BRISSOT.*
THE Brissotines were the Moderate Reformers of the French Revolution. They were quite as averse to the Monarchy as the Mountain faction, and therefore equally hateful to the Royalists ; but they were less attached to the People, and therefore not so acceptable to the Democrats. It was in the nature of things that a party with whom neither extreme sympathized should fall, and fall unregretted—for the admiration of the Brissotines seems to have been at all times greater in other nations than it was in France. The Revolution of 1789 bore no analogy to that of 1830. In the latter Revolution, there were no friends of absolute power to get rid of;—even PEYRONNET himself would not have advised the re-edification of the Bastile ;—and the friends of Monarchy -were a small and feeble and unintluential band. In 1789, the enemies of the people were numerous and strong ; and measures both sharp and decisive were required to put them down. No man can read, without strong feelings of disgust, the atrocities of Ro. BESPIERRE and his companions ; no honest man for any bribe would have lent his sanction to them; but with all our abhorrence Memoires de BrisioteWarville. 2 tomes. Paris, 1830. of the -means; - we are constrained to admit that the unsparing axe of the Mountain; and their confiscations, paved the way for
the regeneration of France. They were the whirlwind that cleared
an atmosphere whose heavy and noxious vapours no moderate breeze would have sufficed, to chase away. If the Brissotine party
had triumphed, it is still doubtful whether the military usurpation of BONAPARTE would not have been equally established, and whe- ther it might not have so connected itself with the remains of an- cient corruption as to defy all attempts to destroy it. The two published volumes of BRISSOT'S Memoirs contain little information respecting the Revolution or its actors ; for they come down only to 1787. The last event which they record—prepara- tory, indeed, to the mighty scenes that were exhibited two years after—is the famous bed of justice held in that year. Their contents are lively and amusing. The names 'which we' meet with in turning over the pages are mostly old acquaintances. The author's
sketches are slight—i/ glisse et ne s'arrele pas—but they are apparently faithful. The portrait of SWINTON, the proprietor of the Courrier de l'Europe, is extremely good. The description of his own early career in life is also excellent. BRISSOT was born at Chartres, in 1754; he was the thirteenth child of a family of seventeen. His father was a traiteur ; a
man of some substance —of a cold morose temper, of which his son feelingly complains—a rigid Catholic, and wholly subjected, with all his family, the future political chief excepted, to the sway of his father confessor. Against this priest, and indeed against all priests, BRISSOT inveighs most bitterly. He had been early im-
bued with infidel opinions ; the consequence—almost the natural consequence—in a strictly Catholic community, of a mind and temper given to the investigation of principles. His doubts, by the arts and insinuations of the priest, led to his total estrange- ment from his family. He particularly regrets the loss of his mo- ther's sympathies, and those of his eldest sister, who had taken the veil, and to whom he was warmly attached. The surname of " Warville " was assumed by BRISSOT from the name of the village where he was nursed,—Ouarville. When he first adopted it, he was eagerly engaged in. the study of English, and his admiration of that language led to the substitution of the W for the 0 u. Curiously enough, this surname was afterwards made the subject of serious charges against his character. The names of more than one of the Republican leaders appear to have been modified in the course of their history. DANTON originally spelt his name D'..9.NTON ; but the apostrophe, which betokened a connexion with the hated aristocracy, was carefully erased when he became a de- claimer at the Jacobin Club. R013ESPIERRE alsO dropped the DE, which, when he and- BRISSOT were first acquainted,- he was proud of placing before his name. • Baissor was educated for the law ; and he attended for a con- siderable time the office of a procureur, where RonESPIERai was his fellow clerk. He seems indeed to have had the fortune of being connected more or less with almost every name that afterwards became famous for good or for evil. He was at an early age intro- duced to the Abbe SIEYES, who at the moment when we write is about to be restored, after fifteen years' banishment, and on the verge of an extended existence, to the theatre of his former honours and intrigues; he was the intimate associate of MARAT almost the only intimate which that singular character ever had ; he was the friend of LINGUET, D'ALEMBERT, LAHARPE, PALISSOT, MI- RA.BEA.U, CLA.VIERE, CONDORCET, Lis PLACE, Madame ROLAND, mid many others in his own country. In England he became acquainted with MTS. MACAULY, Miss BURNEY, KIRWAN, PRICE, PRIESTLEY, BENTHAM.
BRISSOT married a short time before he came to England ; and he had not been long settled here when his wife joined him. His employment was a sort of sub-editorship of the Courrier de 1 'Europe. He might have been principal editor, when the person who had acted as such was removed ; but he refused to act with the colleague whom SWINTON, the proprietor, wished to assign him. SwistroN was a Scotchman,—what is called a pushing man, eager for money; and, as BRISSOT describes him, little scrupulous of the means of acquiring it. Like most of his countrymen, however, he affected the externals of decency : he kept a mistress,—whom he had purchased, says our author, when a girl of twelve years of age ; but he did not bring her to England; she remained with her family at Boulogne. Soon after his return to France, BRISSOT'S father died; leaving him, as his portion of a fortune gained by long and obscure labours, four thousand francs. This, with the trilling engagement that he had formed with SWINTON, seems to have been the only money, not derived from the casualties of literary labour or the kindness of his friends, that he ever possessed. It is not easy to say how he contrived to exist for so many years in so unsettled a way, un- less on the old theory that a Frenchman can live upon any thing.
