1796.] Original Anecdotes.-Dumont... Laclos... Degrave, &c. 479 is likely to become a member of the Di- land, there is some reason to suppose, rectory. that her opinion respecting this gentleman was fomewhat tinctured by party prejudice. DUMONT, A native of Geneva, and, consequently, a republican by birth, was the editor of a newspaper, termed " Le Republicain." It was published on the king's flight to Varennes, and confidered, on account of the title, as a phenomenon. At that period there were but eight republicans in France-I mean eight native citizens ! Here follow the names of four of them: Petion, mayor of Paris; Condorcet, so celebrated for his attainments in the sciences; Briffot, who died in an honourable poverty, a martyr to his principles; and Du Chatelet, whom Louis XVI, XVI, in vain, endeavoured to convert by all the blandishments of royal favour. Robespierre, on being entrusted with their secret defign, asked, with a sneer, " Ce que c'étoit qu'une république?'' LACLOS, A man of extraordinary talents, great vices, and the author of Les Liaisons dangereuses, was the bosom friend, and conftant companion, of M. d'Egalité, the ci-devant duke of Orleans. On the flight of the king, he repaired to the society of Jacobins, and endeavoured to procure a petition from them, requesting the National Afsembly to dethrone Louis, and declare Philip conftitutional monarch of France. Being defeated in this attempt, by Briffot, he tried to gain over the people, whom he had assembled for that purpose: and it was this circumstance that induced Bailly, then mayor of Paris, to proclaim martial law, and Le Fayette to give orders for what has ever fince been termed the maffacre of the Cbamp de Mars. M. DEGRAVE Was the minifter at war, when Roland prefided over the home department. The most accomplished woman that France has, perhaps, ever produced, describes him " as a little man in every sense of the word; for nature having formed him gentle and timid, his prejudices tempting him to be lofty, and his heart inspiring him with the defire of being amiable, by an endeavour to reconcile all these, he be came, in reality, nothing!" M. Degrave lives in the neighbourhood of Kensington, and confoles himself, amidst his misfortunes, by means of his books. It is but juftice to say, that the French bear calamity with a fortitude truly heroic: if they are apt to triumph, perhaps, a little too much, in profperity, they evince a noble constancy in adversity, that would have reflected honour on the stoics of ancient times! SAINT-JUST Was first a deputy for the department of L'Aifne, and afterwards a representative of Nievre. He was one of the most violent of the mountain-party, and, during the trial of Louis XVI, made a very celebrated speech on the 13th November, 1792; in the course of which, he inculcated the extraordinary maxim, that it was criminal to be a king; " On ne peut point regner innocement." Hitherto, St. Just had maintained the reputation of virtue, but his conduct towards the Gironde, and during his miffion into the fouth, rendered his name at once odious and terrible. After this period, he was usually termed l'ame damnée de Robespierre. When the Thermidoreans overcame the Terrorists, St. Just, who had, of course, taken part with the latter, was outlawed, arrested, and put to death, in the Place de la Revolution, on the 10th Thermidor, (28th July) 1794, as one of the accomplices of the tyrant. M. DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD LIANCOURT. This nobleman, acknowledged formerly by the title of Duc de Liancourt, although he does not now claim it, even by courtesy, for he is a modest, as well as a good man, was one of the members of the States-General, and joined the majority of the clergy, and the minority of the nobles, when they met-for they never united with the tiers état or Commons. Notwithstanding this, the duke was perfonally attached to the king; and it was he who, at one o'clock of the morning, of the Isth of July 1789, firft informed Louis XVI of the capture of the Bastille! His majesty was absolutely ignorant of the event, when his minifters left him, at eleven o'clock on the preceding evening; they carefully concealed it (for it is ridiculous to suppose them unacquaint I have heard a very different character of the ex-minifter, from a good judge of mankind; and however much I may be inclined to defer to the difcrimination of the amiable and unfortunate Madame Ro-ed with so important a transaction) from the the deluded monarch. The duke having learned the particulars, by means of two deputies, who had been present, instantly flew from the Affembly to the palace, and entering the privy chamber, difclofed the fatal fecret to the king." Qu'ai-je donc fait pour que le peuple s'élève contre moi?" dit-il avec une douleur profonde mais calme. "Qu'il life avec moi dans ma confcience, & il verra fi jamais il a eu un meilleur amı, fi depuis que j'ai le droit de m'occuper de fon bonbeur, mon cœur a jamais eu une autre pensée." This would have done great honour to his majesty's heart, were it not one of the beft afcertained facts in history, that