A TRIP TO PARIS. (continued 2)

Here follows a copy of my passport.

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

Then follows:

La nation, la loi, le roi; this is also obliterated with a pen, and instead is written: Liberté, Egalité Au nom de la nation.

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

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

Vû à la Mairie le 17 aoust 1792.

L'an 4^e de la liberté.

Petion.

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

Gratis. Le ministre des affaires etrangeres.

Vu passer Abbeville enLe Brun.

Conseil permanent le 20

Aoust 1792.Signed by a municipal officer.

And on the back of the passport,

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

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

Permis d'embarquer à Calais le 22 aoust 1792. Signed by a Secretary.

MISCELLANIES. DANCING. POULTRY. TAVERNS. WIG.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EXTENT, POPULATION, &C. OF FRANCE.

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

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

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

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

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

Lyon contains 160 thousand persons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

EMENDATIONS AND ADDITIONS. RETURN TO CALAIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EPILOGUE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE END.

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

FOOTNOTES: