Isolation of the Chiefs—Sentiments of subordinates—Provincial nobility—The Curates.
The fleeced flock is to discover finally what is done with its wool. "Sooner or later," says a parliament of 1764,1421"the people will learn that the remnants of our finances continue be wasted in donations which are frequently undeserved; in excessive and multiplied pensions for the same persons; in dowries and promises of dowry, and in useless offices and salaries." Sooner or later they will thrust back "these greedy hands which are always open and never full; that insatiable crowd which seems to be born only to seize all and possess nothing, and pitiless as it is shameless."—And when this day arrives the extortioners will find that they stand alone. For the characteristic of an aristocracy which cares only for itself is to live aloof in a closed circle. Having forgotten the public, it also neglects its subordinates; after being separated from the nation it separates itself from its own adherents. Like a group of staff-officers on furlough, it indulges in Sports without giving itself further concern about inferior officers; when the hour of battle comes nobody will march under its orders, and chieftains are sought elsewhere. Such is the isolation of the seigniors of the court and of the prelates among the lower grades of the nobility and the clergy; they appropriate to themselves too large a share, and give nothing, or almost nothing, to the people who are not of their society. For a century a steady murmur against them rising, and goes on expanding until it becomes an uproar, which the old and the new spirit, feudal ideas and philosophic ideas, threaten in unison. "I see," said the bailiff of Mirabeau,1422"that the nobility is demeaning itself and becoming a wreck. It is extended to all those children of bloodsuckers, the vagabonds of finance, introduced by La Pompadour, herself the spring of this foulness. One portion of it demeans itself in its servility to the court; the other portion is amalgamated with that quill-driving rabble who are converting the blood of the king's subjects into ink; another perishes stifled beneath vile robes, the ignoble atoms of cabinet-dust which an office drags up out of the mire;" and all, parvenus of the old or of the new stock, form a band called the court, 'The court!" exclaims D'Argenson. "The entire evil is found in this word, The court has become the senate of the nation; the least of the valets at Versailles is a senator; chambermaids take part in the government, if not to legislate, at least to impede laws and regulations; and by dint of hindrance there are no longer either laws, or rules, or law-makers. . . . Under Henry IV courtiers remained each one at home; they had not entered into ruinous expenditure to belong to the court; favors were not thus due to them as at the present day. . . The court is the sepulcher of the nation." Many noble officers, finding that high grades are only for courtiers, abandon the service, and betake themselves with their discontent to their estates. Others, who have not left their domains, brood there in discomfort, idleness, and ennui, their ambition embittered by their powerlessness. In 1789, says the Marquis de Ferrières, most of them "are so weary of the court and of the ministers, they are almost democrats." At least, "they want to withdraw the government from the ministerial oligarchy in whose hands it is concentrated;" there are no grand seigniors for deputies; they set them aside and "absolutely reject them, saying that they would traffic with the interests of the nobles;" they themselves, in their registers, insist that there be no more court nobility.
