_Proximate Cause of the Revolution--Deranged State of the
Finances--Reforms in the Royal Household--System of Turgot and
Necker--Necker's Exposition of the State of the Public
Revenue--The Red-Book--Necker displaced--Succeeded by
Calonne--General State of the Revenue--Assembly of the
Notables--Calonne dismissed--Archbishop of Sens Administrator of
the Finances--The King's Contest with the Parliament--Bed of
Justice--Resistance of the Parliament and general Disorder in
the Kingdom--Vacillating Policy of the Minister--Royal
Sitting--Scheme of forming a Cour Plénière--It proves
ineffectual--Archbishop of Sens retires, and is succeeded by
Necker--He resolves to convoke the States General--Second
Assembly of Notables previous to Convocation of the
States--Questions as to the Numbers of which the Tiers Etat
should consist, and the Mode in which the Estates should
deliberate._
We have already compared the monarchy of France to an ancient building,
which, however decayed by the wasting injuries of time, may long remain
standing from the mere adhesion of its parts, unless it is assailed by
some sudden and unexpected shock, the immediate violence of which
completes the ruin which the lapse of ages had only prepared. Or if its
materials have become dry and combustible, still they may long wait for
the spark which is to awake a general conflagration. Thus, the
monarchical government of France, notwithstanding the unsoundness of all
its parts, might have for some time continued standing and unconsumed,
nay, with timely and judicious repairs, might have been entire at this
moment, had the state of the finances of the kingdom permitted the
monarch to temporize with the existing discontents and the progress of
new opinions, without increasing the taxes of a people already greatly
overburdened, and now become fully sensible that these burdens were
unequally imposed, and sometimes prodigally dispensed.
[Sidenote: DERANGEMENT OF THE FINANCES.]
A government, like an individual, may be guilty of many acts, both of
injustice and folly, with some chance of impunity, provided it possess
wealth enough to command partisans and to silence opposition; and
history shows us, that as, on the one hand, wealthy and money-saving
monarchs have usually been able to render themselves most independent of
their subjects, so, on the other, it is from needy princes, and when
exchequers are empty, that the people have obtained grants favourable to
freedom in exchange for their supplies. The period of pecuniary distress
in a government, if it be that when the subjects are most exposed to
oppression, is also the crisis in which they have the best chance of
recovering their political rights.
It is in vain that the constitution of a despotic government
endeavours, in its forms, to guard against the dangers of such
conjunctures, by vesting in the sovereign the most complete and
unbounded right to the property of his subjects. This doctrine, however
ample in theory, cannot in practice be carried beyond certain bounds,
without producing either privy conspiracy or open insurrection, being
the violent symptoms of the outraged feelings and exhausted patience of
the subject, which, in absolute monarchies, supply the want of all
regular political checks upon the power of the crown. Whenever the point
of human sufferance is exceeded, the despot must propitiate the wrath of
an insurgent people with the head of his minister, or he may tremble for
his own.[42]
In constitutions of a less determined despotical character, there almost
always arises some power of check or control, however anomalous, which
balances or counteracts the arbitrary exactions of the sovereign,
instead of the actual resistance of the subjects, as at Fez or
Constantinople. This was the case in France.
No constitution could have been more absolute in theory than that of
France, for two hundred years past, in the matter of finance; but yet in
practice there existed a power of control in the Parliaments, and
particularly in that of Paris. These courts, though strictly speaking
they were constituted only for the administration of justice, had forced
themselves, or been forced by circumstances, into a certain degree of
political power, which they exercised in control of the crown, in the
imposition of new taxes. It was agreed on all hands, that the royal
edicts, enforcing such new impositions, must be registered by the
Parliaments; but while the crown held the registering such edicts to be
an act purely ministerial, and the discharge of a function imposed by
official duty, the magistrates insisted, on the other hand, that they
possessed the power of deliberating and remonstrating, nay, of refusing
to register the royal edicts. The Parliaments exercised this power of
control on various occasions; and as their interference was always on
behalf of the subject, the practice, however anomalous, was sanctioned
by public opinion; and, in the absence of all other representatives of
the people, France naturally looked up to the magistrates as the
protectors of her rights, and as the only power which could offer even
the semblance of resistance to the arbitrary increase of the burdens of
the state. These functionaries cannot be charged with carelessness or
cowardice in the discharge of their duty; and as taxes increased and
became at the same time less productive, the opposition of the
Parliaments became more formidable. Louis XIV. endeavoured to break
their spirit by suppression of their court, and banishment of its
members from Paris; but, notwithstanding this temporary victory, he is
said to have predicted that his successor might not come off from the
renewed contest so successfully.
Louis XVI., with the plain well-meaning honesty which marked his
character, restored the Parliaments to their constitutional powers
immediately on his accession to the throne, having the generosity to
regard their resistance to his grandfather as a merit rather than an
offence. In the meanwhile, the revenue of the kingdom had fallen into a
most disastrous condition. The continued and renewed expense of
unsuccessful wars, the supplying the demands of a luxurious court, the
gratifying hungry courtiers, and enriching needy favourites, had
occasioned large deficits upon the public income of each successive
year. The ministers, meanwhile, anxious to provide for the passing
moment of their own administration, were satisfied to put off the evil
day by borrowing money at heavy interest, and leasing out, in security
of these loans, the various sources of revenue to the farmers-general.
On their part, these financiers used the government as bankrupt
prodigals are treated by usurious money-brokers, who, feeding their
extravagance with the one hand, with the other wring out of their ruined
fortunes the most unreasonable recompense for their advances. By a long
succession of these ruinous loans, and the various rights granted to
guarantee them, the whole finances of France appear to have fallen into
total confusion, and presented an inextricable chaos to those who
endeavoured to bring them into order. The farmers-general, therefore,
however obnoxious to the people, who considered with justice that their
overgrown fortunes were nourished by the life-blood of the community,
continued to be essentially necessary to the state, the expenses of
which they alone could find means of defraying;--thus supporting the
government, although Mirabeau said with truth, it was only in the sense
in which a rope supports a hanged man.
