Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 2 (of 2)

251

Miss C. Moss, a frequent visitor at Sheffield Place.

252

Mdlle. Pauline de Pully.

253

The massacres of September, 1792.

254

The Duc de Liancourt (1747-1827) took the title of Rochefoucault-Liancourt on succeeding to his cousin, the Duc de la Rochefoucault who was murdered at Gisors in September, 1792. He had been a distinguished member of the Feuillants, or constitutional reformers. He escaped to England and thence to the United States. On his return to France he occupied himself with philanthropic works and the management of his estates. Both he and his cousin were generous patrons of Arthur Young during his travels in France (1787-89), and promoted that revival of agriculture at the close of the eighteenth century which corresponded with the similar movement in England.

255

The Princesse d'Hénin was rescued from Paris by Madame de Staël (Forneron, Hist. des Emigrés, vol. i. p. 244). It was at her house that Malouet, La Fayette, and the Constitutionnels had planned an escape for Louis XVI. in May, 1792.

256

The Duchess of Fitzjames was the daughter of the Comte de Thiars, and dame de palais in the household of Marie Antoinette. Charles, her eldest son, died with the army of the princes. Edward, her second son, who succeeded to the title, distinguished himself by his oratorical powers in the Chamber of Peers at the Restoration, and in that of the Deputies under Louis Philippe.

257

On September 17, 1792, seventy-six French priests, and among them the Bishop of Avranches, landed at Hastings.

258

The report of the French Diplomatic Committee upon the two treaties of October 22 and November 2 was delivered by Brissot on November 21. It neither ratified nor rejected the treaties, reserving the question whether a free people could bind itself by treaties. At the same time the Convention ordered the French troops to respect the neutrality of Geneva, if the Swiss troops evacuated the city by December 1, 1792.

259

The Duke of Brunswick was charged with being bribed to retire. No ground for the accusation has ever been alleged, except that, on the duke's return, he paid off heavy debts. The charge was made by Talleyrand in 1802. It is repeated by both Lacretelle and Thiers in their histories. It is omitted by Michaud in his article on Brunswick, which appeared in the Biographie Universelle in 1812; but it is given in the articles which the same writer contributed on Dumouriez and Drouet to the supplementary volume (1837). It is also made by the Comte d'Allonville in his Mémoires Secrets (vol. iii. pp. 94-97).

260

The Comtesse Charles de Noailles, née Nathalie de Laborde, the daughter of the banker of that name, married in 179 °Charles de Noailles, son of the Prince de Poix.

261

Louis Philippe Antoine de Noailles, Prince de Poix, eldest son of the Maréchal and Maréchale de Mouchy, who were guillotined on July 22, 1794. He commanded the Noailles Company of the Royal Body-guard. He was arrested in August, 1792, but escaped on his way to the Abbaye. He married Anne de Beauvau, who died in 1834.

262

The Comte de la Tour-du-Pin Gouvernet had been aide-de-camp to Bouillé at the repression of the mutiny at Nancy. He was entrusted with the task of opening the plan, formed for the rescue of the king and royal family in the early summer of 1792, to Marie Antoinette. Her distrust of La Fayette caused its failure. "Plutôt périr qu'être sauvé par La Fayette et les Constitutionnels!" was her well-known exclamation. Gouvernet subsequently went to America, and died at Lausanne in 1837.

263

The seat of the Duke of Portland.

264

Bigot de Sainte Croix, Minister for Foreign Affairs, was one of the agents in the schemes for the rescue of Louis XVI.

265

Terrier de Monciel, a member of the Constitutional party, Minister of the Interior from June 18 to July 9, 1792, endeavoured to organize a military force for the protection of the king which should be disassociated from the foreign allies of the émigrés. It was the discovery of this and other schemes for the king's rescue, in which Bertrand, Malouet, Mallet du Pan, and Clermont-Tonnerre were the leaders, that led to the disbanding of the Constitutional Guard, and the insurrections of June 20 and August 10, 1792. Monciel died in 1831.