The same sentiments prevail among the lower clergy, and still more actively; for they are excluded from the high offices, not only as inferiors, but also as commoner.1423Already, in 1766, the Marquis de Mirabeau writes: "It would be an insult to most of our pretentious ecclesiastics to offer them a curacy. Revenues and honors are for the abbés-commendatory, for tonsured beneficiaries not in orders, for the numerous chapters (of nobility)." On the contrary, "the true pastors of souls, the collaborators in the holy ministry, scarcely obtain a subsistence." The first class "drawn from the nobility and from the best of the bourgeoisie have pretensions only, without being of the true ministry. The other, only having duties to fulfill without expectations and almost without income. . . can be recruited only from the lowest ranks of civil society," while the parasites who despoil the laborers "affect to subjugate them and to degrade them more and more." "I pity," said Voltaire, "the lot of a country curate, obliged to contend for a sheaf of wheat with his unfortunate parishioner, to plead against him, to exact the tithe of peas and lentils, to waste his miserable existence in constant strife. . . . I pity still more the curate with a fixed allowance to whom monks, called gros decimateurs1424dare offer a salary of forty ducats, to go about during the year, two or three miles from his home, day and night, in sunshine and in rain, in the snow and in the ice, exercising the most trying and most disagreeable functions." Attempts are made for thirty years to secure their salaries and raise them a little; in case of their inadequacy the beneficiary, collator or tithe-owner of the parish is required to add to them until the curê obtains 500 livres (1768), then 700 livres (1785), the vicar 200 livres (1768), then 250 (1778), and finally 350 (1785). Strictly, at the prices at which things are, a man may support himself on that.1425But he must live among the destitute to whom he owes alms, and he cherishes at the bottom of his heart a secret bitterness towards the indolent Dives who, with full pockets, dispatches him, with empty pockets, on a mission of charity. At Saint-Pierre de Barjouville, in the Toulousain, the archbishop of Toulouse appropriates to himself one-half of the tithes and gives away eight livres a year in alms. At Bretx, the chapter of Isle Jourdain, which retains one-half of certain tithes and three-quarters of others, gives ten livres; at Croix Falgarde, the Benedictines, to whom a half of the tithes belong, give ten livres per annum.1426At Sainte-Croix de Bernay in Normandy,1427the non-resident abbé, who receives 57,000 livres gives 1,050 livres to the curate without a parsonage, whose parish contains 4,000 communicants. At Saint-Aubin-sur-Gaillon, the abbé, a gros décimateur, gives 350 livres to the vicar, who is obliged to go into the village and obtain contributions of flour, bread and apples. At Plessis Hébert, "the substitute deportuaire,1428not having enough to live on is obliged to get his meals in the houses of neighboring curates." In Artois, where the tithes are often seven and a half and eight per cent. on he product of the soil, a number of curates have a fixed rate and no parsonage; their church goes to ruin and the beneficiary gives nothing to the poor. "At Saint-Laurent, in Normandy, the curacy is worth not more than 400 livres, which the curate shares with an obitier,1429and there are 500 inhabitants, three quarters of whom receive alms." As the repairs on a parsonage or on a church are usually at the expense of a seignior or of a beneficiary often far off, and in debt or indifferent, it sometimes happens that the priest does not know where to lodge, or to say mass. "I arrived," says a curate of the Touraine, "in the month of June, 1788. . . . The parsonage would resemble a hideous cave were it not open to all the winds and the frosts. Below there are two rooms with stone floors, without doors or windows, and five feet high; a third room six feet high, paved with stone, serves as parlor, hall, kitchen, wash-house, bakery, and sink for the water of the court and garden. Above are three similar rooms, the whole cracking and tumbling in ruins, absolutely threatening to fail, without either doors and windows that hold." And, in 1790, the repairs are not yet made. See, by way of contrast, the luxury of the prelates possessing half a million income, the pomp of their palaces, the hunting equipment of M. de Dillon, bishop of Evreux, the confessionals lined with satin of M. de Barral, bishop of Troyes, and the innumerable culinary utensils in massive silver of M. de Rohan, bishop of Strasbourg.—Such is the lot of curates at the established rates, and there are "a great many" who do not get the established rates, withheld from them through the ill-will of the higher clergy; who, with their perquisites, get only from 400 to 500 livres, and who vainly ask for the meager pittance to which they are entitled by the late edict. "Should not such a request," says a curate, "be willingly granted by Messieurs of the upper clergy who suffer monks to enjoy from 5 to 6,000 livres income each person, whilst they see curates, who are at least as necessary, reduced to the lighter portion, as little for themselves as for their parish?"