Paris As It Was and As It Is | Page 9

architecture,
and musical composition. Those who shall have gained one of these
four great prizes, shall be sent to Rome, and maintained at the expense
of the government.
XIV. The Minister of the Interior is charged with the execution of the
present decree, which shall be inserted in the Bulletin of the Laws.
[Footnote 1: Referred to in Letter XLV, Vol. II of this work.]

INTRODUCTION.
On ushering into the world a literary production, custom has
established that its parent should give some account of his offspring.
Indeed, this becomes the more necessary at the present moment, as the
short-lived peace, which gave birth to the following sheets, had already
ceased before they were entirely printed; and the war in which England
and France are now engaged, is of a nature calculated not only to rouse

all the energy and ancient spirit of my countrymen, but also to revive
their prejudices, and inflame their passions, in a degree proportionate to
the enemy's boastful and provoking menace.
I therefore premise that those who may be tempted to take up this
publication, merely with a view of seeking aliment for their enmity,
will, in more respects than one, probably find themselves disappointed.
The two nations were not rivals in arms, but in the arts and sciences, at
the time these letters were written, and committed to the press;
consequently, they have no relation whatever to the present contest.
Nevertheless, as they refer to subjects which manifest the indefatigable
activity of the French in the accomplishment of any grand object, such
parts may, perhaps, furnish hints that may not be altogether
unimportant at this momentous crisis.
The plan most generally adhered to throughout this work, being
detailed in LETTER V, a repetition of it here would be superfluous;
and the principal matters to which the work itself relates, are specified
in the title. I now come to the point.
A long residence in France, and particularly in the capital, having
afforded me an opportunity of becoming tolerably well acquainted with
its state before the revolution, my curiosity was strongly excited to
ascertain the changes which that political phenomenon might have
effected. I accordingly availed myself of the earliest dawn of peace to
cross the water, and visit Paris. Since I had left that city in 1789-90, a
powerful monarchy, established on a possession of fourteen centuries,
and on that sort of national prosperity which seemed to challenge the
approbation of future ages, had been destroyed by the force of opinion
which, like, a subterraneous fire, consumed its very foundations, and
plunged the nation into a sea of troubles, in which it was, for several
years, tossed about, amid the wreck of its greatness.
This is a phenomenon of which antiquity affords no parallel; and it has
produced a rapid succession of events so extraordinary as almost to
exceed belief.
It is not the crimes to which it has given birth that will be thought
improbable: the history of revolutions, as well ancient as modern,
furnishes but too many examples of them; and few have been
committed, the traces of which are not to be found in the countries
where the imagination of the multitude has been exalted by strong and

new ideas, respecting Liberty and Equality. But what posterity will find
difficult to believe, is the agitation of men's minds, and the
effervescence of the passions, carried to such a pitch, as to stamp the
French revolution with a character bordering on the marvellous --Yes;
posterity will have reason to be astonished at the facility with which the
human mind can be modified and made to pass from one extreme to
another; at the suddenness, in short, with which the ideas and manners
of the French were changed; so powerful, on the one hand, is the
ascendency of certain imaginations; and, on the other, so great is the
weakness of the vulgar!
It is in the recollection of most persons, that the agitation of the public
mind in France was such, for a while, that, after having overthrown the
monarchy and its supports; rendered private property insecure; and
destroyed individual freedom; it threatened to invade foreign countries,
at the same time pushing before it Liberty, that first blessing of man,
when it is founded on laws, and the most dangerous of chimeras, when
it is without rule or restraint.
The greater part of the causes which excited this general commotion,
existed before the assembly of the States-General in 1789. It is
therefore important to take a mental view of the moral and political
situation of France at that period, and to follow, in imagination at least,
the chain of ideas, passions, and errors, which, having dissolved the ties
of society, and worn out the springs of government, led the nation by
gigantic strides into