CHAPTER XX.

SHOWING THAT THE REVOLUTION PROCEEDED NATURALLY FROM THE EXISTING

STATE OF FRANCE.

I propose ere I conclude to gather up some of the characteristics which

I have already separately described, and to trace the Revolution,

proceeding as it were of itself from the state of society in France

which I have already pourtrayed.

If it be remembered that in France the Feudal system, though it still

kept unchanged all that could irritate or could injure, had most

effectually lost all that could protect or could be of use, it will

appear less surprising that the Revolution, which was about virtually

to abolish this ancient constitution of Europe, broke forth in France

rather than elsewhere.

If it be observed that the French nobility, after having lost its

ancient political rights, and ceased more than in any other country of

feudal Europe to govern and guide the nation, had, nevertheless, not

only preserved, but considerably enlarged its pecuniary immunities, and

the advantages which the members of this body personally possessed;

that whilst it had become a subordinate class it still remained a

privileged and close body, less and less an aristocracy, as I have said

elsewhere, but more and more a caste; it will be no cause of surprise

that the privileges of such a nobility had become so inexplicable

and so abhorrent to the French people, as to inflame the envy of the

democracy to so fierce a pitch that it is still burning in their hearts.

If, lastly, it be borne in mind that the French nobility, severed

from the middle classes whom they had repelled, and from the people

whose affections they had lost, was thus alone in the midst of the

nation--apparently the head of an army, but in reality a body of

officers without soldiers--it will be understood how that which had

stood erect for a thousand years came to perish in a night.

I have shown how the King’s Government, having abolished the franchises

of the provinces, and having usurped all local powers in three-quarters

of the territory of France, had thus drawn all public affairs into

its own hands, the least as well as the greatest. I have shown, on the

other hand, how, by a necessary consequence, Paris had made itself the

master of the kingdom of which till then it had been the capital, or

rather had itself become the entire country. These two facts, which

were peculiar to France, would alone suffice, if necessary, to explain

why a riot could fundamentally destroy a monarchy which had for ages

endured so many violent convulsions, and which, on the eve of its

dissolution, still seemed unassailable even to those who were about to

overthrow it.

France being one of the states of Europe in which all political life

had been for the longest time and most effectually extinguished, in

which private persons had most lost the usage of business, the habit

of reading the course of events, the experience of popular movements

and almost the notion of the people, it may readily be imagined how

all Frenchmen came at once to fall into a frightful Revolution without

foreseeing it; those who were most threatened by that catastrophe

leading the way, and undertaking to open and widen the path which led

to it.

As there were no longer any free institutions, or consequently any

political classes, no living political bodies, no organised or

disciplined parties, and as, in the absence of all these regular

forces, the direction of public opinion, when public opinion came again

into being, devolved exclusively on the French philosophers, it might

be expected that the Revolution would be directed less with a view to a

particular state of facts, than with reference to abstract principles

and very general theories: it might be anticipated that instead of

endeavouring separately to amend the laws which were bad, all laws

would be attacked, and that an attempt would be made to substitute

for the ancient constitution of France an entirely novel system of

government, conceived by these writers.

The Church being naturally connected with all the old institutions

which were doomed to perish, it could not be doubted that the

Revolution would shake the religion of the country when it overthrew

the civil government; wherefore it was impossible to foretell to what

pitch of extravagance these innovators might rush, delivered at once

from all the restraints which religion, custom, and law impose on the

imagination of mankind.

He who should thus have studied the state of France would easily have

foreseen that no stretch of audacity was too extreme to be attempted

there, and no act of violence too great to be endured. ‘What,’ said

Burke, in one of his eloquent pamphlets, ‘is there not a man who can

answer for the smallest district--nay, more, not one man who can answer

for another? Every one is arrested in his own home without resistance,

whether he be accused of royalism, of _moderantism_, or of anything

else.’ But Mr. Burke knew but little of the condition in which that

monarchy which he regretted had abandoned France to her new masters.

The administration which had preceded the Revolution had deprived the

French both of the means and of the desire of mutual assistance. When

the Revolution arrived, it would have been vain to seek in the greater

part of France for any ten men accustomed to act systematically and

in concert, or to provide for their own defence; the Central Power

had alone assumed that duty, so that when this Central Power had

passed from the hands of the Crown into those of an irresponsible and

sovereign Assembly, and had become as terrible as it had before been

good-natured, nothing stood before it to stop or even to check it for

a moment. The same cause which led the monarchy to fall so easily

rendered everything possible after its fall had occurred.

Never had toleration in religion, never had mildness in authority,

never had humanity and goodwill to mankind been more professed, and, it

seemed, more generally admitted than in the eighteenth century. Even

the rights of war, which is the last refuge of violence, had become

circumscribed and softened. Yet from this relaxed state of manners a

Revolution of unexampled inhumanity was about to spring, though this

softening of the manners of France was not a mere pretence, for no

sooner had the Revolution spent its fury than the same gentleness

immediately pervaded all the laws of the country, and penetrated into

the habits of political society.

This contrast between the benignity of its theories and the violence

of its actions, which was one of the strangest characteristics of the

French Revolution, will surprise no one who has remarked that this

Revolution had been prepared by the most civilised classes of the

nation, and that it was accomplished by the most barbarous and the most

rude. The members of those civilised classes having no pre-existing

bond of union, no habit of acting in concert, no hold upon the people,

the people almost instantly became supreme when the old authorities of

the State were annihilated. Where the people did not actually assume

the government it gave its spirit to those who governed; and if, on the

other hand, it be recollected what the manner of life of that people

had been under the old monarchy, it may readily be surmised what it

would soon become.

Even the peculiarities of its condition had imparted to the French

people several virtues of no common occurrence. Emancipated early, and

long possessed of a part of the soil, isolated rather than dependent,

the French showed themselves at once temperate and proud; sons of

labour, indifferent to the delicacies of life, resigned to its greatest

evils, firm in danger--a simple and manly race who were about to fill

those mighty armies before which Europe was to bow. But the same

cause made them dangerous masters. As they had borne almost alone for

centuries all the burden of public wrongs--as they had lived apart

feeding in silence on their prejudices, their jealousies, and their

hatreds, they had become hardened by the rigour of their destiny, and

capable both of enduring and of inflicting every evil.

Such was the state of the French people when, laying hands on the

government, it undertook to complete the work of the Revolution.

Books had supplied the theory; the people undertook the practical

application, and adapted the conceptions of those writers to the

impulse of their own passions.

Those who have attentively considered, in these pages, the state

of France in the eighteenth century must have remembered the birth

and development of two leading passions, which, however, were not

contemporaneous, and which did not always tend to the same end.

The first, more deeply seated and proceeding from a more remote source,

was the violent and inextinguishable hatred of inequality. This

passion, born and nurtured in presence of the inequality it abhorred,

had long impelled the French with a continuous and irresistible force

to raze to their foundations all that remained of the institutions

of the Middle Ages, and upon the ground thus cleared to construct a

society in which men should be as much alike and their conditions as

equal as human nature admits of.

The second, of a more recent date and a less tenacious root, led them

to desire to live, not only equal but free.

At the period immediately preceding the Revolution of 1789, these two

passions were equally sincere and appeared to be equally intense. At

the outbreak of the Revolution they met and combined; for a moment they

were intimately mingled, they inflamed each other by mutual contact,

and kindled at once the whole heart of France. Such was 1789, a time

of inexperience no doubt, but a time of generosity, of enthusiasm,

of virility, and of greatness--a time of immortal memory, towards

which the eyes of mankind will turn with admiration and respect long

after those who witnessed it and we ourselves shall have disappeared.

Then, indeed, the French were sufficiently proud of their cause

and of themselves to believe that they might be equal in freedom.

Amidst their democratic institutions they therefore everywhere placed

free institutions. Not only did they crush to the dust all that

effete legislation which divided men into castes, corporations, and

classes, and which rendered their rights even more unequal than their

conditions, but they shattered by a single blow those other laws, more

recently imposed by the authority of the Crown, which had deprived the

French nation of the free enjoyment of its own powers, and had placed

by the side of every Frenchman the Government, as his preceptor, his

guardian, and, if need be, his oppressor. Centralisation fell with

absolute government.

But when that vigorous generation, which had commenced the Revolution

was destroyed or enervated, as commonly happens to any generation

which engages in such enterprises--when, following the natural course

of events of this nature, the love of freedom had been damped and

discouraged by anarchy and popular tyranny, and the bewildered nation

began to grope after a master--absolute government found prodigious

facilities for recovering and consolidating its authority, and these

were easily discovered by the genius of the man who was to continue the

Revolution and to destroy it.

France under the old Monarchy had, in fact, contained a whole system

of institutions of modern date, which, not being adverse to social

equality, could easily have found a place in the new state of society,

but which offered remarkable opportunities to despotism. These were

sought for amidst the ruins of all other institutions, and they were

found there. These institutions had formerly given birth to habits,

to passions, and to opinions, which tended to retain men in a state

of division and obedience: and such were the institutions which

were restored and set to work. Centralisation was disentangled from

the ruins and re-established; and as, whilst this system rose once

more, everything by which it had before been limited was destroyed,

from the bowels of that nation which had just overthrown monarchy a

power suddenly came forth more extended, more comprehensive, more

absolute than that which had ever been exercised by any of the French

kings. This enterprise appeared strangely audacious, and its success

unparalleled, because men were thinking of what they saw, and had

forgotten what they had seen. The Dominator fell, but all that was most

substantial in his work remained standing; his government had perished,

but the administration survived; and every time that an attempt has

since been made to strike down absolute power, all that has been done

is to place a head of Liberty on a servile body.