—And they yet gnaw on this slight pittance to pay the free gift. In this, as in the rest, the poor are charged to discharge the rich. In the diocese of Clermont, "the curates, even with the simple fixed rates, are subject to a tax of 60, 80, 100, 120 livres and even more; the vicars, who live only by the sweat of their brows, are taxed 22 livres." The prelates, on the contrary, pay but little, and "it is still a custom to present bishops on New-Year's day with a receipt for their taxes."1430—There is no escape for the curates. Save two or three small bishoprics of "lackeys," all the dignities of the church are reserved to the nobles; "to be a bishop nowadays," says one of them, "a man must be a gentleman." I regard them as sergeants who, like their fellows in the army, have lost all hope of becoming officers.—Hence there are some whose anger bursts its bounds: "We, unfortunate curates at fixed rates; we, commonly assigned to the largest parishes, like my own which, for two leagues in the woods, includes hamlets that would form another; we, whose lot makes even the stones and beams of our miserable dwellings cry aloud," we have to endure prelates "who would still, through their forest-keepers, prosecute a poor curate for cutting a stick in their forests, his sole support on his long journeys over the road." On their passing, the poor man "is obliged to jump close against a slope to protect himself from the feet and the spattering of the horses, as likewise from the wheels and, perhaps, the whip of an insolent coachman," and then, "begrimed with dirt, with his stick in one hand and his hat, such as it is, in the other, he must salute, humbly and quickly, through the door of the close, gilded carriage, the counterfeit hierophant who is snoring on the wool of the flock the poor curate is feeding, and of which he merely leaves him the dung and the grease." The whole letter is one long cry of rage; it is rancor of this stamp which is to fashion Joseph Lebons and Fouchés.—In this situation and with these sentiments it is evident that the lower clergy will treat its chiefs as the provincial nobility treated theirs.1431They will not select "for representatives those who swim in opulence and who have always regarded their sufferings with tranquility." The curates, on all sides "will confederate together" to send only curates to the States-General, and to exclude "not only canons, abbés, priors and other beneficiaries, but again the principal superiors, the heads of the hierarchy," that is to say, the bishops. In fact, in the States-General, out of three hundred clerical deputies we count two hundred and eight curates, and, like the provincial nobles, these bring along with them the distrust and the ill-will which they have so long entertained against their chiefs. Events are soon to prove this. If the first two orders are constrained to combine against the communes it is at the critical moment when the curates withdraw. If the institution of an upper chamber is rejected it is owing to the commonalty of the gentry (la plèbe des gentilshommes) being unwilling to allow the great families a prerogative which they have abused.
The most privileged of all—Having monopolized all powers,he takes upon himself their functional activity—The burdenof this task—He evades it or is incompetent—Hisconscience at ease—France is his property—How he abusesit—Royalty the center of abuses.
One privilege remains the most considerable of all, that of the king; for, in his staff of hereditary nobles he is the hereditary general. His office, indeed, is not a sinecure, like their rank; but it involves quite as grave disadvantages and worse temptations. Two things are pernicious to Man, the lack of occupation and the lack of restraint; neither inactivity nor omnipotence are in harmony with his nature. The absolute prince who is all-powerful, like the listless aristocracy with nothing to do, in the end become useless and mischievous.—In grasping all powers the king insensibly took upon himself all functions; an immense undertaking and one surpassing human strength. For it is the Monarchy, and not the Revolution, which endowed France with administrative centralization1432. Three functionaries, one above the other, manage all public business under the direction of the king's council; the comptroller-general at the center, the intendant in each generalship,1433the sub-delegate in each election, fixing, apportioning and levying taxes and the militia, laying out and building highways, employing the national police force, distributing succor, regulating cultivation, imposing their tutelage on the parishes, and treating municipal magistrates as valets. "A village," says Turgot,1434"is simply an assemblage of houses and huts, and of inhabitants equally passive. . . . Your Majesty is obliged to decide wholly by yourself or through your mandataries. . . . Each awaits your special instructions to contribute to the public good, to respect the rights of others, and even sometimes to exercise his own." Consequently, adds Necker, "the government of France is carried on in the bureaux. . . .The clerks, relishing their influence, never fail to persuade the minister that he cannot separate himself from command in a single detail." Bureaucratic at the center, arbitrariness, exceptions and favors everywhere, such is a summary of the system. "Sub-delegates, officers of