One of the reasons Madame de Maintenon had brought forward, which much
assisted her in opposing the siege of Lille, was the excessive cold of
this winter. The winter was, in fact, terrible; the memory of man could
find no parallel to it. The frost came suddenly on Twelfth Night, and
lasted nearly two months, beyond all recollection. In four days the
Seine and all the other rivers were frozen, and,--what had never been
seen before,--the sea froze all along the coasts, so as to bear carts,
even heavily laden, upon it. Curious observers pretended that this cold
surpassed what had ever been felt in Sweden and Denmark. The tribunals
were closed a considerable time. The worst thing was, that it completely
thawed for seven or eight days, and then froze again as rudely as before.
This caused the complete destruction of all kinds of vegetation--even
fruit-trees; and others of the most hardy kind, were destroyed. The
violence of the cold was such, that the strongest elixirs and the most
spirituous liquors broke their bottles in cupboards of rooms with fires
in them, and surrounded by chimneys, in several parts of the chateau of
Versailles. As I myself was one evening supping with the Duc de
Villeroy, in his little bedroom, I saw bottles that had come from a well-
heated kitchen, and that had been put on the chimney-piece of this bed-
room (which was close to the kitchen), so frozen, that pieces of ice fell
into our glasses as we poured out from them. The second frost ruined
everything. There were no walnut-trees, no olive-trees, no apple-trees,
no vines left, none worth speaking of, at least. The other trees died in
great numbers; the gardens perished, and all the grain in the earth. It
is impossible to imagine the desolation of this general ruin. Everybody
held tight his old grain. The price of bread increased in proportion to
the despair for the next harvest. The most knowing resowed barley where
there had been wheat, and were imitated by the majority. They were the
most successful, and saved all; but the police bethought themselves of
prohibiting this, and repented too late! Divers edicts were published
respecting grain, researches were made and granaries filled;
commissioners were appointed to scour the provinces, and all these steps
contributed to increase the general dearness and poverty, and that, too,
at a time when, as was afterwards proved, there was enough corn in the
country to feed all France for two years, without a fresh ear being
reaped.
Many people believed that the finance gentlemen had clutched at this
occasion to seize upon all the corn in the kingdom, by emissaries they
sent about, in order to sell it at whatever price they wished for the
profit of the King, not forgetting their own. The fact that a large
quantity of corn that the King had bought, and that had spoiled upon the
Loire, was thrown into the water in consequence, did not shake this
opinion, as the accident could not be hidden. It is certain that the
price of corn was equal in all the markets of the realm; that at Paris,
commissioners fixed the price by force, and often obliged the vendors to
raise it in spite of themselves; that when people cried out, "How long
will this scarcity last?" some commissioners in a market, close to my
house, near Saint Germain-des-Pres, replied openly, "As long as you
please," moved by compassion and indignation, meaning thereby, as long as
the people chose to submit to the regulation, according to which no corn
entered Paris, except on an order of D'Argenson. D'Argenson was the
lieutenant of police. The bakers were treated with the utmost rigour in
order to keep up the price of bread all over France. In the provinces,
officers called intendents did what D'Argenson did at Paris. On all the
markets, the corn that was not sold at the hour fixed for closing was
forcibly carried off; those who, from pity, sold their corn lower than
the fixed rate were punished with cruelty!
Marechal, the King's surgeon, had the courage and the probity to tell all
these things to the King, and to state the sinister opinions it gave rise
to among all classes, even the most enlightened. The King appeared
touched, was not offended with Marechal, but did nothing.
In several places large stores of corn were collected; by the government
authorities, but with the greatest possible secrecy. Private people were
expressly forbidden to do this, and informers were encouraged to; betray
them. A poor fellow, having bethought himself of informing against one
of the stores alluded to above, was severely punished for his pains. The
Parliament assembled to debate upon these disorders. It came to the
resolution of submitting various proposals to the King, which it deemed
likely to improve the condition of the country, and offered to send its
Conseillers to examine into the conduct of the monopolists. As soon as
the King heard of this, he flew into a strange passion, and his first
intention was to send a harsh message to the Parliament to attend to law
trials, and not to mix with matters that did not concern it. The
chancellor did not dare to represent to, the King that what the
Parliament wished to do belonged to its province, but calmed him by
representing the respect and affection with which the Parliament regarded
him, and that he was master either to accept or refuse its offers. No
reprimand was given, therefore, to the Parliament, but it was informed
that the King prohibited it from meddling with the corn question.
