Eve of the French Revolution--Necker and the Duke of
Orléans--Louis XVI’s fatal mistakes--His dismissal of the
people’s favourites.
We are now approaching the day when the long-pent-up storm, threatening
for so great a while, was about to burst, and we must contemplate King
Louis XVI and his advisers seeking for a means to placate a people at
last stirred to resentment through the cruel and unjust burdens it had
for generations been made to bear.
The murmurings which had long been general and indefinite were now
resolving themselves into a hatred fast becoming focused upon the rich
and the powerful, many of whom, it must be added, were also arrogant and
dissolute.
A rude awakening among some of these, who had at last been brought
to realise the imminence of the convulsion, induced them to advocate
with much haste and little discretion certain concessions. These were
obviously granted as acts of expediency, and with as little derogation as
possible from their own interest, rather than out of any sympathy for a
distressed and desperate people clamouring for relief.
So, early in 1789, the King was prompted to resort to an expedient which
had not been adopted since the year 1614. He summoned the States-General
to meet together at Versailles on the 5th of May, 1789.
In the deliberations of this National Council the King and his Ministers
looked for support and guidance to meet the difficulties that beset them.
But matters took an unexpected course. The Deputies of the Third Estate,
which out-numbered the First and Second put together, demanded that
all three Estates should sit and vote as one whole indissoluble body.
In spite of opposition they pushed their demand to a successful issue,
and, grasping control of both legislative and executive power, forthwith
resolved themselves into a permanent constitutional assembly.
The King soon found himself confronted by an irresistible authority,
including a majority of men who betrayed little concern for his
prerogative, and manifested a strong sympathy with the cause of the
people.
In such stirring times as those which were now being experienced in
France, Curtius turned to the advocates of the people’s cause for many of
his subjects for his new Exhibition. Among these were many who were to
figure largely in the Revolution.
Special mention must be made of two figures, added about this date,
namely, Necker and Philippe, Duke of Orléans, for their models had an
important bearing upon the events that followed.
Necker, at the time his model was made by Curtius and Madame Tussaud, was
the French Minister of Finance. In 1775 he had claimed for the State the
right of fixing the price of grain and, if necessary, of prohibiting
exportation; a year later he was made Director of the Treasury, and in
1777 he became Director-General of Finance.
His retrenchments were bitterly opposed by Queen Marie Antoinette; and
his famous _Compte Rendu_, in 1781, occasioned his dismissal at that
time. Some of his measures, such as his adjustment of taxes and his
establishment of State-guaranteed annuities and State pawnshops, were
a boon to suffering France. He retired to Geneva, but in 1787 returned
to Paris, and, when M. de Calonne cast doubt on the _Compte Rendu_, he
published a justification which drew upon him his banishment from Paris.
Recalled to office in September, 1788, he quickly made himself a popular
hero by recommending the summoning of the States-General, to which
reference has already been made.
On the 11th of July, 1789, he received the royal command to leave France
at once; but the fall of the Bastille, three days later, frightened the
King into recalling him, amid the wildest popular enthusiasm.
[Illustration: MODEL OF THE BASTILLE]
The Duke of Orléans, the famous Égalité, was another hero of the people
at this time. He was looked upon coldly at Court owing to his dissolute
habits.
London was frequently visited by him, and he became an intimate friend
of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. He infected young France
with Anglomania in the form of horse-racing and hard drinking, and made
himself popular among the lower classes by profuse charity.
In 1787 he showed his liberalism boldly against the King, and as the
States-General drew near he lavished his wealth in flooding France with
seditious books and papers. In the following year he promulgated his
_Délibérations_, written by Laclos, to the effect that the Third Estate
was the nation; and in June, 1789--the month that preceded the fall of
the Bastille--he led the forty-seven nobles who seceded from their own
order to join that Estate.
The Duke presumed to become constitutional King of France, or at least
Regent; but he was only a comparatively small fragment that drifted into
the vortex of the Revolution itself. In 1792, when all hereditary titles
were swept away, this “citizen” adopted the name of Philippe Égalité.
He was the twentieth Deputy for Paris in the National Convention, and
voted for the death of the King; but in the following year retribution
overtook him, for he himself was found guilty of conspiracy and
guillotined.
The public distrust of the King’s party, the fatal error in bringing the
foreign troops to Paris and its environs, and, finally, the banishment of
Necker and the Duke of Orléans, the great champions of the people, must
be regarded as the immediate cause of the catastrophe that followed.