palaces about three hundred millions more; and his various other
expenses, which could not be well defrayed by taxation, swelled the
amount due to his creditors, at his death, to nearly two thousand
millions,--a vast sum for those times. The regent, Duke of Orleans, who
succeeded him, increased this debt still more, especially by his
reckless and infamous prodigalities, under the direction of his prime
minister,--his old friend and tutor,--Cardinal Dubois. At last his
embarrassments were so great that the wheels of government were likely
to stop. His friend, the Due de Saint Simon, one of the great patricians
of the court, proposed, as a remedy, national bankruptcy,--affirming
that it would be a salutary lesson to the rich plebeian capitalists not
to lend their money. An ingenious Scotch financier, however, proposed a
more palatable scheme, which was, to make use of the credit of the
nation for a bank, the capital of which should be guaranteed by shares
in the Mississippi Company. John Law, already a wealthy and prosperous
banker, proposed to increase the paper currency, and supersede the use
of gold and silver. His offer was accepted, and his bank became a royal
one, its bills going at once into circulation. Now, as the most absurd
delusions existed as to the wealth of Louisiana, and the most boundless
faith was placed in Law's financiering; and as only Law's bills could
purchase shares in the Company which was to make everybody's
fortune,--gold and silver flowed to his bank. The shares of the Company
continued to rise in value, and bank-bills were indefinitely issued. In
a little while (1719), six hundred and forty millions of livres in these
bills were in circulation, and soon after nearly half of the national
debt was paid off'; in other words, people had been induced to exchange
government securities, to the amount of eight hundred millions, for the
Mississippi stock. They sold consols at Law's bank, and were paid in his
bills, with which they bought shares. The bills of the bank were of
course redeemable in gold and silver; but for a time nobody wanted gold
and silver, so great was the credit of the bank. Moreover, the bank
itself was guaranteed by the shares of the Company, which were worth at
one period twelve times their original value. John Law, of course, was
regarded as a national benefactor. His financiering had saved a nation;
and who had ever before heard of a nation being saved by stock-jobbing?
All sorts of homage and honors were showered upon so great a man. His
house was thronged with dukes and peers; he became controller-general of
the finances, and virtually prime-minister. He was elected a member of
the French Academy; his fame extended far and wide, for he was a
beneficent deity that had made everybody rich and no one poor. Surely
the golden age had come. Paris was crowded with strangers from all parts
of the world, who came to see a man whose wisdom surpassed that of
Solomon, and who made silver and gold to be as stones in the streets. As
everybody had grown rich, twelve hundred new coaches were set up;
nothing was seen but new furniture and costly apparel, nothing was felt
but universal exhilaration. So great was the delusion, that the stock of
the Mississippi Company reached the almost fabulous amount of three
thousand six hundred millions,--nearly twice the amount of the national
debt. But as Law's bank, where all these transactions were made,
revealed none of its transactions, the public were in ignorance of the
bills issued and stock created.
At last, the Prince of Conti,--one of the most powerful of the nobles,
and a prince of the blood-royal, who had received enormous amounts in
bills as the price of his protection,--annoyed to find that his
ever-increasing demands were finally resisted, presented his notes at
the bank, and of course obtained gold and silver; then other nobles did
the same, and then foreign merchants, until the bank was drained. Then
came the panic, then the fall of stocks, then general ruin, then
universal despondency and rage. The bubble had burst! Four hundred
thousand families, who thought themselves rich, and who had been
comfortable, were hopelessly ruined; but the State had got rid of half
the national debt, and for a time was clear of embarrassment. The
people, however, had been defrauded and deceived by Government, and they
rendered in return their secret curses. The foundations of a throne are
only secured by the affections of a people; if these are destroyed, one
great element of regal power is lost.
Under the administration of Cardinal Fleury (1726-1743) the finances
were somewhat improved, since he aimed at economical arrangements,
especially in the collection of taxes. He attempted to imitate Sully and
Colbert, but without their genius and boldness he effected but little.
