity, I have been led to visit some of the principal _Maisons de jeu_. I shall therefore represent what I have seen.

In a spacious suite of apartments, where different games of chance are played, is a table of almost immeasurable length, covered with a green cloth, with a red piece at one end, and a black, one at the other. It is surrounded by a crowd of persons of both sexes, squeezed together, who, all suspended between fear and hope, are waiting, with eager eyes and open mouth, for the favourable or luckless chance. I will suppose that the banker or person who deals the cards, announces “_rouge perd, couleur gagne_.” The oracle has spoken. At these words of fate, on one side of the table, you see countenances smiling, but with a smile of inquietude, and on the other, long faces, on which is imprinted the palid hue of death. However, the losers recover from their stupor: they hope that the next chance will be more fortunate. If that happens, and the banker calls out “_rouge gagne, couleur perd_;” then the scene changes, and the same persons whom you have just seen so gay, make a sudden transition from joy to sadness, and _vice versa_. This contrast no language can paint, and you must see it, in order to conceive how the most headstrong gamblers can spend hour after hour in such a continual state of agitation, in which they are alternately overwhelmed by rage, anguish, and despair. Some are seen plucking out their hair by the roots, scratching their face, and tearing their clothes to pieces, when, after having lost considerable sums, frequently they have not enough left to pay for a breakfast or dinner. What an instructive lesaon for the novice! What a subject of reflection for the philosophic spectator! At these scenes of folly and rapacity it is that the demon of suicide exults in the triumphs he is on the point of gaining over the weakness, avarice, and false pride of mortals. If the wretched victim has not recourse to a pistol, he probably seeks a grave at the bottom of the river.

Among these professed gamblers, it often happens that some of them, in order to create what they term _resources_, imagine tricks and impostures scarcely credible. I shall relate an anecdote which I picked up in the course of my inquiries respecting the garning-houses in Paris. It may be necessary to premise that the counterfeit louis, which are in circulation in this country, and have nearly the appearance of the real coin, are employed by these knaves; they commonly produce them at night, because they then run less risk of being detected in passing them; but these means are very common and almost out of date.

In the great gaming-houses in Paris, it is customary to have on the table several _rouleaux_ of louis d’or. An old, experienced gambler came one day to a house of this class, with his pockets full of leaden _rouleaux_ of the exact form and size of those containing fifty louis d’or. He placed at one of the ends of the table (either black or red) one of his leaden _rouleaux_: he lost. The master of the bank took up his _rouleau_, and, without opening it, put it with the good _rouleaux_ in the middle of the table, where the bank is kept. The old gambler, without being disconcerted, staked another. He won, and withdrew the good _rouleau_ given him, leaving the counterfeit one on the table, at the same time calling out, “I stake ten louis out of the _rouleau_.” The cards were drawn; he won: the banker, to pay him the ten louis, took a _rouleau_ from the bank. Chance willed that he lighted on the leaden _rouleau_. He endeavoured to break it open by striking it on the table: the _rouleau_ withstood his efforts. The gambler, without deranging his features, then said to the banker; “Mind you don’t break it.” The banker, disconcerted, tore the paper, and, on opening it, found it to contain nothing but lead. There being no positive proof against the gambler, he was permitted to retire, and his only punishment was to be in future excluded from this gaming-house. But he had the consolation of knowing that ninety-nine others would be open to him. However, this and other impostures have led to a regulation, that, in all these houses, the value of every stake should be apparent to the eye, and openly exposed on the table.

From what I have said you might infer that _trente-et-un_ (or _rouge et noir_) is the most fashionable game played here; but, though this is the case, it is not the only one in high vogue. Many others, equally pernicious, are pursued at the same time, such as _la roulette_, _passe-dix_, and _biribi_, at which cheats and sharpers can, more at their ease, execute their feats of dexterity and schemes of plunder. Women frequent the gaming-tables as well as the men, and often pledge their last shift to make up a stake. It is shocking to contemplate a young female gamester, the natural beauty of whose countenance is distorted into deformity by a succession of agonizing passions. Yet so distressing an object is no uncommon thing in Paris.

You may, perhaps, be curious to know what are these games, of _trente-et-un_, _biribi_, _passe-dix,_ and _la roulette_. Never having played at any of them, such a description as I might pretend to give, could at best be but imperfect. For which, reason I shall not engage in the attempt.

