Chapter 28

[158]Louis Joseph, Prince de Condé (1736-1818), was the son of the Duc de Bourbon who was minister to Louis XV. He had served in the Seven Years' War, and commanded theémigréson the banks of the Rhine, who were known as thearmée de Condé. Both his son and grandson died by violence. His son, the Duc de Bourbon (1756-1830), was found hanged in his room. Suspicion, probably without reason, fell on his mistress, Madame de Feuchéres. With him was extinguished the family of Condé, for the grandson here mentioned was the Duc d'Enghien (1772-1804) who was shot at Vincennes in 1804.[159]Burke'sReflections on the Revolution in Francewere published in October, 1790. "Gibbon admires Burke to the skies, and even the religious parts, he says" (Walpole to the Miss Berrys, February 28, 1791).[160]The Earl of Guilford (1704-1790) died August 4, 1790, and was succeeded by his eldest son Frederick, better known as Lord North.[161]Lord Sheffield'sObservations on the Corn Bill now depending in Parliamentwas published in 1791. The Corn Regulation Bill was introduced early in that year. The House went into committee on the Bill on February 22, 1791, Lord Sheffield protesting against its principle, but not dividing the House. Lord Sheffield twice beat Pitt (March 11 and April 11) on the question of warehousing foreign corn. He also argued for 52s.instead of 48s.as the lowest price at which, in the interest of farmers, it was possible to admit foreign corn (April 4).[162]Lord Sheffield opposed Wilberforce's motion (April 18, 1791) for the Abolition of the Slave Trade on the ground that the West Indian Assemblies alone could deal with the question fairly in all its bearings.[163]This was probably the debate of May 6, 1791, when Burke declared that, even if loss of friends were the consequence, he would still, with his latest breath, exclaim, "Fly from the French Constitution!" "There is no loss of friends," said Fox. "Yes, there is," retorted Burke. "I know the price of my conduct! I have indeed made a great sacrifice: I have done my duty, though I have lost my friend." Burke's speech was made on the Quebec Bill, and Lord Sheffield moved, and was supported by Fox, that dissertations on the French Constitution were not pertinent to the question before the House. Fox's panegyric on the French Revolution, to which Burke's speech was a reply, was delivered on the treaty between Russia and the Porte.[164]In the spring of 1791 war with Russia seemed probable. Catharine had in the preceding year concluded peace with Sweden, and the winter campaign of 1790-91 placed the Ottoman Porte at her mercy. Great Britain endeavoured to secure favourable terms for Turkey, and made active preparations to enforce her efforts. The king's message to the House of Commons (March 28, 1791) asked for an increase to the navy in order to bring pressure to bear on Russia. But Great Britain was without allies. Prussia was irresolute, Sweden exhausted, Denmark unwilling to quarrel with Russia, Austria intent on recovering the Austrian Netherlands. Her protest was, however, not without effect. Catharine refused to recognize Great Britain as a mediator or to recede from her demands. But she made peace with Turkey at Galacz in August, 1791, restoring all her conquests except Otchakov and the surrounding territory between the Bug and the Dniester. The strong opposition to war with Russia doubtless influenced Pitt. But it is said that the opinion of the Dutch Admiral, Kingsbergen, that Sebastopol, not Otchakov, was the real danger to Turkey, finally changed his view. The Duke of Leeds resigned the Secretaryship of State on the question, and was succeeded by H. Dundas.[165]Probably his treatiseDe l'administration de M. Necker, par lui-même.[166]The words in the original letter are torn out by the seal.[167]Jacques Marie de Cazalès (1752-1805), whom Madame Roland called, for his ability, the "astonishing" Cazalès, was an eloquent defender of the Monarchy. Suspected of conniving at the king's escape from Paris in June, 1791, he was arrested, and was possibly in prison at the time when Gibbon's letter reached Lord Sheffield. After the capture of Louis XVI. at Varennes, he left France, and, as anémigré, took part in the campaign of 1792.[168]The Abbé Maury (1746-1817), one of the supporters of the Church and the Monarchy in the States-General, left France in September, 1791, after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. Made by Napoleon Archbishop of Paris (1810-14), he was deprived of episcopal authority by the Pope, who had previously given him a cardinal's hat. At the fall of the Empire he was summoned to Rome, and confined for some months in the Castle of St. Angelo.[169]On Saturday, June 25, news reached London that Louis XVI., his wife and children, had on the previous Tuesday escaped from Paris. They travelled with a passport made out for the Baroness de Korff, obtained at the request of M. Simolin, the Russian Ambassador, who was ignorant of the use to which it was to be put. The king intended to reach Montmédy, and there place himself under the protection of the Marquis de Bouillé, who commanded the army of the Meuse and Moselle. At Ste. Menehould the fugitives were recognized by the Postmaster Drouet, arrested at Varennes, and brought back to Paris.[170]The ambassador at Paris.[171]On June 26, 1791, a plan was presented to the National Assembly for the prosecution of the king and of those who assisted him in his escape. After a warm debate, commissioners were nominated to inquire into the events of June 20-21, and three commissioners were separately appointed to take the signed declarations of the king and queen. The proposal to distinguish the case of the king and queen from that of inferior persons was unsuccessfully opposed by Robespierre.[172]The three Gardes du Corps, brought back on the top of the royal carriage, bound with ropes, were MM. de Valery, de Moustier, and de Malden. The two former published accounts of the flight to Varennes.[173]François Claude Aymour, Marquis de Bouillé (1739-1800), born at the Château de Cluzel in Auvergne, died at London in 1800. He had distinguished himself both in the Seven Years' War and in the American War of Independence. In 1790 he became governor of the provinces of les Trois Évêchés, Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comté, and commander-in-chief of the army of the Meuse, Sarre-et-Moselle, with his head-quarters at Metz. His letter to the National Assembly was written, as he states, to divert the wrath of the Assembly from the king to himself. In it he assumed the whole responsibility for the affair. His letter, says M. Feuillet de Conches (Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette et Madame Elisabeth, vol. iv. pp. 469-471), produced a deep impression throughout Europe. Three autograph letters, addressed by Louis XVI., and the Kings of Sweden and Prussia, to the marquis, are there quoted. After the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes he fled to Coblentz, summoning officers and men to join him. He served in the army of the Prince of Condé in 1791, and in that of the Duke of York in 1793. He afterwards retired to England, where hisMémoires sur la Révolutionwere published in 1797.[174]Elizabeth Vassall, a West Indian heiress, married, May 27, 1786, Sir Godfrey Webster, Bart., of Battle Abbey, Sussex. She was divorced from her husband on July 3, 1797, and, three days afterwards, married the third Lord Holland.[175]François Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803), novelist, poet, and soldier, was at this time editor of theJournal des amis de la Constitution. He helped Brissot to draw up the petition for the deposition of Louis XVI., July 17, 1791.