His memoirs, of which the two last volumes are still unpublished, are said to have been begun so far back as 1785. They were finished during his imprisonment in the Abbaye, after the famous 31st of May : the last paragraph is said in the pre- face to be dated on the morning of his execution. The MSS. have been long known to his family : they were for some time in the hands of MENTELLE, a member of the Institute, and BRIS- Boa's intimate friend; they were afterwards submitted to PINKER- TON the geographer, Who had at one time a design of riublishing them in England ; and HELEN AVIARIA WILLIAMS actually trans- lated the first and second chapters with the same view. Many of the persons to whom ilaissor alludes are, as his present editor remarks, still alive, arid eon contradict his inaccuracies 'lithe haver committed any. - On the whole, therefore, we see no reasoll!for doubting (as we have heard doubted) the authenticity of Batssafs Memoirs,—unless in the rather notorious practice among our neighbours of fabricating such writings. The fabrications, how- ever, hitherto passed on the public as genuine, have been of a very different character from the volumes now before us, and the same means of contradicting them have either not existed or been sup- pressed.
BRISSOT has a son, the sole survivor of his family, who still lives to cherish the memory of his father ; and who would have given his MSS. to the world long ere now, had ' not respected the scruples of his mbther, who having before hd s Cie scandal attached to the confessions of JEAN JAQUES, could'not be induced to permit the publication of her husband's life, lest it might ex- pose his memory to similar rebuke. But there was no danger of such a consequence : BRISSOT had neither ROUSSEAU'S genius nor his failings. He appears to have been a frank, honest, simple- hearted man, more fit to be the undesigning tool of a faction than its leader. The best proof of his disinterestedness is, that he lived and died poor; while hundreds, less talented, amassed princely fortunes. At the moment that the attention of Europe was fixed on his words and his acts, those who visited his humble residence at St. Cloud, might look to find his affectionate wife occupied in the humblest drudgery of her household—cooking the frugal dinner, and smoothing the linen of the statesman and orator, who pro- mised to give a character to the destinies of a great kingdom.
BRISSOT'S intercourse with SWINTON seems to have given him but an indifferent opinion of the Scotch. Speaking of that worthy, he Says- " He was a Scotchman, and that is saying enough for those who know England. Enterprising, fruitful in resources, intelligent, without faith, without law, liars and boasters, the Scotch are the Gascons of England. The famous Commodore Johnston, who was a Scotchman, declared in Parliament that two Englishmen could beat ten Frenchmen. A Scotch- man told me one day, that with my facility of composition, he would not ask a longer period than two years to make his fortune in London. And in what manner?' By writing against every body,' he replied, with astonishing frankness : 'Were I you, I would write a libel every day, and you would very soon see the guineas roll into my house as to the bank.' But the cudgel ? The infamy? I would take the one, and despise the other.'—' But how?" exclaimed I.—' Listen to this maxim,' said he to me: honesty you must have; that is, as much as will enable you to escape the gallows.' It would be doubtless unjust to attribute such traits of character to all the Scotch ; but this is the maxim of almost all those who wish to make their fortune. They are capable of every kind of industry, are acquainted with every description of intrigue, repulsed by nothing. Greedy of pleasnieand money, precisely becaUse the slavery in which their country languishes renders them miserable, they fly in crowds from their mountains, and hurry to London, where, in order to become rich, they reckon all trades equally good."
The future founder of the Girondists had at an early period for- saken the law for the more seducing paths of literature ; but his essays were still connected with his earliest pursuits. It was a treatise on the Criminal Law which introduced him to the cele- brated author of the essay on Codification. Of BENTHAM, the most wonderful man of the age, he speaks with the reverence due to his exalted character. We quote his account of their first interview.
"Bentham only knew me by an injury that I had committed against him. In my Theory of Criminal Laws, I had treated too lightly a very profound dissertation which he had composed upon the punishment of hard labour in houses of coriection. As soon as he learned my address, he came to my lodgings, told me who he was, and- explained to me the grounds of his opinion. His calmness and moderation quite confounded me. How little did I appear in my own eyes ! I requested his friendship, his counsel ; and he promised me both. I visited him often in the little retreat that he had chosen in Lincoln's .Inn-Fields. It is necessary to ob- serve, that persons who are destined for the bar in London, usually take chambers in some of the quarters especially reserved for attorneys and barristers. Bentham had devoted himself to the study of the legal pro- fession; not in order to prosecute it, nor to make money or attain to honours by it, but that he might thoroughly understand the defects of English jurisprudence, that he might be able to penetrate into its laby- rinths, inaccessible to all except the man of the law, and expose the many evils which the order of barristers in that country keep buried in mystery, because they live by the ignorance which they propagate. After having searched to the very bottom of this abyss, before he proceeded to arrange his materials of reform, Bentham wished to be acquainted with the crimi- nal jurisprudence of all the nations of Europe ; an immense undertaking, but what difficulty cannot he surmount who has the public weal truly at heart ! The greater part of the European codes existed only in the original language of the people whom they regulated. Bentham studied succes- sively almost all these languages. He spoke French well, knew Italian, Spanish, German, and when I was in England he was acquiring Swedish and Russian! When he had run over the whole of the cumbrous mass of these Gothic laws,—when he had got together all his materials,—he then set about establishing a system of criminal law founded upon reason and the nature of things. It was to this great work that he consecrated for ten years every day of his life, which was as regular as that of Kirwan. After gettino° up, he took a walk for two or three miles ; returned, and break- fastedalone ; he then gave himself up to his favourite study till dinner- time : that repast he took at four o'clock, at the house of his father, a man of large property. For although Bentham lived as a person of very moderate fortune, he practised economy solely for the purpose of enabling him to satisfy his devouring desire for books.' " In conclusion, we may justly say, that we have read these two first volumes of BRISSOT'S Memoirs with much pleasure ; and we look to still higher enjoyment from the perusal of the rest. The whole will form an important addition to the many amusing and instructive pieces of autobiography with which the Revolution has
furnished us. •
Previous page