266

The Marquis de Bertrand-Molleville (1744-1818) was Ministre de la Marine in 1791. He took refuge in England in 1792, and there wrote his Mémoires and his Histoire de la Révolution de France.

267

Victor Malouet (1740-1814), distinguished by his explorations and his services in the French colonies (see his Collection des Mémoires sur l'administration des colonies, Paris, 1802, 5 vols.), was a bold and skilful supporter of Louis XVI. in the Constituent Assembly. He returned to France in 1801, and was employed by Napoleon in the administration of the navy. He was appointed Ministre de la Marine by Louis XVIII. in 1814.

268

Probably the Baron de Gilliers, whose estates were near Romans in Dauphiné, and of whom Rivarol tells a story to illustrate the suspicion with which every aristocrat was regarded. Suspected of a royalist plot, the baron was charged with manufacturing cannon when he was only making drain-pipes; his house was occupied by hundreds of armed men, and his family narrowly escaped with their lives. He was gentleman-in-waiting to Madame Elizabeth.

269

Burke's plan for the settlement of the refugees in Maryland is discussed by him in a letter to his son, dated November 2, 1792 (Correspondence, vol. iv. pp. 25, 26).

270

Miss Holroyd.

271

Sheffield Place.

272

Joseph Servan (1741-1808), author of the Soldat Citoyen (1780), Minister of War in the Girondin administration (March to June, 1792). Dismissed by Louis XVI., he was restored to his office after August 10, 1792. He resigned his post in October, 1792, and afterwards commanded the troops which opposed the march of the Spaniards upon Bayonne in April, 1793.

273

Prince Charles of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rothenburg (1752-1821) entered the French service as a young man. He was made a lieutenant-general in 1792, and took up the command at Besançon, where he was received with enthusiasm as the citoyen-général-philosophe. He accompanied his words with gestures which were almost convulsive in their violence, and closed his sentences by grinding his teeth, "un tigre doué de la parole." As a journalist (1795-99) he came into collision with the Government, and was imprisoned for several years in the island of Rhé. He died at Frankfort in 1821.

274

Henriette d'Aguessau, who married the Duc d'Ayen, was, like Madame de Biron, guillotined.

275

Marie, Princess of Hesse-Rheinfelz, married the Duc de Bouillon, the head, and last direct representative, of the family of La Tour d'Auvergne. She was by her marriage connected with the Princesse de Poix, and her cousin, the Princesse d'Hénin. The three ladies were known as les trois princesses combinées. Madame de Bouillon and her husband both died in exile.

276

Necker's Réflexions offertes à la nation française appeared in November, 1792.

277

Louis Pierre Manuel (1751-1793) was one of the leaders in the insurrections of June 20 and August 10, 1792. He was at this time procureur of the Commune of Paris. At the king's trial he defended Louis XVI., and, accused of being a counter-revolutionist, was guillotined in November, 1793.

278

Jean Marie François Dulau.

279

They were brothers, and belonged to the family of Rochefoucauld-Bayers.

280

Lord Loughborough accepted the Great Seal as Lord Chancellor in January, 1793.

281

I.e. the treaty of November 2.

282

The report of the Diplomatic Committee (November 21) on the treaties which Montesquieu had signed with Geneva, speaks of him as a man who "had put his name to many fraudulent and usurious proceedings, and who appeared to regard the Revolution as a speculation and a new kind of stock-jobbing."

283

François Christophe de Kellerman (1735-1820) was the hero of the battle of Valmy. In 1804 he was created Duc de Valmy by Napoleon.

284

Gibbon's surmise proved correct. On December 3, and again on December 27, the Représentants rose in arms, threatened to call in the aid of the French army if they were opposed, and replaced the Petit Conseil and the Conseil des Deux-Cents by two committees, organized on a popular basis, who exercised all the powers which were previously in the hands of the aristocracy.

285

Quà tamen usque potest, vires sibi demere tentat.Nec, quo centimanum dejecerat igne Typhœa,Nunc armatur eo: nimiùm feritatis in illo.Est aliud levius fulmen; cui dextra CyclopumSævitiæ, flammæque minus, minus addidit iræ:Tela secunda vocant Superi.

