Adam Sisman - The Friendship - Wordsworth and Coleridge

Wordsworth counted himself a ‘philosopher’, in the original sense of a lover of wisdom, one devoted to the search for fundamental truth. In the parlance of the time, the term might equally be applied to a scientist or a naturalist as to a student of political or moral philosophy, or metaphysics. At this stage Wordsworth was far from certain what kind of life lay ahead of him. While at Cambridge he had become increasingly aware of his poetic gifts. The ‘instinctive humbleness’ he felt at the very thought of publication began to ‘melt away’; his ‘dread awe of mighty names’ softened; increasingly he felt a ‘fellowship’ with the authors he revered, and he was filled with ‘a thousand hopes’, ‘a thousand tender dreams’, as ‘a morning gladness’ settled on his mind. He had already completed one long poem, ‘An Evening Walk’; this achievement encouraged the ‘daring thought’ that he

… might leave

Some monument behind me which pure hearts

Should reverence … 13

Yet his feeling of fellowship with the great poets of the past was accompanied by a sense of alienation in the present. At Cambridge he had often been melancholy, conscious that he did not belong. There was ‘a strangeness in my mind’, a solitariness, an impression that he was different. Sometimes he would leave his university friends and walk out into the surrounding country, ‘turning the mind in upon itself’. Then again he would feel

The strength and consolation which were mine.

The swelling appreciation of the powers latent within him strengthened his conviction that he was ‘a chosen son’ of Nature. 14

Towards the end of the year Wordsworth returned to France, to pass the year in Orléans, which until the Revolution had been a fashionable destination for young Englishmen, but where now (as he would discover) only a handful remained. It seems that he had no particular plan beyond that of improving his French, in the vague hope that this would qualify him for the post of travelling companion to some young gentleman. His uncles would have preferred him to return to Cambridge, to study oriental literature. ‘William has a great attachment to poetry,’ remarked his sister Dorothy to her friend Jane Pollard, ‘which is not the most likely thing to produce his advancement in the world.’ 15

The country to which he returned in November 1791 was very different from the one he had left the year before. France was in a state of turbulence; the apparent equilibrium had proved illusory. The National Assembly was supplanted by a Legislative Assembly, which would be replaced while Wordsworth was still in France by a National Convention. Each new body proved more susceptible than its predecessor to Revolutionary rhetoric, and each member tried to outdo his peers in crowd-pleasing Revolutionary zeal. The debate was increasingly histrionic. Publications such as Jean-Paul Marat’s L’Ami du peuple set a tone of vituperative abuse. Factions began to form: the most radical grouping found a permanent place on the left side – the ‘left wing’ – of the Manège (the converted riding school where the Assembly met), the most conservative on the right. The King had displayed his commitment to constitutional monarchy by attempting to flee the country, only to be escorted back from Varennes (not far from the border) under restraint; National Guardsmen had opened fire on their fellow citizens in suppressing a demonstration at the Champ de Mars. Frenchman had fired on Frenchman; brother had killed brother. It became clear that the Revolution was not yet complete.

This time Wordsworth travelled through France by coach rather than on foot. His route to Orléans took him through Paris, where he spent a few days exploring, hastening to the Champ de Mars to sniff the grapeshot, listening to the debates in the Jacobin Club *and the Assembly, pocketing a stone as a relic from the ruins of the Bastille. There he sat in the sunshine, ‘affecting more emotion than I felt’. He admitted to being more moved by a painting, the baroque Magdalene de Le Brun, displayed in a Carmelite convent while religious music played in the background for the benefit of visitors – now almost forgotten, but then one of the must-see sights of Paris. 16

At this moment the young Wordsworth appears to have had no more than a vague sympathy for the Revolution. By the time he left France a year later he was ready to take up service for the cause, however dangerous – even, if necessary, to sacrifice his life. 17 Such a change could not have occurred overnight; it seems more plausible that Wordsworth’s loyalties were won gradually during his stay in France. As he became more familiar with the language, so he was better able to comprehend what was being said and written all around him. And as a result he was better able to form his own judgements about the behaviour and character of those he encountered. It was natural that the longer he stayed in France, the more he should identify with French concerns. At first he felt as if he had arrived at a theatre when the play was already far advanced. By the end of his stay he felt ready to act a part himself.

The Revolution reached its crisis while Wordsworth was in France. Since his flight to Varennes the King was no longer trusted; there were persistent rumours that he was conspiring with émigrés and foreign powers to usurp the new constitution. In April the nation declared war on ‘the King of Bohemia and Hungary’ (the Austrian Emperor Leopold, brother of the hated Marie Antoinette); by the summer the French were at war with the Emperor’s allies, the Prussians, as well. Shouting demonstrators burst into the Tuileries, forcing Louis to don a red bonnet and drink a glass of wine with them, which he did with courage and good humour. The Prussians issued a manifesto calling on the French to rise up against their Revolutionary ‘oppressors’, and threatening an ‘exemplary and unforgettable act of vengeance’ against the capital in the event of further outrages against the royal family. Morale in the old royal army was as low as could be; two-thirds of the officer corps had abandoned their commands, many to avoid a compulsory oath of allegiance to the new constitution, others in despair of disciplining the new patriot’ recruits. *Generals and their staffs defected en masse to the enemy. The Prussian army marched towards the border, crossing into France in mid-July. The Assembly formally decreed a state of emergency, ‘ La Patrie en Danger ’, and appealed for volunteers. These flocked to Paris from the provinces, aflame with Revolutionary ardour. A further decree allowed all citizens to enrol in the National Guard, creating ‘a nation in arms’. Excitement crackled in the streets, and on the morning of 10 August an angry crowd gathered in front of the Tuileries. The King’s Swiss Guards retreated inside the palace. The royal family fled to the Assembly, where the King appealed for shelter. After a flurry of shots, Louis sent an order to his Guards to stand down. The crowd stormed the palace, pursuing the Guards and courtiers out into the streets, where they were hunted down and slaughtered.

Now that his authority had collapsed, Louis XVI was no longer relevant; the monarchy was suspended, and soon abolished. The royal family was imprisoned in the Temple, the gloomy medieval home of the Knights Templar. The Assembly accepted Robespierre’s proposal to summon a National Convention, elected by universal (male) suffrage, for the purpose of framing a new constitution. Meanwhile the Prussians advanced steadily. First one fortress, then another fell to them. The mood in Paris became jittery. More than a thousand suspected counter-revolutionaries’ were taken into custody. A guillotine was erected outside the Tuileries.

It was difficult for Wordsworth to follow the changing situation in Paris and the fighting on the borders. In a letter home he confessed that, ‘in London you have perhaps a better opportunity of being informed of the general concerns of France, than in a petty provincial town in the heart of the kingdom itself’. 18 Nevertheless, it was impossible for any resident of France not to be aware of the upsurge in patriotic feeling at this time. Every town saw parades and ceremonies, introduced by speeches of lofty rhetoric; Revolutionary clubs like the ubiquitous Jacobins began to usurp the powers of local government: