France in eighteen hundred and two

We have just returned from passing a very agreeable evening at the apartments of David,[1] in the Louvre. It seemed strange to find myself under the roof of a man who actually signed a warrant for my arrest some years ago. But in this capital these are things of course, and it would have been quite natural in 1793 for me to dine with him, and he had sent me the same evening to prison and two days later to the guillotine. The fact is we were very desirous of seeing this man, both on account of his political character and his reputation as the first artist in France. We were received by Madame David and her two daughters with great politeness, and Citizen David comported himself as an human being.

I met in this society a number of intelligent and respectable characters, and had several opportunities of entering into conversation with Monsieur David. The names of several English and French artists were mentioned, but he never condescended to make an observation about them.

His lady frequently desired me to give my opinion of his celebrated picture of the Sabines, and she assured me it would be a good speculation to purchase it for exhibition in London. The price is £5000!

I have heard much of the character, public and private, of M. David, and it is but an act of justice to declare that amidst the most unfavourable circumstances that hover over his public life, I have not been able to trace any relative to his private reputation.

The picture of the Sabines, which is now publicly exhibited in the ancient Academy of Architecture, is considered by David as his masterpiece, and he grounds its character principally on the persons of Hersillia, Tatius and Romulus. Poussin has pencilled the Rape of the Sabine women, but David has chosen the sequel of the story at the moment when the Sabine women rush between the two hostile armies for the purpose of reconciling the Roman and Sabine soldiers.

The two chiefs, Romulus and Tatius, are about to engage in single combat, the former, while holding his uplifted javelin in his right hand, in the attitude of preparing to hurl at his antagonist, his left is concealed under a broad shield, which also covers the left part of his body; on his head he wears a splendid helmet, a shoulder-belt suspends his sword, and his feet are laced with sandals.

In every other respect he is painted stark naked. Tatius is displayed full to the view in puris naturalibus. He also wears not only a helmet and sandals, but carries a shield and a scarlet mantle buckled upon the breast, but so contrived as to exhibit his whole body in a state of nature.

Between these two figures stands Hersillia; she is robed in white à la grecque, in other words according to the present fashion. Her hair hangs dishevelled over her shoulders. At her feet lie her two naked infants. In the centre ground groups of Sabine women are seen, carrying their naked infants amidst heaps of dead and horses furious in combat. Others are placing their children at the feet of the soldiers of both armies, who struck with the sight ground their spears. The general of the horse sheathes his sword. Numbers of soldiers wave their helmets as a signal of peace. The walls of Rome form the background. These are all the circumstances connected with the picture. I must now give M. David’s vindication of the nakedness of his heroes.

“It was a received custom among the painters, statuaries and poets of antiquity to represent naked their gods, heroes, and in general all those whom they intended to illustrate. If they painted a philosopher, he was naked with a cloak over his shoulders and the attributes of his character; if a warrior, he was likewise naked except for a helmet on his head, a shield on his arm and sandals on his feet; sometimes they added drapery to give grace to the figure.”

Among the many paintings we had seen from his hand his “Horatii” is by far the most striking and most justly executed. Those which were hastily drawn for days of ceremonies, in order to be exposed in the open air, are on an immense scale and are not less horrible to the sight than the objects which they were designed to represent were terrific to the mind. He has also drawn the figure of Bonaparte on horseback, at the passage of S. Gothard, for which he received one thousand pounds.

But the picture which interested me most was the representation of the Deputies of the Tiers Etats assembled at Versailles while their President is reading the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The portraits of some of the members were astonishingly striking, particularly those of Mirabeau and Barnave; in most, however, Citizen David has failed in the correctness of his representations, especially in those of Siège and Grégoire.

The public character of David is well-known and held in general detestation. In the course of my conversation with him I once took a favourable opportunity of asking whether he recollected having signed a warrant for my arrest. To these questions he simply replied that it was impossible for him to recall to memory all the warrants of arrest which had been issued at the time he was a member of the Committee of General Vigilance; that hundreds were sometimes signed in one day, and that in the hurry of business, he had often put his name to warrants on the reports of his colleagues. I remarked that through this hurry of business a great deal of injustice had been committed.

This he frankly confessed, but defended the measures by the old plea: “What could we do surrounded by traitors, who were paid by Pitt and his government to sap the foundations of the Republic?” I could not help observing that the conduct of the Committee reminded me of the hangman in an English play, who states to his friends, that having a great deal upon his hands one day in the hurry of business whipped the rope round a bystander’s neck, and did not discover his mistake until a full hour after the man had been hanging.

Whenever the atrocities of the different rulers of France are made the subjects of inquiry, I have always found the same language employed to extenuate the guilt of their principal agents. Murders, rapes, burnings, proscriptions and pillage are all laid upon the Revolution, which is a generic term for every species of crime; but the agents, the authors of these horrors, remain unmolested and riot in the blood and tears they have caused to flow.

If it be necessary to offer an apology for deeds of blood, the gold of Pitt is displayed in all its wonder-working efficacy; if the murder of an innocent person be lamented, we are instantly told he was an agent of Pitt.