[176]Voltaire died at Paris in May, 1778. His body, lest burial should be refused, was carried to the Abbey of Scellières. Thence the remains were brought, Sunday, July 10, 1791, to the ruins of the Bastille, and placed the next day in the Pantheon.[177]On Wednesday, July 13, 1791, the report of the seven committees on the affairs of the king was read before the National Assembly, detailing the circumstances of the king's escape, and stating the manner in which, by the laws of the Constitution, the Assembly should conduct itself towards the king. Practically, the report was in favour of the inviolability of the king's person. In this sense it was adopted on July 15, 1791, and against it was held the meeting of the Champs de Mars on July 17.[178]J. Pierre Brissot (de Warville) (1754-93) was at this time a supporter of the Duc d'Orléans. He afterwards led theBrissotinsagainst theMontagnards, and was guillotined with the Girondists in October, 1793.[179]On the Island of St. Pierre, in the Lake of Bienne, J. J. Rousseau lived in 1765.[180]After the meeting of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia at Pilnitz, Coblentz became the rallying-point of theémigrés—"a small extra-national Versailles: a Versaillesin partibus."[181]The family of Guiche were descended fromla belle Corisande, who, left a widow at twenty-six by the death of her husband, the Comte de Guiche, became the mistress of Henry IV., then only King of Navarre. The Duc de Guiche (afterwards Duc de Grammont) married, in 1779, a daughter of the Duchesse de Polignac, and to her interest he owed his place as captain of the Villeroy Company of the Gardes du Corps. He was also colonel of theDragons de la Reine. The duke is a "good-natured young man" (Lord Auckland's Journal and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 412).[182]Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria and of the Palatinate.[183]Monsieur, the title given to the eldest brother of the reigning King of France, was the Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII. (1755-1824). Madame, his wife, was Maria Josephine Louisa, daughter of Victor Amadeus III. of Sardinia. They escaped from Paris on the same night as Louis XVI.[184]The Prince of Nassau-Siegen sailed round the world with Bougainville (1766-69), served in the Spanish army at the siege of Gibraltar, then entered the service of the Empress Catharine, and, as an admiral, commanded the Russian fleet against Turkey and afterwards against Sweden.[185]Count Nicholas Romanzov, son of the distinguished Russian general.[186]Marc Hilaire de Conzie (1732-1805), Bishop of St. Omer, became, in 1769, Bishop of Arras. With his brother, who succeeded him as Bishop of St. Omer, he administered the province of Artois. He followed the Comte d'Artois in his flight to Italy, and at London was afterwards his chief political adviser. He was a friend of Madame du Deffand, who writes of him enthusiastically. The Duc de Lévis (Souvenirs et portraits) speaks of him less favourably: "Il ne fit que du mal à son parti."[187]The Baron de Luckner (1722-1794), a Bavarian, entered the French service after the Seven Years' War, was made a marshal in 1791, and guillotined in 1794.[188]The Duc de Broglie (1718-1804), one of the most distinguished of the French generals during the Seven Years' War, was made a marshal in 1759. Louis XVI. appointed him in 1789 Minister of War; but he was among the earliest of theémigrés. He entered the Russian service in 1794.[189]In August, 1790, the Swiss Regiment of Château-Vieux mutinied at Metz, demanding arrears of pay. They fired upon the National Guard, seized the regimental treasury, and killed Desilles. The outbreak was quelled by Bouillé. Of the survivors of the Regiment of Château-Vieux, twenty-three were hanged, and forty-one sent to the galleys. These galley-slaves were subsequently released; afêtein their honour was decreed by the Assembly; their chains hung up as trophies in the Jacobin Club at Brest, and the men carried through Paris in triumph on April 15, 1792.[190]The meeting of the King Frederick William of Prussia and the Emperor Leopold of Austria at Pilnitz in 1791, excited the greatest interest in Europe. It was supposed at the time that the second partition of Poland was there concerted. But no definite declaration in common seems to have been signed at that time by the two sovereigns, except an engagement to make certain representations to the French Government as to Louis XVI., the Monarchy, and the restoration of property to theémigrés, and to invite an European concert for the purpose of enforcing these representations.[191]In hisLetter to a Member of the National Assembly, dated January 19, 1791 (Works(1855), vol. ii. pp. 546, 547), Burke spoke severely of Mounier and Lally. He took up the position of a French aristocrat, and treated the English Constitution as unsuited to France. Lally replied to him in hisLettre au très hon. Edm. Burke, membre du parlement d'Angleterre(June 20, 1791), and in hisSeconde lettrein 1792. In these letters he defended the aims of the constitutional reformers in France.[192]On October 1, 1791, the Duke of York was married at Berlin to the Princess Frederica of Prussia. On November 23 they were remarried, at seven o'clock in the evening, at "the Queen's house" in London.[193]In India against Tippoo. See note at the end of the letter.[194]Between 9 and 12 a.m. on December 21, 1791, the Duke of Richmond's house in Privy Gardens, now called Whitehall Gardens, was almost completely destroyed by fire.[195]Henrietta, daughter of John, second Earl of Buckinghamshire (born 1762), married, in 1780, Armar Corry, Earl of Belmore, from whom she was divorced in 1792. She afterwards, April 16, 1793, married William, Earl of Ancram.[196]The Countess of Tyrconnel, the second wife of the Earl of Tyrconnel, was the youngest daughter of Lord Delaval, and therefore a niece of the notorious Sir Francis Delaval. Rumour had coupled her name with that of the Duke of York (Wraxall'sPosthumous Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 192).[197]John Boydell, in 1786, began to prepare his illustrated edition of Shakespeare, and built a gallery in Pall Mall for the exhibition of the pictures painted for the work. The work was published in eighteen parts, of which the first appeared in 1791, and the whole was completed in 1802.[198]The third Mysore war began with the invasion of the protected district of Travancore in 1789 by Tippoo, who laid waste the Carnatic almost to the gates of Madras. The war lasted for three years. Lord Cornwallis, in April and May, 1791, advanced from Bangalore to Seringapatam, and drove Tippoo's army before him into the capital (May 15). General Abercromby, advancing towards the same point from the west, reached Periapatnam. But, owing to the difficulty of crossing the swollen Cavery, the two forces could not unite. A few days later, the heavy rains and want of provisions compelled Cornwallis (May 26) to retire, leaving the greater part of his heavy artillery. At the same time Abercromby retreated to Tellicherry on the east coast. Near Bangalore, Cornwallis unexpectedly encountered the Mahratta horse advancing to his assistance. In the autumn and winter months many hill-forts were reduced on the road to Seringapatam, and on February 5, 1792, Cornwallis once more arrived before its walls. Tippoo, on March 18, 1792, signed a peace by which he surrendered half his territories, paid a war indemnity, and gave up two of his sons as hostages for the due performance of the treaty.