To Avoid The Merited
Vengeance Of Many Individuals Whom He Had Ill-Treated, He Was Obliged, On
Giving Up His Prefecture, To Make A Precipitate Retreat From Clermont.
The
delators attempted the same system with the new Prefect and Col.
Wardle,
having invited some of the Swiss officers to a ball, to which were likewise
invited people of all opinions, an information was lodged against him,
purporting that he wanted to corrupt the Swiss officers from their
allegiance. The Prefect sent the letter to Col. Wardle and said that it had
not made the slightest impression on his mind, and that he treated it as a
malicious report. The new Prefect adopted the same system as the General
and tranquillity is since perfectly restored.
Things have been taking a better turn since the dissolution of the Chambre
introuvable. Decazes, the present minister, is an able man, and if he is
not contrarie by the Liberaux, he will keep the fanatical Ultras in
good order. The Bishop of Clermont is a liberal man also, and as it seems
the wish of the present public functionaries here to conciliate, it is to
be hoped that their example will not be lost on the bons vieux
gentilshommes of Auvergne.
I find an inexhaustible fund of entertainment from the conversation of M.
C - - . He has so many interesting anecdotes to relate respecting the French
Revolution. With regard to his present occupations, which are directed
towards rural economy, he tells me that he has succeeded in a plan of
cleansing the town from its Augean filth, and making it very profitable to
himself; and that he calculates to obtain a revenue thereby of twenty
thousand franks annually. He has, in short, undertaken to be the grand
scavenger of the town, and the Government, in addition to a salary of
2,500 francs per annum, which they give him for his trouble, give to him
the exclusive privilege of removing all the dung he can collect in the
precincts of the city, and of converting it to his own advantage. He began
by fitting up a large enclosure, walled on each side, and in which he
deposits all the filth he can collect in the stables, yards and streets of
Clermont. He sends his carts round the town every morning to get them
loaded. All their contents are brought to this repository, and shot out
there. Straw is then placed over this dung, and then earth or soil
collected from gullies and ravines, and this arranged stratum super
stratum, till it forms an immense compact cake of rich compost; and when
it has filled one of the yards and has completed a thickness of five feet,
he sells it to the farmers, who send their carts to carry it off. He has
divided this enclosure or repository into three or four compartments. The
compost therefore is prepared, and ready to be carried off in one yard,
while the others are filling. In this he has rendered a great benefit to
the public, for the Auvergnats are incurable in their custom of emptying
their pots de chambre out of the windows; so that the streets every
morning are in a terrible state: but thanks to the industry of C - - his
cars go round to collect the precious material, and all is cleared away by
twelve o'clock. He collects bones too, and offal to add to the compost. He
conducted me to see his premises; but the odour was too strong....
I returned to Lausanne by the same route, leaving Clermont on the 6th
April, staying four days at Lyons and as many at Geneva. Young Wardle
accompanied me. We met with no other adventure on the road than having a
young Catholic priest, fresh from the seminary, for our travelling
companion, from Thiers to Roanne. This young man wished to convert Wardle
and myself to Catholicism.
Among many arguments that he made use of was that most silly one, which has
been so often sported by the Catholic theologians, viz.: that it is much
safer to be a Catholic than a Protestant, inasmuch as the Catholics do not
allow that any person can be saved out of the pale of their church, whereas
the Protestants do allow that a Catholic may be saved. I answered him that
this very argument made more against Catholicism than any other, and that
this intolerant spirit would ever prevent me (even had such an idea entered
into my head) of embracing such a religion. I then told him that, once for
all, I did not wish to enter into any theological disputes; that I had
fully made up my mind on these subjects; and that I would rather take the
opinion of a Voltaire or a Franklin on these matters than all the opinions
of all the theologians and churchmen that ever sat in council from the
Council of Nicsea to the present day. This silenced him effectually. Such
is the absurd line of conduct pursued by the Catholic priests of the
present day in France. Instead of reforming the discipline and dogmas of
their church and adapting it to the enlightened ideas of the present age,
they are sedulously employd in preaching intolerant doctrines, and reviving
absurd legends, and pretended miracles, which have been long ago consigned
to contempt and oblivion by all rational Catholics; and by this they hope
to re-establish the ecclesiastical power in its former glory and
preponderance. Vain hope! By the American and French Revolutions a great
light is gone up to the Gentiles. Catholicism is on its last legs, and
they might as soon attempt to replace our old friend and school
acquaintance Jupiter on the throne of heaven, as to re-establish the Papal
power in its pristine splendour; to borrow the language of the Pilgrim's
Progress, the Giant Pope will be soon as dead as the Giant Pagan.
On arrival at Lyons we put up at the Hotel du Parc, where I found cheaper
and better entertainment than at the Hotel du Nord.
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