It is confidently affirmed that in the principal towns of France, namely, Bordeaux, Lyons, Marseilles, Rouen, &c. the rage for play is no less prevalent than in the capital, where gaming-houses daily increase in number.[1] They are now established in every quarter in Paris, even the poorest, and there are some where the lowest of the populace can indulge in a _penchant_ for gaming, as the stake is proportioned to their means. This is the ruin of every class of inhabitants and of foreigners; so much so, that suicides here increase in exact proportion to the increase of gaming-houses.

Is it not astonishing that the government should suffer, still more promote the existence of an evil so pernicious in every point of view? From the present state of the French finances, it would, notwithstanding, appear that every consideration, however powerful, must yield to the want of money required for defraying the expenses of the department of the Police.

_Minima de malis_ was the excuse of the old government of France for promoting gaming. “From the crowd of dissipated characters of every description, accumulated in great cities,” said its partisans, “governments find themselves compelled to tolerate certain abuses, in order to avoid evils of greater magnitude. They are forced to compound with the passions which they are unable to destroy; and it is better that men should be professed gamblers than usurers, swindlers, and thieves.” Such was the reasoning employed in behalf of the establishment of the _Academies de jeu_, which existed prior to the revolution. Such is the reasoning reproduced, at the present day, in favour of the _Maisons de jeu_; but, when I reflect on all the horrors occasioned by gaming, I most ardently wish that every argument in favour of so destructive a vice, may be combated by a pen like that of Rousseau, which, Sir William Jones says, “had the property of spreading light before it on the darkest objects, as if he had written with phosphorus on the walls of a cavern.”

[Footnote 1: During the Carnival of the present year (1803) the masked balls at the grand French Opera were quite deserted, in consequence of a new gaming-house, established solely for foreigners, having, by the payment of considerable sums to the government, obtained permission to give masked balls. These balls were all the rage. There was one every Tuesday, and the employment of the whole week was to procure cards of invitation; for persons were admitted by _invitation_ only, no money being taken. The rooms, though spacious, were warm and comfortable; the company, tolerably good, and extremely numerous, but chiefly composed of foreigners. _Treute-et-un_, _biribi_, _pharaon_, _creps_, and other fashionable games were played, so that the _speculators_ could very well afford to give all sorts of refreshments, and an elegant supper _gratis_.]

LETTER LXXIV.

_Paris, March 1, 1802_.

Of all the institutions subsisting here before the revolution, that which has experienced the greatest enlargement is the

MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.

This establishment, formerly called _Le Jardin du Roi_, and now more commonly known by the name of _Le Jardin des Plantes_, received its present denomination by a decree of the National Convention, dated the 10th of June 1793. It is situated on the south bank of the Seine, nearly facing the Arsenal, and consists of a botanical garden, a collection of natural history, a library of works relating to that science, an amphitheatre for the lectures, and a _menagerie_ of living animals.

Originally, it was nothing more than a garden for medicinal plants, formed under that title, in 1626, by GUY DE LA BROSSE, principal physician to Lewis XIII, who sanctioned the establishment by letters patent. The king’s physicians were almost always intendants of this garden till the year 1739, when it was placed under the direction of BUFFON. Before his time, the cabinet was trifling. It consisted only of some curiosities collected by GEOFFROY, and a few shells which had belonged to TOURNEFORT; but, through the zeal of BUFFON, and the care of his co-operator DAUBENTON, it became a general _depot_ of natural history, and its riches had increased still more than its utility. On the breaking out of the revolution, it had been protected through that sort of respect which the rudest men have for the productions of nature, whence they either receive or expect relief for their sufferings. It had even been constantly defended by the revolutionary administration, under whose control and dependence it was placed. Regarding it, in some measure, as their private property, their pride was interested in its preservation; and had any attempt been made to injure it, they would infallibly have caused an insurrection among the inhabitants of the surrounding _faubourg_. These singular circumstances, joined to the good understanding prevailing among the professors, had maintained this fine establishment in a state, if not increasing, at least stationary. On the revival of order, ideas were entertained of giving to it an extension which had already been projected and decreed, even during the reign of terror.

The botanical garden was enlarged; the extent of the ground intended for the establishment was doubled; a _menagerie_ was formed; new hot-houses and new galleries were constructed; the addition of new professors was confirmed, and all the necessary disbursements were made with magnificence. Thus, in the same place where every production of nature was assembled, natural history was for the first time taught in its aggregate; and these courses of lectures, become celebrated by the brilliancy of the facts illustrated in them, the number of pupils who frequent them, and the great works of which they have been the cause or the motive, have rendered the MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY one of the first establishments of instruction existing in Europe.