However accustomed the Parliament, as well as all the other public
bodies, might be to humiliations, it was exceedingly vexed by this
treatment, and obeyed with the greatest grief. The public was,
nevertheless, much affected by the conduct of the Parliament, and felt
that if the Finance Ministry had been innocent in the matter, the King
would have been pleased with what had taken place, which was in no
respect an attack on the absolute and unbounded authority of which he was
so vilely jealous.
In the country a somewhat similar incident occurred. The Parliament of
Burgundy, seeing the province in the direst necessity, wrote to the
Intendant, who did not bestir himself the least in the world. In this
pressing danger of a murderous famine, the members assembled to debate
upon the course to adopt. Nothing was said or done more than was
necessary, and all with infinite discretion, yet the King was no sooner
informed of it than he grew extremely irritated. He sent a severe
reprimand to this Parliament; prohibited it from meddling again in the
matter; and ordered the President, who had conducted the assembly, to
come at once to Court to explain his conduct. He came, and but for the
intervention of M. le Duc would have been deprived of his post,
irreproachable as his conduct had been. He received a sharp scolding
from the King, and was then allowed to depart. At the end of a few weeks
he returned to Dijon, where it had been resolved to receive him in
triumph; but, like a wise and experienced man, he shunned these
attentions, arranging so that he arrived at Dijon at four o'clock in the
morning. The other Parliaments, with these examples before them, were
afraid to act, and allowed the Intendants and their emissaries to have it
all their own way. It was at this time that those commissioners were
appointed, to whom I have already alluded, who acted under the authority
of the Intendants, and without dependence of any kind upon the
Parliaments. True, a court of appeal against their decisions was
established, but it was a mere mockery. The members who composed it did
not set out to fulfil their duties until three months after having been
appointed.
Then, matters had been so arranged that they received no appeals, and
found no cases to judge. All this dark work remained, therefore, in the
hands of D'Argenson and the Intendants, and it continued to be done with
the same harshness as ever.
Without passing a more definite judgment on those who invented and
profited by this scheme, it may be said that there has scarcely been a
century which has produced one more mysterious, more daring, better
arranged, and resulting in an oppression so enduring, so sure, so cruel.
The sums it produced were innumerable; and innumerable were the people
who died literally of hunger, and those who perished afterwards of the
maladies caused by the extremity of misery; innumerable also were the
families who were ruined, whose ruin brought down a torrent of other
ills.
Despite all this, payments hitherto most strictly made began to cease.
Those of the customs, those of the divers loans, the dividends upon the
Hotel de Ville--in all times so sacred--all were suspended; these last
alone continued, but with delays, then with retrenchments, which
desolated nearly all the families of Paris and many others. At the same
time the taxes--increased, multiplied, and exacted with the most extreme
rigour--completed the devastation of France.
Everything rose incredibly in price, while nothing was left to buy with,
even at the cheapest rate; and although--the majority of the cattle had
perished for want of food, and by the misery of those who kept them, a
new monopoly was established upon, horned beasts. A great number of
people who, in preceding years, used to relieve the poor, found,
themselves so reduced as to be able to subsist only with great
difficulty, and many of them received alms in secret. It is impossible
to say how many others laid siege to the hospitals, until then the ,
shame and punishment of the poor; how many ruined hospitals revomited
forth their inmates to the public charge--that is to say, sent them away
to die actually of hunger; and how many decent families shut themselves
up in garrets to die of want.
