ECONOMIC CRISIS
Even under such conditions the Bourbon monarchy might have survived
much longer had it not failed badly at one specific point. Napoleon
himself declared that it was in its financial management that the
_ancien régime_ had broken down; and although for a long period
historians chose to accentuate the political and social aspects of the
Revolution, of recent years the economic has been the point of
emphasis. And it was to consider a financial problem that the
States-General were summoned in 1789; while most of the riots that
broke out in Paris that same year were due to scarcity of food.
The editors of the Encyclopaedia had not neglected economic questions,
and had given much employment to a number of writers who ranked as
Economists or as Physiocrats. Among the men most interested in such
questions were Quesnay, the physician of Madame de Pompadour; Turgot,
the ablest minister of {26} Louis XVI, and the Marquis de Mirabeau,
father of a more famous son. They concerned themselves, among other
things, with theories of agriculture largely based on the conditions of
their country. With her large population France could with difficulty
produce sufficient food for her people. The wheat which she did
produce was brought to market under extremely bad conditions of
distribution and of payment. The century witnessed what appeared to be
an endless succession of short crops and consequent famine. Viewing
these conditions as a whole, the economic thinkers concluded that the
foundations of the State must repose on agriculture, and they quickly
voiced a demand that there should be encouragement for the production
of wheat and free circulation.
Towards the end of the reign of Louis XV the effect of these economic
doctrines began to be felt. Several efforts were made to remove the
restrictions on the circulation of wheat. These efforts, however,
proved unavailing until after the meeting of the States-General, and
that largely because of the powerful interests that were concerned in
maintaining the wheat question as it then existed. The conditions were
curious and are of great importance in {27} their relation to the
outbreak of the Revolution.
Wheat had become the great medium of financial speculation. It was an
article that came on the market at a stated period in large quantities,
though in quantities which experience showed were rarely sufficient to
meet the requirements of the succeeding twelve months. The capitalist
who could pay cash for it, and who had the means of storing it, was
therefore nearly certain of a moderate profit, and, if famine occurred,
of an extravagant one. That capitalist of necessity belonged to the
privileged classes. Frequently religious communities embarked in these
ventures, and used their commodious buildings as granaries. Syndicates
were formed in which all varieties of speculators entered, from the
bourgeois shopkeeper of the provincial town to the courtier and even
the King. But popular resentment, the bitter cry of the starving,
applied the same name to all of them: from Louis XV to the
inconspicuous monk they were all _accapareurs de blé_, cornerers of
wheat. And their profits rose as did hunger and starvation. The
computation has been put forward that in the year 1789 one-half of the
population of France had known from experience the meaning of the {28}
word hunger; can it be wondered if the curse of a whole people was
attached to any man of whom it might be said that he was an _accapareur
de blé_?
The privileged person, king or seigneur, bishop or abbot, levied feudal
dues along the roads and waterways, so that a boatload of wine
proceeding from Provence to Paris was made to pay toll no less than
forty times en route. He owned the right of sitting as judge in town
or village, and of commanding the armed force that made judgment
effective. Where he did not own the freehold of the farm, he held
oppressive feudal rights over it, and in the last resort reappeared in
official guise as one of an army of officials whose chief duty it was
not so much to ensure justice, good government, or local improvement,
as to screw more money out of the taxpayer. Chief of all these
officials were the King's intendants, working under the authority of
the Controleur-Genéral des Finances.
The Controleur was the most important of the King's ministers, and had
charge of nearly all the internal administration of the kingdom. He
not only collected the revenue, but had gradually subordinated every
other function of government to that one. So he took charge {29} of
public works, of commerce and of agriculture, and directed the
operations of an army of police, judicial and military officials--and
all for the more splendid maintenance of Versailles, Trianon, and the
courtiers.
In the provinces he was represented by the intendant. This official's
duties varied to a certain extent with his district or _généralité_.
In administration France showed the transition that was proceeding from
feudalism to centralized monarchism. Provinces had been acquired one
by one, and many of them still retained local privileges. Of these the
chief was that of holding provincial Estates, and where this custom
prevailed, the chief duty of the Estates lay in the assessment of
taxes. Where the province was not _pays d'état_, it was the intendant
who distributed the taxation. He enforced its collection; directed the
_maréchaussée_, or local police; sat in judgment when disorder broke
out; levied the militia, and enforced roadmaking by the _corvée_.
Thirty intendants ruled France; and the modern system with its prefects
is merely a slight modification devised by Napoleon on the great
centralizing and administrative scheme of the Bourbon monarchy.
The taxes formed a somewhat complicated {30} system, but they may, for
the present purpose, be grouped as follows: taxes that were farmed;
direct taxes; the gabelle; feudal and ecclesiastical taxes.
