She is, in truth, being depleted of one-half of her best blood.

IV.--Abuse and lukewarmness in 1789 in the ecclesiastical bodies.

How the State used its right of overseeing and reforming

them.--Social usefulness of corporations.--The sound part in

the monastic institution.--Zeal and services of nuns.--How

ecclesiastical possessions should be employed.--Principle of

the Assembly as to private communities, feudal rights and

trust-funds.--Abolition and expropriation all corporations.

--Uncompensated suppression of tithes.--Confiscation of

ecclesiastical possessions.--Effect on the Treasury and on

expropriated services.--The civil constitution of the

clergy.--Rights of the Church in relation to the State.

--Certainty and effects of a conflict.--Priests considered as

State-functionaries.--Principal stipulations of the law.

--Obligations of the oath.--The majority of priests refuse to

take it.--The majority of believes on their side.

--Persecution of believers and of priests.

There remained the corporate, ecclesiastic, and lay bodies, and,

notably, the oldest, most opulent, and most considerable of all the

regular and secular clergy.--Grave abuses existed here also, for, the

institution being founded on ancient requirements, had not accommodated

itself to new necessities.[2237] There were too many episcopal sees,

and these were arranged according to the Christian distribution of

the population in the fourth century; a revenue still more badly

apportioned--bishops and abbés with one hundred thousand livres a year,

leading the lives of amiable idlers, while curés, overburdened with

work, have but seven hundred; in one monastery nineteen monks instead

of eighty, and in another four instead of fifty;[2238] a number of

monasteries reduced to three or to two inhabitants, and even to one;

almost all the congregations of men going to decay, and many of them

dying out for lack of novices;[2239] a general lukewarmness among the

members, great laxity in many establishments, and with scandals in some

of them; scarcely one-third taking an interest in their calling, while

the remaining two-thirds wish to go back to the world,[2240]--it is

evident from all this that the primitive inspiration has been diverted

or has cooled; that the endowment only partially fulfills its ends;

that one-half of its resources are employed in the wrong way or

remain sterile; in short, that there is a need of reformation in the

body.--That this ought to be effected with the co-operation of the State

and even under its direction is not less certain. For a corporation

is not an individual like other individuals, and, in order that it may

acquire or possess the privileges of an ordinary citizen, something

supplementary must be added, some fiction, some expedient of the law.

If the law is disposed to overlook the fact that a corporation is not a

natural personage, if it gives to it a civil personality, if it declares

it to be capable of inheriting, of acquiring and of selling, if it

becomes a protected and respected proprietor, this is due to the favors

of the State which places its tribunal and gendarmes at its service, and

which, in exchange for this service, justly imposes conditions on it,

and, among others, that of being useful and remaining useful, or at

least that of never becoming harmful. Such was the rule under the

Ancient Régime, and especially since the Government has for the last

quarter of a century gradually and efficaciously worked out a reform.

Not only, in 1749, had it prohibited the Church from accepting land,

either by donation, by testament, or in exchange, without royal

letters-patent registered in Parliament; not only in 1764 had it

abolished the order of Jesuits, closed their colleges and sold their

possessions, but also, since 1766, a permanent commission, formed by

the King's order and instructed by him, had lopped off all the dying and

dead branches of the ecclesiastical tree.[2241] There was a revision of

the primitive Constitutions; a prohibition to every institution to have

more than two monasteries at Paris and more than one in other towns; a

postponement of the age for taking vows--that of sixteen being no longer

permitted--to twenty-one for men and eighteen for women; an obligatory

minimum of monks and nuns for each establishment, which varies from

fifteen to nine according to circumstances; if this is not kept up there

follows a suppression or prohibition to receive novices: owing to

these measures, rigorously executed, at the end of twelve years

"the Grammontins, the Servites, the Celestins, the ancient order of

Saint-Bénédict, that of the Holy Ghost of Montpellier, and those

of Sainte-Brigitte, Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, Saint-Ruff, and

Saint-Antoine,"--in short, nine complete congregations had disappeared.

At the end of twenty years three hundred and eighty-six establishments

had been suppressed, the number of monks and nuns had diminished

one-third, the larger portion of possessions which had escheated were

usefully applied, and the congregations of men lacked novices and

complained that they could not fill up their ranks. If the monks were

still found to be too numerous, too wealthy, and too indolent, it was

merely necessary to keep on in this way; before the end of the century,

merely by the application of the edict, the institution would be

brought back, without brutality or injustice, within the scope of the

development, the limitations of fortune, and the class of functions

acceptable to a modern State.

But, because these ecclesiastical bodies stood in need of reform it does

not follow that it was necessary to destroy them, nor, in general,

that independent institutions are detrimental to a nation. Organized

purposely for a public service, and possessing, nearly or remotely under

the supervision of the State, the faculty of self-administration, these

bodies are valuable organs and not malign tumors.

In the first place, through their institution, a great public benefit

is secured without any cost to the government--worship, scientific

research, primary or higher education, help for the poor, care of the

sick--all set apart and sheltered from the cuts which public financial

difficulties might make necessary, and supported by the private

generosity which, finding a ready receptacle at hand, gathers together,

century after century, its thousands of scattered springs: as an

example, note the wealth, stability, and usefulness of the English and

German universities.

In the second place, their institution furnishes an obstacle to the

omnipotence of the State; their walls provide a protection against the

leveling standardization of absolute monarchy or of pure democracy. A

man can here freely develop himself without donning the livery of

either courtier or demagogue, he can acquire wealth, consideration and

authority, without being indebted to the caprices of either royal or

popular favor; he can stand firm against established or prevailing

opinions sheltered by associates bound by their esprit de corps. Such,

at the present day (1885), is the situation of a professor at Oxford,

Göttingen, and Harvard Such, under the Ancient Régime, were a bishop, a

member of the French Parliaments, and even a plain attorney. What can

be worse than universal bureaucracy, producing a mechanical and servile

uniformity! Those who serve the public need not all be Government

clerks; in countries where an aristocracy has perished, bodies of this

kind are their last place of refuge.

In the third place, through such institutions, distinct original

societies may come to be inside the great commonplace world. Here

special personalities may find the only existence that suits them. If

devout or laborious, not only do these afford an outlet for the deeper

needs of conscience, of the imagination, of activity, and of discipline,

but also they serve as dikes which restrain and direct them in a channel

which will lead to the creation of a masterpiece of infinite value. In

this way thousands of men and women fulfill at small cost, voluntarily

and gratis, and with great effect, the least attractive and more

repulsive social needs, thus performing in human society the role which,

inside the ant-hill, we see assigned to the sexless worker-ant.[2242]

Thus, at bottom, the institution was really good, and if it had to be

cauterized it was merely essential to remove the inert or corrupted

parts and preserve the healthy and sound parts.--Now, if we take only

the monastic bodies, there were more than one-half of these entitled

to respect. I omit those monks, one-third of whom remained zealous and

exemplary-the Benedictines, who continue the "Gallia Christiana," with

others who, at sixty years of age, labor in rooms without a fire;

the Trappists, who cultivate the ground with their own hands, and the

innumerable monasteries which serve as educational seminaries, bureaus

of charity, hospices for shelter, and of which all the villages in their

neighborhood demand the conservation by the National Assembly.[2243]

I have to mention the nuns, thirty-seven thousand in fifteen hundred

convents. Here, except in the twenty-five chapters of canonesses, which

are a semi-worldly rendezvous for poor young girls of noble birth,

fervor, frugality, and usefulness are almost everywhere incontestable.

One of the members of the Ecclesiastical Committee admits in the

Assembly tribunal that, in all their letters and addresses, the nuns ask

to be allowed to remain in their cloisters; their entreaties, in fact,

are as earnest as they are affecting.[2244] One Community writes,

"We should prefer the sacrifice of our lives to that of our calling

. . . . This is not the voice of some among our sisters, but of all. The

National Assembly has established the claims of liberty-would it prevent

the exercise of these by the only disinterested beings who ardently

desire to be useful, and have renounced society solely to be of greater

service to it?"

"The little contact we have with the world," writes another "is the

reason why our contentment is so little known. But it is not the less

real and substantial. We know of no distinctions, no privileges amongst

ourselves; our misfortunes and our property are in common. One in heart

and one in soul. . . we protest before the nation, in the face of heaven

and of earth, that it is not in the power of any being to shake our

fidelity to our vows, which vows we renew with still more ardor than

when we first pronounced them."[2245]

Many of the communities have no means of subsistence other than the work

of their own hands and the small dowries the nuns have brought with

them on entering the convent. So great, however is their frugality and

economy, that the total expenditure of each nun does not surpass 250

livres a year. The Annonciades of Saint-Amour say,

"We, thirty-three nuns, both choristers and those of the white veil,

live on 4,400 livres net income, without being a charge to our families

or to the public. . . If we were living in society, our expenses would

be three times as much;" and, not content with providing for themselves,

they give in charity.

Among these communities several hundreds are educational establishments;

a very great number give gratuitous primary instruction.--Now, in 1789,

there are no other schools for girls, and were these to be suppressed,

every avenue of instruction and culture would be closed to one of the

two sexes, forming one-half of the French population. Fourteen thousand

sisters of charity, distributed among four hundred and twenty convents,

look after the hospitals, attend upon the sick, serve the infirm,

bring up foundlings, provide for orphans, lying-in women, and repentant

prostitutes. The "Visitation" is an asylum for "those who are not

favored by nature,"--and, in those days, there were many more of the

disfigured than at present, since out of every eight deaths one was

caused by the smallpox. Widows are received here, as well as girls

without means and without protection, persons "worn out with the

agitation of the world," those who are too feeble to support the battle

of life, those who withdraw from it wounded or invalid, and "the rules

of the order, not very strict, are not beyond the health or strength

of the most frail and delicate." Some ingenious device of charity thus

applies to each moral or social sore, with skill and care, the proper

and proportionate dressing. And finally, far from falling off, nearly

all these communities are in a flourishing state, and whilst among the

establishments for men there are only nine, on the average, to each,

in those for women there is an average of twenty-four. Here, at

Saint-Flour, is one which is bringing up fifty boarders; another, at

Beaulieu, instructs one hundred; another, in Franche-Comté, has charge

of eight hundred abandoned children.[2246]--Evidently, in the presence

of such institutions one must pause, however little one may care for

justice and the public interest; and, moreover, because it is useless

to act rigorously against them the legislator crushes them in vain, for

they spring up again of their own accord; they are in the blood of every

Catholic nation. In France, instead of thirty-seven thousand nuns, at

the present day (1866) there are eighty-six thousand-that is to say,

forty-five in every ten thousand women instead of twenty-eight.[2247]

In any case, if the State deprives them of their property, along with

that of other ecclesiastical bodies, it is not the State that ought

to claim the spoil.--The State is not their heir, and their land,

furniture, and rentals are in their very nature devoted to a special

purpose, although they have no designated proprietor. This treasure,

which consists of the accumulations of fourteen centuries, has been

formed, increased, and preserved, in view of a certain object. The

millions of generous, repentant, or devout souls who have made a gift

of it, or have managed it, did so with a certain intention. It was their

desire to ensure education, beneficence, and religion, and nothing else.

Their legitimate intentions should not be frustrated: the dead have

rights in society as well as the living, for it is the dead who have

made the society which the living enjoy, and we receive their heritage

only on the condition of executing their testamentary act.--Should

this be of ancient date, it is undoubtedly necessary to make a liberal

interpretation of it; to supplement its scanty provisions, and to take

new circumstances into consideration. The requirements for which it

provided have often disappeared; for instance, after the destruction of

the Barbary pirates, there were no more Christians to be ransomed; and

only by transferring an endowment can it be perpetuated.--But if, in the

original institution, several accessory and special clauses have become

antiquated, there remains the one important, general intention, which

manifestly continues imperative and permanent, that of providing for a

distinct service, either of charity, of worship, or of instruction. Let

the administrators be changed, if necessary, also the apportionment of

the legacy bequeathed, but do not divert any of it to services of an

alien character; it is inapplicable to any but that purpose or to others

strictly analogous. The four milliards of investment in real property,

the two hundred millions of ecclesiastical income, form for it an

express and special endowment. This is not a pile of gold abandoned on

the highway, which the exchequer can appropriate or assign to those who

live by the roadside. Authentic titles to it exist, which, declaring its

origin, fix its destination, and your business is simply to see that

it reaches its destination. Such was the principle under the ancient

régime, in spite of grave abuses, and under forced exactions. When the

ecclesiastical commission suppressed an ecclesiastical order, it was not

for the purpose of making its possessions over to the public treasury,

but to apply these to seminaries, schools, and hospitals. In 1789, the

revenues of Saint-Denis supported Saint-Cyr; those of Saint Germain went

to the Economats, and the Government, although absolute and needy, was

sufficiently honest to adjust that confiscation was robbery. The greater

our power, the greater the obligation to be just, and honesty always

proves in the end to be the best policy.--It is, therefore, both just

and useful that the Church, as in England and in America, that superior

education, as in England and in Germany, that special instruction, as in

America, and that diverse endowments for public assistance and utility,

should be unreservedly secured in the maintenance of their heritage. The

State, as testamentary executor of this inheritance, strangely abuses

its mandate when it pockets the bequest in order to choke the deficit of

its own treasury, risking it in bad speculations, and swallowing it

up in its own bankruptcy, until of this vast treasure, which has been

heaped up for generations for the benefit of children, the infirm,

the sick and the poor, not enough is left to pay the salary of a

school-mistress, the wages of a parish nurse, or for a bowl of broth in

a hospital.[2248]

The Assembly remains deaf to all these arguments, and that which makes

its refuse to listen is not financial distress.--The Archbishop of Aix,

M. de Boisjelin, offered, in the name of the clergy, to liquidate

at once the debt of three hundred millions, which was urgent, by a

mortgage-loan of four hundred millions on the ecclesiastical property,

which was a very good expedient; for at this time the credit of the

clergy is the only substantial one. It generally borrows at less than

five per cent., and more money has always been offered to it than it

wanted, whilst the State borrows at ten per cent., and, at this moment,

there are no lenders.--But, to our new revolutionary statesmen,

the cost-benefit of a service is of much less consequence than the

application of a principle. In conformity with the Social Contract they

establish the maxim that in the State there is no need of corporate

bodies: they acknowledge nothing but, on the one hand, the State, the

depositary of all public powers, and, on the other hand, a myriad of

solitary individuals. Special associations, specific groups, collateral

corporations are not wanted, even to fulfill functions which the State

is incapable of fulfilling. "As soon as one enters a corporation," says

and orator, "one must love it as one loves a family;"[2249] whereas

the affections and obedience are all to be monopolized by the State.

Moreover, on entering into an order a man receives special aid and

comfort from it, and whatever distinguishes one man from another, is

opposed to civil equality. Hence, if men are to remain equal and become

citizens they must be deprived of every rallying point that might

compete with that of the State, and give to some an advantage over

others. All natural or acquired ties, consequently, which bound men

together through geographical position, through climate, history,

pursuits, and trade, are sundered. The old provinces, the old provincial

governments, the old municipal administrations, parliaments, guilds

and masterships, all are suppressed. The groups which spring up most

naturally, those which arise through a community of interests, are

all dispersed, and the broadest, most express, and most positive

interdictions are promulgated against their revival under any pretext

whatever.[2250] France is cut up into geometrical sections like a

chess-board, and, within these improvised limits, which are destined

for a long time to remain artificial, nothing is allowed to subsist

but isolated individuals in juxtaposition. There is no desire to spare

organized bodies where the cohesion is great, and least of all that

of the clergy. "Special associations," says Mirabeau,[2251] "in the

community at large, break up the unity of its principles and destroy

the equilibrium of its forces. Large political bodies in a State are

dangerous through the strength which results from their coalition and

the resistance which is born out of their interests." ii--That of the

clergy, besides, is inherently bad,[2252] because "its system is in

constant antagonism to the rights of man." An institution in which a

vow of obedience is necessary is "incompatible" with the constitution.

Congregations "subject to independent chiefs are out of the social pale

and incompatible with public spirit." As to the right of society over

these, and also over the Church, this is not doubtful. "Corporate bodies

exist only through society, and, in destroying them, society merely

takes back the life she has imparted to them." "They are simply

instruments fabricated by the law.[2253] What does the workman do

when the tool he works with no longer suits him? He breaks or alters

it."--This primary sophism being admitted the conclusion is plain. Since

corporate bodies are abolished they no longer exist, and since they no

longer exist, they cannot again become proprietors.

"Your aim was to destroy ecclesiastical orders,[2254] because their

destruction was essential to the safety of the State. If the clergy

preserve their property, the clerical order is not destroyed: you

necessarily leave it the right of assembling; you sanction its

independence." In no case must ecclesiastics hold possessions. "If they

are proprietors they are independent, and if they are independent they

will associate this independence with the exercise of their functions."

The clergy, cost what it will, must be in the hands of the State, as

simple functionaries and supported by its subsidies. It would be too

dangerous for a nation, "to admit in its bosom as proprietors a large

body of men to whom so many sources of credit already give so great

power. As religion is the property of all, its ministers, through this

fact alone, should be in the pay of the nation;" they are essentially

"officers of morality and instruction," and "salaried" like judges and

professors. Let us fetch them back to this condition of things, which

is the only one compatible with the rights of man, and ordain that

"the clergy, as well as all corporations and bodies with power of

inheritance, are now, and shall be for ever incapable of holding any

personal or landed estate."[2255]

Who, now, is the legitimate heir of all these vacated possessions?

Through another sophism, the State, at once judge and party in the

cause, assigns them to the State:

"The founders presented them to the Church, that is to say, to the

nation."[2256] "Since the nation has permitted their possession by

the clergy, she may re-demand that which is possessed only through her

authorization." "The principle must be maintained that every nation is

solely and veritably proprietor of the possessions of its clergy."

This principle, it must be noted, as it is laid down, involves the

destruction of ecclesiastical and lay corporations, along with the

confiscation of all their possessions, and soon we shall see appearing

on the horizon the final and complete decree[2257] by which the

Legislative Assembly,

"considering that a State truly free should not suffer any corporation

within its bosom, not even those which, devoted to public instruction,

deserve well of the country," not even those "which are solely devoted

to the service of the hospitals-and the relief of the sick," suppresses

all congregations, all associations of men or of women, lay or

ecclesiastical, all endowments for pious, charitable, and missionary

purposes, all houses of education, all seminaries and colleges, and

those of the Sorbonne and Navarre. Add to these the last sweep of the

broom: under the Legislative Assembly the division of all communal

property, except woods: under the Convention, the abolition of all

literary societies, academies of science and of literature, the

confiscation of all their property, their libraries, museums, and

botanical gardens; the confiscation of all communal possessions

not previously divided; and the confiscation of all the property of

hospitals and other philanthropic establishments.[2258]--The abstract

principle, proclaimed by the Constituent Assembly, reveals, by degrees,

its exterminating virtues. France now, owing to it, contains nothing but

dispersed, powerless, ephemeral individuals, and confronting them,

the State, the sole, the only permanent body that has devoured all

the others, a veritable Colossus, alone erect in the midst of these

insignificant dwarfs.

Substituted for the others, it is henceforth to perform their duties,

and spend the money well which they have expended badly.--In the first

place, it abolishes tithes, not gradually and by means of a process of

redemption, as in England, but at one stroke, and with no indemnity,

on the ground that the tax, being an abusive, illegitimate impost, a

private tax levied by individuals in cowl and cassock on others in

smock frocks, is a vexatious usurpation, and resembles the feudal

dues. It is a radical operation, and in conformity with principle.

Unfortunately, the puerility of the thing is so gross as to defeat its

own object. In effect, since the days of Charlemagne, all the estates

in the country which have been sold and resold over and over again

have always paid tithes, and have never been purchased except with this

charge upon them, which amounts to about one-seventh of the net revenue

of the country. Take off this tax and one-seventh is added to the

income of the proprietor, and, consequently, a seventh to his capital. A

present is made to him of one hundred francs if his land is worth seven

hundred-francs, and of one thousand if it is worth seven thousand,

of ten thousand if it is worth seventy thousand, and of one hundred

thousand if it is worth seven hundred thousand. Some people gain six

hundred thousand francs by this act, and thirty thousand francs in

Income.[2259] Through this gratuitous and unexpected gift, one hundred

and twenty-three millions of revenue, and two milliards and a half of

capital, is divided among the holders of real estate in France, and in

a manner so ingenious that the rich receive the most. Such is the effect

of abstract principles. To afford a relief of thirty millions a year

to the peasants in wooden shoes, an assembly of democrats adds thirty

millions a year to the revenue of wealthy bourgeois and thirty millions

a year to opulent nobles. The first part of this operation moreover, is

but another burden to the State; for, in taking off the load from

the holders of real property, it has encumbered itself, the State

henceforth, without pocketing a penny, being obliged to defray the

expenses of worship in their place.--As to the second part of the

operation, which consists in the confiscation of four milliards of real

estate, it proves, after all, to be ruinous, although promising to

be lucrative. It makes the same impression on our statesmen that the

inheritance of a great estate makes on a needy and fanciful upstart.