he had prepared an army, at this very moment, under M. de Broglio, on purpose to chastise the Parifians, and stifle the infant cry of liberty. On being brought back a prifoner, after his flight to Varennes, he exclaimed, in the same strain, to the duke, "Ab! fi j'eus atteint le but de mon voyage, le peuple auroit vu si je meritois ses joupçons & Jon injustice!" Now, it seems evident, that le but de voyage was to throw himself into the hands of the Austrians and Emigrants, as his brother, Monsieur, did, who fied at the fame time, and escaped by taking a different road. M. de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt foon after left France, and was lucky enough to arrive safe in England. Preferring the country to the capital, he took up his refidence at Bury St. Edmund's, in Suffolk; but he has fince gone over to America, whence a publication of his has appeared, on the improvement of the Criminal code in Pennsylvania. When Louis XVI, like our Charles I, was doomed to undergo a public trial, the duke addressed a letter to Barrere, then prefident of the Assembly, dated November 19th, in which he offered to become his defender, at the bar of the National Tribunal. On the 20th of December, 1792, he wrote a letter to M. Malesherbes, who had been chosen, by Louis, as his advocate, in which he endeavoured to depict his character, as that of an amiable and philanthropic sovereign; exclaiming at the fame time, "Ab ! fi la facrifice de ma vie eft utile au bonheur de la France, jy fuis preparé!" The truth is, that Henrietta Maria, confort of Charles I, and Maria Antoinette, the partner, not only of the bed, but the occupier of the throne of Louis XVI, occafioned the catastrophe of both. Louis was not unacquainted with his own foibles, for the duc de Liancourt has feen a MS. in his majesty's hand-writing, in which he freely depicted his own character, and particularised his good qualities, and even his faults; in which he recounted the obstacles he had met with, and endeavoured to surmount, in his own disposition; the views with which he afcended the throne; the plans he had resisted; those he was enabled to execure, and those he did not dare to undertake. To fuch a difpofition, had he either added fortitude, or been lucky enough to have been furrounded by a prudent confort and virtuous counsellors, he might have rivalled the only two good princes of his family, Henry IV and Louis XII; while all the crimes of the other Bourbons would have been effaced by his glory. LINDET. The second edition of the Jacobins, and the first edition of the Emigrants, were proverbially violent. Robert Lindet appertained to the former class, and was one of the most clamorous members in the Convention for the arrest of the thirty-two Girondist deputies. In the committee of public safety, he displayed great energy of character: and it must be acknowledged, notwithstanding the odium still attached to their name, that the Jacobins faved France, and established the foundation of the republic. Les Philofopbes, as the Briffotins were termed, entertained a laudable abhorrence of bloodshed, rapine, and injustice; eloquent, metaphyfical, dilatory, timid-they were not calculated to "Ride in the whirlwind, and direct the storm!" They were admirably fitted, however, to succeed the tempeft; and those who have survived it, after forming a junction with Carnot, the ableft man France-perhaps Europe, has ever produced, they seem prepared to alter the lot of nations, and the destiny of mankind ! By fome of the fouthern departments, whither he was fent on mission, Robert Lindet has been accused of sanguinary proceedings, but, by others, his innocence has been afferted, even after the roth Thermidor, when the colleagues of Robespierre were arrested. He fat in the Convention, as a deputy from the departmment of Eure; but was not one of the two-thirds, or in other words, he was not re-elected. He has lately been implicated in the conspiracy faid to have been meditated by Babœuf, Drouet, &c. and is now in confinement. CHAMPFORT CHAMPFORT 1796.] Original Anecdotes. - Champfort... Carra... Babœuf. 481 Is one of the men of letters of the old fchool, who declared themselves, from the very beginning, for the revolution. On the difmiffion of M. d'Ormeffon, who had been appointed by the king, he was made one of the joint keepers of the national library, with a falary of 1661. 108. 