THE LAST YEARS OF THE ANCIEN RÉGIME.
The decay of the old society was accompanied in France by a decay of
the ideas which were inseparably associated with it, and which, long
kept alive by authoritative sanctions, had exacted, not always without
violence, the reverence of men. As the State had usurped the control of
every department of action, so the Roman Catholic Church had usurped
the control of every department of thought. Resting serenely upon
authority and dogma, it had dictated and circumscribed the knowledge
of its subjects, had directed their intellectual interests, and had
aimed at supplying not only a religion to govern their conduct, but
also a complete theory to govern their lives. Against this monopoly,
and the conceptions on which it was established, the best minds of the
eighteenth century rose in revolt, and their revolt was celebrated by
an outbreak of active and intrepid thought. Beginning in the mysterious
domain of physical science, with great discoveries in astronomy,
chemistry, physics, geology and mathematics, the new spirit of enquiry
spread like a flame to illumine other topics. Its votaries, rejecting
ancient tradition and immemorial habit, turned with sudden enthusiasm
to observation and analysis, and built up for themselves step by step
new systems of knowledge, based, not on what their teachers taught
them, but on positive facts which they had ascertained and tested for
themselves. The vivid curiosity thus aroused woke in them distrust
of all preconceived notions, banished the reverent awe which had
restrained earlier generations, and broke down the old barriers of
belief.
Before long the passion for investigation passed beyond the limits
of physical science, and ranging far afield, entered the domain of
theology, of economics, of politics and social laws. In all fields
alike there appeared the same disposition to repudiate opinions
previously held, to examine afresh, under no restrictions, the
principles which lay at the root of religion and government, the
general laws which regulated human institutions, the origin of existing
conceptions of society and property, of justice and right. Tradition
was dethroned, and reason was set up in its seat, as the only test by
which opinions could be determined, without regard to the subordinate
place which reason fills in the conduct of men. The classical spirit,
with its finish, its artificiality, its limitations, already dominant
in France, set its stamp upon the new philosophy, and afforded the
vehicle for conveying it to the world. In successive generations of
polished intercourse, the French language had acquired extreme nicety
and clearness of expression; it was admirably fitted for criticism,
analysis, argument, definition; and it thus rendered the new ideas at
once popular and lucid. A passion for philosophical discussion took
hold of the educated world, and carried them past the facts which
they ought to have noticed, to theories which seemed more distant
and consequently more profound. All alike began to speculate, to
generalise, to enquire into the meaning of many things, the current
interpretation of which they had determined no longer to accept; while
the necessity, from which all Frenchmen suffer, of never being dull,
encouraged superficiality in the new search for truth, and checked the
close study of history, which alone could have avoided error.
As the secrets of the universe unfolded, and as men learned how clear
and simple were the laws of physical nature, they determined that there
must be other laws of nature, equally clear and simple, to explain
society and politics; and finding this theory lamentably contradicted
by the confusion of institutions and abuses round them, they began to
assail those institutions and abuses with the audacity which science
gives. Law and religion in their actual forms were so corrupt that the
shocked imagination of these dreamers fell back upon ideals of natural
religion and natural law. Far aloof themselves from actual politics,
untrained by that wisdom of many voices which free political discussion
bestows, dissatisfied with their own political customs, but disdaining
to study thoroughly the political customs of others and the origin of
all, they proceeded to formulate, by the aid of pure reason, theories
which would satisfy their newly roused emotions, and fit in with some
apparently more simple and scientific formula of life. All those for
whom politics in practice were a sealed book, took refuge in these
politics of the imagination, and the political world in France found
itself presently divided into two camps, one consisting of those who
governed, the other of those who discoursed, the latter perpetually
establishing principles, which the former perpetually broke. A society
devoted to letters and to conversation embraced and disseminated the
speculative literature of the age, and thus the great literary men of
the eighteenth century became in France what politicians sometimes
strive to be in happier lands, the fountains of political inspiration,
and the real leaders of public thought.
Among the pioneers of the new doctrines two men stand out conspicuously
in each half of the century,--Montesquieu and Voltaire in the first
half, Diderot and Rousseau in the second. Montesquieu, the earliest
of the philosophers, was a polished and eminent lawyer, well versed
in history, serious, acute, a profound student of human institutions,
and the master of a terse and pointed style. His writings, generally
speaking, were no mere flights of pert fancy, but the result of
systematised and careful thought, weighty, luminous, moderate in tone,
and scientifically sane. It was Montesquieu, who, in his _Lettres
Persanes_, initiated the philosophic movement, and unmasked the
batteries of criticism and satire, which for two generations were to
play so effectively upon the foundations of the old monarchy in France.