Regarding it as a bottomless well of gold, he draws upon it without

stint and strives to realize all his fancies; as he can afford to pay

for it all, he is free to smash it all. It is thus that the Assembly

suppresses and compensates magisterial offices to the amount of four

hundred and fifty millions; financial securities and obligations to the

amount of three hundred and twenty-one millions; the household charges

of the King, Queen, and princes, fifty-two millions; military services

and encumbrances, thirty-five millions; enfeoffed tithes, one hundred

millions, and so on.[2260] "In the month of May, 1789," says Necker,

"the re-establishment of order in the finances were mere child's-play."

At the end of a year, by dint of involving itself in debt, by increasing

its expenses, and by abolishing or abandoning its income, the State

lives now on the paper-currency it issues, eats up its capital, and

rapidly marches onward to bankruptcy. Never was such a vast inheritance

so quickly reduced to nothing, and to less than nothing.

Meanwhile, we can demonstrate, from the first few months, what use the

administrators will be able to make of it, and the manner in which

they will endow the service to which it binds them.--No portion of this

confiscated property is reserved for the maintenance of public worship,

or to keep up the hospitals, asylums, and schools. Not only do all

obligations and all productive real property find their way into the

great national crucible to be converted into assignats[2261], but a

number of special buildings, all monastic real estate and a portion

of the ecclesiastical real estate, diverted from its natural course,

becomes swallowed up in the same gulf. At Besançon,[2262] three churches

out of eight, with their land and treasure, the funds of the chapter,

all the money of the monastic churches, the sacred vessels, shrines,

crosses, reliquaries, votive offerings, ivories, statues, pictures,

tapestry, sacerdotal dresses and ornaments, plate, jewels and precious

furniture, libraries, railings, bells, masterpieces of art and of piety,

all are broken up and melted in the Mint, or sold by auction for almost

nothing. This is the way in which the intentions of the founders and

donors are carried out.--How are so many communities, which are deprived

of their rentals, to support their schools, hospices, and asylums? Even

after the decree[2263] which, exceptionally and provisionally, orders

the whole of their revenue to be accounted for to them, will it be paid

over now that it is collected by a local administration whose coffers

are always empty, and whose intentions are almost always hostile? Every

establishment for benevolent and educational purposes is evidently

sinking, now that the special streams which nourished them run into and

are lost in the dry bed of the public treasury.[2264] Already, in 1790,

there are no funds with which to pay the monks and nuns their small

pensions for their maintenance. In Franche-Comté the Capuchins of Baume

have no bread, and, to live, they are obliged to re-sell, with the

consent of the district, a portion of the stores of their monastery

which had been confiscated. The Ursuline nuns of Ornans live on the

means furnished them by private individuals in order to keep up the only

school which the town possesses. The Bernardine nuns of Pontarlier are

reduced to the lowest stage of want: "We are satisfied," the district

reports, "that they have nothing to put into their mouths. We have

to contribute something every day amongst ourselves to keep them

from starving."[2265] Only too thankful are they when the local

administration gives them something to eat, or allows others to give

them something. In many places it strives to famish them, or takes

delight in annoying them. In March, 1791, the department of Doubs, in

spite of the entreaties of the district, reduces the pension of the

Visitant nuns to one hundred and one livres for the choristers, and

fifty for the lay-sisters. Two months before this, the municipality of

Besançon, putting its own interpretation on the decree which allowed

nuns to dress as they pleased, enjoins them all, including even the

sisters of charity, to abandon their old costume, which few among them

had the means of replacing.--Helplessness, indifference, or malevolence,

such are the various dispositions which are encountered among the new

authorities whose duty it is to support and protect them. To let loose

persecution there is now only needed a decree which puts the civil power

in conflict with religious convictions. That decree is promulgated,

and, on the 12th of July, 1790, the Assembly establishes the civil

constitution of the clergy.

Notwithstanding the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, and

the dispersion of the monastic communities, the main body of the

ecclesiastical corps remains intact: seventy thousand priests

ranged under the bishops, with the Pope in the center as the

commander-in-chief. There is no corporation more solid, more

incompatible, or more attacked. For, against it are opposed implacable

hatreds and fixed opinions: the Gallicanism of the jurists who, from

St. Louis downwards, are the adversaries of ecclesiastical power; the

doctrine of the Jansenists who, since Louis XIII., desire to bring back

the Church to its primitive form; and the theory of the philosophers

who, for sixty years, have considered Christianity as a mistake and

Catholicism as a scourge. At the very least the institution of a clergy

in Catholicism is condemned, and they think that they are moderate if

they respect the rest.

"WE MIGHT CHANGE THE RELIGION,"

say the deputies in the tribune.[2266] Now, the decree affects

neither dogma nor worship; it is confined to a revision of matters of

discipline, and on this particular domain which is claimed for the

civil power, it is pretended that demolition and re-construction may

be effected at discretion without the concurrence of the ecclesiastical

power.

Here there is an abuse of power, for an ecclesiastical as well as civil

society has the right to choose its own form, its own hierarchy, its own

government.--On this point, every argument that can be advanced in favor

of the former can be repeated in favor of the latter, and the moment one

becomes legitimate the other becomes legitimate also. The justification

for a civil or of a religious community or society may be the

performance of a long series of services which, for centuries, it has

rendered to its members, the zeal and success with which it discharges

its functions, the feelings of gratitude they entertain for it, the

importance they attribute to its offices, the need they have of it, and

their attachment to it, the conviction imprinted in their minds that

without it they would be deprived of a benefit upon which they set more

store than upon any other. This benefit, in a civil society, is the

security of persons and property. In the religious society it is

the eternal salvation of the soul. iii In all other particulars the

resemblance is complete, and the titles of the Church are as good as

those of the State. Hence, if it be just for one to be sovereign and

free on its own domain, it is just for the other to be equally sovereign

and free, If the Church encroaches when it assumes to regulate the

constitution of the State, then the State also encroaches when it

pretends to regulate the constitution of the Church. If the former

claims the respect of the latter on its domain, the latter must show

equal respect for the former on its ground. The boundary-line between

the two territories is, undoubtedly, not clearly defined and frequent

contests arise between the two. Sometimes these may be forestalled or

terminated by each shutting itself up within a wall of separation, and

by their remaining as much as possible indifferent to each other, as

is the case in America. At another, they may, by a carefully considered

contract,[2267] each accord to the other specific rights on the

intermediate zone, and both exercise their divided authority on that

zone, which is the case in France. In both cases, however, the two

powers, like the two societies, must remain distinct. It is necessary

for each of them that the other should be an equal, and not a

subordinate to which it prescribes conditions. Whatever the civil system

may be, whether monarchical or republican, oligarchic or democratic, the

Church abuses its credit when it condemns or attacks it. Whatever may be

the ecclesiastical system, whether papal, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or

congregational, the State abuses its strength when, without the assent

of the faithful, it abolishes their systems or imposes a new one upon

them. Not only does it violate right, but its violence, most frequently,

is fruitless. It may strike as it will, the root of the tree is beyond

its reach, and, in the unjust war which it wages against an institution

as vital as itself, it often ends in getting the worst of it.

Unfortunately, the Assembly, in this as in other matters, being

preoccupied with principles, fails to look at practical facts; and,

aiming to remove only the dead bark, it injures the living trunk.--For

many centuries, and especially since the Council of Trent, the vigorous

element of Catholicism is much less religion itself than the Church.

Theology has retired into the background, while discipline has come

to the front. Believers who, according to Church law, are required to

regard spiritual authority as dogma, in fact attach their faith to the

spiritual authority much more than to the dogma.--

Catholic Faith insists, in relation to discipline as well as to dogma,

that if one rejects the decision of the Roman Church one ceases to be a

Catholic; that the constitution of the Church is monarchical, that the

ordaining of priests and bishops is made from above so that without

communion with the Pope, its supreme head, one is schismatic and that no

schismatic priest legitimately can perform a holy service, and that no

true faithful may attend his service or receive his blessings without

committing a sin.--It is a fact that the faithful, apart from a few

Jansenists, are neither theologians nor canonists; that they read

neither prayers nor scriptures, and if they accept the creed, it is in

a lump, without investigation, confiding in the hand which presents it;

that their obedient conscience is in the keeping of this pastoral guide;

that the Church of the third century is of little consequence to them;

and that, as far as the true form of the actual Church goes, the doctor

whose advice they follow is not St. Cyprian, of whom they know nothing,

but their visible bishop and their living curé. Put these two premises

together and the conclusion is self-evident: it is clear that they will

not believe that they are baptized, absolved, or married except by this

curé authorized by this bishop. Let others be put in their places

whom they condemn, and you suppress worship, sacraments, and the most

precious functions of spiritual life to twenty-four millions of French

people, to all the peasantry, all the children, and to almost all the

women; you stir up in rebellion against you the two greatest forces

which move the mind, conscience and habit.--And observe the result of

this. You not only convert the State into a policeman in the service

of heresy, but also, through this fruitless and tyrannous attempt of

Gallican Jansenism, you bring into permanent discredit Gallican maxims

and Jansenist doctrines. You cut away the last two roots by which a

liberal sentiment still vegetated in orthodox Catholicism. You throw the

clergy back on Rome; you attach them to the Pope from whom you wish to

separate them, and deprive them of the national character which you

wish to impose on them. They were French, and you render them

Ultramontane.[2268] They excited ill-will and envy, and you render them

sympathetic and popular. They were a divided body, and you give them

unanimity. They were a straggling militia, scattered about under several

independent authorities, and rooted to the soil through the possession

of the ground; thanks to you, they are to become a regular, manageable

army, emancipated from every local attachment, organized under one head,

and always prepared to take the field at the word of command. Compare

the authority of a bishop in his diocese in 1789 with that of a bishop

sixty years later. In 1789, the Archbishop of Besançon, out of fifteen

hundred offices and benefices, had the patronage of one hundred, In

ninety-three incumbencies the selections were made by the metropolitan

chapter; in eighteen it was made by the chapter of the Madeleine;

in seventy parishes by the noble founder or benefactor. One abbé had

thirteen incumbencies at his disposal, another thirty-four, another

thirty-five, a prior nine, an abbess twenty; five communes directly

nominated their own pastor, while abbeys, priories and canonries were in

the hands of the King.[2269] At the present day (1880) in a diocese the

bishop appoints all the curés or officiating priests, and may deprive

nine out of ten of them; in the diocese above named, from 1850 to

1860, scarcely one lay functionary was nominated without the consent or

intervention of the cardinal-archbishop.[2270] To comprehend the spirit,

discipline, and influence of our contemporary clergy, go back to the

source of it, and you will find it in the decree of the Constituent

Assembly. A natural organization cannot be broken up with impunity; it

forms anew, adapting itself to circumstances, and closes up its ranks in

proportion to its danger.