Several times, from the commencement of the Revolution to the present

day, the passion of liberty has been seen in France to expire, to

revive--and then to expire again, again to revive. Thus will it

long be with a passion so inexperienced and ill-directed, so easily

discouraged, alarmed, and vanquished; a passion so superficial and

so transient. During the whole of this period, the passion for

equality has never ceased to occupy that deep-seated place in the

hearts of the French people which it was the first to seize: it

clings to the feelings they cherish most fondly. Whilst the love of

freedom frequently changes its aspect, wanes and waxes, grows or

declines with the course of events, that other passion is still the

same, ever attracted to the same object with the same obstinate and

indiscriminating ardour, ready to make any sacrifice to those who allow

it to sate its desires, and ready to furnish every government which

will favour and flatter it with the habits, the opinions, and the laws

which Despotism requires to enable it to reign.

The French Revolution will ever be wrapped in clouds and darkness to

those who direct their attention to itself alone. The only light that

can illuminate its course must be sought in the times which preceded

it. Without a clear perception of the former society of France, of its

laws, of its defects, of its prejudices, of its littleness, of its

greatness, it is impossible to comprehend what the French have been

doing in the sixty years which have followed its dissolution; but even

this perception will not suffice without penetrating to the very quick

into the character of this nation.

When I consider this people in itself it strikes me as more

extraordinary than any event in its own annals. Was there ever any

nation on the face of the earth so full of contrasts and so extreme in

all its actions; more swayed by sensations, less by principles; led

therefore always to do either worse or better than was expected of

it, sometimes below the common level of humanity, sometimes greatly

above it;--a people so unalterable in its leading instincts, that

its likeness may still be recognised in descriptions written two or

three thousand years ago, but at the same time so mutable in its daily

thoughts and in its tastes as to become a spectacle and an amazement

to itself, and to be as much surprised as the rest of the world at the

sight of what it has done;--a people beyond all others the child of

home and the slave of habit, when left to itself, but when once torn

against its will from the native hearth and from its daily pursuits,

ready to go to the end of the world and to dare all things; indocile by

temperament, yet accepting the arbitrary and even the violent rule of

a sovereign more readily than the free and regular government of the

chief citizen; to-day the declared enemy of all obedience, to-morrow

serving with a sort of passion which the nations best adapted for

servitude cannot attain; guided by a thread as long as no one resists,

ungovernable when the example of resistance has once been given; always

deceiving its masters, who fear it either too little or too much; never

so free that it is hopeless to enslave it, or so enslaved that it may

not break the yoke again; apt for all things but excelling only in war;

adoring chance, force, success, splendour and noise, more than true

glory; more capable of heroism than of virtue, of genius than of good

sense, ready to conceive immense designs rather than to accomplish

great undertakings; the most brilliant and the most dangerous of the

nations of Europe and that best fitted to become by turns an object of

admiration, of hatred, of pity, of terror, but never of indifference!

Such a nation could alone give birth to a Revolution so sudden, so

radical, so impetuous in its course, and yet so full of reactions, of

contradictory incidents and of contrary examples. Without the reasons

I have related the French would never have made the Revolution; but it

must be confessed that all these reasons united would not have sufficed

to account for such a Revolution anywhere else but in France.

I am arrived then at the threshold of this great event. My intention is

not to go beyond it now, though perhaps I may do so hereafter. I shall

then proceed to consider it not only in its causes but in itself, and I

shall venture finally to pass a judgment on the state of society which

it has produced.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

ON THE PAYS D’ÉTATS, AND ESPECIALLY ON THE CONSTITUTIONS OF LANGUEDOC.

It is not my intention minutely to investigate in this place how public

business was carried on in each of the provinces called Pays d’États,

which were still in existence at the outbreak of the Revolution. I wish

only to indicate the number of them; to point out those in which local

life was still most active; to show what were the relations of these

provinces with the administration of the Crown; how far they formed an

exception to the general rules I have previously established; how far

they fell within those rules; and lastly, to show by the example of one

of these provinces what they might all have easily become.

Estates had existed in most of the provinces of France--that is, each

of them had been administered under the King’s government by the

_gens des trois états_, as they were then called, which meant the

representatives of the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Commons. This

provincial constitution, like most of the other political institutions

of the Middle Ages, occurred, with the same features, in almost all the

civilised parts of Europe--in all those parts, at least, into which

Germanic manners and ideas had penetrated. In many of the provinces of

Germany these States subsisted down to the French Revolution; in those

provinces in which they had been previously destroyed they had only

disappeared in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Everywhere, for two hundred years, the sovereigns had carried on a

clandestine or an open warfare against them. Nowhere had they attempted

to improve this institution with the progress of time, but only to

destroy and deform it whenever an opportunity presented itself and when

they could not do worse.

In France, in 1789, these States only existed in five provinces of a

certain extent and in some insignificant districts. Provincial liberty

could, in truth, only be said to exist in two provinces--in Brittany

and in Languedoc: everywhere else the institution had entirely lost its

virility, and was reduced to a mere shadow.

I shall take the case of Languedoc separately, and devote to it in this

place a closer examination.

Languedoc was the most extensive and the most populous of all the

_pays d’états_. It contained more than two thousand parishes, or,

as they were then called, ‘communities,’ and nearly two millions of

inhabitants. It was, besides, the best ordered and the most prosperous

of all these provinces as well as the largest. Languedoc is, therefore,

the fairest specimen of what provincial liberty might be under the old

French monarchy, and to what an extent, even in the districts where it

appeared strongest, it had been subjected to the power of the Crown.

In Languedoc the Estates could only assemble upon the express order

of the King, and under a writ of summons addressed by the King

individually every year to the members of whom they were composed,

which caused one of the malcontents of the time to say, ‘Of the three

bodies composing our Estates, one--that of the clergy--sits at the

nomination of the King, since he names to the bishoprics and benefices;

and the two others may be supposed to be so, since an order of the

Court may prevent any member it pleases from attending the Assembly,

and this without exiling or prosecuting him, by merely not summoning

him.’

The Estates were not only to meet, but to be prorogued on certain days

appointed by the King. The customary duration of their session had been

fixed at forty days by an Order in Council. The King was represented

in the Assembly by commissioners, who had always free access when they

required it, and whose business it was to explain the will of the

Government. The Assembly was, moreover, strictly held in restraint.

They could take no resolution of any importance, they could determine

on no financial measure at all, until their deliberations had been

approved by an Order in Council; for a tax, a loan, or a suit at law

they require the express permission of the King. All their standing

orders, down to that which related to the order of their meetings, had

to be authorised before they became operative. The aggregate of their

receipts and expenditure--their budget, as it would now be called--was

subjected every year to the same control.

The Central Power, moreover, exercised in Languedoc the same political

rights which were everywhere else acknowledged to belong to it. The

laws which the Crown was pleased to promulgate, the general ordinances

it was continually passing, the general measures of its policy, were

applicable there as well as in the rest of the kingdom. The Crown

exercised there all the natural functions of government; it had there

the same police and the same agents; there, as well as everywhere

else, it created numerous new public officers, whose places the

province was compelled to buy up at a large price.

Languedoc was governed, like the other provinces of France, by an

Intendant. This Intendant had, in each district, his Sub-delegates,

who corresponded with the heads of the parishes and directed them. The

Intendant exercised the tutelage of the administration as completely

as in the _pays d’élection_. The humblest village in the gorges of the

Cevennes was precluded from making the smallest outlay until it had

been authorised by an Order of the King’s Council from Paris. That part

of the judicial administration which is now denominated in France the

_contentieux administratif_, or the litigated questions referred to the

Council of State, was not only not less, but more comprehensive than in

the remainder of France. The Intendant decided, in the first instance,

all questions relating to the public ways; he judged all suits relating

to roads; and, in general, he pronounced on all the matters in which

the Government was, or conceived itself to be, interested. The

Government extended the same protection as elsewhere to all its agents

against the rash prosecutions of the citizens whom they might have

oppressed.

What then did Languedoc possess which distinguished it from the

other provinces of the kingdom, and which caused them to envy its

institutions? Three things sufficed to render it entirely different

from the rest of France.

I. An Assembly, composed of men of station, looked up to by the

population, respected by the Crown, to which no officer of the Central

Power, or, to use the phraseology then in use, ‘no officer of the

King,’ could belong, and in which, every year, the special interests of

the province were freely and gravely discussed. The mere fact that the

royal administration was placed near this source of light caused its

privileges to be very differently exercised; and though its agents and

its instincts were the same, its results in no degree resembled what

they were elsewhere.

II. In Languedoc many public works were executed at the expense of

the King and his agents. There were other public works, for which

the Central Government provided the funds and partly directed the

execution, but the greater part of them were executed at the expense

of the province alone. When the King had approved the plan and

authorised the estimates for these last-mentioned works, they were

executed by officers chosen by the Estates, and under the inspection of

commissioners taken from this Assembly.

III. Lastly, the province had the right of levying itself, and in the

manner it preferred, a part of the royal taxes and all the rates which

were imposed by its own authority for its own wants.

Let us see the results which Languedoc continued to extract from these

privileges: they deserve a minute attention.

Nothing is more striking in the other parts of France--the _pays

d’élection_--than the almost complete absence of local charges.

The general imposts were frequently oppressive, but a province

spent nothing on itself. In Languedoc, on the contrary, the annual

expenditure of the province on public works was enormous; in 1780 it

exceeded two millions of livres.

The Central Government was sometimes alarmed at witnessing so vast

an outlay. It feared that the province, exhausted by such an effort,

would be unable to acquit the share of the taxes due to the State; it

blamed the Estates for not moderating this expenditure. I have read a

document, framed by the Assembly, in answer to these animadversions:

the passages I am about to transcribe from it will depict, better than

all I could say, the spirit which animated this small Government.

