LORD GOWER'S DESPATCHES.*
Mn. OSCAR Baowsrso, who has done so much to vivify and popularise the study of history in Cambridge, has pub- lished, through the medium of the Cambridge University Press, a collection of documents upon the French Revolu- tion. He states that M. Taine and M. Sorel have declared that the despatches of Lord Gower are of "high value, and that their publication would be an important contri- bution to historical study." Besides these despatches, the volume contains those of Mr. Lindsay, who was Charge d'Affaires after his Lordship's departure, some letters from a Mr. Munro, an agent of the English Government, and a diary of the second Lord Palmerston, daring the summer of 1791, of his visit to Paris. There are also two appendices, the one containing a correspondence addressed to I.ord Elgin, who was Minister in Brussels, in 1791, and the other a short paper on the return from Varennes. With regard to the Ambassador, Lord Gower, his despatches have been already noticed by one who was naturally interested in them,—namely, his grandson, Lord Ronald Gower, who in his Rerninisc,ences thus speaks of them and their author :— "The only interesting incident I can discover regarding my grand- father's youth, for nothing can be imagined less interesting than his career, to whom fortune had been so lavish, is that after leaving Westminster School he was sent to study French at Auxerre, by the advice of Edmund Burke. He is said to have spoken French with fluency, an accomplishment which he must have found useful when Ambassador at the Court of Louis XVI. When only thirty-three he was pitchforked into the most important diplomatic post in Europe. I cannot find that he had held any diplomatic office before, or even what his qualifications were, besides having learnt French at Auxerre, for filling such an exalted position as Ambassador. Those were, how- ever, the good old days, when jobs were not the exception, but the rule and order of the day. But what a position was it for a dull young man of thirty-three to find himself suddenly placed in the highest rank of the Diplomatic Service ! and at a time when France was beginning to be menaced by the shadow of the dark cloud of revolution and anarchy that was then gathering over her ! For that he was dull I think there can be little doubt. Dull he looks as a youth, when he eat for his portrait to Romney ; and dull he looks in his old age, when Phillips painted and Chantry sculptured him. I have searched in vain his despatches to find what manner of man my grandfather was, for none of his private letters, if he wrote any, have been preserved; but the Record Office throws no light on his character. Neither have I beard that he ever said anything worth remembering ; if he did, it has been forgotten long ago. Perhaps it is hardly fair to expect diplomatic despatches to be amusing, or to throw much light on the character and mind of the writer ; but at such a crisis as the outbreak of the great French Revolution we might expect that even an Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- tiary might, even in his despatches, have occasionally written some- thing more interesting than at other and more ordinary times. Bat no ; his despatches are mere records of official dullness, hopelessly and lamentably dull; almost as much so as poor Louis XVI.'s entries in his diary, when, for instance, on the day when the Bastille was pulled about its governor's ears, he wrote,—'Anjourd'hui—Rien.' His wife, Lady Sutherland, however, made up a little for her lord's
dullness Her sympathy for, and the little assistance she was able to render to, the unfortunate Queen of France are historical, and are still remembered with gratitude in the Faubourg St. Germain."
Such being the opinions of Lord Ronald Gower on the writings, character, or want of character, of his grandfather, we were curious to see how Mr. Browning justifies his decision to publish this volume. He states that three well-known London publishers, for various reasons given, refused to undertake the work, and he admits that the despatches "are not of an exciting character, nor do they show great insight or penetration," and that "they are, perhaps, more valuable because the writer did not com- prehend the full significance of the events which he describes," that he "was a bad writer of English, a faulty and inconsistent
• The Despatches of Earl Gamer, &c. Edited for the Syndics of the University Press by Omar Browninsr, M.A., Fellow of King's College, Camb:idge, and University Lecturer. Cambridge University Press. 1885. speller, and a most unscientific punctuator." We confess tbat, with these admissions before us, we are not surprised that the eminent publishers were not desirous of incurring the risk of bringing out this work. If the readers of it should not happen to have seen as many works on the French Revolution as it has been our lot to read,they might be much interested in this collection, as a record of the political relations between France and England, of the life that was led in the capital during the last few months in which life was bearable, and lastly, of the information conveyed by one of the most able writers of the day on the state of France daring the Terror ; but there is absolutely nothing new in the book, and we doubt whether Mr. Browning himself has suffici- ently examined the annals of the Revolution, or those of our own politicians of the period, to have judged as to the advisability of its publication. In the last page of the Introduction, he states that "Munro reached London on January 21st," 1793, and that "from that time Paris became a closed city. No authentic information of what passed within its walls reached England for a year, when Lord Elgin was able to send to Lord Grenville the most valuable papers, which are printed in Appendix 1, and which deserve the close attention of every historian." So far from this being the case, we find in all the memoirs of the time distinct allusions, not only to the fact of letters passing, but also of newspapers conveying the fullest account of the horrors that were taking place. On looking over the series of the Moniteur for 1793-91 there are also constant extracts from English newspapers. The Annual Registers of those years were only published some time afterwards, and therefore prove nothing; but they contain minute particulars of the events inside Paris, as well as those in the provinces where the armies were moving. We presume, therefore, that what Mr. Browning means is that the official records of the Foreign Office contain no authentic reports from Consular or other Diplomatic Agents- as to the state of the capital.