286

On December 1 an Order in Council was passed, calling out part of the militia. Another portion was called out on the western and southern coasts by a second Order of December 5. Parliament met on December 13 to ratify the step taken by the Government, within the fourteen days required by statute.

287

An association was formed, in November, 1792, at the St. Alban's Tavern, of members of Parliament and other persons of influence, including Lord Sheffield. A declaration was issued, stating that, in the opinion of those who signed it, it was in the present moment incumbent upon us "to give to the executive government a vigorous and effectual support, in counteracting the numerous efforts of sedition, in detecting and bringing to legal punishment the persons concerned therein, and in suppressing in their beginnings all tumults or riots, on whatever pretence they may be excited." Another association at the Crown and Anchor, presided over by Mr. Reeves, a barrister, and containing in the list of signatures the name of J. T. Batt, Lord Sheffield's friend, issued a similar declaration. Other associations were formed with the same object by the merchants and bankers of London, by the merchants, etc., at Lloyd's, by the general body of Protestant Dissenters in London and Westminster, by many of the Livery Companies, and by the Corporation of the City of London. The declaration to be signed in the county of Sussex is quoted in full at the beginning of the Gentleman's Magazine for July to December, 1792. The following note is added: "Association, on the best principle, is taking place throughout England, and nowhere in a better form than in Sussex, under the auspices of Lord Sheffield."

288

Fox, on December 13, declared the calling out of the militia to be a "ministerial manœuvre," and moved as an amendment to the address, "That his Majesty's faithful Commons, assembled in a manner new and alarming to the country, think it their first duty, and will make it their first business, to inform themselves of the causes of this measure, being equally zealous to enforce a due obedience to the laws on the one hand, and a faithful execution of them on the other."

289

Lord Malmesbury thus analyzes the minority: "21 were reformers, 4 Lord Lansdowne's members, and the rest people personally attached to Fox, and who, from this feeling, and against their sentiments, voted with him. Such were Crewe, Lord Edward Bentinck, Lord George Cavendish, Lord Milton, Lionel Damer, and others" (Diaries and Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 476).

290

On Saturday, December 15, Fox moved that an address be presented to his Majesty, "that a minister may be sent to Paris to treat with those persons who exercise provisionally the functions of executive government in France." The motion was negatived without a division.

291

"Some of the very worst of the French murderers on the 10th of August and beginning of September have been here, particularly one Rotundo, who was a principal performer in the massacres of the prisoners on the 2nd and 3rd of September. He was one of the executioners of Madame de Lamballe, of which I understand he boasted when in England, for I hear he is gone back" (Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, vol. ii. p. 91). It is difficult to trace the foundation for the statement. One Petit Mamin was accused of having boasted that he had killed the princess; but he denied having made the boast, and proved, to the satisfaction of the jury, that he was not in Paris at the time (Mortimer-Ternaux, Histoire de la Terreur, 1792-94, vol. iii. pp. 632, 633). In Lescure's Vie de la Princesse de Lamballe (pp. 426-428) the names of the murderers are given as Charlat and Grison. M. Feuillet de Conches (Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, et Madame Elisabeth, vol. vi. p. 316) says that Gonchon was the name of the man who first struck down the princess.

292

François, Marquis de Barthélemy (1750-1830), concluded three treaties at Basle in 1795 – with Prussia, the United Provinces, and Spain. He was a member of the Directory; but, suspected for his moderation, was sent, first to Cayenne, then to Sinnamari. Thence he escaped to England. He assisted in drawing up the charter at the restoration of Louis XVIII.

293

Boydell was Lord Mayor in 1790-91.

294

On December 21, 1792, a copy was read to the House of Commons of the instructions sent to Earl Gower, the British Ambassador at Paris, signifying his recall in August on the ground that, as the executive power was withdrawn from Louis XVI., the credentials under which the ambassador acted were no longer available. In the instructions, the king, while "adhering to the principles of neutrality in respect to the settlement of the internal government of France," considered it "no deviation from those principles to manifest, by all the means in his power, his solicitude for the personal situation of their most Christian majesties, and their royal family; and he earnestly and anxiously hopes that they will, at least, be secure from any acts of violence, which cannot fail to produce one universal sentiment of indignation through every country of Europe." It was unanimously resolved that the paper should remain on the table of the House. The king was sentenced to death by the Convention, January 17, 1793. His appeal to the nation was rejected, January 19-20, and the final sentence announced to him on Sunday, January 20. He was executed the following day.