It is admitted in this statement that the province has commenced and

is still carrying on immense public works; but, far from offering any

apology for this proceeding, it is added that, saving the opposition of

the Crown, these works will be still further extended and persevered

in. The province had already improved or rectified the channel of the

principal rivers within its territory, and it was then engaged in

adding to the Canal of Burgundy, dug under Louis XIV., but already

insufficient, a prolongation which, passing through Lower Languedoc,

should proceed by Cette and Agen to the Rhone. The port of Cette had

been opened to trade, and was maintained at great cost. All these

expenses had, as was observed, a national rather than a provincial

character; yet the province, as the party chiefly interested, had

taken them on itself. It was also engaged in draining and restoring to

agriculture the marshes of Aigues-Mortes. Roads had been the object

of its peculiar care: all those which connect the province with the

rest of the kingdom had been opened or put in good order; even the

cross-roads between the towns and villages of Languedoc had been

repaired. All these different roads were excellent even in winter, and

formed the greatest contrast with the hard, uneven, and ill-constructed

roads which were to be found in most of the adjacent provinces,

such as Dauphiny, Quercy, and the government of Bordeaux--all _pays

d’élection_, it was remarked. On this point the Report appeals to the

opinion of travellers and traders; and this appeal was just, for

Arthur Young, when he visited the country ten years afterwards, put

on his notes, ‘Languedoc, _pays d’états_: good roads, made without

compulsory labour.’

‘If the King would allow it,’ this Report continued, ‘the States

will do more: they will undertake the improvement of the crossroads

in the villages, which are not less interesting than the others. For

if produce cannot be removed from the barns of the grower to market,

what use is it that it can be sent to a distance?’ ‘The doctrine of

the States on questions of public works has always been,’ they say,

‘that it is not the grandeur of these undertakings but their utility

that must be looked to.’ Rivers, canals, roads which give value to

all the produce of the soil and of manufactures, by enabling them to

be conveyed at all times and at little cost wherever they are wanted,

and by means of which commerce can penetrate to every part of the

province--these are things which enrich a country, whatever they may

cost it. Besides, works of this nature, undertaken in moderation at

the same time, in various parts of the country, and somewhat equally

distributed, keep up the rate of wages, and stand in lieu of relief to

the poor. ‘The King has not needed to establish charitable workhouses

at his cost in Languedoc, as has been done in other parts of France,’

said the province, with honest pride; ‘we do not ask for that favour;

the useful works we ourselves carry on every year supersede such

establishments, and give to all our people productive labour.’

The more I have studied the general regulations established by the

States of Languedoc, with the permission of the King (though generally

not originating with the Crown), in that portion of the public

administration which was left in their hands, the more I have been

struck with the wisdom, the equity, and the moderation they display;

the more superior do the proceedings of the local government appear in

comparison with all I have found in the districts administered by the

King alone.

The province was divided into ‘communities’ (towns or villages); into

administrative districts, called _dioceses_; and, lastly, into three

great departments called _stewardries_. Each of these parts had a

distinct representation, and a little separate government of its own,

which acted under the guidance either of the Estates or of the Crown.

If it be a question of public works which interest one of these small

political bodies, they are only to be undertaken at the request of

the interested parties. If the improvements of a community are of

advantage to the diocese, the diocese contributed to the expense in

a certain proportion. If the stewardry was interested, the stewardry

contributed likewise. So again these several divisions were all to

assist the townships, even for the completion of undertakings of local

interest, if they were necessary and above its strength, for, said the

States frequently, ‘the fundamental principle of our constitution is

that all parts of Languedoc are reciprocally bound together, and ought

successively to help each other.’

The works executed by the province were to be carefully prepared

beforehand, and first submitted to the examination of the lesser

bodies which were to contribute to them. They were all paid for:

forced labour was unknown. I have observed that in the other parts

of France--the _pays d’élection_--the land taken from its owners for

public works was always ill and tardily paid for, and often not paid

for at all. This was one of the great grievances complained of by the

Provincial Assemblies when they were convoked in 1787. In some cases

the possibility of liquidating debts of this nature had been taken

away, for the object taken had been altered or destroyed before the

valuation. In Languedoc every inch of ground taken from its owner was

to be carefully valued before the works were begun, and paid for in the

first year of the execution.

The regulations of these Estates relating to different public works,

from which these details are copied, seemed so well conceived that even

the Central Government admired, though without imitating them. The

King’s Council, after having sanctioned the application of them, caused

them to be printed at the Royal press, and to be transmitted to all the

Intendants of France as a document to be consulted.

What I have said of public works is _à fortiori_ applicable to that

other not less important portion of the provincial administration which

related to the levy of taxes. In this respect, more particularly, the

contrast was so great between the kingdom and the provinces that it is

difficult to believe they formed part of the same empire.

I have had occasion to say elsewhere that the methods of proceeding

used in Languedoc for the assessment and collection of the _taille_

were in part the same as are now employed in France in the levy of the

public taxes. Nor shall I here revert to this subject, merely adding

that the province was so attached to its own superior methods of

proceeding, that when new taxes were imposed by the Crown, the States

of Languedoc never hesitated to purchase at a very high price the right

of levying them in their own manner and by their own agents exclusively.

In spite of all the expenses which I have successively enumerated,

the finances of Languedoc were nevertheless in such good order, and

its credit so well established, that the Central Government often had

recourse to it, and borrowed, in the name of the province, sums of

money which would not have been lent on such favourable terms to the

Government itself. Thus Languedoc borrowed, on its own security, but

for the King’s service, in the later years of the monarchy, 73,200,000

livres, or nearly three millions sterling.

The Government and the Ministers of the Crown looked, however, with an

unfavourable eye on these provincial liberties. Richelieu had first

mutilated and afterwards abolished them. The spiritless and indolent

Louis XIII., who loved nothing, detested them; the horror he felt for

all provincial privileges was such, said Boulainvilliers, that his

anger was excited by the mere name of them. It is hard to sound the

hatred of feeble souls for whatever compels them to exert themselves.

All that they retain of manhood is turned in that direction, and they

exhibit strength in their animosity, however weak they may be in

everything else. Fortunately the ancient constitution of Languedoc was

restored under the minority of Louis XIV., who consequently respected

it as his own work. Louis XV. suspended it for a couple of years, but

afterwards allowed it to go on.

The creation of municipal offices for sale exposed the constitution

of the province to dangers less direct, but not less formidable.

That pernicious institution not only destroyed the constitution of

the towns; it tended to vitiate that of the provinces. I know not

whether the deputies of the commons in the Provincial Assemblies had

ever been elected _ad hoc_, but at any rate they had long ceased to

be so; the municipal officers of the towns were _ex officio_ the sole

representatives of the burgesses and the people in those bodies.

This absence of a direct constituency acting with reference to the

affairs of the day was but little remarked as long as the towns freely

elected their own magistrates by universal suffrage, and generally

for a very limited period. Thus the mayor, the council, or the syndic

represented the wishes of the population in the Hall of the Estates as

faithfully as if they had been elected by their fellow-citizens for

that purpose. But very different was the case with a civic officer

who had purchased for money the right of governing. Such an officer

represented no one but himself, or, at best, the petty interests

or the petty passions of his own coterie. Yet this magistrate by

contract retained the powers which had been exercised by his elected

predecessors. The character of the institution was, therefore,

immediately changed. The nobles and the clergy, instead of having

the representatives of the people sitting with them or opposite to

them in the Provincial Assembly, met there none but a few isolated,

timid, and powerless burgesses, and thus the commons occupied a more

subordinate place in the government at the very time when they were

every day becoming richer and stronger in society. This was not the

case in Languedoc, the province having always taken care to buy up

these offices as fast as they were established by the Crown. The loan

contracted by the States for this purpose, in the year 1773 only,

amounted to more than four millions of livres.

Other causes of still greater power had contributed to infuse a new

spirit into these ancient institutions, and to give to the States of

Languedoc an incontestable superiority over those of all the other

provinces.

In this province, as in a great portion of the south of France, the

_taille_ was real and not personal--that is to say, it was regulated

by the value of property, and not by the personal condition of the

proprietor. Some lands had, no doubt, the privilege of not paying this

tax: these lands had, in former times, belonged to the nobility, but,

by the progress of time and of capital, it had happened that a portion

of this property had fallen into the hands of non-noble holders. On the

other hand, the nobles had become the holders of many lands which were

liable to the _taille_. The privilege of exemption, being thus removed

from persons to things, was doubtless more abused; but it was less

felt, because, though still irksome, it was no longer humiliating. Not

being indissolubly connected with the idea of a class, not investing

any class with interests altogether alien and opposed to those of the

other classes, such a privilege no longer opposed a barrier to the

co-operation of all in public affairs. In Languedoc especially, more

than in any other part of France, all classes did so co-operate, and

this on a footing of complete equality.

In Brittany the landed gentry of the province had the right of all

appearing in their own persons at the States, which made these

Assemblies in some sort resemble the Polish Diets. In Languedoc

the nobles only figured at the States of the province by their

representatives: twenty-three of them sat for the whole body. The

clergy also sat in the person of the twenty-three bishops of the

province, and it deserves especial observation that the towns had as

many votes as the two upper orders.

As the Assembly sat in one house and the orders did not vote

separately, but conjointly, the commons naturally acquired much

importance, and their spirit gradually infused itself into the whole

body. Nay, more, the three magistrates, who, under the name of

Syndics-General, were charged, in the name of the States, with the

ordinary management of the business, were almost always lawyers,--that

is to say, commoners. The nobility was strong enough to maintain

its rank, but no longer strong enough to reign alone. The clergy,

though consisting to a great extent of men of gentle birth, lived on

excellent terms with the commons; they eagerly adopted most of the

plans of that Order, and laboured in conjunction with it to increase

the material prosperity of the whole community, by encouraging trade

and manufactures, thus placing their own great knowledge of mankind

and their singular dexterity in the conduct of affairs at the service

of the people. A priest was almost always chosen to proceed to

Versailles to discuss with the Ministers of the Crown the questions

which sometimes set at variance the royal authority and that of the

States. It might be said that throughout the last century Languedoc

was administered by the Commons, who were controlled by the Nobles and

assisted by the Bishops.

Thanks to this peculiar constitution of Languedoc, the spirit of the

age was enabled peacefully to pervade this ancient institution, and to

modify it altogether without at all destroying it.

It might have been so everywhere else in France. A small portion of the

perseverance and the exertions which the sovereigns of France employed

for the abolition or the dislocation of the Provincial Estates would

have sufficed to perfect them in this manner, and to adapt them to all

the wants of modern civilisation, if those sovereigns had ever had any

other aim than to become and to remain the masters of France.

[The chapters which follow were not included in the work first

published by M. de Tocqueville in 1855. They are the continuation of

it, left unfinished at the time of his death in 1859, and published

in 1865 by M. de Beaumont amongst the posthumous works of his friend.

They are now translated for the first time. Although they must be

regarded as incomplete, since they never received the final revision

of the author, and the latter portions of them are fragmentary, yet

they are not, I think, unworthy to form part of the work to which they

were intended to belong, and a melancholy interest attaches to them as

the last meditations of a great and original thinker. In the French

text an attempt has been made to distinguish, by a different type, the

passages which are more carefully finished from those which consisted

merely of notes for further elaboration. But as this arrangement

breaks the uniformity of the text more than is necessary, I have not

adopted it.--H. R.]

_BOOK III._

CHAPTER I.

OF THE VIOLENT AND UNDEFINED AGITATION OF THE HUMAN MIND AT THE MOMENT

WHEN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION BROKE OUT.

What I have previously said of France is applicable to the whole

Continent. In the ten or fifteen years preceding the French Revolution,

the human mind was abandoned, throughout Europe, to strange,

incoherent, and irregular impulses, symptoms of a new and extraordinary

disease, which would have singularly alarmed the world if the world had

understood them.

A conception of the greatness of man in general, and of the omnipotence

of his reason and the boundless range of his intelligence, had

penetrated and pervaded the spirit of the age; yet this lofty

conception of mankind in general was commingled with a boundless

contempt for the age in which men were living and the society to which

they belonged. Never was so much humility united to so much pride--the

pride of humanity was inflated to madness; the estimate each man formed

of his age and country was singularly low.

All over the Continent that instinctive attachment and involuntary

respect which the men of all ages and all countries are wont in general

to feel for their own peculiar institutions, for their traditional

customs, and for the wisdom or the virtues of their forefathers, had

almost ceased to exist among the educated classes. Nothing was spoken

of but the decrepitude and incoherence of existing institutions, the

vices and corruption of existing society.

Traces of this state of mind may be discovered throughout the

literature of Germany. The philosophy, the history, the poetry, even

the novels of the time, are full of it. Every product of the intellect

was so stamped by it, that the books of that epoch bear a mark that

distinguishes them from the works of every other age. All the memoirs

of that day, which gave birth to a profusion of memoirs--all the

correspondence of the time which has been published--attest a state

of mind so different from the present, that nothing short of this

concurrence of certain and abundant evidence could convince us of the

fact.

Every page of Schlosser’s ‘History of the Eighteenth Century’ reveals

this general presentiment, that a great change was about to take place

in the condition of mankind.

George Forster, one of the companions of Captain Cook, to whose

expedition he had been attached with his father as a naturalist, writes

to Jacobi in 1779: ‘Things cannot remain as they are: this is announced

by every symptom in the world of science, in the world of theology, and

in that of politics. Much as my heart has hitherto desired peace, not

less do I desire to see the arrival of this crisis on which such mighty

hopes are founded.’[85] ‘Europe,’ he writes again in 1782, ‘seems to

me on the brink of a horrible revolution; in truth the mass is so

corrupt that bleeding may well be necessary.’[86] ‘The present state

of society,’ said Jacobi, ‘presents to me nothing but the aspect of a

dead and stagnant sea: that is why I could desire an inundation, be it

what it may, even of barbarians, to sweep away this reeking marsh and

lay bare a fresh soil.’[87] ‘We are living in the midst of shattered

institutions and forms’--a monstrous chaos which everywhere reflects

an image of dismay[88] and of death.’ These things were written in a

pretty country house, by wealthy people, surrounded by their literary

friends, who passed their time in endless philosophical discussions

which affected, excited, and inflamed them till they shed torrents of

daily tears--in imagination.

It was not the princes, the ministers, the rulers, or those, in short,

who, in different capacities, were directing the march of affairs, who

perceived that some great change was at hand. The idea that government

could become quite different from what government then was,--that all

which had lasted so long might be destroyed and superseded by that

which as yet only existed in the brain of a few men of letters--the

thought that the existing order of things might be overthrown to

establish a new order in the midst of disorder and ruin, would have

appeared to them an absurd illusion and a fantastic dream. The gradual

improvement of society seemed to them the limit of the possible.

It is a common error of the people who are called wise and practical

in ordinary times, to judge by certain rules the men whose very object

is to change or to destroy those rules. When a time is come at which

passion takes the guidance of affairs, the beliefs of men of experience

are less worthy of consideration than the schemes which engage the

imagination of dreamers.

It is curious to see in the official correspondence of that epoch,

civil officers of ability and foresight laying their plans, framing

their measures, and calculating scientifically the use they will make

of their powers, at a time when the Government they are serving, the

laws they are applying, the society they are living in, and they

themselves shall be no more.

‘What scenes are passing in France!’ writes Johann Müller on the 6th

of August, 1789.[89] ‘Blessed be the impression they produce on the

nations and on their masters! I know there are excesses, but the cost

of a free constitution is not too great. Is not a storm which purifies

the air better than an atmosphere tainted as with the plague, even

though here and there it should strike a few heads?’ ‘What an event,’

exclaimed Fox, ‘how much the greatest it is that ever happened in the

world! and how much the best!’[90]

Can we be surprised that this conception of the Revolution as a general

uprising of humanity, a conception which enlarged and invigorated so

many small and feeble souls, should have taken possession at once of

the mind of France, when even other countries partook of it? Nor is

it astonishing that the first excesses of the Revolution should have

affected the best patriots of France so little, when even foreigners

who were not excited by the struggle or embittered by personal

grievances could extend so much indulgence to them.

Let it not be supposed that this sort of abhorrence of themselves

and of their age, which had thus strangely fallen upon almost all

the inhabitants of the continent of Europe, was a superficial or a

transient sentiment.

Ten years later, when the French Revolution had inflicted on Germany

all sorts of violent transformations accompanied by death and

destruction, even then, one of those Germans, in whom enthusiasm for

France had turned to bitter hatred, exclaims, mindful of the past, in

a confidential effusion, ‘What was is no more. What new edifice will

be raised on the ruins, I know not. But this I know, that it would be

the direst calamity if this tremendous era were again to give birth

to the apathy and the worn-out forms of the past.’ ‘Yes,’ replied the

person to whom these words were addressed, ‘the old social body must

perish.’[91]

The years which preceded the French Revolution were, in almost every

part of Europe, years of great national prosperity. The useful arts

were everywhere more cultivated. The taste for enjoyments, which follow

in the train of affluence, was more diffused. Industry and commerce,

which supply these wants, were improving and spreading. It seemed

as if the life of man becoming thus more busy and more sensual, the

human mind would lose sight of those abstract studies which embrace

society, and would centre more and more on the petty cares of daily

life. But the contrary took place. Throughout Europe, almost as much

as in France, all the educated classes were plunged in philosophical

discussions and dogmatical theories. Even in places ordinarily the most

remote from speculations of this nature, the same train of argument was

eagerly pursued. In the most trading cities of Germany, in Hamburg,

Lubeck, and Dantzig, the merchants, traders, and manufacturers would

meet after the labours of the day to discuss amongst themselves

the great questions which affect the existence, the condition, the

happiness of man. Even the women, amidst their petty household cares,

were sometimes distracted by these enigmas of life. ‘We thought,’

says Perthes, ‘that by becoming highly enlightened, one might become

perfect.’

‘Der König sey der beste Mann, sonst sey der bessere König,’

said the poet Claudius.

This period too gave birth to a new passion, embodied in a new

word--_cosmopolitism_--which was to swallow up patriotism. It seemed as

if all classes were bent on escaping whenever they could from the care

of their private affairs, to give themselves up to the grand interests

of humanity.

As in France the love of letters filled a large space even in the

busiest times, the publication of a new book was an event of interest

in the smallest towns as well as in the chief cities. Everything was

a subject of inquiry; everything was a source of emotion. Treasures

of passion seemed accumulated in every breast, which sought but an

occasion to break forth.