It is impossible to say, moreover, how all this misery warmed up zeal and
charity, or how immense were the alms distributed. But want increasing
each instant, an indiscreet and tyrannical charity imagined new taxes for
the benefit of the poor. They were imposed, and, added to so many
others, vexed numbers of people, who were annoyed at being compelled to
pay, who would have preferred giving voluntarily. Thus, these new taxes,
instead of helping the poor, really took away assistance from them, and
left them worse off than before. The strangest thing of all is, that
these taxes in favour of the poor were, perpetuated and appropriated by
the King, and are received by the financiers on his account to this day
as a branch of the revenue, the name of them not having even been
changed. The same thing has happened with respect to the annual tax for
keeping up the highways and thoroughfares of the kingdom. The majority
of the bridges were broken, and the high roads had become impracticable.
Trade, which suffered by this, awakened attention. The Intendant of
Champagne determined to mend the roads by parties of men, whom he
compelled to work for nothing, not even giving them bread. He was
imitated everywhere, and was made Counsellor of State. The people died
of hunger and misery at this work, while those who overlooked them made
fortunes. In the end the thing was found to be impracticable, and was
abandoned, and so were the roads. But the impost for making them and
keeping them up did not in the least stop during this experiment or
since, nor has it ceased to be appropriated as a branch of the King's
revenue.
But to return to the year 1709. People never ceased wondering what had
become of all the money of the realm. Nobody could any longer pay,
because nobody was paid: the country-people, overwhelmed with exactions
and with valueless property, had become insolvent: trade no longer
yielded anything--good faith and confidence were at an end. Thus the
King had no resources, except in terror and in his unlimited power,
which, boundless as it was, failed also for want of having something to
take and to exercise itself upon. There was no more circulation, no
means of re-establishing it. All was perishing step by step; the realm
was entirely exhausted; the troops, even, were not paid, although no one
could imagine what was done with the millions that came into the King's
coffers. The unfed soldiers, disheartened too at being so badly
commanded, were always unsuccessful; there was no capacity in generals or
ministers; no appointment except by whim or intrigue; nothing was
punished, nothing examined, nothing weighed: there was equal impotence to
sustain the war and bring about peace: all suffered, yet none dared to
put the hand to this arch, tottering as it was and ready to fall.
This was the frightful state to which we were reduced, when envoys were
sent into Holland to try and bring about peace. The picture is exact,
faithful, and not overcharged. It was necessary to present it as it was,
in order to explain the extremity to which we were reduced, the enormity
of the concessions which the King made to obtain peace, and the visible
miracle of Him who sets bounds to the seas, by which France was allowed
to escape from the hands of Europe, resolved and ready to destroy her.
Meanwhile the money was re-coined; and its increase to a third more than
its intrinsic value, brought some profit to the King, but ruin to private
people, and a disorder to trade which completed its annihilation.
Samuel Bernard, the banker, overthrew all Lyons by his prodigious
bankruptcy, which caused the most terrible results. Desmarets assisted
him as much as possible. The discredit into which paper money had
fallen, was the cause of his failure. He had issued notes to the amount
of twenty millions, and owed almost as much at Lyons. Fourteen millions
were given to him in assignats, in order to draw him out of his
difficulties. It is pretended that he found means to gain much by his
bankruptcy, but this seems doubtful.
The winter at length passed away. In the spring so many disorders took
place in the market of Paris, that more guards than usual were kept in
the city. At Saint Roch there was a disturbance, on account of a poor
fellow who had fallen, and been trampled under foot; and the crowd, which
was very large, was very insolent to D'Argenson, Lieutenant of Police,
who had hastened there. M. de la Rochefoucauld, who had retired from the
Court to Chenil, on account of his loss of sight, received an atrocious
letter against the King, in which it was plainly intimated that there
were still Ravaillacs left in the world; and to this madness was added an
eulogy of Brutus. M. de la Rochefoucauld at once went in all haste to
the King with this letter. His sudden appearance showed that something
important had occurred, and the object of his visit, of course, soon
became known. He was very ill received for coming so publicly on such an
errand. The Ducs de Beauvilliers and de Bouillon, it seems, had received
similar letters, but had given them to the King privately. The King for
some days was much troubled, but after due reflection, he came to the
conclusion that people who menace and warn have less intention of
committing a crime than of causing alarm.