It was Montesquieu, who, twenty seven years later, when he produced
the great work of his life, the _Esprit des Lois_, analysed with
clear and wide sagacity the laws which regulate human governments and
customs, and thus destroyed the mysterious prestige which had never
till then been stripped from the ancient institutions of France. It
was Montesquieu, who first exposed those institutions to a ruthless
analysis which they could not stand. But the slow and careful method,
which was Montesquieu's distinction, was less popular with his
successors. It involved too much trouble. It ran the risk, except in
a master's hands, of being dull. The classical spirit, the French
temperament, the love of amusement combined to guide criticism into
an easier groove, and the philosophic movement, without altogether
deserting the studious atmosphere of facts, adopted a more becoming
garment in the exquisite raillery of Voltaire.
Voltaire's life extended long past the middle of the century, and
its closing years were the years of its greatest triumphs. But he
yet belongs to the generation of Montesquieu rather than to that
of Rousseau. Under him, the tone of the new movement altered. It
became lighter, and bolder too. Its reserve vanished. Its intrepidity
increased. It entered every field. It illumined every subject. In
verse, in prose, in history, in drama, in romance, Voltaire assailed
traditions, beliefs, abuses, exposing mercilessly their shortcomings
and shifts, laughing aloud over their absurdities, denying the
pretensions which they boasted, denouncing the iniquities to which they
led. Voltaire's rare and versatile wit, his light touch, his unabashed
scepticism, his brilliant common-sense, appealed irresistibly to the
minds of his countrymen. He made the philosophic movement popular. He
identified it with many errors, and with the gravest faults of taste.
But with it all he taught men to despise many follies and to impeach
many wrongs.
It was Voltaire who gave to the literary movement that decisive tone
of irreligion, which it so long retained. The Church stood in the
van of the opponents whom the philosophers had to encounter, and to
attack the Church, her practice and her creeds, was to Voltaire an
intellectual delight. More than any other institution the Church in
France represented the spirit of tradition, of authority, of submission
to formulas, of reverence for the past. As such, she was certain to
view with alarm the new spirit of independent enquiry. Of all forms
of political power, the political power of the Church was the most
unpopular. She stepped in to support with mysterious sanctions the
civil institutions which many felt were unjust. As the censor of the
Press, she represented the Government at the very point where the
Government and the philosophers came into conflict. Of all the supports
of the old order, she was in many ways the most open to attack.
Consequently, the philosophic movement from the first brought its
forces to bear upon the Church, and Voltaire led the onslaught with
the irreverent vivacity of his nature, and the rich splendour of his
information and literary resource.
In the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the conduct of the
philosophic movement passed to a large extent into younger hands. In
1751, the first volume of the celebrated Encyclopaedia concentrated
public attention on a group of writers of no common range and
understanding, all inspired with the new spirit, and combined to carry
it into every field of economic, political, and social action. The
Encyclopaedists numbered among them many distinguished men. On the
roll of their contributors we find the names of Turgot, Rousseau,
Buffon, Marmontel. D'Alembert, the accomplished mathematician,
brought to the work his trained abilities, his admirable style, and
the wisdom acquired by a student during a life spent in frugality
and independence. But the greatest of the staff, the most original
in genius, the most reckless in expression, and the most intense
and imaginative in thought, was the brilliant, perverse, impetuous
Diderot, with his extraordinary, magnetic conversation, his indomitable
perseverance, his genuine consciousness of his own shortcomings,
his ardent desire for the improvement of mankind. It is significant
that nearly all the prominent members of the Enyclopaedic party had
been brought up as pupils of the Jesuits, and unquestionably, as a
party, they associated themselves with a pronounced attack upon the
chief tenets of the Catholic Church. But it is difficult and not very
profitable to attempt to assign definite names of obloquy to the
varieties of disbelief within their ranks, and it is a grave mistake
to regard that aspect of their writings as the most characteristic or
important. What gave to the enterprise its force and success was the
fact that it travelled far beyond the barren conflicts of theology,
and brought the new ideas, the new habit of enquiry and analysis, the
new fearlessness of social comment, and the new humanitarian zeal, to
investigating political and economic phenomena, to preparing the way
for practical reform. The glory of the Encyclopaedists lies not in
their contempt for things holy, but in their hatred of things unjust,
in their denunciation of the trade in slaves, of the inequalities of
taxation, of the corruption of justice, of the wastefulness of wars,
in their dreams of social progress, in their sympathy with the rising
empire of industry, which was beginning to transform the world.
