refusal to register two edicts relating to the stamp-duty and
the land-tax, the Parliament of Paris "grew weary of exile,
and the minister recalled it on condition that the two edicts
should be passed. But this was only a suspension of
hostilities; the necessities of the crown soon rendered the
struggle more obstinate and violent. The minister had to make
fresh applications for money; his existence depended on the
issue of several successive loans to the amount of
440,000,000. It was necessary to obtain the enrolment of them.
Brienne, expecting opposition from the parliament, procured
the enrolment of this edict, by a 'bed of justice,' and to
conciliate the magistracy and public opinion, the protestants
were restored to their rights in the same sitting, and Louis
XVI. promised an annual publication of the state of finances,
and the convocation of the states-general before the end of
five years. But these concessions were no longer sufficient:
parliament refused the enrolment, and rose against the
ministerial tyranny. Some of its members, among others the
duke of Orleans, were banished. Parliament protested by a
decree against 'lettres de cachet,' and required the recall of
its members. This decree was annulled by the king, and
confirmed by parliament. The warfare increased. The magistracy
of Paris was supported by all the magistracy of France, and
encouraged by public opinion. It proclaimed the rights of the
nation, and its own incompetence in matters of taxation; and,
become liberal from interest, and rendered generous by
oppression, it exclaimed against arbitrary imprisonment, and
demanded regularly convoked states-general. After this act of
courage, it decreed the irremovability of its members, and the
incompetence of any who might usurp their functions. This bold
manifesto was followed by the arrest of two members,
d'Eprémenil and Goislard, by the reform of the body, and the
establishment of a plenary court. Brienne understood that the
opposition of the parliament was systematic, that it would be
renewed on every fresh demand for subsidies, or on the
authorization of every loan. Exile was but a momentary remedy,
which suspended opposition, without destroying it. He then
projected the reduction of this body to judicial functions.
... All the magistracy of France was exiled on the same day,
in order that the new judicial organization might take place.
The keeper of the seals deprived the Parliament of Paris of
its political attributes, to invest with them a plenary court,
ministerially composed, and reduced its judicial competence in
favour of bailiwicks, the jurisdiction of which he extended.
Public opinion was indignant; the Châtelet protested, the
provinces rose, and the plenary court could neither be formed
nor act. Disturbances broke out in Dauphiné, Brittany,
Provence, Flanders, Languédoc, and Béarn; the ministry,
instead of the regular opposition of parliament, had to
encounter one much more animated and factious.
{1256}
The nobility, the third estate, the provincial states, and
even the clergy, took part in it. Brienne, pressed for money,
had called together an extraordinary assembly of the clergy,
who immediately made an address to the king, demanding the
abolition of his plenary court, and the recall of the
states-general: they alone could thenceforth repair the
disordered state of the finances, secure the national debt,
and terminate these disputes for power. ... Obtaining neither
taxes nor loans, unable to make use of the plenary court, and
not wishing to recall the parliaments, Brienne, as a last
resource, promised the convocation of the states-general. By
this means he hastened his ruin. ... He succumbed on the 25th
August, 1788. The cause of his fall was a suspension of the
payment of the interest on the debt, which was the
commencement of bankruptcy. This minister has been the most
blamed because he came last. Inheriting the faults, the
embarrassments of past times, he had to struggle with the
difficulties of his position with inefficient means. He tried
intrigue and oppression; he banished, suspended, disorganized
parliament; everything was an obstacle to him, nothing aided
him. After a long struggle, he sank under lassitude and
weakness; I dare not say from incapacity, for had he been far
stronger and more skilful, had he been a Richelieu or a Sully,
he would still have fallen. It no longer appertained to anyone
arbitrarily to raise money or to oppress the people. ... The
states-general had become the only means of government, and
the last resource of the throne. They had been eagerly
demanded by parliament and the peers of the kingdom, on the
13th of July, 1787; by the states of Dauphiné, in the assembly
of Vizille; by the clergy in its assembly at Paris. The
provincial states had prepared the public mind for them; and
the notables were their precursors. The king after having, on
the 18th of December, 1787, promised their convocation in five
years, on the 8th of August, 1788, fixed the opening for the
1st of May, 1789. Necker was recalled, parliament
re-established, the plenary court abolished, the bailiwicks
destroyed, and the provinces satisfied; and the new minister
prepared everything for the election of deputies and the
holding of the states. At this epoch a great change took place
in the opposition, which till then had been unanimous. Under
Brienne, the ministry had encountered opposition from all the
various bodies of the state, because it had sought to oppress
them. Under Necker, it met with resistance from the same
bodies, which desired power for themselves and oppression for
the people. From being despotic, it had become national, and
it still had them all equally against it. Parliament had
maintained a struggle for authority, and not for the public
welfare; and the nobility had united with the third estate,
rather against the government than in favour of the people.
