The Notables Again.
The universal prayer, therefore, is to be fulfilled! Always in
days of national perplexity, when wrong abounded and help was
not, this remedy of States-General was called for; by a
Malesherbes, nay by a Fénelon;[107] even Parlements calling for
it were “escorted with blessings.” And now behold it is
vouchsafed us; States-General shall verily be!
To say, let States-General be, was easy; to say in what manner
they shall be, is not so easy. Since the year of 1614, there have
no States-General met in France, all trace of them has vanished
from the living habits of men. Their structure, powers, methods
of procedure, which were never in any measure fixed, have now
become wholly a vague possibility. Clay which the potter may
shape, this way or that:—say rather, the twenty-five millions of
potters; for so many have now, more or less, a vote in it! How to
shape the States-General? There is a problem. Each
Body-corporate, each privileged, each organised Class has secret
hopes of its own in that matter; and also secret misgivings of
its own,—for, behold, this monstrous twenty-million Class,
hitherto the dumb sheep which these others had to agree about the
manner of shearing, is now also arising with hopes! It has ceased
or is ceasing to be dumb; it speaks through Pamphlets, or at
least brays and growls behind them, in unison,—increasing
wonderfully their volume of sound.
As for the Parlement of Paris, it has at once declared for the
“old form of 1614.” Which form had this advantage, that the
_Tiers Etat_, Third Estate, or Commons, figured there as a show
mainly: whereby the Noblesse and Clergy had but to avoid quarrel
between themselves, and decide unobstructed what _they_ thought
best. Such was the clearly declared opinion of the Paris
Parlement. But, being met by a storm of mere hooting and howling
from all men, such opinion was blown straightway to the winds;
and the popularity of the Parlement along with it,—never to
return. The Parlements part, we said above, was as good as
played. Concerning which, however, there is this further to be
noted: the proximity of dates. It was on the 22nd of September
that the Parlement returned from “vacation” or “exile in its
estates;” to be reinstalled amid boundless jubilee from all
Paris. Precisely next day it was, that this same Parlement came
to its “clearly declared opinion:” and then on the morrow after
that, you behold it “covered with outrages”; its outer court, one
vast sibilation, and the glory departed from it for
evermore.[108] A popularity of twenty-four hours was, in those
times, no uncommon allowance.
On the other hand, how superfluous was that invitation of
Loménie’s: the invitation to thinkers! Thinkers and unthinkers,
by the million, are spontaneously at their post, doing what is in
them. Clubs labour: _Societe Publicole;_ Breton Club; Enraged
Club, _Club des Enrages_. Likewise Dinner-parties in the Palais
Royal; your Mirabeaus, Talleyrands dining there, in company with
Chamforts, Morellets, with Duponts and hot Parlementeers, not
without object! For a certain _Necker_ean Lion’s-provider, whom
one could name, assembles them there;[109]—or even their own
private determination to have dinner does it. And then as to
Pamphlets—in figurative language; “it is a sheer snowing of
pamphlets; like to snow up the Government thoroughfares!” Now is
the time for Friends of Freedom; sane, and even insane.
Count, or self-styled Count, d’Aintrigues, “the young
Languedocian gentleman,” with perhaps Chamfort the Cynic to help
him, rises into furor almost Pythic; highest, where many are
high.[110] Foolish young Languedocian gentleman; who himself so
soon, “emigrating among the foremost,” must fly indignant over
the marches, with the _Contrat Social_ in his pocket,—towards
outer darkness, thankless intriguings, _ignis-fatuus_ hoverings,
and death by the stiletto! Abbé Sieyes has left Chartres
Cathedral, and canonry and book-shelves there; has let his
tonsure grow, and come to Paris with a secular head, of the most
irrefragable sort, to ask three questions, and answer them: _What
is the Third Estate? All.—What has it hitherto been in our form
of government? Nothing.—What does it want? To become Something._
D’Orléans,—for be sure he, on his way to Chaos, is in the thick
of this,—promulgates his _Deliberations;_[111] fathered by him,
written by Laclos of the _Liaisons Dangereuses._ The result of
which comes out simply: “The Third Estate is the Nation.” On the
other hand, Monseigneur d’Artois, with other Princes of the
Blood, publishes, in solemn _Memorial_ to the King, that if such
things be listened to, Privilege, Nobility, Monarchy, Church,
State and Strongbox are in danger.[112] In danger truly: and yet
if you do not listen, are they out of danger? It is the voice of
all France, this sound that rises. Immeasurable, manifold; as the
sound of outbreaking waters: wise were he who knew what to do in
it,—if not to fly to the mountains, and hide himself?
How an ideal, all-seeing Versailles Government, sitting there on
such principles, in such an environment, would have determined to
demean itself at this new juncture, may even yet be a question.
Such a Government would have felt too well that its long task was
now drawing to a close; that, under the guise of these
States-General, at length inevitable, a new omnipotent Unknown of
Democracy was coming into being; in presence of which no
Versailles Government either could or should, except in a
provisory character, continue extant. To enact which provisory
character, so unspeakably important, might its whole faculties
but have sufficed; and so a peaceable, gradual, well-conducted
Abdication and _Domine-dimittas_ have been the issue!
This for our ideal, all-seeing Versailles Government. But for the
actual irrational Versailles Government? Alas, that is a
Government existing there only for its own behoof: without right,
except possession; and now also without might. It foresees
nothing, sees nothing; has not so much as a purpose, but has only
purposes,—and the instinct whereby all that exists will struggle
to keep existing. Wholly a vortex; in which vain counsels,
hallucinations, falsehoods, intrigues, and imbecilities whirl;
like withered rubbish in the meeting of winds! The Œil-de-Bœuf
has its irrational hopes, if also its fears. Since hitherto all
States-General have done as good as nothing, why should these do
more? The Commons, indeed, look dangerous; but on the whole is
not revolt, unknown now for five generations, an impossibility?
The Three Estates can, by management, be set against each other;
the Third will, as heretofore, join with the King; will, out of
mere spite and self-interest, be eager to tax and vex the other
two. The other two are thus delivered bound into our hands, that
we may fleece them likewise. Whereupon, money being got, and the
Three Estates all in quarrel, dismiss them, and let the future go
as it can! As good Archbishop Loménie was wont to say: ‘There are
so many accidents; and it needs but one to save us.’—How many to
destroy us?
Poor Necker in the midst of such an anarchy does what is possible
for him. He looks into it with obstinately hopeful face; lauds
the known rectitude of the kingly mind; listens indulgent-like to
the known perverseness of the queenly and courtly;—emits if any
proclamation or regulation, one favouring the _Tiers Etat;_ but
settling nothing; hovering afar off rather, and advising all
things to settle themselves. The grand questions, for the
present, have got reduced to two: the Double Representation, and
the Vote by Head. Shall the Commons have a “double
representation,” that is to say, have as many members as the
Noblesse and Clergy united? Shall the States-General, when once
assembled, vote and deliberate, in one body, or in three separate
bodies; “vote by head, or vote by class,”—_ordre_ as they call
it? These are the moot-points now filling all France with jargon,
logic and eleutheromania. To terminate which, Necker bethinks
him, Might not a second Convocation of the Notables be fittest?
Such second Convocation is resolved on.
On the 6th of November of this year 1788, these Notables
accordingly have reassembled; after an interval of some eighteen
months. They are Calonne’s old Notables, the same Hundred and
Forty-four,—to show one’s impartiality; likewise to save time.
They sit there once again, in their Seven Bureaus, in the hard
winter weather: it is the hardest winter seen since 1709;
thermometer below zero of Fahrenheit, Seine River frozen
over.[113] Cold, scarcity and eleutheromaniac clamour: a changed
world since these Notables were “organed out,” in May gone a
year! They shall see now whether, under their Seven Princes of
the Blood, in their Seven Bureaus, they can settle the
moot-points.
To the surprise of Patriotism, these Notables, once so patriotic,
seem to incline the wrong way; towards the anti-patriotic side.
They stagger at the Double Representation, at the Vote by Head:
there is not affirmative decision; there is mere debating, and
that not with the best aspects. For, indeed, were not these
Notables themselves mostly of the Privileged Classes? They
clamoured once; now they have their misgivings; make their
dolorous representations. Let them vanish, ineffectual; and
return no more! They vanish after a month’s session, on this 12th
of December, year 1788: the _last_ terrestrial Notables, not to
reappear any other time, in the History of the World.
And so, the clamour still continuing, and the Pamphlets; and
nothing but patriotic Addresses, louder and louder, pouting in on
us from all corners of France,—Necker himself some fortnight
after, before the year is yet done, has to present his
_Report_,[114] recommending at his own risk that same Double
Representation; nay almost enjoining it, so loud is the jargon
and eleutheromania. What dubitating, what circumambulating! These
whole six noisy months (for it began with Brienne in July,) has
not _Report_ followed _Report_, and one Proclamation flown in the
teeth of the other?[115]
However, that first moot-point, as we see, is now settled. As for
the second, that of voting by Head or by Order, it unfortunately
is still left hanging. It hangs there, we may say, between the
Privileged Orders and the Unprivileged; as a ready-made
battle-prize, and necessity of war, from the very first: which
battle-prize whosoever seizes it—may thenceforth bear as
battle-flag, with the best omens!
But so, at least, by Royal Edict of the 24th of January,[116]
does it finally, to impatient expectant France, become not only
indubitable that National Deputies _are_ to meet, but possible
(so far and hardly farther has the royal Regulation gone) to
begin electing them.