II
CHARACTER OF THE CITIZENS OF CALAIS
Calais is one of the very few French towns which escaped the horrors of the Revolution. This circumstance is the more remarkable because from its vicinity to England and the attachment borne by its inhabitants to our countrymen, it became an object of suspicion to the Committee of Public Safety.
To the firmness and humanity of one man who filled the office of mayor, and to the unblemished character of the persons who composed the Municipality, do the citizens of Calais owe the preservation of their lives and properties.
The Committee of Public Safety accused the inhabitants of Anglomania, and ordered the ferocious Joseph Le Bon[1] to visit this guiltless town and re-organise the constituted authorities. During those cruel days the visit of a constitutional deputy was really the visit of a public executioner, and in the dismal catalogue of men who were distinguished by unfeeling severity, Le Bon was foremost. He had just perpetrated the most horrible cruelties at Arras before proceeding to Calais. The following anecdote will delineate the fierceness and brutality of his character.
Two young ladies of Arras, neither of whom had attained the age of twenty, practising on the pianoforte the same morning that the news of the surrender of Valenciennes reached their city, Le Bon happened to pass their window and paused to listen. They were playing the tune, “Ça Ira,” a most revolutionary air, which one would have imagined was a proof of their civism.
Nevertheless, by Le Bon’s orders, these beautiful girls were arrested, tried, and condemned the next day, and, notwithstanding their youth and innocence, were executed for “playing on the piano on the day the news of a Republican defeat had arrived, a defeat at which they evidently rejoiced.”
This atrocious action struck even Jacobins with horror. In the defence of the accused it was stated to the Revolutionary Tribune that “Ça Ira” was a Republican march, written to animate armies on the day of battle. To this Le Bon replied that this popular air had been converted into a vehicle of mischief, and that the time these young people had selected for playing “Ça Ira” proved their evil dispositions. “They played ‘Ça Ira,’” said he, “for the Austrian army, they had doubtless heard of the surrender of Valenciennes, and they meant by Ça Ira, that they desired the Austrian advance and the capture of other French fortresses. Why did they not, if they were true patriots, play ‘Le Réveil du Peuple?’”
This argument induced the jurors to condemn the unfortunate young persons to death. Thin, indeed, was the thread upon which human existence was suspended in these days of wretchedness and terror. The effect upon the minds of the people was to make the very name of liberty odious, and the vast majority sighed for a return of that ancient despotism in which they lived secure. Tormented by those who had abused their confidence and exasperated at the accumulation of public wrongs, they were prepared by degrees for those astonishing events which I shall relate in my future letters.
But to return from this digression. The instant Le Bon received his orders, he departed for Calais, where he found prevailing the utmost order, good conduct and tranquillity. This condition of affairs appeared to the Revolutionary emissary a strong symptom of aristocracy. Accordingly, he deposed the mayor, dissolved the Municipality, convoked an assembly of the people in the market-place, when he desired them to elect true sans culottes in place of their former magistrates.
To his surprise he found not a single person would accept of a situation in the Municipality while their former magistrates were destituted. He attempted in vain to form a Jacobin Club or to establish a Revolutionary Tribunal. In vain he threatened individuals with arrest.
There were not a dozen Jacobins in the whole town.
The mayor boldly remonstrated, and by his prudence and the loyalty of his fellow citizens, Le Bon, muttering vows of vengeance, was driven from the town.
Immediately after his departure the former magistrates resumed their functions. In cases where a peremptory mandate from Paris obliged them to arrest any individual, the order was executed with the utmost humanity. The victim was not sent to prison, but allowed to remain in his own house, and even to walk out attended by gendarmes of his own choice.
Thus the citizens of Calais never saw the blood of their countrymen flow upon the scaffold, nor were any delivered to the homicidal rage of inquisitors, whose sense of freedom consisted in privileged misrule and promises of fraternity, terminated in slaughter. Had the municipal officers of other great towns in France displayed the same courage and determination as those of Calais, many thousands of lives would have been saved, and France avoided much dishonour, misery, and shame.
The humane and uncorrupted character of the people of Calais proves that they have not degenerated from the high repute of their ancient burghers.