Each of these bodies had demanded the states-general: the
parliament, in the hope of ruling them as it had done in 1614;
and the nobility, in the hope of regaining its lost influence.
Accordingly, the magistracy proposed as a model for the
states-general of 1789, the form of that of 1614, and public
opinion abandoned it; the nobility refused its consent to the
double representation of the third estate, and a division
broke out between these two orders. This double representation
was required by the intellect of the age, the necessity of
reform, and by the importance which the third estate had
acquired. It had already been admitted into the the provincial
assemblies. ... Opinion became daily more decided, and Necker
wishing, yet fearing, to satisfy it, and desirous of
conciliating all orders, of obtaining general approbation,
convoked a second assembly of notables on the 6th of November,
1788, to deliberate on the composition of the states-general,
and the election of its members. ... Necker, having been
unable to make the notables adopt the [double] representation
of the third estate, caused it to be adopted by the council.
The royal declaration of the 27th of November decreed, that
the deputies in the states-general should amount to at least a
thousand, and that the deputies of the third estate should be
equal in number to the deputies of the nobility and clergy
together. Necker moreover obtained the admission of the curés
into the order of the clergy, and of protestants into that of
the third estate. The district assemblies were convoked for
the elections; every one exerted himself to secure the
nomination of members of his own party, and to draw up
manifestoes setting forth his views. Parliament had but little
influence in the elections, and the court none at all. The
nobility selected a few popular deputies, but for the most
part devoted to the interests of their order, and as much
opposed to the third estate as to the oligarchy of the great
families of the court. The clergy nominated bishops and abbés
attached to privilege, and cures favourable to the popular
cause, which was their own; lastly, the third estate selected
men enlightened, firm and unanimous in their wishes. The
deputation of the nobility was comprised of 242 gentlemen, and
28 members of the parliament; that of the clergy, of 48
archbishops or bishops, 35 abbés or deans, and 208 curés; and
that of the communes, of two ecclesiastics, 12 noblemen, 18
magistrates of towns, 200 county members, 212 barristers, 16
physicians, and 216 merchants and agriculturists. The opening
of the states-general was fixed for the 5th of May, 1789."
_F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
introd._
ALSO IN:
_W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
lecture 6 (volume 1)._
_J. Necker,
On the French Revolution,
part 1, section 1._
FRANCE: A. D. 1789.
The condition of the people on the eve of the great
Revolution.
The sources and causes of its destructive fury.
"In 1789 three classes of persons, the Clergy, the Nobles, and
the King occupied the most prominent position in the State,
with all the advantages which it comports; namely, authority,
property, honors, or, at the very least, privileges,
immunities, favors, pensions, preferences, and the like. ...
The privileged classes number about 270,000 persons,
comprising of the nobility 140,000 and of the clergy 130,000.
This makes from 25,000 to 30,000 noble families; 23,000 monks
in 2,500 monasteries, and 37,000 nuns in 1,500 convents, and
60,000 curates and vicars in as many churches and chapels.
Should the reader desire a more distinct impression of them,
he may imagine on each square league of territory, and to each
thousand of inhabitants, one noble family in its weathercock
mansion, in each village a curate and his church, and, every
six or seven leagues, a conventual body of men or of women. ...