[199]The States-General met May 5, 1789. On June 17, 1789, the Third Estate formed itself into a National Assembly, which was dissolved September 30, 1791. The Legislative Assembly, also constituted a National Assembly, sate from October 1, 1791, to September 21, 1792. In December, 1791, Louis XVI. threatened that, if the Electors of Trèves and Mayence did not prevent the assembly of troops in their territories, he would declare war. On March 1, 1792, the Emperor Leopold II. died, and was succeeded, as King of Hungary and Bohemia, by his son Francis Joseph. Against him France declared war, April 20, 1792.[200]Gustavus III., King of Sweden (1746-1792), was assassinated by Anckarström in March, 1792. He had offered his services against France as generalissimo of the forces of the Allied Powers.[201]Russia, after withdrawing her ambassador from Paris, ordered the French minister to leave St. Petersburg in August, 1792.[202]The negroes in the French or western part of the Island of St. Domingo rose against the whites in August, 1791. In September the General Assembly of the island appealed to the National Assembly at Paris for aid, by a letter detailing the horrors of the insurrection, and later (November 30) by sending a deputy, who was heard in the National Assembly. The insurrection was the first step in the independence of Hayti, which was recognized by the French in 1825. A Comte d'Argout succeeded the Comte d'Ennery as governor of the colony in 1777.[203]A commission presided over by M. Fischer, supported by two or three thousand militia of the Canton of Berne, was sent to inquire into the attempts to introduce the principles of the French Revolution into the Pays de Vaud. Several persons were arrested, and secretly examined. MM. Rosset and La Motte were confined in the Castle of Chillon, and being afterwards condemned to a long period of imprisonment for correspondence with the French, were transferred to the Castle of Arbourg, whence they escaped.[204]Lally's tragedy ofStrafford, in five acts and verse, was printed at London in 1795. HisEssai sur la vie de Thomas Wentworth, Comte de Strafford, was published at London in the same year. Madame d'Arblay, in February, 1792, speaks of Miss Fanshawe having heard "the famous M. Lally Tolendahl read a French tragedy upon an English subject written by himself! The subject was the death of Strafford." Lally was probably attracted to the subject by the circumstances of his own father's execution.[205]Marie Antoinette was born November 2, 1755.[206]Bouillé, warned by a messenger from Choiseul that the king was detained at Varennes, rode from Dun-sur-Meuse, about twenty-two miles from Montmédy, to within sight of the village, but could not cross the Aire; thousands of the National Guard had mustered, and the king was already on his return journey to Paris.[207]The Comte de Damas, who was stationed on the Ste. Menehould side of Varennes, joined the king at Clermont-en-Argonne, where the road westward from Ste. Menehould strikes to the north to Varennes and Montmédy. The Duc de Choiseul and his hussars, who had been posted on the Montmédy side of Varennes, also joined the king at Varennes. But their troops refused to act against the National Guard. The relays were stationed at the further side of the bridge over the Aire, which had been blocked by Postmaster Drouet.[208]In Westmoreland County, Jamaica, "particularly in the parish of St. Elizabeth, there have been nightly meetings of the Negroes, where they have not hesitated to call Wilberforce their King, by the name (in their way) ofKing Wilberforce." (Extract from a letter quoted in theGentleman's Magazinefor February, 1792, vol. 62, p. 174.)[209]Amélie de Boufflers, only daughter of the Duc de Boufflers, was born in 1751. J. J. Rousseau speaks enthusiastically of her, when he saw her as a girl at the house of her grandmother, the Maréchale de Luxembourg. She married, in 1766, Armand Louis de Gontaut, Duc de Lauzun, who succeeded his uncle as Duc de Biron. Dissolute and a spendthrift, the duke hated the king and queen because he had not been appointed to succeed his uncle as Colonel of the Guards (Souvenirs et Portraits, par le Duc de Lévis, pp. 191-201). He joined the extreme revolutionary party. His wife, who had lived apart from him for many years, in 1791-2 passed some months at Lausanne. She returned to France from England in November, 1792, was arrested and released at the intercession of her husband, whom she had not seen for fifteen years. In England she lived with the Princesse d'Hénin till October, 1793, when she again returned to France. She was arrested and guillotined in 1794. The Duc was executed in December, 1793.[210]Louis Necker (1730-1801), elder brother of Jacques Necker the statesman, assumed the name of de Germanie on succeeding to an estate of that name which he inherited from his father. He had made a fortune as a banker at Marseilles.[211]The Baron de Staël-Holstein was Swedish Ambassador at Paris from 1783 to 1792.[212]M. de Narbonne-Lara was Minister of War from December, 1791, to March, 1792. Born in 1755, he is said to have been the son of Madame Adelaide and the Comte de Narbonne, her chamberlain. He was one of the few persons who, according to Talleyrand, were completely in the confidence of Mirabeau. "Le Comte Louis de Narbonne est enfin ministre de la guerre, d'hier," wrote Marie Antoinette to Count Fersen. "Quelle gloire pour Mmede Stael, et quel plaisir pour elle d'avoir toute l'armée ... à elle!" (Klinckowström,Le Comte de Fersen et la Cour de France, i. 269). After the insurrection of August 10, 1792, Narbonne was saved by Madame de Staël and M. Bollmann, and took refuge in England.[213]Antoine de Lessart, Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs (1791-2), was accused of corresponding with theémigrésand the emperor, tried before the High Court of Orleans for treason, and murdered in the September massacres of 1792.[214]The Emperor Leopold II. died March 1, 1792, and was succeeded by his son Francis Joseph, who, pending his election as emperor, took the title of King of Bohemia and Hungary.[215]Taine traces to the action of Marseilles in the autumn of 1791 the first crop of the "arbre révolutionnaire" (La Révolution, vol. ii. c. vi.). Marseilles, in fact, became a Republic which undertook the conquest of southern provinces. In February, 1792, four thousand Marseillais marched upon Aix, and disarmed and pillaged the Swiss Regiment of Ernest. In the following March, they made themselves masters of Arles. Their troops, "vraie Sodome errante," pillaged the country, and plundered, outraged, or massacred peaceful inhabitants. Avignon, which with the Comtat Venaissin was united to France in September, 1791, was the next object of their attack. It had been, in October, 1791, the scene of the horrible massacres of La Glacière perpetrated by JourdanCoupe-Têteand the "Brigands of Avignon." Jourdan's cruelties had produced a reaction. But in April, 1792, he was carried in triumph by the Marseillais through the streets of the city, and restored to his usurped position as governor and commander-in-chief. Jourdan, it may be added, was guillotined in May, 1794.[216]In April, 1792, Wilberforce brought forward his annual motion for the abolition of the slave trade. Pitt made one of his most eloquent speeches in its support. Dundas moved as an amendment a gradual measure of abolition. His amendment, though opposed by Fox, was carried (April 2) by 193 to 125. He subsequently (April 23) moved a series of resolutions to effect a gradual abolition. These were taken up by Pitt, and, with some amendments, carried. In the Lords a proposal to receive evidence on the subject was carried (May 8), and there for the time proceedings stopped. The Bill for the general abolition of the slave trade received the royal assent in March, 1807.[217]On June 7, 1792, Captain John Kimber was tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of a negro girl on board theRecovery. He was acquitted, and two of the witnesses for the prosecution were committed for trial for perjury. On February 19, 1793, Surgeon Dowling, the principal witness against Kimber, was convicted of perjury. The charge against Kimber was urged by Wilberforce in his speech of April 2, 1792.