295

Chauvelin had been accredited by Louis XVI. in May, 1792. But he now (December 27) addressed a note to Lord Grenville, as agent of the Executive Council of the French Republic, asking whether Great Britain was to be considered as a belligerent or as a neutral power. Lord Grenville declined (December 31) to acknowledge his official position, but explained the policy of the British Government. On January 18, 1793, Lord Grenville replied to M. Chauvelin that the British Government would continue its preparations to protect the country and its allies, and to oppose a barrier to French views of aggrandizement and the propagation of destructive principles. On January 24, M. Chauvelin was ordered to leave the kingdom within eight days. He left on January 25. The Convention declared war against England and Holland, February 8, 1793, and against Spain, March 7.

296

Lord Sheffield alludes to the debate on the second reading of the Alien Bill (December 28, 1792). Fox opposed the Bill; Sir Gilbert Elliot spoke for it, and stated that the Duke of Portland was in its favour, and that the majority of the Opposition, of which the duke was the leader, intended to support the Government. After the debate, Elliot, Wyndham, and Fox met at the Duke of Portland's, when the duke stated that Sir Gilbert had correctly expressed his views. Fox, however, recovered his ascendency over the Duke of Portland, who authorized the Marquis of Titchfield (December 31), his eldest son, M.P. for Buckinghamshire, to confine the support of the Opposition to this particular measure. The marquis ended his speech with an attack upon the individual ministers, a passage added, it is said, by Fox, which neutralized the effect of his support (Diaries and Correspondence of Lord Malmesbury, vol. ii. pp. 494, 495).

297

The Parliamentary recess lasted from January 4 to January 28, 1793.

298

Louis XVI. was executed in the Place de la Révolution at 10.22 in the morning of Monday, January 21, 1793.

299

The message was delivered on January 28, laying before the House the correspondence between Lord Grenville and M. Chauvelin, and asking for an augmentation of the forces by sea and land.

300

The Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain, with their Lives and Characters, 2 vols. fol., 1743-52, by the Rev. Thomas Birch, D.D. The engravings are by Houbraken, Gravelot, and Vertue.

301

Hugues Bernard Maret, afterwards Duc de Bassano (1763-1839), was editor of the Bulletin in which were reported the debates of the National Assembly. He had served in Belgium in concert with Dumouriez. He had already been sent to England by the Convention. He now returned with fuller powers. He remained in London till February after the dismissal of Chauvelin, and only left when the war was declared. He was a favourite of Napoleon, and Minister of the Interior under Louis Philippe.

302

Jean Nicolas Pache (1740-1823) replaced Servan as Minister of War in October, 1792. In February, 1793, he became Mayor of Paris, and was responsible for many of the worst horrors of that year.

303

The debate on the king's message for the augmentation of the forces took place on February 1. Fox spoke against the increase. It may be added that Mr. Whitbread, speaking on the same side, and alluding to the Duke of Brunswick's manifestos, said that they breathed the spirit of Attila, "who, in the emphatical words recorded by Mr. Gibbon, had said, 'Where Attila's horse sets his foot, the grass never grows.'"

304

Probably Mr. George Nicol. See p. 359.

305

This letter is printed in Lord Campbell's life of Lord Chancellor Loughborough as from the Rosslyn Manuscripts, and Lord Campbell remarks in a note that in 1796, when about to publish the first edition of Gibbon's miscellaneous works, Lord Sheffield applied to Lord Loughborough for permission to include this letter, but was refused. He made a second application, offering to erase his name and the name of his office (which in effect was done), but "Lord Loughborough was sensitive upon the subject of his coalition with Mr. Pitt, and he remained inflexible." However, the letter does appear in the first edition, a fact which must have escaped Lord Campbell's attention.