Thus, a traveller who had been round the globe was an object of general

attention. When Forster went to Germany in 1774, he was received with

enthusiasm. Not a town but gave him an ovation. Crowds flocked about

him to hear his adventures from his own lips, but still more to hear

him describe the unknown countries he had visited, and the strange

customs of the men among whom he had been living. Was not their savage

simplicity worthy more than all our riches and our arts: were not their

instincts above our virtues?[92]

A certain unfrocked Lutheran priest, one Basidow, ignorant,

quarrelsome, and a drunkard, a caricature of Luther, excogitated a new

system of schools which was, he said, to change the ideas and manners

of his countrymen. He put forth his scheme in coarse and intemperate

language. The object, as he took care to announce, was not only to

regenerate Germany, but the human race. Forthwith, all Germany is in

movement. Princes, nobles, commons, towns, cities, abet the great

innovator. Lords and ladies of high estate write to Basidow to ask

his advice. Mothers of families place his books in the hands of their

children. The old schools founded by Melanchthon are forsaken. A

college, designed to educate these reformers of mankind, is founded

under the name of the ‘Philanthropian,’ blazes for a moment, and

disappears. The enthusiasm drops, leaving behind it confusion and doubt.

The real spirit of the age was to reject every form of mysticism,

and to cling in all things to the evidence most palpable to the

understanding. Nevertheless, in this violent perturbation of mind, men,

not knowing as yet which way to look, cast themselves suddenly on the

supernatural. On the eve of the French Revolution, Europe was covered

with strange fraternities and secret societies, which only revived

under new names delusions that had long been forgotten. Such, were the

doctrines of Swedenborg, of the Martinists, of the Freemasons, the

Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, the disciples of Strict Abstinence, the

Mesmerists, and many other varieties of similar sects. Many of these

sects originally contemplated no more than the private advantage of

their members. But all of them now aspired to embrace the destinies

of mankind. Most of them had been, at the time of their birth, wholly

philosophical or religious: all now turned at once to politics, and

were absorbed in them. By different means they all proposed to bring

about the regeneration of society and the reform of governments.

It is especially worthy of remark that this sense of unrest, this

perturbation of the human mind which I am describing, did not manifest

itself in the lower classes, which bore nevertheless the burden of

existing abuses. Those classes were still motionless and inert. Not

the poor man, but the rich man was tossing in this feverish condition:

the movement sunk not lower than the upper rank of the middle classes.

Nowadays secret societies are filled by poor workmen, obscure artisans,

or ignorant peasants. At the time I am speaking of they consisted

entirely of princes, great nobles, capitalists, merchants, and men of

letters.

When in 1786 the secret papers of the Illuminati were seized in the

hands of their principal chiefs, many anarchical documents were found

among them, in which personal property was denounced as the source

of all evil, and absolute equality of conditions was vaunted. In the

archives of the same sect a list of adepts was found. It consisted

entirely of the most distinguished names in Germany, princes, great

nobles, and ministers: the founder of the sect was himself a professor

of canon law. The King of Poland and Prince Frederick of Prussia were

Rosicrucians. The new King of Prussia, who had just succeeded Frederick

the Great on the throne, immediately sent for the leading Rosicrucians

and intrusted to them important missions.[93] ‘It is asserted,’ says

Mounier[94] in his books on these sects, ‘that several great personages

of France and Germany, some of whom were Protestants, took the tonsure

in order to be admitted into the sect of Strict Observance.’

Another thing well worthy of notice: it was a time when the sciences

had discredited the marvellous, as they became more positive and more

certain--when the inexplicable was easily taken for the false, and

when in all things reason claimed to supersede authority, reality the

imaginary, and free inquiry faith: nevertheless there was not one of

the sects I have just mentioned but had some point of contact with the

supernatural; all of them ended in some fantastic conclusion. Some of

them were imbued with mystical conceptions: others fancied they had

found out the secret to change some of the laws of nature. At that

moment every species of enthusiasm might pass for science, every

dreamer could find listeners, every impostor could find believers:

nothing is more characteristic of the perplexed and agitated condition

of men’s minds, running to and fro, like a benighted traveller who

has lost his way, and who, instead of getting onward, doubles back

upon his own footsteps. And it was not the common herd of the people

who were at the head of these extravagances; men of letters, men of

learning believed in alchemy, in the visible action of the demon, in

the transmutation of metals, in the apparition of ghosts. Strange

instance of belief in every form of absurdity, growing amidst the decay

of religious convictions--of men putting faith in every invisible and

supernatural influence, except in that of God!

These mountebanks were the especial delight of sovereigns. Forster

writes to his father from Cassel in 1782: ‘An old French adventuress

is here who shows spirits to the Landgrave, and receives 150 louis

d’or. He is vain enough to think that the devil may take the trouble to

tempt him in person. She has with her another Frenchman who casts out

bad spirits from the afflicted,’ etc. etc. Great monarchs had at their

courts charlatans of the first water--Cagliostro, the Count de St.

Germain or Mesmer: the little princes were fain to put up, for want of

better, with ridiculous little tricksters.

The aspect of this society was nevertheless one of the most imposing

which has ever been presented to the world, in spite of the errors and

follies of the age. Never had humanity been prouder of itself than at

that moment, for at no other moment, from the birth of all the ages,

had man believed in his own omnipotence. The whole of Europe resembled

a camp, awakening at break of day, bustling at first in different

directions, until the rising sun points out the destined track and

illuminates the road of march. Alas! how little do those who come at

the close of a great revolution resemble those who begin it,--full of

lofty hopes, of generous designs, of stores of energy they are ready

to pour forth, of noble delusions, of unselfish disinterestedness.

Many contemporary writers, unable to discern the general causes which

had produced the strange subversion of society they were witnessing,

attributed it to a conspiracy of secret societies.[95] As if any

private conspiracy could ever explain a movement of such depth and so

destructive of human institutions. The secret societies were certainly

not the cause of the Revolution: but they must be considered as one of

the most conspicuous signs of its approach.

They were not the only signs.

It would be a mistake to suppose that the American Revolution was

hailed with ardent sympathy in France alone: the noise of it went

forth to the ends of Europe: everywhere it was regarded as a beacon.

Steffens, who fifty years later took so active a part in rousing

Germany against France, relates in his Memoirs, that in early childhood

the first thing that excited him was the cause of American independence.

‘I still remember vividly,’ says he, ‘what happened at Elsinore and in

the roadstead, on the day when that peace was signed which secured the

triumph of freedom. The day was fine; the roadstead was full of people

of all nations. We awaited with eager impatience the very dawn. All

the ships were dressed--the masts ornamented with pennons, everything

covered with flags; the weather was calm, with just wind enough to

cause the gay bunting to flutter in the breeze; the boom of cannon,

the cheers of the crews on deck, completed the festal character of the

day. My father had invited some friends to his table; they drank to the

victory of the Americans and the triumph of the popular cause, whilst

a dim presentiment that great events would result from this triumph

mingled with their rejoicings. It was the bright and cheering dawn of

a bloody day. My father sought to imbue us with the love of political

freedom. Contrary to the habit of the house, he had us brought to

table; where he impressed on us the importance of the event we were

witnessing, and bade us drink with him and his guests to the welfare of

the new commonwealth.’[96]

Of the men who, in every corner of old Europe, felt themselves thus

moved by the deeds of a small community in the New World, not one

thoroughly understood the deep and secret cause of his own emotion, yet

all heard a signal in that distant sound. What it announced was still

unknown. It was the voice of John crying in the wilderness that new

times were at hand.

Seek not to assign to these facts which I have been relating any

peculiar cause: all of them were different symptoms of the same social

disease. On all hands the old institutions and the old powers no longer

fitted accurately the new condition and the new wants of man. Hence

that strange unrest which led even the great and the worldly to regard

their own state of life as intolerable. Hence that universal thirst for

change, which came unbidden to every mind, though no one knew as yet

how that change could be brought about. An internal and spontaneous

impulse seemed to shake at once the whole fabric of society, and

disturbed to their foundations the ideas and habits of every man. To

hold back was felt to be impossible: yet none knew on which side they

would incline; and the whole of Europe was in the condition of a huge

mass which oscillates before it falls.

FOOTNOTES:

[85] ‘Correspondence of George Forster,’ i. 257.

[86] _Idem_, ii. 286.

[87] See ‘Waldemar’: a philosophical novel, by Jacobi, written in 1779.

Notwithstanding its defects, which are immense, this book made a great

impression, because these defects were those of the age.

[88] The word in the French text is _confiance_--‘l’image de la

_confiance_ et de la mort.’ But this expression appears to me

unintelligible, and the word has probably been wrongly printed or

wrongly transcribed. M. de Tocqueville’s handwriting was singularly

illegible, and these detached notes were written in characters which

he was himself not always able to read. The passage here cited is from

Vandelbourg’s French translation of Jacobi’s ‘Waldemar,’ where it might

be verified (Tom. i. p. 154.)--H. R.

[89] Letter of Johann Müller to Baron de Salis, August 6th, 1789.

[90] Fox to Mr. Fitzpatrick, July 30th, 1789. (‘Memorials and

Correspondence of Fox,’ ii. 361.)

[91] Life of Perthes, p. 177; and of Stolberg, p. 179--in same book.

[92] Not a man of education, of whatever rank, would pass through

the town where Forster lived without coming to converse with him.

Princes invited him, nobles courted him, the commonalty thronged about

him, the learned were intensely interested by his conversation. To

Michaelis, Heyne, Herder, and others who were endeavouring to solve

the mystery of the antiquity and history of mankind, Forster seemed to

open the sources of the primæval world by describing those populations

of another hemisphere which had not come in contact with any form of

civilisation.

[93] See for these details Schlosser’s ‘History of the Eighteenth

Century,’ and Forster’s Correspondence.

[94] Mounier’s book, published at Tübingen in 1801, is entitled

‘Influence attribué aux Philosophes, aux Francs-maçons et aux Illuminés

sur la Révolution.’