[218]The Jockey Club; or, A Sketch of the Manners of the Age(Parts i., ii., iii.), by Charles Pigott, is an attack on monarchy and aristocracy, a defence of the French Revolution, and an appeal to Fox to use his influence in favour of France in a war which is "the general cause of all human nature. It is the cause of sovereigns and certain individuals enjoying exclusive privileges to the injury of the rest, against the combined immortal cause of the whole world."[219]On April 30, 1792, Mr. Grey, in consequence of a resolution adopted by the "Friends of the People," gave notice of his intention to move for an inquiry into the representative system. On this notice a debate followed. Grey was supported by Fox. Pitt, on the other hand, declared that if ever there was a time when such a question should not be raised, the present was that time. Burke spoke in the same sense, attacking Paine'sRights of Man, and all clubs and societies which recommended the principles of that work. On May 6, 1792, Grey presented a petition from the "Friends of the People," in which the abuses of the electoral system were exposed, and moved that it be referred to a committee. After a debate of two nights, he found only forty-one supporters.[220]Gibbon probably refers to the "Friends of the People," an association for the reform of the representative system, to which Lord Lauderdale, Grey, Sheridan, Erskine, and twenty-five other members of Parliament belonged.[221]Berne.[222]Dumouriez, in April, 1792, despatched three armies to invade Belgium. The column directed against Tournay dispersed, and murdered Dillon, their commander. That which marched against Mons fled as soon as they came in sight of the Austrians near Jemappes.[223]Name erased.[224]"Cet audacieux et rusé Harris" is the phrase used by Mirabeau of Lord Malmesbury (Cour de Berlin,Lettrexxxvii., vol. ii. p. 13).[225]Gibbon's library at Lausanne was bought, in 1796, from Lord Sheffield by Beckford for £950. Beckford shut himself up in it "for six weeks, from early in the morning until night, only now and then taking a ride," and read himself "nearly blind" (Cyrus Redding's "Recollections of the Author of Vathek,"New Monthly Magazine, vol. lxxi. p. 307). Growing tired of it, he gave it to Dr. Scholl, a physician at Lausanne. Miss Berry, who visited the library in July, 1803 (Journals and Letters, vol. ii. p. 260), says, "It is, of all the libraries I ever saw, that of which I should most covet the possession—that which seems exactly everything that any gentleman or gentlewoman fond of letters could wish." "Gibbon's library," says Henry Mathews in 1818 (Diary of an Invalid, p. 318), "still remains, but it is buried and lost to the world. It is the property of Mr. Beckford, and lies locked up in an uninhabited house at Lausanne." In 1830 the library was divided into two parts. Half was sold for £500 to an English gentleman; the other half went at the same price to a bookseller at Geneva. The half which was sold to an English purchaser was, in 1876 (Notes and Queries, 5th series, vol. v. p. 425), still kept together in the possession of a Swiss gentleman near Geneva.[226]John Nichols, F.S.A. (1745-1826), the author of numerous works of great literary and historical value, and from 1778 to 1826 printer, proprietor, and, from 1792, sole manager of theGentleman's Magazine, to which he constantly contributed.[227]The letter is published in theGentleman's Magazinefor January, 1794.[228]The letter referred to in theGentleman's Magazineis signed "N. S." It gives the Gibbon pedigree from 1596 down to the historian. It no doubt at first attracted Gibbon's attention from the circumstance of its immediately preceding a communication entitled "Strictures on Some Passages in Mr. Gibbon's History." The article in theGentleman's Magazinewas by Sir Egerton Brydges, whose grandmother was a Gibbon, the heiress of Edward Gibbon of West Cliff, and first cousin to the South Sea director who was the historian's grandfather. Gibbon's letter on the subject to Sir Egerton Brydges is quoted by the latter in hisAutobiography(vol. i. pp. 225-227).[229]Probably General Budé, who is mentioned by Madame d'Arblay as holding an appointment about the court at Windsor (Diary and Letters, iii. 40).[230]A large number of troops were assembled at Bagshot Camp on July 23, and were reviewed by the king on July 26, and engaged in sham-fights on July 27, 30, 31.[231]On May 21, 1792, the king issued a proclamation against tumultuous meetings and seditious writings. Both Houses concurred in an address of thanks to the king for the proclamation (June 1). The question divided the Whig party, the majority of which from this time supported Pitt. Fox for the next few years scarcely mustered fifty followers.[232]Lord Sheffield expressed an opinion which at the time was common. The sympathy which was avowed by leading Nonconformists with some of the objects of the Revolution was not unnaturally misinterpreted at a period of public excitement. Dr. Price was chairman of the Revolution Society, which corresponded with various societies in France. Their correspondence with French clubs was published in 1792; but it is significant that the letters on the king's escape and subsequent arrest, sent to the Jacobin Club in 1791, the existence of which was revealed by the answer of the Jacobins, were omitted from the publication. Dr. Priestley, subsequently elected to the National Convention, presided at the meeting of the Unitarian Society at the King's Head Tavern, in February, 1791, when, among other toasts, "Thomas Paine and the Rights of Man," and "The National Assembly of France, and may every tyrannical government undergo a similar revolution," were drunk with enthusiasm. Such distinguished Nonconformists as Dr. Kippis, Dr. Rees, and Dr. Towers were also prominent members of these or similar societies. The Society of Constitutional Whigs, who addressed the National Assembly in the autumn of 1792, declaring that, if any attempt were made to enslave the French people, they would die in their defence, also appealed to Dissenters. InA Few Queries to the Methodists in Generaloccurs the following:—"Query: Does not both reason and revelation teach us, that in order to lay the axe at the root of the tree of wickedness, we must begin with kings and princes, and bishops and priests?"[233]Lord Chancellor Thurlow, whose influence with the king was immense, and whose intrigues with Fox at the time of the Regency Bill were well known, opposed Pitt's Sinking Fund and the Bill for the encouragement of the growth of timber in the New Forest, and denounced his colleagues as traitors to the interest of their sovereign. He was dismissed from the Lord Chancellorship in June, 1792.[234]The actual fusion of parties did not take place till July, 1794, when Lord Camden had died and Lord Stafford retired, and Dundas, retaining the Colonies, resigned the Secretaryship at War to Windham. It was delayed by the indecision of the Duke of Portland, of whom Lady Malmesbury said, "The Duke of Portland is our Duke of Brunswick—no party will be led to victory by either" (Life and Letters of Sir G. Elliot, vol. ii. p. 72).[235]Lord Loughborough, Lord Malmesbury, the Duke of Portland, and Dundas attempted to effect a coalition between Pitt and Fox in the summer and autumn of 1792. The negotiations failed. "Fox," says Lord Malmesbury (July 30, 1792), "made Pitt's quitting the Treasury asine quâ non, and was so opinionative and fixed about it, that it was impossible even to reason with him on the subject." "You see how it is," said Burke; "Mr. Fox's coach stops the way."

