1724-1744.
The Entresol--Political struggles--Relations with Cardinal
Fleury--D'Argenson and Voltaire.
Among the influences which connected d'Argenson with the tradition
of the late reign were his relations with that curious and not very
admirable person,[144] the Abbé de Choisy. It would appear that
during the closing years of his life the harlequin abbé was on terms
of some intimacy with his young relative;[145] and shortly before
his death in 1724, he placed in d'Argenson's hands a collection of
manuscripts,[146] from which the published remains of de Choisy are
principally derived.[147] Among them was a record which d'Argenson
might recall with a certain melancholy interest.[148] It seems that
in 1692, de Choisy's rooms at the Luxembourg became the headquarters
of a little company of thirteen men, among whom were Fontenelle and
Perrault, and others distinguished in literature and society.[149]
They met for discussions upon politics, theology, and moral science,
and in fact all those questions of more pressing and immediate concern
which the constitution of the three existing Academies ignored. It
may well be imagined that such an organisation could scarcely commend
itself to the favour of the Monarch who, a few years afterwards,
was to break the heart of Vauban; and before a year had passed, the
Academy of the Luxembourg came to an untimely end. The collapse was
natural enough, for these were the palmy days of the older _régime_;
its vices were still to be revealed, and as yet the discussion of
political subjects by unauthorised persons might well have seemed an
impertinence. Thirty years after, the matter had assumed a different
aspect. Disasters abroad and miseries at home, which had stirred
the patriotism of Vauban, the ferment created by the advent of the
Regency, the widespread concern for questions of administration aroused
by the rise and fall of the great "System," and, lastly, the object
lesson in political fatuity afforded by the ministry of the Duc de
Bourbon, all contributed to raise matters of government to a place of
primary interest; and it is not surprising that about a year after
the publication of the "Lettres Persanes," a serious and successful
attempt should have been made to organise and define political thought.
In 1722 the Abbé Alary invited a number of gentlemen connected with
the administrative and diplomatic services to meet in his rooms in an
entresol in the Place Vendôme, which became for about eight years the
home of the memorable "Club de l'Entresol." The idea of this, the first
of French political societies, was probably suggested by Bolingbroke,
an intimate friend of Alary, who may have hoped to find, in a little
cabinet of embryo statesmen, some mild consolation for his banishment
from Whitehall. Certain it is that the English politician did much to
give it a successful start; and a year afterwards (July, 1723) we find
him writing to the perpetual president, Alary:[150]
"You will give my kind regards to our little Academy. If I were not
sure of seeing them again next month, I should be quite miserable. They
have confirmed my taste for philosophy; they have revived my old love
for literature; how grateful I am to them!"
In 1725, upwards of a year after his return from Valenciennes,
d'Argenson became a member of the Entresol;[151] and some time
afterwards he had the honour of introducing a man whose whole life
was devoted to insisting upon the paramount importance of political
concerns--his friend and master, the Abbé de St. Pierre.[152]
It is a curious fact that the man who received the record of the
ill-starred society of the Luxembourg should have become the historian
of its successor; for it is from d'Argenson that our knowledge of the
Entresol is mainly derived. Several years after its suppression, he
sat down to record his reminiscences of "a little organisation, whose
history, at present unknown to many people, will soon be forgotten
by all the world."[153] Events are grouped very differently by the
redressing hand of time, and, apart from the interest attaching to it
in connection with the life of d'Argenson, the Entresol is in no danger
of being forgotten.
Its meetings[154] were held on Saturday evenings, and lasted from five
o'clock till eight. The time was spent in the recital of political
news, conversation on passing events, the reading of papers, and open
discussion. The procedure, though carefully ordered, was sufficiently
elastic, and on extraordinary occasions--as when His Excellency Horace
Walpole appeared to advocate the maintenance of the understanding
with England[155]--might be entirely suspended. Not the least useful
member of the Entresol was d'Argenson himself; he joined in its
labours with his usual industry and zeal. He made it his business to
extract the political intelligence from the leading newspapers--those
of Holland[156]--at the same time maintaining a correspondence with
Florence[157] and Brussels. In addition to this, he undertook the
department of canon law, with which his position on the ecclesiastical
committee of the Council of State peculiarly fitted him to deal.[158]
In connection with this subject, he read to the society a series
of papers in which he argued strongly for the independence and the
pre-eminence of the civil power. His conclusions might have been less
absolute had he known that they were one day to rise up in judgment
against him in the shape of two formidable quarto volumes.[159] In the
general debates he took an active part, and his discussions with St.
Pierre upon the innumerable projects which the latter presented to the
society were recalled by him with lively pleasure.
Though devoted to political research, "the good Entresolists" were
careful to exclude even the suggestion of pedantry. They formed a sort
of "club" on the English model. "We had all sorts of pleasant things,
comfortable seats, a good fire in winter, and in summer windows opened
upon a pretty garden. There was no dinner or supper, but tea was to be
had in winter, and in summer lemonade and cooling drinks. The gazettes
of France, Holland, and even the English papers, were always to be
found there." In a word, it was "un café d'honnêtes gens."[160] On
the summer evenings, when the meeting was over, they used to go for a
stroll round the terrace of the Tuileries, discussing the questions
that had arisen in the debate. In the winter they "went straight home,
and always with a fresh regard for the Entresol."[161]
It may well be imagined that a society of this kind must have inspired
a very warm feeling among those who were privileged to take part in
it; and d'Argenson is affectionately anxious to make it clear that
its ultimate dissolution was in no way due to failure of interest. We
might well believe it from the letters of one of its most distinguished
members, the hero of Dantzig, Count de Plélo, whose appointment to
Copenhagen in 1728 was largely due to the prestige he acquired as a
member of the Entresol.[162] From the cold solitudes of the Baltic he
writes to the President: "O! this accursed climate! Am I never again to
breathe the air of the Entresol?"[163] and again, "A person accustomed
to read the Gazette at the Entresol finds it very dry reading all alone
at Copenhagen."[164] And then, when the crisis came and the society was
no more, he writes:
"I can imagine how keenly you feel the unhappy fate which has befallen
the Entresol. Would you ever have believed that anything so innocent
could fall under suspicion? Surely something out of the common must
have happened since my departure, or else the great ones of the earth
have very little to do."[165]
The attitude of the "great ones" is not without interest. Even Cardinal
Fleury had been compelled to breathe the air of the Regency; and upon
succeeding to the authority of the Duc de Bourbon, he was inclined to
look graciously upon the nascent society.[166] Nor was his protection
hastily withdrawn, for in the winter of 1730 he appointed its president
Curator of the King's Library, and thither the meetings of the Entresol
were transferred.[167] In the following summer it received a further
earnest of ministerial approval in the preferment of Alary to the
tutorship of the Children of France.[168] In the elation produced by
these marks of favour the members threw off their accustomed reserve,
and the proceedings of the Entresol acquired a notoriety which was
little to the mind of its more cautious spirits.
"I tired myself to death in recommending moderation and discretion,
even in regard to the name of the Entresol; for I kept saying to them:
'You will see that one fine morning the Government will ask us what we
are about.'"[169]
But d'Argenson's efforts were powerless to withstand the vain temerity
of some of the members; the fatal day arrived at last; and at one
of the meetings in the autumn of 1731, Alary appeared with the
announcement that he had a poniard in his heart, and that the days
of the Entresol were numbered.[170] There was no gainsaying the will
of the Cardinal, and the dissolution was effected in decent silence.
But it was not accepted without an effort. A little conspiracy was
formed among the more earnest members, with d'Argenson for one of the
ringleaders; the day of meeting was changed to Wednesday; the black
sheep were excluded; and it was hoped that by absolute silence and a
careful avoidance of ministers, they would be able to hold on until the
storm had blown over. Yet scarcely three meetings had been held when
d'Argenson fell into the hands of Chauvelin, who extracted from him
a promise that no further effort would be made to revive the beloved
society.[171] There was no more to be said.
D'Argenson's personal disappointment was keen enough, nor was he
slow to appreciate the public loss. He writes reproachfully: "It is
surprising that so many sciences are cultivated in Europe, whilst
there is not a single school of public law. Why should not theoretic
knowledge be as useful to society in general as to societies in
particular? You aspire to employment in the public service, and you
cannot qualify yourself by preliminary practice; for this is the
fashion which has been introduced into France in our day: people say,
'When I am appointed ambassador, when I am raised to the Ministry, I
will learn the duties of my post.'"[172]
It was not upon d'Argenson that the loss fell; his political
apprenticeship was already complete. On those Saturday evenings in the
Place Vendôme, he had learnt to think clearly and boldly upon public
questions; and the doors of the Entresol were scarcely closed when he
resolved to turn his acquirements to account.
He was now in his thirty-seventh year. His affairs, which had often
given rise to embarrassment, had been arranged by the recent sale
of Réveillon (December, 1730);[173] there appeared to be no further
obstacle in the way of a successful career. He was not slow in adopting
the only means by which a political aspirant could bring himself under
the notice of the governing powers--the presentation of gratuitous
advice; and it was at this time that he began that series of memoirs
which was continued until after his accession to the ministry, and
which would have been such an invaluable treasury of contemporary
history and thought.[174] Unhappily they all perished in the burning of
the library of the Louvre in 1871,[175] and our only knowledge of them
is derived from fragmentary notices published before that date. The
series appears to have begun in December, 1731; and it is pleasant to
find that here again that amiable influence which had appeared so early
in d'Argenson's career was present to lend him a guiding hand. A memoir
which d'Argenson proposed to present against the arbitrary distribution
of the taille (December, 1731), was scored with annotations by St.
Pierre, who advised that it should be cut down, that certain vague
views about things in general should be excised, and that the author
should confine himself to a single point. "He must not give occasion
to say, 'He is a fine talker, he is an eloquent speaker, _qui bat la
campagne_.'"[176] St. Pierre was himself too melancholy a proof of the
wisdom of his own advice for d'Argenson to reject it lightly; and in
May, 1732, we find him writing:
"I was several months without meddling with affairs of state; I did not
wish to give myself out for a maker of memoirs."[177]
This wholesome caution was not long sustained, nor indeed was it
really necessary. The time was one of keen political excitement. It
was in this very summer of 1732 that the great conflict of old French
privilege and tradition against the arrogant zeal of the Ultramontane
party reached its acutest stage; and it happened that that was the
question of all others with which d'Argenson was competent to deal.
He had been for some years a member of the ecclesiastical committee
of the Council, and at the Entresol, as we have seen, he had been
charged with the department of canon law.[178] Upon the questions at
issue he entertained ideas at once liberal and politic. He admitted in
principle the plea of ecclesiastical authority; but as a politician
he deprecated any encouragement of its supporters in their factious
proceedings against the Jansenists; the attitude of the Government in
regard to heterodoxy should be simply one of passive disapproval. But
it was no longer time to think of principles and policies; the matter
had now resolved itself into a fierce conflict of privilege between the
Crown and the Parlement of Paris. On the 13th of June the Parlement
accepted an appeal in the teeth of direct orders from the King. The
reception was quashed by a decree of Council, and four magistrates
were sent to join Pucelle in exile. The Chambers of Inquests and
Requests immediately resigned.[179] D'Argenson's views upon the crisis
were strong and clear. They were laid before the Ministry; and the
author received a letter from Chauvelin, the Warden of the Seals, to
the effect that two hours' conversation with him would be of material
service to the Government. He set out at once for Compiègne, halted a
moment for breath, scribbled out a "policy complete," and presented
it to Chauvelin in a secret interview which lasted from five o'clock
in the morning until nine.[180] In the whole of the discussions he
appears to have taken a prominent part; he was kept informed, by secret
channels, of the deliberations of the Cabinet;[181] and he seems to
have been treated throughout as an active and esteemed adviser.