Louis XVI., fully sensible of the disastrous state of the public
revenue, did all he could to contrive a remedy. He limited his personal
expenses, and those of his household, with a rigour which approached to
parsimony, and dimmed the necessary splendour of the throne. He
abolished many pensions, and by doing so not only disobliged those who
were deprived of the instant enjoyment of those gratuities, but lost the
attachment of the much more numerous class of expectants, who served the
court in the hope of obtaining similar gratifications in their
turn.[43] Lastly, he dismissed a very large proportion of his household
troops and body-guards, affording another subject of discontent to the
nobles, out of whose families these corps were recruited, and destroying
with his own hand a force devotedly attached to the royal person, and
which, in the hour of popular fury, would have been a barrier of
inappreciable value. Thus, it was the misfortune of this well-meaning
prince, only to weaken his own cause and endanger his safety, by those
sacrifices intended to relieve the burdens of the people, and supply the
wants of the state.
[Sidenote: ECONOMICAL REFORMS.]
The king adopted a broader and more effectual course of reform, by using
the advice of upright and skilful ministers, to introduce, as far as
possible, some degree of order into the French finances. Turgot,[44]
Malesherbes,[45] and Necker,[46] were persons of unquestionable skill,
of sound views, and undisputed integrity; and although the last-named
minister finally sunk in public esteem, it was only because
circumstances had excited such an extravagant opinion of his powers, as
could not have been met and realized by those of the first financier who
ever lived. These virtuous and patriotic statesmen did all in their
power to keep afloat the vessel of the state, and prevent at least the
increase of the deficit, which now arose yearly on the public accounts.
They, and Necker in particular, introduced economy and retrenchment into
all departments of the revenue, restored the public credit without
increasing the national burdens, and, by obtaining loans on reasonable
terms, were fortunate enough to find funds for the immediate support of
the American war, expensive as it was, without pressing on the patience
of the people by new impositions. Could this state of matters have been
supported for some years, opportunities might in that time have occurred
for adapting the French mode of government to the new lights which the
age afforded. Public opinion, joined to the beneficence of the
sovereign, had already wrought several important and desirable changes.
Many obnoxious and oppressive laws had been expressly abrogated, or
tacitly suffered to become obsolete, and there never sate a king upon
the French or any other throne, more willing than Louis XVI. to
sacrifice his own personal interest and prerogative to whatever seemed
to be the benefit of the state. Even at the very commencement of his
reign, and when obeying only the dictates of his own beneficence, he
reformed the penal code of France, which then savoured of the barbarous
times in which it had originated--he abolished the use of torture--he
restored to freedom those prisoners of state, the mournful inhabitants
of the Bastile, and other fortresses, who had been the victims of his
grandfather's jealousy--the compulsory labour called the _corvée_,[47]
levied from the peasantry, and one principal source of popular
discontent, had been abolished in some provinces and modified in
others--and while the police was under the regulation of the sage and
virtuous Malesherbes, its arbitrary powers had been seldom so exercised
as to become the subject of complaint. In short, the monarch partook the
influence of public opinion along with his subjects, and there seemed
just reason to hope, that, had times remained moderate, the monarchy of
France might have been reformed instead of being destroyed.
Unhappily, convulsions of the state became from day to day more violent,
and Louis XVI., who possessed the benevolence and good intentions of his
ancestor, Henry IV., wanted his military talents, and his political
firmness. In consequence of this deficiency, the king suffered himself
to be distracted by a variety of counsels; and vacillating, as all must
who act more from a general desire to do that which is right, than upon
any determined and well-considered system, he placed his power and his
character at the mercy of the changeful course of events, which firmness
might have at least combated, if it could not control. But it is
remarkable, that Louis resembled Charles I. of England more than any of
his own ancestors, in a want of self-confidence, which led to frequent
alterations of mind and changes of measures, as well as in a tendency to
uxoriousness, which enabled both Henrietta Marie, and Marie Antoinette,
to use a fatal influence upon their counsels. Both sovereigns fell under
the same suspicion of being deceitful and insincere, when perhaps
Charles, but certainly Louis, only changed his course of conduct from a
change of his own opinion, or from suffering himself to be
over-persuaded, and deferring to the sentiments of others.
Few monarchs of any country, certainly, have changed their ministry, and
with their ministry their counsels and measures, so often as Louis XVI.;
and with this unhappy consequence, that he neither persevered in a firm
and severe course of government long enough to inspire respect, nor in a
conciliatory and yielding policy for a sufficient time to propitiate
regard and confidence. It is with regret we notice this imperfection in
a character otherwise so excellent; but it was one of the leading causes
of the Revolution, that a prince, possessed of power too great to be
either kept or resigned with safety, hesitated between the natural
resolution to defend his hereditary prerogative, and the sense of
justice which induced him to restore such part of it as had been usurped
from the people by his ancestors. By adhering to the one course, he
might have been the conqueror of the Revolution; by adopting the other,
he had a chance to be its guide and governor; by hesitating between
them, he became its victim.
It was in consequence of this vacillation of purpose that Louis, in
1781, sacrificed Turgot and Necker to the intrigues of the court. These
statesmen had formed a plan for new-modelling the financial part of the
French monarchy, which, while it should gratify the people by admitting
representatives on their part to some influence in the imposition of new
taxes, might have released the king from the interference of the
parliaments, (whose office of remonstrance, although valuable as a
shelter from despotism, was often arbitrarily, and even factiously
exercised,) and have transferred to the direct representatives of the
people that superintendence, which ought never to have been in other
hands.