Posterity is more familiar with the defects than with the virtues of
this strange episode in human thought. Its ideals were disfigured by
many faults--by unreality, political ignorance, dangerous license,
violent extremes. In its anxiety to escape from conventions, it
relaxed necessary codes. It made impiety obstreperous. It hastily
adopted a belief in the perfectibility of man, to fill the niche where
once had rested a belief in the perfection of God. In place of the
traditions and systems which it uprooted, it taught its followers to
look for guidance to their own instincts, and to vague aspirations
after imaginary systems of natural law. It planted in the French
people an inextinguishable desire to abolish everything which reminded
it of the past, however much they might suffer in the attempt. Its
teaching seemed to discourage the impulses of virtue, and to offer no
satisfaction for the spiritual needs of man. Helvetius' famous treatise
_De l'Esprit_ laid down, amid much shallow commonplace, the depressing
doctrine that self-interest dictates both the conduct and the views
of men, and that the attainment of pleasure is their only final aim.
Holbach's not less famous _Système de la Nature_ touched the climax of
a century of philosophical commotion, in its passionate indictment of
the vices of kings and the slavery of men, in its direct demand for
revolution, in its remorseless rejection of every form of faith, in its
insistence upon atheism and materialism as the only true philosophy of
life. 'Religious and political errors,' cried Holbach, 'have changed
the universe into a valley of tears.'
Beside the contributors to the Encyclopaedia, and sometimes among
them, were men of different schools of thought, allied with them in
advocating change. Quesnai and Turgot were conspicuous in the ranks
of an eminent sect termed by some Economists, by others Physiocrats.
The Economists shared with Diderot and his colleagues the zeal for
reform, the contempt for the past, the democratic temper of the times.
They were prepared to enforce equality even at the cost of despotism.
They insisted on the subordination of all private rights to the public
interest. They preached the necessity of national education as the
first essential of national prosperity, and urged that the burden of
taxation should be thrown upon the land, which they regarded as the
sole source of wealth. They advocated free trade, free agriculture,
free industry, while they cared little for freedom itself. Others like
Morelly, the author of the _Code de la Nature_, accepted the Economist
theory of the omnipotence of the State, but added other theories
of their own. Morelly proposed to establish community of goods and
uniformity of all conditions. He denounced the institution of private
property, and he shadowed forth in their earliest shape many of those
suggestions for the readjustment of the world, which have since assumed
the name of Socialism and acquired the dimensions of a spectre in minds
intolerant of change.
But far above the sound of other voices rose the lofty tones and
the sonorous rhetoric of Rousseau. Rousseau disdained the study and
analysis of the past, in which Montesquieu had sought laborious
wisdom. He cared nothing for the diffusion of knowledge and art, of
which Voltaire was the brilliant representative. He hardly understood
the wide, ambitious projects, by which Diderot and Turgot hoped to
benefit humanity. He resented the utilitarian theories of Helvetius.
He hotly denied the material philosophy of the school of Holbach. To
Rousseau's angry discontent with life, study, knowledge, cultivation,
seemed to be only steps in the degradation of man. To his inflamed
vision all society was artificial, all accepted forms of political
organisation were tyranny and abuse. Man, he protested, was naturally
good and just and loving, created by a just and loving God, until
art, the bane of life, invaded his simplicity, tainted his virtue,
and brought him face to face with suffering and sin. Sweep away
therefore, he exhorted his hearers, all the false fabric of society,
the world of ugly want and insolent riches miscalled civilization, the
oppression miscalled order, the error miscalled knowledge! Level its
inequalities, repudiate its learning, break its conventions, shatter
its chains! Let men return to the simplicity of ancient days, to the
idyllic state, when uncorrupted instinct only ruled them, and there
once again, innocent and ignorant, as Nature made them, and guided only
by the 'immortal and celestial voice' of reason, seek the high paths of
felicity of life.