The nature of his advice we are at no loss to determine. Among the
documents destroyed at the Louvre was one written by d'Argenson when
the struggle was at its height. It is in the form of a letter from an
Englishman to a Frenchman.[182] In the course of it he says:
"Wherever the sovereignty may reside, it is necessary that authority
should be entire, without partition, and should bow to the judgments
of God alone." He proceeds to urge the necessity of doing away with
the superior courts, or of placing them absolutely at the disposal of
the Crown. In replying to the objection that that would establish "a
veritable Turkish government," he reveals the secret of his peculiar
attitude with regard to royalty in France. "What of it?" he rejoins.
"You live in France under a despotic authority. The die is cast, so
to speak. You must either obey it or destroy it entirely." Its only
restraint must be that imposed by "opinion, reason, delicacy, public
spirit. Is it not the case that for two centuries the progress of
authority in France has been that of peace, art, and morality, and is
it not increasingly active in suppressing violence, whether public or
private?"
How far d'Argenson is to be credited with the policy adopted is a
secret which is buried with Chauvelin and Fleury. Had he been the
moving spirit in the government, its measures could not have been in
stricter conformity with his advice. By a declaration of the 18th of
August, appeals were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Parlement,
and the chambers of Inquests and Bequests were suspended. A "Lit
de Justice" followed on the 2nd of September, and upon the 7th the
chambers of Inquests and Requests were scattered to the four winds.[183]
This policy, which d'Argenson had perhaps inspired, was not
consistently pursued. It was not for the last time that Chauvelin had
betrayed the Cardinal into bold and decisive action, nor the last time
that Fleury regretted it. His will was absolute, and before three
months had elapsed the declaration and the _lettres de cachet_ were
withdrawn, and the Parlement returned in triumph.
In dealing with d'Argenson's action as Minister, it has been usual to
attribute its strange inconsequence to his own weakness and oscillation
of mind. The indictment is a hazardous one to prefer against the son
of Marc René d'Argenson; and here it is only necessary to say that in
nothing that he ever wrote or did has there appeared to be sufficient
ground for it. There seem to have been few men who have formed their
ideas with a more quick decision, or have clung to them with a more
sane tenacity. His mind cut into the interests which engaged it sharp
and clear as a diamond; the very fault of it was that it was incapable
of those politic shifts, those timely irresolutions, which have often
been the making of smaller men. Indeed, there is even ground for
suggesting that if, in judging the events of d'Argenson's ministry, his
own real share in them be scrupulously weighed, there may remain no
reason to reject the opinion formed of him, in the beginning of their
relations, by one of the ablest men of his own day, the Warden of the
Seals himself. It is worth remarking that at this very time Chauvelin
was so impressed with his intrepidity of mind that he thought of him
as a possible premier president of the Vacation Chamber, designed
to supersede the Parlement;[184] in other words, as the foremost
instrument of the stringent measures contemplated by the Crown and the
most conspicuous target of a virulent Opposition.
Nor is this the only reply to an imputation which the mere turning of
d'Argenson's pages might almost suffice to dissipate.
Why, it may be asked, was this offer not accepted? D'Argenson himself
shall furnish the answer, surely as pathetic as it is fatally true.
He shrank at Chauvelin's suggestion, protesting that "at bottom he
must be aware of my defects, and that, besides several others, I had
that of being what is called shy and timid; I had been badly brought
up; my father, when I was young, had given all the preference to my
brother;[185] he had only known me during the last two years of his
life when I was in the public service." Upon a word of deprecation, he
repeated "it had not been the case in the latter time, and when he once
knew me, the matter changed completely."[186]
Indeed his new patron could not help regarding him with interest, and
at the same time with embarrassment. He never tired of urging him to
conquer the weakness which dogged his life. He invited him to his
house, "where all France crowded," and asked him to regard it as his
own;[187] he exhorted him to lose no opportunity of making himself at
home with the world and the Court. He said "that before all things it
was necessary to rescue me from the position in which I was, from a
sort of obscurity."[188] His counsels were as assiduous as they were
disinterested;[189] and they were at last heard with impatience by the
man who felt that the power to follow them had passed for ever beyond
his reach.
"But," he represented at last, "provided that I am known to you, and to
the King and the Cardinal, as I see I am known to his Eminence, and as
you have told me I am to his Majesty, what does it matter whether I am
known to the rest?"[190]
Indeed he felt such dependence to be his one resource. Some years
afterwards he was called to what was, in the circumstances of the
moment, the most important post in the French Government, the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. He brought to the proof a devotion to the King
which had been the growth of generations; he placed at his service a
ripe wisdom, a capacity for firm, constructive statesmanship, such as
few of the ministers of the reign possessed. All he asked was a free
hand, and firm and kingly support; for he knew that he could not have
maintained himself for an hour amid the clang of policies and the
machinations of intrigue. He threw himself proudly and confidently upon
the loyalty of the King. He only learnt that the staff on which he
leaned was a bruised reed when it went into his hand and pierced it.
It was to no mistiness of mind or constitutional indecision that the
vagaries of his ministry were due; but simply to the fact that his
voice was drowned by the clamour of the Council, and his position
sacrificed by the desertion of the King.
