Adam Sisman

The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge


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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.

      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.

      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:

      … ‘Twas in truth an hour Of

      universal ferment; mildest men

      Were agitated; and commotions, strife

      Of passion and opinion, filled the walls

      Of peaceful houses with unquiet sounds.19

      This was a cultural revolution. The young men in its vanguard aimed to introduce a sterner moral code into public life, in place of the lax cynicism of the ancien régime. These zealots were steeped in the classics, whose authors presented an ideal of civic virtue, of loyalty to the Republic triumphing over selfish attachments. Their values were those of self-sacrifice, purity, duty, integrity, patriotism, stoicism and austerity; their model the Roman Republic; their heroes unimpeachable citizens like Cato or Cicero, whose oratory echoed down the centuries. Indeed, the revolutionaries identified themselves with the Roman Republic to what now seems a ludicrous extent. Had they not cast off a line of tyrannical kings, as the Romans had done? Had they not established a Senate? Had they not sworn solemn oaths, like the Horatii? Had they not defeated conspiracy after conspiracy to undermine the Republic?

      The changes taking place extended into every area of life. A severe neoclassicism became the predominant style in painting, in sculpture, in architecture, in fashion. The artificiality of the eighteenth century was replaced by an emphasis on naturalness. Wigs began to disappear. Men wore their own hair, often short and straight, perhaps brushed forward in the Roman style, without powder or curls. (While at Cambridge Wordsworth had powdered his hair, but now he too cut it short.) Women wore loose, flowing, high-waisted dresses, in contrast to the ornate and cumbersome constructions favoured by fashionable ladies in pre-Revolutionary France. It became de rigueur to address everyone as ‘tu’, no matter how distant the relationship; while the titles ‘monsieur’ and ‘madame’ made way for