[159]Burke'sReflections on the Revolution in Francewere published in October, 1790. "Gibbon admires Burke to the skies, and even the religious parts, he says" (Walpole to the Miss Berrys, February 28, 1791).

[160]The Earl of Guilford (1704-1790) died August 4, 1790, and was succeeded by his eldest son Frederick, better known as Lord North.

[161]Lord Sheffield'sObservations on the Corn Bill now depending in Parliamentwas published in 1791. The Corn Regulation Bill was introduced early in that year. The House went into committee on the Bill on February 22, 1791, Lord Sheffield protesting against its principle, but not dividing the House. Lord Sheffield twice beat Pitt (March 11 and April 11) on the question of warehousing foreign corn. He also argued for 52s.instead of 48s.as the lowest price at which, in the interest of farmers, it was possible to admit foreign corn (April 4).

[162]Lord Sheffield opposed Wilberforce's motion (April 18, 1791) for the Abolition of the Slave Trade on the ground that the West Indian Assemblies alone could deal with the question fairly in all its bearings.

[163]This was probably the debate of May 6, 1791, when Burke declared that, even if loss of friends were the consequence, he would still, with his latest breath, exclaim, "Fly from the French Constitution!" "There is no loss of friends," said Fox. "Yes, there is," retorted Burke. "I know the price of my conduct! I have indeed made a great sacrifice: I have done my duty, though I have lost my friend." Burke's speech was made on the Quebec Bill, and Lord Sheffield moved, and was supported by Fox, that dissertations on the French Constitution were not pertinent to the question before the House. Fox's panegyric on the French Revolution, to which Burke's speech was a reply, was delivered on the treaty between Russia and the Porte.

[164]In the spring of 1791 war with Russia seemed probable. Catharine had in the preceding year concluded peace with Sweden, and the winter campaign of 1790-91 placed the Ottoman Porte at her mercy. Great Britain endeavoured to secure favourable terms for Turkey, and made active preparations to enforce her efforts. The king's message to the House of Commons (March 28, 1791) asked for an increase to the navy in order to bring pressure to bear on Russia. But Great Britain was without allies. Prussia was irresolute, Sweden exhausted, Denmark unwilling to quarrel with Russia, Austria intent on recovering the Austrian Netherlands. Her protest was, however, not without effect. Catharine refused to recognize Great Britain as a mediator or to recede from her demands. But she made peace with Turkey at Galacz in August, 1791, restoring all her conquests except Otchakov and the surrounding territory between the Bug and the Dniester. The strong opposition to war with Russia doubtless influenced Pitt. But it is said that the opinion of the Dutch Admiral, Kingsbergen, that Sebastopol, not Otchakov, was the real danger to Turkey, finally changed his view. The Duke of Leeds resigned the Secretaryship of State on the question, and was succeeded by H. Dundas.

[165]Probably his treatiseDe l'administration de M. Necker, par lui-même.

[166]The words in the original letter are torn out by the seal.

[167]Jacques Marie de Cazalès (1752-1805), whom Madame Roland called, for his ability, the "astonishing" Cazalès, was an eloquent defender of the Monarchy. Suspected of conniving at the king's escape from Paris in June, 1791, he was arrested, and was possibly in prison at the time when Gibbon's letter reached Lord Sheffield. After the capture of Louis XVI. at Varennes, he left France, and, as anémigré, took part in the campaign of 1792.

[168]The Abbé Maury (1746-1817), one of the supporters of the Church and the Monarchy in the States-General, left France in September, 1791, after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. Made by Napoleon Archbishop of Paris (1810-14), he was deprived of episcopal authority by the Pope, who had previously given him a cardinal's hat. At the fall of the Empire he was summoned to Rome, and confined for some months in the Castle of St. Angelo.

[169]On Saturday, June 25, news reached London that Louis XVI., his wife and children, had on the previous Tuesday escaped from Paris. They travelled with a passport made out for the Baroness de Korff, obtained at the request of M. Simolin, the Russian Ambassador, who was ignorant of the use to which it was to be put. The king intended to reach Montmédy, and there place himself under the protection of the Marquis de Bouillé, who commanded the army of the Meuse and Moselle. At Ste. Menehould the fugitives were recognized by the Postmaster Drouet, arrested at Varennes, and brought back to Paris.

[170]The ambassador at Paris.

[171]On June 26, 1791, a plan was presented to the National Assembly for the prosecution of the king and of those who assisted him in his escape. After a warm debate, commissioners were nominated to inquire into the events of June 20-21, and three commissioners were separately appointed to take the signed declarations of the king and queen. The proposal to distinguish the case of the king and queen from that of inferior persons was unsuccessfully opposed by Robespierre.

[172]The three Gardes du Corps, brought back on the top of the royal carriage, bound with ropes, were MM. de Valery, de Moustier, and de Malden. The two former published accounts of the flight to Varennes.

[173]François Claude Aymour, Marquis de Bouillé (1739-1800), born at the Château de Cluzel in Auvergne, died at London in 1800. He had distinguished himself both in the Seven Years' War and in the American War of Independence. In 1790 he became governor of the provinces of les Trois Évêchés, Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comté, and commander-in-chief of the army of the Meuse, Sarre-et-Moselle, with his head-quarters at Metz. His letter to the National Assembly was written, as he states, to divert the wrath of the Assembly from the king to himself. In it he assumed the whole responsibility for the affair. His letter, says M. Feuillet de Conches (Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette et Madame Elisabeth, vol. iv. pp. 469-471), produced a deep impression throughout Europe. Three autograph letters, addressed by Louis XVI., and the Kings of Sweden and Prussia, to the marquis, are there quoted. After the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes he fled to Coblentz, summoning officers and men to join him. He served in the army of the Prince of Condé in 1791, and in that of the Duke of York in 1793. He afterwards retired to England, where hisMémoires sur la Révolutionwere published in 1797.

[174]Elizabeth Vassall, a West Indian heiress, married, May 27, 1786, Sir Godfrey Webster, Bart., of Battle Abbey, Sussex. She was divorced from her husband on July 3, 1797, and, three days afterwards, married the third Lord Holland.

[175]François Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803), novelist, poet, and soldier, was at this time editor of theJournal des amis de la Constitution. He helped Brissot to draw up the petition for the deposition of Louis XVI., July 17, 1791.

[176]Voltaire died at Paris in May, 1778. His body, lest burial should be refused, was carried to the Abbey of Scellières. Thence the remains were brought, Sunday, July 10, 1791, to the ruins of the Bastille, and placed the next day in the Pantheon.

[177]On Wednesday, July 13, 1791, the report of the seven committees on the affairs of the king was read before the National Assembly, detailing the circumstances of the king's escape, and stating the manner in which, by the laws of the Constitution, the Assembly should conduct itself towards the king. Practically, the report was in favour of the inviolability of the king's person. In this sense it was adopted on July 15, 1791, and against it was held the meeting of the Champs de Mars on July 17.

