THE ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.
Measures of Brienne.--The Bed of Justice.--Remonstrance of
Parliament.--Parliament Exiled.--Submission of Parliament.--Duke
of Orleans.--Treasonable Plans of the Duke of Orleans.--Anxiety
of the Queen.--The Diamond Necklace.--Monsieur, the King's
Brother.--Bagatelle.--Desperation of Brienne.--Edict for abolishing
the Parliaments.--Energy of the Court.--Arrest of D'Espréménil and
Goislard.--Tumults in Grenoble.--Terrific Hail-storm.
The Notables, one hundred and forty-four in number, nearly all
ecclesiastics, nobles, or ennobled, met at Versailles, Jan. 29, 1787.
Calonne expected that this body, carefully selected by the king, would
advise that all orders should make common cause and bear impartially
the burden of taxation. Sustained by the moral power of this advice he
hoped that the measure could be carried into execution. He presented
his statement of affairs. Though he endeavored to conceal the worst,
the Notables were appalled. Three hundred and fifty millions of dollars
had been borrowed within a few years, and the annual deficit was
thirty-five millions of dollars.[58] Cautiously he proposed his plan of
impartial taxation. It was the signal for a general assault upon the
doomed minister. He was literally hooted down. Not only the Assembly of
Notables, but the clergy, the Parliament, the nobles all over the realm
pounced upon him, led even by the queen and the Archbishop of Paris;
and Calonne, without a friend, was compelled to resign his office and
to fly from France.[59]
The clergy were exceedingly exasperated against Calonne, for they
deemed the proposition to tax the possessions of the Church as
sacrilegious. The most active of the opponents of Calonne was Brienne,
Archbishop of Toulouse. He was a bold, resolute, ambitious man, and by
the influence of the queen was appointed to succeed Calonne. "As public
credit was dead," said a wag, "an archbishop was summoned to bury the
remains."[60] The spirit of discontent and of menace was now becoming
every day more extended and alarming, and the Revolution was gaining
strength.
Among the Notables thus assembled there were some warm advocates of
popular liberty. La Fayette was perhaps the most conspicuous of these.
He spoke boldly against _lettres de cachet_ and other abuses. The
Count d'Artois, afterward Charles X., reproved him for this freedom.
La Fayette firmly, yet with caution, responded, "When a Notable is
summoned to speak his opinion he must speak it."[61]
One of the first acts of Brienne was to abolish the Assembly of
Notables.
Their session continued but nine weeks, being dissolved May 25,
1787. He then struggled for a time in the midst of embarrassments
inextricable until he was compelled to propose the same measure which
had already been three times rejected with scorn, and which had driven
three ministers in disgrace from Paris--_the taxing of the nobles_. He
did every thing in his power to prepare the way for the suggestion, and
connected the obnoxious bill with another less objectionable, hoping
that the two might pass together. But the clergy and the nobles were on
the alert.
Two thirds of the territory of the kingdom had been grasped by
the Church and the nobles. One third only belonged to the people.
Brienne proposed a _territorial tax which should fall upon all landed
proprietors alike_. There was an instantaneous shout of indignation
from the whole privileged class, and the cry "Away with him," "Hustle
him out," spread from castle to castle, and from convent to convent.
It was a _custom_, rather than a law, that no royal decree could
pass into effect until it had been registered by Parliament; and it
was a _custom_, rather than a law, that, if the Parliament refused
to register a decree, the king could hold what is called a _bed of
justice_; that is, could summon the Parliament into his presence and
command the decree to be registered. As the king could banish, or
imprison, or behead any one at his pleasure, no Parliament had as yet
ventured to disobey the royal command.
The Parliament declined registering the decree taxing the property of
the clergy and the nobles. The king peremptorily summoned the whole
refractory body to appear before him. It was the 6th of August, 1787.
In a vast train of carriages, all the members, some one hundred and
twenty in number, wheeled out from Paris to the Palace of Versailles.
There the king with his own lips ordered them to register the decree.
Obedient to the royal order it was registered, and the Parliament,
sullen and exasperated, was rolled back again to the metropolis. The
people contemplated the scene in silent expectation, and by thousands
surrounded the Parliament on its return, and greeted them with
acclamations.
Emboldened by the sympathy of the people in this conflict with the
court, the Parliament ventured to enter upon its records a remonstrance
against the violent procedure; and, to gain still more strength from
popular approval, they made the strange assertion that Parliament was
not competent to register tax edicts at all; that for this act the
authority of the three estates of the realm was essential, convened
in the States-General. This was, indeed, unheard of doctrine, for the
Parliament had for centuries registered such decrees. It, however,
answered its purpose; it brought the masses of the people at once and
enthusiastically upon their side.
This call for the States-General was the first decisive step toward
bringing the people into the field. Tumultuous crowds surrounded the
palace where the Parliament held its session, and with clapping of
hands and shouts received the tidings of the resolutions adopted. The
king, indignant, issued _letters de cachet_ on the night of the 14th,
and the next morning the whole body was arrested and taken in carriages
into banishment to Troyes, a dull city about one hundred miles from
Paris. The blessings of the people followed the Parliament;[62] "for
there are quarrels," says Carlyle, "in which even Satan, bringing help,
were not unwelcome."
Paris was now in a state of commotion. Defiant placards were posted
upon the walls, and there were angry gatherings in the streets. The
two brothers of the king, subsequently Louis XVIII. and Charles X.,
entered Paris in state carriages to expunge from the records of the
Parliament the obnoxious protests and resolutions. They came with a
well-armed retinue. The stormy multitudes frowned and hissed, and were
only dispersed by the gleam of the sword.
For a month Parliament remained at Troyes, excessively weary of exile.
In the mean time Brienne had no money, and could raise none. Both
parties were ready for accommodation. The crown consented to relinquish
the _tax upon the nobles_, and to summon the States-General in five
years. Parliament consented to register an edict for a _loan_ of one
hundred millions of dollars, the burden of which was to fall upon the
_people_ alone. With this arrangement the exiled Parliament was brought
back on the 20th of September. "It went out," said D'Espréménil,
"covered with glory. It came back covered with mud."
On the 20th of September the king appeared before the Parliament in
person, to present the edict for the loan and the promise to convoke
the States-General at the close of five years.
There was at that time in Parliament a cousin of the king, the Duke of
Orleans, one of the highest nobles of the realm.[63] Inheriting from
his father the enormous Orleans property, and heir, through his wife,
to the vast estates of the Duke of Penthièvre, he was considered the
richest man in France, enjoying an income of seven million five hundred
thousand francs a year ($1,500,000). For years he had been rioting
in measureless debauchery. His hair was falling off, his blood was
corrupted, and his bronzed face was covered with carbuncles.[64] Sated
with sensual indulgence, the passion for political distinction seized
his soul. As heir to the dukedom of Penthièvre, he looked forward to
the office of high admiral. In preparation he ventured upon a naval
campaign, and commanded the rear guard of M. d'Orvilliers' fleet in
the battle off Ushant. Rumor affirmed that during the battle he hid
in the hold of the ship. The court, exasperated by his haughtiness,
and jealous of his power, gladly believed the story, and overwhelmed
him with caricatures and epigrams. Some time after this he ascended
in a balloon, and as he had previously descended a mine, where he had
shown but little self-possession, it was stated that he had shown
all the elements his cowardice.[65] The king withheld from him, thus
overwhelmed with ridicule, the office of admiral, and conferred it upon
his nephew, the son of the Count d'Artois.
The Duke of Orleans was envenomed by the affront, and breathed
vengeance. While in this state of mind, and refusing to present himself
at court, he received another indignity still more exasperating. A
matrimonial alliance had been arranged between the eldest daughter
of the Duke of Orleans and the son of Count d'Artois, the Duke
d'Angoulême. An income of four hundred thousand francs ($80,000) per
annum had been settled upon the prospective bride. She had received
the congratulations of the court, and the foreign ministers had been
authorized to communicate to their respective courts the approaching
nuptials, when Marie Antoinette, alarmed by the feeble health of her
two sons, and thinking that the son of the Count d'Artois might yet
become heir to the throne of France, broke off the match, and decided
that her daughter, instead of the daughter of the Duke of Orleans,
should marry the young Duke d'Angoulême.[66]
The Duke of Orleans was now ready to adopt any measures of desperation
for the sake of revenge. Though one of the highest and most opulent of
the aristocrats of Europe, he was eager to throw himself into the arms
of the popular party, and to lead them in any measures of violence in
their assaults upon the crown.[67]
When Louis XVI. met the Parliament to secure the registry of the
edict for a new loan, a strong opposition was found organized against
him, and he encountered silence and gloomy looks. The king had not
intended to hold a _bed of justice_ with his _commands_, but merely
a royal sitting for friendly conference. But the antagonism was so
manifest that he was compelled to appeal to his kingly authority, and
to _order_ the registry of the edict. The Duke of Orleans rose, and
with flushed cheek and defiant tone, entered a protest. Two members,
his confederates, ventured to sustain him. This insult royalty could
not brook. The duke was immediately sent into exile to one of his rural
estates, and the two other nobles were sent to prison.
A fierce conflict was now commenced between the king and the
Parliament. The Parliament passed a decree condemning arbitrary
arrests. The king, by an order in council, canceled the decree. The
Parliament reaffirmed it. The king was exasperated to the highest
degree, but, with the united Parliament and the popular voice against
him, he did not dare to proceed to extreme measures. Louis XIV. would
have sent every man of them to the Bastille or the scaffold. But the
days of Louis XIV. were no more.
It may at first thought seem strange that in this conflict the
_people_ should have sided with the Parliament. But the power of the
crown was the great power they had to dread, and which they wished
to see humbled. It was to them a matter of much more moment that the
_despotism of the court_ should be curtailed than that the one act of
taxation should be passed in their favor. Men of far-reaching sagacity
must have guided the populace to so wise a decision. Inequality of
taxation was but one of the innumerable wrongs to which the people were
exposed. What they needed was a thorough reform in the government which
should correct _all_ abuses. To attain this it was first indispensable
that despotism should be struck down. Therefore their sympathies were
with the Parliament in its struggle against the crown, though it so
happened that the conflict arose upon a point adverse to the popular
interest.
The Duke of Orleans began seriously to contemplate the dethronement
of his cousin and the usurpation of the crown. With almost boundless
wealth at his command, and placing himself at the head of the popular
party, now rising with such resistless power, he thought the plan not
difficult of accomplishment. He had traveled in England, had invested
large sums there, had formed friendship with the sons of the king,
the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. The court of St. James was
bitterly exasperated against the court of Louis XVI. for aiding in the
emancipation of America. The Duke of Orleans consequently doubted not
that he could rely upon the friendship of England in the introduction
of a new dynasty to France.[68]
And now the parliaments which had been organized in many of the
provinces made common cause with the Parliament of Paris, and sent
in their remonstrances against the despotism of the crown. Gloom now
pervaded the saloons of Versailles. Marie Antoinette, with pale cheek
and anxious brow, wandered through the apartments dejected and almost
despairing. Groves and gardens surrounded her embellished with flowers
and statues and fountains. The palace which was her home surpassed
in architectural grandeur and in all the appliances of voluptuous
indulgence any abode which had ever before been reared upon earth.
Obsequious servants and fawning courtiers anticipated her wishes, and
her chariot with its glittering outriders swept like a meteor through
the enchanting drives which art, aided by the wealth of a realm, had
constructed, and yet probably there was not a woman in the whole realm,
in garret or hut or furrowed field, who bore a heavier heart than that
which throbbed within the bosom of the queen. The king was a harmless,
inoffensive, weak-minded man, spending most of his time at the forge.
It was well understood that the queen, energetic and authoritative,
was the real head of the government, and that every act of vigor
originated with her. She consequently became peculiarly obnoxious to
the Parliament, and through them to the people; and Paris was flooded
with the vilest calumnies against her.
There was at that time fluttering about Versailles a dissolute woman
of remarkable beauty, the Countess Lamotte. She forged notes against
the queen, and purchased a very magnificent pearl necklace at the price
of three hundred thousand dollars. Cardinal Rohan was involved in the
intrigue. The transaction was noised through all Europe. The queen was
accused of being engaged in a swindling transaction with a profligate
woman to cheat a jeweler, and was also accused of enormous extravagance
in wishing to add to the already priceless jewels of the crown others
to the amount of three hundred thousand dollars. The queen was
innocent; but the public mind exasperated wished to believe all evil
of her. Men, haggard and hungry, and without employment; women ragged
and starving, and with their starving children in their arms, were ever
repeating the foul charge against the queen as a thief, an accomplice
with a prostitute, one who was willing to see the people starve if she
might but hang pearls about her neck. The story was so universally
credited, and created such wide-spread exasperation, that Talleyrand
remarked, "Mind that miserable affair of the necklace. I should be
nowise surprised if it should overturn the French monarchy."
In addition to all this the report was spread abroad that the children
of Marie Antoinette were illegitimate; that the king had not sufficient
capacity to reign; that his next brother, called Monsieur, subsequently
Louis XVIII., was engaged in a conspiracy with the Parliament to eject
Louis XVI. from the throne, and to establish a government of the
nobles, of which Monsieur should be the nominal head. It is by no means
improbable that this plan was formed. It will account for many of the
actions of the nobles during the first stages of the Revolution.[69]
The second brother of the king, Count d'Artois, a very elegant and
accomplished man of fashion, fond of pleasure, and with congenial
tastes with the young and beautiful queen, was accused, though probably
without foundation, of being her paramour and the father of her
children. He had erected, just outside the walls of Paris, in the woods
of Boulogne, a beautiful little palace which he called _Bagatelle_.
This was the seat of the most refined voluptuousness and of the most
costly indulgence.
The queen now knew not which way to turn from the invectives which were
so mercilessly showered upon her. It was in vain to attempt an answer.
Her lofty spirit so far sustained her as to enable her in public to
appear with dignity. But in her boudoir she wept in all the anguish
of a crushed and despairing heart. "One morning at Trianon," writes
Madame Campan, "I went into the queen's chamber when she was in bed.
There were letters lying upon her bed and she was weeping bitterly. Her
tears were mingled with sobs, which she occasionally interrupted by
exclamations of '_Ah! that I were dead. Wretches! monsters! what have
I done to them?_' I offered her orange-flower-water and ether. '_Leave
me, if you love me; it would be better to kill me at once._' At this
moment she threw her arm over my shoulder and began weeping afresh."[70]
Parliament had registered the edict for a loan of one hundred millions
of dollars. It would be no burden to them. The people alone were to
be taxed for the debt. But public credit was dead. No one would lend.
Brienne was also assailed with lampoons and caricatures and envenomed
invectives, until, baited and bayed from every direction, he became
almost distracted.[71] Burning with fever and with tremulous nerves, he
paced his chamber-floor, ready for any deed of desperation which could
extricate him from his woe. All this the Parliament in Paris and the
twelve parliaments in the departments enjoyed, for it was the object
of the nobles, who mainly formed these bodies, to wrest back from the
monarchy that feudal power which energetic kings had wrested from them.
The people were ready to sustain the nobles, though their enemies, in
their attack upon the crown, and the nobles were also eager to call
in the people to aid them in their perilous conflict. Some of the
nobles, however, more far-sighted, strongly opposed the calling of the
States-General. The majority, however, prevailed, and decreed to call
a meeting of the states, but with the proviso that five years were to
elapse before they should be convened.
Brienne was now goaded to desperation. He determined to break down the
parliaments. Secretly he matured a plan for the formation of a series
of minor courts, where all small causes could be tried, and a superior
court for registering edicts. Thus there would be absolutely nothing
left for the parliaments to do, and they could be abolished as useless.
These courts, the superior to be called the _Plenary Court_ and the
others _Grand Bailliages_, were to be composed of courtiers carefully
selected, who would be subservient to the wishes of the king.[72]
It was a shrewd measure, but one which required the strictest secrecy
in its execution. Such a coup d'état must come as a sudden stroke, or
so powerful a body as the Parliament would be able to ward off the
blow. The whole kingdom was then divided into a number of provinces,
over each of which a governor, called an intendant, presided, appointed
by the king. The royal edict was to be placed secretly in the hands
of each of these intendants, with minute directions how to act, and
they were promptly and secretly to organize the courts, so that upon
an appointed day all should be accomplished, the new machinery in
motion, and the power of the parliaments annihilated. So important
was it that profound secrecy should be observed that printers were
conveyed in disguise by night to one of the saloons of Versailles,
where they brought their type and put up their press to print the
royal edict. Sentries stood at the doors and the windows of their
work-room and their food was handed in to them. M. d'Espréménil, one
of the most active and influential members of Parliament, suspecting
some stratagem, succeeded, through a bribe of twenty-five hundred
dollars, in obtaining a copy of the edict. In the greatest excitement
he hastened back to Paris and presented himself in Parliament with the
edict in his hand. It was the 3d of May, 1788. The members listened
with breathless eagerness to the reading of the paper, which was to
their body a death-warrant. The edict required all the military to
be assembled on the appointed day, ready for action. The intendants
were to march an armed force to those cities of the provinces where
parliaments had been in session, and, when the new courts were to be
organized, to enforce the decree. None of the intendants or commanders
of the troops knew what was to be done, but confidential agents of the
king were to be sent to all these places, that at the same day and on
the same hour the order might be received and executed all over France.
There succeeded this reading at first a universal outbreak of
indignation. They then took an oath to resist, at the peril of their
lives, all measures tending to the overthrow of the old French
parliaments. The tidings that the plot had been detected were borne
speedily to the court at Versailles. Fierce passion now added fury to
the battle. Two _lettres de cachet_ were issued to seize D'Espréménil
and another active member of the opposition, Goislard, and silence
them in the Bastille. Warned of their danger they escaped through
scuttles and over the roofs of houses to the Palace of Justice,
dispatched runners in every direction to summon the members, and
then, laying aside their disguise, assumed their robes of office. An
hour had not elapsed ere Parliament was in session and all Paris in
commotion. Parliament immediately voted that the two members should
not be given up, and that their session was permanent and subject to
no adjournment until the pursuit of the two victims was relinquished.
All the avenues of the Palace of Justice were inundated with a throng
of excited citizens, bewildered by this open and deadly antagonism
between the Parliament and the court. All the day and all the night
and all the next day, for thirty-six hours, the session of stormy
debate and fierce invective continued. Again gloomy night settled down
over sleepless Paris. But suddenly there was heard the roll of drums
and the bugle-blast and the tramp of armed men. Captain d'Agoust, at
the head of the royal troops, marched from Versailles with infantry,
cavalry, and artillery. Sternly and rapidly by torch-light the soldiers
advanced, clearing their way through the multitudes crowding the
court-yards and avenues of the Palace of Justice.[73]
At the head of a file of soldiers with gleaming bayonets and loaded
muskets, D'Agoust, a soldier of cast-iron face and heart, mounted
the stairs, strode with the loud clatter of arms into the hall, and
demanded, in the name of the king, M. Duval d'Espréménil and M.
Goislard de Monsabert. As he did not know these persons he called upon
them to come forward and surrender themselves. For a moment there was
profound silence, and then a voice was heard, "We are all D'Espréménils
and Monsaberts." For a time there was great tumult, as many voices
repeated the cry.
Order being restored, the president inquired whether D'Agoust will
employ violence. "I am honored," the captain replies, "with his
majesty's commission to execute his majesty's order. I would gladly
execute the order without violence, but at all events I shall execute
it. I leave the senate for a few minutes to deliberate which method
they prefer." With his guard he left the hall.
After a brief interval the sturdy captain returned with his well-armed
retinue. "We yield to force," said the two counselors, as they
surrendered themselves. Their brethren gathered around their arrested
companions for a parting embrace, but the soldiers cut short the scene
by seizing them and leading them down, through winding passages, to a
rear gate, where two carriages were in waiting. Each was placed in a
carriage with menacing bayonets at his side. The populace looked on in
silence. They dared not _yet_ speak. But they were learning a lesson.
D'Espréménil was taken to an ancient fortress on one of the Isles
of Hieres, in the Mediterranean, about fourteen miles from Toulon.
Goislard was conveyed to a prison in Lyons.
D'Agoust, having dispatched his prisoners, returned to the Hall of
Assembly, and ordered the members of Parliament to disperse. They were
compelled to file out, one hundred and sixty-five in number, beneath
the bayonets of the grenadiers. D'Agoust locked the doors, put the keys
into his pocket, and, with his battalions, marched back to Versailles.
The Parliament of Paris was now turned into the street. But still there
was no money in the treasury. The provincial parliaments were roused,
and had matured their plans to resist the new courts. The 8th of May
arrived, when the decree, now every where promulgated, was to be put
into execution. The intendants and the king's commissioners found, at
all points, organized opposition. The provincial noblesse united with
the parliaments, for it was now but a struggle of the nobility against
the unlimited power of the crown. A deputation of twelve was sent from
the Parliament of Breton, with a remonstrance, to Versailles. They were
all consigned to the Bastille. A second deputation, much larger, was
sent. Agents of the king met them, and, by menaces, drove them back. A
third, still more numerous, was appointed, to approach Versailles by
different roads. The king refused to receive them. They held a meeting
in Paris, and invited La Fayette and all patriotic Bretons in Paris to
advise with them.[74] This was the origin of the Jacobin Club.
Eight parliaments were exiled. But at Grenoble they refused to
surrender themselves to the _lettres de cachet_. The tocsin pealed
forth the alarm, and booming cannon roused the masses in the city and
upon the mountains to rush, with such weapons as they could seize, to
protect the Parliament. The royal general was compelled to capitulate
and to retire, leaving his commission unexecuted. The nobles had
appealed to the masses, and armed them to aid in resisting the king,
and thus had taught them their power. It seems as though supernatural
intelligence was guiding events toward the crisis of a terrible
revolution. Four of the parliaments were thus enabled to bid defiance
to the kingly power.
The attempt to establish the new courts was a total failure. The
clergy, the nobility, and the people were all against it. A universal
storm of hatred and contempt fell upon all who accepted offices in
those courts. The Plenary Court held but one session, and then expired
amid the hisses of all classes. The king seemed suddenly bereft of
authority.
"Let a commissioner of the king," says Weber, "enter one of these
parliaments to have an edict registered, the whole tribunal will
disappear, leaving the commissioner alone with the clerk and president.
The edict registered and the commissioner gone, the whole tribunal
hastens back to declare such registration null. The highways are
covered with deputations of the parliaments, proceeding to Versailles
to have their registers expunged by the king's hand, or returning home
to cover a new page with new resolutions still more audacious."[75]
Still there was no money, and Brienne was in despair. Wistfully he
looked to his embowered chateau at Brienne, with its silent groves
and verdant lawn. There, while these scenes were transpiring, had
sat, almost beneath the shadow of his castle, "a dusky-complexioned,
taciturn boy, under the name of Napoleon Bonaparte." This boy,
forgetful of the sports of childhood, was gazing with intensest
interest upon the conflict, and by untiring study, night and day,
was girding himself with strength to come forth into the arena. He
had already taken his side as the inexorable foe of feudal privilege
and the friend of popular rights. He had already incurred the frown
of his teachers for the energy with which he advocated in his themes
the doctrine of equality. "The themes of Napoleon," said one of his
teachers, "are like flaming missiles ejected from a volcano."
In these fearful scenes, ominous of approaching floods and earthquakes,
God, in the awful mystery of his providence, took an energetic part.
On the 13th of July of this year, 1788, the whole country, for one
hundred and twenty miles around Paris, was laid waste by one of the
most frightful hail-storms which ever beat down a harvest. Not a green
blade was left. Gaunt famine was inevitably to stride over distracted,
impoverished France. Consternation oppressed all hearts. It was now
hastily decided that the States-General should be assembled in the
following month of May. The queen was that day standing at one of the
windows of Versailles, pallid, trembling, and lost in gloomy thought.
She held in her hand a cup of coffee, which, mechanically, she seemed
to sip. Beckoning to Madame Campan, she said to her,
"Great God! what a piece of news will be made public to-day. The king
grants States-General. 'Tis a first beat of the drum of ill omen for
France. This noblesse will ruin us."[76]
Brienne, who now occupied the post of prime minister, wrote to M.
Necker entreating him to return to the post of Controller of the
Finance. Necker refused. He was not willing to take charge of the
finances with Brienne prime minister. Bankruptcy, with its national
disgrace and wide-spreading misery, was at hand. On the 16th of August
an edict was issued that all payments at the royal treasury should be
made three fifths in cash, and the remaining two fifths in promissory
notes bearing interest. As the treasury was without credit the notes
were comparatively valueless. This was virtual bankruptcy, in which the
state offered to pay sixty cents on the dollar. The announcement of
this edict rolled another surge of excitement and consternation over
the kingdom.
Count d'Artois called upon the queen and informed her of the terrible
agitation pervading the public mind. She sat down in silence and
wept. Brienne, pale, haggard, and trembling, frightened by the storm
now raging, having contrived to secure for himself property to the
amount of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, gave in his
resignation, entered his carriage and drove off to Italy, leaving the
king to struggle alone against the Revolution.[77]
During these conflicts for power between the king and the nobles the
moan of twenty-five millions crushed beneath the chariot-wheels of
feudal aristocracy ascended, not unheeded, to the ear of Heaven. The
hour of retribution if not of recompense approached. For weary ages the
people had waited for its coming with hope ever deferred. Generation
after generation had come and gone, and still fathers and mothers, sons
and daughters were toiling in the furrows and in the shop, exclaiming,
"O God, how long!" The dawn after the apparently interminable night was
now at hand, but it was the dawn not of a bright but of a lurid day.
France at this time presented the spectacle of millions in misery, of
some thousands obtaining by the severest toil the bare necessaries of
life, and of a few hundred rioting in wealth and luxury.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 58: Histoire Philosophique de la Revolution de France, par
Ant. Fantin Desodoards, t. i., p. 58.]
[Footnote 59: "Calonne has published a work on the French Revolution.
At the end of it he gives an outline of his plan. Nothing can be more
reasonable; and it remains an eternal indictment on the people of
consequence then in France, more particularly on that part of them
that composed the Assembly of Notables."--_Lectures on the French
Revolution, by Wm. Smyth_, vol. i., p. 122.]
[Footnote 60: Montgaillard, vol. i., p. 300.]
[Footnote 61: There was at this time a nominal tax of two twentieths
upon all incomes, which the clergy and the nobility were to pay as
the rest. They contrived, however, in a great measure to evade this
tax. "The princes of the blood, for example," says Bouillé, in his
Memoirs, "who enjoyed among them from twenty-four to twenty-five
millions yearly ($5,000,000), paid for their two twentieths only
188,000 livres ($37,600) instead of 2,400,000 ($480,000). The Duke of
Orleans, who presided over the committee to which I belonged in the
Assembly of the Notables, said to me, one day, after a deliberation in
which we had considered and approved the establishment of provincial
administrations, 'Are you aware, sir, that this pleasantry will cost
me at least 300,000 livres ($60,000) a year?' 'How is that, my lord?'
I asked. 'At present,' he replied, 'I arrange with the intendants,
and pay pretty nearly what I like. The provincial administrations, on
the contrary, will make me pay what is strictly due.'"--_Bouillé's
Memoirs_, p. 41.]
[Footnote 62: "This body at first courageously sustained the blow which
had fallen upon them. But soon men accustomed to the pleasures of Paris
threw aside the mask of stoicism which they had assumed, and redeemed
themselves from exile by promising to adopt the views of the court,
provided that no new taxation was proposed."--_Desodoards_, vol. i., p.
68.]
[Footnote 63: The Marquis of Ferrières, a noble of high rank, was a
deputy of the nobles. He was a warm patron of the old opinions and
customs, and voted perseveringly with the majority of his order. In his
very interesting Memoirs he writes thus of the Duke of Orleans, upon
whom, of course, he could not look with a partial eye. "The duke was
himself without talents, and debased by a life of drunkenness; greedy
of money to a degree that would have been perfectly reprehensible in a
private man, but which was disgraceful and degrading in a prince. He
had every vice which can make crime odious, and none of the brilliant
qualities by which it can be in some degree illustrated in the eyes
of posterity. The dead feelings of the duke it was necessary to
animate in some way or other, that he might appear to have a wish for
something, and so they held out to him the supreme power, under the
title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom; all the public money at
his disposal, and in the event, which it was for him to hasten, the
crown for his children, and himself thus made the commencement of a new
dynasty."]
[Footnote 64: Carlyle, French Revolution, vol. i., p. 48.]
[Footnote 65: Biographie Moderne.
"Off Ushant some naval thunder is heard. In the course of which
did our young prince hide in the hold! Our poor young prince
gets his opera plaudits changed into mocking tehees, and can not
become Grand Admiral--the source to him of woes which one may call
endless."--_Carlyle, French Revolution_, vol. i., p. 43.]
[Footnote 66: This was the princess who subsequently experienced such
terrible suffering in the prison of the Temple, with her brother, the
dauphin. She was released by Napoleon, and afterward married the Duke
d'Angoulême.]
[Footnote 67: Desodoards, vol. i., p. 28. Thiers, vol. i., p. 23.]
[Footnote 68: Desodoards, vol. i., p. 50.]
[Footnote 69: Histoire Phil. de la Rev. de Fr. par Ant. Fantin
Desodoards, vol. i., p. 45.]
[Footnote 70: Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, vol. i.,
p. 243.]
[Footnote 71: "Paris is what they call in figurative speech flooded
with pamphlets (_regorgé des brochures_), flooded and eddying again.
Hot deluge from so many patriot ready-writers, all at the fervid or
boiling point; each ready-writer now in the hour of eruption going
like an Iceland geyser! Against which what can a judicious friend,
Morellet, do; a Rivarol, an unruly Linguet (well paid for it), spouting
_cold_?"--_Carlyle_, vol. i., p. 91.]
[Footnote 72: Montgaillard, tome i., p. 405.]
[Footnote 73: The following was the commission of D'Agoust: "J'ordonne
au sieur d'Agoust, capitaine de mes gardes françaises, de se rendre au
palais à la tête de six companies, d'en occuper toutes les avenues,
et d'arrêter dans la grand chambre de mon parlement, ou partout
aillieurs, messieurs Duval d'Espréménil et Goislard, conseillers,
pour les remettre entre les mains des officiers de la prévôte de
l'hôtel."--_Desodoards_, tome i., p. 82.]
[Footnote 74: Carlyle, vol. i., p. 101.]
[Footnote 75: Weber, vol. i., p. 275.]
[Footnote 76: Campan, vol. iii., p. 104.]