"Do not thus distrust the English; do not treat with this humiliating disparagement the stammering accents of good-will of an Englishwoman towards the common cause of all nations. The French were formerly famous for their politeness to the weaker sex, thereby the more sensitive to affront. Alas for us if the Revolution, deprives us of this precious privilege. But I claim a juster right: do not to others as you would not be done by."[1]
It is odd to find the golden rule enforced by a philo-Jacobin on the incorruptible Robespierre. He was apparently still obdurate, for a month later la Citoyenne Freeman, patriote anglaise, presented the Convention, through Beurnonville, with 200 francs towards buying shoes for the volunteers. This may, however, have been a second gift. It is the last English subscription down to the end of the Terror. Robespierre, even if he declined the gift, paid the writer the attention of preserving her letter, for it was found among his papers. It was not published in the selection issued by his enemies immediately after his fall, but was printed in 1828, the signature, however, being travestied into "Theeman Shephen," a blunder repeated by his biographer Hamel. Either the original or a duplicate figured in a sale of autographs at Paris in 1874. Mrs. Freeman seems to have escaped the incarceration which befell English residents, but I cannot ascertain when she returned to England. Her transla-
- ↑ "Papiers inédits trouvés chez Robespierre," Paris, 1828.