{1257}
A fifth of the soil belongs to the crown and the communes, a
fifth to the third estate, a fifth to the rural population, a
fifth to the nobles and a fifth to the clergy. Accordingly, if
we deduct the public lands, the privileged classes own one
half of the kingdom. This large portion, moreover, is at the
same time the richest, for it comprises almost all the large
and handsome buildings, the palaces, castles, convents, and
cathedrals, and almost all the valuable movable property. ...
Such is the total or partial exemption from taxation. The
tax-collectors halt in their presence, because the king well
knows that feudal property has the same origin as his own; if
royalty is one privilege seigniory is another; the king
himself is simply the most privileged among the privileged.
... After the assaults of 450 years, taxation, the, first of
fiscal instrumentalities, the most burdensome of all, leaves
feudal property almost intact. ... The privileged person
avoids or repels taxation, not merely because it despoils him,
but because it belittles him; it is a mark of plebeian
condition, that is to say, of former servitude, and he resists
the fisc as much through pride as through interest. ... La
Bruyère wrote, just a century before 1789, 'Certain
savage-looking beings, male and female, are seen in the
country, black, livid and sunburnt, and belonging to the soil
which they dig and grub with invincible stubbornness. They
seem capable of articulation, and, when they stand erect they
display human lineaments. They are, in fact, men. They retire
at night into their dens, where they live on black bread,
water and roots. They spare other human beings the trouble of
sowing, ploughing and harvesting, and thus should not be in
want of the bread they have planted.' They continue in want of
it during 25 years after this, and die in herds. I estimate
that in 1715 more than one-third of the population, six
millions, perish with hunger and of destitution. The picture,
accordingly, for the first quarter of the century preceding
the Revolution, far from being overdrawn, is the reverse; we
shall see that, during more than half a century, up to the
death of Louis XV., it is exact; perhaps, instead of weakening
any of its points, they should be strengthened. . . .
Undoubtedly the government under Louis XVI. is milder; the
intendants are more humane, the administration is less rigid,
the 'taille' becomes less unequal, and the 'corvée' is less
onerous through its transformation, in short, misery has
diminished, and yet this is greater than human nature can
bear. Examine administrative correspondence for the last
thirty years preceding the Revolution. Countless statements
reveal excessive suffering, even when not terminating in fury.
Life to a man of the lower class, to an artisan, or workman,
subsisting on the labor of his own hands, is evidently
precarious; he obtains simply enough to keep him from
starvation and he does not always get that. Here, in four
districts, 'the inhabitants live only on buckwheat,' and for
five years, the apple crop having failed, they drink only
water. There, in a country of vineyards, 'the vine-dressers
each year are reduced, for the most part, to begging their
bread during the dull season.' ... In a remote canton the
peasants cut the grain still green and dry it in the oven,
because they are too hungry to wait. ... Between 1750 and
1760, the idlers who eat suppers begin to regard with
compassion and alarm the laborers who go without dinners. Why
are the latter so impoverished, and by what chance, on a soil
as rich as that of France, do those lack bread who grow the
grain? In the first place, many farms remain uncultivated,
and, what is worse, many are deserted. According to the best
observers 'one-quarter of the soil is absolutely lying waste.
... Hundreds and hundreds of arpents of heath and moor form
extensive deserts.' ... This is not sterility but decadence.
The régime invented by Louis XIV. has produced its effect; the
soil for a century past is reverting back to a wild state. ... In
the second place, cultivation, when it does take place, is
carried on according to mediæval modes. Arthur Young, in 1789,
considers that French agriculture has not progressed beyond
that of the 10th century. Except in Flanders and on the plains
of Alsace, the fields lie fallow one year out of three and
oftentimes one year out of two. The implements are poor; there
are no ploughs made of iron; in many places the plough of
Virgil's time is still in use. ... Arthur Young shows that in
France those who lived on field labor, and they constituted
the great majority, are 76 per cent. less comfortable than the
same laborers in England, while they are 76 per cent. less
well fed and well clothed, besides being worse treated in
sickness and in health. The result is that, in seven-eighths
of the kingdom, there are no farmers but simply métayers.
