FRANCE IN 1789.* Ix a letter from Tocqueville to Mrs.

Grote, quoted in the introduction to this volume, that great writer observes :—" Le monde qui a prked6 in revolution francaise, est presque aussi difficile u retrouver et h comprendre quo Ics époques antedi- luviennes." It cannot be said that 1)r. Rigby's interesting and intelligent letters make the subject clearer. A physician, a classic scholar, a naturalist, "a sound administrator and a reformer

of abuses a Whig of the old stamp, and so ardently

interested in national politics as to take what was rarely then done in Norwich, though acknowledged to be a city of singular intelligence, a daily London 'paper, the Morning Chronicle," Dr.

Rigby possessed many advantages of position and culture.

Moreover, he was a good French scholar, and " a practical and enthusiastic farmer." This last qualification is one rarely pos- sessed by travellers, and it gives a special value to the writer's comments on the state of the country as he journeyed from Calais to Paris in the summer of 1789. The extreme fertility of the land amazed him. Writing from Lisle, he observes :— " The crops are great beyond any conception I could have had of them,—thousands and tens of thousands of acres of wheat, superior to any which can be produced in England ;" and he adds, " everything we see bears the mark of industry, and all time people look happy." Again, from Chantilly Dr. Rigby writes :—" The cultivation of this country is in- deed incredible ; we have travelled 200 miles through it, and not seen an inch but which is highly cultivated and fertile. I am sure these people have the means of happiness ; every- thing we see bears the marks of industry and cheerfulness." The same impression prevailed after leaving Paris for the South, when he notes, as before, his astonishment at the culti- vation of every inch of land, the goodness of the roads and horses, the cheerful look of the people.

These expressions are the more remarkable, as Dr. Rigby's mind was by no means of a conservative type, and happy as he thought the people, he hailed the commencement of the Revo- lution with delight. The English travellers—for Dr. Rigby was accompanied by three friends—reached Paris at a critical

• Dr. Rigby's Leiters from France, fit., in 1789. Edited by his Daughter Lady Eastlake. Loudon Longman".

juncture. There were signs that a storm was lowering. Necker had been dismissed, and large bodies of troops had entered the city ; but the writer at first anticipated a mere temporary dis- turbance, and on July 16th considered that all danger was over.

Two days later, he writes joyously of having witnessed the most extraordinary revolution that perhaps ever took place in human society,—a revolution accomplished by a great and wise people, " with very little loss of blood, and with but few days' inter- ruption to the common business of the place." He is proud of the people and of their achievement, hopes that in no future time the wrong-headed politics of our country will oblige us to con- sider them as our enemies, and adds, " To the eye of the moralist and philosopher, the prospect of the effect of this Revolution on science, manners, and human happi- ness can but be most gratifying." It is a pity we have not Dr. Rigby's judgment at a later period. He would have had something more to say, and perhaps his enthusiasm in the good cause would have been less ardent, had he remained in Paris during the excesses of October. The Englishmen carried letters to Mirabean, Target, and some other popular members of the Assembly ; but saw only Target, who told them that the crisis was fast approaching, that the Court was driven to extremity, and that although he and his friends were pro- scribed, they were sure of the people, and were not without hope that the army would declare in their favour. In the gardens of Versailles, the sight of many members of the Tiers

Etat, in black gowns, conversing with much earnestness, re- minded Dr. Rigby of the Athenian groves filled with philoso-

phers. The sight of Marie Antoinette, whose face was marked by anxiety, also awakens reflections :-

" The dignity of countenance which, according to various descrip- tions, formed at an earlier period of her life a most interesting addition to those charms of natural beauty so profusely bestowed on her, might be said, indeed, to remain, but it had assumed more of the character of severity. The forehead was corrugated, the eyebrows thrown forward, and the eyes but little open, and turning with seem- ing caution from side to side, discovered, instead of gaiety or even serenity, an expression of suspicion and care which necessarily much abated of that beauty for which she had once with truth been celebrated."

Vivid pictures are given of the streets of Paris after the Dragoons had fired on the people in the gardens of the Tuileries. An angry mob had gathered, armed with guns, swords, and pikes, and carrying torches ; the guard-houses were attacked and burnt, and the emblems of royalty which decorated Paris became objects of the grossest insult :—

"At about eleven o'clock," he writes, "on the Monday (July 13th), we wont to the Post Office and found all in confusion ; one of the clerks, in an agony of distress, crying and biting his hands. We also called at our banker's, but could get no cash, the Caisse d'escompte refusing to do any business. The populace still continued parading the streets in large bodies. We met one, containing at least four thousand, going into the Palais Royal, who insisted on oar taking off our hats. All the prisons, except the Bastille, were opened on this day; and we saw one prisoner, Lord Massareene, an Irish nobleman, pass through the streets. He is said to have been a captive twenty- three years ; ho was dressed in a white frock, like a cook, and had a bar of iron on his shoulders."