[178]J. Pierre Brissot (de Warville) (1754-93) was at this time a supporter of the Duc d'Orléans. He afterwards led theBrissotinsagainst theMontagnards, and was guillotined with the Girondists in October, 1793.

[179]On the Island of St. Pierre, in the Lake of Bienne, J. J. Rousseau lived in 1765.

[180]After the meeting of the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia at Pilnitz, Coblentz became the rallying-point of theémigrés—"a small extra-national Versailles: a Versaillesin partibus."

[181]The family of Guiche were descended fromla belle Corisande, who, left a widow at twenty-six by the death of her husband, the Comte de Guiche, became the mistress of Henry IV., then only King of Navarre. The Duc de Guiche (afterwards Duc de Grammont) married, in 1779, a daughter of the Duchesse de Polignac, and to her interest he owed his place as captain of the Villeroy Company of the Gardes du Corps. He was also colonel of theDragons de la Reine. The duke is a "good-natured young man" (Lord Auckland's Journal and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 412).

[182]Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria and of the Palatinate.

[183]Monsieur, the title given to the eldest brother of the reigning King of France, was the Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII. (1755-1824). Madame, his wife, was Maria Josephine Louisa, daughter of Victor Amadeus III. of Sardinia. They escaped from Paris on the same night as Louis XVI.

[184]The Prince of Nassau-Siegen sailed round the world with Bougainville (1766-69), served in the Spanish army at the siege of Gibraltar, then entered the service of the Empress Catharine, and, as an admiral, commanded the Russian fleet against Turkey and afterwards against Sweden.

[185]Count Nicholas Romanzov, son of the distinguished Russian general.

[186]Marc Hilaire de Conzie (1732-1805), Bishop of St. Omer, became, in 1769, Bishop of Arras. With his brother, who succeeded him as Bishop of St. Omer, he administered the province of Artois. He followed the Comte d'Artois in his flight to Italy, and at London was afterwards his chief political adviser. He was a friend of Madame du Deffand, who writes of him enthusiastically. The Duc de Lévis (Souvenirs et portraits) speaks of him less favourably: "Il ne fit que du mal à son parti."

[187]The Baron de Luckner (1722-1794), a Bavarian, entered the French service after the Seven Years' War, was made a marshal in 1791, and guillotined in 1794.

[188]The Duc de Broglie (1718-1804), one of the most distinguished of the French generals during the Seven Years' War, was made a marshal in 1759. Louis XVI. appointed him in 1789 Minister of War; but he was among the earliest of theémigrés. He entered the Russian service in 1794.

[189]In August, 1790, the Swiss Regiment of Château-Vieux mutinied at Metz, demanding arrears of pay. They fired upon the National Guard, seized the regimental treasury, and killed Desilles. The outbreak was quelled by Bouillé. Of the survivors of the Regiment of Château-Vieux, twenty-three were hanged, and forty-one sent to the galleys. These galley-slaves were subsequently released; afêtein their honour was decreed by the Assembly; their chains hung up as trophies in the Jacobin Club at Brest, and the men carried through Paris in triumph on April 15, 1792.

[190]The meeting of the King Frederick William of Prussia and the Emperor Leopold of Austria at Pilnitz in 1791, excited the greatest interest in Europe. It was supposed at the time that the second partition of Poland was there concerted. But no definite declaration in common seems to have been signed at that time by the two sovereigns, except an engagement to make certain representations to the French Government as to Louis XVI., the Monarchy, and the restoration of property to theémigrés, and to invite an European concert for the purpose of enforcing these representations.

[191]In hisLetter to a Member of the National Assembly, dated January 19, 1791 (Works(1855), vol. ii. pp. 546, 547), Burke spoke severely of Mounier and Lally. He took up the position of a French aristocrat, and treated the English Constitution as unsuited to France. Lally replied to him in hisLettre au très hon. Edm. Burke, membre du parlement d'Angleterre(June 20, 1791), and in hisSeconde lettrein 1792. In these letters he defended the aims of the constitutional reformers in France.

[192]On October 1, 1791, the Duke of York was married at Berlin to the Princess Frederica of Prussia. On November 23 they were remarried, at seven o'clock in the evening, at "the Queen's house" in London.

[193]In India against Tippoo. See note at the end of the letter.

[194]Between 9 and 12 a.m. on December 21, 1791, the Duke of Richmond's house in Privy Gardens, now called Whitehall Gardens, was almost completely destroyed by fire.

[195]Henrietta, daughter of John, second Earl of Buckinghamshire (born 1762), married, in 1780, Armar Corry, Earl of Belmore, from whom she was divorced in 1792. She afterwards, April 16, 1793, married William, Earl of Ancram.

[196]The Countess of Tyrconnel, the second wife of the Earl of Tyrconnel, was the youngest daughter of Lord Delaval, and therefore a niece of the notorious Sir Francis Delaval. Rumour had coupled her name with that of the Duke of York (Wraxall'sPosthumous Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 192).

[197]John Boydell, in 1786, began to prepare his illustrated edition of Shakespeare, and built a gallery in Pall Mall for the exhibition of the pictures painted for the work. The work was published in eighteen parts, of which the first appeared in 1791, and the whole was completed in 1802.

[198]The third Mysore war began with the invasion of the protected district of Travancore in 1789 by Tippoo, who laid waste the Carnatic almost to the gates of Madras. The war lasted for three years. Lord Cornwallis, in April and May, 1791, advanced from Bangalore to Seringapatam, and drove Tippoo's army before him into the capital (May 15). General Abercromby, advancing towards the same point from the west, reached Periapatnam. But, owing to the difficulty of crossing the swollen Cavery, the two forces could not unite. A few days later, the heavy rains and want of provisions compelled Cornwallis (May 26) to retire, leaving the greater part of his heavy artillery. At the same time Abercromby retreated to Tellicherry on the east coast. Near Bangalore, Cornwallis unexpectedly encountered the Mahratta horse advancing to his assistance. In the autumn and winter months many hill-forts were reduced on the road to Seringapatam, and on February 5, 1792, Cornwallis once more arrived before its walls. Tippoo, on March 18, 1792, signed a peace by which he surrendered half his territories, paid a war indemnity, and gave up two of his sons as hostages for the due performance of the treaty.

[199]The States-General met May 5, 1789. On June 17, 1789, the Third Estate formed itself into a National Assembly, which was dissolved September 30, 1791. The Legislative Assembly, also constituted a National Assembly, sate from October 1, 1791, to September 21, 1792. In December, 1791, Louis XVI. threatened that, if the Electors of Trèves and Mayence did not prevent the assembly of troops in their territories, he would declare war. On March 1, 1792, the Emperor Leopold II. died, and was succeeded, as King of Hungary and Bohemia, by his son Francis Joseph. Against him France declared war, April 20, 1792.

