The Notables.
Here, then is verily a sign and wonder; visible to the whole
world; bodeful of much. The Œil-de-Bœuf dolorously grumbles; were
we not well as we stood,—quenching conflagrations by oil?
Constitutional Philosophedom starts with joyful surprise; stares
eagerly what the result will be. The public creditor, the public
debtor, the whole thinking and thoughtless public have their
several surprises, joyful and sorrowful. Count Mirabeau, who has
got his matrimonial and other Lawsuits huddled up, better or
worse; and works now in the dimmest element at Berlin; compiling
_Prussian Monarchies_, Pamphlets _On Cagliostro;_ writing, with
pay, but not with honourable recognition, innumerable Despatches
for his Government,—scents or descries richer quarry from afar.
He, like an eagle or vulture, or mixture of both, preens his
wings for flight homewards.[52]
M. de Calonne has stretched out an Aaron’s Rod over France;
miraculous; and is summoning quite unexpected things. Audacity
and hope alternate in him with misgivings; though the
sanguine-valiant side carries it. Anon he writes to an intimate
friend, ‘_Je me fais pitié à moi-même_ (I am an object of pity to
myself);’ anon, invites some dedicating Poet or Poetaster to sing
“this Assembly of the Notables and the Revolution that is
preparing.”[53] Preparing indeed; and a matter to be sung,—only
not till we have _seen_ it, and what the issue of it is. In deep
obscure unrest, all things have so long gone rocking and swaying:
will M. de Calonne, with this his alchemy of the Notables, fasten
all together again, and get new revenues? Or wrench all asunder;
so that it go no longer rocking and swaying, but clashing and
colliding?
Be this as it may, in the bleak short days, we behold men of
weight and influence threading the great vortex of French
Locomotion, each on his several line, from all sides of France
towards the Château of Versailles: summoned thither _de par le
roi_. There, on the 22d day of February 1787, they have met, and
got installed: Notables to the number of a Hundred and
Thirty-seven, as we count them name by name:[54] add Seven
Princes of the Blood, it makes the round Gross of Notables. Men
of the sword, men of the robe; Peers, dignified Clergy,
Parlementary Presidents: divided into Seven Boards (_Bureaux_);
under our Seven Princes of the Blood, Monsieur, D’Artois,
Penthievre, and the rest; among whom let not our new Duke
d’Orléans (for, since 1785, he is Chartres no longer) be
forgotten. Never yet made Admiral, and now turning the corner of
his fortieth year, with spoiled blood and prospects; half-weary
of a world which is more than half-weary of him, Monseigneur’s
future is most questionable. Not in illumination and insight, not
even in conflagration; but, as was said, “in dull smoke and ashes
of outburnt sensualities,” does he live and digest. Sumptuosity
and sordidness; revenge, life-weariness, ambition, darkness,
putrescence; and, say, in sterling money, three hundred thousand
a year,—were this poor Prince once to burst loose from his
Court-moorings, to what regions, with what phenomena, might he
not sail and drift! Happily as yet he “affects to hunt daily;”
sits there, since he must sit, presiding that Bureau of his, with
dull moon-visage, dull glassy eyes, as if it were a mere tedium
to him.
We observe finally, that Count Mirabeau has actually arrived. He
descends from Berlin, on the scene of action; glares into it with
flashing sun-glance; discerns that it will do nothing for him. He
had hoped these Notables might need a Secretary. They do need
one; but have fixed on Dupont de Nemours; a man of smaller fame,
but then of better;—who indeed, as his friends often hear,
labours under this complaint, surely not a universal one, of
having “five kings to correspond with.”[55] The pen of a Mirabeau
cannot become an official one; nevertheless it remains a pen. In
defect of Secretaryship, he sets to denouncing Stock-brokerage
(_Dénonciation de l’Agiotage_); testifying, as his wont is, by
loud bruit, that he is present and busy;—till, warned by friend
Talleyrand, and even by Calonne himself underhand, that “a
seventeenth _Lettre-de-Cachet_ may be launched against him,” he
timefully flits over the marches.
And now, in stately royal apartments, as Pictures of that time
still represent them, our hundred and forty-four Notables sit
organised; ready to hear and consider. Controller Calonne is
dreadfully behindhand with his speeches, his preparatives;
however, the man’s “facility of work” is known to us. For
freshness of style, lucidity, ingenuity, largeness of view, that
opening Harangue of his was unsurpassable:—had not the
subject-matter been so appalling. A Deficit, concerning which
accounts vary, and the Controller’s own account is not
unquestioned; but which all accounts agree in representing as
“enormous.” This is the epitome of our Controller’s difficulties:
and then his means? Mere Turgotism; for thither, it seems, we
must come at last: Provincial Assemblies; new Taxation; nay,
strangest of all, new Land-tax, what he calls _Subvention
Territoriale_, from which neither Privileged nor Unprivileged,
Noblemen, Clergy, nor Parlementeers, shall be exempt!