4d. per annum; and put himself to death, in the old Roman manner, foon after, to avoid the tyranny of Robspierre. His colleague, CARRA, He Nominated at the fame time with himself, by Roland, had formerly been one of the affistants in this grand establishment. conducted a small quarto journal, entitled Les Annales Politiques & Littéraires, along with Mercier. Its circulation was infinitely greater than that of any of our English newspapers: it became popular in the provinces, owing to a certain prophetic caft which he contrived to infuse into it; and, in the armies, in consequence of that spirit of equality which it constantly breathed. While Champfort judged very wisely of the outrages of the Jacobins, and was accustomed to exclaim, " ces gens-là fe perdent par leurs propres excès!" Carra beheld every thing en colour de rose, and boldly prognofticated the future happiness of his country, and the speedy enfranchisement of all Europe, by their means. In the midst of this dream, engendered by the union of a warm head and a good heart, he was arrested by order of king Robespierre, and executed, with the twenty-one Girondist deputies, on the 31ft of October, 1793. BABŒUF. Revolutions produce extraordinary characters, and elevate fometimes great, and fometimes worthless men, to the highest and most eminent fituations. A prove b, well known to the aristocracy of every country, although illiberal, and, in general, unjust, is nevertheless, on some particular occafions, true: "When the pot boils, the foum gets to the top." Colonel Pride, born in a church-porch, is a familiar instance of the justice of this, in our own history; and Babœuf, perhaps, in that of France. The first, who was bred a drayman, actually diffolved that house of commons which bridled Europe, and punished its own king; the second, who, under the old government, wore a shoulderknot, was but lately the leader of a formidable conspiracy, whose object is faid to have been, to murder the Directory, disolve the Legislature, and new model France! Babœuf is a native of one of the diftant provinces; from a footman he became clerk to a procureur; and from a clerk rose to be an attorney. His wife, at the fame time, accompanied him from the kitchen to the parlour; and as the had shared in his indigence, so she very justly partook of his profpefity. He practised in the country for fome time; and if we are to give implicit credit to his enemies, exhibited all the little tricks of a petty-fogger. Certain it is, however, that he was fitted, by a series of imprifonments, and a long and intimate acquaintance with all the minute particulars of the Revolution, both to act and to fuffer; and there cannot be a doubt but that he must have possessed some extraordinary talents, either in council, or in action, else it is not to be supposed that fuch men as Drouet, Robert Lindet, Antonelle, and Felix Lepelletier, would have chosen him for their leader. [To be continued.] A BRIEF RETROSPECT OF THE STATE OF DOMESTIC LITERATURE. [To be continued every Six Months.] ALTHOUGH we have not attempted in our Mifcellany to unite the two characters of a Magazine and a Reviewan attempt which has never yet been made with fuccess, and which, in the present state of official criticifm, is altogether unneceffary; it may, perhaps, be ufeful, or, at least, amusing, if, according to our proposal, at the commencement of our labours, we, at regular intervals, take a general retrospect of the ftate of literature. Our survey must MONTHLY MAG. No. VI. necessarily be curfory-a fort of bird's. eye view of the British land of letters; but, we truft, it will not be altogether unacceptable to our readers. large volumes, containing a "Transla- from whose talents much might have tion of all the Apostolic Epistles, with been expected, has, in his "Christian Philosophy," abandoned the evidences of historical testimony, as insufficient; and, with more zeal than judgment (as every rational Christian must think) has rested the belief of Chriftianity on the fanatical ground of immediate divine impulfe. The rest of Mr. Paine's refpondents have, however, adhered to the old method of defence; and, while Dr. Auchincloss and Mr. Melham have difcredited themselves more than their cause ; the former, by a weak, vulgar, and blundering-the latter, by a flippant, hafty, and ceremonious, defence; and the author of the "Age of Infidelity," has injudiciously embarrassed the general question, by involving with it points of Polemic theology-Mr. Winchester, in his "Defence of Revelation," has given a plain view of the arguments by which it is supported; Mr. Estlin, in a "Sermon on the Evidences of revealed Religion," has treated the subject with perspicuity, animation, and liberality; Mr. Wakefield, in a "Reply," too much loaded with virtuperative language, and not sufficiently accommodated to the understandings of the unlearned, but ably and ingeniously written, has detected and expofed many of his antagonist's errors and misrepresentations; and Bishop Watson, in his excellent "Apology for the Bible," without exhausting the fubject, or encumbering his work with learned citation, has provided the public with an elegant and popular answer to Mr. Paine, well adapted to counteract the effect of his publication on that class of readers on whom (it was likely to make the deepest impression. We should mention, in this connection, Mr. Bryant's elaborate "Observations on the Plagues inflicted upon Egypt," if we did not confider this as a work more adapted to establish the writer's reputation for erudition and ingenuity, than to obviate the difficulties which confessedl hang upon this part of the Mofaic hiftory. To counteract the unpleasant impreffion which the spread of infidelity must have made upon the minds of believers in revelation, Dr. Priestley has published "Observations" on this fubject, rather