For this purpose the ministers proposed to institute, in the several
provinces of France, convocations of a representative nature, one-half
of whom was to be chosen from the Commons, or Third Estate, and the
other named by the nobles and clergy in equal proportions, and which
assemblies, without having the right of rejecting the edicts imposing
new taxes, were to apportion them amongst the subjects of their several
provinces. This system contained in it much that was excellent, and
might have opened the road for further improvements on the constitution;
while, at the same time, it would probably, so early as 1781, have been
received as a boon, by which the subjects were called to participate in
the royal counsels, rather than as a concession extracted from the
weakness of the sovereign, or from his despair of his own resources. It
afforded also an opportunity, peculiarly desirable in France, of forming
the minds of the people to the discharge of public duty. The British
nation owe much of the practical benefits of their constitution to the
habits with which almost all men are trained to exercise some public
right in head-courts, vestries, and other deliberative bodies, where
their minds are habituated to the course of business, and accustomed to
the manner in which it can be most regularly despatched. This advantage
would have been supplied to the French by Necker's scheme.
But with all the advantages which it promised, this plan of provincial
assemblies miscarried, owing to the emulous opposition of the Parliament
of Paris, who did not choose that any other body than their own should
be considered as the guardians of what remained in France of popular
rights.
[Sidenote: NECKER'S COMPTE RENDU.]
Another measure of Necker was of more dubious policy. This was the
printing and publishing of his Report to the Sovereign of the state of
the revenues of France. The minister probably thought this display of
candour, which, however proper in itself, was hitherto unknown in the
French administration, might be useful to the King, whom it represented
as acquiescing in public opinion, and appearing not only ready, but
solicitous, to collect the sentiments of his subjects on the business of
the state. Necker might also deem the _Compte Rendu_ a prudent measure
on his own account, to secure the popular favour, and maintain himself
by the public esteem against the influence of court intrigue. Or lastly,
both these motives might be mingled with the natural vanity of showing
the world that France enjoyed, in the person of Necker, a minister bold
enough to penetrate into the labyrinth of confusion and obscurity which
had been thought inextricable by all his predecessors, and was at length
enabled to render to the sovereign and the people a detailed and
balanced account of the state of their finances.
Neither did the result of the national balance-sheet appear so
astounding as to require its being concealed as a state mystery. The
deficit, or the balance, by which the expenses of government exceeded
the revenue of the country, by no means indicated a desperate state of
finance, or one which must either demand immense sacrifices, or
otherwise lead to national bankruptcy. It did not greatly exceed the
annual defalcation of two millions, a sum which, to a country so fertile
as France, might even be termed trifling. At the same time, Necker
brought forward a variety of reductions and economical arrangements, by
which he proposed to provide for this deficiency, without either
incurring debt or burdening the subject with additional taxes.
But although this general exposure of the expenses of the state, this
appeal from the government to the people, had the air of a frank and
generous proceeding, and was, in fact, a step to the great
constitutional point of establishing in the nation and its
representatives the sole power of granting supplies, there may be doubt
whether it was not rather too hastily resorted to. Those from whose eyes
the cataract has been removed, are for some time deprived of light, and
in the end, it is supplied to them by limited degrees; but that glare
which was at once poured on the nation of France, served to dazzle as
many as it illuminated. The _Compte Rendu_ was the general subject of
conversation, not only in coffee-houses and public promenades, but in
saloons and ladies' boudoirs, and amongst society better qualified to
discuss the merits of the last comedy, or any other frivolity of the
day. The very array of figures had something ominous and terrible in it,
and the word _deficit_ was used, like the name of Marlborough of old, to
frighten children with.
To most it intimated the total bankruptcy of the nation, and prepared
many to act with the selfish and shortsighted license of sailors, who
plunder the cargo of their own vessel in the act of shipwreck. Others
saw, in the account of expenses attached to the person and dignity of
the prince, a wasteful expenditure, which, in that hour of avowed
necessity, a nation might well dispense with. Men began to number the
guards and household pomp of the sovereign and his court, as the
daughters of Lear did the train of their father. The reduction already
commenced might be carried, thought these provident persons, yet
farther:--
"What needs he five-and-twenty, ten, or five?"
And no doubt some, even at this early period, arrived at the ultimate
conclusion,
"What needs ONE?"
Besides the domestic and household expenses of the sovereign, which, so
far as personal, were on the most moderate scale, the public mind was
much more justly revolted at the large sum yearly squandered among needy
courtiers and their dependents, or even less justifiably lavished upon
those whose rank and fortune ought to have placed them far above adding
to the burdens of the subjects. The king had endeavoured to abridge this
list of gratuities and pensions, but the system of corruption which had
prevailed for two centuries, was not to be abolished in an instant; the
throne, already tottering, could not immediately be deprived of the band
of stipendiary grandees whom it had so long maintained, and who afforded
it their countenance in return, and it was perhaps impolitic to fix the
attention of the public on a disclosure so peculiarly invidious, until
the opportunity of correcting it should arrive;--it was like the
disclosure of a wasting sore, useless and disgusting unless when shown
to a surgeon, and for the purpose of cure. Yet, though the account
rendered by the minister of the finances, while it passed from the hand
of one idler to another, and occupied on sofas and toilettes the place
of the latest novel, did doubtless engage giddy heads in vain and
dangerous speculation, something was to be risked in order to pave the
way of regaining for the French subjects the right most essential to
freemen, that of granting or refusing their own supplies. The publicity
of the distressed state of the finances, induced a general conviction
that the oppressive system of taxation could only be removed, and that
approaching bankruptcy, which was a still greater evil, avoided, by
resorting to the nation itself, convoked in their ancient form of
representation, which was called the States-General.
It was true that, through length of time, the nature and powers of this
body were forgotten, if indeed they had ever been very thoroughly fixed:
and it was also true, that the constitution of the States-General of
1614, which was the last date of their being assembled, was not likely
to suit a period when the country was so much changed, both in
character and circumstances. The doubts concerning the composition of
the medicine, and its probable effects, seldom abate the patient's
confidence. All joined in desiring the convocation of this
representative body, and all expected that such an assembly would be
able to find some satisfactory remedy for the pressing evils of the
state. The cry was general, and, as usual in such cases, few who joined
in it knew exactly what it was they wanted.