Foolish enough! These Privileged Classes have been used to tax;
levying toll, tribute and custom, at all hands, while a penny was
left: but to be themselves taxed? Of such Privileged persons,
meanwhile, do these Notables, all but the merest fraction,
consist. Headlong Calonne had given no heed to the “composition,”
or judicious packing of them; but chosen such Notables as were
really notable; trusting for the issue to off-hand ingenuity,
good fortune, and eloquence that never yet failed. Headlong
Controller-General! Eloquence can do much, but not all. Orpheus,
with eloquence grown rhythmic, musical (what we call Poetry),
drew iron tears from the cheek of Pluto: but by what witchery of
rhyme or prose wilt thou from the pocket of Plutus draw gold?
Accordingly, the storm that now rose and began to whistle round
Calonne, first in these Seven Bureaus, and then on the outside of
them, awakened by them, spreading wider and wider over all
France, threatens to become unappeasable. A Deficit so enormous!
Mismanagement, profusion is too clear. Peculation itself is
hinted at; nay, Lafayette and others go so far as to speak it
out, with attempts at proof. The blame of his Deficit our brave
Calonne, as was natural, had endeavoured to shift from himself on
his predecessors; not excepting even Necker. But now Necker
vehemently denies; whereupon an “angry Correspondence,” which
also finds its way into print.
In the Œil-de-Bœuf, and her Majesty’s private Apartments, an
eloquent Controller, with his ‘Madame, if it is but difficult,’
had been persuasive: but, alas, the cause is now carried
elsewhither. Behold him, one of these sad days, in Monsieur’s
Bureau; to which all the other Bureaus have sent deputies. He is
standing at bay: alone; exposed to an incessant fire of
questions, interpellations, objurgations, from those “hundred and
thirty-seven” pieces of logic-ordnance,—what we may well call
_bouches à feu_, fire-mouths literally! Never, according to
Besenval, or hardly ever, had such display of intellect,
dexterity, coolness, suasive eloquence, been made by man. To the
raging play of so many fire-mouths he opposes nothing angrier
than light-beams, self-possession and fatherly smiles. With the
imperturbablest bland clearness, he, for five hours long, keeps
answering the incessant volley of fiery captious questions,
reproachful interpellations; in words prompt as lightning, quiet
as light. Nay, the cross-fire too: such side questions and
incidental interpellations as, in the heat of the main-battle, he
(having only one tongue) could not get answered; these also he
takes up at the first slake; answers even these.[56] Could
blandest suasive eloquence have saved France, she were saved.
Heavy-laden Controller! In the Seven Bureaus seems nothing but
hindrance: in Monsieur’s Bureau, a Loménie de Brienne, Archbishop
of Toulouse, with an eye himself to the Controllership, stirs up
the Clergy; there are meetings, underground intrigues. Neither
from without anywhere comes sign of help or hope. For the Nation
(where Mirabeau is now, with stentor-lungs, “denouncing Agio”)
the Controller has hitherto done nothing, or less. For
Philosophedom he has done as good as nothing,—sent out some
scientific Lapérouse, or the like: and is he not in “angry
correspondence” with its Necker? The very Œil-de-Bœuf looks
questionable; a falling Controller has no friends. Solid M. de
Vergennes, who with his phlegmatic judicious punctuality might
have kept down many things, died the very week before these
sorrowful Notables met. And now a Seal-keeper, _Garde-des-Sceaux_
Miroménil is thought to be playing the traitor: spinning plots
for Loménie-Brienne! Queen’s-Reader Abbé de Vermond, unloved
individual, was Brienne’s creature, the work of his hands from
the first: it may be feared the backstairs passage is open,
ground getting mined under our feet. Treacherous Garde-des-Sceaux
Miroménil, at least, should be dismissed; Lamoignon, the eloquent
Notable, a stanch man, with connections, and even ideas,
Parlement-President yet intent on reforming Parlements, were not
he the right Keeper? So, for one, thinks busy Besenval; and, at
dinner-table, rounds the same into the Controller’s ear,—who
always, in the intervals of landlord-duties, listens to him as
with charmed look, but answers nothing positive.[57]
Alas, what to answer? The force of private intrigue, and then
also the force of public opinion, grows so dangerous, confused!