But even if, according to the maxims of the Assembly, faith and worship

are free, as far as the sovereign State is concerned, the churches are

subjects.--For these are societies, administrations, and hierarchies,

and no society, administration, or hierarchy may exist in the State

without entering into its--departments under the title of subordinate,

delegate, or employee. A priest is now essentially a salaried officer

like the rest, a functionary[2271] presiding over matters pertaining to

worship and morality. If the State is disposed to change the number, the

mode of nomination, the duties and the posts of its engineers, it is not

bound to assemble its engineers and ask their permission, least of all

that of a foreign engineer established at Rome. If it wishes to change

the condition of "its ecclesiastical officers," its right to do so

is the same, and therefore unquestioned. There is no need of asking

anybody's consent in the exercise of this right, and it allows no

interference between it and its clerks. The Assembly refuses to call a

Gallican council; it refuses to negotiate with the Pope, and, on its

own authority alone, it recasts the whole Constitution of the Church.

Henceforth this branch of the public administration is to be organized

on the model of the others.--In the first place[2272] the diocese is to

be in extent and limits the same as the French department; consequently,

all ecclesiastical districts are marked out anew, and forty-eight

episcopal sees disappear.--In the second place, the appointed bishop is

forbidden "to refer to the Pope to obtain any confirmation whatever."

All he can do is to write to him "in testimony of the unity of faith and

of the communion which he is to maintain with him." The bishop is thus

no longer installed by his canonical chief, and the Church of France

becomes schismatic.--In the third place, the metropolitan or bishop is

forbidden to exact from the new bishops or curés "any oath other than

that they profess the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion." Assisted

by his council he may examine them on their doctrine and morals, and

refuse them canonical installation, but in this case his reasons must

be given in writing, and he signed by himself and his council. His

authority, in other respects, does not extend beyond this for it is the

civil tribunal which decides between contending parties. Thus is the

catholic hierarchy broken up; the ecclesiastical superior has his hands

tied; if he still delegates sacerdotal functions it is only as a matter

of form. Between the curé and the bishop subordination ceases to exist

just as it has ceased to exist between the bishop and the Pope, and

the Church of France becomes Presbyterian.--The people now, in effect,

choose their own ministers, as they do in the Presbyterian church; the

bishop is appointed by the electors of the department, the cure by the

district electors, and, what is an extraordinary aggravation, these need

not be of his communion. It is of no consequence whether the electoral

Assembly contains, as at Nîmes, Montauban, Strasbourg, and Metz, a

notable proportion of Calvinists, Lutherans, and Jews, or whether its

majority, furnished by the club, is notoriously hostile to Catholicism,

and even to Christianity itself. The bishop and the curé must be chosen

by the electoral body; the Holy Ghost dwells with it, and with the

civil tribunals, and these may install its elect in spite of any

resistance.--To complete the dependence of the clergy, every bishop is

forbidden to absent himself more than fifteen days without permission

from the department; every curé the same length of time without the

permission of the district, even to attend upon a dying father or to

undergo the operation of lithotomy. In default of this permission his

salary is suspended: as a functionary under salary, he owes all his time

to his bureau, and if he desires a leave of absence he must ask for

it from his chiefs in the Hôtel-de-Ville.[2273]--He must assent to all

these innovations, not only with passive obedience, but by a solemn

oath. All old or new ecclesiastics, archbishops, bishops, curés, vicars,

preachers, hospital and prison chaplains, superiors and directors of

seminaries, professors of seminaries and colleges, are to state in

writing that they are ready to take this oath: moreover, they must take

it publicly, in church, "in the presence of the general council, the

commune, and the faithful," and promise "to maintain with all their

power" a schismatic and Presbyterian Church.--For there can be no doubt

about the sense and bearing of the prescribed oath. It was all very

well to incorporate it with a broader one, that of maintaining the

Constitution. But the Constitution of the clergy is too clearly

comprised in the general Constitution, like a chapter in a book, and to

sign the book is to sign the chapter. Besides, in the formula to which

the ecclesiastics in the Assembly are obliged to swear in the tribune,

the chapter is precisely indicated, and no exception or reservation is

allowed.[2274] The Bishop of Clermont, with all those who have accepted

the Constitution in full, save the decrees affecting spiritual matters,

are silenced. Where the spiritual begins and where it ends the Assembly

knows better than they, for it has defined this, and it imposes its

definition on canonist and theologian; it is, in its turn, the Pope, and

all consciences must bow to its decision. Let them take the "oath, pure

and simple," or if they do not they are 'refractory." The fiat goes

forth, and the effect of it is immense, for, along with the clergy, the

law reaches to laymen. On the one hand, all the ecclesiastics who refuse

the oath are dismissed. If they continue "to interfere with public

functions which they have personally or corporately exercised" they

"shall be prosecuted as disturbers of the peace, and condemned as

rebels against the law," deprived of all rights as active citizens,

and declared incompetent to hold any public office. This is the penalty

already inflicted on the nonjuring bishop who persists in considering

himself a bishop, who ordains priests and who issues a pastoral letter.

Such is soon to be the penalty inflicted on the nonjuring curé who

presumes to hear confession or officiate at a mass.[2275] On the other

hand, all citizens who refuse to take the prescribed oath, all electors,

municipal officers, judges and administrative agents, shall lose

their right of suffrage, have their functions revoked, and be declared

incompetent for all public duties.[2276] The result is that scrupulous

Catholics are excluded from every administrative post, from all

elections, and especially from ecclesiastical elections; from which

it follows that, the stronger one's faith the less one's share in the

choice of a priest.[2277]--What an admirable law, that which, under the

pretext of doing away with ecclesiastical abuses, places the faithful,

lay or clerical, outside the pale of the law!

This soon becomes apparent. One hundred and thirty four archbishops,

bishops, and coadjutors refuse to take the oath; there are only four

of them who do so, three of whom, MM. de Talleyrand, de Jarente, and

de Brienne, are unbelievers and notorious for their licentiousness; the

others are influenced by their consciences, above all, by their esprit

de corps and a point of honor. Most of the curés rally around this staff

of officers. In the diocese of Besançon,[2278] out of fourteen hundred

priests, three hundred take the oath, a thousand refuse it, and eighty

retract. In the department of Doubs, only four consent to swear. In the

department of Lozère, there are only "ten out of two hundred and fifty."

It is stated positively," writes the best informed of all observers that

everywhere in France two-thirds of the ecclesiastics have refused the

oath, or have only taken it with the same reservations as the Bishop of

Clermont."

Thus, out of seventy thousand priests, forty-six thousand are turned

out of office, and the majority of their parishioners are on their side.

This is apparent in the absence of electors convoked to replace them:

at Bordeaux only four hundred and fifty came to the poll out of nine

hundred, while elsewhere the summons brings together only "a third or

a quarter" In many places there are no candidates, or those elected

decline to accept. They are obliged, in order to supply their places,

to hunt up unfrocked monks of a questionable character. There are two

parties, after this, in each parish; two faiths, two systems of

worship, and permanent discord. Even when the new and the old curés are

accommodating, their situations bring them into conflict. To the former

the latter are "intruders." To the latter the former are "refractories."

By virtue of his being a guardian of souls, the former cannot dispense

with telling his parishioners that the intruder is excommunicated, that

his sacraments are null or sacrilegious, and that it is a sin to attend

his mass. By virtue of his being a public functionary, the latter does

not fail to write to the authorities that the "refractory" entraps the

faithful, excites their consciences, saps the Constitution, and that

he ought to be put down by force. In other words, the former draws

everybody away from the latter, while the latter sends the gendarmes

against the former, and persecution begins.--In a strange reversal,

it is the majority which undergoes persecution, and the minority which

carries it out. The mass of the constitutional curé is, everywhere,

deserted.[2279] In La Vendée there are ten or twelve present in the

church out of five or six hundred parishioners; on Sundays and holidays

whole villages and market-towns travel from one to two leagues off to

attend the orthodox mass, the villagers declaring that "if the old curé

can only be restored to them, they will gladly pay a double tax." In

Alsace, "nine tenths, at least, of the Catholics refuse to recognize

the legally sworn priests." The same spectacle presents itself in

Franche-Comté, Artois, and in ten of the other provinces.--Finally, as

in a chemical composition, the analysis is complete. Those who believe,

or who recover their belief, are ranged around the old curé; all who,

through conviction or tradition, hold to the sacraments, all who,

through faith or habit, wish or feel a need to attend the mass. The

auditors of the new curé consist of unbelievers, deists, the indifferent

members of the clubs and of the administration, who resort to the church

as to the Hôtel-de-ville or to a popular meeting, not through religious

but through political zeal, and who support the "intruder" in order to

sustain the Constitution. All this does not secure to him very fervent

followers, but it provides him with very zealous defenders; and, in

default of the faith which they do not possess, they give the force

which is at their disposal. All means are proper against an intractable

bishop or curé; not only the law which they aggravate through their

forced interpretation of it and through their arbitrary verdicts, but

also the riots which they stir up by their instigation and which they

sanction by their toleration.[2280] He is driven out of his parish,

consigned to the county town, and kept in a safe place. The Directory of

Aisne denounces him as a disturber of the public peace, and forbids

him, under severe penalties, from administering the sacraments. The

municipality of Cahors shuts up particular churches and orders the

nonjuring ecclesiastics to leave the town in twenty-four hours. The

electoral corps of Lot denounces them publicly as "ferocious brutes,"

incendiaries, and provokers of civil war. The Directory of the Bas-Rhin

banishes them to Strasbourg or to fifteen leagues from the frontier.