D'Argenson could not fail to attract remark, but he was not strong
enough to make himself necessary. Chauvelin had received him with
curiosity and unfeigned regard; but after a time he lost the freshness
of originality, and his shrinking eccentricity alone remained. The
Minister treated him not unkindly. He put him off with promises, and
was lavish of countenance and encouragement; and d'Argenson passed a
couple of years in continual expectation of preferment, and in constant
labour in the directions suggested by his patron. It was at this
time that he began those researches upon foreign politics which were
afterwards to prove so fruitful; and his Journal is henceforth enriched
with discussions of the interests of France abroad, interesting in
themselves, and often admirable for breadth and originality of view.
They suggest that though d'Argenson may have been a student and a
recluse, a pedant he certainly was not. One of them, presented to
Chauvelin in 1734 in the form of a memoir, enables us to bring into
just focus the relations between d'Argenson and his political mentor.
It was criticised with his usual directness and vigour by St. Pierre,
who, after pointing out its faults and admonishing the author,
exhorts him not to be discouraged. "At your age," he says,[191] "I
was very far from thinking so profoundly upon public affairs," and
he predicts a brilliant future as the reward of his perseverance. It
is in mentioning this same memoir that d'Argenson sums his opinion,
repeatedly expressed, of the man who had been so long his friend. "No
one knows this admirable citizen, and he does not even know himself.
He has given to the public a number of his political works; he has his
eyes fixed upon a goal too far removed from us; and so it happens that
he repeats himself, is always harping upon the same themes, and is
not appreciated. For all that, he is deeply versed in modern history,
present and past; he is an able man; and he has given himself up to
a branch of philosophy, profound and abandoned by all the world,
namely, the true method of political action most conducive to human
happiness."[192]
It was no such fate that d'Argenson designed for himself; and with
keen anxiety did he watch for an opening which would enable him to
reap the fruit of his researches. For a long time he had been secure
in the friendship of the minister; but that resource appeared to be
failing him; nor was he reassured by his keen-witted brother, who
warned him that Chauvelin spent his days in a continual course of
duplicity. D'Argenson's apprehensions were soon confirmed. In July,
1734, upon rumours of a congress to arrange the preliminaries of peace,
he offered to act as one of the plenipotentiaries.[193] His services
were declined. The same fate awaited a request preferred by him shortly
afterwards in favour of a relative. "I was mortified, and I see that
I was only agreeable and accredited at the Court, in so far as I was
useful; c'est un commerce!" he exclaims, flinging down his pen in
disgust.[194] He took it up again to write to Chauvelin, informing
him that there were some estates for sale in Touraine, of which the
minister might be glad to have the refusal. He received in reply a
letter[195] which, considering their former friendship, seems cruelly
cold. It is barbed with that icy politeness with which one declines
an intimacy no longer desired. In November the refusal of some vacant
places which he had a right to expect, and which had been directly
promised,[196] sufficed to complete his discomfiture; he could see but
the wreck of those ambitions which had charged his Journal with energy
and fire; and throughout the year 1735, the silence of disillusion is
scarcely broken.
Not the least of d'Argenson's embarrassments[197] had come from
a quarter where a happier man would have found but help and
encouragement. It was in the course of the year 1733 that the relations
between d'Argenson and his wife ended, by mutual consent, in a
judicial separation.[198] As the conduct of the husband has given
rise to animadversions which are often more true than charitable, it
may be worth while to dwell upon it for a moment. D'Argenson had been
married in the winter of 1718[199] to Mademoiselle Méliand, daughter
of the Intendant of Lille. The passive form is used advisedly,
for the transaction was arranged between the two families like the
transfer of land;[200] and d'Argenson was only introduced to his
betrothed a few days before the ceremony took place. The lady who
became his wife "would be fifteen next January";[201] and d'Argenson,
as we learn from some amusing letters to Madame de Balleroy, was not
a little embarrassed by his new _rôle_ of "elderly husband."[202]
Notwithstanding, he accepted it with dutiful complaisance; and for
some years his attitude towards his young wife was one of affectionate
loyalty, not ungraced by a certain kindly amusement. About the time
of their return from Valenciennes, the relations between them changed
for the worse. Madame d'Argenson was a woman in fact as in name; her
character had developed, and she proved to be a person of average brain
and strong nerve, the very antithesis of her husband. Circumstances
were not wanting to sharpen these radical differences of character,
and to provide occasions of offence. Her husband's affairs were in
disorder,[203] and his political success was long in coming; while
the philosophy which was to him excuse and consolation kindled in
his wife but impatient scorn. She took upon herself the cares of the
household, regarding herself, and possibly not without reason, as its
sole support; while her husband chafed against a solicitude which he
looked upon as mere vexatious interference.[204] A conservative in
these matters as in so many more, he probably told her that a wife
who was worth anything would know her place, and she may have replied
that she had indeed good reason to know it only too well. She held
ideas upon it which raise one's opinion of her, and which were very
unusual in her day. "It is this too," says her husband, "which has
led her to affect an air of absolute independence. She has formed a
narrow-minded conception of all that concerns the proper submission of
a wife, and she is up in arms against everything which detracts from
the position of women in the world. She has far too exalted an idea of
the dignity of the mistress of a house, and thinks very little of that
of the master,"[205] etc. The position at last became unbearable; and
Madame d'Argenson resolved to defy that sacred tradition which guarded
legal relationship in old French families, and to look forward to
"a position of scandal as one would long for Paradise." Her will was
inflexible; the separation took place, and one at least of the parties
profited by it to return to a better mind. D'Argenson, looking back
upon his married life, writes of it as reasonably and contritely as
a man can do when he regrets the past and is sorry for his own share
in it. In speaking of the separation, he says that "the world has
done me the justice to believe that I had not deserved it, that I did
everything I could to avoid it, and that I acted in the matter with a
good feeling and generosity seldom met with."[206] For the truth of
that statement we have the written testimony of Madame d'Argenson's own
counsel;[207] and it is surely her husband's only reparation, as it is
his best excuse, that for three and twenty years he loyally fulfilled
the burdensome obligations which his own past misdoing may have
contributed to entail.