['The poor people,' says Arthur Young, 'who cultivate the soil
here are métayers, that is, men who hire the land without ability
to stock it; the proprietor is forced to provide cattle and
seed, and he and his tenants divide the product.'] ... Misery
begets bitterness in a man; but ownership coupled with misery
renders him still more bitter"; and, strange as it appears,
the acquisition of land by the French peasants, in small
holdings, went on steadily during the 18th century, despite
the want and suffering which were so universal. "The fact is
almost incredible, but it is nevertheless true. We can only
explain it by the character of the French peasant, by his
sobriety, his tenacity, his rigor with himself, his
dissimulation, his hereditary passion for property and
especially for that of the soil. He had lived on privations
and economized sou after sou. ... Towards 1760, one-quarter of
the soil is said to have already passed into the hands of
agriculturists. ... The small cultivator, however, in becoming
a possessor of the soil assumed its charges. Simply as
day-laborer, and with his arms alone, he was only partially
affected by the taxes; 'where there is nothing the king loses
his dues.' But now, vainly is he poor and declaring himself
still poorer; the fisc has a hold on him and on every portion
of his new possessions. ... In 1715, the 'taille' [see TAILLE
AND GABELLE] and the poll-tax, which he alone pays, or nearly
alone, amounts to 66,000,000 livres, the amount is 93,000,000
in 1759 and 110,000,000 in 1789. ... 'I am miserable because
too much is taken from me. Too much is taken from me because
not enough is taken from the privileged. Not only do the
privileged force me to pay in their place, but, again, they
previously deduct from my earnings their ecclesiastical and
feudal dues. When, out of my income of 100 francs, I have
parted with 53 francs, and more, to the collector, I am
obliged again to give 14 francs to the seignior, also more
than 14 for tithes, and, out of the remaining 18 or 19 francs,
I have additionally to satisfy the excise-men.
{1258}
I alone, a poor man, pay two governments, one, the old
government [the seigniorial government of the feudal regime],
local and now absent, useless, inconvenient and humiliating,
and active only through annoyances, exemptions and taxes; and
the other [the royal government], recent, centralized,
everywhere present, which, taking upon itself all functions,
has vast needs and makes my meagre shoulders support its
enormous weight.' These, in precise terms, are the vague ideas
beginning to ferment in the popular brain and encountered on
every page of the records of the States-General. ... The
privileged wrought their own destruction. ... At their head,
the king, creating France by devoting himself to her as if his
own property, ended by sacrificing her as if his own property;
the public purse is his private purse, while passions, vanities,
personal weaknesses, luxurious habits, family solicitudes, the
intrigues of a mistress and the caprices of a wife, govern a
state of 26,000,000 men with an arbitrariness, a heedlessness,
a prodigality, an unskilfulness, an absence of consistency,
that would scarcely be overlooked in the management of a
private domain. The king and the privileged excel in one
direction, in good-breeding, in good taste, in fashion, in the
talent for self-display and in entertaining, in the gift of
graceful conversation, in finesse and in gayety, in the art of
converting life into a brilliant and ingenious festivity. ...
Through the habit, perfection and sway of polished intercourse
they stamped on the French intellect a classic form, which,
combined with recent scientific acquisitions, produced the
philosophy of the 18th century, the ill-repute of tradition,
the ambition of recasting all human institutions according to
the sole dictates of reason, the appliance of mathematical
methods to politics and morals, the catechism of the rights of
man, and other dogmas of anarchical and despotic character in
the 'Contrat Social.'--Once this chimera is born they welcome
it as a drawing-room fancy; they use the little monster as a
plaything, as yet innocent and decked with ribbons like a
pastoral lambkin; they never dream of it becoming a raging,
formidable brute; they nourish it, and caress it, and then,
opening their doors, they let it descend into the
streets.--Here, amongst a middle class which the government
has rendered ill-disposed by compromising its fortunes, which
the privileged have offended by restricting its ambition,
which is wounded by inequality through injured self-esteem,
the revolutionary theory gains rapid accessions, a sudden
asperity, and, in a few years, it finds itself undisputed
master of public opinion.--At this moment, and at its summons,
another colossal monster rises up, a monster with millions of
heads, a blind, startled animal, an entire people pressed
down, exasperated and suddenly loosed against the government
whose exactions have despoiled it, against the privileged
whose rights have reduced it to starvation."