In a generation full of privilege and hardship, and weary of its own
artificial ways, such teaching as this struck a resounding chord. It
did not matter that the teacher reconciled a rather sordid practice
with a gorgeous theory, and was himself too often morbid, egotistical,
unmanly, mean. The disciples, who drank in his doctrines, did not
enquire critically into his motives. They did not ask--and possibly we
have not the right to speculate--whether he assailed society, because
he failed to shine in it, or whether he inveighed against riches,
because he lacked the patient industry to earn them for himself. They
did not know or care whether his quarrel with the world, his indictment
of its usages and laws, his eloquent defence of human instinct, and his
sensuous love for Nature, were or were not dictated by the feverish
longing which possessed the man to follow every impulse of his mind,
and to submit his impulses to no control. They did not see that the
example of a master, who, whatever shameful faults he might commit,
could still maintain that civilization, and not he, deserved the blame,
and could still gravely describe himself to his friends as one of
the best men that he had ever known, was only too well calculated to
enable his disciples to persuade themselves that they were instruments
of virtue, purity and justice, while they were permitting iniquity
and palliating crime. They knew that his denunciation of oppression
coincided with the bitter lessons which their experience taught. They
found that his eloquent words renewed their self-respect, and raised
their ideal of the dignity of man. They felt that he pleaded the cause
of the unfortunate in tones and with a genius which made the fortunate
attend, and that he brought to that exalted service the widest
compassion, the readiest sympathy, and the most majestic language which
the eighteenth century had heard.
In 1762, Rousseau published one of the most famous, and, in its
consequences, probably one of the most important books ever written.
'Man was born free,' ran the prologue to the _Contrat Social_,--'man
was born free, and is everywhere in chains.' In the _Contrat Social_
Rousseau rejected altogether the historic method--that wise process
of political philosophy, which patiently studies the circumstances of
the past, in order, by the experience so obtained, to modify and to
improve the present. Relying on the unsafe methods of abstract, _a
priori_ speculation, he proceeded to develop, out of his ardent and
imaginative brain, an ideal theory of society, which should establish
by logical and conclusive argument the opinions which his sentiments
had already espoused. The result of the enterprise was the celebrated
doctrine of the Sovereignty of Peoples. The origin of every human
society, argued Rousseau, was this:--At some remote epoch in the dawn
of days, men, living in a state of nature, virtuous, rational, equal
and free, had resolved to enter into an association to defend the
persons and property of all, while every individual in it remained
free. Accordingly, they had formed a Social Compact, under which each
individual had submitted himself to the direction of the general
will, and had been received as an inseparable part of the whole. The
body formed by this Social Compact was the Sovereign. All citizens
who belonged to it--and all did--had an equal share in the common
sovereignty, and were bound to one another by a fraternal tie. Its
sovereignty consisted in the exercise of the general will, and that
sovereignty could not be alienated to any individual or group, nor
could it be divided up into different parts and distributed among
different officials. The will of the sovereign body was expressed in
laws, and every member of it must take his part personally, and not by
delegation, in the making of those laws. If he delegated that right to
representatives, he surrendered his share of sovereign power. For the
sake of convenience, the sovereign body might delegate to governments
certain executive powers for a limited time; but the sovereign body
still retained the right of resuming or modifying those powers at
will, and must from time to time assemble, in order to enforce its
right. When the whole sovereign people was thus assembled, the power
of governments ceased, and all executive authority was suspended. If
any government usurped the sovereignty, the Social Compact was thereby
broken; all citizens resumed their liberty to act, and might rise in
rebellion to assert it. Lastly, in religion, the sovereign body was
entitled to impose a civil profession of faith, and to compel all its
citizens, under penalties of banishment and death, to believe in the
existence of a beneficent God, in an immortal life, in the reward of
the just and the chastisement of the wicked, in the obligation of the
Social Contract and of the laws.
It is easy in these days to criticise the _Contrat Social_. The
mistaken idea of compact as the basis of society; the rejection of
representative legislatures, and the insistence on a principle which
could only apply in a miniature State--the personal participation
of every citizen in the making of the laws; the sanction given to
the right of insurrection, when the imaginary compact was broken;
the absence of any method of ascertaining whether the compact were
broken or not;--these are flaws in its argument which will readily
occur. It is easy also to point to certain characteristics which
disfigure it throughout--to its disregard of facts, to its sophistry
and inconsistencies, to the narrow intolerance of its sentimental
theology, to its aloofness from the region of practice, to its reliance
on dogma and on the logic of words. But it is not so easy to appreciate
the extraordinary impression which in those days it produced, or the
enthusiasm aroused in all who looked for liberty, by the fearless
splendour of its phrases, by the fused argument and passion of its
style, by its generous democratic temper, by the spiritual earnestness
which inspired it, by its fine exaltation of patriotism and freedom.