By the beginning of 1736, d'Argenson appears to have taken fresh
heart; for his Journal is resumed, and with it the interest of the
ministry in him. He is spoken of now as a possible Minister of War,
again as a Premier President of the Parlement of Paris, and then as
the representative of France in Portugal. One report is of curious
interest. It mentioned him as the first minister of Stanislas in
Lorraine. The "république de Platon," for which d'Argenson was destined
by Voltaire, would have been unwontedly near the earth had his friend
become "Secretary of State" to the first of the bourgeois kings.[208]
Upon this occasion at least, rumour was not without foundation; the
intention to appoint him to Lisbon was tacitly acknowledged;[209] and
in November, he was roundly taken to task by Chauvelin for having been
indiscreet enough to mention it to his brother.[210]
The appointment had not yet been ratified when an event occurred
which had a lasting influence upon d'Argenson's life. On the 20th
of February, 1737, after a month of ominous rumours, Chauvelin was
disgraced.[211] The cause of his fall, ostensibly some obscure intrigue
with the King of Sardinia, was really the discovery of an attempt
to secure himself at Court independently of the Cardinal.[212] Some
remarks which d'Argenson devoted to the incident, reflect in brief the
tone of his Journal, and exhibit the writer in his most characteristic
mood. After speaking of Chauvelin as "the scape-goat" of the ministry,
and attributing his fall to an exaggeration of finesse, he goes on
to observe, "With regard to that, there is no denying that his ideas
are too great and lofty for the State." ... "I am not very sorry
that he is no longer our Minister; for I only care for a bourgeois
policy, by which one lives on good terms with one's neighbours and is
content to arbitrate between them; and so may have a long time to work
consistently for the prosperity of the interior and the happiness of
every Frenchman."[213] His satisfaction was not wholly unalloyed. "I
cannot help regretting the loss of such a fine opportunity of expelling
for ever from Italy the Emperors of Germany. There can be no doubt
that it was possible; and we should have had all Europe behind us if,
acting with frank good faith, we had strengthened the lesser powers
with the spoils of the House of Austria in Italy, without attempting in
any way to secure them for the House of Bourbon. We had only to make
this resolution understood at Madrid by some one who knew his own
mind, and who would say to them once for all, 'Will you have all or
nothing?' in order to give to Spain the Two Sicilies, which has been
done by arrangement; or, if the worst came to the worst, to form a
general league to act against Spain and the Emperor combined. For what
better view could there be than that of giving prosperity to Italy, and
banishing war for ever from the peninsula."[214] D'Argenson's regret
is almost passionate. "I will say more. His Eminence will be ever
answerable before God for having lost this opportunity, only obtained
at the cost of so much blood. The effort, fruitless though it has been,
has perhaps quenched our star."[215]
Together with the seals, Chauvelin had held the portfolio of Foreign
Affairs; and with regard to it d'Argenson writes:--
"The Foreign Ministry is still a-begging. I did not ask for it, but it
has been done on my behalf. At first my principal care was to avoid the
self-reproach of doing anything which should savour of satisfaction
at my friend's disgrace. For this I have not only the testimony of my
conscience, but also of M. Chauvelin. The poor man writes to tell me he
has one consolation in that I am now known for what I am worth.
"I am worth little, but I burn with love for the happiness of my
fellow-citizens; and if that were known, I should certainly be desired
in office."[216]
About the same time he speaks of Count d'Argenson, who, with very
little regard for the happiness of his fellow-citizens, was very much
more successful. "Le cadet" had just been appointed Director of the
Press,[217] and d'Argenson writes:--
"Here is my brother, who has thrown himself for all he is worth into
the party of the Molinists. What a pity it is that a brother of mine
should think only of himself, should desire nothing but for himself,
should be in everything the centre of his circle! Such a passion
excludes public spirit. It leaves no room for that love of the common
good, which one should long for after one's simple happiness, and far
before one's own aggrandisement; for what folly is grandeur, and the
thirst for power!... For the remarkable thing is that my brother cares
more for a place which comes to him through an underground channel,
through a party and through an intrigue, than by the way, simple and
noble though it be, of capacity recognised and employed."[218] Which
was all very true, and at all of which that amiable sceptic would have
laughed good-naturedly.
If the strait and narrow way was a little arduous, it was none the less
resolutely pursued; and in April, 1737, d'Argenson was able to write:
"To-day has been a great day for me. The King has appointed me his
ambassador in Portugal."[219] The charge, in the circumstances of the
moment, might well have been an important one; and it was gratefully
undertaken as a step to higher things.
"My whole design, in accepting the post which the King has just
conferred upon me, has been to fit myself and to render myself eligible
for office in the Ministry."[220] In the elation of the moment, he
reviews his chances of succeeding to the Chancellorship, which
promised to become vacant by the withdrawal of D'Aguesseau. "Now, at
the King's age and in the circumstances of the reign, the man who
becomes Chancellor with the cognisance of affairs of state, might
well become first minister, by reason of the priority of rank which
his office bestows. Et voilà comme on se laisse aller à des pensées
ambitieuses!" the philosopher concludes,[221] with that characteristic
laugh at his own weaknesses.