He had an unfortunate quarrel with the Parliament of Paris, and was
obliged to repeal a favorite measure. After his death the country was
virtually ruled by the King's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, who
displaced ministers at her pleasure, and who encouraged unbounded
extravagance. The public deficit increased continually, until it finally
amounted to nearly two hundred millions in a single year. In spite of
this increasing derangement of the finances, the court had not the
courage or will to face the difficulties, but resorted to new loans and
forced contributions, and every form of iniquitous taxation. If a great
functionary announced the necessity of economy or order, he was
forthwith disgraced. Nothing irritated the court more than any proposal
to reduce unnecessary expenses. Nor would any other order, either the
nobles or the clergy, consent to make sacrifices.
In such a state of things, a most oppressive system of taxation was the
necessary result. In no country in modern times have the burdens of the
people been so great. Taxes were imposed to the utmost extent that they
were able to bear, without their consent; and upon the slightest
resistance or remonstrance they were imprisoned and treated as
criminals. So great were the taxes on land, that nearly two-thirds of
the whole gross produce, it has been estimated, went to the State, and
three-quarters of the remainder to the landlord. The peasant thus only
received about one-twelfth of the fruit of his labors; and on this
pittance his family was supported. Taxes were both direct and indirect,
levied upon every article of consumption, upon everything that was
imported or exported, upon income, upon capital, upon the transmission
of property, upon even the few privileges which were enjoyed. But not
one-half that was collected went to the royal treasury; it was wasted
by the different collectors and sub-collectors. In addition to the
ordinary burdens were enormous monopolies, granted to nobles and
courtiers, by which the income of the State was indirectly plundered.
The poor man groaned amid his heavy labors and great privations, without
exciting compassion or securing redress.
And, in addition to his taxes, the laborer was deprived of all the
privileges of freedom. He was injured, downtrodden, mocked, and
insulted. The laws were unequal, and gave him no security; game of the
most destructive kind was permitted to run at large through the fields,
and yet the people were not allowed to shoot a hare or a deer upon their
own grounds. Numerous edicts prohibited hoeing and weeding, lest young
partridges should be destroyed. The people were bound to repair the
roads without compensation, to grind their corn at the landlord's mill,
bake their bread in his ovens, and carry their grapes to his wine-press.
They had not the benefit of schools, or of institutions which would
enable them to improve their minds. They could not rise above the
miserable condition in which they were born, or even make their
complaints heard. Feudalism, in all its social distinctions, and in all
its oppressive burdens, crushed them as with an iron weight, or bound
them as with iron fetters. This weight they could not throw off, these
fetters they could not break. There was no alternative but in
submission,--forced submission to overwhelming taxes, robberies,
insults, and injustice, both from landed proprietors and the officers of
the crown.
Those, however, who lived upon the unrequited toil of the people lived
out of sight of their sorrows,--not in beautiful châteaux, as their
ancestors did, by the side of placid rivers and on the skirts of
romantic forests, or amid vineyards and olive-groves, but in the capital
or the court. Here, like Roman senators of old, they squandered the
money which they had obtained by extortion and corruption of every sort.
Amid the palaces of Versailles they displayed all the vanities of dress,
all the luxuries of their favored life. Here, as lesser stars, they
revolved around the great central orb of regal splendor, proud to belong
to another world than that in which the plebeian millions toiled and
suffered. At Versailles they attempted to ignore their own humanity, to
forget their most pressing duties, and to despise the only pursuits
which could have elevated their minds or warmed their hearts.
