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Jews, Swiss Protestants, Game, Tapestry.

181 Philippe, or on Louis Napoleon, there is a foot note, Voyez mon Richelieu, or Mazarin, or mon Histoire Constitutionnelle, or Administrative. It is difficult to say whether Protestants or Jews are the most obnoxious to M. Capefigue. The Jews, he tells us, began in Paris, after the Revolution, by the petit commerce, by horse dealing, usury, and the purchasing of assignats. They did not so early appear as bankers, or enter into rivalry with the Genoese, but contented themselves with purchasing old furniture of châteaux and churches, jewels, &c. In Alsace and Lorraine they became mortgagees of a great deal of property. In Paris they had a kind of Ghetto, where they were protected by the Abbé Gregoire, who had maintained their rights in an academical discourse.

After the great issue of assignats in 1794, everything was paid in paper money, government contracts, debt dividend, &c. Fabre d'Eglantine Chabot, the ex-Capuchin, and his two brothersin-law, the German bankers Frey, were the great speculators in Indian bonds and securities. The Convention, Capefigue tells us, hastened the sale of the Biens Nationaux. This species of property was sold at a fabulous cheapness, and payment of the one-tenth was allowed in assignats. In Paris, the patriots of the Danton party, such as Fabre d'Eglantine, the Count of Redern, Saint Simon, the two German bankers Frey, and the ex-Capuchin Chabot, purchased with handfulls of worthless assignats, the finest mansions, estates, and old fiefs. M. Capefigue mourns, as a preux chevalier, that coveys of game were destroyed and the underwood which protected them remorselessly cut down. He weeps over the destruction of tapestry de haute et basse lisse with the zealous, woful countenance of an old curiosity shopkeeper who has lost some valuable old China or point lace, and laments the destruction of those boxes and cabinets inlaid with ivory, of those China bowls, now so much regretted. Such is the trash which a man of five-and-fifty puts forward near the close of what is called this enlightened nineteenth century.

The two financial Committees of the National Convention meet with the special objurgation of M. Capefigue, and he denounces Vidallin, Pelletier, Freciné, Fouché, Français de Nantes, as well as Cambon, Legendre, and a score of others.

Before the convocation of the States-General there was much gambling on the Bourse of Paris. The two most inveterate dabblers in the public stocks were the Abbés d'Espagnac and Talleyrand, both friends of the Minister Calonne. The pretension of each age is to be better than the age which preceded it. At the period of the first French Revolution some of the leading

reformers announced that gambling was to be driven from the earth, yet the evil existed during the Convention in a more hideous form than at any period during the reign of Louis XVI.

Three revolutions, and half a dozen changes in forms of government, have taken place since the Convention; but Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, we regret to say, of our own day, are far worse as gamblers on the Bourse than the men of 1790 and 1794. In 1791, the constitutional prelate, Talleyrand, speculated in Assignats in the Catsse d'Escompte, in shares in the India Company, and in the shares of the Banks of St. Charles, then directed by Cabarras, (the father of Mdlle. Tallien); and his friend, the Abbé d'Espagnac, after having run the round of the funds, and rigged the market in every possible way, became a contractor for the army. If we are to give credit to the details of M. Capefigue (which we confess we do not), Talleyrand, while engaged in a diplomatic mission in England, played on the Exchange, alternately for a rise or a fall, till such time as he had established a commercial house in America, to which country he retired in 1792.

The Abbé d'Espagnac was not so fortunate. He became compromised as a contractor for the army of Belgium and Piedmont, was summoned to the bar of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and perished on the scaffold. Bazire, son of a merchant of Dijon, and Chabot, the ex-Capuchin, shared a like fate. Chabot, according to the unsupported assertion of Capefigue, was very fond of money. Be this as it may, it is certain-which Capefigue does not state-that he was of a humane and merciful disposition. During the September massacres he saved many priests, and the Abbé de Sicard, who so distinguished himself in teaching the deaf and dumb, owed to him his life.