Formerly, there were but three professors attached to this establishment. At present, there are no less than thirteen, who each give a course of forty lectures. The courses of zoology and mineralogy take place in the halls of the cabinet containing the collections corresponding to each of those sciences. The courses of botany, anatomy, and chemistry are delivered in the great amphitheatre, and that of natural iconography in the library. The days and hours of the lectures are announced every year by particular advertisements.

The establishment is administered, under the authority of the Minister of the Interior, by the professors, who choose, annually, from among themselves, a director. At present, that situation is held by FOURCROY. Although this celebrated professor, in his lectures on chemistry, must principally attach himself to minerals, the particular object of chemical inquiry, he is far from neglecting vegetable and animal substances, the analysis of which will, in time, spread great light on organic bodies. The most recent discoveries on the exact constitution of bodies are made known in the course of these lectures, and a series of experiments, calculated for elucidating the demonstrations, takes place under the eyes of the auditors.

No one possesses more than FOURCROY the rare talent of classing well his subjects, of presenting facts in a striking point of view, and of connecting them by a succession of ideas extremely rapid, and expressed in a voice whose melody gives an additional charm to eloquence. The pleasure of hearing him is peculiarly gratifying; and, indeed, when he delivers a lecture, the amphitheatre, spacious as it is, is much too small to contain the crowd of auditors. Then, the young pupils are seen with their eyes stedfastly fixed on their master, catching his word with avidity, and fearing to lose one of them; thus paying by their attention the most flattering tribute to the astonishing facility of this orator of science, from whose lips naturally flow, as from a spring, the most just and most select expressions. Frequently too, carried away by the torrent of his eloquence, they forget what they have just heard, to think only of what he is saying. FOURCROY speaks in this manner for upwards of two hours, without any interruption, and, what is more, without tiring either his auditors or himself. He writes with no less facility than he speaks. This is proved by the great number of works which he has published. But in his writings, his style is more calm, more smooth than that of his lectures.

Each professor superintends and arranges the part of the collections corresponding to the science which he is charged to teach. For this purpose, there are also assistant naturalists, whose employment is to prepare the various articles of natural history. The keeper of the cabinet, under the authority of the director, takes all the measures necessary for the preservation of the collections. The principal ones are:

1. The cabinet of natural history, containing the animal kingdom, divided into its classes; the mineral kingdom; the fossils, woods, fruits, and other vegetable productions, together with the herbals. This cabinet, which occupies the buildings on the right, on entering from the street, is open to students on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, from eleven o’clock till two, and to the public in general every Tuesday and Friday in the afternoon.

2. The library, chiefly composed of works relating to natural history, contains, among other valuable articles, an immense collection of animals and plants, painted on vellum. Three painters are charged to continue this collection under the superintendance of the professors. The library is open to the public every day from eleven o’clock to two.

3. The cabinet of anatomy, containing the preparations relative to the human race and to animals. It is situated in a separate building, and for the present open to students only.

4. The botanical school, containing the plants growing in the open ground, and the numerous hot-houses in which are cultivated those peculiar to warm countries.

5. The _menagerie_ of foreign animals. At the present moment, they are dispersed in various parts of the garden; but they are shortly to be assembled in a spacious and agreeable place.

6. The chemical laboratory and the collection of chemical productions.

To these may be added a laboratory for the preparation of objects of natural history, and another for that of objects of anatomy.

Notwithstanding the improved state to which BUFFON had brought this establishment, yet, through the united care of the several scientific men who have since had the direction of it, the constant attention bestowed on it by the government, and even by the conquests of the French armies, its riches have been so much increased, that its collection of natural history may at this day be considered as the finest in being. The department of the minerals and that of the quadrupeds are nearly complete; that of the birds is one of the most considerable and the handsomest known; and the other classes, without answering yet the idea which a naturalist might conceive of thenm, are, nevertheless, superior to what other countries have to offer.

Among the curious or scarce articles in this Museum, the following claim particular notice:

In the class of quadrupeds, adult individuals, stuffed, such as the camelopard, the hippopotamus, the single-horned rhinoceros, the Madagascar squirrel, the Senegal lemur, two varieties of the oran-outang, the proboscis-monkey, different specimens of the indri, some new species of bats and opossums, the Batavian kangaroo, and several antelopes, ant-eaters, &c.

In the class of birds, a great number of new or rare species, and among those remarkable either for size or beauty, are the golden vulture, the great American eagle, the Impey peacock, the Ju[]
pheasant or argus, the plantain-eater, &c.