D'Argenson's intimacy with the fallen minister had awakened some
misgivings in the mind of the Cardinal; and the new ambassador takes
occasion to remark: "With regard to all that, my course is very easy;
simplicity and straightforwardness will always be my warrant against
the suspicion of such connections, with which my name has never been
mixed up."[222]
It is curious that the man who wrote these words should have been on
the threshold of a period when his prime interest and most active
concern was centred in a labyrinth of Court intrigue. For about six
years he was absorbed and immersed in the designs directed by a party
at Court against the influence of Cardinal Fleury. Of all the pages of
his Journal, the volume and a half in which this period is embraced is
the least admirable and the least attractive; for the man is keenly
interested in the issue of the struggle; not an incident or a detour
escapes him; and we have an almost daily record of hopes and plans
and futile ambitions, sometimes outbreaks of revolting spleen, set
down in pages which are as difficult to read in cold blood as they
were easy to write in heat. There is no question that the tone of
hard hostility which criticism of d'Argenson has so often assumed,
is explained, if it is not warranted, by the revelations of this
period. Even the appreciation of St. Beuve was almost quenched by
their perusal when the volumes of Rathery came into his hands; and
in the last of his "Causeries" devoted to d'Argenson, the luminous
enthusiasm of his earlier essays is exchanged for a tone of coldness
and disillusion.[223] Had the prince of critics held the strife of
politics in less abhorrence, he might have seen less reason to abandon
the attitude which invested his earlier essays, not only with justice,
but with charm.
Appreciation of d'Argenson may be sufficiently great to justify an
attempt to present these years in a light more attractive and perhaps
more true than that in which they have frequently appeared.
The inquiry is no unimportant one. D'Argenson has been charged, not
with mere personal ambition, but with rancour awakened by personal
pique. The issue will decide whether he was indeed the man that he
himself imagined, or whether, with all his fine philosophy, he was
really no larger than any of the men against whose littleness he
inveighed.
No sooner was Chauvelin dismissed (February, 1737) than d'Argenson
takes occasion to review the consequences. The Ministry is reduced
to a satrapy of six, all absolutely equal, and none distinguished
by remarkable ability. In a few words he sums the situation: "If a
monarch prefers work to amusement, the system is good; but if he does
not, one may judge of the consequences."[224] At this time he was
on the best of terms with Fleury; and in April, after receiving an
immediate promise of the Portuguese embassy, he quits him with the
significant remark: "We should be happy if his knowledge of men were as
great as his knowledge of affairs."[225] In April, his appointment was
ratified; he had already acquired an extended knowledge of Portuguese
affairs; and he was not without hope of counteracting the commanding
influence in Portugal secured to England by the Methuen Treaty.[226]
Before long, however, difficulties arose about his emoluments; and on
mentioning the matter to Maurepas in July, he was not reassured by
"the lively and malicious pleasure" with which his complaints were
received.[227] We know that d'Argenson was in no position to maintain
an Embassy at his own expense,[228] as Amelot, a year afterwards, had
the indecency to suggest; and we know also, from the character of
Fleury, that he was little inclined to deal handsomely by the men who
had nothing but their ability to devote to his service. It has been
far too readily assumed that the rupture of the project was due to
d'Argenson's intriguing ambition, and that his protestations in regard
to the Cardinal were only a blind. As we learn from a comparison of
the dates, they were nothing of the sort; and true as it may be that
sometime afterwards, his eagerness to set out was qualified by hopes in
another direction, it is certain that in the summer of 1737, when he
was solely dependent on the Cardinal and not yet in alliance with the
opposition at Court, the only circumstance that retarded his departure
was his difficulty in obtaining a sufficient emolument to support the
dignity of an ambassador.
At this time and for long afterwards, there was no quarrel between
d'Argenson and Fleury; they were, outwardly at least, upon the best of
terms. But in August, 1737, a new feature begins to display itself.
D'Argenson records the existence of a party at Court, whose principal
instrument was the king's valet Bachelier, and whose principal object
was to rouse the King to an active interest in affairs, and to
strengthen the ministry by the inclusion of Belleisle, and possibly
by the appointment of d'Argenson as Controller-General.[229] With his
usual confidence and zeal, d'Argenson threw himself into line with this
party. In January, 1738, he writes for the first time: "It is believed
that Cardinal Fleury is nearing his end, and that he is falling into a
state of lethargy; he abstains from work almost entirely;"[230] and in
March, in the first of his oft-repeated speculations upon the character
of the King, he writes: "In all this, there is promise of a happy
reign; God send it may be! It will be this soul that we must endeavour
to please, and not worthless subjects who have become kings, and who
have passions of envy, pride, and mischievousness;"[231] a reference to
the unhappy administration. In April, a new light breaks upon him, and
he conjectures, very truly it appeared, that the moving spirit of the
Court opposition was M. Chauvelin himself; his triumph is necessitated
by "the horrible weakness of our present ministers."[232] All this
time, d'Argenson was assured of a prominent place in the ministerial
reconstruction which appeared to be imminent; and he is never tired of
enlarging upon the incompetence of the men who were left to bear the
weight of the Cardinal's government.
With the Cardinal himself, it is important to remember, he had at this
time but one quarrel; and so late as November, 1738, he continues
to write as follows:[233] "Never has any of our kings or ministers
had so little knowledge of men as Cardinal Fleury. It has been the
greatest misfortune which the nation has suffered under his ministry;
for had it not been for this capital defect in any man who governs, we
should have gone very far under an administrator so virtuous and so
disinterested."[234] So far from an open rupture having taken place,
he received from the Cardinal in January, 1739, a promise of the
embassy at Naples;[235] and two months afterwards he was nominated by
him to report upon a quarrel which had arisen in connection with the
University.[236] At this time his alliance with the forward party at
Court had lasted nearly two years; and the ground of his adhesion was
not personal disappointment or private pique, but a feeling of the
public necessity of strengthening the ministry by pressure brought to
bear upon the Cardinal.
Six months afterwards his attitude had changed. The manifest
determination of Fleury to repress every influence but his own,
combined with a sudden crisis in public affairs to destroy the tone of
tolerance or esteem with which d'Argenson had continued to regard him.