[Sidenote: TIERS ETAT.]
Looking back on the period of 1780, with the advantage of our own
experience, it is possible to see a chance, though perhaps a doubtful
one, of avoiding the universal shipwreck which was fated to ensue. If
the royal government, determining to gratify the general wish, had taken
the initiative in conceding the great national measure as a boon flowing
from the prince's pure good-will and love of his subjects, and if
measures had been taken rapidly and decisively to secure seats in these
bodies, but particularly in the Tiers Etat, to men known for their
moderation and adherence to the monarchy, it seems probable that the
crown might have secured such an interest, in a body of its own
creation, as would have silenced the attempts of any heated spirits to
hurry the kingdom into absolute revolution. The reverence paid to the
throne for so many centuries, had yet all the influence of unassailed
sanctity; the king was still the master of an army, commanded under him
by his nobles, and as yet animated by the spirit of loyalty, which is
the natural attribute of the military profession; the minds of men were
not warmed at once, and wearied, by a fruitless and chicaning delay,
which only showed the extreme indisposition of the court to grant what
they had no means of ultimately refusing; nor had public opinion yet
been agitated by the bold discussions of a thousand pamphleteers, who,
under pretence of enlightening the people, prepossessed their minds with
the most extreme ideas of the popular character of the representation of
the Tiers Etat, and its superiority over every other power of the state.
Ambitious and unscrupulous men would then hardly have had the time or
boldness to form those audacious pretensions which their ancestors
dreamed not of, and which the course of six or seven years of protracted
expectation, and successive renewals of hope, succeeded by
disappointment, enabled them to mature.
Such a fatal interval, however, was suffered to intervene, between the
first idea of convoking the States-General, and the period when that
measure became inevitable. Without this delay, the king, invested with
all his royal prerogatives, and at the head of the military force, might
have surrendered with a good grace such parts of his power as were
inconsistent with the liberal opinions of the time, and such surrender
must have been received as a grace, since it could not have been exacted
as a sacrifice. The conduct of the government, in the interim, towards
the nation whose representatives it was shortly to meet, resembled that
of an insane person, who should by a hundred teazing and vexatious
insults irritate into frenzy the lion, whose cage he was about to open,
and to whose fury he must necessarily be exposed.
[Sidenote: STATE OF THE REVENUE.]
Necker, whose undoubted honesty, as well as his republican candour, had
rendered him highly popular, had, under the influence of the old
intriguer Maurepas, been dismissed from his office as minister of
finance, in 1781. The witty, versatile, selfish, and cunning Maurepas,
had the art to hold his power till the last moment of his long life, and
died at the moment when the knell of death was a summons to call him
from impending ruin.[48] He made, according to an expressive northern
proverb, the "day and way alike long;" and died just about the period
when the system of evasion and palliation, of usurious loans and lavish
bounties, could scarce have served longer to save him from disgrace.
Vergennes,[49] who succeeded him, was, like himself, a courtier rather
than a statesman; more studious to preserve his own power, by continuing
the same system of partial expedients and temporary shifts, than willing
to hazard the king's favour, or the popularity of his administration, by
attempting any scheme of permanent utility or general reformation.
Calonne,[50] the minister of finance, who had succeeded to that office
after the brief administrations of Fleury and d'Ormesson, called on by
his duty to the most difficult and embarrassing branch of government,
was possessed of a more comprehensive genius, and more determined
courage, than his principal Vergennes. So early as the year 1784, the
deficiency betwixt the receipts of the whole revenues of the state, and
the expenditure, extended to six hundred and eighty-four millions of
livres, in British money about equal to twenty-eight millions four
hundred thousand pounds sterling; but then a certain large portion of
this debt consisted in annuities granted by government, which were
annually in the train of being extinguished by the death of the holders;
and there was ample room for saving, in the mode of collecting the
various taxes. So that large as the sum of deficit appeared, it could
not have been very formidable, considering the resources of so rich a
country; but it was necessary, that the pressure of new burdens, to be
imposed at this exigence, should be equally divided amongst the orders
of the state. The Third Estate, or Commons, had been exhausted under the
weight of taxes, which fell upon them alone, and Calonne formed the bold
and laudable design of compelling the clergy and nobles, hitherto
exempted from taxation, to contribute their share to the revenues of the
state.
This, however, was, in the present state of the public, too bold a
scheme to be carried into execution without the support of something
resembling a popular representation. At this crisis, again might Louis
have summoned the States-General, with some chance of uniting their
suffrages with the wishes of the Crown. The King would have found
himself in a natural alliance with the Commons, in a plan to abridge
those immunities, which the Clergy and Nobles possessed, to the
prejudice of The Third Estate. He would thus, in the outset at least,
have united the influence and interests of the Crown with those of the
popular party, and established something like a balance in the
representative body, in which the Throne must have had considerable
weight.
Apparently, Calonne and his principal Vergennes were afraid to take this
manly and direct course, as indeed the ministers of an arbitrary monarch
can rarely be supposed willing to call in the aid of a body of popular
representatives. The ministers endeavoured, therefore, to supply the
want of a body like the States-General, by summoning together an
assembly of what was termed the Notables, or principal persons in the
kingdom. This was in every sense an unadvised measure.[51] With
something resembling the form of a great national council, the Notables
had no right to represent the nation, neither did it come within their
province to pass any resolution whatever. Their post was merely that of
an extraordinary body of counsellors, who deliberated on any subject
which the King might submit to their consideration, and were to express
their opinion in answer to the Sovereign's interrogatories; but an
assembly, which could only start opinions and debate upon them, without
coming to any effective or potential decision, was a fatal resource at a
crisis when decision was peremptorily necessary, and when all vague and
irrelevant discussion was, as at a moment of national fermentation, to
be cautiously avoided. Above all, there was this great error in having
recourse to the Assembly of the Notables, that, consisting entirely of
the privileged orders, the council was composed of the individuals most
inimical to the equality of taxes, and most tenacious of those very
immunities which were struck at by the scheme of the minister of
finance.
Calonne found himself opposed at every point and received from the
Notables remonstrances instead of support and countenance. That Assembly
censuring all his plans, and rejecting his proposals, he was in their
presence like a rash necromancer, who has been indeed able to raise a
demon, but is unequal to the task of guiding him when evoked. He was
further weakened by the death of Vergennes, and finally obliged to
resign his place and his country, a sacrifice at once to court intrigue
and popular odium. Had this able but rash minister convoked the
States-General instead of the Notables, he would have been at least sure
of the support of the Third Estate, or Commons; and, allied with them,
might have carried through so popular a scheme, as that which went to
establish taxation upon a just and equal principle, affecting the rich
as well as the poor, the proud prelate and wealthy noble, as well as the
industrious cultivator of the soil.
Calonne having retired to England from popular hatred, his perilous
office devolved upon the Archbishop of Sens, afterwards the Cardinal de
Loménie,[52] who was raised to the painful pre-eminence [May] by the
interest of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, whose excellent qualities
were connected with a spirit of state-intrigue, proper to the sex in
such elevated situations, which but too frequently thwarted or bore down
the more candid intentions of her husband, and tended, though on her
part unwittingly, to give his public measures, sometimes adopted on his
own principles, and sometimes influenced by her intrigues and
solicitations, an appearance of vacillation, and even of duplicity,
which greatly injured them both in the public opinion. The new minister
finding it as difficult to deal with the Assembly of Notables as his
predecessor, the King finally dissolved that body, without having
received from them either the countenance or good counsel which had been
expected; thus realizing the opinion expressed by Voltaire concerning
such convocations:
"De tous ces Etats l'effet le plus commun,
Est de voir tous nos maux, sans en soulager un."[53]
[Sidenote: BED OF JUSTICE.]
After dismission of the Notables, the minister adopted or recommended a
line of conduct so fluctuating and indecisive, so violent at one time in
support of the royal prerogative, and so pusillanimous when he
encountered resistance from the newly-awakened spirit of liberty, that
had he been bribed to render the crown at once odious and contemptible,
or to engage his master in a line of conduct which should irritate the
courageous, and encourage the timid, among his dissatisfied subjects,
the Archbishop of Sens could hardly, after the deepest thought, have
adopted measures better adapted for such a purpose. As if determined to
bring matters to an issue betwixt the King and the Parliament of Paris,
he laid before the latter two new edicts for taxes,[54] similar in most
respects to those which had been recommended by his predecessor Calonne
to the Notables. The Parliament refused to register these edicts, being
the course which the minister ought to have expected. He then resolved
upon a display of the royal prerogative in its most arbitrary and
obnoxious form. A Bed of Justice,[55] as it was termed, was held, [Aug.
6,] where the King, presiding in person over the Court of Parliament,
commanded the edicts imposing certain new taxes to be registered in his
own presence; thus, by an act of authority emanating directly from the
Sovereign, beating down the only species of opposition which the
subjects, through any organ whatever, could offer to the increase of
taxation.
The Parliament yielded the semblance of a momentary obedience, but
protested solemnly, that the edict having been registered solely by the
royal command, and against their unanimous opinion, should not have the
force of a law. They remonstrated also to the Throne in terms of great
freedom and energy, distinctly intimating, that they could not and would
not be the passive instruments, through the medium of whom the public
was to be loaded with new impositions; and they expressed, for the first
time, in direct terms, the proposition, fraught with the fate of France,
that neither the edicts of the King, nor the registration of those
edicts by the Parliament, were sufficient to impose permanent burdens on
the people; but such taxation was competent to the States-General
only.[56]
In punishment of their undaunted defence of the popular cause, the
Parliament was banished to Troyes; the government thus increasing the
national discontent by the removal of the principal court of the
kingdom, and by all the evils incident to a delay of public justice. The
Provincial Parliaments supported the principles adopted by their
brethren of Paris. The Chamber of Accounts, and the Court of Aids, the
judicial establishments next in rank to that of the Parliament, also
remonstrated against the taxes, and refused to enforce them. They were
not enforced accordingly; and thus, for the first time, during two
centuries at least, the royal authority of France being brought into
direct collision with public opinion and resistance, was, by the energy
of the subject, compelled to retrograde and yield ground. This was the
first direct and immediate movement of that mighty Revolution, which
afterwards rushed to its crisis like a rock rolling down a mountain.
This was the first torch which was actually applied to the various
combustibles which lay scattered through France, and which we have
endeavoured to analyze. The flame soon spread into the provinces. The
nobles of Brittany broke out into a kind of insurrection; the Parliament
of Grenoble impugned, by a solemn decree, the legality of _lettres de
cachet_. Strange and alarming fears,--wild and boundless
hopes,--inconsistent rumours,--a vague expectation of impending
events,--all contributed to agitate the public mind. The quick and
mercurial tempers which chiefly distinguish the nation, were half
maddened with suspense, while even the dull nature of the lowest and
most degraded of the community felt the coming impulse of extraordinary
changes, as cattle are observed to be disturbed before an approaching
thunder-storm.
The minister could not sustain his courage in such a menacing
conjuncture, yet unhappily attempted a show of resistance, instead of
leaving the King to the influence of his own sound sense and excellent
disposition, which always induced him to choose the means of
conciliation. There was indeed but one choice, and it lay betwixt civil
war or concession. A despot would have adopted the former course, and,
withdrawing from Paris, would have gathered around him the army still
his own. A patriotic monarch--and such was Louis XVI. when exercising
his own judgment--would have chosen the road of concession; yet his
steps, even in retreating, would have been so firm, and his attitude so
manly, that the people would not have ventured to ascribe to fear what
flowed solely from a spirit of conciliation. But the conduct of the
minister, or of those who directed his motions, was an alternation of
irritating opposition to the public voice, and of ill-timed submission
to its demands, which implied an understanding impaired by the perils of
the conjuncture, and unequal alike to the task of avoiding them by
concession, or resisting them with courage.