Among the reptiles, the crocodile of the Ganges, the fimbriated tortoise of Cayenne, &c.

Among the shells, the glass patella, and a number of valuable, scarce, or new species.

The collection of insects has just been completed through the assiduity of the estimable LAMARCK, the professor who has charge of that department.

In the mineral kingdom, independently of the numerous and select choice of all the specimens, are to be remarked as objects of particular curiosity, the petrifactions of crocodiles’ bones found in the mountain of St. Pierre at Maestricht, and the collection of impressions of fishes from Mount Bolca, near Verona.

At the present moment, the _menagerie_ contains a female elephant only, the male having died since my arrival in Paris, three dromedaries, two camels, five lions, male and female, a white bear, a brown bear, a mangousta, a civet, an alligator, an ostrich, and several other scarce and curious animals, the number and variety of which receive frequent additions. In other parts of the garden are inclosures for land and sea fowls, as well as ponds for fishes.

The denomination of _Jardin des Plantes_ is very appropriate to this garden, as it furnishes to all the botanical establishments throughout France seeds of trees and plants useful to the p[]ess of agriculture and of the arts; and hence the indigent poor are supplied with such medicinal plants as are proper for the cure or relief of their complaints.

LETTER LXXV.

_Paris, March 3, 1802._

It has been repeatedly observed that civilized nations adhere to their ancient customs for no other reason than because they are ancient. The French have, above all, a most decided partiality for those which afford them opportunities of amusement. It must therefore have been a subject of no small regret to them, on the annual return of those periods, to find the government taking every measure for the suppression of old habits. For some years since the revolution, all disguises and masquerades were strictly prohibited; but, though the executive power forbade pasteboard masks, its authority could not extend to those mental disguises which have been occasionally worn by many leading political characters in this country. No sooner was the prohibition against masquerading removed, than the Parisians gave full scope to the indulgence of their inclination; and this year was revived, in all its glory, the celebration of

THE CARNIVAL.

Yesterday was the conclusion of that mirthful period, during which Folly seemed to have taken possession of all the inhabitants of this populous city. Every thing that gaiety, whim, humour, and eccentricity could invent, was put in practice to render it a sort of continued jubilee. From morn to night, the concourse of masks of every description was great beyond any former example; but still greater was the concourse of spectators. All the principal streets and public gardens were thronged by singular characters, in appropriate dresses, moving about in small detached parties or in numerous close bodies, on foot, on horseback, or in carriages. The _Boulevards_, the _Rue de la Loi_, and the _Rue St. Honore_, exhibited long processions of masks and grotesque figures, crowded both in the inside and on the outside of vehicles of all sorts, from a _fiacre_ to a German waggon, drawn by two, four, six, and eight horses; while the _Palais Royal_, the _Tuileries_, the _Place de la Concorde_, and the _Champs Elysees_ were filled with pedestrian wits, amusing the surrounding multitude by the liveliness of their sallies and the smartness of their repartee. Here S[]pins,
Scaramouches, Punchinellos, Pierrots, Harlequins, and Columbines, together with nuns, friars, abbes, bishops, and _marquis_ in caricature, enlivened the scene: there, sultans, sultanas, janissaries, mamluks, Turks, Spaniards, and Indians, in stately pride, attracted attention. On one side, a Mars and Venus, an Apollo and Daphne, figured under the attributes of heathen mythology: on another, more than one Adam and Eve recalled to mind the origin of the creation.

To the eye of an untravelled Englishman, the novelty of this sight must have been a source of no small entertainment. If he was of a reflecting mind, however, it must have given rise to a variety of observations, and some of them of a rather serious nature. In admiring the order and decency which reigned amidst so much mirth and humour, he must have been desirous to appreciate the influence of political events on the character of this people. In a word, he must have been anxious to ascertain how far the return of our Gallic neighbours to their ancient habits, announces a return to their ancient institutions.

It is well known that the Carnival of modern times is an imitation of the Saturnalia of the ancients, and that the celebration of those festivals was remarkable for the liberty which universally prevailed; slaves being, at that period, permitted to ridicule their masters, and speak with freedom on every subject. During the last years of the French monarchy, the Parisians neglected not to avail themselves of this privilege. When all classes were confounded, at the time of the Carnival, the most elevated became exposed to the lash of the lowest; and, under the mask of satire, the abuses which had crept into religious societies, and the corruption which prevailed in every department of the State, escaped not their bold censure. From a consciousness, no doubt, of their own weakness, the different governments that have ruled over France since the revolution, dreaded the renewal of scenes in which their tottering authority might be overthrown; but such an apprehension cannot have been entertained by the present government, as manifestly appears from the almost unlimited license which has reigned during the late Carnival. Notwithstanding which, it is worthy of remark that no satirical disguises were met with, no shafts of ridicule were aimed at the constituted authorities, no invective was uttered against such and such an opinion, no abuse was levelled against this or that party. Censure and malice either slept or durst not shew themselves, though freedom of expression seemed to be under no restraint.

