Part 10 (1/2)
She knew in Paris a Madaantz at whose school in Putney Eliza and Everina had been teachers, and to her house she went, by invitation Monsieur and Madame Filiettaz were absent, and she was for some little time its sole occupant save the servants The object of her visit ofold She wished to study French, for though she could read and translate this language fluently, from want of practice she could neither speak nor understand it when it was spoken; and she also desired to watch for herself the development of the cause of freedom Their love of liberty had made the French, as a nation, peculiarly attractive to her She had long since openly avowed her syainst thereat satisfaction to be where she could follow day by day the progress of their struggle She had excellent opportunities not only to see as on the surface of society, which is all visitors to a strange land can usually do, but to study the actual forces at work in the movement Thomas Paine was then in Paris He was a member of the National Convention, and was on terms of intimacy with Condorcet, Brissot, Madame Roland, and other Republican leaders Mary had known him well in London She now renewed the acquaintance, and was alelcomed to his house near the Rue de Richelieu Later, when, worn out by his nu St Denis, to a hotel where Madaenerally believed that he had gone into the country for his health, Mary was one of the few favored friends who knew of his whereabouts She thus, through hi spirits of the day
She also saw much of Helen Maria Williams, the poetess, already notorious for her extreme liberalis the Revolutionary party in Paris Mrs Christie was still another friend of this period Her husband's business having kept thehly nationalized At their houseothers a Captain Gilbert Ilish friends, Mary had letters of introduction to several prominent French citizens
She arrived in Paris just before Louis XVI's trial The city was comparatively quiet, but there was in the air an oppression which betokened the co storm She felt the people's suspense as if she too had been personally interested Between her studies and her efforts to obtain the proper clehich she could in her own mind reduce the present political chaos to order, she found h ith to fill her days As always happened with her, the mental strain reacted upon her physical health, and her old enemies, depression of spirits and headaches, returned to harass her
She wrote to Everina on the 24th of December:
To- her absence the servants endeavored to render the house, a most excellent one, coe as fast as I can, I was sorry to be obliged to ree, and labor so continually to understand what I hear, that I never go to bed without a headache, andto form a just opinion of public affairs The day after to- at the bar, and the consequences that will follow I am almost afraid to anticipate
I have seen very little of Paris, the streets are so dirty; and I wait till I can make myself understood before I call upon Madame Laurent, etc Miss Williams has behaved very civilly to me, and I shall visit her frequently because I _rather_ like her, and I meet French cooodness of her heart continually breaks through the varnish, so that one would be more inclined, at least I should, to love than adht for female shoulders, especially in the sunshi+ne of prosperity Of the French I will not speak till I know er to coiven a coerly asked for, it has not been executed, and when I ask for an explanation,--I allude to the servant-irl, who, an't please you, has been a teacher in an English boarding-school,--dust is thrown up with a self-sufficient air, and I ah she puzzles herself, that I norance; but youI rite to you soon again Meantime, let me hear from you, and believe me yours sincerely and affectionately,
M W
When the dreaded 26th came, there was no one in Paris more excited and interested than Mary Fro the history he wasfor future historians to discuss, he rode by with calhout the entire day she waited anxiously, uncertain as to ould be the effects of thecarew nervous and fearful, as she had that other il in the little roohts, and it was a relief to write to Mr Johnson It gave her a sense of companionshi+p This ”hyena in petticoats,” this ”philosophizing serpent,” was at heart as feminine as Hannah More or any other ”excellent woman”
PARIS, Dec 26, 1792
I should immediately on the receipt of your letter, my dear friend, have thanked you for your punctuality, for it highly gratified me, had I not wished to wait till I could tell you that this day was not stained with blood Indeed, the prudent precautions taken by the National Convention to prevent a tus of faction would not dare to bark, much less to bite, however true to their scent; and I was not mistaken; for the citizens, ere all called out, are returning ho their ar passed bynow and then a few strokes on the druh empty streets, surrounded by the National Guards, who, clustering round the carriage, seemed to deserve their name The inhabitants flocked to their s, but the casements were all shut; not a voice was heard, nor did I see anything like an insulting gesture For the first time since I entered France I bowed to the majesty of the people, and respected the propriety of behavior, so perfectly in unison with s I can scarcely tell you why, but an association of ideas made the tears flow insensibly fronity than I expected fro to meet death where so ht Louis XIV beforethe capital with all his po to his pride, only to see the sunshi+ne of prosperity overshadowed by the sublih es that have filled ination all the day Nay, do not s lass door opposite my chair, and bloody hands shook at me Not the distant sound of a footstep can I hear My apartments are remote from those of the servants, the only persons who sleep withafter another I wish I had even kept the cat with htful shapes has taken hold ofto bed, and for the first time in my life I cannot put out the candle
M W
These ih The execution of Louis was followed by the declaration of war between France and England and the complete demoralization of the French people, especially of the Parisians The feeling against England grew daily lish residents in Paris more precarious It was next to impossible for theer was not realized by their countrymen on the other side of the Channel
Mrs Bishop, in the faraway Welsh castle, grew impatient at Mary's silence Politics was a subject dear to her heart, but one tabooed at Upton At her first word upon the topic the family, her eed to ignore it when she ith theees cao to them, ostensibly for French lessons, but in reality to hear their accounts of the scenes through which they had passed Forced to live in quiet, reed for the excitee centres of action, and at one tian to make plans to join her sister in France While Eliza was thus conte hoould be possible either to continue living there or to leave the country It was equally out of the question to obtain fresh supplies of land or a passport to carry her safely back
She had, when she left London, only intended to be absent for a feeeks, and had not even given up her roothened into months, and now her return was an ie Filiettaza trip to Switzerland, but this plan had to be abandoned because of the difficulty in procuring a passport She therefore went to Neuilly, where, her ready h exhausted, she lived as simply as she could Economy was doubly necessary at a tiryfor bread She was now ardener He beca coallantry of his race he could not do enough for Mada attention; he even disputed for the honor of rapes frouests He objected to her English independence; her lonely walks through the woods of Neuilly ht her to allow hi in awful colors the robbers and other dangers hich the place abounded
But Mary persisted in going alone; and when, evening after evening, she returned unharmed, it must have seemed to him as if she bore a charmed life Such incidents as these show, better than volumes of praise, the true kindliness of her nature which was not influenced by distinctions of rank
Those who knew her but by naentle fashi+on Her fame had been carried even into Pe her solitary and inoffensive life in Paris, Mrs Bishop riting to Everina: ”The conversation [at Upton Castle] turns on Murphy, on Irish potatoes, or Toy they burnt at Pe Miss Wollstonecraft in like ood will they do hts have men that three meals a day will not supply?”