At Saint-Leon the bishop is forced to fly. At Auch the archbishop is

imprisoned; at Lyons M. de Boisboissel, grand vicar, is confined in

Pierre-Encize, for having preserved an archiepiscopal mandate in his

house; brutality is everywhere the minister of intolerance. A certain

cure of Aisne who, in 1789, had fed two thousand poor, having presumed

to read from his pulpit a pastoral charge concerning the observance of

Lent, the mayor seizes him by the collar and prevents him from going to

the altar; "two of the National Yeomanry" draw their sabers on him, and

forthwith lead him away bareheaded, not allowing him to return to his

house, and drive him to a distance of two leagues by beat of drum and

under escort. At Paris, in the church of Saint-Eustache, the curé is

greeted with outcries, a pistol is pointed at his head, he is seized by

the hair, struck with fists, and only reaches the sacristy through

the intervention of the National Guard. In the church of the Théatins,

rented by the orthodox with all legal formality, a furious band

disperses the priests and their assistants, upsets the altar and

profanes the sacred vessels. A placard, posted up by the department,

calls upon the people to respect the law, "I saw it," says an

eye-witness, "torn down amidst imprecations against the department, the

priests, and the devout. One of the chief haranguers, standing on the

steps terminated his speech by stating that schism ought to be stopped

at any cost, that no worship but his should be allowed, that women

should be whipped and priests knocked on the head." And, in fact, "a

young lady accompanied by her mother is whipped on the steps of

the church." Elsewhere nuns are the sufferers, even the sisters of

Saint-Vincent de Paul; and, from April, 1793, onward; the same outrages

on modesty and against life are propagated from town to town. At Dijon,

rods are nailed fast to the gates of all the convents; at Montpellier,

two or three hundred ruffians, armed with large iron--bound sticks,

murder the men and outrage the women.--Nothing remains but to put

the gangsters under the shelter of an amnesty, which is done by the

Constituent Assembly, and to legally sanction the animosity of local

administrations, which is done by the Legislative Assembly.[2281]

Henceforth the nonjuring ecclesiastics are deprived of their sustenance;

they are declared "suspected of revolt against the law and of evil

intentions against the country."--Thus, says a contemporary Protestant,

"on the strength of these suspicions and these intentions, a Directory,

to which the law interdicts judicial functions, may arbitrarily drive

out of his house the minister of a God of peace and charity, grown gray

in the shadow of the altar" Thus, "everywhere, where disturbances occur

on account of religious opinions, and whether these troubles are due

to the frantic scourgers of the virtuous sisters of charity or to the

ruffians armed with cow-hides who, at Nîmes and Montpellier, outrage all

the laws of decorum and of liberty for six whole months, the non-juring

priests are to be punished with banishment. Torn from their families

whose means of living they share, they are sent away to wander on the

highways, abandoned to public pity or ferocity the moment any scoundrel

chooses to excite a disturbance that he can impute to them."--Thus we

see approaching the revolt of the peasantry, the insurrections of Nîmes,

Franche-Comté, la Vendée and Brittany, emigration, transportation;

imprisonment, the guillotine or drowning for two thirds of the clergy of

France, and likewise for myriads of the loyal, for husbandmen, artisans,

day-laborers, seamstresses, and servants, and the humblest among the

lower class of the people. This is what the laws of the Constituent

Assembly are leading to.--In the institution of the clergy, as in that

of the nobles and the King, it demolished a solid wall in order to

dig through it an open door, and it is nothing strange if the whole

structure tumbles down on the heads of its inmates. The true course was

to respect, to reform, to utilize rank and corporations: all that the

Assembly thought of was the abolition of these in the name of abstract

equality and of national sovereignty. In order to abolish these it

executed, tolerated, or initiated all the attacks on persons and on

property. Those it is about to commit are the inevitable result of those

which it has already committed; for, through its Constitution, bad is

changed to worse, and the social edifice, already half in ruins through

the clumsy havoc that is effected in it, will fall in completely under

the weight of the incongruous or extravagant constructions which it

proceeds to extemporize.

*****

[Footnote 2201: Cf. "The Ancient Régime," books I. and V.]

[Footnote 2202: Perhaps we are here at the core of why all regimes end

up becoming corrupt, inefficient and sick; their leaders take their

privileges for granted and become more and more inattentive to the work

which must be done if the people are to be kept at work and possible

adversaries kept under control. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2203: A special tax paid the king by a plebeian owning a fief.

(TR)]

[Footnote 2204: The right to an income from trust funds. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2205: Arthur Young, I. 209, 223. "If the communes steadily

refuse what is now offered to them, they put immense and certain

benefits to the chance of fortune, to that hazard which may make

posterity curse instead of bless their memories as real patriots who had

nothing in view but the happiness of their country."]

[Footnote 2206: According to valuations by the Constituent Assembly,

the tax on real estate ought to bring 240,000,000 francs, and provide

one-fifth of the net revenue of France, estimated at 1,200,000,000.

Additionally, the personal tax on movable property, which replaced

the capitation, ought to bring 60,000,000. Total for direct taxation,

300,000,000, or one-fourth--that is to say, twenty-five per cent, of the

net revenue.--If the direct taxation had been maintained up to the rate

of the ancient régime (190,000,000, according to Necker's report in

May, 1689), this impost would only have provided one-sixth of the net

revenue, or sixteen percent.]

[Footnote 2207: Dumont, 267. (The words of Mirabeau three months before

his death:) "Ah, my friend, how right we were at the start when we

wanted to prevent the commons from declaring themselves the National

Assembly! That was the source of the evil. They wanted to rule the King,

instead of ruling through him."]

[Footnote 2208: Gouverneur Morris, April 29, 1789 (on the principles of

the future constitution), "One generation at least will be required to

render the public familiar with them."]

[Footnote 2209: Cf. "The Ancient Régime," book II, ch. III.]

[Footnote 2210: French women did not obtain the right to vote until

1946. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2211: According to Voltaire ("L'Homme aux Quarante Écus"), the

average duration of human life was only twenty-three years.]

[Footnote 2212: Mercure, July 6, 1790. According to the report of

Camus (sitting of July 2nd), the official total of pensions amounted to

thirty-two millions; but if we add the gratuities and allowances out of

the various treasuries, the actual total was fifty-six millions.]

[Footnote 2213: I note that today in 1998, 100 years after Taine's

death, Denmark, my country, has had total democracy, that is universal

suffrage for women and men of 18 years of age for a considerable time,

and a witty author has noted that the first rule of our unwritten

constitution is that "thou shalt not think that thou art important". I

have noted, however, that when a Dane praises Denmark and the Danes even

in the most excessive manner, then he is not considered as a chauvinist

but admired as being a man of truth. In spite of the process of

'democratization' even socialist chieftains seem to favor and protect

their own children, send them to good private schools and later abroad

to study and help them to find favorable employment in the party or with

the public services. A new élite is thus continuously created by the

ruling political and administrative upper class. (SR.).]

[Footnote 2214: "The Ancient Régime," p.388, and the following pages.--

"Le Duc de Broglie," by M. Goizot, p. 11. (Last words of Prince Victor de

Broglie, and the opinions of M. d'Argenson.)]

[Footnote 2215: De Ferrières, I. p.2.]

[Footnote 2216: Moniteur, sitting of September 7, 1790, I. 431-437.

Speeches, of MM. de Sillery, de Lanjuinais, Thouret, de Lameth, and

Rabaut-Saint-Etienne. Barnave wrote in 1791: "It was necessary to be

content with one single chamber; the instinct of equality required it. A

second Chamber would have been the refuge of the aristocrats."]

[Footnote 2217: Lenin should later create an elite, an aristocracy

which, under his leadership was to become the Communist party. Lenin

could not have imagined or at least would not have been concerned that

the leadership of this party would fall into the hands of tyrants later,

under the pressure of age and corruption, to be replaced by the KGB and

later the FSB. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2218: "De Bouillé," p. 50: "All the old noble families, save

two or three hundred, were ruined."]

[Footnote 2219: Cf. Doniol, "La Révolution et la Féodalité."]

[Footnote 2220: Moniteur, sitting of August 6, 1789. Speech of Duport:

"Whatever is unjust cannot last. Similarly, no compensation for these

unjust rights can be maintained." Sitting of February 27, 1790. M.

Populus: "As slavery could not spring from a legitimate contract,

because liberty cannot be alienated, you have abolished without

indemnity hereditary property in persons." Instructions and decree of

June 15-19, 1791: "The National Assembly has recognized in the most

emphatic manner that a man never could become the proprietor of another

man, and consequently, that the rights which one had assumed to have

over the person of the other, could not become the property of the

former." Cf. the diverse reports of Merlin to the Committee of Feudality

and the National Assembly.]

[Footnote 2221: Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Décrets." Laws of the

4-11 August, 1789; March 15-28, 1790; May 3-9, 1790; June 15-19, 1791.]

[Footnote 2222: Agrier percières--terms denoting taxes paid in the shape

of shares of produce. Those which follow: lods, rentes, quint, requint

belong to the taxes levied on real property. 22Tr.]

[Footnote 2223: Doniol ("Noveaux cahiers de 1790"). Complaints of the

copy-holders of Rouergues and of Quercy, pp. 97-105.]

[Footnote 2224: See further on, book III. ch. II. § 4 and also ch. III.]

[Footnote 2225: Moniteur, sitting of March 2, 1790. Speech by Merlin:

"The peasants have been made to believe that the annulation of the

banalities (the obligation to use the public mill, wine-press, and oven,

which belonged to the noble) carried along with it the loss to the

noble of all these; the peasants regarding themselves as proprietors of

them."]

[Footnote 2226: Moniteur; sitting of June 9, 1790. Speech of M. Charles

de Lameth--Duvergier (laws of June 19-23 1790; September 27 and October

16, 1791).]

[Footnote 2227: Sauzay, V. 400--410.]

[Footnote 2228: Duvergier, laws of June 15-19, 1791; of June 18--July 6,

1792; of August 25-28, 1792.]

[Footnote 2229: "Institution du Droit Français," par Argou, I.103.

(He wrote under the Regency.) "The origin of most of the feoffs is so

ancient that, if the seigneurs were obliged to produce the titles of the

original concession to obtain their rents, there would scarcely be one

able to produce them. This deficiency is made up by common law."]

[Footnote 2230: Duvergier (laws of April 8-15, 1791; March 7-11; October

26, 1791; January 6-10, 1794).--Mirabeau had already proposed to reduce

the disposable portion to one-tenth.]

[Footnote 2231: See farther on, book III, ch. III.]

[Footnote 2232: Mercure, September 10, 1791. Article by Mallet du

Pan.--Ibid. October 15, 1791.]

