I intend to remain at Paris until after the marriage ceremony of the Duke
and Duchess of Berri, and I shall then proceed to Lausanne. It is expected
there will be some disturbance on the occasion of this marriage.
I have witnessed an execution by the guillotine on the Place de Greve near
the Hotel de Ville. The criminal was guilty of a burglary and murder. It
is the only execution (except political ones) that has taken place at Paris
for the last six months, whereas in England they are strung up by dozens
every fortnight. Independent of there being far less crimes committed in
France than in England, the French code punishes but few offences with
death.
Why is not the sanguinary English criminal code with death in every
line - why is it not reformed, I say? 'Twould be well if our legislators,
instead of their puerile and frothy declamations against revolutionary
principles and the ambition of Napoleon, would occupy themselves seriously
with this subject. But then the lawyers would all oppose the simplification
of our Code. They find by experience that a complicated one, obstructed by
customs, statutes and acts of Parliament, difficult to be correctly
interpreted, and frequently at variance with each other, is a much more
profitable thing, a much wider and more lucrative field for the exercise of
their profession, than the simplicity of the Code Napoleon; and they would
die of rage and despair at the thought of anybody not a lawyer being able
to interpret the laws himself. Now as our country gentlemen and members of
Parliament are always much inclined to take lawyer's advice, and are
besides fully persuaded and convinced that there are no abuses whatever in
England and that everything is as it should be, there is no hope of any
amelioration in this particular. All reasoning and argument is lost on such
political optimists.
The punishment of the guillotine certainly appears to be the most humane
mode of terminating the existence of a man that could possibly be invented.
The apparatus is preserved in the Hotel de Ville, and is never exposed to
view or erected on the place of execution, till about an hour before the
execution itself takes place. At the hour appointed the criminal is brought
to the scaffold, fastened to the board, placed at right angles with the
fatal instrument, the head protruding thro' the groove, which embraces the
neck; the executioner pulls a cord, the axe descends and the head of the
criminal falls into a basket. The whole ceremony of the execution does not
take three minutes when the criminal once arrives at the foot of the
guillotine. There is none of that horrible struggling that takes place in
the operation of hanging.
June 21st, 1816.
The ceremony of the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Berri passed off
quietly enough. Several people, it is true, were arrested for seditious
expressions, but no tumult occurred. A great apprehension seemed to prevail
lest something should occur, but the gendarmerie and police were so
vigilant that all projects, had there been any, would have proved abortive.
[59] Virgil, Georg., I, 35. - ED.
[60] Colonel Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle was the celebrated exposer of the scandal
in 1808-9, when the mistress of the Duke of York was found to be
trafficking in Commissions. He had retired from active service in
1802, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Financial reasons obliged
him, after 1815, to live on the Continent; he died in Florence,
1833. - ED.
[61] Sir Robert Thomas Wilson (1779-1849), author of The History of the
British Expedition to Egypt, 1802; a French translation of that work
elicited a protest from Napoleon. - ED.
[62] Vanderberg had made a fortune as a contractor to the French army; he
is mentioned in Ida Saint Elme's Memoires d'une contemporaine and
elsewhere. - ED.
[63] Abbe Sicard (Rooh Ambroise) was director of the Institution of
Sourds-Muets from 1790 to 1797 and from 1800 to 1822. - ED.
[64] Paul Didier (1758-1816) took part in a Bonapartist conspiracy at Lyons
in 1816, raised an insurrection in the Isere and fled to Piedmont,
whence he was surrendered to the French authorities, condemned to
death and executed at Grenoble. - ED.
[65] The King's brother, afterwards Charles X. - ED.
[66] The N.E. pavilion of the Tuileries. - ED.
CHAPTER VII
Journey from Paris to Lausanne - Besancon - French refugees in
Lausanne - Francois Lamarque - General Espinassy - Bordas - Gautier - Michau -
M. de Laharpe - Mlle Michaud - Levade, a Protestant minister - Chambery - Aix -
Details about M. de Boigne's career in India - English Toryism and
intolerance - Valley of Maurienne - Passage across Mont Cenis and arrival at
Suza - Turin.
LAUSANNE, July 8th.
Departing from Paris on the 24th June, 1816, I varied my journey into
Switzerland this time, for instead of travelling thro' Lyons or Dole, I
took the route of Besangon, Pontarlier, Jougne and Orbe. The country
between Dijon and Besancon is a rich and fertile plain. At Besancon the
mountainous country begins; it is a strong fortress, and the last
considerable town of the French frontier. It lies in a very picturesque
situation, being nearly environed by the Doubs, which meanders under its
walls, and by very lofty mountains; on the other side of the Doubs stands
the citadel, its chief strength. The town of Besangon is exceedingly
handsome and well built, and there are several agreeable promenades, two of
which I must particularize, viz., the promenade de Chamarre and the garden
of the Palace of Granvelle. There are besides several Roman antiquities and
the remains of a large amphitheatre. I amused myself very well for a couple
of days at Besancon, and met with some agreeable society at the Hotel de
France where I lodged. I left Besancon at eight in the morning of the 30th
June, and arrived at Pontarlier at six the same evening.
