France in eighteen hundred and two

The road to Luzarches from Chantilly is exceedingly pretty. After passing through part of the Forest we entered upon a magnificent paved road, bordered by trees and lands, which exhibited on either side a little better cultivation than those we had hitherto passed.

Luzarches is seven miles from Chantilly. We were compelled to stop for some time at a miserable inn in this wretched town. One of the wheels of our carriage was broken, and it was necessary to have it repaired. In a miserable room, containing two dirty beds, cold and famished (for we could not touch a morsel that was brought to us), we remained seven hours. The wheel being repaired we proceeded to Ecouen and from thence to S. Denys, but we quitted the public road for the purpose of visiting the Castle of Ecouen, built by Anne de Montmorency, Constable of France. The Château is completely stripped of furniture, even the tapestry being torn away. Two hundred unhappy Vendéans were imprisoned here. It was converted later into a military hospital. Upon the whole nothing is now left of this stately Castle but the walls. It stands on an eminence and commands an extensive prospect. There is a large kitchen garden in front of the grand entrance. A Swiss, formerly in the service of Spain during the siege of Gibraltar, is entrusted with the care of the place. He conducted us over every part of the Castle.

It has all the appearance of a modern prison, and does not convey that appearance of feudal grandeur which distinguishes the Castles on the banks of the Danube and the Rhine.

We arrived at a late hour at the S. Denys post-house, where we were well lodged and comfortably entertained, and early the next day went to visit the Cathedral.

My astonishment was great when the old Swiss, whom I remembered ten years before, opened the door, and I perceived this once beautiful gothic edifice was a heap of ruins. My guide entered into my sentiments of horror and disgust, and certainly did not spare the authors of this devastation. The tombs and mausoleums of the Kings and Queens of France, of Guesclin, of Turenne, and of the most illustrious warriors and great men, were deposited in various compartments of the Cathedral, and formed a striking and splendid decoration. But these, together with the oriflamme of Clovis, the sceptre and sword of Charlemagne, the portrait and sword of the Maid of Orleans, the bronze chair of Dagobert, the reliques and shrines, royal robes and crowns, ancient manuscripts and an immense number of curiosities, sacred and profane—now all vanished; some destroyed: others, by the industry of Monsieur Le Noir, removed to the museum of French monuments in Paris. The Cathedral is unroofed, and it is fraught with peril to traverse any part of it, for stones are continually falling. Our Swiss described with minute precision where every tomb stood, from Pepin to Louis XV. A small room formerly used as a sacristy our pious guardian had converted into an ossory. And here lay in one indistinguished heap the bones of kings, princes and heroes, who for ages had slept undisturbed in the mansions of death. I inquired into the cause of all this ruthless destruction, and was told that the Revolutionary Committee of S. Denys, composed of twelve citizens, six of whom were labouring men, decreed that this ancient and noble ornament of their town should be pulled to pieces for the sake of the lead and iron it contained. Their determination was carried into effect, on the plea that arts and science were of no utility to mankind, and that respect for the habitations of the dead was a mark of puerile superstition. At that time Lavoisier was executed, being told at his trial that the French Republic stood in no need of chemists. After we had quitted the Cathedral we visited the chapel of Mesdames de France. When we entered Divine service was being celebrated therein. The chapel has been stripped of all its ornaments, and was scarcely worth the trouble of a walk to visit it.

S. Denys is not distant more than four miles from Paris.

The approach to the capital is through a wide and magnificent paved road, bordered with double rows of trees, on either side of which are extensive and well-cultivated fields of corn and other grain; but none of those neat and diversified habitations are seen which in our country denote the fruits of commercial industry and mercantile opulence. For that order of men, whom we in England denominate country squires or persons living on their own small estates, the Republic has done nothing; in truth, there are no such persons in France, neither are there any country houses erected with a view to their being inhabited by such a description of beings, much less by merchants and tradesmen. In the “great nation” nothing is so conspicuous as disparity or in other words inequality. Magnificence and filth, opulence and beggary are beside each other. There is no medium in France; in fact, the great middle class which in our country intervenes between rich and poor and forms the solid Doric pillar of society, is unknown in any European country but Great Britain. This class is the most substantial boon for the consolidation of an enlightened form of government; it is the nursery of statesmen, freedom, and equal laws; to the want of it France may ascribe the origin of the greater part of her misfortunes, to the possession of it England is indebted for her independence, her regulated power, and her system of jurisprudence.

Rational liberty can never flourish where there are no classes but high and low. Laws can never be executed, except by the point of the bayonet, in any State where a numerous body of men do not exist who are sufficiently independent to prevent the oppressions of the great from trampling the poor under foot and sufficiently strong to repress the reaction of the poor on the property and security of the great.

Every thinking Englishman must feel the dissolution of this middling order of men would transform the State into an absolute military power, or, what is worse, a tyrannical and licentious democracy. This argument finds an apt illustration in a great commercial city which is under aristocratic government. Hamburg, by the encouragement afforded to that body, is one of the best regulated cities of Europe. Multitudes of country seats belonging to traders are scattered plentifully on the banks of the Elbe; and even Denmark, although a purely absolute monarchy, owes much of its happiness and strength to the importance attached to this order of men—an order which in France has never so far existed. Hence during the old monarchy despotism wantoned in power, or was mildly exercised according to the views and inclinations of the rulers, while during every stage of the Republic the leaders of the people, drunk with authority, wallowed in the blood of their fellow citizens. At this very moment an absolute military despot is governing the country, and the people are, as before, mere slaves, insecure of property or personal security.

The entrance to Paris from S. Denys is not calculated to give a foreigner a favourable idea of the capital. The city has every appearance of filth and poverty, and the Triumphal Arch or Porte S. Denys, under which we passed, has such a sombre cast as to give the traveller the impression that he is going into the courtyard of a prison. I ordered the postillion to drive to the hotel in the Rue Coquenon, where I resided in 1792 and 1793, and where I had left all my books.

When we arrived there I saw written in large letters over the porte-cochère “Maison de Commission.” I alighted and inquired what had become of the former proprietor. I was told that he had been guillotined. We then drove to the Hôtel Morigny, where I afterwards learnt a celebrated Corsican, when times went hard with him, lodged in a small apartment at seven shillings per week. There were, however, no rooms vacant, we therefore took up our lodgings at the Coq Heron—an hotel lately established and kept by an Englishman named Guillandeau, the greatest blackguard in Christendom.

We afterwards removed to private apartments in the Rue Mirabeau, ci-devant Chaussée d’Antin.