Philosophedom sneers aloud, as if its Necker already triumphed.
The gaping populace gapes over Wood-cuts or Copper-cuts; where,
for example, a Rustic is represented convoking the poultry of his
barnyard, with this opening address: ‘Dear animals, I have
assembled you to advise me what sauce I shall dress you with;’ to
which a Cock responding, ‘We don’t want to be eaten,’ is checked
by ‘You wander from the point (_Vous vous écartez de la
question_).’[58] Laughter and logic; ballad-singer, pamphleteer;
epigram and caricature: what wind of public opinion is this,—as
if the Cave of the Winds were bursting loose! At nightfall,
President Lamoignon steals over to the Controller’s; finds him
“walking with large strides in his chamber, like one out of
himself.”[59] With rapid confused speech the Controller begs M.
de Lamoignon to give him “an advice.” Lamoignon candidly answers
that, except in regard to his own anticipated Keepership, unless
that would prove remedial, he really cannot take upon him to
advise.
“On the Monday after Easter,” the 9th of April 1787, a date one
rejoices to verify, for nothing can excel the indolent falsehood
of these _Histoires and Mémoires_,—“On the Monday after Easter,
as I, Besenval, was riding towards Romainville to the Maréchal de
Segur’s, I met a friend on the Boulevards, who told me that M. de
Calonne was out. A little further on came M. the Duke d’Orléans,
dashing towards me, head to the wind” (trotting _à l’Anglaise_),
“and confirmed the news.”[60] It is true news. Treacherous
Garde-des-Sceaux Miroménil is gone, and Lamoignon is appointed in
his room: but appointed for his own profit only, not for the
Controller’s: “next day” the Controller also has had to move. A
little longer he may linger near; be seen among the money
changers, and even “working in the Controller’s office,” where
much lies unfinished: but neither will that hold. Too strong
blows and beats this tempest of public opinion, of private
intrigue, as from the Cave of all the Winds; and blows him
(higher Authority giving sign) out of Paris and France,—over the
horizon, into Invisibility, or outer Darkness.
Such destiny the magic of genius could not forever avert.
Ungrateful Œil-de-Bœuf! did he not miraculously rain gold manna
on you; so that, as a Courtier said, ‘All the world held out its
hand, and I held out my hat,’—for a time? Himself is poor;
penniless, had not a “Financier’s widow in Lorraine” offered him,
though he was turned of fifty, her hand and the rich purse it
held. Dim henceforth shall be his activity, though unwearied:
Letters to the King, Appeals, Prognostications; Pamphlets (from
London), written with the old suasive facility; which however do
not persuade. Luckily his widow’s purse fails not. Once, in a
year or two, some shadow of him shall be seen hovering on the
Northern Border, seeking election as National Deputy; but be
sternly beckoned away. Dimmer then, far-borne over utmost
European lands, in uncertain twilight of diplomacy, he shall
hover, intriguing for “Exiled Princes,” and have adventures; be
overset into the Rhine stream and half-drowned, nevertheless save
his papers dry. Unwearied, but in vain! In France he works
miracles no more; shall hardly return thither to find a grave.
Farewell, thou facile sanguine Controller-General, with thy light
rash hand, thy suasive mouth of gold: worse men there have been,
and better; but to thee also was allotted a task,—of raising the
wind, and the winds; and thou hast done it.
But now, while Ex-Controller Calonne flies storm-driven over the
horizon, in this singular way, what has become of the
Controllership? It hangs vacant, one may say; extinct, like the
Moon in her vacant interlunar cave. Two preliminary shadows, poor
M. Fourqueux, poor M. Villedeuil, do hold in quick succession
some simulacrum of it,[61]—as the new Moon will sometimes shine
out with a dim preliminary old one in her arms. Be patient, ye
Notables! An actual new Controller is certain, and even ready;
were the indispensable manœuvres but gone through. Long-headed
Lamoignon, with Home Secretary Bréteuil, and Foreign Secretary
Montmorin have exchanged looks; let these three once meet and
speak. Who is it that is strong in the Queen’s favour, and the
Abbé de Vermond’s? That is a man of great capacity? Or at least
that has struggled, these fifty years, to have it thought great;
now, in the Clergy’s name, demanding to have Protestant
death-penalties “put in execution;” no flaunting it in the
Œil-de-Bœuf, as the gayest man-pleaser and woman-pleaser;
gleaning even a good word from Philosophedom and your Voltaires
and D’Alemberts? With a party ready-made for him in the
Notables?—Loménie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse! answer all
the three, with the clearest instantaneous concord; and rush off
to propose him to the King; “in such haste,” says Besenval, “that
M. de Lamoignon had to borrow a _simarre_,” seemingly some kind
of cloth apparatus necessary for that.[62]
Loménie-Brienne, who had all his life “felt a kind of
predestination for the highest offices,” has now therefore
obtained them. He presides over the Finances; he shall have the
title of Prime Minister itself, and the effort of his long life
be realised. Unhappy only that it took such talent and industry
to _gain_ the place; that to _qualify_ for it hardly any talent
or industry was left disposable! Looking now into his inner man,
what qualification he may have, Loménie beholds, not without
astonishment, next to nothing but vacuity and possibility.