In July, 1739, he writes: "The rumours are growing that the tyranny
of the Cardinal is nearing its close. I say tyranny; for when all is
said, nothing is more hateful than the government of an old tutor,
without birth and without ability, eighty-six years of age, choked with
self-love and with a mania for ruling, leaning on subordinates worse
than himself, whom he maintains without question, and ousting his king
from the government at his own will and pleasure."[237] In a letter to
Chauvelin (April 24th) he had expressed the tone which is henceforth
assumed. "Our affairs abroad continue to move only by the impetus which
you have given them. As to the rest, it is left to chance, and to a
star which may pale. The unity of policy is lost; general plans are
treated as chimerical systems, or as 'great questions,' which certainly
do create genuine terror among the smallest heads which our nation has
ever seen at its own."[238]
So runs the tale for many years. General declamation against the
incompetence of the ministers is exchanged for a scathing relentless
impeachment of every branch of the administration. The Journal of 1739
contains some of the most terrible pictures ever drawn of the internal
condition of France; and the government of the interior is arraigned
with all the triumphant detail of an unanswerable indictment. When
the extreme of misery had passed, there remained the vicissitudes
of foreign policy to sharpen the bitterness of d'Argenson's pen.
The war of the Indies, the crisis in the Empire, gave occasion for
many a philippic against the senile absurdity of the Cardinal's
statecraft.[239] Nor was this all; for his hand is continually upon
the Cardinal's pulse; his eyes are perpetually bent upon the King; his
own prospects are weighed in an ever-changing balance; and d'Argenson,
King and Cardinal are canvassed until the reader is sick and weary of
them all. Occasionally the narrative is divested alike of dignity and
of reason; and we sometimes meet with a rude savagery of feeling and
expression which suggest that beneath d'Argenson's usual beauty of
heart there lurked unsightly possibilities.
Such are the facts, unpleasing enough; it remains to determine their
critical value.
A first impression that the brain of the writer is haunted by some
grotesque chimera, and that his political prospects are the pure
creation of his own vanity and ambition, proves upon investigation
to be false. There existed at Court during this period an active and
formidable party, bent upon overthrowing the Cardinal; and for six
years there was not a single month when Fleury's position might not
have been imperilled by a moment of manliness on the part of the King.
That moment--it was an amiable fondness--was constantly expected;[240]
and had it followed upon any of the passages of d'Argenson's Journal,
what appears as mere fatuous aspiration might be read as the words
of truth and soberness. It is, moreover, reasonable to suggest that
had the writer been more intimately conversant with the world and its
ways, he would never have written one-tenth of what he felt; and that,
had he not been the author of some of the loftiest and profoundest
truths which political morality has ever uttered, his violences
and excitements would have remained in the obscurity in which such
accidents should be privileged to rest.
But there is another question involved, the question whether his
criticism is the mere outcome of factious opposition, or is the wise
and just conviction of a patriot and an honest man. A brief examination
will suffice.
He pronounced against the men in power, and history has endorsed his
verdict. Among the six ministers who carried the train of Cardinal
Fleury, there was not one whose name has not to be sought for in his
despatches, or who was qualified to be his own head clerk. The only man
who, by the duration and the vicissitudes of his career, has secured
a precarious place in history, is M. de Maurepas. So much for the
men; we have yet to see whether d'Argenson's estimate of the general
administration could equally boast the warrant of fact.
There are two sides to the questions suggested by the government of
Fleury. There is no denying that his negative policy conferred great
benefits on France; there is equally little question that it sowed the
seed of many a disaster. If he did nothing to dissipate the resources
of the country, he did equally little to increase them. He neglected
commerce, and through the accident of the time it flourished. He
neglected finance and the interior, and the ruin of the provinces
proceeded unchecked. During these six years he did nothing for the
policy of France abroad, and it drifted into the state in which we
are soon to see it. In a word, he raised political nihilism to the
dignity of a faith, and the deluge of circumstance had to be faced
by his successors. His policy brought its peculiar consequences. The
most striking was the decadence of the French marine. But it produced
an effect which was far less obvious, and far more insidiously fatal.
With M. Chauvelin, he had banished from his ministry its only element
of constructive strength. D'Argenson had been glad that the man whose
"ideas were too great and lofty," was in power no longer, and only
too ready to take shelter beneath the bourgeois policy of Fleury.[241]
He was not long in discovering his error. The world is not a bourgeois
creation, nor can it be governed upon bourgeois principles; and if
genius in power is often destructive, it is none the less often
necessary. It was by the consistent ostracism of genius that Fleury,
in a profoundly critical period, maintained himself in power; and when
his will at last succumbed to circumstance, he left his country to
drift before the winds bereft of policy or guiding hand. We have soon
to examine one department of the government, and that in connection
with d'Argenson himself. There may be reason to suggest that if his
criticism of Fleury has been violent and harsh, the conduct of French
foreign policy during the years 1745 and 1746 is one long commentary
upon its substantial justice. D'Argenson was a man of strange political
sympathy and insight. Barbier and the element he represented, might
look on with applause, and commend the Cardinal's moderation and
prudence. To a patriot who had the sagacity to foresee what his
so-called moderation might mean, the spectacle must have been full of
provocation; and it is sufficient to conclude that if d'Argenson's
narrative is deformed by the violence of exasperation, its motives were
as pure as the feeling was keen.
It is with the pleasure of relief that we turn to another interest of
d'Argenson's life, as sweet and engaging as the former is sometimes
repellent. It presents him, not as the violent, eager partisan, but in
the light of a loyal and warm-hearted friendship. It is in the spring
of 1739 that we mark the beginning of his intimacy with Voltaire.
