"JUSQU' OÙ LA DÉMOCRATIE PEUT ÊTRE ADMISE DANS LE GOUVERNEMENT
MONARCHIQUE."
It was written by him in 1737, the year of Chauvelin's disgrace. It is
upon this work or upon notices of it that d'Argenson's reputation as
a political thinker is principally based. It is necessary to examine
it carefully, and in the light of the circumstances under which it
was composed. The author would turn in his grave could he hear the
verdict which has generally been passed upon it; for if there was one
imputation which d'Argenson abhorred and strove to avoid, it was that
of being a visionary possessed by chimeras.
The consideration of this book is not so easy as it at first appears.
It is less known than it certainly deserves to be, and we are dependent
for our knowledge of it upon a couple of old editions, published in
1764[415] and 1784. The work consists of a number of dissertations on
the past history and present condition of the French Government, which
serve as the setting for its central feature, a Plan or project of
reform. In the preface to the edition of 1784, which was issued by the
d'Argenson family, the previous publication is noticed, and we are told
that it is grossly imperfect, and that unwarrantable liberties have
been taken with the author's text. Upon consulting the earlier edition,
the discrepancies are at once apparent, and nowhere so noticeably as
in the very Plan which is the most important section of the work. To
begin with, the Plan which, in 1784, is given in the form of a royal
proclamation in thirty-four articles, appears in the issue of 1764
as an informal draft consisting of fifty-two. And the difference is
not of form alone; for on comparing the two Plans we find that they
are as far apart as are the poles asunder, and that the second might
represent, at the ordinary rate at which history proceeds, a century's
advance in breadth of thought. In some bewilderment we turn to the
four manuscripts preserved in the Library of the Arsenal;[416] and
confusion is further confounded by the discovery that it is with the
very Plan of this maligned edition of 1764 that that of the manuscripts
coincides. The manuscripts themselves are clearly authentic: for they
bear annotations in d'Argenson's handwriting. A question at once arises
as to the authenticity of the scheme of 1784. A comparison of the texts
establishes the fact that in spite of the impeachment of one editor
and the apologies of another, both editions are equally genuine, and
represent different stages of the work. Moreover it is evident that
that of 1784 is mainly a revised and enlarged version of the original,
and was probably executed about the year 1750; and further, that in it
the editor, without a word of explanation, has incorporated a Plan, a
Chapter and a Conclusion, of much later date and with a very different
purpose.
The "Considérations," as written in 1737, is founded upon two
principles. D'Argenson felt that for the rapid and decisive action
which a great nation should be able to employ, a strong and united
government was necessary: and that in the Monarchy France possessed
such a government. He saw at the same time that that government had
charged itself with a multitude of minute concerns which it could not
possibly understand or supervise, and that consequently the rural
districts were neglected, and local administration throughout the
country was in a shameful state of nullity or disorder. He proposed
therefore to disband the great army of subaltern officials who worked
or shirked in the pay of the Sub-delegates, and with an emancipation
of thought which is truly astonishing, to hand over their duties to
popular control. With that object he devised the following scheme.
Henceforth the business of each city, borough or village (_ville, bourg
et village_), should be managed by a committee of the inhabitants,
to the number of five or more. Persons eligible for service in that
capacity should be nominated in an annual meeting of the inhabitants;
and the officers should be appointed from among the nominees by, and
at the discretion of, the Sub-delegate. The latter, while ceasing
to interfere directly in parochial concerns, should maintain a
general control and supervision, and should have a discretionary
power to displace the local officers for dereliction of duty or other
misconduct. In matters affecting more than one district the local
authorities might confer together, after specifying the subjects of the
conference, and obtaining from the Sub-delegate a formal warrant. The
national taxes should henceforth be raised in the form of a communal
grant, equal in amount to the sum hitherto obtained from the taille;
it was to be assessed upon the inhabitants of the district by the
local authority, and paid in by them to the Financial Receivers, who
should be, in addition to the Intendants and Sub-delegates, the only
royal officers. The reform should be introduced gradually, and might be
submitted to experiment in certain districts in the neighbourhood of
Paris, and in the wards of Paris itself. In any attempt to introduce
it, the authority of the Crown must be scrupulously maintained.[417]
Such are the principal, and from a constitutional point of view,
the only essential features of the project of 1737. It is with this
scheme that M. Martin deals in his notice of d'Argenson. He concludes
a summary of it with a critical remark which is characteristic of the
tone not infrequently held with regard to d'Argenson and his proposals.