In 1697 had begun the practice of leasing indirect taxes for the space
of six years to contractors, the _fermiers généraux_. They paid in
advance, and recouped themselves by grinding the taxpayer to the
uttermost. They defrauded the public in such monopolies as that of
tobacco, which was grossly adulterated; and they enforced payments not
only with harshness and violence, but with complete disregard for the
ruin which their exactions entailed. The government increased the
yield of the _ferme_ in a little less than a century from 37 to 180
millions of livres or francs,[1] and yet the sixty farmers continued to
increase in wealth. They formed the most conspicuous group of
plutocrats when the Revolution broke out and were among the first
victims of popular indignation. Of the direct taxes the most important
in every way was the _taille_. It brought in under Louis XVI about 90
millions of francs. It represented historically the fundamental right
of the French monarch to tax his {31} subjects delegated to him by the
Estates of the kingdom in the 15th century. By virtue of that
delegated power it was the Royal Council that settled each year what
amount of _taille_ should be levied. It was enforced harshly and in
such a manner as to discourage land improvement. It was also the badge
of social inferiority, for in the course of centuries a large part of
the wealthier middle classes had bought or bargained themselves out of
the tax, so that to pay it was a certain mark of the lower class or
_roture_. _Taillable, roturier_, were terms of social ostracism
impatiently borne by thousands.
Other direct taxes were the capitation, bringing in over 50 millions,
the _dixiéme_, the _don gratuit_. But more important than any of these
was the great Government indirect tax, the monopoly on salt, or
_gabelle_. Exemptions of all sorts made the price vary in different
parts of France, but in some cases as much as 60 francs was charged for
the annual quantity which the individual was assessed at, that same
individual as often as not earning less than 5 francs a week. So much
smuggling, fraud and resistance to the law did the _gabelle_ produce
that it took 50,000 officials, police and soldiers, to work it. In the
year 1783 no less {32} than 11,000 persons, many of them women and
children, were arrested for infraction of the _gabelle_ laws.
Last of all, the tithe and feudal dues were added to the burden. The
priest was maintained by the land. The seigneur's rights were
numerous, and varied in different parts of the country. They bore most
heavily in the central and northeastern parts of France, most lightly
in the south, where Roman law had prevailed over feudal, and along most
of the Atlantic coast line, as in Normandy. These feudal dues will be
noticed later in connection with the famous session of the
States-General on the 4th of August, 1789.
In all this system of taxation there was only one rule that was of
universal application, and that was that the burden should be thrown on
the poor man's shoulders. The clergy had compounded with the Crown.
The nobles or officials were the assessors, and whether they officiated
for the King, for the Provincial Estates or for themselves, they took
good care that their own contributions to the royal chest should be
even less proportionately than might legally be demanded of them. And
after all the money had been driven into the treasury it was but too
painfully evident what became {33} of it. The fermiers and the
favourites scrambled for the millions and flaunted their splendour in
the face of those who paid for it. The extravagance of the Court was
equalled only by its ineptitude. No proper accounts were kept, because
all but the taxpayers found their interest in squandering. Under
Madame de Pompadour the practice arose that orders for money payments
signed by the King alone should be paid in cash and not passed through
the audit chamber, such as it was. Pensions became a serious drain on
the revenue and rapidly grew to over 50 millions a year at the end of
the reign of Louis XVI. They were not infrequently granted for
ridiculous or scandalous reasons, as in the case of Ducrest,
hairdresser to the eldest daughter of the Comtesse d'Artois, who was
granted an annual pension of 1,700 francs on her death; the child was
then twelve months old; or that of a servant of the actress Clairon,
who was brought into the Oeuil de Boeuf one morning to tell Louis XV a
doubtful story about his mistress; the King laughed so much that he
ordered the fellow to be put down for a pension of 600 francs!
With its finances in such condition the Bourbon monarchy plunged into
war with England {34} in 1778, and, for the satisfaction of Yorktown
and the independence of the United States, spent 1,500 millions of
francs, nearly four years' revenue. At that moment it was estimated
that the people of France paid in taxation about 800 millions annually,
about one-half of which reached the King's chest. But the burden of
debt was so great that by 1789, nearly 250 millions were paid out
annually for interest.
To meet this situation the Government tried many men and many measures.
There were several partial repudiations of debt. The money was
clipped, much to the profit of importers from Amsterdam and other
centres of thrift. Necker made way for Calonne, and Calonne for
Necker. But these names bring us to the current of events that
resulted in the convocation of the States-General by Louis XVI, and
that must be made the subject of another chapter.
[1] The franc comes into use at the period of the Revolution. It will
be employed throughout instead of _livres_ as the standard denomination.
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