What annoyed the King more was, the inundation of placards, the most
daring and the most unmeasured, against his person, his conduct, and his
government--placards, which for a long time were found pasted upon the
gates of Paris, the churches, the public places; above all upon the
statues; which during the night were insulted in various fashions, the
marks being seen the next morning, and the inscriptions erased. There
were also, multitudes of verses and songs, in which nothing was spared.
We were in this state until the 16th of May. The procession of Saint
Genevieve took place. This procession never takes place except in times
of the direst necessity; and then, only in virtue of orders from the
King, the Parliament, or the Archbishop of Paris. On the one hand, it
was hoped that it would bring succour to the country; on the other, that
it would amuse the people.
It was shortly after this, when the news of the arrogant demands of the
allies, and the vain attempts of the King to obtain an honourable peace
became known, that the Duchesse de Grammont conceived the idea of
offering her plate to the King, to replenish his impoverished exchequer,
and to afford him means carry on the war. She hoped that her example
would be followed by all the Court, and that she alone would have the
merit and the profit of suggesting the idea. Unfortunately for this
hope, the Duke, her husband, spoke of the project to Marechal Boufflers,
who thought it so good, that he noised it abroad, and made such a stir,
exhorting everybody to adopt it, that he passed for the inventor, and; no
mention was made of the Duke or the old Duchesse de Grammont, the latter
of whom was much enraged at this.
The project made a great hubbub at the Court. Nobody dared to refuse to
offer his plate, yet each offered it with much regret. Some had been
keeping it as a last resource, which they; were very sorry to deprive
themselves of; others feared the dirtiness of copper and earthenware;
others again were annoyed at being obliged to imitate an ungrateful
fashion, all the merit of which would go to the inventor. It was in vain
that Pontchartrain objected to the project, as one from which only
trifling benefit could be derived, and which would do great injury to
France by acting as a proclamation of its embarrassed state to all the
world, at home and abroad. The King would not listen to his reasonings,
but declared himself willing to receive all the plate that was sent to
him as a free-will offering. He announced this; and two means were
indicated at the same time, which all good citizens might follow. One
was, to send their plate to the King's goldsmith; the other, to send it
to the Mint. Those who made an unconditional gift of their plate, sent
it to the former, who kept a register of the names and of the number of
marks he received. The King regularly looked over this list; at least at
first, and promised in general terms to restore to everybody the weight
of metal they gave when his affairs permitted--a promise nobody believed
in or hoped to see executed. Those who wished to be paid for their plate
sent it to the Mint. It was weighed on arrival; the names were written,
the marks and the date; payment was made according as money could be
found. Many people were not sorry thus to sell, their plate without
shame. But the loss and the damage were inestimable in admirable
ornaments of all kinds, with which much of the plate of the rich was
embellished. When an account came to be drawn up, it was found that not
a hundred people were upon the list of Launay, the goldsmith; and the
total product of the gift did not amount to three millions. I confess
that I was very late in sending any plate. When I found that I was
almost the only one of my rank using silver, I sent plate to the value of
a thousand pistoles to the Mint, and locked up the rest. All the great
people turned to earthenware, exhausted the shops where it was sold, and
set the trade in it on fire, while common folks continued to use their
silver. Even the King thought of using earthenware, having sent his gold
vessels to the Mint, but afterwards decided upon plated metal and silver;
the Princes and Princesses of the blood used crockery.
Ere three months were over his head the King felt all the shame and the
weakness of having consented to this surrendering of plate, and avowed
that he repented of it. The inundations of the Loire, which happened at
the same time, and caused the utmost disorder, did not restore the Court
or the public to good humour. The losses they caused, and the damage
they did, were very considerable, and ruined many private people, and
desolated home trade.