At page xvii. of the Introduction, Mr. Browning says that "English histories of this period do not make us understand how near we were to war with France in the autumn of 1790." This- appears to us to be lightly asserted. The dispute with Spain about Nootka Sound is mentioned in every history of the time ;. and the presence of Mr. Hugh Elliot in Paris, although there was some mystery connected with it at the time for obvious reasons,. has been referred to in several works. It is clear that he was commissioned to meddle in the matter not from Lord Gower's incapacity, but from the fact that he was already in communication with the Committee of the Assembly who- interfered with foreign affairs, and because it was thought that he would be able to say things officiously which Lord Gower's official position would have precluded him from saying. In Tomline's Life of Pitt, a letter from that statesman to Hugh Elliot is inserted without any name ; and in that by Lord Stan- hope, the correspondence is inserted and the name given. The episode was a most important one, because it tested the strength of France with her new institutions, and that of the family corn? pact between France and Spain.
Lord Gower gives fall reports of the gradual diminution of discipline and efficiency, both of the Army and Navy, and of the dilapidated state:of the finances, just at the moment when the labours of Pitt had placed those of England on a secure footing,. and when years of peace had given encouragement to the augmentation of her resources in every branch. No wonder, then, that the French Revolution was not otherwise than popular in England, and satisfactory to Mr. Pitt, for it was then believed that its constructive measures were a compliment to our own wisdom, while its destructive events tended to weaken that material force which we had to dread.
In November, 1790, after the quarrel had been patched up, Lord Gower writes" that the prospects of peace have damped the spirits of the aristocrats, but pleased the rest of the nation."' Communications of this kind, and the contempt which Lord Gower expresses concerning the puerilities in which, in the midst of such uninterrupted horrors, the Parisians indulge, are well worth noting ; but beyond this, we have in vain sought in these papers for any new fact or idea. On the deposition of the King, Lord Gower left for London, and the post of Charge" d'Affaires was occupied by Mr. Lindsay, whose letters are far more full and exciting than those of his chief. Those of Colonel Munro are still more so ; and his account of the massacre of the prisoners in September is the best thing in the book.
From these political reports we pass to Lord Palmerston's diary, which is much like that of any other travelling English- man, if the period had not been one of such thrilling im- portarps. We have also been shown another diary of the same date, written by one of the party whom Lord Palmetston mentions as forming part of his daily society. This is the diary of Miss Maria Holroyd, afterwards Lady Stanley of Alderley, daughter of Lord Sheffield, who, with her family, left England the day after they had received the news of the retorn from Varennes. The only circumstance mentioned by the young lady differing much from those recorded by Lord Palmerston is that of a visit to Evrenx, where the Due de Bouillon lived, and which, we think, must almost have been the last French clatitean of a great nobleman where life was going on more or less as usual before the final break-up. The Duke being a sovereign Prince, was still permitted to bear arms, although many people in the town wished to pull them down. The neighbouring forest belonging to him was in extent 80,000 acres, but the
peasants had 'destroyed all the game. Attached- to the palace
was a small theatre in which the Duke performed when his health permitted. The swans on the pond before the house had been killed, including the Duchess's pet pair, which she was accustomed to feed with her own hands. "The breakfast was roast fowls, steaks, soap, and spinach, all hot; dined at four o'clock, twenty-three people to dinner, twenty-four footmen, ten man-cooks ; servants take veils, have no wages."