confolatory than argumentative; the work is written with the author's usual perfpicuity, fincerity, and zeal. Of the fermons of this period, few are entitled to particular attention. The Fast Sermons of the present year have been uncommonly languid; per$796.] Half Yearly Retrospect of English Literature. haps, from the disheartening state of public affairs. The Posthumous Sermons of Dr. Savage are sensible, methodical, and evangelical; those of Mr. Toller plain and ferious, but without any marks of superior talents: a volume of neat Difcourses on Practical Subjects has been published by Mr. Draper; but the moderate merit of these publications has been eclipsed by the splendid excellence of Mr. Fawcett's "Lectures at the Old Jewry," in which, without the aid of systematic theology, moral truths are exhibited with uncommon force, and adorned with all the graces which a fertitle imagination could fupply: if the style be sometimes diffuse, it is the amplification not of dulness, but of genius. POLITICS. In POLITICS, the most important publications have been those which cannot come under critical animadverfion; the daily Registers and Chronicles of the times. On general questions of policy, Mr. Malkin's "Effsays on Subjects connected with Civilization," are entitled to diftinguished notice: the writer is an ardent lover of liberty, and censures, with great freedom, but without acri. mony, numerous errors at present exist, ing in fociety. As nearly allied to this work, may be mentioned, Watkins's "Reflections on Governinent," a small tract, which clearly and forcibly inculcates principles favourable to liberty and happiness. "Principles of Legislation" 483 served to give Mr. Morgan an opportunity of confirming his first representation by "Additional Facts." Mr. Morgan's true alarm has been increased by Mr. Paine's less accurate, but strongly impreffive, account of the perpetually accelerated progress of this nation towards ruin, from the inevitable operation of the funding system, given in his "Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance." The great question concerning a reform in the parliamentary parlia representation of this country, has not been fuffered, entirely, to fleep. A very sensible and spirited "Letter" has appeared, addressed to Dr. Paley, on his objections to this reform; and Mr. Wyvill, that upright, judicious, and steady advocate for peaceable reform, has effectually exposed minifterial inconfistency, by publishing the first part of his correfpondence with Mr. Pitt. "A Hiftory of the Two Acts" (Mr. Pitt's, and Lord Grenville's) is a very copious and accurate compilation of all the tranfactions, both in and out of parliament, respecting those celebrated restrictions on English liberty, which may, hereafter, be of confiderable use to the political hiftorian of the present time. Its value is much augmented by the excellent and masterly preface by which the matter of the work is introduced. The difpute with France is now almost wholly left to be settled by the ultima ratio regum; and few publications worth mentioning have have been published by Mr. Michel,appeared on this subject. Among the in which contain many just observations; but the writer is too much an alarmist to be capable, at present, of pursuing his own ideas into their obvious confequences. British politics, besides much ephemeral trash, have furnished several interesting publications. Of these, unquestionably, the work which has the moft imperious demand upon public attention, is Mr. Morgan's "Facts," which is exhibited, not in loose declamation, but in calculations, made by a mafter of political arithmetic, from the most authentic documents, a statement of the public expenditure and refources. This pamphlet has, perhaps, done more than all other late publications to open the eyes of the nation to its real condition, and to demonftrate the impolicy of perfifting in the present ruinous system. Mr. Vanfittart's artful, but vague and unfuccefsful attempt to show that we are not quite ruined, even though supported by Lord Auckland, whose speech upon the subject has been published, has only more interesting political pamphlets, may be mentioned, "Confiderations on the State of Public Affairs;" "Hints addressed to the Electors of Great-Britain, by Charles Faulkener, containing a Review of Mr. Pitt's Administration;" "D'Ivernois's State of the Finances and Resources of France;" and "A Whig's Apology for his Consistency." To these we must add, more on account of the talents displayed in the controversy, than the importance of the fubject, Mr. Burke's" Letter to a Noble Lord," with the replies of his numerous refpondents. When the question of Mr. Burke's claim to a pension shall cease to interest the public, it will not be forgotten, that Mr. Burke, at a period of life when genius commonly becomes languid, difplayed the full vigour of his uncommon powers, and was even capable of hunting metaphors, as playfully as school boys hunt butterflies: nor will it be forgotten, that he was abie, as on a former mere important occafion, to call forth a host of able com3Q2 batants. |