He says:--
"Monarchy without nobility, without a judicial aristocracy, and without
a bureaucracy, royalty suspended without supports at an enormous height
above a democratic society--there is d'Argenson's dream: illusion of a
noble heart!" etc.
"_Un ministre stipule pour le Roi, mais il travaille et craint pour
lui-même._"--"Considérations" (1764).
In this judgment M. Martin displays somewhat less than his usual
acumen. Certain abusive privileges might have been touched: but not
a rank in the social hierarchy connecting the Crown with the tiny
democratic communities, would have been menaced by d'Argenson's
scheme.[418] Moreover to speak of "Royalty" and "democratic society"
in connection with it, is to employ large words to describe what is
after all a very little thing; by using these wide and general terms
the idea is dilated and swollen till it becomes grotesque. What
d'Argenson proposed was simply to dismiss the score or so of clerks,
tax-collectors and hangers-on who managed parochial affairs under
the direction of the Sub-delegate without sympathy or regard for the
wishes of the people: and to transfer these affairs to a little parish
council, consisting, for example, of the neighbouring squire, the
village curé, a couple of farmers, and an erudite cobbler or so, who
would look after the roads, assist the poor, assess and collect the
parochial taxes, and attend to all matters which were not beyond the
capacity of half-a-dozen intelligent countrymen, guided and supervised
by the Sub-delegate. The two poles upon which the system revolved were
not "royalty" and "a democratic society,"[419] but in plain prose,
the bureau of the Controller-General at Versailles, and the parish
room or the inn parlour of the village of Argenson in the "généralité"
of Touraine. In fact we have an almost exact parallel in the by no
means fantastic relations which exist in nearly every parish in
England between the local School Board and the Education Department at
Whitehall.
It cannot be supposed, as M. Martin would appear to imply, that the
Crown and the Vestry could neither co-operate nor co-exist. D'Argenson,
in drafting his proposal, presumed upon both sides at least the average
amount of sense which is ordinarily devoted to matters of government.
So far as he could see, there was no reason why the parish councils
should ever dream of giving trouble; and he could not conceive any
Government perverse enough to provoke them to a national combination
for resistance. He imagined, on the other hand, that local affairs
would be managed better, and could not be managed worse, than they
were; and that in any case life would be awakened in the provincial
districts, and that they would be rescued from the torpor of death into
which they were rapidly subsiding. Surely this was something more than
the illusion of a noble heart.
It is entirely in accordance with the fitness of things that the
best criticism of d'Argenson's plan is that of one of his own
contemporaries, who was better able than any one now can be to
understand the difficulty which pressed for solution. Voltaire, as we
have seen, received the manuscript about eighteen months after its
completion; and his quick intelligence was in no danger of mistaking
"_Le temps de l'Aristocratie est passé quand le Despotisme s'est établi
sans son secours._"--"Considérations" (1784).
the meaning of his friend's proposal. He wrote to him:--[420]
"It seems to me that you have elucidated in a consecutive system the
vague ideas and the heartfelt wishes of every good citizen.
"Is not England a standing witness to the truth of your ideas? The King
with his Parliament is legislator, as in France with his Council. The
rest of the nation is governed according to municipal laws, as sacred
as those of Parliament itself. The love of law has become a passion
among this people, because every one is interested in the maintenance
of the law. All the highroads are kept in order, hospitals founded and
maintained, commerce flourishing, without the necessity of a decree of
Council. This idea is the more admirable in that you are yourself a
member of this Council, and that in you the love of your own authority
yields to the love of the public good."[421]
There was only one point on which Voltaire was at variance with his
friend; and its consideration will lead us to that other proposal for
which, nearly twenty years later, the present was abandoned by its
author. Before leaving this scheme of 1737 a few concluding reflections
have to be made.
To us in England at the present day this Plan seems a very modest
one; but we may readily forget the breadth of thought, the marvellous
political instinct, which could have conceived it in the France of
1737. To realise the depth of d'Argenson's discernment, we have only
to compare the "Considérations" with the famous book by which it was
evoked,[422] "L'Histoire de l'ancien Gouvernement de la France." M. de
Boulainvilliers and d'Argenson had been struck by the same evils; but
the former attributed them to the iniquitous usurpation by which the
people had been withdrawn from the protection of their feudal lords,
and subjected to oppression by the irresponsible minions of the royal
authority. His remedy was a reversion to the society of the thirteenth
century. D'Argenson's proposal was a very different one. He saw very
clearly that as a great political instrument the French noblesse
existed no longer; and that if local government was to be reformed,
the reform must come from the people themselves. If these shopkeepers,
peasants and the rest, had no political tradition or knowledge, they
were primarily concerned in acquiring it; and he enunciates, perhaps
for the first time, the great principle of all democratic development,
the principle that in matters of government interest is more valuable
than intelligence. Astonishing as it may seem, he had perfect
confidence in the men to whom he proposed to entrust a modest share of
influence and power: and he expressed it in a few golden words which
suggest the spirit of his scheme:--
"Insensiblement ces magistrats, quoique paysans, se ressentiront de
leur caractère, et en prendront le véritable esprit, qui éloigne
également de la basse soumission et de l'insolence."[423]
Even to Rousseau, the tramp of genius, who had eaten black bread
and slept in cabins, the democratic faith came gradually and as an
inspiration; but what are we to think of the French nobleman who had
conceived it twenty-five years before as he talked with the labourers
round his château?