Formerly, when the people appeared indifferent to the motley amusements of the Carnival, and little disposed to mix in them, either as actors or spectators, it was not uncommon for the government to pay for some masquerading. The _mouchards_ and underlings of the police were habited as grotesque characters, calculated to excite curiosity, and promote mirth. They then spread themselves, to the number of two or three thousand, over different parts of the town, and gave to the streets of Paris a false colouring of joy and gladness; for the greater the misery of the people, the more was it thought necessary to exhibit an outward representation of public felicity. But these political impostures, having been seen through, at length failed in their effect, and were nearly relinquished before the revolution. At that time, nothing diverted the populace so much as _attrapes_ or bites; and every thing that engendered gross and filthy ideas was sure to please. Pieces of money, heated purposely, were scattered on the pavement, in order that persons, who attempted to pick them up, might burn their fingers. Every sort of bite was practised; but the greatest attraction and acme of delight consisted of _chianlits_, that is, persons masked, walking about, apparently, in their shirt, the tail of which was besmeared with mustard.

At the present day, these coarse and disgusting jokes are evidently laid aside, as some of a more rational kind are exhibited; such as the nun, partly concealed in a truss of straw, and strapped on the catering friar’s back; the effect of the galvanic fluid; and many others too numerous to mention. No factitious mirth was this year displayed; it was all natural; and if it did not add to the small sum of happiness of the distressed part of the Parisian community, it must, for a while at least, have made them forget their wretchedness. With few exceptions, every one seemed employed in laughing or in exciting laughter. Many of the characters assumed were such as afforded an opportunity of displaying a particular species of wit or humour; but the dress of some of the masquerading parties, being an excellent imitation of the rich costumes of Asia, must have been extremely expensive.

To conclude, the masked balls at the Opera, on the last days of the Carnival, were numerously attended. Very few characters were here attempted, and those were but faintly supported. Adventures are the principal object of the frequenters of these balls, and I have reason to think that the persons who went in quest of them were not disappointed. In short, though I have often passed the Carnival in Paris, I never witnessed one that went off with greater _eclat_. As the Turkish Spy observes, a small quantity of ashes, dropped, the day after its conclusion, on the head of these people in disguise, cools their frenzy. From being mad and foolish, they become calm and rational.

LETTER LXXVI.

_Paris, March 5, 1802._

As I foresee that my private affairs will, probably, require my presence in England sooner than I expected, I hasten to give you an idea of the principal public edifices which I have not, yet noticed. One of these is the _Luxembourg_ Palace, now called the

PALAIS DU SENAT CONSERVATEUR.

Mary of Medicis, relict of Henry IV, having purchased of the Duke of Luxembourg his hotel and its dependencies, erected on their site this palace. It was built in 1616, under the direction of JACQUES DE BROSSE, on the plan of the _Pitti_ palace at Florence.

Next to the _Louvre_, the _Luxembourg_ is the most spacious palace in Paris. It is particularly distinguished for its bold character, its regularity, and the beauty of its proportions. The whole facade is ornamented with coupled pilasters: on the ground-floor, the Tuscan order is employed, and above, the Doric, with alternate rustics. In the four pavilions, placed at the angles of the principal pile, the Ionic has been added to the other two orders, because they are more elevated than the rest of the buildings. Towards the _Rue de Tournon_, the two pavilions communicate by a handsome terrace, in the middle of which is a circular saloon, surmounted by a dome of the most elegant proportion. Beneath this dome is the principal entrance. The court is spacious, and on each side of it are covered arches which form galleries on the ground-floor and in front of the upper story.

The twenty-four pictures which Mary of Medicis had caused to be painted by the celebrated RUBENS, for the gallery of the _Luxembourg_, had been removed from it some years before the revolution. At that time even, they were intended for enriching the Museum of the _Louvre_. Four of them are now exhibited there in the Great Gallery. They are allegorical; with the other twenty, they represent the prosperous part of the history of that queen, and form a striking contrast to the adversity she afterwards experienced through the persecution of Cardinal Richelieu.