[Footnote 2233: Should Hitler or Lenin have read and understood the

consequences of these events they would have deduced that given the

command from official sources or recognized leaders ordinary people all

over the world could easily be tempted to attack any group, being it

Jews, Protestants, Hindus or foreigners. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2234: "Archives Nationales," II. 784. Letters of M. de

Langeron, October 16 and 18, 1789.--Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes,"

letters addressed to the Chevalier de Poterats, July, 1790.--"Archives

Nationales," papers of the Committee on Reports, bundle 4, letter of M.

le Belin-Chatellenot to the to the President of the National Assembly,

July 1, 1791.--Mercure, October 15, 1791. Article by Mallet du Pan:

"Such is literally the language of these emigrants; I do not add a

word."--Ibid. May 15, 1790. Letter of the Baron de Bois d'Aizy, April

29,1790, demanding a decree of protection fur the nobles. "We shall know

(then) whether we are outlawed or are of any account in the rights of

man written out with so much blood, or whether, finally, no other option

is left to us but that of carrying to distant skies the remains of our

property and our wretched existence."]

[Footnote 2235: Mercure, October 15, 1791, and September 10, 1791. Read

the admirable letter of the Chevalier de Mesgrigny, appointed colonel

during the suspension of the King, and refusing his new rank.]

[Footnote 2236: Cf. the "Mémoires" of M. de Boustaquet, a Norman

gentleman.]

[Footnote 2237: Cf. "The Ancient Régime," books I. and II.]

[Footnote 2238: Boivin--Champeaux, "Notice Historique sur la Révolution

dans le Département de L'Eure," the register of grievances. In 1788, at

Rouen, there was not a single profession made by men. In the monastery

of the Deux-Amants the chapter convoked in 1789 consisted of two

monks.--"Archives Nationales," papers of the ecclesiastic committee,

passim.]

[Footnote 2239: "Apologie de l'État Religieux" (1775), with statistics.

Since 1768 the decline is "frightful." "It is easy to foresee that

in ten or twelve years most of the regular bodies will be absolutely

extinct, or reduced to a state of feebleness akin to death."]

[Footnote 2240: Sanzay, I. 224 (November, 1790). At Besançon, out of 266

monks, "79 only showed any loyalty to their engagements or any affection

for their calling." Others preferred to abandon it, especially all the

Dominicans but five, all but one of the bare footed Carmelites, and all

the Grand Carmelites. The same disposition is apparent throughout the

department, as, for instance, with the Benedictines of Cluny except one,

all the Minimes but three, all the Capuchins but five, the Bernandins,

Dominicans, and Augustins, all preferring to leave.--Montalembert, "Les

Moines d'Occident," introduction, pp. 105-164. Letter of a Benedictine

of Saint-Germain-des-Prés to a Benedictine of Vannes. "Of all the

members of your congregation which come here to lodge, I have scarcely

found one capable of edifying us. You may probably say the same of those

who came to you from our place."--Cf. in the "Mémoires" of Merlin de

Thionville the description of the Chartreuse of Val St. Pierre.]

[Footnote 2241: Ch. Guerin, "Revue des Questions Historiques" (July 1,

1875; April 1, 1876).--Abbé Guettée, "Histoire de l'Eglise de France,"

XII, 128. ("Minutes of the meeting of l'Assemblée du Clergé," in

1780.)--"Archives nationales," official reports and memorandums of the

States-General in 1789. The most obnoxious proceeding to the chiefs of

the order is the postponement of the age at which vows may be taken,

it being, in their view, the ruin of their institutions.--"The Ancient

Régime," p. 403.]

[Footnote 2242: In order for a modern uninstructed non-believing reader

to understand the motivation which moved thousands of self-less sisters

and brothers to do their useful and kind work read St. Matthew chapter

25, verses 31 to 46 where Jesus predicts how he will sit in judgment on

mankind and separate the sheep from the goats. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2243: "The Ancient Régime," P.33--Cf. Guerin "The monastery

of the Trois-Rois, in the north of Franche-Comté, founded four villages

collected from foreign colonists. It is the only center of charity and

civilization in a radius of three leagues. It took care of two hundred

of the sick in a recent epidemic; it lodges the troops which pass from

Alsace into Franche-Comté, and in the late hailstorm it supplied the

whole neighborhood with food."]

[Footnote 2244: Moniteur, sitting of February 13,1790. (Speech of

the Abbé de Montesquiou).--Archives Nationales," papers of the

Ecclesiastical Committee, DXIX. 6, Visitation de Limoges, DXIX. 25,

Annonciades de Saint-Denis; ibid. Annonciades de Saint Amour, Ursulines

d'Auch, de Beaulieu, d'Eymoutier, de la Ciotat, de Pont Saint-Esprit,

Hospitalières d'Ernée, de Laval; Sainte Claire de Laval, de Marseilles,

etc. "]

[Footnote 2245: Sauzay, I. 247. Out of three hundred and seventy-seven

nuns at Doubs, three hundred and fifty-eight preferred to remain as they

were, especially at Pontarlier, all the Bernardines, Annonciades,

and Ursulines; at Besançon, all the Carmelites, the Visitandines, the

Annonciades, the Clarisses, the Sisters of Refuge, the Nuns of the

Saint-Esprit and, save one, all the Benedictine Nuns.]

[Footnote 2246: "Archives Nationales." Papers of the Ecclesiastical

Committee, passim.--Suzay, I. 51.--Statistics of France for 1866.]

[Footnote 2247: In 1993 this number has once more fallen, and continues

to fall, to 55 900. "Quid", 1996 page 623. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2248: Felix Rocquain, "La France aprés le 18 Brumaire."

(Reports of the Councillors of State dispatched on this service,

passim).]

[Footnote 2249: Moniteur, October 24, 1789. (Speech of Dupont de

Nemours.) All these speeches, often more fully reported and with various

renderings, may be found in "Les Archives Parlementaires," 1st series,

vols. VIII. and IX.]

[Footnote 2250: Duvergier, decree of June 14-17, 1791. "The annihilation

of every corporation of citizens of any one condition or profession

being on of the foundation-stones of the French constitution, it is

forbidden to re-establish these de-facto under any pretext or

form whatever. Citizens of a like condition or profession, such as

contractors, shopkeepers, workmen of all classes, and associates in

any art whatever shall not, on assembling together, appoint either

president, or secretaries, or syndics, discuss or pass resolutions, or

frame any regulations in relation to their assumed common interests."]

[Footnote 2251: Moniteur, sitting of November 2nd, 1789.]

[Footnote 2252: Moniteur, sitting of February 12, 1790. Speeches of

Dally d'Agier and Barnave.]

[Footnote 2253: Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech by Garat;

February 12, 1790, speech by Pétion; October 30, 1789, speech by

Thouret.]

[Footnote 2254: Moniteur, sitting of November 2, 1789. Speech by

Chapelier; October 24, 1789, speech by Garat; October 30, 1789, speech

by Mirabeau, and the sitting of August 10, 1789.]

[Footnote 2255: Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech by

Thouret.]

[Footnote 2256: Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech by

Treilhard; October 24th, speech by Garat; October 30, speech by

Mirabeau.--On the 8th of August, 1789, Al. de Lameth says in the

tribune: "When an foundation was set up, it is to the nation, which the

grant was given."]

[Footnote 2257: Duvergier, laws of August 18, 1792; August 8-14, 1793;

July 11, 1794; July 14, 1792; August 24, 1793.]

[Footnote 2258: Moniteur, sitting of July 31, 1792. Speech of M.

Boistard; the property of the hospitals, at this time was estimated at

eight hundred millions.--Already in 1791 (sitting of January 30th) M.

de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt said to the Assembly: "Nothing will more

readily restore confidence to the poor than to see the nation assuming

the right of rendering them assistance." He proposes to decree;

accordingly, that all hospitals and places of beneficence be placed

under the control of the nation. (Mercure, February 12, 1791.)]

[Footnote 2259: Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech by

Sieyès.--The figures given here are deduced from the statistics already

given in the "Ancient Régime."]

[Footnote 2260: Moniteur, v. 571. sitting of September 4, 1790. Report of

the Committee on Finances--V. 675, sitting of September 17, 1790. Report

by Necker.]

[Footnote 2261: A Revolutionary Government promissory bank note. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2262: Sauzay, I. 228 (from October 10, 1790, to February 20,

1791). "The total weight of the spoil of the monastic establishments in

gold, silver, and plated ware, sent to the Mint amounted to more than

525 kilograms (for the department)."]

[Footnote 2263: Duvergier, law of October 8-14.]

[Footnote 2264: Moniteur, sitting of June 3,1792. Speech of M. Bernard,

in the name of the committee of Public Assistance: "Not a day passes

in which we do not receive the saddest news from the departments on

the penury of their hospitals."--Mercure de France, December 17, 1791,

sitting of December 5. A number of deputies of the Department of the

North demand aid for their hospitals and municipalities. Out of 480,000

livres revenue there remains 10,000 to them. "The property of the

Communes is mortgaged, and no longer affords them any resources. 280,000

persons are without bread."]

[Footnote 2265: Sauzay, I. 252 (December 3, 1790. April 13, 1791).]

[Footnote 2266: Moniteur, sitting of June 1, 1790. Speeches by Camus,

Treilhard, etc.]

[Footnote 2267: But on the assumption that all religion has been

invented by human beings for their own comfort or use, then what would

be more natural than clever rulers using their power to influence the

religious authorities to their own advantage. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2268: Ultramontane: Extreme in favoring the Pope's supremacy.

(SR.)]

[Footnote 2269: Sauzay, I. 168.]

[Footnote 2270: Personal knowledge, as I visited Besançon four times

between 1863 and 1867.]

[Footnote 2271: Moniteur, sitting of May 30, 1790, and others following.

(Report of Treilhard, speech by Robespierre.)]

[Footnote 2272: Duvergier, laws of July 12th-August 14th; November

14-25, 1790; January 21-26, 1791.]

[Footnote 2273: Moniteur, sitting of May 31, 1790. Robespierre, in

covert terms, demands the marriage of priests.--Mirabeau prepared a

speech in the same sense, concluding that every priest and monk should

be able to contract marriage; on the priest or monk presenting himself

with his bride before the curé, the latter should be obliged to

give them the nuptial benediction etc. Mirabeau wrote, June 2, 1790:

"Robespierre... has juggled me out of my motion on the marriage of

priests."--In general the germ of all the laws of the Convention is

found in the Constituent Assembly. (Ph. Plan, "Un Collaborateur de

Mirabeau," p.56, 144.)]

[Footnote 2274: Duvergier, laws of November 27th--December 26, 1790;

February 5th, March 22nd, and April 5, 1791.--Moniteur, sitting of

November 6, 1790, and those that follow, especially that of December

27th. "I swear to maintain with all my power the French Constitution

and especially the decrees relating to the Civil Constitution of the

clergy."--Cf. sitting of January 2, 1791, speech by the Bishop of

Clermont.]