The King, indeed, recalled the Parliament of Paris from their exile,
coming, at the same time, under an express engagement to convoke the
States-General, and leading the subjects, of course, to suppose that the
new imposts were to be left to their consideration. But, as if to
irritate men's minds, by showing a desire to elude the execution of what
had been promised, the minister ventured, in an evil hour, to hazard
another experiment upon the firmness of their nerves, and again to
commit the dignity of the sovereign by bringing him personally to issue
a command, which experience had shown the Parliament were previously
resolved to disobey. By this new proceeding, the King was induced to
hold what was called a Royal Sitting of the Parliament, which resembled
in all its forms a Bed of Justice, except that it seems as if the
commands of the monarch were esteemed less authoritative when so issued,
than when they were, as on the former occasion, delivered in this last
obnoxious assembly.
Thus, at less advantage than before, and, at all events, after the total
failure of a former experiment, the King, arrayed in all the forms of
his royalty, once more, and for the last time, convoked his Parliament
in person; and again with his own voice commanded the court to register
a royal edict for a loan of four hundred and twenty millions of francs,
to be raised in the course of five years. This demand gave occasion to a
debate which lasted nine hours, and was only closed by the King rising
up, and issuing at length his positive and imperative orders that the
loan should be registered. To the astonishment of the meeting, the first
prince of the blood, the Duke of Orleans, arose, as if in reply, and
demanded to know if they were assembled in a Bed of Justice or a Royal
Sitting; and receiving for answer that the latter was the quality of the
meeting, he entered a solemn protest against the proceedings. [Nov. 19.]
Thus was the authority of the King once more brought in direct
opposition to the assertors of the rights of the people, as if on
purpose to show, in the face of the whole nation, that its terrors were
only those of a phantom, whose shadowy bulk might overawe the timid, but
could offer no real cause of fear when courageously opposed.
The minister did not, however, give way without such an ineffectual
struggle, as at once showed the weakness of the royal authority, and the
willingness to wield it with the despotic sway of former times. Two
members of the Parliament of Paris[57] were imprisoned in remote
fortresses, and the Duke of Orleans was sent in exile to his estate.
A long and animated exchange of remonstrances followed betwixt the King
and the Parliament, in which the former acknowledged his weakness, even
by entering into the discussion of his prerogative; as well as by the
concessions he found himself obliged to tender. Meantime, the Archbishop
of Sens nourished the romantic idea of getting rid of these refractory
courts entirely, and at the same time to evade the convocation of the
States-General, substituting in their place the erection of a
_Cour-plénière_, or ancient Feudal Court, composed of princes, peers,
marshals of France, deputies from the provinces, and other distinguished
persons, who should in future exercise all the higher and nobler duties
of the Parliaments, thus reduced to their original and proper duties as
courts of justice.[58] But a court, or council of the ancient feudal
times, with so slight an infusion of popular representation, could in no
shape have accorded with the ideas which now generally prevailed; and so
much was this felt to be the case, that many of the peers, and other
persons nominated members of the _Cour-plénière_, declined the seats
proposed to them, and the whole plan fell to the ground.
[Sidenote: RIOTS AND INSURRECTIONS.]
Meantime, violence succeeded to violence, and remonstrance to
remonstrance. The Parliament of Paris, and all the provincial bodies of
the same description, being suspended from their functions, and the
course of regular justice of course interrupted, the spirit of revolt
became general through the realm, and broke out in riots and
insurrections of a formidable description; while, at the same time, the
inhabitants of the capital were observed to become dreadfully agitated.
There wanted not writers to fan the rising discontent; and, what seems
more singular, they were permitted to do so without interruption,
notwithstanding the deepened jealousy with which free discussion was now
regarded in France. Libels and satires of every description were
publicly circulated, without an attempt on the part of the government to
suppress the publications, or to punish their authors, although the most
scandalous attacks on the royal family, and on the queen in particular,
were dispersed along with these political effusions. It seemed as if the
arm of power was paralyzed, and the bonds of authority which had so long
fettered the French people were falling asunder of themselves; for the
liberty of the press, so long unknown was now openly assumed and
exercised, without the government daring to interfere.[59]
To conclude the picture, as if God and man had alike determined the fall
of this ancient monarchy, a hurricane of most portentous and unusual
character burst on the kingdom, and laying waste the promised harvest
far and wide, showed to the terrified inhabitants the prospect at once
of poverty and famine, added to those of national bankruptcy and a
distracted government.[60]
The latter evils seemed fast advancing; for the state of the finances
became so utterly desperate, that Louis was under the necessity of
stopping a large proportion of the treasury payments, and issuing bills
for the deficiency. At this awful crisis, fearing for the King, and more
for himself, the Archbishop of Sens retired from administration,[61] and
left the monarch, while bankruptcy and famine threatened the kingdom, to
manage as he might, amid the storms which the measures of the minister
himself had provoked to the uttermost.
[Sidenote: STATES-GENERAL CONVOKED.]
A new premier, and a total alteration of measures were to be resorted
to, while Necker, the popular favourite, called to the helm of the
state, regretted, with bitter anticipation of misfortune, the time which
had been worse than wasted under the rule of the archbishop, who had
employed it in augmenting the enemies and diminishing the resources of
the crown, and forcing the King on such measures as caused the royal
authority to be generally regarded as the common enemy of all ranks of
the kingdom.[62] To redeem the royal pledge by convoking the
States-General, seemed to Necker the most fair as well as most politic
proceeding; and indeed this afforded the only chance of once more
reconciling the prince with the people, though it was now yielding that
to a demand, which two years before would have been received as a boon.
We have already observed that the constitution of this assembly of
national representatives was little understood, though the phrase was in
the mouth of every one. It was to be the panacea to the disorders of the
nation, yet men knew imperfectly the mode of composing this universal
medicine, or the manner of its operation. Or rather, the people of
France invoked the assistance of this national council, as they would
have done that of a tutelary angel, with full confidence in his power
and benevolence, though they neither knew the form in which he might
appear, nor the nature of the miracles which he was to perform in their
behalf. It has been strongly objected to Necker, that he neglected, on
the part of the crown, to take the initiative line of conduct on this
important occasion, and it has been urged that it was the minister's
duty, without making any question or permitting any doubt, to assume
that mode of convening the states, and regulating them when assembled,
which should best tend to secure the tottering influence of his master.
But Necker probably thought the time was past in which this power might
have been assumed by the crown without exciting jealousy or opposition.
The royal authority, he might recollect, had been of late years
repeatedly strained, until it had repeatedly given way, and the issue,
first of the Bed of Justice, and then of the Royal Sitting, was
sufficient to show that words of authority would be wasted in vain upon
disobedient ears, and might only excite a resistance which would prove
its own lack of power. It was, therefore, advisable not to trust to the
unaided exercise of prerogative, but to strengthen instead the
regulations which might be adopted for the constitution of the
States-General, by the approbation of some public body independent of
the King and his ministers. And with this purpose, Necker convened a
second meeting of the Notables, [November,] and laid before them, for
their consideration, his plan for the constitution of the
States-General.
There were two great points submitted to this body, concerning the
constitution of the States-General. I. In what proportion the deputies
of the Three Estates should be represented? II. Whether, when assembled,
the Nobles, Clergy, and Third Estate, or Commons, should act separately
as distinct chambers, or sit and vote as one united body?
[Sidenote: THE TIERS ETAT.]
Necker, a minister of an honest and candid disposition, a republican
also, and therefore on principle a respecter of public opinion,
unhappily did not recollect, that to be well-formed and accurate, public
opinion should be founded on the authority of men of talents and
integrity; and that the popular mind must be pre-occupied by arguments
of a sound and virtuous tendency, else the enemy will sow tares, and the
public will receive it in the absence of more wholesome grain. Perhaps,
also, this minister found himself less in his element when treating of
state affairs, than while acting in his proper capacity as a financier.
However that may be, Necker's conduct resembled that of an unresolved
general, who directs his movements by the report of a council of war. He
did not sufficiently perceive the necessity that the measures to be
taken should originate with himself rather than arise from the
suggestion of others, and did not, therefore, avail himself of his
situation and high popularity, to recommend such general preliminary
arrangements as might preserve the influence of the crown in the
States-General, without encroaching on the rights of the subject. The
silence of Necker leaving all in doubt, and open to discussion, those
arguments had most weight with the public which ascribed most importance
to the Third Estate. The talents of the Nobles and Clergy might be
considered as having been already in vain appealed to in the two
sessions of the Notables, an assembly composed chiefly out of the
privileged classes, and whose advice and opinion had been given without
producing any corresponding good effect. The Parliament had declared
themselves incompetent to the measures necessary for the exigencies of
the kingdom. The course adopted by the King indicated doubt and
uncertainty, if not incapacity. The Tiers Etat, therefore, was the body
of counsellors to whom the nation looked at this critical conjuncture.
"What is the Tiers Etat?" formed the title of a pamphlet by the Abbé
Siêyes; and the answer returned by the author was such as augmented all
the magnificent ideas already floating in men's minds concerning the
importance of this order. "The Tiers Etat," said he, "comprehends the
whole nation of France, excepting only the nobles and clergy." This view
of the matter was so far successful, that the Notables recommended that
the Commons, or Third Estate, should have a body of representatives
equal to those of the nobles and the clergy united, and should thus
form, in point of relative numbers, the moiety of the whole delegates.
This, however, would have been comparatively of small importance, had it
been determined that the three estates were to sit, deliberate, and
vote, not as a united body, but in three several chambers.
Necker conceded to the Tiers Etat the right of double representation,
but seemed prepared to maintain the ancient order of debating and voting
by separate chambers. The crown had been already worsted by the rising
spirit of the country in every attempt which it had made to stand
through its own unassisted strength; and torn as the bodies of the
clergy and nobles were by internal dissensions, and weakened by the
degree of popular odium with which they were loaded, it would have
required an artful consolidation of their force, and an intimate union
betwixt them and the crown, to maintain a balance against the popular
claims of the Commons, likely to be at once so boldly urged by
themselves, and so favourably viewed by the nation. All this was,
however, left, in a great measure, to accident, while every chance was
against its being arranged in the way most advantageous to the monarchy.
The minister ought also in policy to have paved the way, for securing a
party in the Third Estate itself, which should bear some character of
royalism. This might doubtless have been done by the usual ministerial
arts of influencing elections, or gaining over to the crown-interests
some of the many men of talents, who, determined to raise themselves in
this new world, had not yet settled to which side they were to give
their support. But Necker, less acquainted with men than with
mathematics, imagined that every member had intelligence enough to see
the measures best calculated for the public good, and virtue enough to
follow them faithfully and exclusively. It was in vain that the Marquis
de Bouillé[63] pointed out the dangers arising from the constitution
assigned to the States-General, and insisted that the minister was
arming the popular part of the nation against the two privileged orders,
and that the latter would soon experience the effects of their hatred,
animated by self-interest and vanity, the most active passions of
mankind. Necker calmly replied, that there was a necessary reliance to
be placed on the virtues of the human heart;--the maxim of a worthy man,
but not of an enlightened statesman,[64] who has but too much reason to
know how often both the virtues and the prudence of human nature are
surmounted by its prejudices and passions.[65]
It was in this state of doubt, and total want of preparation, that the
King was to meet the representatives of the people, whose elections had
been trusted entirely to chance, without even an attempt to influence
them in favour of the most eligible persons. Yet surely the crown,
hitherto almost the sole acknowledged authority in France, should have
been provided with supporters in the new authority which was to be
assembled. At least the minister might have been prepared with some
system or plan of proceeding, upon which this most important convention
was to conduct its deliberations; but there was not even an attempt to
take up the reins which were floating on the necks of those who were for
the first time harnessed to the chariot of the state. All was
expectation, mere vague and unauthorised hope, that in this multitude of
counsellors there would be found safety.[66]
Hitherto we have described the silent and smooth, but swift and
powerful, stream of innovation, as it rolled on to the edge of the sheer
precipice. We are now to view the precipitate tumult and terrors of the
cataract.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] When Buonaparte expressed much regret and anxiety on account of the
assassination of the Emperor Paul, he was comforted by Fouché with words
to the following effect:--"Que voulez vous enfin? C'est une mode de
destitution propre à ce pais-là!"--S.
[43] Louis XV. had the arts if not the virtues of a monarch. He asked
one of his ministers what he supposed might be the price of the carriage
in which they were sitting. The minister, making a great allowance for
the monarch's paying _en prince_, yet guessed within two-thirds less
than the real sum. When the king named the actual price, the statesman
exclaimed, but the monarch cut him short. "Do not attempt," he said, "to
reform the expenses of my household. There are too many, and too great
men, who have their share in that extortion, and to make a reformation
would give too much discontent. No minister can attempt it with success
or with safety." This is the picture of the waste attending a despotic
government: the cup which is filled to the very brim cannot be lifted to
the lips without wasting the contents.--S.
[44] Turgot was born at Paris in 1727. Called to the head of the
Finances in 1774, he excited the jealousy of the courtiers by his
reforms, and of the parliaments by the abolition of the corvées. Beset
on all sides, Louis, in 1776, dismissed him, observing at the same time,
that "Turgot, and he alone, loved the people." Malesherbes said of him,
that "he had the head of Bacon, and the heart of L'Hopital." He died in
1781.
[45] Malesherbes, the descendant of an illustrious family, was born at
Paris in 1721. When Louis the Sixteenth ascended the throne, he was
appointed minister of the interior, which he resigned on the retirement
of his friend Turgot. He was called back into public life, at the crisis
of the Revolution, to be the legal defender of his sovereign; but his
pleadings only procured for himself the honour of perishing on the same
scaffold in 1794, together with his daughter and grand-daughter.
[46] Necker was born at Geneva in 1732; he married, in 1764,
Mademoiselle Curchod, the early object of Gibbon's affection, and by her
had the daughter so celebrated as the Baroness de Staël Holstein. M.
Necker settled in Paris, rose into high reputation as a banker, and was
first called to office under the government in 1776. He died in 1804.
[47] The corvées, or burdens imposed for the maintenance of the public
roads, were bitterly complained of by the farmers. This iniquitous part
of the financial system was abolished in 1774, by Turgot.
[48] Maurepas was born in 1701. "At the age of eighty, he presented to
the world the ridiculous spectacle of caducity affecting the frivolity
of youth, and employed that time in penning a sonnet which would more
properly have been devoted to correcting a despatch, or preparing an
armament." He died in 1781.--See LACRETELLE, tom. v., p. 8.
[49] The Count de Vergennes was born at Dijon in 1717. He died in 1787,
greatly regretted by Louis, who was impressed by the conviction that,
had his life been prolonged, the Revolution would not have taken place.
[50] Calonne was born at Douay in 1734. After being an exile in England,
and other parts of Europe, he died at Paris in 1802.
[51] They were summoned on 29th December, 1786, and met on 22d February
of the subsequent year.--S.
[52] M. Loménie de Brienne was born at Paris in 1727. On being appointed
Prime Minister, he was made Archbishop of Sens, and on retiring from
office, in 1788, he obtained a cardinal's hat. He died in prison in
1794.
[53]
Such Convocations all our ills descry,
And promise much, but no true cure apply.
[54] Viz., One on timber, and one on territorial possessions.--See
THIERS, vol. i., p. 14.
[55] "Lit de Justice"--the throne upon which the King was seated when he
went to the Parliament.
[56] Mignet, Hist. de la Rev. Française, tom. i., p. 21.
[57] Freteau and Sabatier. They were banished to the Hières. In 1794,
Freteau was sent to the guillotine by Robespierre.
[58] Mignet, tom. i., p. 22; Thiers, tom. i., p. 19.
[59] De Staël, tom. i., p. 169.
[60] Thiers, tom. i., p. 37.
[61] 25th August, 1788. The archbishop fled to Italy with great
expedition, after he had given in his resignation to his unfortunate
sovereign.--See _ante_, p. 50.--S.
[62] When Necker received the intimation of his recall, his first words
were, "Ah! why did they not give me those fifteen months of the
Archbishop of Sens? Now it is too late."--DE STAËL, vol. i., p. 157.
[63] De Bouillé was a native of Auvergne, and a relative of La Fayette.
He died in London, in 1800.
[64] See Mémoires de Bouillé. Madame de Staël herself admits this
deficiency in the character of a father, of whom she was justly
proud.--"Se fiant trop il faut l'avouer, à l'empire de la
raison."--S.--("Confiding, it must be admitted, too much in the power of
reason.")--_Rev. Franç._, tom. i., p. 171.
[65] "The concessions of Necker were the work of a man ignorant of the
first principles of the government of mankind. It was he who overturned
the monarchy, and brought Louis XVI. to the scaffold. Marat, Danton,
Robespierre himself, did less mischief to France: he brought on the
Revolution, which they consummated."--NAPOLEON, as reported by
_Bourrienne_, tom. viii., p. 108.
[66] A _calembourg_ of the period presaged a different result.--"So
numerous a concourse of state-physicians assembled to consult for the
weal of the nation, argued," it was said, "the imminent danger and
approaching death of the patient."--S.