But they were not great feudal nobles, like the Guises and the Epernons,
such as combined to awe even regal power under the House of Valois,--men
who could coin money and exercise judicial authority in their own
domain,--but timid and subservient courtiers, as embarrassed in their
affairs as was the King himself. Nevertheless, many of the ancient
privileges of feudalism were enjoyed by them. They were exempt from many
taxes which oppressed merchants and farmers; they alone were appointed
to command in the army and navy; they alone were made prelates and
dignitaries in the Church; they were comparatively free from arrest when
their crimes were against society and God rather than the government;
they were distinguished from the plebeian class by dress as well as by
privileges; and they only had access to court and a share in the plunder
of the kingdom. Craving greater excitements than that which even
Versailles afforded, they built, in the Faubourg St. Germain, those
magnificent hotels which are still the dreary but imposing monuments of
aristocratic pride; and here they plunged into every form of excess and
folly for which Paris has always been distinguished. But it was in their
splendid equipages, and in their boxes at the opera, that they displayed
the most striking contrast to the habits of the plebeian people with
whom they were surrounded. Their embroidered vests, their costly silks
and satins, their emerald and diamond buckles, their point-lace ruffles,
their rare furs, their jewelled rapiers, and their perfumed
handkerchiefs were peculiar to themselves,--for in those days wealthy
shopkeepers, and even the daughters of prosperous notaries, could ill
afford such luxuries, and were scarcely allowed to shine in them if
they would. A velvet coat then cost more than one thousand francs; while
the ruffs and frills, and diamond studs and knee-buckles, and other
appendages to the dress of a gentleman, swelled the amount to scarcely
less than forty thousand francs, or sixteen hundred louis-d'or. If a
distinguished advocate was admitted to the presence of royalty, he must
appear in simple black. Gorgeous dresses were reserved only for the
_noblesse_, some one hundred and fifty thousand privileged persons; all
the rest were _roturiers_, marked by some emblem of meanness or
inferiority, whatever might be their intellectual and moral worth. Never
were the _noblesse_ more enervated; and yet they always appeared in a
mock-heroic costume, with swords dangling at their sides, or hats cocked
after a military fashion on their heads. As the strength of Samson of
old was in his locks, so the degenerate nobles of this period guarded
with especial care these masculine ornaments of the person; and so great
was the contagion for wigs and hair-powder, that twelve hundred shops
existed in Paris to furnish this aristocratic luxury. The muses of Rome
in the days of her decline condescended to sing on the arts of cookery
and the sublime occupations of hunting and fishing; so in the heroic
times of Louis XV. the genius of France soared to comprehend the
mysteries of the toilet. One eminent _savant_, in this department of
philosophical wisdom, absolutely published a bulky volume on the
_principles_ of hair-dressing, and followed it--so highly was it
prized--by a no less ponderous supplement. This was the time when the
_cuisine_ of nobles was as famous as their toilets, and when recipes for
different dishes were only equalled in variety by the epigrams of ribald
poets. It was a period not merely of degrading follies, but of shameless
exposure of them,--when men boasted of their gallantries, and women
joked at their own infirmities; and when hypocrisy, if it was ever added
to their other vices, only served to make them more ridiculous and
unnatural. The rouge with which they painted their faces, and the powder
which they sprinkled upon their hair were not used to give them the
semblance of youthful beauty, but rather to impart the purple hues of
perpetual drunkenness, such as Rubens gave to his Bacchanalian deities,
united with the blanched whiteness of premature old age. Licentiousness
without shame, drunkenness without rebuke, gambling without honor, and
frivolity without wit characterized, alas, a great proportion of that
"upper class" who disdained the occupations and sneered at the virtues
of industrial life.
But these dissipated courtiers had a model constantly before their eyes,
whose more excessive follies it were difficult to rival; and this was
the King himself, whom the whole nation was called upon to obey. If
Louis XIV. was a Nebuchadnezzar, unapproachable from pride, Louis XV.