However penitent some of these miscreants may affect to be, their example does not appear to be followed by David. In general he is silent and reserved upon political subjects. Nothing seems to distress him more than the recollection of the conventional period. But his distress arises not from the awakening voice of nature, nor from the reproaches of an accusing conscience. It originates in idea that the days of blood and proscriptions are no more.

I am convinced that David regrets the halcyon times when thousands were butchered to illustrate the reign of liberty and equality. Speaking of St. Just,[1] the hated Decemvir, he declared: “Notwithstanding the fate of that unfortunate young man and the prejudices entertained against him, he was véritablement à la hauteur de la Revolution.” In an unguarded moment he proceeded to pour forth the bloody sentiments of his ferocious soul.

He did not scruple to avow that the Committee of Public Safety had been the saviours of France and the founders of her gigantic empire; and after a flourish on the civil wars and massacres attendant on the acquisition of our English freedom, said it was impossible to establish a Republic except by wading through seas of blood.

I asked him whether it was true that a project had been in contemplation to reduce the population of France to one-third of its present number. He answered that it had been seriously discussed, and that Dubois Croucé was the author.

M. David, like every other Frenchman, is utterly ignorant of the nature of the liberty we enjoy and of all our institutions.

They have not a conception of the possibility of freedom existing in any state with a monarch at its head; with them there is not a vestige of liberty among any people who have not high-sounding Roman titles.

In the same measure they cannot comprehend the being of that middle class of society which constitutes the bulwark of our isle. According to their notions of Britain, a man must be noble or a pauper.

Thanks to our barbarous forefathers we have the whole essence of regulated freedom, without the gilded terms of Roman despotism; we have gothic names for the enjoyment of an enlightened people. David recognises no freedom that is not open to holy insurrection against established authority. Wherever shrieks of murder and the notes of the trumpet are not heard, there can be no liberty. A person who is conversant in the science of physiognomy would pronounce the character of this monster at first sight. With a hideous wen upon his lip, which shows his teeth and for ever marks him with the snarling grin of a tiger—with features and eyes which denote a lust for massacre, he is a savage by instinct and an assassin by rule. He is an atheist in faith and practice, and a murderer by choice.

While he was a member of the Committee of Public Safety and General Vigilance, his greatest pleasure consisted in frequenting the prison, where he feasted his eyes upon those who were condemned to die and loaded the unhappy victims with imprecations. It was his constant practice to call every morning at the prisons to inquire how many were to be guillotined, and on being told one day that there were sixteen, he instantly exclaimed in a furious attitude: “How, only sixteen! The Republic is undone!”

Retributive justice eventually overtook David, and he was committed to prison in order to be tried for his life. After he had lain some time in jail, two individuals sent to inform him that they were commissioned by certain persons in England to save his life. A powerful interposition did take place, and he was restored to liberty. Some time after he was officially informed (I heard this from his own mouth) that he was wholly indebted to the English for his life and liberation.

I endeavoured in vain to persuade him that if this were true it must have been the work of private friendship or some ardent admirer of his distinguished talents. He persisted in the belief that it was the interference of the English Government which saved him, notwithstanding the obvious improbability of such an occurrence.

When we perceive on all sides in France at the present day nothing but the ruins of religion and morality, it is a relief to the soul and a debt of justice due to an innocent family to describe them as they are, devoid of guile and unstained with their father’s crimes.

Madame David, during the Terror, retired with her children to a country residence, where she lived in ignorance of her husband’s conduct in Paris. She was what the French then termed an aristocrat, that is an honest loyal woman, who believed in God, loved good order and cherished the affections of domestic life.

The French Revolution has produced many amazons and many female philosophers, who have died cursing God and man. It has also exhibited magnificent traits of female heroism, and the scaffold has reddened with the blood of women who have sacrificed their private interests for the public cause. But Madame David in her way is as great a heroine as any of these. As soon as the intelligence reached her that her husband was in prison and about to be tried for his life, she forgot at once the religious and political differences which had estranged her from him, and set off instantly for Paris, making herself the companion of his misfortunes.

During the whole period of his confinement, at the risk of arrest on suspicion, she was assiduous in her attendance upon him, and spared no expense to procure him all the comforts of which his situation would admit. She was also unceasing in her work to save him. Every day she was to be seen at the different bureaus or at the houses of the men in power, entreating and even intriguing for her husband. It may be justly questioned whether David does not owe his life to her exertions rather than those of some English emissary.

Of the rest of the family I can speak in equal terms of respect. His daughters are modest and prepossessing, and their good sense is as marked as their good manners. The son devotes his whole time to a study of the Greek language, in which he is in a fair way of excelling. Once a week he has a conversazione, at which every respectable native of Greece, resident in Paris, is invited, as well as all who cultivate Greek literature.

His Attic conversations are extremely well attended, for I have met there Villaison, Viscomti, Mangez,[1] Cornus,[1] Bitaubé,[1] and Larcher. As soon as young David has completed his course of Greek studies he intends to proceed to Greece, and the islands of the neighbouring Archipelago, from whence he will pass over into the Troad and visit Asia Minor.