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During the year 1791,' says Capefigue, a multitude of Jews, 'Protestants, and Faiseurs d'affaires, crowded Paris, from Geneva, Neufchâtel, Bâle, Berlin, Vienna, and Frankfort. Among these were the brothers Frey, before mentioned, who gained in the space of a year, by dealing in assignats, near eighteen millions of francs.' The brothers Frey allied themselves with the Dantonists, and were sworn friends with Camille Desmoulins, Fabre d'Eglantine, Chabot, Bazire, &c. The Freys lived in a fine mansion in the Place Vendôme. Their sister married Chabot, and in this way they knew all that was passing in the Committees of Public Safety, and could regulate their stock-jobbing accordingly. The most active instruments of the bankers Frey were Fabre d'Eglantine and Delauney d'Angers.

Of the Dantonists, Capefigue says, that they were always actuated by the double desire of realizing money and enjoying

Hebert, Chaumette, Anacharsis Clootz.

183

themselves in the grossest way. Hebert, who had been a tickettaker at a small theatre on the Boulevards, had acquired more than a million. Chaumette, the son of a shoemaker, who wished to pull down the mansions in the Faubourg St. Germain and plant potato-fields on the ruins, realized a considerable fortune; and Anacharsis Clootz, while preaching liberty and equality, realized somewhat near 8000l. a year of our money. Sergent and Paris, both members of the Commune, who signed the orders for the September massacres, received into their hands the effects of the Fermiers Généraux, of the Directors of the Caisse d'Escompte, the diamonds of the Garde meuble, and the jewels of the victims massacred in the prisons.

The value of the property acquired to the nation by the 'arrêts of the Revolutionary Tribunal Capefigue counts at more than two hundred millions. After the payment of the first twelfth, the purchaser of national property entered into possession; the remaining eleven-twelfths were paid at long intervals of time. Such facilities of purchasing, coupled with the power of paying in assignats, gave immense advantages to the buyers of national property. A number of strangers and adventurers were attracted to Paris, and among them, says the Ultramontane Capefigue, who never omits an opportunity of having a fling at Protestantismthe Swiss Protestants and the German Jews. The largest purchasers were Claude Henri, Count of St. Simon, who claimed to be descended of the Counts of Vermandois, and the Count de Redern, a Prussian. Between them these two speculators purchased to the tune of seventeen millions in Paris, and it is estimated that they each acquired about 200,000 francs a year, or 80001. of our money, by their speculations.

In the chapter entitled La Banque et l'Industrie, M. Capefigue introduces the name of Cambon. The principal reproach he has to make against him is that he was a Protestant; these are his words: Cambon d'origine du midi était Protestant; or l'on sait l'esprit d'aide mutuelle et de fraternité que lie tous les membres de l'Eglise Calviniste.'

In the chapter on the Fournisseurs, a history is given of the contracts of the Abbé d'Espagnac. This Abbé undertook to provision the army of the Alps in 1792, and acquitted himself with ability. In 1793, he further engaged to furnish the army of Dumouriez with wagons. In this undertaking he made a great deal of money, but when the star of Dumouriez was no longer in the ascendant, d'Espagnac was dragged before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and condemned, before he had attained the age of forty. Among the mercantile men engaged as army contractors at this period was M. Perregaux, a Swiss of the

canton of Neufchâtel. He also was accused before the Revolutionary Tribunal, but, receiving warning in time, fled to Switzerland. In Switzerland he remained till after the ninth Thermidor, when he returned to France with augmented credit and fortune, and became in our own day the first banker in Paris. A quarter of a century ago the firm was known under the name of Perregaux and Laffitte.

Another speculator of those days was Claude Louis Perrier, the father of the late Casimir Perrier. He was of a rich family of Dauphiné, which had increased its fortunes by a manufactory of linen cloth, which it had established at Voiron. Claude Perrier purchased' Biens Nationaux' of all kinds, and, among other things, the ground of the convent of the Feuillants, near the Tuileries, on which great part of the Rue de Rivoli and Rue de la Paix now stand. Subsequently, Claude Perrier acquired the rich mines of Anzin, the source of the fortune of his house.