was a Sardanapalus in effeminacy and insouciant revelries. The shameless
infamies of his life were too revolting to bear more than a passing
allusion; and I should blush to tear away the historic veil which covers
up his vices from the common eye. I shrink from showing to what depths
humanity can sink, even when clothed in imperial purple and seated on
the throne of state. The countless memoirs of that wicked age have
however, exposed to the indignant eye of posterity the regal
debaucheries of Versailles and the pollutions of the Pare aux
Cerfs,--that infamous seraglio which cost the State one hundred millions
of livres, at the lowest estimate. And this was but a part of the great
system of waste and folly. Five hundred millions of the national debt
were incurred for expenses too ignominious to be even named. The King,
however, was not fond of pomp; it was fatiguing for him to bear, and he
generally shut himself from the sight and intercourse of any but
convivial friends,--no, not friends, for to absolute monarchs the
pleasures of friendship are denied; I should have said, the panderers to
his degrading pleasures. Never did the Papal court at Avignon or Rome,
even in the worst ages of mediaeval darkness, witness more scandalous
enormities than those which disgraced the whole reign of Louis XV.,
either in the days of his minority, when the kingdom was governed by
the Duke of Orleans, or in his latter years, when the Duke of Choiseul
was the responsible adviser of the crown. The Palais Royal, the Palais
Luxembourg, the Trianon, and Versailles were alternately scenes of
excesses which would have disgraced the reigns of the most degenerate of
Saracenic caliphs. So vile was the court, that a celebrated countess one
day said, at a public festival, that "God, after having formed man, took
the mud which was left, and made the souls of princes and footmen."
And the King hated business as much as he hated pomp. Unlike his
predecessor, he left everything in the hands of his servants. Nothing
wearied him so much as an interview with a minister, or a dispatch from
a general. In the society of his mistresses he abnegated his duties as a
monarch, and the labors of his life were employed in gratifying their
resentments and humoring their caprices. Their complaints were more
potent than the suggestions of ministers, or the remonstrances of
judges. In idle frivolities his time was passed, neglectful of the great
interests which were intrusted to him to guard; and the only attainment
of which he was proud was a knack of making tarts and bon-bons, with
which he frequently regaled his visitors.
And yet, in spite of these ignoble tastes and pursuits, the King was by
no means deficient in natural abilities. He was much superior to even
Louis XIV. in logical acumen and sprightly wit. He was an agreeable
companion, and could appreciate every variety of talents. No man in his
court perceived more clearly than he the tendency of the writings of
philosophers which were then fermenting the germs of revolution. "His
sagacity kept him from believing in Voltaire, even when he succeeded in
deceiving the King of Prussia." He was favorable to the Jesuits, though
he banished them from the realm; perceiving and feeling that they were
his true friends and the best supports of his absolute throne,--and yet
he banished them from his kingdom. He was hostile too, in his heart, to
the very philosophers whom he invited to his table, and knew that they
sought to undermine his power. He simply had not the moral energy to
carry out the plans of that despotism to which he was devoted.
Sensuality ever robs a man of the advantages and gifts which reason
gives, even though they may be bestowed to an extraordinary degree.
There is no more impotent slavery than that to which the most gifted
intellects have been occasionally doomed. Self-indulgence is sure to sap
every element of moral strength, and to take away from genius itself all
power, except to sharpen the stings of self-reproach. "Louis XV. was not
insensible to the dangers which menaced his throne, and would have
despoiled the Parliament of the right of remonstrance; would have
imposed on the Jansenists the yoke of Papal supremacy; would have burned
the books of the philosophers, and have sent their authors to work out
their system within the gloomy dungeons of the Bastille;" but he had not
the courage, nor the moral strength, nor the power of will. He was
enslaved by his vices, and by those who pandered to them; and he could
not act either the king or the man. Seeing the dangers, but feeling his
impotence, he affected levity, and exclaimed to his courtiers _Après
nous le déluge_,--a prediction which only uncommon sagacity could have
prompted. Immersed however in unworthy pleasures, he gave himself not
much concern for the future; and this career of self-abandonment
continued to the last, even after satiety and _ennui_ had deprived the
appetites of the power to please. His latter days were of course
melancholy, and his miseries resulted as much from the perception of the
evils to come as from the failure of the pleasures of sense. A languor,
from which he was with difficulty ever roused, oppressed his life. Deaf,
incapable of being amused, prematurely worn out with bodily infirmities,
hated and despised by the whole nation, he dragged out his sixty-fourth
year, and died of the small-pox, which he caught in one of his visits to
the Pare aux Cerfs; and his loathsome remains were hastily hurried into
a carriage, and deposited in the vaults of St. Denis.