Principles or methods, acquirement outward or inward (for his
very body is wasted, by hard tear and wear) he finds none; not so
much as a plan, even an unwise one. Lucky, in these
circumstances, that Calonne has had a plan! Calonne’s plan was
gathered from Turgot’s and Necker’s by compilation; shall become
Loménie’s by adoption. Not in vain has Loménie studied the
working of the British Constitution; for he professes to have
some Anglomania, of a sort. Why, in that free country, does one
Minister, driven out by Parliament, vanish from his King’s
presence, and another enter, borne in by Parliament?[63] Surely
not for mere change (which is ever wasteful); but that all men
may have share of what is going; and so the strife of Freedom
indefinitely prolong itself, and no harm be done.
The Notables, mollified by Easter festivities, by the sacrifice
of Calonne, are not in the worst humour. Already his Majesty,
while the “interlunar shadows” were in office, had held session
of Notables; and from his throne delivered promissory
conciliatory eloquence: “The Queen stood waiting at a window,
till his carriage came back; and Monsieur from afar clapped hands
to her,” in sign that all was well.[64] It has had the best
effect; if such do but last. Leading Notables meanwhile can be
“caressed;” Brienne’s new gloss, Lamoignon’s long head will
profit somewhat; conciliatory eloquence shall not be wanting. On
the whole, however, is it not undeniable that this of ousting
Calonne and adopting the plans of Calonne, is a measure which, to
produce its best effect, should be looked at from a certain
distance, cursorily; not dwelt on with minute near scrutiny. In a
word, that no service the Notables could now do were so obliging
as, in some handsome manner, to—take themselves away! Their “Six
Propositions” about Provisional Assemblies, suppression of
_Corvées_ and suchlike, can be accepted without criticism. The
_Subvention_ on Land-tax, and much else, one must glide hastily
over; safe nowhere but in flourishes of conciliatory eloquence.
Till at length, on this 25th of May, year 1787, in solemn final
session, there bursts forth what we can call an explosion of
eloquence; King, Loménie, Lamoignon and retinue taking up the
successive strain; in harrangues to the number of ten, besides
his Majesty’s, which last the livelong day;—whereby, as in a kind
of choral anthem, or bravura peal, of thanks, praises, promises,
the Notables are, so to speak, organed out, and dismissed to
their respective places of abode. They had sat, and talked, some
nine weeks: they were the first Notables since Richelieu’s, in
the year 1626.
By some Historians, sitting much at their ease, in the safe
distance, Loménie has been blamed for this dismissal of his
Notables: nevertheless it was clearly time. There are things, as
we said, which should not be dwelt on with minute close scrutiny:
over hot coals you cannot glide too fast. In these Seven Bureaus,
where no work could be done, unless talk were work, the
questionablest matters were coming up. Lafayette, for example, in
Monseigneur d’Artois’ Bureau, took upon him to set forth more
than one deprecatory oration about _Lettres-de-Cachet_, Liberty
of the Subject, _Agio_, and suchlike; which Monseigneur
endeavouring to repress, was answered that a Notable being
summoned to speak his opinion must speak it.[65]
Thus too his Grace the Archbishop of Aix perorating once, with a
plaintive pulpit tone, in these words? ‘Tithe, that free-will
offering of the piety of Christians’—‘Tithe,’ interrupted Duke la
Rochefoucault, with the cold business-manner he has learned from
the English, ‘that free-will offering of the piety of Christians;
on which there are now forty-thousand lawsuits in this
realm.’[66] Nay, Lafayette, bound to speak his opinion, went the
length, one day, of proposing to convoke a “National Assembly.”
‘You demand States-General?’ asked Monseigneur with an air of
minatory surprise.—‘Yes, Monseigneur; and even better than
that.’—‘Write it,’ said Monseigneur to the Clerks.[67]—Written
accordingly it is; and what is more, will be acted by and by.