The _Contrat Social_ supplied the text and lit the fire of revolution.
It became the gospel of the Jacobin party, and of that party
Robespierre constituted himself high-priest.
The seed sown by these remarkable writers fell upon fruitful soil.
The years which immediately preceded the outbreak of the Revolution
in France were years of vague but widespread agitation. An enthusiasm
for the natural greatness of man, and a boundless contempt for the age
and society in which he lived, pervaded the thought of the time. In
almost every European country, observers noticed the same presentiment
of impending change, and of a change which, on behalf of humanity,
most people were prepared to welcome. Thinkers and talkers alike were
full of illusions, full of curiosity, full of unselfishness, full of
hope. Outside France, as within it, everyone plunged into philosophical
debate. In the trading cities of Germany, merchants and manufacturers
would gather, after the day's work, to discuss the condition of
the human race. Sovereigns like Frederick, Catherine, and Joseph
affected the secure radicalism of despots. In Spain, in Portugal,
in Tuscany, as well as in England and France, statesmen echoed the
new humanitarian maxims. Aranda, Pombal and Manfredini exhibited the
spirit, and emulated the reforms, of Turgot and Necker, of Fox and
Pitt. The outbreak of the American Revolution roused the deepest
interest in Europe. Volunteers from France poured over to America,
to fight for the political ideals, about which they had for so long
been dreaming, and the realisation of which in the New World seemed to
bring home conviction to the Old. The tidings of the triumph of the
American colonists were received with acclamation in the roadsteads
of Elsinore. Strangely enough, the feverish unrest of the time
produced, in an age which professed to have undertaken a war against
superstition, a revival of the mysticism of an earlier day. On the eve
of the French Revolution, the best educated classes in Europe were
engrossed by secret societies and brotherhoods, like the Illuminati,
the Swedenborgians, the Mesmerists, the Rosicrucians, dabbling on all
sides in necromancy and occult science, and frequently the dupes of
ridiculous impostors, who, catching the temper of the times, proposed
to effect by charlatanism the regeneration of the world.
This vague perturbation of spirit did not, it is true, penetrate to
the lowest or unlettered class. But in all above that rank it was
conspicuous. The years of the reign of Louis XVI were in France, as
in nearly all parts of Europe, years of national expansion. The trade
of the country was advancing by leaps and bounds, and the commerce of
Bordeaux already exceeded, in the sober judgment of Arthur Young, that
of any English port save London. At the same time the wealth of the
middle classes was increasing with similar rapidity. Year after year
they lent more money to the Government; and year after year, as they
saw the Government wasting it with reckless profusion, and falling
steadily deeper into debt, they ranged themselves more decidedly in the
ranks of opposition, and became more emphatic in their discontent. The
gross mismanagement of the finances became a matter in which they felt
they had a right to interfere. Their stake in the game of politics made
them politicians, and not only that--it made them reformers too. And
thus the growing wealth of the country tended indirectly to multiply
the enemies of the Court, and to throw on to the side of revolution
that important financial interest, which is generally a stable,
sometimes an obstructive, element in a State.
In other ways also, by the end of the century, in their style of
living, in their education, in their enlightenment, the middle classes
had become the equals of the nobles. They had imbibed the same
philosophy; they had cultivated the same tastes; they contemplated with
the same sublime ignorance of history and politics the philanthropic
ideas of the age; and they resented, even more bitterly than before,
the exclusive and exacting privileges of caste. At the same time, the
nobles, on their side, were losing, under the benign influence of
philosophy, a great deal of the apathetic insolence, which had made
their privileges hateful. The Court of Louis XVI was very different
from that of his predecessors. It was less pompous, less artificial.
The rules of etiquette were relaxed. A better tone prevailed in its
society. The haughtiest nobles opened their doors freely to lowborn
genius. They debated republican theories in their drawing-rooms. They
applauded republican sentiments in the theatres. They began dimly to
realise their public duties, and in a tentative way to perform them.