D'Argenson and he had been at school together; but since they had
parted in the Rue St. Jacques[242] their ways in life had lain far
apart. Arouet had been absorbed by that brilliant coterie whose host
was Vendôme and whose laureate was Chaulieu;[243] while d'Argenson
pursued the path of the robe, which led far away from the dazzling
dissoluteness of the Temple. Nor were they thrown together more closely
in maturer life; for while d'Argenson, with some chosen spirits, was
developing the purely French tradition of political thought, his
friend, a guest at Twickenham and Battersea, was accustoming his eyes
to that foreign light which he was afterwards to diffuse so fatefully
around him. About the time at which d'Argenson joined the Entresol,
Voltaire set out for England.[244] Separated as they were, they
retained that easy good-feeling which only school companionship can
inspire. Upon Voltaire's return they met more frequently, and in their
letters their old discussions upon art and politics at the house of a
popular society lady,[245] are often the theme of pleasant recollection.
It was not, however, until the opening of the correspondence whose
occasion and character we have now to record, that their casual
acquaintance ripened into intimacy. Many of Voltaire's letters have
never been recovered; and d'Argenson's, with scarcely an exception,
have perished entirely. Still, there remain enough to form an
intelligible series, and to throw a very attractive light upon the
character of the men concerned.
It was in the beginning of 1739 that Voltaire, incensed by a more
than usually scurrilous libel, appealed to his friend for protection
in an attempt to force the author[246] to a disavowal of his work.
With the ready loyalty characteristic of him, d'Argenson accepted the
trust;[247] and until the close of the quarrel he became the poet's
"chargé d'affaires accredited to the literary police." Such of his
letters as are preserved are truly charming, and they read strangely
beside many a page of his Journal written at the same date. They are
graced throughout by that open-hearted confidence which d'Argenson
was always so ready to accord; and nothing can be sweeter than the
self-congratulation with which he tells Voltaire of his success.[248]
He was in constant communication with Madame du Châtelet; and
d'Argenson joined Madame in a conspiracy of kindness to restrain the
vivacities of their outraged friend.
Voltaire was not the man to undervalue such services. His letters are
full of expressions of gratitude, as delicate as they are sincere;
he cast about for a means of displaying it more amply; and with many
another earnest of confidence and regard, d'Argenson received the
opening chapters of the "Histoire du Siècle de Louis XIV.," and with
it the assurance, "I wish to please you so much; and you will see that
if I do not succeed, it is not for want of working upon subjects which
are dear to you."[249] D'Argenson must have been emboldened by the
confidence of his friend, for soon after, Voltaire received a letter,
and with it an extract of a certain manuscript from d'Argenson's own
pen.
The keen surprise and pleasure which attended its perusal are written
in every line of Voltaire's reply:--
"My dear Sir, Providence has kept me here a day longer than we intended
in order that I might receive the most pleasing letter that I have had
since Madame du Châtelet has ceased to write. I have just been reading
to her the extract you have been good enough to make for us from a work
of which it may be said, more justly than of 'Télémaque,' that if any
book could confer happiness upon mankind, it would be this.... We have
not here the mere dreams of a good-hearted man, like the good Abbé
de St. Pierre and M. de Fénélon; there is here something more real,
and something which experience proves in the most striking manner....
Madame du Châtelet is enchanted with your plan. By this post I have
received a letter from a prince, whose first minister you would be, if
you had been born in his country."[250]
"There is a place that one does not procure for cash down, and that I
merit by the most respectful attachment and the most high esteem." The
last word is significant; Voltaire was attached to his friends; his
esteem was reserved for his equals.
The book was kept for six weeks, when Voltaire returned by Moussinot
"the best and most instructive work that I have read for twenty
years.[252]... I am assured that the author of this unique work is not
going to Lisbon[253] to bury his talents for guiding men and making
them happy. May he remain at Paris, and may I find him again in one of
those posts where, up to the present, so much harm has been done and
so little good. If I had myself to choose, I swear that I would not
set foot again in Paris until I saw M. d'Argenson in the place of his
father, and at the head of letters.... Madame du Châtelet is as charmed
as I, and will praise you to much better purpose."
Never did Voltaire speak with more enthusiasm, and never was the
feeling more generous and sincere. He had suddenly discovered among a
crowd of other noble protectors a man of rare and unexpected power; and
for some time the letters to d'Argenson are sufficient to show that
he had sensibly risen in Voltaire's esteem. The praises he received
were accompanied by a full and careful criticism, the hasty reading of
which may have given rise to a gratuitous impeachment of the writer's
sincerity. The suggestion will be presently considered;[254] here it is
enough to say that it was no ordinary political work which, in 1739,
could arouse the enthusiasm of Voltaire.
A third episode in the correspondence is of some importance. It was
through Voltaire that d'Argenson acquired his first knowledge of a man
to whom he was afterwards introduced more intimately by events, the
young Prince Royal of Prussia. Among other marks of regard, Voltaire
sent him some of the prince's letters, and asked him to share his
admiration. It may be imagined that d'Argenson, in whom devotion to
royalty was hereditary, and whose regard for merit was always so keen,
was not slow to echo the enthusiasm of his friend.[255] From this
time forward he watched with lively and appreciative interest the
development of Frederick's career, and upon the frequent letters which
found their way into his hands he formed a conception of the Prince's
character which was not without its influence upon future events. Its
essence is contained in some words he wrote on hearing of Frederick's
accession (June, 1740):--
"Il fera ce qu'il faudra faire."[256]
His pleasure at the event is only qualified by the pitiful contrast
presented by the King upon whom his hopes had so long been built.
Such are the principal features of this delightful correspondence. It
was continued with more or less intermission until the end of 1744,
when d'Argenson found occasion to exercise his friend's pen in matters
of more than epistolary weight. Throughout the difficulties of an
arduous ministry, his task was lightened and his efforts cheered by the
encouragement and co-operation of Voltaire.