[Footnote 2275: Duvergier, law of May 7, 1791, to maintain the right

of nonjuring priests to perform mass in national or private edifices.

(Demanded by Talleyrand and Sieyès.)]

[Footnote 2276: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3235. Letter of M. de

Château-Randon, deputy of la Lozère, May 28, 1791. After the decree

of May 23rd, all the functionaries of the department handed in their

resignations.]

[Footnote 2277: Duvergier, law of May 21-29, 1791.]

[Footnote 2278: Sauzay, I. 366, 538 to 593, 750.--"Archives Nationales,"

F7, 3235, Letter of M. de Chânteau-Randon, May 10, 1791.--Mercure,

April 23rd, and April 16, 1701. Articles of Mallet du Pan, letter from

Bordeaux, March 20, 1791.]

[Footnote 2279: Buchez and Roux, XII, 77. Report of Gallois and Gensonné

sent to La Vendée and the Deux Sévres (July 25, 1791).--" Archives

Nationales," F7, 3253, letter of the Directory of the Bas-Rhin (letter

of January 7, 1792).--" Le District de Machecoul de 1788 à 1793," by

Lallier.--" Histoire de Joseph Lebon," by Paris.--Sauzay, vol. I. and

II. in full.]

[Footnote 2280: Mercure, January 15th, April 23rd, May 16th and 30th,

June 1st, November 23rd, 1791.--"Le District de Machecoul," by Lallier,

173.--Sauzay, I. 295.--Lavirotte, "Annales d'Arnay-le-Duc" (February 5,

1792).--"Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Petition of a number of the

inhabitants of Montpellier, November 17, 1791.]

[Footnote 2281: Duvergier, decree of November 29, 1791.--Mercure,

November 30, 1791 (article by Mallet du Pan).]

CHAPTER III. THE CONSTRUCTIONS--THE CONSTITUTION OF 1791.

That which is called a Government is a concert of powers, each with a

distinct function, and all working towards a final and complete end. The

merit of a Government consists in the attainment of this end; the worth

of a machine depends upon the work it accomplishes. The important thing

is not to produce a good mechanical design on paper, but to see that the

machine works well when set up on the ground. In vain might its founders

allege the beauty of their plan and the logical connection of their

theorems; they are not required to furnish either plan or theorems, but

an instrument.

Two conditions are requisite to render this instrument serviceable and

effective. In the first place, the public powers must harmonize with

each other, if not, one will neutralize the other; in the second place

they must be obeyed, or they are null.

The Constituent Assembly made no provision for securing this harmony

or this obedience. In the machine which it constructed the motions all

counteract each other; the impulse is not transmitted; the gearing is

not complete between the center and the extremities; the large central

and upper wheels turn to no purpose; the innumerable small wheels near

the ground break or get out of order: the machine, by virtue of its own

mechanism, remains useless, over-heated, under clouds of waste steam,

creaking and thumping in such a matter as to show clearly that it must

explode.

I.--Powers of the Central Government.

The Assembly on the partition of power.--Rupture of every

tie between the Legislature and the King.--The Assembly on

the subordination of the executive power.--How this is

nullified.--Certainty of a conflict.--The deposition of the

King is inevitable.

Let us first consider the two central powers, the Assembly and

the King.--Ordinarily when distinct powers of different origin are

established by a Constitution, it makes, in the case of conflict between

them, a provision for an arbiter in the institution of an Upper Chamber.

Each of these powers, at least, has a hold on the other. The Assembly

must have one on the King: which is the right to refuse taxation. The

King must have one on the Assembly: which is the right of dissolving it.

Otherwise, one of the two being disarmed, the other becomes omnipotent,

and, consequently, insane. The peril here is as great for an omnipotent

Assembly as it is for an absolute King. If the former is desirous of

remaining in its right mind, it needs repression and control as much

as the latter. If it is proper for the Assembly to restrain the King

by refusing him subsidies, it is proper for him to be able to defend

himself by appealing to the electors.--But, besides these extreme

measures, which are dangerous and rarely resorted to, there is another

which is ordinarily employed and is safe, that is, the right for the

King to take his ministers from the Chamber. Generally, the leaders

of the majority form the ministry, their nomination being the means of

restoring harmony between the King and Assembly; they are at once men

belonging to the Assembly and men belonging to the King. Through this

expedient not only is the confidence of the Assembly assured, since the

Government remains in the hands of its leaders, but also it is under

restraint because these become simultaneously both powerful and

responsible. Placed at the head of all branches of the service, they

are, before proposing it or accepting it, in a position to judge whether

a law is useful and practicable. Nothing is so healthy for a majority

as a ministry composed of its own chiefs; nothing is so effective in

repressing rashness or intemperance. A railway conductor is not willing

that his locomotive should be deprived of coal, nor to have the rails he

is about to run on broken up.--This arrangement, with all its drawbacks

and inconveniences, is the best one yet arrived at by human experience

for the security of societies against despotism and anarchy. For the

absolute power which establishes or saves them may also oppress or

exhaust them, there is a gradual substitution of differentiated powers,

held together through the mediation of a third umpire, caused by

reciprocal dependence and an which is common to both.

Experience, however, is unimportant to the members of the Constituent

Assembly; under the banner of principles they sunder one after another

all the ties which keep the two powers together harmoniously.--There

must not be an Upper Chamber, because this would be an asylum or a

nursery for aristocrats. Moreover, "the nation being of one mind," it

is averse to "the creation of different organs." So, applying ready-made

formulas and metaphors, they continue to produce ideological definitions

and distinctions.

The King must not have a hold on the legislative body: the executive

is an arm, whose business it is to obey; it is absurd for the arm to

constrain or direct the head. Scarcely is the monarch allowed a delaying

veto. Sieyès here enters with his protest declaring that this is a

"lettre de cachet[2301] launched against the universal will," and

there is excluded from the action of the veto the articles of the

Constitution, all money-bills, and some other laws.--Neither the monarch

nor the electors of the Assembly are to convoke the Assembly; he has no

voice in or oversight of the details of its formation; the electors are

to meet together and vote without his summons or supervision. Once the

Assembly is elected he can neither adjourn nor dissolve it. He cannot

even propose a law;[2302] per-mission is only granted to him "to invite

it to take a subject into consideration." He is limited to his executive

duties; and still more, a sort of wall is built up between him and the

Assembly, and the opening in it, by which each could take the other's

hand, is carefully closed up. The deputies are forbidden to become

ministers throughout the term of their service and for two years

afterwards. This is because fears are entertained that they might

be corrupted through contact with the Court, and, again, whoever

the ministers might be, there is no disposition to accept their

ascendancy.[2303] If one of them is admitted into the Assembly it is not

for the purpose of giving advice, but to furnish information, reply to

interrogatories, and make protestations of his zeal in humble terms

and in a dubious position.[2304] By virtue of being a royal agent he

is under suspicion like the King himself, and he is sequestered in his

bureau as the King is sequestered in his palace.--Such is the spirit

of the Constitution: by force of the theory, and the better to secure a

separation of the powers,[2305] a common understanding between them

is for ever rendered impossible, and to make up for this impossibility

there remains nothing but to make one the master and the other the

clerk.

This they did not fail to do, and for greater security, the latter

is made an honorary clerk, The executive power is conferred on him

nominally and in appearance; he does not possess it in fact, care having

been taken to place it in other hands.--In effect, all executive agents

and all secondary and local powers are elective. The King has no voice,

directly or indirectly, in the choice of judges, public prosecutors,

bishops, curés, collectors and assessors of the taxes, commissaries of

police, district and departmental administrators, mayors, and municipal

officers. At most, should an administrator violate a law, he may annul

his acts and suspend him; but the Assembly, the superior power, has the

right to cancel this suspension.--As to the armed force, of which he is

supposed to be the commander-in-chief, this escapes from him entirely:

the National Guard is not to receive orders from him; the gendarmerie

and the troops are bound to respond to the requisitions of the municipal

authorities, whom the King can neither select nor displace: in short,

local action of any kind--that is to say, all effective action--is

denied to him.--The executive instrument is purposely destroyed. The

connection which existed between the wheels of the extremities and the

central shaft is broken, and henceforth, incapable of distributing its

energy, this shaft, in the hands of the monarch, stands still or

else turns to no purpose. The King, "supreme head of the general

administration, of the army, and of the navy, guardian of public peace

and order, hereditary representative of the nation," is without the

means, in spite of his lofty titles, of directly applying his pretended

powers, of causing a schedule of assessments to be drawn up in a

refractory commune, of compelling payment by a delinquent tax-payer, of

enforcing the free circulation of a convoy of grain, of executing

the judgment of a court, of suppressing an outbreak, or of securing

protection to persons and property. For he can bring no constraint to

bear on the agents who are declared to be subordinate to him; he has

no resources but those of warning and persuasion. He sends to each

Departmental Assembly the decrees which he has sanctioned, requesting

it to transmit them and cause them to be carried out; he receives its

correspondence and bestows his censure or approval--and that is all.