The next day a Canadian Frenchman told the travellers that it had been resolired to attack the Bastille, at which they smiled, so improbable did the success of such an undertaking seem ; before night, however, it was in the hands of the people, the

prisoners were free, and the Governor and Commandant mas- sacred. A burst of frantic joy at the cry "La Bastille est prise '

resounded through the streets of the city, and Dr. Rigby relates how he caught the general enthusiasm, joined in

the shouts of liberty, and shook hands with freed French- men. " For myself," he says, " I shall ever be proud to re- member the emotion that was raised in me at the time.

Never was a scene more intensely interesting, never were my feelings so truly delightful." His feelings of delight were, however, checked at the sight of two bloody heads raised on

pikes ; and the traveller's horror was not lessened the next day, upon passing the Place des Morgues, where lay the bodies of

some of those who had died before the Bastille. Parents who could not find their sons, and wives who had lost their husbands, came to seek them in this dreadful place :-

" We saw a woman at the moment of discovering her husband or her son ; the loudest and most thrilling shriek I have ever heard, though you know 1 have heard Mrs. Siddons, was the signal of her discovery. The surrounding crowd felt the shriek, retreated back, and seemed to re-echo it. The woman literally pulled handfuls of hair off her head, then lifted up her hands and eyes to Heaven, with a countenance of such horror as I can neither describe nor even wish to recollect, and fell suddenly on the corpse." It was high time to leave Paris, but escape was difficult. The magistrates gave the Englishmen passports, advising them, at the same time, not to go that day. They resolved to leave, notwithstanding, and started in an English coach with six horses ; but the carriage was stopped, and its occupants ordered to the Town Hall to be examined. The magistrates gave a fresh passport, couched in stronger terms, and a guard of twelve armed men. The barrier was reached in safety, and the escort seems to have departed, for we read that a fierce-looking man, armed with a musket, jumped into the coach, and ordered the postilions to drive once more to the Town Hall. After another audience with the magistrates, they were again free to leave,—or rather, might attempt to do so. The chance of success was, however, so slight, that it was judged better to remain until the city was quieter, and the travellers drove to an hotel, which they reached, after being forced to submit to a rigorous search. They had thus the opportunity they desired of seeing the King enter Paris on July 17th. " I might almost say led captive," are Dr. Rigby's words, and he adds, "To a philosophic mind, it could not but be interesting to reflect that one of the most populous and best-informed nations in the world was making an effort to regulate civil society, to extend the exercise of man's intellectual faculties, and to reform the principles of polity and government." After visiting the Bastille, and seeing the battlements tumble down, " amidst the applauding shoats of the people," the English travellers once more obtained a passport, and leaving Paris very early on the morning of July 19th, escaped this time without difficulty, and took the road to Dijon.

Dr. Rigby had a passion for French scenery, French man- ners, and French industry, and his admiration, as he journeys to the south, is unbounded. " We were constantly exclaiming, as we passed along, What a country is this ! What fertility in the soil! What industry in the inhabitants ! What a charming climate!' " At Macon they saw hundreds of well-dressed per- sons enjoying themselves, talking and sitting in the porticos on chairs and benches near the river, and for a moment the writer wished he was an inhabitant of the town, and could sit among that happy people. Great, too, is his admiration of the approach to Lyons,—" with such a multitude of châteaux and country houses, belonging to the rich manufacturers of the city, of farm-houses and neat cottages, all commanding beau- tiful prospects, as is, perhaps, not to be equalled in any part of the world." Nor were these the sole charms Lyons had to offer, for Dr. Rigby was assured that a gentleman, with a wife and small family, might live well on £60 a year. " What a charm- ing country this !" he exclaims, "for people of small fortunes A few hundreds a year would be here a most capital income. There are many English families settled here, and I should imagine there will soon be more, as the form of government is likely to be so much improved." Little did Dr. Rigby imagine that within four years the city of which he was so proud would be the scene of atrocities well-nigh unparalleled, that its public, buildings would be destroyed, and vast numbers of its inhabi- tants massacred.

In bidding farewell to France, Dr. Rigby once more expresses the warmest admiration of the country and of the people, and evidently regards Frenchmen as superior in some respects to his own countrymen. He has little praise to bestow upon what he saw in Germany and Holland, and observes that every country and every people he had seen since leaving France " sink into

comparison [sic] with that animated country." Perhaps we have said enough of these Letters to show that the volume will well repay perusal.