They awoke to the distress of the poor about them, and endeavoured
to alleviate it with a generous hand. Some of the nobility proposed
to surrender their immunity from taxation. Others, headed by the
King, emancipated the serfs who still remained on their estates. The
Marquis de Mirabeau established a gratuitous office for the settlement
of law-suits. The Duchesse de Bourbon rose early in the morning, to
visit with alms the garrets of the poor. The Queen laid out a village
at the Trianon, where, attired in a muslin gown and a straw hat, she
could fish in the lake and see her cows milked. The King multiplied
his private charities, and, one severe winter, commanded that all
the poor, who came, should be fed daily in the royal kitchens. On
all sides, among the upper classes of society, the same symptoms
showed themselves. Extravagant but kindhearted sensibility became the
mainspring of their actions; reform was their passion, limitless,
radiant hope their creed. 'With no regret for the past,' says one of
their number, looking back from the sere contemplation of later years
on that entrancing morning of his life,--'with no regret for the past
and no apprehensions for the future, we danced gaily along a carpet of
flowers stretched over an abyss.'
The same spirit animated the Government of the time. In spite of his
want of strength, his lamentable irresolution, and his well-intentioned
lethargy of mind, Louis XVI possessed not a few of the qualities in
which good kings excel--a high standard of morality and duty, a large
fund of quiet simplicity and courage, a readiness to listen to the
advice of wiser men, a marked sensitiveness to public opinion, and a
genuine desire to serve his people. Louis had not been long upon the
throne before he gave proof of his benevolent intentions by appointing
to the office of Comptroller-General the greatest practical reformer
of the day. Under Turgot the new spirit penetrated rapidly into every
department. The extravagances of the Court were cut down. Useful
changes were introduced into the system of farming and collecting the
taxes. The Corvées were converted into a regular impost, from which
the privileged classes were not exempt. The guilds, which monopolised
and fettered trade, were suppressed. Fresh encouragement was offered
to agriculture and commerce. Free trade in corn was established within
the kingdom. The minister talked of commuting feudal dues, and dreamed
of abolishing the inequalities of taxation. A spirit of gentleness and
consideration came over the administration. The Government not only
introduced reforms; it condescended to recommend them to the public,
to point out their necessity, to explain their intention. 'The burden
of this charge,' said the Royal edict which abolished the Corvées,
'falls solely upon those who possess nothing but the right to toil.'
'The right to work,' ran the preamble to the edict which suppressed the
guilds, 'is the most sacred of all possessions, and every institution
which infringes it, violates the natural rights of man.'
In the same way, Necker, when he succeeded Turgot, appealed for support
to public opinion. He recognised the 'invisible power which commanded
obedience even in the King's palace,' and endeavoured to justify his
policy by publishing an account of the state of the finances. In the
same way, though Turgot and Necker fell, and their schemes perished
with them, the reforming spirit continued to affect the Government
all through Louis' reign. Change after change, experiment after
experiment, attested the readiness of the Crown to bend before the
forces of the time. The measures taken, first of all to suppress, and
afterwards partly to restore the guilds, destroyed the old relations
between employers and workmen, while they did little to establish a
more complete or satisfactory system in their place. And thus, when
the Revolution came, there reigned generally among the artisans of
the great towns a sense of uncertainty and discontent, which rendered
discipline impossible and mischief easy.
Again, only a year before the Revolution, one royal decree transformed
the administration of justice in France; while a year earlier, in 1787,
another bold and memorable measure completed the reform begun as an
experiment some years before, and established provincial assemblies
in all the Pays d'Élection. The importance of this step, which has
been sometimes overlooked among the graver changes of a later day, can
hardly be exaggerated; for it introduced, almost without warning,
a new principle into the government of the country. By the side of
the autocratic Intendants, new provincial assemblies were created,
which stripped the Intendants of most of their powers, or, if they
resisted, entered into active competition with them. By the side of
the autocratic Sub-Delegates, new district assemblies were formed, to
pursue a similar course of action in a smaller sphere. In place of the
ancient parochial assemblies, and in the midst of the inequalities
and privileges, of which French villages were the familiar scene,
and which in themselves remained unaltered, new, elective, municipal
bodies sprang up to assert democratic methods, among conditions wholly
irreconcilable with democratic ideas. When one considers the scope of
these important changes, their novelty, their inconsistencies, and the
suddenness with which they were made, one realises something of the
confusion and paralysis which they must have produced in the public
service, and one begins to understand why the agents of the Government
proved so powerless, in spite of their prestige, when they had to
face the crisis in 1789. On the very eve of the Revolution, Louis and
his advisers, forgetful of the salutary maxim that the most dangerous
moment for a bad Government is the moment when it meddles with reform,
had deliberately destroyed the old, despotic, administrative system,
which, at the end of the eighteenth century, formed the only certain
mainstay of the throne.
