LETTERS

FROM

GENEVA AND FRANCE.

LETTER LX.

MY DEAR E

IF you cast your eyes on the plan of Paris, you

will easily find in the north-west corner of it, the street of the Ferme des Mathurins; suppose mé setting out thence, and passing by the streets des Mathurins and Caumartin, as far as the Boulevards, crossing them, and proceeding by the street des Capucines, as far as the opening of the Place Vendome. On the right is the Place Vendome, from which a street leads into the street St. Honoré, on the other side of which a passage has been made through the ruins of the Capuchin Church and Convent, to a door which opens into the Gardens of the Tuileries; near this door, was the extremity of

the riding school, where the Convention sat when Louis XVI. took shelter on the 10th of August, with his family; and it was here that he was afterwards so unjustly condemned to death. Another opening has been made to the left, from the spot I supposed myself arrived at, in the street des Capucines, which communicates with the Boulevards, over the place which was formerly covered by the Convent and Garden of the Capucine Nuns. A community of pious women, who, like the Beguines of Flanders, and the Soeurs Grises, and Soeurs de le Charité, and the Hospital Nuns of other denominations, devoted themselves to the cause of suffering humanity in all the various retreats of misery, and with a zeal, which no earthly motive could have inspired. They went barefooted, and lived altogether upon vegetables, whilst whatever they could collect from the contributions of the pious, chiefly for the benefit of the poor, whose children they at the same time endeavoured to bring up in habits of industry and virtue, teaching them to read and giving them the rudiments of religion, and encouraging the parent to put them in some way of making their bread honestly. At the suppression of the religious houses, a part of their Convent was converted into a manufactory of assignats, and millions continued to flow thence, until a pound sterling was equivalent to 18,000 livres; the other parts were let out for taverns and retail stores, for puppet shows and panoramas, and for the Amphitheatre of Franconi, while the idle boys: of the neighbourhood found amusement in what

remained of the gardens. A few steps along the Rue des Capucines (I wish you would allow me, for the future, to say Rue, though as an Englishman in one of Foote's plays observes, it is a very strange way of calling a street) a few steps then, along the Rue des Capucines, would bring one into the Rue des Petits Champs, and a few more, to the corner of the Rue d'Antin, to the spot where the fatal duel took place in the minority of Louis XIV. between the two brothers, the Dukes of Nemours and of Beaufort; the first, who would listen to no terms of accommodation, was, as it should seem it ought to have been, the one killed. You must now follow me in imagination, through the Place Vendome, into the Rue St. Honoré, so distinguished for elegant shops of every sort, and proceed as far as the Church of St. Roch; this spot was originally a small circular hill, at a little distance from the walls of Paris, in which it was not included till the time of Henry IV. or Louis XIII. It was here, that in the year 1429, the celebrated Maid of Orleans stood, and pointed a cannon against the town, then in the hands of the English; it was for many years occupied by a windmill, but a handsome church was at length erected there, and it was from the steps of this church, that a glazier's wife, passing early on a winter's morning, took the poor little infant, not a day old, who was afterwards known in the world by the name of D'Alembert. He was a profound and distinguished geometrician, an elegant writer on subjects of lighter literature, and a good-humoured, humane and generous man: one of his parents, Madame de Tencin, who had

never lost sight of him, wished at length to have acknowledged him publickly as her son, but he chose, that the celebrity which he had now acquired, should shed all its lustre upon the good woman who protected his helpless infancy; he would never quit his lodgings at her house, or have any other mother, was his expression, but the glazier's wife. She survived him, and her old age was rendered comfortable, by the little fortune which it was in his power to leave her. This Church of St. Roch is also remarkable for another event, of which it bears evident memorials upon the whole of its front. It was early in 1795, that the remains of the Jacobin party, who had a majority of the citizens in their favour, and who were strengthened by a large accession of concealed royalists, began to recover from their defeat of the 9th Thermidor, of the year before, and to avail themselves of the fluctuating pusillanimous conduct of the Convention, whom they insulted in every manner, and at length attacked with an armed force. Menou had been sent against them, and Barras was next appointed general; but he had the good sense to let the command devolve upon a young man, lately made a brigadier of artillery, who had distinguished himself at Toulon, and who was known not to be too tender-hearted for a similar employment; this was Bonaparte, who approaching the church of St. Roch by the narrow passage of the Rue de Dauphin, drove the opposite party from it with his artillery, and cannonaded them without mercy, in every part of the city, wherever they ventured to

show themselves: several thousands of the citizens lost their lives upon the occasion. The Parisians are said never to have forgiven the execution of this day, which is called in the History of the Revolution, the 13th Vendemaire. It was along the Rue St. Honoré, that the unfortunate Queen of France was conducted to the guillotine, in 1793. I have seen a letter from a young Genevan to his father, in which was the following paragraph: “I was standing with many others, upon the steps of St. Roch, when the cart came by; it was a common cart, such as is made use of for carrying criminals to execution. The Queen was seated in it, with her hands tied behind her; her eyes were swelled, from the tears which probably she had shed the night before, but her air was composed, and her looks erect; she was decently dressed in white, and bad on a close cap; a confessor was seated beside her, but she did not appear to have any conversation with him." The world is in some measure, at length, undeceived with respect to this unfortunate princes; she had defended herself with the courage of innocence, before the infamous tribunal, but was prepared to meet her fate; the amusement of her few last days, was to knit a purse from the yarn of the tapestry that lined her chamber; she herself ironed the gown she was to wear, and expressed no fear, but that the hatred of the people would not suffer her to reach the scaffold. If I were once to give way to what rises in my mind, upon this subject, my description of Paris would never be finished. Suppose yourself now to have