To gratify his revenge, he ordered all the furniture, &c. belonging to Mary of Medicis to be sold, together with the statues which then decorated the courts and garden of the _Luxembourg_, and pursued with inveteracy the unfortunate queen who had erected this magnificent edifice. Being exiled from France in 1631, she wandered for a long time in Flanders, and also in England, till the implacable cardinal prevailed on Charles I, to command her to quit the kingdom. In 1642, she took refuge at Cologne, and, at the age of 68, there died in a garret, almost through hunger and distress.

Before the revolution, this palace belonged to MONSIEUR, next brother to Lewis XVI. It has since been occupied by the Directory, each of whose members here had apartments. No material change has yet been made in it; nor does any thing announce that the partial alterations intended, either in its exterior or interior, will speedily be completed.

“—-_Pendent opera interrupta minaeque, &c._”

At the present day, the _Luxembourg_ is appropriated to the Conservative Senate, whose name it has taken, and who here hold their sittings in a hall, fitted up in a style of magnificence still superior to that of the Legislative Body. But the sittings of the former are not public like those of the latter; and as I had no more than a peep at their fine hall, I cannot enter into a description of its beauties.

However, I took a view of their garden, in which I had formerly passed many a pleasant hour. Here, workmen are employed in making considerable improvements. It was before very irregular, particularly towards the south, where the view from the palace was partly concealed by the buildings of the monastery of the Carthusians. By degrees, these irregularities are made to disappear, and this garden will shortly be laid out in such a manner as to correspond better with the majesty of the palace, and display its architecture to greater advantage. Alleys of trees, which were decayed from age, have been cut down, and replaced by young plants of thriving growth. In front of the south facade is to be a tasteful parterre, with an oblong piece of water in its centre. Beyond the garden is a large piece of ground formerly belonging to the Carthusian monastery, which is now nearly demolished; this ground is to be converted into a national nursery for all sorts of valuable fruit-trees. Being contiguous to the garden of the Senate, with which it communicates, it will furnish a very extensive promenade, and consequently add to the agreeableness of the place.

The present Minister of the Interior, CHAPTAL, who cultivates the arts and sciences with no less zeal than success, purposes to make here essays on the culture of vine-plants of every species, in order to obtain comparative results, which will throw a new light on that branch of rural economy.

A great number of vases and statues are placed in the garden of the Senate. Many of these works are indifferently executed, though a few of them are in a good style. Certainly, a more judicious and more decorous choice ought to have been made. It was not necessary to excite regret in the mind of the moralist, by placing under the eyes of the public figures of both sexes which are repugnant to modesty.

If it be really meant to attempt to mend the loose morals of the nation, why are nudities, which may be considered as the leaven of corruption, exposed thus in this and other national gardens in Paris?

* * * * *

_March 5, in continuation_.

St. Foix, in his “_Essais historiques sur Paris_” speaking of the Bastille, says, “it is a castle, which, without being strong, is one of the most formidable in Europe.” In their arduous struggle for liberty, the French have scarcely left a vestige of this dread abode, in which have been immured so many victims of political vengeance. I will not pretend to affirm that such is the description of prisoners now confined in

LE TEMPLE.

But when the liberty of individuals lies at the mercy of arbitrary power, every one has a right to draw his own inference.

This edifice takes its name from the Templars, whose chief residence it was till they were annihilated in 1313. Philip the Fair and Clement V contrived, under various absurd pretences, to massacre and burn the greater part of the knights of this order. The knights of St. John of Jerusalem were put in possession of all the property of the Templars, except such part as the king of France and the Pope thought fit to share between them. The _Temple_ then became the provincial house of the Grand Priory of France.

The Grand Priory consisted of the inclosure within the walls of the _Temple_, where stood a palace for the Grand Prior, a church, and several houses inhabited by shopkeepers and mechanics; but, with the considerable domains annexed to it, this post, before the revolution, yielded to the eldest son of the Count d’Artois, as Grand Prior, an annual revenue of 200,000 livres. The inclosure was at that time a place of refuge for debtors, where they enjoyed the privilege of freedom from arrest.

The palace was erected by JACQUES SOUVRE, Grand Prior of France. Near it, is a large Gothic tower of a square form, flanked by four round turrets of great elevation, built by HUBERT, treasurer to the Templars, who died in 1222.