It is not necessary to linger here over the episodes of Louis' reign.
Turgot and Necker fell in turn; but Necker carried with him from office
a reputation for sound finance, for disinterestedness, and for honest
liberality of opinion, which won for him a name out of all proportion
to his powers. He left behind him a problem of ever-increasing
difficulty, and a deficit alarmingly enlarged by the intervention of
France in the American war. For a time, after the overthrow of Necker,
reactionary influences had their way. The wastefulness of the Treasury
continued. The spectre of reform was for the moment laid. And at the
head of that splendid and light-hearted Court, which combined the
profuse traditions of the Grand Monarque with the gay philanthropy
that was the fashion of the day, and resented all economies as
mean, and radical innovations as thoroughly ill-bred, there stood,
conspicuous in brilliancy and beauty, the figure of the Queen. Wilful
and proud, unthinking and extravagant, intolerant of disagreeable
facts, because she was wholly ignorant of their truth, already widely
calumniated and misjudged, but destined to face far worse calumnies,
which partisanship, in the mask of history, has repeated since, Marie
Antoinette has never ceased to command the interest and attention of
posterity, as her tragic story, and the fall to which her errors partly
led, have never ceased to move its pity and respect. In 1783, Calonne
took office as Comptroller-General, and for four years, encouraged by
the favour of the Queen and Court, and helped by his own surprising
agility and resource, Calonne maintained his place. Money was found
at ruinous expense to supply the necessities of the Government and
the rapacious claims of courtiers. Every day bankruptcy came more
distinctly into view. At last Calonne, unable to carry on his system
any longer, fell back upon a desperate expedient. He summoned, in
February, 1787, an extraordinary assembly of Notables, consisting of
nobles, bishops, magistrates and officials, laid before them frankly
the situation of affairs, and gaily informed them that within the last
ten years the Government had borrowed no less than fifty millions
sterling.
It is curious to notice the attitude of this assembly, and the way in
which its action was received by the country. As might be expected,
the Notables, consisting almost entirely of members of the privileged
orders, were not prepared to make large personal sacrifices to save
the state. When Calonne audaciously proposed to them the abolition of
privileges and exemptions, and asked them to submit to a heavy tax,
he fell, amid a storm of reproaches from the courtiers, who regarded
him as a deserter from their ranks. But instead of carrying popular
sympathy with him, Calonne found that his opponents, although they
were resisting reform, had usurped the popularity of reformers. The
Notables adroitly shifted the ground of attack to the conduct of the
Government. They demanded the public accounts. They censured the acts
of the Administration. And simply because they assailed the Government,
and ventured to criticise and oppose the Crown, they suddenly found
themselves, to their own surprise, transformed into popular heroes,
and their conduct and courage applauded all over the kingdom. The same
thing happened after Calonne's fall. Loménie de Brienne, the Archbishop
of Toulouse, succeeded to Calonne's office, and found himself compelled
to take up many of Calonne's plans. Thereupon the Parlement of Paris
stepped to the front, and following the example of the Notables,
accepted some of the Minister's reforms, and particularly the edict for
the establishment of provincial assemblies, while they rejected the
new taxes, which were an inseparable part of the Government's scheme.
In vain the King threatened and punished the members of the Parlement.
The Parlement, borrowing the language of the times, and forgetting
that they themselves were only a privileged and exclusive corporation,
posed as the representatives of the nation, and demanded that the
States-General should be summoned to express the national will.
The Government attempted to carry its schemes through with a high hand.
All over the kingdom, the local Parlements, the judicial magistracy
of France, took up the cause of the exiled Parlement of Paris, echoed
its tones, and even threatened dangerous rebellion. In Dauphiné, in
particular, the clergy, nobles, and commons of the province, gathering
at Vizille, and led by the courageous eloquence of Mounier, protested
against the policy of the Minister, and defied the Crown. The nation,
caring little for the rights or wrongs of the quarrel, but delighted
to see the all-powerful Government baffled and assailed, welcomed the
Parlements as national deliverers, and proclaimed them the champions
of popular freedom. For a moment the strange spectacle offered of
the privileged orders in France defending their privileges, with the
enthusiastic support of the nation, against the Government, which
wished to destroy them in the interests of all. In face of this
extraordinary union, the Government recoiled. Alarmed by the increase
of riots and disorder, by the high price of food, by the disaffection
in the army, by the Ministry's total loss of credit, and by the
prospect of bankruptcy in the immediate future, the King decided to
consult the nation. He announced that the States-General, the ancient,
representative Parliament of France, would again, after the lapse of
a century and three-quarters, assemble to debate the destinies of the
kingdom. Then the popularity of the privileged bodies died as suddenly
as it had begun. In August, 1788, Necker was recalled to office, and a
general outburst of rejoicing celebrated the astonishing surrender of
the Crown.