306

"All ranks of people have put on mourning for the unfortunate king." Lady Malmesbury to Lady Elliot, January 28, 1793 (Life and Letters of Sir G. Elliot, vol. ii. p. 110).

307

Throughout 1793, and especially in September, Lord Chatham as First Lord of the Admiralty was in dispute with the Master of the Ordnance, the Duke of Richmond. One alleged that the fleet was ready but that the guns were not; the other stated that the ships were not ready to take the guns. Lord Sandwich was Lord of the Admiralty during the American War.

308

The Songe d'un Anglois and the Plaidoyer pour Louis XVI., both by Lally Tollendal, are printed in the second volume (pp. 251-286 and 357-388) of the "Collection des meilleurs ouvrages qui ont été publiés pour la Défense de Louis XVI.," par A. J. du Gour: Paris, 1796. From an autograph letter in George III.'s copy of Strafford, it appears that Lally, through Lady Sheffield, presented a copy of the Plaidoyer to the king.

309

Probably Horace Walpole's Essay on Modern Gardening, which was written in 1770, and printed at the Strawberry Hill Press in 1785 (4to), with a French translation on opposite pages by the Duc de Nivernois.

310

"Madame de Staël, daughter of M. Necker, is now at the head of the colony of French noblesse, established near Mickleham. She is one of the first women I have ever met with for abilities and extraordinary intellect." Miss Burney to Dr. Burney, February 4, 1793 (Diary and Letters, vol. v. p. 394).

311

Lord Porchester, son of Gen. the Hon. W. Herbert, fifth son of the Earl of Pembroke, was created Earl of Carnarvon in July, 1793.

312

The Duke of York.

313

Lady Sheffield died April 3, 1793. Her death is said to have been occasioned by her attendance upon the sick émigrés at Guy's hospital (Gentleman's Magazine for 1793, part i. p. 379).

314

Wilhelm de Severy.

315

A select committee appointed (April 25, 1793) to consider the state of commercial credit reported (April 29), recommending, inter alia, that five millions should be issued in Exchequer Bills for the relief of credit. The report was considered on April 30; a resolution, and subsequently a Bill, were carried for the issue of the Bills. A commission was appointed (May 3), with Lord Sheffield at the head of it, to effect the necessary arrangements.

316

Mayence was invested by the Prussian and Austrian forces early in April, 1793. It was surrendered July 22, 1793.

317

Thomas, Lord Elgin, was appointed in August, 1792, Envoy Extraordinary at Brussels. Subsequently appointed Ambassador at Constantinople in 1799, he collected the Elgin marbles.

318

Madame de Sylva.

319

John Augustus, Lord Hervey, a captain in the Royal Navy, second son of the Bishop of Derry, and brother to Lady Elisabeth Foster, was ambassador at Florence from 1787 to 1794. In 1793 he insisted in a violent note on the dismissal of the French Minister, La Flotte, from the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "It was generally supposed," writes Lord Holland, (Memoirs of the Whig Party, p. 56), "in the maldicente city of Florence, that resentment at the French Minister for having supplanted him in the good graces of a lady quickened his hatred of the French Republick, or at least gave it the turn of insisting on the dismissal of his rival." Lord Hervey, in consequence of the affair, was recalled from Florence in 1794.

320

New toll-gates had been placed on the bridge at Bristol; but they were burnt by a mob which, from September 30 to October 3, attacked the toll-houses, and broke the windows of the Guildhall and Council-house. The Herefordshire Militia were twice called out and ordered to fire on the mob; eleven rioters were killed and forty-five wounded. The attempt to raise a toll was abandoned.

321

76, St. James's Street.

322

Gibbon had, in 1761, consulted Mr. (afterwards Sir Cæsar) Hawkins, the surgeon, who wished to see him again. But he never returned, or consulted any other medical man till November, 1793.

323

Sir Walter Farquhar, Bart. (cr. 1796), was originally an army doctor. He died in 1819.

324

Henry Cline (1750-1827) was a pupil of Hunter, and at this time surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital.