THE COURT AND THE PARLIAMENT.
Death of Louis XV.--Education of Louis XVI.--Maurepas,
Prime Minister.--Turgot; his Expulsion from
Office.--Necker.--Franklin.--Sympathy with the Americans.--La
Fayette.--Views of the Court.--Treaty with America.--Popularity
of Voltaire.--Embarrassment of Necker.--_Compte Rendu au
Roi._--Necker driven into Exile.--Enslavement of France.--New
Extravagance.--Calonne.
As the clock of Versailles tolled the hour of twelve at midnight of the
10th of May, 1774, Louis XV., abandoned by all, alone in his chamber,
died. In the most loathsome stages of the confluent small-pox, his
body had for several days presented but a mass of corruption. Terror
had driven all the courtiers from the portion of the palace which he
occupied, and even Madame du Barry dared not approach the bed where
her guilty paramour was dying. The nurse hired to attend him could
not remain in the apartment, but sat in an adjoining room. A lamp was
placed at the window, which she was to extinguish as soon as the king
was dead. Eagerly the courtiers watched the glimmering of that light
that they might be the first to bear to Louis, the grandson of the
king, the tidings that _he_ was monarch of France.
Louis was then hardly twenty years of age.[39] His wife, Marie
Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, Queen of Austria, was scarcely
nineteen. They had been married four years. Marie Antoinette was one
of the most beautiful of women, but from infancy she had been educated
in the belief that kings and nobles were created to illustrate life by
gayety and splendor, and that the people were created only to be their
servants.[40]
The taper was extinguished, and the crowd of courtiers rushed to the
apartment of the Dauphin to hail him as Louis XVI. The tidings, though
expected, for a moment overwhelmed them both, and, encircled in each
other's arms, they fell upon their knees, while Louis exclaimed, "_O
God! guide us, protect us, we are too young to govern_."[41] They then
entered the grand saloon, where they received the congratulations of
all the dignitaries of the Church and the State. All were anxious to
escape from the palace whose atmosphere was tainted, and hardly an
hour elapsed ere the new court, in carriages and on horseback, left
Versailles and were passing rapidly to the Chateau of Choisy, one of
the favorite rural palaces of Louis XV. The loathsome remains of the
king were left to the care of a few under-servants to be hurried to
their burial.
It was not yet four o'clock in the morning. The sleepless night, the
chill morning air, the awful scene of death from which they had come,
oppressed all spirits. Soon, however, the sun rose warm and brilliant;
a jocular remark dispelled the mental gloom, and in two hours they
arrived at the palace a merry party exulting in the new reign. The
education of Louis XVI. had been such that he was still but a boy,
bashful, self-distrusting, and entirely incompetent to guide the
kingdom through the terrific storm which for ages had been gathering.
He had not the remotest idea of the perils with which France was
surrounded. He was an exceedingly amiable young man, of morals most
singularly pure for that corrupt age, retiring and domestic in his
tastes, and sincerely desirous of promoting the happiness of France.
Geography was the only branch of learning in which he appeared to take
any special interest. He framed, with much sagacity, the instructions
for the voyage of La Pérouse around the world in 1786, and often
lamented the fate of this celebrated navigator, saying, "I see very
well that I am not fortunate."[42] How mysterious the government of
God, that upon the head of this benevolent, kind-hearted, conscientious
king should have been emptied, even to the dregs, those vials of wrath
which debauched and profligate monarchs had been treasuring up for so
many reigns!
[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. AND LA PÉROUSE.]
Louis had no force of character, and, destitute of self-reliance, was
entirely guided by others. At the suggestion of his aunt, Adelaide, he
called to the post of prime minister Count Maurepas, who was eighty
years of age, and who, having been banished from Paris by Madame de
Pompadour, had been living for thirty years in retirement. Thus France
was handed over in these hours of peril to a king in his boyhood and a
prime minister in his dotage. Was it chance? Was it Providence? Clouds
and darkness surround God's throne!
M. Turgot was appointed to the post of utmost difficulty and
danger--the administration of the finances. He had acquired much
reputation by the skill with which, for twelve years, he had
administered the government of the Province of Limousin. The kingdom of
France was already in debt more than four thousand millions of francs
($800,000,000).[43] As the revenue was by no means sufficient to pay
the interest upon this debt and the expenses of the government, new
loans had been incessantly resorted to, and national bankruptcy was
near at hand. To continue borrowing was ruin; to impose higher taxes
upon the people impossible. There were but two measures which could
be adopted. One was to introduce a reform of wide-sweeping and rigid
economy, cutting down salaries, abolishing pensions and sinecures, and
introducing frugality into the pleasure-haunts of the court. Turgot was
too well acquainted with the habits of the courtiers to dream that it
was in the power of any minister to enforce this reform. There remained
only the plan to induce the clergy and the nobles to allow themselves
to be taxed, and thus to bear their fair proportion of the expenses of
the state. Turgot fully understood the Herculean task before him in
attempting this measure, and in a letter to the king he wrote:
"We will have no bankruptcies, no augmentation of the taxes, no loans.
I shall have to combat abuses of every kind, to combat those who are
benefited by them, and even the kindness, sire, of your own nature. I
shall be feared, hated, and calumniated; but the affecting goodness
with which you pressed my hands in yours, to witness your acceptance
of my devotion to your service, is never to be obliterated from my
recollection, and must support me under every trial."[44]
Several of Turgot's measures of reform the privileged class submitted
to, though with reluctance and with many murmurs; but when he proposed
that a tax should be fairly and equally levied upon proprietors of
every description, a burst of indignant remonstrance arose from the
nobles which drowned his voice. To suggest that a _high-born_ man was
to be taxed like one _low-born_ was an insult too grievous to be borne.
The whole privileged class at once combined, determined to crush the
audacious minister thus introducing the doctrine of equal taxation into
the court of aristocratic privilege.
Madame du Barry, in a pet, four years before, had abolished the
Parliament of Paris, which was entirely under the control of the
aristocracy. Louis XVI., seeking popularity, restored the Parliament.
Unfortunately for reform, the nobles had now an organized body with
which to make resistance. The Parliament, the clergy, the old minister
Maurepas, and even the young queen, all united in a clamorous onset
upon Turgot, and he was driven from the ministry, having been in office
but twenty months.[45] The Parliament absolutely refused to register
the obnoxious decree. The inexperienced and timid king, frightened
by the clamor, yielded, and abandoned his minister. Had the king
been firm, he might, perhaps, have carried his point; but want of
capacity leads to results as disastrous as treachery, and the king,
though actuated by the best intentions, was ignorant and inefficient.
Though the king held a _bed of justice_,[46] and ordered the edicts
registered, they remained as dead letters and were never enforced.
There was in Paris a wealthy Protestant banker, born in Geneva, of
great financial celebrity, M. Necker. He was called to take the place
of Turgot. Warned by the fate of his predecessor and seeing precisely
the same difficulties staring him in the face, he resolved to try the
expedient of economy, cutting off pensions and abolishing sinecures.
But the nobles, in Church and State, disliked this as much as being
taxed, and immediately their clamor was renewed.[47]
Just at this time the American war of independence commenced. All
France was in a state of enthusiasm in view of a heroic people
struggling to be free. And when the American delegation appeared in
Paris, headed by Franklin, all hearts were swept along by a current
which neither king nor nobles could withstand. The republican
simplicity of Franklin in his attire and manners produced an
extraordinary impression upon all classes. The French ladies in
particular were lavish in their attentions. Several fêtes were given
in his honor, at one of which the most beautiful of three hundred
ladies crowned him with a laurel wreath, and then kissed him on both
cheeks. Almost every saloon was ornamented with his bust, bearing the
inscription, "Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."
All the latent spirit of freedom which had so long been slowly
accumulating burst forth with a power which alarmed the court. Not a
few of the nobles, disgusted with the aristocratic oppression which
was ruining France, gave their sympathies to the American cause.
The Marquis la Fayette, then but eighteen years of age, openly and
enthusiastically applauded the struggle of the colonists. Marie
Antoinette, instinctively hating a war in which the people were
contending against royalty, expressed much indignation that La Fayette
should utter such sentiments in the Palace of Versailles. Joseph
II. of Austria, brother of Marie Antoinette, then on a visit to the
French court, was asked by a lady his opinion of the subject which
was now engrossing every mind. He replied, "I must decline answering;
my business is to be a Royalist" (_Mon métier à moi c'est d'être
Royaliste_).[48]
It is hardly possible for one now to realize the enthusiasm with
which the American war, at that time, inspired France. Even the court
hated England, and wished to see that domineering power humbled. The
mind of the nation had just awakened and was thoroughly aroused from
the lethargy of ages. Theories, dreams, aspirations had exhausted
themselves, and yet there was in France no scope whatever for action.
America opened a theatre for heroic enterprise. France had given the
theory of liberty, America was illustrating that theory by practice.
The popular cry so effectually drowned every other voice that even the
king was compelled to yield. A treaty with America was signed which
drew from the treasury of France twelve hundred millions of francs
($240,000,000), in support of American independence.[49] But for the
substantial aid thus rendered by the fleet and the army of France it
can hardly be doubted that the American Revolution would have been
crushed, Washington and Franklin would have been hanged as traitors,
and monarchical historians would elegantly have described the horrors
of the great American rebellion.[50]
The king, however, had sufficient intelligence to appreciate the
suicidal act he was thus compelled to perform. With extreme reluctance
he signed the treaty which recognized the right of nations to change
their government. The doctrine of the _sovereignty of the people_ was
thus legitimated in France. That one sentiment unresisted would sweep
Europe of its despotic thrones. As the king signed the treaty, Feb. 8,
1778, he remarked to his minister, "You will remember, sir, that this
is contrary to my opinion."[51] The same weakness which constrained
Louis XVI. to abandon Turgot to his enemies, compelled him to perform
this act which his views of state policy condemned. "How painful," he
writes, in his private correspondence, "to be obliged, for reasons of
state, to sign orders and commence a great war contrary alike to my
opinions and my wishes."[52]
In the midst of these transactions Voltaire, after an absence of
twenty-seven years, much of which time he had passed in his retreat
at Ferney, about five miles from Geneva, revisited Paris. He was
then eighty-four years of age. The court hated the bold assailer of
corruptions, and refused to receive him. But the populace greeted him
with enthusiasm unparalleled. He attended the theatre where his last
play, "Irene," was acted. Immediately upon his appearance the whole
audience, rising, greeted him with long and tumultuous applause. As,
overpowered with emotion, he rose to depart, with trembling limbs and
with flooded eyes, men of the highest rank and beautiful women crowded
around him and literally bore him in their arms to his carriage. He
could only exclaim, "Do you wish to kill me with joy?" A crowd with
lighted torches filled the streets, making his path brilliant as day,
and shouts of triumph arose which appalled the courtiers in the saloons
of the palace. A few weeks after this, May 30, 1778, Voltaire died.
The Archbishop of Paris refused to allow him Christian burial, and the
court forbade his death to be mentioned in the public journals. His
corpse was taken from the city and buried secretly at an old abbey at
Scellières. This petty persecution only exasperated the friends of
reform. A month after the death of Voltaire, Rousseau also passed away
to the spirit-land.
The situation of Necker was now deplorable. The kingdom was involved
in an enormously expensive war. The court would not consent to any
diminution of its indulgences, and the privileged class would not
consent to be taxed. Necker was almost in despair. He borrowed of
every one who would lend, and from the already exhausted people with
sorrow, almost with anguish, gleaned every sou which the most ingenious
taxation could extort.
"Never shall I forget," he wrote, in 1791, "the long, dark staircase of
M. Maurepas, the terror and the melancholy with which I used to ascend
it, uncertain of the success of some idea that had occurred to me,
likely, if carried into effect, to produce an increase of the revenue,
but likely at the same time to fall severely though justly on some one
or other; the sort of hesitation and diffidence with which I ventured
to intermingle in my representations any of those maxims of justice
and of right with which my own heart was animated."
For a time Necker succeeded by loans and annuities in raising money,
but at last it became more difficult to find lenders, and national
bankruptcy seemed inevitable. And what is national bankruptcy? It is
the paralysis of industry, and wide-spreading consternation and woe.
Thousands of widows and orphans had all their patrimony in the national
funds. The failure of these funds was to them beggary and starvation.
The hospitals, the schools, the homes of refuge for the aged and
infirm--all would lose their support. The thousands in governmental
employ and those dependent upon them would be left in utter
destitution. The bankruptcy of a solitary merchant may send poverty to
many families--the bankruptcy of a nation sends paleness to the cheeks
and anguish to the hearts of millions.
In this exigence Necker adopted the bold resolve to publish an honest
account of the state of the finances, that the nation, nobles, and
unennobled might see the destruction toward which the state was
drifting. Necker thought that, if the facts were fairly presented,
the privileged class, in view of the ruin otherwise inevitable, would
consent to bear their share of taxation, manifestly the only possible
measure which could arrest the disaster. He consequently, in 1781,
published his celebrated _Compte Rendu au Roi_. The impression which
this pamphlet produced was amazing. Two hundred thousand copies were
immediately called for, and the appalling revelation went with electric
speed through the whole length and breadth of the land. It was read in
the saloon, in the work-shop, and in the hamlet. Groups of those who
could not read were gathered at all corners to hear it read by others.
"We wetted with our tears," writes M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, who
acted an illustrious part in those days, "those pages which a citizen
minister had imprinted with luminous and comfortable reflections,
and where he was turning all his attention to the prosperity of the
French with a sensibility deserving of their gratitude. The _people_
blessed him as its savior. But all those nourished by abuses formed a
confederacy against the man who seemed about to wrest their prey from
them."
Necker was desirous of introducing some popular element into the
government. There was now a numerous body of men belonging to the
unprivileged class, energetic and enlightened, whose voice ought to
be heard in the administration of affairs as representatives of the
people. He therefore recommended that there should be provincial
parliaments in the different departments of France, somewhat
corresponding with the present legislatures in the United States.
In a few of the provinces there were already parliaments, but they
were composed exclusively of the privileged class. Turgot also had
contemplated provincial legislatures, which he desired to constitute
as the organ of the _people_, and to be composed only of members of
the Tiers Etat.[53] Necker, however, hoped to conciliate the nobles
by giving the privileged body an equal representation with the
unprivileged in these assemblies. One half were to be representatives
of the clergy and the nobility, and the other half of the people,
though the people numbered millions, while the clergy and nobles
numbered but thousands.
Necker's report showed that the interest upon the public debt
absorbed one third of the revenues; that the remaining two thirds
were by no means sufficient for carrying on the government, and that,
consequently, the burden was continually growing heavier by loans and
accumulations.[54] The suggestions of Necker, to give the people a
voice in the administration of affairs and to tax high-born men equally
with low-born, created intense opposition. The storm became too fierce
to be resisted. Both the king and the prime minister yielded to its
violence, and Necker, like Turgot, was driven with contumely from the
ministry and into exile. The hearts of the people followed the defeated
minister to his retreat. These outrages were but making the line which
separated the privileged from the unprivileged more visible, and were
rousing and combining the masses. The illustrious financier, in his
retirement, wrote his celebrated work upon the administration of the
finances, a work which contributed much to the enlightenment of the
public mind.[55] The intellect of the nation was roused, as never
before, to the discussion of the affairs of state. In the parlor, the
counting-room, the work-shop, the farm-house, and the field, all were
employed in deliberating upon the one great topic which engrossed
universal attention. And yet the nobles and their partisans, with
infatuation inexplicable, resisted all measures of reform; a singular
illustration of the Roman adage, "Quem Deus vult perdere priusquam
dementat" (_whom God would destroy he first makes mad_).
Indeed, the opposition was sufficiently formidable to appal any
minister. There were eighty thousand nobles, inheriting the pride and
prestige of feudal power, with thousands, dependent upon their smiles,
rallying around them as allies. There were the officers in the army,
who were either hereditary nobles or, still worse, men of wealth
who had purchased titles of nobility. There were a hundred thousand
persons who, in various ways, had purchased immunity from the burdens
of state, and were thus within the limits of the privileged class, and
hated by the people, though despised by the nobles. There were two
hundred thousand priests bound by the strongest of possible ties to
the hierarchy, the humble class depending for position and bread upon
their spiritual lords and obliged by the most solemn oaths to obey
their superiors. And these priests, intrusted with the keys of heaven
and of hell, as was supposed by the unenlightened masses, held millions
in subjection by the most resistless powers of superstition. There
were sixty thousand in the cloisters of the monasteries, many of them
dissolute in the extreme, and who were necessarily subservient to the
ecclesiastics. There were the farmers general, the collectors of the
revenue, and all the vast army of office-holders, who were merely the
agents of the court.
"This formidable mass of men," says M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, "were
in possession of all France. They held her by a thousand chains. They
formed, in a body, what was termed _la haute nation_. All the rest was
the people."[56]
Though the privileged class and their dependents, which we have above
enumerated, amounted to but a few hundred thousand, perhaps not five
hundred thousand in all, and the people amounted to some twenty-five
millions, still all the power was with the aristocracy. The mass of the
people were merely slaves, unarmed, unorganized, uneducated. They had
been degraded and dispirited by ages of oppression, and had no means of
combining or of uttering a united voice which should be heard.
Immediately succeeding M. Necker in the ministry of finance came M.
Fleury and M. d'Ormesson. They were both honest, well-meaning men, but
were promptly crushed by a burden which neither of them was at all
capable of bearing. Their names are hardly remembered. Maurepas was now
dead. The Americans, aided by France, had achieved their independence,
and France and England were again at peace. The king now selected M.
de Calonne from the Parliament, as Minister of Finance. He was a man
of brilliant genius, of remarkably courtly manners, but licentious and
extravagant. The king hoped, by his selecting Calonne, to diminish that
opposition of the Parliament which was daily growing more inveterate
against the crown. For a time the new minister was exceedingly popular.
His high reputation for financial skill and his suavity enabled him
to effect important loans; and by the sale and the mortgage of the
property of the crown he succeeded for a few months in having money
in abundance. The court rioted anew in voluptuous indulgence. The
beautiful palace of St. Cloud was bought of the Duke of Orleans for the
queen, and vast sums were expended for its embellishment. The Palace
of Rambouillet was purchased as a hunting-seat for the king. Marie
Antoinette gave innumerable costly entertainments at Versailles, and
rumor was rife with the scenes of measureless extravagance which were
there displayed. The well-meaning, weak-minded king, having no taste
for courtly pleasure and no ability for the management of affairs,
either unconscious of the peril of the state or despairing of any
remedy, fitted up a work-shop at Versailles, where he employed most
of his time at a forge, under the guidance of a blacksmith, tinkering
locks and keys. This man, Gamin, has recorded:
"The king was good, indulgent, timid, curious, fond of sleep. He
passionately loved working as a smith, and hid himself from the queen
and the court to file and forge with me. To set up his anvil and
mine, unknown to all the world, it was necessary to use a thousand
stratagems."[57]
There is a secret power called _public credit_ which will speedily
bring such a career to its close. Public credit was now exhausted.
No more money could be borrowed. The taxes for some time in advance
were already pledged in payment of loans. The people, crushed by their
burdens, could not bear any augmentation of taxes. The crisis seemed
to have come. Calonne now awoke to the consciousness of his condition,
and was overpowered by the magnitude of the difficulties in which
he was involved. There was but one mode of redress--_an immediate
retrenchment of expenses and the including of the privileged class in
the assessment of taxes_. Whoever had attempted this had been crushed
by the aristocratic Parliament. Could Calonne succeed? After long and
anxious deliberation he became conscious that it would be impossible
to induce the Parliament to consent to such a reform, that it would
be very hazardous to call a meeting of the States-General, where the
_people_ could make their voice to be heard, and yet it was essential
to have some public body upon which he could lean for support. He
therefore recommended that the king should convene an assembly of the
notables, to be composed of such individuals as the king should select
from the clergy, the nobles, and the magistracy, they all belonging to
the privileged class. Such an assembly had never been convened since
Richelieu called one in 1626.
[Illustration: LOUIS XVI. AS LOCKSMITH.]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 38: Historical View of the French Revolution, by J. Michelet,
vol. i., p. 64.]
[Footnote 39: Louis XVI. was born Aug. 22, 1754. In May, 1770, when
not quite sixteen, he married Marie Antoinette. In May, 1774, he
wanted three months of being twenty years of age. Marie Antoinette was
born Nov. 2, 1755. She was but fourteen years and six months old when
married. She was but eighteen years and six months old when she became
Queen of France.--_Encyclopædia Americana._]
[Footnote 40: "It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the
Queen of France at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb,
which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision! I saw her
just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she
just began to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life
and splendor and joy."--_Burke's Reflections._]
[Footnote 41: Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, i., 75.]
[Footnote 42: Encyclopædia Americana, article Louis XVI.]
[Footnote 43: Encyclopædia Americana, article Louis XV.]
[Footnote 44: Précis de la Revolution, par M. Lacretelle.]
[Footnote 45: "On the very threshold of the business he must propose to
make the clergy, the noblesse, the very Parliament subject to taxes!
One shriek of indignation and astonishment reverberates through all the
chateau galleries. M. de Maurepas has to gyrate. The poor king, who had
written (to Turgot) a few weeks ago, '_Il n'y a que vous et moi qui
aimions le peuple_' (There is none but you and I who love the people),
must now write a dismissal, and let the French Revolution accomplish
itself pacifically or not, as it can."--_Carlyle, French Revolution_,
i., 41.
"The nobles and the prelates, it seems, considered themselves degraded
if they were to contribute to the repair of the roads; and they would
no doubt have declared that their dignity and their existence, the very
rights of property itself, were endangered, if they were now, for the
first time, they would have said, in the history of the monarchy, to be
subjected to the visits of the tax-gatherer."--_Lectures on the French
Revolution, by Wm. Smyth_, vol. i., p. 102.]
[Footnote 46: _Lit de justice_ was a proceeding in which the king, with
his court, proceeded to the Parliament, and there, sitting upon the
throne, caused those edicts which the Parliament did not approve to be
registered in his presence.--_Encyclopædia Americana._]
[Footnote 47: It is not necessary to allude to De Clugny, who
immediately succeeded Turgot, but who held his office six months only
and attempted nothing.]
[Footnote 48: Woman in France, by Julia Kavanagh, p. 211. Memoirs of
Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, vol. i., p. 375.]
[Footnote 49: Hist. Phil. de la France, par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, t.
i., p. 28. Audouin states that the war cost France, from 1778 to 1782,
fourteen hundred millions of livres ($280,000,000).]
[Footnote 50: "The queen never disguised her dislike to the American
war. She could not conceive how any one could advise a sovereign to
aim at the humiliation of England through an attack on the sovereign
authority, and by assisting a people to organize a republican
constitution. She often laughed at the enthusiasm with which Franklin
inspired the French."--_Madame Campan's Mem. of Marie Antoinette_, ii.,
29.]
[Footnote 51: Lectures on Fr. Rev., by Wm. Smyth, i., 109.]
[Footnote 52: Cor. Conf. de Louis XVI., ii., 178.]
[Footnote 53: Lectures on the French Revolution, by William Smyth, i.,
115.]
[Footnote 54: "The notion that our maladies were incapable of remedy,
and that no human mind could cure them, added keenly to the general
grief. We saw ourselves plunged into a gulf of debts and public
engagements, the interest alone of which absorbed the third part of the
revenue, and which, far from being put into a course of liquidation,
were continually accumulating by loans and anticipations."--_History of
the French Revolution, by M. Rabaud de St. Etienne_, vol. i., p. 19.]
[Footnote 55: "And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden of
the finances for five years long. Without wages--for he refused
such--cheered only by public opinion and the ministering of his
noble wife. He, too, has to produce his scheme of taxing; clergy,
noblesse to be taxed--like a mere Turgot. Let Necker also depart; not
unlamented."--_Carlyle, French Revolution_, vol. i., p. 46.]
[Footnote 56: M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 22.]
[Footnote 57: Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI., by the Abbé Soulavie,
vol. ii., p. 191.]