[95] This was the view taken by the Abbé Barruel in his book on

Jacobinism. In 4 vols.

[96] ‘Memoirs of Henry Steffens.’ Breslau: 1840. Steffens was born in

1775, at Stavagner, in Norway.

CHAPTER II.

HOW THIS VAGUE PERTURBATION OF THE HUMAN MIND SUDDENLY BECAME IN

FRANCE A POSITIVE PASSION, AND WHAT FORM THIS PASSION AT FIRST

ASSUMED.

In the year 1787 this vague perturbation of the human mind, which I

have just described, and which had for some time past been agitating

the whole of Europe without any precise direction, suddenly became in

France an active passion directed to a positive object. But, strange

to say, this object was not that which the French Revolution was to

attain: and the men who were first and most keenly affected by this new

passion were precisely those whom the Revolution was to devour.

At first, indeed, it was not so much the equality of rights as

political freedom which was looked for; and the Frenchmen who were

first moved themselves, and who set society in motion, belonged not to

the lower but to the highest order. Before it sunk down to the people,

this new-born detestation of absolute and arbitrary power burst forth

amongst the nobles, the clergy, the magistracy, the most privileged of

the middle classes,--those in short who, coming nearest in the State

to the master, had more than others the means of resisting him and the

hope of sharing his power.

But why was the hatred of despotism the first symptom? Was it not

because in this state of general dissatisfaction, the common ground on

which it was most easy to agree was that of war against a political

power, which either oppressed every one alike or supported that by

which every one was oppressed; and because the noble and the rich found

in liberty the only mode of expressing this dissatisfaction, which they

felt more than any other class?

I shall not relate how Louis XVI. was led by financial considerations

to convoke about him, in an assembly, the members of the nobility,

the clergy, and the upper rank of the commons, and to submit to this

body of ‘Notables’ the state of affairs. I am discussing history,

not narrating it. It is well known that this assembly, which met at

Versailles on the 22nd February, 1787, consisted of nine peers of

France, twenty noblemen, eight privy councillors, four masters of

requests, ten marshals of France, thirteen archbishops or bishops,

eighteen chief judges, twenty-two municipal officers of different

cities, twelve deputies of the provinces which had retained their

local estates, and some other magistrates--in all from 125 to 130

members.[97] Henry IV. had once before used the same means to postpone

the meeting of the States-General and to obtain without them a sort of

public sanction to his measures: but the times were changed. In 1596

France was at the close of a long revolution, wearied by her efforts,

and distrustful of her powers, seeking nothing but rest, and asking

of her rulers no more than an external deference. The Notables caused

her without difficulty to forget the States-General. But in 1787 they

only revived the recollection of them in her memory. In the reign of

Henry IV., these princes, these nobles, these bishops, these wealthy

commoners who were summoned to advise the King, were still the masters

of society. They could therefore control the movement they had set on

foot. Under Louis XVI. in 1787 these same classes retained only the

externals of power. We have seen that the substance of it was lost to

them for ever. They were, so to speak, hollow bodies, resonant but

easily crushed: still capable of exciting the people, incapable of

directing it.

This great change had come about insensibly and imperceptibly. By none

was it clearly perceived. Those most affected by it knew not that it

had taken place. Even their opponents doubted it. The whole nation had

lived so long apart from its own concerns, that it took but a hazy

view of its condition. All the evils from which it suffered seemed to

have merged in a spirit of opposition and a dislike for the existing

Government. No sooner were the Notables assembled than, forgetting

that they were the nominees of the sovereign, chosen by him to give

their advice and not their injunctions, they proceeded to act as the

representatives of the country. They demanded the public accounts,

they censured the acts of the Government, they attacked most of the

measures, the execution of which they were merely asked to facilitate.

Their assistance was sought: they proffered their opposition.

Public opinion instantly rose in their favour, and threw its whole

weight on their side. Then was witnessed the strange spectacle of a

Government proposing measures favourable to the people without ceasing

to be unpopular, and of an Assembly resisting these measures with the

support of public favour.

Thus the Government proposed to reform the salt tax (_la gabelle_),

which pressed so heavily and often so cruelly on the people. It would

have abolished forced labour, reformed the _taille_, and suppressed

the _twentieths_, a species of tax from which the upper classes had

continued to make themselves exempt. In place of these taxes, which

were to be abolished or reformed, a land-tax was to be imposed, on the

very same basis which has since become the basis of the land-tax of

France, and the custom-houses, which placed grievous restrictions on

trade and industry, were to be removed to the frontier of the kingdom.

Beside, and almost in the place of, the Intendants who administered

each province, an elective body was to be constituted, with the power

not only of watching the conduct of public business, but, in most

cases, of directing it. All these measures were conformable to the

spirit of the times. They were resisted or postponed by the Notables.

Nevertheless, the Government remained unpopular, and the Notables had

the public cry in their favour.

Fearing that he had not been understood, the Minister, Calonne,

explained in a public document that the effect of the new laws would

be to relieve the people from a portion of the taxes, and to throw

that portion on the rich. That was true, but the Minister was still

unpopular. ‘The clergy,’ said he elsewhere, ‘are, before all things,

citizens and subjects. They must pay taxes like all the rest. If the

clergy have debts, a part of their property must be sold to discharge

them.’ That again was to aim at one of the tenderest points of public

opinion: the point was touched, but the public were unmoved.

On the question of the reform of the _taille_, the Notables opposed

it on the ground that it could not relieve those who paid it without

imposing an excessive burden on the other tax-payers, especially on

the nobility and clergy, _whose privileges on the score of taxation

had already been reduced to almost nothing_. The abolition of internal

custom-houses was objected to peremptorily on behalf of the privileges

of certain provinces, which were to be treated with great forbearance.

They highly approved in principle the creation of provincial

assemblies. But they desired that, instead of uniting together the

three Orders in these small local bodies, they should be separated, and

always be presided over by a nobleman or a prelate, for, said some of

the Committees of Notables, ‘these assemblies would tend to democracy

if they were not guided by the superior lights of the first Order.’

Nevertheless, the popularity of the Notables remained unshaken to the

end: nay, it was continually on the increase. They were applauded,

incited, encouraged: and when they resisted the Government, they were

loudly cheered on to the attack. The King, hastening to dismiss them,

thought himself obliged to offer them his public thanks.

Not a few of these persons are said to have been amazed at this degree

of public favour and sudden power. They would have been far more

astonished at it if they could have foreseen what was about to follow:

if they had known that these same laws, which they had resisted with so

much popular applause, were founded on the very principles which were

to triumph in the Revolution; that the traditional institutions which

they opposed to the innovations of the Government were precisely the

institutions which the Revolution was about to destroy.

That which caused the popularity of these Notables was not the form of

their opposition, but the opposition itself. They criticised the abuses

of the Government; they condemned its prodigality; they demanded an

account of its expenditure; they spoke of the constitutional laws of

the country, of the fundamental principles which limit the unlimited

power of the Crown, and, without precisely demanding the interposition

of the nation in the government by the States-General, they perpetually

suggested that idea. This was enough.

The Government had already long been suffering from a malady which

is the endemic and incurable disease of powers that have undertaken

to order, to foresee, to do everything. It had assumed a universal

responsibility. However men might differ in the grounds of their

complaints, they agreed in blaming the common source of them; what had

hitherto been no more than a general inclination of mind, then became a

universal and impetuous passion. All the secret sores caused by daily

contact with dilapidated institutions, which chafed both manners and

opinion in a thousand places--all the smothered animosities kept alive

by divided classes, by contested positions, by absurd or oppressive

distinctions, rose against the supreme power. Long had they sought a

pathway to the light of day: that path once opened they rushed blindly

along it. It was not their natural path, but it was the first they

found open. Hatred of arbitrary power became then their sole passion,

and the Government their common enemy.

FOOTNOTE:

[97] Buchez and Roux, ‘Parliamentary History of the Revolution,’ p. 480.

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE PARLIAMENTS OF FRANCE, FOLLOWING PRECEDENT, OVERTHREW THE

MONARCHY.

The feudal Government, whose ruins still sheltered the nation, had been

a government in which arbitrary power, violence, and great freedom

were commingled. Under its laws, if actions had often been restricted,

speech was habitually independent and bold. The legislative power was

exercised by kings, but never without control. When the great political

assemblies of France ceased to be, the Parliaments took, in some sort,

the place of them; and before they enregistered in the code that

regulated their judicial proceedings a new law decreed by the King,

they stated to the sovereign their objections, and made known to him

their opinions.

Much inquiry has been made as to the first origin of this usurpation

of legislative power by judicial authority. It is vain to seek that

origin elsewhere than in the general manners of the time, which could

not tolerate, or even conceive, a power so absolute and secret, as

not, at least, to admit of discussion on the terms of obedience. The

institution was in nowise premeditated. It sprang spontaneously from

the very root of the ideas then prevalent and from the usages alike of

subjects and of kings.

An edict, before it was put in force, was sent down to the Parliament.

The agents of the Crown explained its principles and its merits;

the magistrates discussed it. All this was done in public, in open

debate, with that virility which characterised all the institutions

of the Middle Ages. It frequently happened that the Parliament sent

deputies to the King, several times over, to supplicate him to modify

or withdraw an edict. If the King came down in person, he allowed his

own law to be debated with vivacity, sometimes with violence, in his

presence. But when at last his will was made known, all was silence and

obedience: for the magistracy acknowledged that they were no more than

the first officers and representatives of the sovereign; their duty was

to advise but not to coerce him.

In 1787, the ancient precedents of the monarchy were faithfully and

strictly followed. The old machine of Royal government was again set in

motion: but it became apparent that the machine was propelled by some

new motive power of an unknown kind, which, instead of causing it to

move onwards, was about to break it in pieces.