_H. A. Taine,
The Ancient Régime,
book 1, chapters 1, 2,
and book 5, chapters 1, 2, 5._
"When the facts of history are fully and impartially set
forth, the wonder is rather that sane men put up with the
chaotic imbecility, the hideous injustices, the shameless
scandals, of the 'Ancien Regime,' in the earlier half of the
century, many years before the political 'Philosophes' wrote a
line,--why the Revolution did not break out in 1754 or 1757,
as it was on the brink of doing, instead of being delayed, by
the patient endurance of the people, for another generation.
It can hardly be doubted that the Revolution of '89 owed many
of its worst features to the violence of a populace degraded
to the level of the beasts by the effect of the institutions
under which they herded together and starved; and that the
work of reconstruction which it attempted was to carry into
practice the speculations of Mably and of Rousseau. But, just
as little, does it seem open to question that, neither the
writhings of the dregs of the populace in their misery, nor
the speculative demonstrations of the Philosophers, would have
come to much, except for the revolutionary movement which had
been going on ever since the beginning of the century. The
deeper source of this lay in the just and profound griefs of
at least 95 per cent. of the population, comprising all its
most valuable elements, from the agricultural peasants to the
merchants and the men of letters and science, against the
system by which they were crushed, or annoyed, whichever way
they turned. But the surface current was impelled by the
official defenders of the 'Ancien Régime' themselves. It was
the Court, the Church, the Parliaments, and, above all, the
Jesuits, acting in the interests of the despotism of the
Papacy, who, in the first half of the 18th century,
effectually undermined all respect for authority, whether
civil or religious, and justified the worst that was or could
be said by the 'Philosophes' later on."
See
PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715;
and JESUITS: A.D. 1761-1767.
_Prof. T. H. Huxley,
Introduction to F. Rocquain's
"The Revolutionary Spirit preceding
the French Revolution"_
"I took part in the opening of the States-General, and, in
spite of the pomp with which the royal power was still
surrounded, I there saw the passing away of the old regime.
The regime which preceded '89, should, it seems to me, be
considered from a two-fold aspect: the one, the general
condition of the country, and the other, the relations
existing between the government and the country. With regard
to the former, I firmly believe that, from the earliest days
of the monarchy, France had at no period been happier than she
was then. She had not felt the effects of any great misfortune
since the crash which followed Law's system. The long lasting
ministry of Cardinal de Fleury, doubtless inglorious, but wise
and circumspect, had made good the losses and lightened the
burdens imposed at the end of the reign of Louis XV. If, since
that time, several wars undertaken with little skill, and
waged with still less, had compromised the honor of her arms
and the reputation of her government; if they had even thrown
her finances into a somewhat alarming state of disorder, it is
but fair to say that the confusion resulting therefrom had
merely affected the fortune of a few creditors, and had not
tapped the sources of public prosperity; on the contrary, what
is styled the public administration had made constant
progress. If, on the one hand, the state had not been able to
boast of any great ministers, on the other, the provinces
could show many highly enlightened and clever intendants.
Roads had been opened connecting numerous points, and had been
greatly improved in all directions. It should not be forgotten
that these benefits are principally due to the reign of Louis
XV. Their most important result had been a progressive
improvement in the condition of agriculture.
{1259}
The reign of Louis XVI. had continued favoring this wise
policy, which had not been interrupted by the, maritime war
undertaken on behalf of American independence. Many
cotton-mills had sprung, up, while considerable progress had
been made in the manufacture of printed cotton fabrics, and of
steel, and in the preparing of skins. ... I saw the splendors
of the Empire. Since the Restoration I see daily new fortunes
spring up and consolidate themselves; still nothing so far
has, in my eyes, equalled the splendor of Paris during the
years which elapsed between 1783 and 1789. ... Far be it from
me to shut my eyes to the reality of the public prosperity
which we are now [1822] enjoying. I am cognizant of the
improvement in the condition of the country districts, and I
am aware of the fact that all that rests on this solid
foundation, even though its appearance may be somewhat more
humble, is much to be preferred to a grander exterior that
might hide a less assured solidity. I do not seek to disparage
the present time--far from it. I am ready to admit the
advantages which have accrued, in many respects, as the
results of the Revolution; as, for instance, the partition of
landed property, so often assailed, and which, so long as it
does not go beyond certain limits, tends to increase wealth,
by introducing into many families a well-being hitherto
unknown to them. But, nevertheless, when I question my reason
and my conscience as to the possible future of the France of
1789, if the Revolution had not burst, if the ten years of
destruction to which it gave birth had not weighed heavily
upon that beautiful country ... I am convinced that France, at
the time I am writing, would be richer and stronger than she
is to-day."
