They had to earn their keep somehow...

The British response to French émigrés fleeing to their shores was mixed at best. Burke was very much sympathetic to the émigré population, in particular to the segment of the population set on armed overthrow of the French Revolutionary government. Pitt was officially neutral, as he was up until the point where the French government declared war on Great Britain, but his later refusal to support émigré armies and his cabinet's Alien Laws preventing any French republicans from coming to England, and the banning of speakers, visitors and speakers suggest that Pitt was not altogether keen on increasing the French percentage of the population.

By far the oddest reaction to the French émigrés was that of the Duke of Bridgewater, he of the famous canals, who, Madame de Stael reports, rescued what seems to be an abbey's worth of monks for the purpose of having them wander through his gardens. It certainly beats having a Weeping Angel entertaining your neighbors at a garden party.

On Parliament

On visiting Parliament, by Carl Moritz:

"I was much shocked by the open abuse which Members of Parliament fling at each other... they enter the house in greatcoats, boots and spurs! It is not unusual to see a member stretched out on one of the benches while the rest are in debate. One Member may be cracking nuts, another eating an orange or whatever fruit may be in season; they are constantly going in and out... whenever one of them speaks badly or the matter of his speech lacks interest for the majority, the noise and laughter are such that the Member can hardly hear his own words."

This seems to be entirely accurate. Edmund Burke, today regarded as one of the best speech-makers of the 18th century, was violently hated in Parliament. The other MPs nicknamed him 'dinner bell' because when he got up to speak, everyone left.

Political beef, it's what's for dinner

Sheridan could be quite the wit in Parliament when he wanted to be (Old Sherry aside).

During the French Revolution, there was a massive governmental backlash against the democratic societies springing up around the country. Pitt ignored them until around 1793, when Britain and France declared war on each other. This was fantastic news for people like Edmund Burke, who spent pretty much all of his time in Parliament railing about the French mob and how dangerous revolutions were. Burke decided to talk about the revolutionary societies springing up around the country, shortly after Pitt gave his reluctant assent to the war (Tangent Time! Pitt wanted to focus on Britain's economic troubles instead of meddling in continental politics; part of what sparked the French Revolution were several years of very bad harvests. The French government actually begged Pitt to send over 20,000 sacks of flour, and Pitt refused, on the grounds that the British public would riot if there wasn't enough flour. The French rioted instead. I think--please be aware, Gentle Readers, that this is once again the opinion of an Amateur Historian--that Pitt's insistance on paying British allies to fight the French during the first coallition against the French was a sign of Pitt's lingering reluctance to start up a war.)

Burke was convinced that these societies were planning a British Revolution (which some of them were) and had stockpiled weapons (which most of them were not, save for the revolutionary groups in Ireland). He quite suddenly threw a dagger onto the floor of the House of Commons shouting, "There is French fraternity for you! This is the poignard which French Jacobins would plunge in the heart of our sovereign."

Sheridan brought a premature end to the speech by quipping, "Where's the fork?"

Have a fruit tart, Robespierre

Today is the 251rst birthday of one Maximilien Robespierre, to whom history, or just embittered British historians who want to find a scapegoat for the excesses of the French Revolution has given an incredibly bad rap.

In the opinion of the amateur Historian, there were times when M. Robespierre was just as funny as your average political figure. When he was still a young lawyer in Artois, Robespierre wrote a letter about, surprisingly, fruit tarts.

He is decidedly in favor of them. He writes, "Since Saturday evening I have been eating tarts non-stop. Fate has decreed that my bed should be placed within the chamber that forms the patisserie and so I was very tempted to eat all night long. Luckily I reflected that I should master these passions and finally managed to fall asleep amidst all these seductive items." Considering that Robespierre is, for some mysterious reason, refered to as the "Sea-Green Incorruptable" (possibly because he wore green-tinted glasses and because, no matter what else you can say about the man, he was incorruptable), it seems very fitting that even in the silliest of letters, he praises virtue and attempts to lead the way in his own example. A historian who follows Edmund Burke and his "OMG THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IS AN UNMITIGATED DISASTER FLEE FOR THE HILLS BEFORE WE HAVE A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC!!111!!!!" interpretation of the Revolution might point at the last sentance as eerie foreshadowing that M. Robespierre would never be able to live in a world of total virtue because the temptation always existed, there was some flaw in Robespierre's character that would make him succumb to the allure of a fruit tart, etc.

To this, the Amateur Historian would like to point out that she would then think such an interpretation to be incredibly stupid, as Robespierre was being patently silly and using hyperbole to entertain. Earlier in the letter, Robespierre, in a fit of enthusiasm, leans out of a carriage and tips his hats at some farm-hands because he is "filled... with a noble emulation", who think he's crazy, and is mildly satirical about his tour of a courtroom (Robespierre writes, "I kissed with transport the seat in which, long ago, the buttocks of the great T__ had rested").

As I have said before with the Right Honorable Mr. Pitt, history is a strange and often biased field.