The King then, according to custom, caused the new edicts to be brought

down to the Parliament: and the Parliament, equally according to

custom, laid its humble remonstrance at the steps of the throne.[98]

The King replied; and Parliaments insisted. For centuries things had

gone on thus, and the nation heard from time to time this sort of

political dialogue carried on above its head between the sovereign and

his magistrates. The practice had only been interrupted during the

reign of Louis XIV. and for a time. But the novelty lay in the subject

of the debate and the nature of the arguments.

This time the Parliament, before it proceeded to register the edicts,

called for all the accounts of the finance department, which we should

now call the budget of the State, in support of the measures; and as

the King naturally declined to hand over the entire government to a

body which was irresponsible and non-elected, and so to share the

legislative power with a Court of Justice, the Parliament then declared

that the nation alone had the right to raise fresh taxes,[99] and

thereupon demanded that the nation should be convoked. The Parliament

grasped the very heart of the people, but held it only for a moment.

The arguments put forward by the Magistracy in support of their demands

were not less novel than the demands themselves. The King, they said,

was only the administrator and not the owner of the public fortune:

the representative and chief officer of the nation, not its master.

Sovereignty resided in the nation itself. The nation alone could decide

great questions: its rights were not dependent on the will of the

sovereign; they took their being from the nature of man; they were as

inalienable and indestructible as human nature itself. ‘The institution

of the States-General,’ they declared, ‘is a principle founded on the

rights of man and confirmed by reason.’[100] ‘Common interest has

combined men in society, and given rise to governments: that alone can

maintain them.’[101] ‘No prescription of the States-General can run

against the nature of things or against the imperishable rights of the

nation.’[102] ‘Public opinion is rarely mistaken: it is rare that men

receive impressions contrary to truth.’[103]

The King having exiled the Parliament from Paris, that body protested

that liberty of speech and action was an inalienable right of man, and

could not be wrested from him without tyranny, save by the regular

forms of judicial procedure.

It must not be supposed that the Parliaments alleged these principles

as novelties:[104] they were, on the contrary, very industriously

traced up to the cradle of the monarchy. The judgments or decrees

of the Parliament of Paris were crammed with historical quotations,

frequently borrowed from the Middle Ages, in barbarous Latin. They are

full of provincial capitulations, royal ordinances, beds of justice,

rules, privileges, and precedents, which lost themselves in the shadows

of the past.

Strangely enough, at the same moment that the Parliament of

Franche-Comté proclaimed the indestructible rights of the nation, it

protested against any infraction of the peculiar privileges of the

province as they existed at the period of annexation under Louis XIV.

So again the Parliament of Normandy invoked the States-General of the

kingdom ‘to inaugurate a new order of things,’ but not the less did it

demand, in the name of its own feudal traditions, the restoration of

the States of Normandy, as the peculiar privilege of that province: so

curiously were ideas, just born into the world, enclosed and swathed in

these remains of antiquity.

It was a tradition of the old monarchy that the Parliament should

use in its remonstrances animated and almost violent language: a

certain exaggeration of words was conceded to it. The most absolute

sovereigns had tolerated this licence of speech, by reason, indeed,

of the powerlessness of those who uttered it: as they were certain

in the end to be reduced to obedience and compressed within narrow

limits, the indulgence of a free utterance was readily left to them.

The Parliament, moreover, was wont to make a great deal of noise for a

small result: what it said went beyond what it meant: this franchise

had become a sort of right of the magistracy.

On this occasion the Parliament carried their ancient freedom to

a degree of licence never heard before; for a new-born fire was

burning in their hearts and unconsciously inflamed their language.

Certainly, among the governments of our own time, which are almost all,

nevertheless, governments maintained by the sword, not one could allow

its ministers and its measures to be attacked in such terms by the

representatives of its own authority.

‘Despotism, Sire,’ said the Parliament of Paris, ‘is substituted

for the laws of the realm, and the magistracy is no more than the

instrument of arbitrary power.... Would that Your Majesty could

interrogate the victims of that power, confined forgotten in

impenetrable prisons, the abode of silence and injustice; those whom

intrigue, cupidity, the jealousy of power, the thirst of vengeance, the

fear or the hatred of justice, private pique or personal convenience,

have caused to be put there.’ Then drawing a parallel between two

citizens, one rich and the other poor, the latter being oppressed by

the former, the Parliament added--‘Is indigence then a crime? Have

flesh and blood no claims? Does a man without credit, or a poor man,

cease to be a citizen?’

It was especially on the subject of taxation and against the collectors

of the revenue that, even in the calmest times, the judicial bodies

were accustomed to inveigh with extreme violence. No sooner was the

new tax announced than the Parliament of Paris declared it to be

disastrous; consternation followed the proposal; its adoption would

give rise to a general mourning.[105] The population, harassed by

fiscal exactions, were at their wits’ end.[106] To arrogate to one’s

self the power of levying tribute without the States-General was to

declare aloud that the sovereign seeks not to be a king of France, but

a king of serfs.[107] The substance of the people was become the prey

of the cupidity of courtiers and the rapacity of contractors.[108]

Great as was the excitement of that time, it would still be very

difficult to account for the language of these magistrates without

recalling what had been said so many times before on the same subject.

As under the old monarchy most of the taxes were levied on account

of private persons, who held them on farm, or by their agents; for

centuries past men had accustomed themselves to look upon taxation

as it bore on the private emolument of certain individuals, and not

as the common income of the nation. Taxes were commonly denounced as

_odious exactions_. The salt duty was styled the _infernal machine

of the gabelle_: those who collected the taxes were spoken of as

public robbers, enriched by the poverty of everybody else. So said the

tax-payers; the courts of justice held the same language; and even the

Government, which had leased to these very farmers the rights they

exercised, scarcely spoke differently of them. It seemed as if their

business was not its own, and that it sought a way of escape amidst the

clamour which pursued its own agents.

When, therefore, the Parliament of Paris spoke in this manner on the

subject of taxes, it merely followed an old and general practice. The

play was the same, but the audience was changed; and the clamour,

instead of dying away as it had commonly done within the limit of the

classes whom their privileges caused to be but little affected by

taxation, was now so loud and so reiterated that it penetrated to those

classes which bore the heaviest burden, and ere long filled them with

indignation.

If the Parliament employed new arguments to vindicate its own

rights, the Government employed arguments not less new in defence

of its ancient prerogatives. For example, in a pamphlet attributed

to the Court, which appeared about that time, the following passage

occurs:--‘It is a question of _privilege_ which excites the Parliament.

They want to retain their exemption from taxation; this is nothing but

a formidable combination between the nobility of sword and gown to

continue under colour of liberty to humble and enslave the commons,

whom the King alone defends, and means to raise.’[109]

‘My object has been’ said Calonne, ‘to slay the hydra of privileges,

exemptions, and abuses.’[110]

Whilst, however, these discussions were going on upon the principle

of government, the daily work of administration threatened to stop:

there was no money. The Parliament had rejected the measures relating

to taxation. It refused to sanction a loan. In this perplexity the

King, seeing that he could not gain over the Assembly, attempted to

coerce it. He went down to the Chamber, and before he proceeded to

command their submission, less eager to exercise his rights than

to confirm them, he caused the Edicts to be again debated in his

presence. He began by laying down that his authority was absolute. The

legislative power resided in its integrity in his hands. He required no

extraordinary powers to carry on the government. The States-General,

when he chose to consult them, could only tender advice; he was still

the supreme arbiter of their representations and their grievances. This

sitting took place on November 19th, 1787. Having said thus much, every

one was allowed to speak in his presence. The most opposite and often

violent propositions were asserted to his face during a discussion of

eight hours; after which he withdrew, declaring, as his last word, that

he refused to convoke the States-General at present, though he promised

them for the year 1791.

Yet, after having thus suffered his most acknowledged and least

formidable rights to be contested in his own presence, the King

resolved to resume the exercise of those which were most disputed and

most unpopular. His own act had opened the mouths of the speakers, but

he sought to punish them for having spoken. In one of its remonstrances

the Parliament of Paris had said, ‘Sire, the French monarchy would

be reduced to a state of despotism if, under the King’s authority,

Ministers could dispose of personal freedom by _lettres de cachet_, and

of the rights of property by _lits de justice_, of civil and criminal

affairs by _scire facias_,[111] and of the judicature itself by partial

exile or by the arbitrary translation of judges.’

To which the King replied: ‘If the greater number of votes in my Courts

can constrain my will, the monarchy would become a mere aristocracy

of magistrates.’ ‘Sire,’ rejoined the Parliament, ‘no aristocracy in

France, but no despotism.’[112]

Two men, in the course of this struggle, had especially distinguished

themselves by the boldness of their speeches and by their revolutionary

attitude: these were M. Goislard and M. d’Eprémenil. It was resolved

to arrest them. Then occurred a scene, the prelude, so to speak, of

the great tragedy that was to follow, well calculated to exhibit an

easy-going Government under the aspect of tyranny.

Informed of the resolution taken against them, these two magistrates

left their homes, and took refuge in the Parliament itself, in the

full dress of their Order, where they were lost amidst the crowd of

judges forming that great body. The Palace of Justice was surrounded

by troops, and the doors guarded. Viscount d’Agoult, who commanded

them, appeared alone in the great Chamber. The whole Parliament was

assembled, and sitting in the most solemn form. The number of the

judges, the venerable antiquity of the Court, the dignity of their

dress, the simplicity of their demeanour, the extent of their power,

the majesty of the very hall, filled with all the memorials of our

history, all contributed to make the Parliament the greatest and most

honoured thing in France, after the Throne.