The Revolution had its rich men, its monetary power, and its aristocracy, as well as the ancient Government. The recipients

power and wealth constantly change; but under every form of Government not absolutely communistic, power and wealth must reside in certain hands. Democracy but too often hides an envious and jealous sentiment. When the democrat levels down existing superiorities, how often does he, having enriched himself by the spoil, become the champion of property and order.

Hundreds of such ancient democrats, sticklers for property and order, appeared in the first Revolution. But they were men who had bought ancient domains, estates, and fiefs at 300 per cent. below their value.

M. Capefigue gives great credit to Nogaret, Merlin de Douai, Berlier, Gaudin, Cambacérès, and Lebrun for the efforts which they made from 1795 to sustain public credit, and for the general probity of their characters as public men and administrators.

On Talleyrand he passes a severe censure, and charges him with corruption in the high office of Minister for Foreign Affairs. Every treaty, says he, that passed through the Foreign Office was preceded by what is called douceurs; that is to say, a certain sum of money was given by the agents of the Powers who were treating with the Directory. Talleyrand was far too cunning to receive these douceurs directly. He had his male and female agents whom he could disavow at will. Touching this subject a great scandal took place with Messrs. Pinckney and Marshall, when they were Extraordinary Envoys of the United States of America. Both Republics were at that period at variance upon the rights of neutral commerce. Mr. Adams, in his message, had spoken in no measured terms of the French

Pinckney, Talleyrand, and d'Arbelles.

185

Government. The Directory, nettled at this language, declared the American Envoys would only be received after a formal retractation of the words of the message. When Talleyrand announced this resolve to Mr. Pinckney, he declared that this was not the last word of the French Government,' and that there was still a mode of arrangement. Some days afterwards André d'Arbelles and Saint Foix, agents of Talleyrand, announced to Mr. Pinckney that there was a manner of settling the affair, and this was by paying a good round sum to the credit of the Directory. Mr. Bellamy, the banker of M. Talleyrand, at Hamburgh, visited Mr. Marshall with the same view as d'Arbelles, and announced to him that all would be amicably arranged if the American Government would place a million of ducats at the Bank of Hamburgh to the credit of the Directory. This proposition was noised abroad through the American and French press, and the French agents were disavowed by the Directory and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in person. This statement is circumstantial and specific enough, and the only comment Capefigue makes on it is, that it was generally believed because it was quite in harmony with the loose morality of the time.

Of Cabarrus, the founder of the Bank of St. Charles, at Madrid, M. Capefigue gives some details which we do not remember to have seen before in print. It appears that he was one of the secret negotiators of the Treaty of Bâle, and that when he established a branch banking-house at Paris, he undertook the operations of the French Treasury in its relations with Spain. Madame Tallien, the beautiful daughter of Cabarrus, who first married M. de Fontenay, from whom she was divorced-secondly, Tallien, from whom she was likewise divorced-and subsequently the Prince de Chimay, who survived her, was the intermediary between the French Directory and the Government of Spain.

In the chapter on Les Gens d'Affaires, Fournisseurs, et Spéculateurs, M. Capefigue gives a history of Ouvrard more curious than edifying, and also of Vanlerberghe, Collot, Perregaux, and Michel Frères. In entering into details as to the habits, manners, dress, and mode of life of the new financiers and jobbers of the Revolution, M. Capefigue is curious in his details. These men wore fine linen, earrings, had a diamond ring on the finger, a cane in the hand, a blue, yellow, or scarlet coat, and the indispensable eye-glass. This motley costume was called à l'incroyable, and finds no favour in the eye of M. Capefigue. It wants, says he, the charming grace, the fine and delicate flavour of the Court of Louis XVI.! And then he breaks out into this silly exclamation: Le Ministère de M. de Calonne est à mon sens la plus belle époque du règne des élégants financiers."

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