It was in this building, which was considered as one of the most solid in France, that Lewis XVI was confined from the middle of September 1792 to the day of his execution. From the 13th of August till that period, the royal family had occupied the part of the palace which has been preserved. This tower, when it had been entirely insulated and surrounded by a ditch, was inclosed by a high wall, which also included part of the garden. The casements were provided with strong iron bars, and masked by those shutters, called, I believe, _trunk-lights_. As for the life which the unhappy monarch led in this prison, a detailed narrative of it has been published in England, by Clery, his faithful _valet-de-chambre_.

I have not been very anxious to approach the _Temple_, because I concluded that, if fame was not a liar, there was no probability of my having an opportunity of seeing any part of it, except the outer wall. The result was a confirmation of my opinion. Who are its occupiers? What is their number? What are their crimes? These are questions which naturally intrude themselves on the mind, when one surveys the turrets of this new Bastille–for, whether a place of confinement for state-prisoners be called _La Bastille_ or _Le Temple_, nevertheless it is a state-prison, and reminds one of slavery, which, as Sterne says, is, in any disguise, a bitter draught; and though thousands, in all ages, have been made to drink of it, still it is not, on that account, less bitter.

LETTER LXXVII

_Paris, March 8, 1802_.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be always able to answer your inquiries without hesitation. Considering the round of amusements in which I live, I flatter myself you will readily admit that it requires no small share of good-will and perseverance to devote so much time to scribbling for your entertainment. As for information, you will, on your arrival in Paris, know how much or how little you have derived from the perusal of my letters. You will then have it in your power to compare and judge. With the originals before you, you cannot be at a loss to determine how far the sketches resemble them.

Some of your inquiries have been already answered in my former letters. Among the number, however, you will find no reply on the subject of the

PRESENT STATE OF THE FRENCH PRESS.

This question being of a nature no less delicate than that concerning the police, you cannot but commend my discretion in adopting a similar method to gratify your curiosity; that is, to refer you to the intelligent author whom I quoted on the former occasion. If common report speaks the truth–_Sit mihi fas audita loqui?_–the press here is now in much the same state in which it was before the revolution. I shall therefore borrow again the language of MERCIER, who is a famous dreamer, inasmuch as many of his dreams have been realized: yet, with all his foresight and penetration, I question whether he ever dreamt that his picture of the French press, drawn in the interval between the years 1781 and 1788, would still be, in some respects, a true one at the beginning of the year 1802. But, as Boileau shrewdly remarks,

“_Le vrai peut quelquefois n’etre pas vraisemblable._”

“The enemies of books,” says our author, “are the enemies of, knowledge, and consequently of mankind. The shackles with which the press is loaded, are an incitement for setting them at defiance. If we were to enjoy a decent liberty, we should no longer have recourse to licentiousness. There are political evils which the liberty of the press prevents, and this is already a great benefit. The interior police of States requires to be enlightened by disinterested writings. There is no one but the philosopher, satisfied with the esteem alone of his fellow-citizens, that can raise himself above the clouds formed by personal interest, and set forth the abuses of insidious custom. In short, the liberty of the press will always be the measure of civil liberty; and it is a species of thermometer, which shews, at one glance, what a people have lost or gained.

“If we adopt this maxim, we are every day losing; for every day the press is more restricted.

“Suffer people to think and speak; the public will judge: they will even find means to correct authors. The surest method to purify the press, is to render it free: obstacles irritate it: prohibitions and difficulties engender the pamphlets complained of.

“Could despotism kill thought in its sanctuary, and prevent us from communicating the essence of our ideas to the mind of our fellow-creatures, it would do so. But not being able quite to pluck out the philosopher’s tongue, and cut off his hands, it establishes an inquisition, peoples the frontiers with searchers, spreads satellites, and opens every package, in order to interrupt the infallible progress of morality and truth. Useless and puerile effort! Vain attack on the natural right of general society, and on the patriotic rights of a particular one! Reason, from day to day, strikes nations with a greater lustre, and will at last shine unclouded. It answers no purpose to fear or persecute genius: nothing will extinguish in its hands the torch of truth: the decree which its mouth pronounces, will be repeated by all posterity against the unjust man. He wished to snatch from his fellow-creatures the most noble of all privileges, that of thinking, which is inseparable from that of existing: he will have manifested his weakness and folly; and he will merit the twofold reproach of tyranny and impotence.

“When a very flat, very atrocious, and very calumniating libel appears under a fellow’s coat, ’tis a contest who shall have it first. People pay an exorbitant price for it; the hawker who cannot read, and who wishes only to get bread for his poor family, is apprehended, and sent to prison, where he shifts for himself as well as he can.