As, however, during this long reign of fifty-eight years, women were
the presiding geniuses of the court and the virtual directors of the
kingdom, I cannot give a faithful portrait of the times without some
allusion, at least, to that woman who was as famous in her day as Madame
de Montespan was during the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis
XIV. I single out Madame de Pompadour from the crowd of erring and
infirm females who bartered away their souls for the temporary honors of
Versailles. Not that proud peeress whom she displaced, the Duchesse de
Châteauroux; not that low-born and infamous character by whom she was
succeeded, Du Barry; not the hundreds of other women who were partners
or victims of guilty pleasures, and who descended unlamented and
unhonored to their ignominious graves, are here to be alluded to. But
Madame de Pompadour is a great historical personage, because with her
are identified the fall of the Jesuits in France, the triumph of
philosophers and economists, the disgrace of ministers, and the most
outrageous prodigality which ever scandalized a nation. Louis XV. was
almost wholly directed by this infamous favorite. She named and
displaced the controllers-general, and she herself received annually
nearly fifteen hundred thousand livres, besides hotels, palaces, and
estates. She was allowed to draw bills upon the treasury without
specifying the service, and those who incurred her displeasure were
almost sure of being banished from the court and kingdom, and perhaps
sentenced, by _lettre de cachet_, to the dreary cells of the Bastille.
She virtually had the appointment of the prelates of the Church and of
the generals of the army; and so great was her ascendency that all
persons, whatsoever their rank, found it expedient to pay their homage
to her. Even Montesquieu praised her intellect, and Voltaire her beauty,
and Maria Theresa wrote flattering letters to her. The prime minister
was her tool and agent, since royalty itself yielded to her sway; even
the proud ladies of the royal family condescended to flatter and to
honor her. Sprung only from the middle ranks of society, she yet assumed
the airs of a princess of the blood.
From her earliest years, long before she was admitted to the court, it
had been the dream of this woman to seduce the King. Her father was
butcher to the Invalides, and she spent nearly all the money she could
command in a costly present to a great duchess, the Princess Conti, in
order to be presented. She played high, and won--not a royal heart, but
the royal fancy. Her dress, manners, and extraordinary beauty increased
the impression she had once before made at a hunting-party; and after
the levée she was sent for, and became virtually the minister of the
realm. She was unquestionably a woman of great intellect, as well as of
tact and beauty, and even manifested a sympathy with some sorts of
intellectual excellence. She was the patroness of artists, philosophers,
and poets; but she liked those best who were distinguished for their
infidel or licentious speculations. She was the friend of those
economists and philosophers who sapped the foundations of the social
system. An imperious and insolent hauteur and reckless prodigality were
her most marked peculiarities,--just such as were to be expected in an
unprincipled woman raised suddenly to high position. In spite of her
power, she did not escape the malignant stings of envenomed rivals or
anonymous satirists. "She was rallied on the baseness of her origin; she
avenged herself by making common cause with those philosophers who
overturned the ancient order." She was both mistress and politician, but
her politics and alliances subverted the throne which gave her all her
glory. Her ascendency of course rested on her power of administering to
the tastes and pleasures of the 'King, and she showed genius in the
variety of amusements which she invented. She reigned twenty years, and
lost her empire only by death. Madame de Maintenon had maintained her
ascendency over Louis XIV. by the exercise of those virtues which
extorted his respect, but Madame de Pompadour by the faculty of charming
the senses. It was by her that Versailles was enriched with the most
precious and beautiful of its countless wonders. Her own collection of
pictures, cameos, antiques, crystals, porcelains, vases, gems, and
articles of _vertu_ was esteemed the richest and most valuable in the
kingdom, and after her death it took six months to dispose of it. Her
library was valued at more than a million of francs, and contained some
of the rarest manuscripts and most curious books in France. The sums,
however, which she spent on literary curiosities or literary men were
small compared with the expenses of her toilet, of her _fêtes_, her
balls, and her palaces. And all these expenses were open as the day in
the eyes of a nation suffering from ruinous taxation, from famine, and
the shame of unsuccessful war!