After all, perhaps they ise, these Welshhts literally at the price of their three meals a day?
Soardener, instead of her rah the woods, Mary walked towards and even into Paris, and then she saw sights which ic see, she passed by chance a place of execution, just at the close of one of its too frequent tragic scenes
The blood was still fresh upon the pavement; the crowd of lookers-on not yet dispersed She heard the the day's horror, and she chafed against the cruelty and inhumanity of the deed In a moment--her French so improved that she couldthe people near her soht of their new tyrants Those were dangerous times for freedom of speech So far the champions of liberty had proved themselves more inexorable h they dared not speak their nation, warned her of her danger and hurried her away from the spot Horror at the ferocity of men's passions, wrath at injustices committed in the naht the evils by which she was surrounded, no doubt inspired her, as saddened and sobered she walked back alone to Neuilly
During all this time she continued her literary work She proposed to write a series of letters upon the present character of the French nation, and with this end in view she silently studied the people and the course of political action She was quick and observant, and nothing escaped her notice She came to Paris prepared to continue a firm partisan of the French Revolution; but she could not be blind to the national defects She saw the frivolity and sensuality of the people, their hunger for all things sweet, and the unrestrained passions of the greater number of the Republican leaders, which made them love liberty more than law itself She valued their cause, but she despised the rasp theof the movement, not as it appeared to petty factions, but as it was as a whole, she was confronted by the greatest of all ain, as when she had analyzed the rights of wonized evil to be a pohich eventually works for righteousness, thereby proving the clearness of her mental vision Only one of these letters, however, ritten and published It is dated Feb 15, 1793, so that the opinions therein expressed were not hastily forives a good idea of the thoroughness hich she had applied herself to her task, it may appropriately be quoted here
” The whole mode of life here,” she writes, ”tends indeed to render the people frivolous, and, to borrow their favorite epithet, a the sparkling joy on the bri satiety in the bottom for those who venture to drink deep On all sides they trip along, buoyed up by anily so void of care that often, when I a on the Boulevards, it occurs to me that they alone understand the full import of the term leisure; and they trifle their time aith such an air of contentayety They play beforeray; whilst an English head, searching for more solid happiness, loses in the analysis of pleasure the volatile sweets of the moment Their chief enjoyment, it is true, rises froenders vexation of spirit: on the contrary, it lightens the heavy burden of life, which reason too often weighs, merely to shi+ft from one shoulder to the other
”I would I could first inform you that out of the chaos of vices and follies, prejudices and virtues, rudely ju, and Virtue, expanding her wings to shelter all her children! I should then hear the account of the barbarities that have rent the bosom of France patiently, and bless the firm hand that lopt off the rotten liround, only to make room for that of riches, I am afraid that the e, or the government rendered less venial Still it is not just to dwell on theto the standing evils of the old systerieved, when I think of the blood that has stained the cause of freedom at Paris; but I also hear the sah which the retreating armies passed with famine and death in their rear, and I hide my face with awe before the inscrutable ways of Providence, sweeping in such various directions the besom of destruction over the sons of men
”Before I ca virtues ress of civilization; and I even anticipated the epoch, when, in the course of i goaded on bybefore the attentive eye of observation, al thus in part my theory of aforward an opinion which, at the first glance, seeainst the existence of God! I a at Paris; yet I begin to fear that vice or, if you will, evil is the grand mobile of action, and that, when the passions are justly poised, we become harmless, and in the same proportion useless
”You overn so whispers ed, and when I see that the turn of the tide has left the dregs of the old system to corrupt the new For the same pride of office, the saravation, that, fearing to return to obscurity after having but just acquired a relish for distinction, each hero or philosopher, for all are dubbed with these new titles, endeavors to make hay while the sun shi+nes; and every petty municipal officer, become the idol, or rather the tyrant of the day, stalks like a cock on a dunghill”