He is merely a powerless medium of communication, a herald or public

advertiser, a sort of central echo, sonorous and empty, to which news

is brought, and from which laws depart, to spread abroad like a common

rumor. Such as he is, and thus diminished, he is still considered to

be too strong. He is deprived of the right of pardon, "which severs the

last artery of monarchical government."[2306] All sorts of precautions

are taken against him. He cannot declare war without a decree of the

Assembly; he is obliged to bring war to an end on the decree of the

Assembly; he cannot make a treaty of peace, an alliance, or a commercial

treaty, without the ratification of these by the Assembly. It is

expressly declared that he is to nominate but two-thirds of the

rear-admirals, one-half of the lieutenant-generals, field-marshals,

captains of Vessels and colonels of the gendarmerie, one-third of the

colonels and lieutenant-colonels of the line, and a sixth of the naval

lieutenants. He must not allow troops to stay or pass within 30,000

yards of the Assembly. His guard must not consist of more than 1,800

men, duly verified, and protected against his seductions by the civil

oath. The heir-presumptive must not leave the country without the

Assembly's assent. It is the Assembly which is to regulate by law

the education of his son during minority.--All these precautions are

accompanied with threats. There are against him five possible causes

of dethronement; against his responsible Ministers, eight causes for

condemnation to from twelve to twenty years of constraint, and eight

grounds for condemnations to death.[2307] Everywhere between the lines

of the Constitution, we read the constant disposition to assume an

attitude of defense, the secret dread of treachery, the conviction that

executive power, of whatever kind, is in its nature inimical to the

public welfare.--For withholding the nomination of judges, the reason

alleged is that "the Court and the Ministers are the most contemptible

portion of the nation."[2308] If the nomination of Ministers is

conceded, it is on the ground that" Ministers appointed by the people

would necessarily be too highly esteemed." The principle is that "the

legislative body alone must possess the confidence of the people," that

royal authority corrupts its depository, and that executive power is

always tempted to commit abuses and to engage in conspiracies. If it

is provided for in the Constitution it is with regret, through the

necessity of the case, and on the condition of its being trammeled by

impediments; it will prove so much the less baneful in proportion as it

is restrained, guarded, threatened, and denounced.--A position of this

kind is manifestly intolerable; and only a man as passive as Louis XVI.

could have put up with it. Do what he will, however, he cannot make it

a tenable one. In vain does he scrupulously adhere to the Constitution,

and fulfill it to the letter. Because he is powerless the Assembly

regards him as lukewarm, and imputes to him the friction of the machine

which is not under his control. If he presumes once to exercise his veto

it is rebellion, and the rebellion of an official against his superior,

which is the Assembly; the rebellion of a subject against his Sovereign,

which is the people. In this case dethronement is proper, and the

Assembly has only to pass the decree; the people have simply to

execute the act, and the Constitution ends in a Revolution.--A piece

of machinery of this stamp breaks down through its own movement. In

conformity with the philosophic theory the two wheels of government must

be separated, and to do this they have to be disconnected and

isolated one from the other. In conformity with the popular creed, the

driving-wheel must be subordinated and its influence neutralized: to

do this it is necessary to reduce its energy to a minimum, break up its

connections, and raise it up in the air to turn round like a top, or to

remain there as an obstacle to something else. It is certain that,

after much ill-usage as a plaything, it will finally be removed as a

hindrance.

II.--The Creation Of Popular Democracy.

Administrative powers.--The Assembly on the hierarchy.

--Grades abolished.--Collective powers.--Election introduced,

and the influence of subordinates in all branches of the

service.--Certainty of disorganization.--Power in the hands

of municipal bodies.

Let us leave the center of government and go to the extremities, and

observe the various administrations in working operation.[2309]

For any service to work well and with precision, there must be a

single and unique chief who can appoint, pay, punish and dismiss his

subordinates.--For, on the one hand, he stands alone and feels his

responsibility; he brings to bear on the management of affairs a degree

of attention and consistency, a tact and a power of initiation of which

a committee is incapable; corporate follies or defects do not involve

any one in particular, and authority is effective only when it is in one

hand.--On the other hand, being master, he can rely on the subalterns

whom he has himself selected, whom he controls through their hopes

or fears, and whom he discharges if they do not perform their duties;

otherwise he has no hold on them and they are not instruments to be

depended on. Only on these conditions can a railway manager be sure that

his pointsmen are on the job. Only on these conditions can the foreman

of a foundry engage to execute work by a given day. In every public or

private enterprise, direct, immediate authority is the only known, the

only human and possible way to ensure the obedience and punctuality of

agents.--Administration is thus carried on in all countries, by one or

several series of functionaries, each under some central manager who

holds the reins in his single grasp.[2310]

This is all reversed in the new Constitution. In the eyes of our

legislators obedience must be spontaneous and never compulsory, and, in

the suppression of despotism, they suppress government. The general rule

in the hierarchy which they establish is that the subordinates should be

independent of their superior, for he must neither appoint nor displace

them: the only right he has is to give them advice and remonstrate

with them.[2311] At best, in certain cases, he can annul their acts and

inflict on them a provisional suspension of their functions, which can

be contested and is revocable.[2312] We see, thus, that none of the

local powers are delegated by the central power; the latter is simply

like a man without either hands or arms, seated in a gilt chair. The

Minister of the Finances cannot appoint or dismiss either an assessor or

a collector; the Minister of the Interior, not one of the departmental,

district, or communal administrators; the Minister of Justice, not one

judge or public prosecutor. The King, in these three branches of the

service, has but one officer of his own, the commissioner whose duty

it is to advocate the observance of the laws in the courts, and, on

sentence being given, to enforce its execution.--All the muscles of

the central power are paralyzed by this stroke, and henceforth each

department is a State apart, living by itself.

An similar amputation, however, in the department itself, has cut

away all the ties by which the superior could control and direct his

subordinate.--If the administrators of the department are suffered to

influence those of the district, and those of the district those of the

municipality, it is only, again, in the way of council and solicitation.

Nowhere is the superior a commander who orders and constrains, but

everywhere a censor who gives warnings and scolds. To render this

already feeble authority still more feeble at each step of the

hierarchy, it is divided among several bodies. These consist of

superposed councils, which administer the department, the district,

and the commune. There is no directing head in any of these councils.

Permanency and executive functions throughout are vested in the

directories of four or eight members, or in bureaus of two, three,

four, six, and even seven members whose elected chief, a president

or mayor,[2313] has simply an honorary primacy. Decision and action,

everywhere blunted, delayed, or curtailed by talk and the processes

of discussion, are brought forth only after the difficult, tumultuous

assent of several discordant wills.[2314] Elective and collective as

these powers are, measures are still taken to guard against them. Not

only are they subject to the control of an elected council, one-half

renewable every two years, but, again, the mayor and public prosecutor

of the commune after serving four years, and the procureur-syndic of

the department or district after eight years service, and the district

collector after six years' service, are not re-elected. Should these

officials have deserved and won the confidence of the electors,

should familiarity with affairs have made them specially competent and

valuable, so much the worse for affairs and the public; they are not

to be anchored to their post.[2315] Should their continuance in office

introduce into the service a spirit of order and economy, that is of no

consequence; there is danger of their acquiring to much influence, and

the law sends them off as soon as they become expert and entitled to

rule.--Never has jealousy and suspicion been more on the alert against

power, even legal and legitimate. Sapping and mining goes on even

in services which are recognized as essential, as the army and the

gendarmerie.[2316] In the army, on the appointment of a non-commissioned

officer, the other non-commissioned officers make up a list of

candidates, and the captain selects three, one of whom is chosen by

the colonel. In the choice of a sub-lieutenant, all the officers of

the regiment vote, and he who receives a majority is appointed. In the

gendarmerie, for the appointment of a gendarme, the directory of the

department forms a list; the colonel designates five names on it,

and the directory selects one of them. For the choice of a corporal,

quartermaster or lieutenant, there is, besides the directory and the

colonel, another intervention, that of the officers, both commissioned

and non-commissioned. It is a system of elective complications and

lot-drawings; one which, giving a voice in the choice of officers to the

civil authorities and to military subordinates, leaves the colonel with

only a third or one-quarter of his former ascendancy. In relation to the

National Guard, the new principle is applied without any reservation.

All the officers and non-commissioned officers up to the grade of

captain are elected by their own men. All the superior officers are

elected by the inferior officers. All under-officers and all inferior

and superior officers are elected for one year only, and are not

eligible for re-election until after an interval of a year, during which

they must serve in the ranks.[2317]--The result is manifest: command, in

every civil and in every military order, becomes upset; subalterns are

no longer precise and trustworthy instruments; the chief no longer has

any practical hold on them; his orders, consequently, encounter only

tame obedience, doubtful deference, sometimes even open resistance;

their execution remains dilatory, uncertain, incomplete, and at

length is utterly neglected; a latent and soon flagrant system of

disorganization is instituted by the law. Step by step, in the hierarchy

of Government, power has slipped downwards, and henceforth belongs by

virtue of the Constitution to the authorities who sit at the bottom of

the ladder. It is not the King, or the minister, or the directory of the

department or of the district who rules, but its municipal officers;

and their sway is as omnipotent as it can be in a small independent

republic. They alone have the "strong hand" with which to search the

pockets of refractory tax-payers, and ensure the collection of the

revenue; to seize the rioter by the throat, and protect life and

property; in short, to convert the promises and menaces of the law

into acts. Every armed force, the National Guard, the regulars, and the

gendarmerie, must march on their requisition. They alone, among the body

of administrators, are endowed with this sovereign right; all that the

department or the district can do is to invite them to exercise it. It

is they who proclaim martial law. Accordingly, the sword is in their

hands.[2318] Assisted by commissioners who are appointed by the

council-general of the commune, they prepare the schedule of taxation

of real and personal property, fix the quota of each tax-payer, adjust

assessments, verify the registers and the collector's receipts, audit

his accounts, discharge the insolvent, answer for returns and authorize

prosecutions.[2319] Private purses are, in this way, at their mercy,

and they take from them whatever they determine to belong to the

public.--With the purse and the sword in their hands they lack nothing

that is necessary to make them masters, and all the more because the

application of every law belongs to them; because no orders of the

Assembly to the King, of the King to the ministers, of ministers to the

departments, of departments to the districts, of the districts to

the communes, brings about any real local result except through them;

because each measure of general application undergoes their special

interpretation, and can always be optionally disfigured, softened,

or exaggerated according to their timidity, inertia, violence or

partiality. Moreover, they are not long in discovering their strength.

We see them on all sides arguing with their superiors against district,

departmental, and ministerial orders, and even against the Assembly

itself; alleging circumstances; lack of means, their own danger and the

public safety, failing to obey, acting for themselves, openly disobeying

and glorying in the act,[2320] and claiming, as a right, the omnipotence

which they exercise in point of fact. Those of Troyes, at the festival

of the Federation, refuse to submit to the precedence of the department

and claim it for themselves, as "immediate representatives of the

people." Those of Brest, notwithstanding the reiterated prohibitions of

their district, dispatch four hundred men and two cannon to force the

submission of a neighboring commune to a cure' who has taken the oath.

Those of Arnay-le-Duc arrest Mesdames (the King's aunts), in spite

of their passport signed by the ministers, hold them in spite of

departmental and district orders, persist in barring the way to them

in spite of a special decree of the National Assembly, and send two

deputies to Paris to obtain the sanction of their decision. What with

arsenals pillaged, citadels invaded, convoys arrested, couriers

stopped, letters intercepted, constant and increasing insubordination,

usurpations without truce or measure, the municipalities arrogate

to themselves every species of license on their own territory and

frequently outside of it. Henceforth, forty thousand sovereign bodies

exist in the kingdom. Force is placed in their hands, and they make good

use of it. They make such good use of it that one of them, the commune

of Paris, taking advantage of its proximity, lays siege to, mutilates,

and rules the National Convention, and through it France.

III.--Municipal Kingdoms.

The Municipal bodies.--Their great task.--Their incapacity.

--Their feeble authority.--Insufficiency of their means of

action.--The role of the National Guard.--