Summer came. The dearness of all things, and of bread in particular,
continued to cause frequent commotions all over the realm. Although, as
I have said, the guards of Paris were much increased, above all in the
markets and the suspected places, they were unable to hinder disturbances
from breaking out. In many of these D'Argenson nearly lost his life.
Monseigneur arriving and returning from the Opera, was assailed by the
populace and by women in great numbers crying, "Bread! Bread!" so that
he was afraid, even in the midst of his guards, who did not dare to
disperse the crowd for fear of worse happening. He got away by throwing
money to the people, and promising wonders; but as the wonders did not
follow, he no longer dared to go to Paris.
The King himself from his windows heard the people of Versailles crying
aloud in the street. The discourses they held were daring and continual
in the streets and public places; they uttered complaints, sharp, and but
little measured, against the government, and even against the King's
person; and even exhorted each other no longer to be so enduring, saying
that nothing worse could happen to them than what they suffered, dying as
they were of starvation.
To amuse the people, the idle and the poor were employed to level a
rather large hillock which remained upon the Boulevard, between the
Portes Saint Denis and Saint Martin; and for all salary, bad bread in
small quantities was distributed to these workers. If happened that on
Tuesday morning, the 20th of August, there was no bread for a large
number of these people. A woman amongst others cried out at this, which
excited the rest to do likewise. The archers appointed to watch over
these labourers, threatened the woman; she only cried the louder;
thereupon the archers seized her and indiscreetly put her in an adjoining
pillory. In a moment all her companions ran to her aid, pulled down the
pillory, and scoured the streets, pillaging the bakers and pastrycooks.
One by one the shops closed. The disorder increased and spread through
the neighbouring streets; no harm was done anybody, but the cry was
"Bread! Bread!" and bread was seized everywhere.
It so fell out that Marechal Boufflers, who little thought what was
happening, was in the neighbourhood, calling upon his notary. Surprised
at the fright he saw everywhere, and learning, the cause, he wished of
himself to appease it. Accompanied by the Duc de Gramont, he directed
himself towards the scene of the disturbance, although advised not to do
so. When he arrived at the top of the Rue Saint Denis, the crowd and the
tumult made him judge that it would be best to alight from his coach. He
advanced, therefore, on foot with the Duc de Grammont among the furious
and infinite crowd of people, of whom he asked the cause of this uproar,
promised them bread, spoke his best with gentleness but firmness, and
remonstrated with them. He was listened to. Cries, several times
repeated, of "Vive M. le Marechal de Boufflers!" burst from the crowd.
M. de Boufflers walked thus with M. de Grammont all along the Rue aux
Ours and the neighbouring streets, into the very centre of the sedition,
in fact. The people begged him to represent their misery to the King,
and to obtain for them some food. He promised this, and upon his word
being given all were appeased and all dispersed with thanks and fresh
acclamations of "Vive M. le Marechal de Boufflers!" He did a real service
that day. D'Argenson had marched to the spot with troops; and had it not
been for the Marechal, blood would have been spilt, and things might have
gone very far.
The Marechal had scarcely reached his own house in the Place Royale than
he was informed that the sedition had broken out with even greater force
in the Faubourg Saint Antoine. He ran there immediately, with the Duc de
Grammont, and appeased it as he had appeased the other. He returned to
his own home to eat a mouthful or two, and then set out for Versailles.
Scarcely had he left the Place Royale than the people in the streets and
the shopkeepers cried to him to have pity on them, and to get them some
bread, always with "Vive M. le Marechal de Boufflers!" He was conducted
thus as far as the quay of the Louvre.
On arriving at Versailles he went straight to the King, told him what had
occurred, and was much thanked. He was even offered by the King the
command of Paris,--troops, citizens, police, and all; but this he
declined, Paris, as he said, having already a governor and proper
officers to conduct its affairs. He afterwards, however, willingly lent
his aid to them in office, and the modesty with which he acted brought
him new glory.
Immediately after, the supply of bread was carefully looked to. Paris
was filled with patrols, perhaps with too many, but they succeeded so
well that no fresh disturbances took place.