“The more the libel is prohibited, the more eager we are for it. When we have read it, and we see that nothing compensates for its mean temerity, we are ashamed to have sought after it. We scarcely dare say, _we have read it_: ’tis the scum of low literature, and what is there without its scum?

“Contempt would be the surest weapon against those miserable productions which are equally destitute of truth and talent.

“When will men in power know how to disdain equally the interested encomiums of intriguing flatterers and the satires produced by hunger?

“Besides, those who sit in the first boxes must always expect some shafts levelled at them by those who are in the pit; this becomes almost inevitable. They must needs pay for their more commodious place: at least we attribute to those who rule over us more enjoyments: they have some which they will avow, solely with a view to raise themselves above the multitude. The human heart is naturally envious. Let men in power then forgive or dissemble seasonably: satire will fall to the ground; it is by shewing themselves impassible, that they will disarm ardent malignity.

“Nevertheless, there is a kind of odious libel, which, having every characteristic of calumny, ought to be repressed. This is commonly nothing more than the fruit of anonymous and envenomed revenge: for what are the secret intrigues of courts to any man of letters? He will know time enough that which will suit the pen of history.

“A libeller should be punished, as every thing violent ought to be. But the parties interested should abstain from pronouncing; for where then would be the proportion between the punishment and the crime?

“I apply not the name of libels to those atrocious and gratuitous accusations against the private life of persons in power or individuals unconnected with the government. Such injurious and unmeaning shafts are an attack on honour: their authors should be punished.

“The police detected and apprehended one of its inspectors, who, being charged to discover those libels, proposed the composition of similar ones to some half-starved authors. After having laid for them this infernal snare for the gain of a little money, he informed against them, and sold them to the government.

“These miscreants, blinded by the eager thirst of a little gold, divert themselves with the uneasiness of the government, and the more they see it in the trances of apprehension, the more they delight in magnifying the danger, and doubling its alarms.

“Liberty has rendered the English government insensible to libels. Disdain is certain, before the work is commenced. If the satire is ingenious, people laugh at it, without believing it; if it is flat, they despise it.

“Why cannot the French government partly adopt this indifference? A contempt, more marked, for those vile and unknown pens that endeavour to wound the sensibility of pride, would disgust the readers of the flat and lying satires after which they are so eager, only because they imagine that the government is really offended by them.

“It is to be observed that the productions that flatter more or less public malignity, spread in fugitive sparks a central fire, which, if compressed, would, perhaps, produce an explosion.

“Magistrates have not yet been seen disdaining those obscure shafts, rendering themselves invulnerable from the openness of their proceedings, and considering that praise will be mute, as long as criticism cannot freely raise its voice.

“Let them then punish the flattery by which they are assailed, since they are so much afraid of the libel that always contains some good truths: besides, the public are there to judge the detractor; and no unjust satire ever circulated a fort-night, without being branded with contempt.

“Ministers reciprocally deceive each other when they are attacked in this manner; the one laughs at the storm which has just burst on the other, and promotes secretly what he appears to prosecute openly and with warmth. It would be a curious thing if one could bring to light the good tricks which the votaries of ambition play each other in the road to power and fortune.

“There is nothing now printed in Paris, in the line of politics and history, but satires and falsehoods. Foreigners look down with pity on every thing that emanates from the capital on these matters. Other subjects begin to feel the consequences of this, because the restraint laid on the mind is manifested even in books of simple amusement. The presses of Paris are no longer to serve but for posting-bills, and invitations to funerals and weddings. Almanacks are already a subject too elevated, and the inquisition examines and garbles them.

“When I see a book,” says MERCIER, “sanctioned by the government, I would lay a wager, without opening it, that this book contains political falsehoods. The chief magistrate may well say: ‘This piece of paper shall be worth a thousand francs;’ but he cannot say: ‘Let this error become truth,’ or, ‘let this truth no longer be anything but an error.’ He may say it, but he can never compel men’s minds to adopt it.

“What is admirable in printing, is that these fine works, which do honour to human genius, are not to be commanded or paid for; on the contrary, it is the natural liberty of a generous mind, which unfolds itself in spite of dangers, and makes a present to human nature, in spite of tyrants. This is what renders the man of letters so commendable, and insures to him the gratitude of future ages.

“O! worthy Englishmen! generous people, strangers to our shameful servitude, carefully preserve among you the liberty of the press: it is the pledge of your freedom. At this day, you alone are the representatives of nearly all mankind; you uphold the dignity of the