A wise minister would have endeavoured by prompt and decisive action
to allay the vague excitement of the time. Every day the feeling of
restlessness was spreading in the country. Paris had become a great
debating club. The tension in the public mind was already extreme.
Instead, however, of hurrying on the elections, instead of showing a
resolution to face the crisis with enlightenment and calmness, the
Government hesitated, procrastinated, wavered, and allowed all the
world to see that it had formed no policy, and hardly knew what its
intentions were. The meeting of the States-General was delayed until
the following spring, and in the meantime the Government stimulated
the fever of opinion. All through the winter of 1788-9, France was
flooded with political addresses and with democratic pamphlets--among
which the audacious pamphlet of the Abbé Sieyès excited general
remark--calculated to raise as high as possible the hopes and pride
of the Tiers-État. To add to the war of words, the Government invited
all classes to draw up Cahiers or petitions of grievances, to be laid
before the States-General, when they met, and thus, by its own action,
it focussed the attention of its subjects on the many abuses which had
been borne silently so long.
Moreover, when the important question of the constitution of the new
States-General arose, the Government found it impossible to make up
its mind. In the electoral arrangements, as might be expected from
the innumerable local and personal rights still existing in the
country, there was very great complexity and confusion. But the general
principle, at any rate in the Pays d'Élection, was this. The nobles
and clergy of each Bailliage, as a rule, elected their representatives
directly, though the rule was subject to a good many exceptions. In the
election of the commons, on the other hand, the voting was in no case
direct, but had two, or even three or four degrees. All Frenchmen over
twenty-five, who had paid even the smallest amount of direct taxes,
had votes. They might vote for any representatives they pleased, for
there was no property qualification for candidates. But they could not
vote for them directly. The electoral assembly of each Bailliage thus
consisted of the nobles and clergy of the Bailliage, and of a number
of representatives of the commons, who had been previously elected by
primary assemblies of voters in the different towns and villages of
the Bailliage. When the electoral assembly of the Bailliage had been
formed, the nobles, the clergy, and the electors of the Tiers-État,
who composed it, separated into three distinct bodies[5], and each
order chose a certain number of deputies to represent it in the
States-General at Versailles. The number of deputies allowed to each
Bailliage varied according to circumstances, but was mainly determined
by its population and wealth.
It was arranged without opposition that the nobles and the clergy in
the States-General should have, according to usage, three hundred
representatives each; but then the difficult question arose, how many
deputies were the Tiers-État to elect. The advocates of democracy
urged, amid enthusiastic applause from the public, that the commons
infinitely out-numbered the other two orders, and ought therefore to
have at least double the number of representatives. On this point Louis
and Necker alike wavered undecided, besieged by the importunities of
the democratic feeling which they had let loose in France. In vain
Necker, in November, 1788, gathered another assembly of Notables, and
tried to shift his responsibility on to them. The Government at last
made up its mind to concession, and announced that the commons were to
have 'the double representation'--six hundred representatives in the
new Parliament. But the genius of irresolution still dogged its steps.
It could not even then bring itself to decide whether the three orders
should sit and vote in separate Houses, or whether they should all sit
in one Chamber and vote together. The timidest intelligence must have
perceived that, unless the three orders were to vote in one body, the
numerical superiority which the commons had obtained would be without
significance, and the Government's concession to popular feeling would
be merely a delusion. And yet to the last this important question was
left undecided by the Crown, as a fruitful source of quarrel out of
which the troubles of the Revolution might begin. So, with a Government
perplexed by fears, with a local administration paralysed by a variety
of recent changes, with signs of disorder multiplying upon every side,
with innumerable difficulties requiring settlement, and with the fixed
spirit of old traditions vainly attempting to assimilate the new, the
monarchy prepared to meet the representatives of the nation, who,
already flushed with triumph, and intoxicated with self-confidence and
hope, advanced to realise their long-delayed millennium, and with the
aid of freedom and philosophy to readjust the destinies of France.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: In three cases only, in Langres, Péronne, and Montfort
l'Amaury, the three orders sat and voted together in the electoral
assembly.]