The following was one day the young lady passed at Paris :—
"Mr Anderson went with us to the Church of Notre Dame ; heard the Bishop of Paris say mass ; went up to the top of the tower of Notre Dame. To the waxwork figures at the Palais Royal,— Mirabean on his death-bed, and a bust of him, Fayette, Bailly, Voltaire, Abbe Maury, the Dauphin, and Guillaume, who stopped the King, crowned with laurels ; dined at Lord Gower's, the English Ambassador's ; went to the Societe des Jacobins. Goupil and Brissot spoke, the latter against the King, saying that he might and ought to be tried. His speech was voted to be printed and sent to all the Deputies, the regiments, and municipalities. Colonel Tarleton and Mr. Pelham supped with as."
This debate in the Jacobins is described at length by Lord Palmerston, who says "that the shouts of applause given by so many hundred people on such a subject showed a kind of ferociousness of disposition which was infinitely disgusting to a a moderate mind." The next day was the apotheosis of Voltaire, and both of them went to the house of Madame de Villette, the niece of Voltaire, to see the procession, of which Lord Palmerston says "that it was very long ; but a great part of it consisted of very shabby, ill-dressed people, whose appearance was made worse by the mud and dirt they had collected." The sash worn by Miss Holroyd, which was made for .the occasion, was preserved by her with her journals, and with the illustrated edition of the new French Constitution, which a short time afterwards was presented to and accepted by the King. Of this Voltairian ceremony Lord Gower says,—" The proces- sion in honour of Voltaire, which took place on Monday, seemed more calculated to give entertainment to children than to have any good or even bad effect, excepting that it afforded an excuse for one whole day's idleness, a thing which he himself used often to lament." The next two days both parties went to the National Assembly and heard some noisy debates, and on the day following was the Federation, in which Lord Glower and Lord Palmerston both mention the murders which were committed on the two un- happy vagabonds who had got underneath the altar at the Champ de Mars. Lord Palmerston's diary ends on August 31st, and the young lady left Paris the day after the Federation.
Of all the events connected with the French Revolution, the most unaccountable is the resuscitation of the French Army and Navy during the Terror. Certain Generals at the outset of the war, such as Dillon, Custine, Damouriez, and others, were enabled, by the superiority of their communications and the disunion or self-seeking of the allies, to stave off that which was apparently inevitable ; but daring the Terror, some potent spell seems to have been thrown round the French arms which enabled the chiefs to roll back the tide of invasion. Lord Gower described the indiscipline of the Army and Navy, and the gradual crumbling away of anything like organisation ; and yet no sooner have the King and all his belongings departed than that which generally takes years to get together, namely, a land army capable of acting and fighting together, seems to have sprung out of nothing. Of all the descriptions of this wonderful phenomenon, there is nothing more perfect than that found in the letters to Lord Elgin bound up in this volume. We had, however, on reading them, a feeling that they were not quite new to us. We had vague ideas that either in the Auckland, Malmesbary, or other Memoirs we bad read some- thing like there or some 'allusions to them. We have already expressed our opinion that Mr. Browning cannot have had suffici- ent experience in the class of books which have long loaded our tables and shelves, seeing that a very slight inquiry would have made him aware that such papers as these could not have been left unpublished, and that, in fact, the greater part of them had been published long ago. We presume that these letters had no name attached to them, for had they been endorsed with the name of the author, we know by the index that Mr. Browning was not ignorant of his existence ; nor can we believe that, knowing it, he would have published them without saying whose they were. They are, for the most part, the letters of Mallet-du-Pan, published in 1851 in Paris, and in 1852 in English in London. The Memoirs containing them were reviewed in the Edinburgh Review in 1852; and only last year public attention was called to the writer, by a further publication of his correspondence with the Court of Vienna, which again was reviewed in the Edinburgh of last January. Of their author Carlyle says :—" Of all the writers on the Royalist side, indeed, I may say, on any side, Mallet seems to me to have taken incomparably the truest view of the enormous phenomena he was in the midst of."
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