In presence of such an Assembly the officer stood at first at gaze.

He was asked who sent him there. He answered in rough but embarrassed

accents, and demanded that the two members whom he was ordered to

arrest should be pointed out to him. The Parliament sat motionless

and silent. The officer withdrew--re-entered--then withdrew again;

the Parliament, still motionless and silent, neither resisting nor

yielding. The time of year was that when the days are shortest. Night

came on. The troops lit fires round the approaches to the Palace, as

round a besieged fort. The populace, astonished by so unwonted a sight,

surrounded them in crowds, but stood aloof: the populace was touched

but not yet excited, and therefore stood aloof to contemplate, by the

light of those bivouac fires, a scene so new and unwonted under the

monarchy. For there it might see how the oldest Government in Europe

applied itself to teach the people to outrage the majesty of the oldest

institutions, and to violate in their sanctuary the most august of

ancient powers.

This lasted till midnight, when D’Eprémenil at last rose. He thanked

the Parliament for the effort it had made to save him. He declined

to trespass longer on the generous sympathy of his colleagues. He

commended the commonwealth and his children to their care, and,

descending the steps of the court, surrendered himself to the officer.

It seemed as if he was leaving that assembly to mount the scaffold.

The scaffold, indeed, he was one day to mount, but that was in other

times and under other powers. The only living witness of this strange

scene, Duke Pasquier, has told me that at these words of D’Eprémenil

the whole Assembly burst into tears, as if it had been Regulus marching

out of Rome to return to the horrid death which awaited him in

Carthage. The Marshal de Noailles sobbed aloud. Alas! how many tears

were ere long to be shed on loftier woes than these. Such grief was no

doubt exaggerated, but not unreal. At the commencement of a revolution

the vivacity of emotions greatly exceeds the importance of events, as

at the close of revolutions it falls short of them.

Having thus struck a blow at the whole body of the Parliaments,

represented by their chief, it only remained to annihilate their

power. Six edicts were simultaneously published.[113] These edicts,

which roused all France, were designed to effect several of the

most important and useful reforms which the Revolution has since

accomplished: the separation of the legislative and judicial powers,

the abolition of exceptional courts of justice, and the establishment

of all the principles which, to this day, govern the judicial

organisation of France, both civil and criminal. All these reforms

were conceived in the true spirit of the age, and met the real and

lasting wants of society. But, as they were aimed at the privileged

jurisdiction of the Parliaments, they struck down the idol of the hour,

and they emanated from a power which was detested. That was enough.

In the eyes of the nation these new edicts were a triumph of absolute

government. The time had not yet come when everything may be pardoned

by democracy to despotism in exchange for order and equality. In a

moment the nation rose. Each Parliament became at once a focus of

resistance round which the Orders of the province grouped themselves,

so as to present a firm front to the action of the central power of

government.

France was at that time divided, as is well known, into thirteen

judicial provinces, each of which was attached to a Parliament. All

these Parliaments were absolutely independent of one another, all of

them had equal prerogatives, all of them were invested with the same

right of discussing the mandates of the legislator before submitting to

them. This organisation will be seen to have been natural, on looking

back to the time when most of these courts of justice were founded.

The different parts of France were so dissimilar in their interests,

their disposition, their customs, and their manners, that the same

legislation could not be applied to all of them at once. As a distinct

law was usually enacted for each province, it was natural that in each

province there should be a Parliament whose duty it was to test this

law. In more recent times, the French having become more similar, one

law sufficed for all: but the right of testing the law remained divided.

An edict of the King applying equally to the whole of France, after it

had been accepted and executed in a certain manner in one part of the

territory, might still be modified or contested in the twelve other

parts. That was the right, but that was not the custom. For a long

period of time the separate Parliaments had ceased to contest anything,

save the administrative rules, which might be peculiar to their own

province. They did not debate the general laws of the kingdom, unless

the peculiar interests of their own province seemed to be affected

by some one of their provisions. As for the principle of such laws,

their opportunity or efficiency, these were considerations they did

not commonly entertain. On these points they were wont to rely on the

Parliament of Paris, which, by a sort of tacit agreement, was looked up

to by all the other Parliaments as their political guide.

On this occasion each Parliament chose to examine these edicts, as if

they concerned its own province alone, and as if it had been the sole

representative of France; each province chose, too, to distinguish

itself by a separate resistance in the midst of the general resistance

they encountered. All of these discussed the principle of each edict,

as well as its special application. A clause which had been accepted

without difficulty by one of these bodies was obstinately opposed

elsewhere: one of them barely notices what called forth the indignation

of another. Assailed by thirteen adversaries at once, each of which

attacked with different weapons and struck in different places, the

Government, amidst all these bodies, could not lay its hand upon a

single head.

But, what was even more remarkable than the diversity of these

attacks, was the uniform intention which animated them. Each of the

thirteen courts struggled after its own fashion and upon its own soil,

but the sentiment which excited them was identically the same. The

remonstrances made at that time by the different Parliaments, and

published by them, would fill many volumes; but open the book where you

will, you seem to be reading the same page: always the same thoughts

expressed for the most part in the same words. All of them demanded

the States-General in the name of the imprescriptible rights of the

nation: all of them approved the conduct of the Parliament of Paris,

protested against the acts of violence directed against it, encouraged

it to resist, and imitated, as well as it could, not only its measures,

but the philosophical language of its opposition. ‘Subjects,’ said the

Parliament of Grenoble, ‘have rights as well as the sovereign--rights

which are essential to all who are not slaves.’ ‘The just man,’ said

the Parliament of Normandy, ‘does not change his principles when he

changes his abode.’ ‘The King,’ said the Parliament of Besançon,

‘cannot wish to have for his subjects humiliated slaves.’[114] The

tumult raised at the same time by all these magistrates scattered

over the surface of the country sounds like the confused noise of a

multitude: listen attentively to what they are saying: it is as the

voice of one man.

What is it then that the country was saying thus simultaneously?

Everywhere you find the same ideas and the same expressions, so that

beneath the unity of the judicature you discover the unity of the

nation: and through this multiplicity of old institutions, of local

customs, of provincial privileges, of different usages, which seemed

to sever France into so many different peoples, each living a separate

life, you discern one of the nations of the earth in which the greatest

degree of similarity subsists between man and man. This movement of

the Parliaments, at once multiple and uniform, attacking like a crowd,

striking like a single arm,--this judicial insurrection was more

dangerous to the Government than all other insurrections, even military

revolt; because it turned against the Government that regular, civil,

and moral power which is the habitual instrument of authority. The

strength of an army may coerce for a day, but the constant defence of

Governments lies in courts of justice. Another striking point in this

resistance of the judicial bodies, was not so much the mischief they

themselves did to the Government, as that which they allowed to be

done to it by others. They established, for instance, the worst form

of liberty of the press: that, namely, which springs not from a right,

but from the non-execution of the laws. They introduced, too, the right

of holding promiscuous meetings, so that the different members of each

Order and the Orders themselves could remove for a time the barrier

which divided them, and concert a common course of action.

Thus it was that all the Orders in each province engaged gradually

in the struggle, but not all at the same time or in the same manner.

The nobility were the first and boldest champions in that contest

against the absolute powers of the King.[115] It was in the place

of the aristocracy that absolute government had taken root: they

were the first to be humbled and annoyed by some obscure agent of

the central power, who, under the name of an Intendant, was sent

perpetually to regulate and transact behind their backs the smallest

local affairs: they had produced not a few of the writers who had

protested with the greatest energy against despotism; free institutions

and the new opinions had almost everywhere found in the nobles their

chief supporters. Independently of their own grievances, they were

carried away by the common passion which had become universal, as is

demonstrated by the nature of their attacks. Their complaint was not

that their peculiar privileges had been violated, but that the common

law of the realm had been trampled under foot, the provincial Estates

abolished, the States-General interrupted, the nation treated like a

minor, and the country deprived of the management of its own affairs.

At this first period of the Revolution, when hostilities had not

yet broken out amongst the ranks of society, the language of the

aristocracy was exactly the same as that of the other classes,

distinguished only by going greater lengths and taking a higher tone.

Their opposition had something republican about it: it was the same

feeling animating prouder men and souls more accustomed to live in

contact with the world’s greatness.

A man who had till then been a violent enemy of the privileged orders,

having been present at one of the meetings where the opposition was

organised and where the nobles had made a sacrifice of all their rights

amidst the applause of the commons, relates this scene in a letter

to a friend and exclaims with enthusiasm, ‘Our nobility (how truly

a nobility!) has come down to point out our rights, to defend them

with us: I have heard it with my own ears; free elections, equality

of numbers, equality of taxation--every heart was touched by their

disinterestedness and kindled by their patriotism.’[116]

When public rejoicings took place at Grenoble upon the news of the

dismissal of the Archbishop of Sens, August 29th, 1788, the city was

instantly illuminated and covered with transparencies, on one of which

the following lines were read:--

‘Nobles, vous méritez le sort qui vous décore,

De l’État chancelant vous êtes les soutiens.

La nation, par vous, va briser ses liens;

Déjà du plus beau jour on voit briller l’aurore.’

In Brittany the nobles were ready to arm the peasants, in order to

resist the Royal authorities; and at Paris when the first riot broke

out (August 24th, 1788) which was feebly and indecisively repressed

by the army, several of the officers, who belonged, as is well

known, to the nobility, resigned their commissions rather than shed

the blood of the people. The Parliament complimented them on their

conduct, and called them ‘those noble and generous soldiers whom the

purity and delicacy of their sentiments had compelled to resign their

commissions.’[117]