One of the most striking features of this Plan of 1737 is the care
which is taken to safeguard the royal authority. The local officers are
placed under the absolute control of the Sub-delegates, and the unit of
popular action is nothing more formidable than the parish or the ward.
"_Divide et impera_" was the legislator's device. To us who have daily
experience of the harmonious working of local and central institutions,
this solicitude may appear a little singular. To d'Argenson however it
was not so. His devotion to the Crown was hereditary; and he shared the
belief in the sovereign virtues of monarchical government which was
held unanimously in 1737. Any project which would tend in the slightest
degree to impair the authority of the Crown, could neither be proposed
by him nor listened to by others. It was this point which drew from
Voltaire his only suggestion of dissent. The poet had been travelling
in England and Holland; and his natural reverence for the Monarchy had
been qualified by an acquaintance with republican societies. He had
very little faith in Louis XV., and he expresses the real weakness
of his friend's proposals in a single trenchant line. D'Argenson had
averred[424] that when the King has nothing to think of but governing,
he will always govern well.
"Well then," exclaims Voltaire, "for God's sake let the King think of
governing!"[425]
At that date, with the history of Louis Quatorze behind him, and before
him his hopes of Louis Quinze, d'Argenson could have no uneasiness upon
that score. It took twenty years of experience of the Monarchy at
close quarters, of further knowledge of the actual principles by which
it was conducted, to show him how far and fatally the reality fell
short of the ideal design. In the few years that elapsed between his
disgrace and death, he came to understand that excellent as absolutism
may be in theory, it has certain disadvantages in fact: and that for
one monarch who is found to satisfy the standard of sovereign virtue,
there are twenty who fall immeasurably beneath it. At the cost of the
convictions of a lifetime he accepted the truth that the only warrant
of the people against anarchy or oppression lay in their own power
of self-defence; and he felt that if strength and virtue were to be
restored to the Government, the people must be placed in a position
where they would at once be able to assist it to do good, and have
absolute power to prevent it doing harm. What the country needed was no
longer a great administrative reform, but nothing less than a national
constitution.
That constitution d'Argenson endeavoured to work out; and the fruit
of his reflections was the scheme published in 1784. It cannot be
discussed in the light of experience; for it never was, nor had a
chance of being, submitted to the test of practice. It was not until
twenty-eight years after the author's death that it first saw the
light; and by that time popular demands had become loud and instant,
while a constitutional ideal of a wholly different type had taken
possession of the mind of France. Still there is a certain sense
developed by acquaintance with history and politics which enables us to
estimate with approximate justice the worth of any particular project
in relation to a given set of circumstances; and upon that sense it
is necessary to rely. There is reason to suggest that if examined in
the light of such knowledge as we have of the state of the Government
and of popular feeling about the year 1755, the constitution d'Argenson
conceived at that time is by no means least among the many proofs of
his extraordinary political wisdom.
As few documents of so much importance are so inaccessible or so
little known,[426] a brief abstract of this remarkable scheme may not
be without use. In presenting it, the form of the original, that of
a royal proclamation, is, so far as possible, preserved; while some
striking passages, which illustrate the prevailing tone and spirit, are
given in
"_Les Rois n'aiment point à être Tyrans; mais la plupart le sont sans
le savoir._"--"Considérations" (1784).
d'Argenson's own words. In considering it, it is necessary to remember
two things. In the first place, though popular criticism is irascible
and alert, it has yet made but little way; the people, though beginning
to despise the monarch, are still devoted to the monarchical tradition.
Further it has to be borne in mind that when the Government did
endeavour to act with vigour and to prosecute measures of constructive
reform, it was hampered and clogged at every turn by the influence of
the privileged orders: while there was no great popular organisation
upon which it could lean for support.
The Constitution is set forth in thirty-four articles, the substance of
which is as follows:--