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THE

WISHES OF A RECLUSE.

PREAMBLE

TO THE

WISHES OF A RECLUSE

IN my Studies of Nature, published for the first

time in December 1784, I formed most of the Wishes which I this day present to the Public, in September 1789. I must undoubtedly have fallen into frequent repetitions: but the object of these Wishes, which since the assembling of the EstatesGeneral, have become interesting to the whole Nation, are so important that they cannot be presented too often, and so extensive that it is always possible to add something new.

I am well aware that the illustrious Members of our National Assembly are pursuing them with signal success. I possess not their talents; but, like them, I love my Country. Notwithstanding my incapacity had health permitted, I would have aspired after the glory of defending with them the cause of Public Liberty: but I have a sentiment of personal liberty so exquisite and so tormenting, that it is absolutely impossible for me to remain in an assembly, if the doors are shut, and unless the avenues are so clear as to admit of my going away the instant I desire it. This impulse to exercise my liberty never fails to seize me the moment I think I have lost it, and becomes so impetuous,

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that it throws me into a physical and moral malady which I am incapable of supporting. It extends farther than to the walls of an apartment. During the commotions at Paris, (which commenced on the departure of Mr. Necker, July 13th, the same day of the month which in the preceding year had desolated the kingdom by a hail-storm;) when they were burning the liquors at the barriers round the city, when the air resounded through every street with the alarming noise of the tocsin ringing night and day from all the church towers at once, and with the clamours of the multitude crying aloud that the hussars were already in the suburbs coming to put all to the fire and sword, God, in whom I had reposed my confidence, graciously preserved my mind in tranquillity. I composed myself for the event be what it might, though solitary in a lone house and in a detached street, at the extremity of one of the Fauxbourgs. But when the day after, on the capture of the Bastile, the withdrawing of the foreign troops whose vicinity had excited such dreadful apprehensions, and the establishment of patrols of citizens, I was informed that the gates of Paris were shut, and that no one was permitted to pass, I was instantly seized with a violent inclination to get out myself. While all it's inhabitants were congratulating themselves on the recovery of their li'berty, I considered myself as having lost mine; I reckoned myself a prisoner in that vast capital; I felt myself in confinement. My imagination could not regain it's former calmness, till I found, as I was walking on the boulevard of the Hospital, a

grated

grated iron gate, the lock and bars of which had been burst open, and which was not yet guarded: in a moment I flew into the fields, and made a hundred steps forward to assure myself that I had not lost my natural rights, and that I was at liberty to go wherever I pleased. Having thus ascertained my freedom, I found myself perfectly tranquil, and quietly returned to my tumultuous neighbourhood without feeling the least anxiety afterwards to go out again.

Some days after, when heads cut off at the Place de Grève without any form of process, and lists placarded proscribing a great many more, filled all thinking persons with apprehension that wicked men were going to employ popular vengeance in gratifying their private animosities, and that Paris, abandoned to anarchy, was on the point of becoming a theatre of carnage and horror; certain friends offered me, peaceful and agreeable rural retreats, both within the limits of the kingdom and beyond them, where I might enjoy the repose so necessary to the prosecution of my studies; I begged to be excused. I chose rather to remain in that great vessel of the capital, battered on every side side by the tempest, though totally useless in conducting the manœuvres, but in the hope of contributing to the general tranquillity. I endeavoured accordingly to compose perturbed spirits, or to animate. the dejected, as opportunity served; to co-operate in person or by my purse to the support of guards so necessary to the preservation of the police; to assist from time to time at the Committee of my District, one of the smallest and the most intelli

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