[200]Gustavus III., King of Sweden (1746-1792), was assassinated by Anckarström in March, 1792. He had offered his services against France as generalissimo of the forces of the Allied Powers.

[201]Russia, after withdrawing her ambassador from Paris, ordered the French minister to leave St. Petersburg in August, 1792.

[202]The negroes in the French or western part of the Island of St. Domingo rose against the whites in August, 1791. In September the General Assembly of the island appealed to the National Assembly at Paris for aid, by a letter detailing the horrors of the insurrection, and later (November 30) by sending a deputy, who was heard in the National Assembly. The insurrection was the first step in the independence of Hayti, which was recognized by the French in 1825. A Comte d'Argout succeeded the Comte d'Ennery as governor of the colony in 1777.

[203]A commission presided over by M. Fischer, supported by two or three thousand militia of the Canton of Berne, was sent to inquire into the attempts to introduce the principles of the French Revolution into the Pays de Vaud. Several persons were arrested, and secretly examined. MM. Rosset and La Motte were confined in the Castle of Chillon, and being afterwards condemned to a long period of imprisonment for correspondence with the French, were transferred to the Castle of Arbourg, whence they escaped.

[204]Lally's tragedy ofStrafford, in five acts and verse, was printed at London in 1795. HisEssai sur la vie de Thomas Wentworth, Comte de Strafford, was published at London in the same year. Madame d'Arblay, in February, 1792, speaks of Miss Fanshawe having heard "the famous M. Lally Tolendahl read a French tragedy upon an English subject written by himself! The subject was the death of Strafford." Lally was probably attracted to the subject by the circumstances of his own father's execution.

[205]Marie Antoinette was born November 2, 1755.

[206]Bouillé, warned by a messenger from Choiseul that the king was detained at Varennes, rode from Dun-sur-Meuse, about twenty-two miles from Montmédy, to within sight of the village, but could not cross the Aire; thousands of the National Guard had mustered, and the king was already on his return journey to Paris.

[207]The Comte de Damas, who was stationed on the Ste. Menehould side of Varennes, joined the king at Clermont-en-Argonne, where the road westward from Ste. Menehould strikes to the north to Varennes and Montmédy. The Duc de Choiseul and his hussars, who had been posted on the Montmédy side of Varennes, also joined the king at Varennes. But their troops refused to act against the National Guard. The relays were stationed at the further side of the bridge over the Aire, which had been blocked by Postmaster Drouet.

[208]In Westmoreland County, Jamaica, "particularly in the parish of St. Elizabeth, there have been nightly meetings of the Negroes, where they have not hesitated to call Wilberforce their King, by the name (in their way) ofKing Wilberforce." (Extract from a letter quoted in theGentleman's Magazinefor February, 1792, vol. 62, p. 174.)

[209]Amélie de Boufflers, only daughter of the Duc de Boufflers, was born in 1751. J. J. Rousseau speaks enthusiastically of her, when he saw her as a girl at the house of her grandmother, the Maréchale de Luxembourg. She married, in 1766, Armand Louis de Gontaut, Duc de Lauzun, who succeeded his uncle as Duc de Biron. Dissolute and a spendthrift, the duke hated the king and queen because he had not been appointed to succeed his uncle as Colonel of the Guards (Souvenirs et Portraits, par le Duc de Lévis, pp. 191-201). He joined the extreme revolutionary party. His wife, who had lived apart from him for many years, in 1791-2 passed some months at Lausanne. She returned to France from England in November, 1792, was arrested and released at the intercession of her husband, whom she had not seen for fifteen years. In England she lived with the Princesse d'Hénin till October, 1793, when she again returned to France. She was arrested and guillotined in 1794. The Duc was executed in December, 1793.

[210]Louis Necker (1730-1801), elder brother of Jacques Necker the statesman, assumed the name of de Germanie on succeeding to an estate of that name which he inherited from his father. He had made a fortune as a banker at Marseilles.

[211]The Baron de Staël-Holstein was Swedish Ambassador at Paris from 1783 to 1792.

[212]M. de Narbonne-Lara was Minister of War from December, 1791, to March, 1792. Born in 1755, he is said to have been the son of Madame Adelaide and the Comte de Narbonne, her chamberlain. He was one of the few persons who, according to Talleyrand, were completely in the confidence of Mirabeau. "Le Comte Louis de Narbonne est enfin ministre de la guerre, d'hier," wrote Marie Antoinette to Count Fersen. "Quelle gloire pour Mmede Stael, et quel plaisir pour elle d'avoir toute l'armée ... à elle!" (Klinckowström,Le Comte de Fersen et la Cour de France, i. 269). After the insurrection of August 10, 1792, Narbonne was saved by Madame de Staël and M. Bollmann, and took refuge in England.

[213]Antoine de Lessart, Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs (1791-2), was accused of corresponding with theémigrésand the emperor, tried before the High Court of Orleans for treason, and murdered in the September massacres of 1792.

[214]The Emperor Leopold II. died March 1, 1792, and was succeeded by his son Francis Joseph, who, pending his election as emperor, took the title of King of Bohemia and Hungary.

[215]Taine traces to the action of Marseilles in the autumn of 1791 the first crop of the "arbre révolutionnaire" (La Révolution, vol. ii. c. vi.). Marseilles, in fact, became a Republic which undertook the conquest of southern provinces. In February, 1792, four thousand Marseillais marched upon Aix, and disarmed and pillaged the Swiss Regiment of Ernest. In the following March, they made themselves masters of Arles. Their troops, "vraie Sodome errante," pillaged the country, and plundered, outraged, or massacred peaceful inhabitants. Avignon, which with the Comtat Venaissin was united to France in September, 1791, was the next object of their attack. It had been, in October, 1791, the scene of the horrible massacres of La Glacière perpetrated by JourdanCoupe-Têteand the "Brigands of Avignon." Jourdan's cruelties had produced a reaction. But in April, 1792, he was carried in triumph by the Marseillais through the streets of the city, and restored to his usurped position as governor and commander-in-chief. Jourdan, it may be added, was guillotined in May, 1794.

[216]In April, 1792, Wilberforce brought forward his annual motion for the abolition of the slave trade. Pitt made one of his most eloquent speeches in its support. Dundas moved as an amendment a gradual measure of abolition. His amendment, though opposed by Fox, was carried (April 2) by 193 to 125. He subsequently (April 23) moved a series of resolutions to effect a gradual abolition. These were taken up by Pitt, and, with some amendments, carried. In the Lords a proposal to receive evidence on the subject was carried (May 8), and there for the time proceedings stopped. The Bill for the general abolition of the slave trade received the royal assent in March, 1807.

[217]On June 7, 1792, Captain John Kimber was tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of a negro girl on board theRecovery. He was acquitted, and two of the witnesses for the prosecution were committed for trial for perjury. On February 19, 1793, Surgeon Dowling, the principal witness against Kimber, was convicted of perjury. The charge against Kimber was urged by Wilberforce in his speech of April 2, 1792.