_Chancellor Pasquier,
Memoirs,
pages 44-47._
"In the spring of 1789 who could have foreseen the bloody
catastrophe? Everything was tinged with hopefulness; the world
was dreaming of the Golden Age. ... Despite the previous
disorders, and seeds of discord contained in certain cahiers,
the prevailing sentiment was confidence. ... The people
everywhere hailed with enthusiasm the new era which was
dawning. With a firm king, with a statesman who knew what he
wished, and was determined to accomplish it, this confidence
would have been an incomparable force. With a feeble prince
like Louis XVI., with an irresolute minister like Necker, it
was an appalling danger. The public, inflamed by the anarchy
that had preceded the convocation of the States, disposed,
through its inexperience, to accept all Utopias, and impelled
by its peculiar character to desire their immediate
realization, naturally grew more exacting in proportion as
they were promised more, and more impatient and irritable as
their hopes became livelier and appeared better founded. In
the midst of this general satisfaction there was but one dark
spot,--the queen. The cheers which greeted the king were
silent before his wife. Calumny had done its work; and all the
nobles from the provinces, the country curates, the citizens
of the small towns, came from the confines of France imbued
with the most contemptible prejudices against this unfortunate
princess. Pamphlets, poured out against her by malicious
enemies; vague and mysterious rumours, circulated everywhere,
repeated in whispers, without giving any clew to their
source,--the more dangerous because indefinite, and the more
readily believed because infamous and absurd,--had so often
reiterated that the queen was author of all the evil, that the
world had come to regard her as the cause of the deficit, and
the only serious obstacle to certain efficacious reforms. 'The
queen pillages on all sides; she even sends money, it is said,
to her brother, the emperor,' wrote a priest of Maine, in his
parochial register, in 1781; and he attributed the motive of
the reunion of the Notables to these supposed depredations.
If, in 1781, such reports had penetrated to the remotest parts
of the country, and found credence with such enlightened men
as the Curé Boucher, one can judge what it must have been two
years later, when the convocation of the States-General had
inflamed the minds of the people. If the States should
encounter any inevitable obstacle in their path; if certain
imprudent promises should be unfulfilled; if promised reforms
should fail,--public resentment and ill-will, always on the
alert, would be sure to blame Marie Antoinette; they would
impute to her all the evil done, and all the good left undone.
The symptoms of this distrust were manifest at the outset.
'The deputies of the Third Estate,' Madame Campan observes,
'arrived at Versailles with the strongest prejudice against
the court. The evil sayings in Paris never failed to be spread
through the provinces: they believed that the king indulged in
the pleasures of the table to a most shameful excess; they
were persuaded that the queen exhausted the State treasury to
gratify her inordinate love of luxury; almost all wished to
visit Little Trianon. As the extreme simplicity of this
pleasure-house did not correspond with their ideas, they
insisted on being shown even the smallest closets, saying that
richly furnished apartments were being concealed from them.
Finally they designated one, which according to their account
was ornamented with diamonds, and twisted columns studded with
sapphires and rubies. The queen was amused at these mad
fancies, and told the king of them.'"
_M. de la Rocheterie,
Life of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_A. de Tocqueville,
On the State of Society
in France before the Revolution._
_A. Young,
Travels in France, 1787-89._
_R. H. Dabney,
Causes of the French Revolution._
_E. J. Lowell,
The Eve of the French Revolution._
FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (May).
Meeting of the States-General.
Conflict between the three Estates.
The question of three Houses or one.