[218]The Jockey Club; or, A Sketch of the Manners of the Age(Parts i., ii., iii.), by Charles Pigott, is an attack on monarchy and aristocracy, a defence of the French Revolution, and an appeal to Fox to use his influence in favour of France in a war which is "the general cause of all human nature. It is the cause of sovereigns and certain individuals enjoying exclusive privileges to the injury of the rest, against the combined immortal cause of the whole world."

[219]On April 30, 1792, Mr. Grey, in consequence of a resolution adopted by the "Friends of the People," gave notice of his intention to move for an inquiry into the representative system. On this notice a debate followed. Grey was supported by Fox. Pitt, on the other hand, declared that if ever there was a time when such a question should not be raised, the present was that time. Burke spoke in the same sense, attacking Paine'sRights of Man, and all clubs and societies which recommended the principles of that work. On May 6, 1792, Grey presented a petition from the "Friends of the People," in which the abuses of the electoral system were exposed, and moved that it be referred to a committee. After a debate of two nights, he found only forty-one supporters.

[220]Gibbon probably refers to the "Friends of the People," an association for the reform of the representative system, to which Lord Lauderdale, Grey, Sheridan, Erskine, and twenty-five other members of Parliament belonged.

[221]Berne.

[222]Dumouriez, in April, 1792, despatched three armies to invade Belgium. The column directed against Tournay dispersed, and murdered Dillon, their commander. That which marched against Mons fled as soon as they came in sight of the Austrians near Jemappes.

[223]Name erased.

[224]"Cet audacieux et rusé Harris" is the phrase used by Mirabeau of Lord Malmesbury (Cour de Berlin,Lettrexxxvii., vol. ii. p. 13).

[225]Gibbon's library at Lausanne was bought, in 1796, from Lord Sheffield by Beckford for £950. Beckford shut himself up in it "for six weeks, from early in the morning until night, only now and then taking a ride," and read himself "nearly blind" (Cyrus Redding's "Recollections of the Author of Vathek,"New Monthly Magazine, vol. lxxi. p. 307). Growing tired of it, he gave it to Dr. Scholl, a physician at Lausanne. Miss Berry, who visited the library in July, 1803 (Journals and Letters, vol. ii. p. 260), says, "It is, of all the libraries I ever saw, that of which I should most covet the possession—that which seems exactly everything that any gentleman or gentlewoman fond of letters could wish." "Gibbon's library," says Henry Mathews in 1818 (Diary of an Invalid, p. 318), "still remains, but it is buried and lost to the world. It is the property of Mr. Beckford, and lies locked up in an uninhabited house at Lausanne." In 1830 the library was divided into two parts. Half was sold for £500 to an English gentleman; the other half went at the same price to a bookseller at Geneva. The half which was sold to an English purchaser was, in 1876 (Notes and Queries, 5th series, vol. v. p. 425), still kept together in the possession of a Swiss gentleman near Geneva.

[226]John Nichols, F.S.A. (1745-1826), the author of numerous works of great literary and historical value, and from 1778 to 1826 printer, proprietor, and, from 1792, sole manager of theGentleman's Magazine, to which he constantly contributed.

[227]The letter is published in theGentleman's Magazinefor January, 1794.

[228]The letter referred to in theGentleman's Magazineis signed "N. S." It gives the Gibbon pedigree from 1596 down to the historian. It no doubt at first attracted Gibbon's attention from the circumstance of its immediately preceding a communication entitled "Strictures on Some Passages in Mr. Gibbon's History." The article in theGentleman's Magazinewas by Sir Egerton Brydges, whose grandmother was a Gibbon, the heiress of Edward Gibbon of West Cliff, and first cousin to the South Sea director who was the historian's grandfather. Gibbon's letter on the subject to Sir Egerton Brydges is quoted by the latter in hisAutobiography(vol. i. pp. 225-227).

[229]Probably General Budé, who is mentioned by Madame d'Arblay as holding an appointment about the court at Windsor (Diary and Letters, iii. 40).

[230]A large number of troops were assembled at Bagshot Camp on July 23, and were reviewed by the king on July 26, and engaged in sham-fights on July 27, 30, 31.

[231]On May 21, 1792, the king issued a proclamation against tumultuous meetings and seditious writings. Both Houses concurred in an address of thanks to the king for the proclamation (June 1). The question divided the Whig party, the majority of which from this time supported Pitt. Fox for the next few years scarcely mustered fifty followers.

[232]Lord Sheffield expressed an opinion which at the time was common. The sympathy which was avowed by leading Nonconformists with some of the objects of the Revolution was not unnaturally misinterpreted at a period of public excitement. Dr. Price was chairman of the Revolution Society, which corresponded with various societies in France. Their correspondence with French clubs was published in 1792; but it is significant that the letters on the king's escape and subsequent arrest, sent to the Jacobin Club in 1791, the existence of which was revealed by the answer of the Jacobins, were omitted from the publication. Dr. Priestley, subsequently elected to the National Convention, presided at the meeting of the Unitarian Society at the King's Head Tavern, in February, 1791, when, among other toasts, "Thomas Paine and the Rights of Man," and "The National Assembly of France, and may every tyrannical government undergo a similar revolution," were drunk with enthusiasm. Such distinguished Nonconformists as Dr. Kippis, Dr. Rees, and Dr. Towers were also prominent members of these or similar societies. The Society of Constitutional Whigs, who addressed the National Assembly in the autumn of 1792, declaring that, if any attempt were made to enslave the French people, they would die in their defence, also appealed to Dissenters. InA Few Queries to the Methodists in Generaloccurs the following:—"Query: Does not both reason and revelation teach us, that in order to lay the axe at the root of the tree of wickedness, we must begin with kings and princes, and bishops and priests?"

[233]Lord Chancellor Thurlow, whose influence with the king was immense, and whose intrigues with Fox at the time of the Regency Bill were well known, opposed Pitt's Sinking Fund and the Bill for the encouragement of the growth of timber in the New Forest, and denounced his colleagues as traitors to the interest of their sovereign. He was dismissed from the Lord Chancellorship in June, 1792.

[234]The actual fusion of parties did not take place till July, 1794, when Lord Camden had died and Lord Stafford retired, and Dundas, retaining the Colonies, resigned the Secretaryship at War to Windham. It was delayed by the indecision of the Duke of Portland, of whom Lady Malmesbury said, "The Duke of Portland is our Duke of Brunswick—no party will be led to victory by either" (Life and Letters of Sir G. Elliot, vol. ii. p. 72).

[235]Lord Loughborough, Lord Malmesbury, the Duke of Portland, and Dundas attempted to effect a coalition between Pitt and Fox in the summer and autumn of 1792. The negotiations failed. "Fox," says Lord Malmesbury (July 30, 1792), "made Pitt's quitting the Treasury asine quâ non, and was so opinionative and fixed about it, that it was impossible even to reason with him on the subject." "You see how it is," said Burke; "Mr. Fox's coach stops the way."

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