elections, receivers and comptrollers of the vingtièmes, commissaires and collectors of the tailles, officers of the salt-tax, process-servers, voituriers-buralistes, overseers of the corvées, clerks of the excise, of the registry, and of dues reserved, all these men belonging to the tax-service. Each of these will, aided by his fiscal knowledge and petty authority, so overwhelm the ignorant and inexperienced tax payer that he does not recognize that he is being cheated."1435A rude species of centralization with no control over it, with no publicity, without uniformity, thus installs over the whole country an army of petty pashas who, as judges, decide causes in which they are themselves contestants, ruling by delegation, and, to sanction their theft or their insolence, always having on their lips the name of the king, who is obliged to let them do as they please.—In short, the machine, through its complexity, irregularity, and dimensions, escapes from his grasp. A Frederick II. who rises at four o'clock in the morning, a Napoleon who dictates half the night in his bath, and who works eighteen hours a day, would scarcely suffice for its needs. Such a régime cannot operate without constant strain, without indefatigable energy, without infallible discernment, without military rigidity, without superior genius; on these conditions alone can one convert twenty-five millions of men into automatons and substitute his own will, lucid throughout, coherent throughout and everywhere present, for the wills of those he abolishes. Louis XV lets "the good machine" work by itself, while he settles down into apathy. "They would have it so, they thought it all for the best,"1436is his manner of speaking when ministerial measures prove unsuccessful. "If I were a lieutenant of the police," he would say again, "I would prohibit cabs." In vain is he aware of the machine being dislocated, for he can do nothing and he causes nothing to be done. In the event of misfortune he has a private reserve, his purse apart. "The king," said Mme. de Pompadour, "would sign away a million without thinking of it, but he would scarcely bestow a hundred louis out of his own little treasury."—Louis XVI strives for some time to remove some of the wheels, to introduce better ones and to reduce the friction of the rest; but the pieces are too rusty, and too weighty. He cannot adjust them, or harmonize them and keep them in their places; his hand falls by his side wearied and powerless. He is content to practice economy himself; he records in his journal the mending of his watch, and leaves the State carriage in the hands of Calonne to be loaded with fresh abuses that it may revert back to the old rut from which it is to issue only by breaking down.
Undoubtedly the wrong they do, or which is done in their name, dissatisfies the kings and upsets them, but, at the bottom, their conscience is not disturbed. They may feel compassion for the people, but they do not feel guilty; they are its sovereigns and not its representatives. France, to them, is as a domain to its lord, and a lord is not deprived of honor in being prodigal and neglectful. He merely gambles away his own property, and nobody has a right to call him to account. Founded on feudal society, royalty is like an estate, an inheritance. It would be infidelity, almost treachery in a prince, in any event weak and base, should he allow any portion of the trust received by him intact from his ancestors for transmission to his children, to pass into the hands of his subjects. Not only according to medieval traditions is he proprietor-commandant of the French and of France, but again, according to the theory of the jurists, he is, like Caesar, the sole and perpetual representative of the nation, and, according to the theological doctrine, like David, the sacred and special delegate of God himself. It would be astonishing, if, with all these titles, he did not consider the public revenue as his personal revenue, and if, in many cases, he did not act accordingly. Our point of view, in this matter, is so essentially opposed to his, we can scarcely put ourselves in his place; but at that time his point of view was everybody's point of view. It seemed, then, as strange to meddle with the king's business as to meddle with that of a private person. Only at the end of the year 17881437the famous salon of the Palais-Royal "with boldness and unimaginable folly, asserts that in a true monarchy the revenues of the State should not be at the sovereign's disposition; that he should be granted merely a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of his establishment, of his donations, and for favors to his servants as well as for his pleasures, while the surplus should be deposited in the royal treasury to be devoted only to purposes sanctioned by the National Assembly. To reduce the sovereign to a civil list, to seize nine-tenths of his income, to forbid him cash on demand, what an outrage! The surprise would be no greater if at the present day it were proposed to divide the income of each millionaire into two portions, the smallest to go for the owner's support, and the largest to be placed in the hands of a government to be expended in works of public utility. An old farmer-general, an intellectual and unprejudiced man, gravely attempts to justify the purchase of Saint-Cloud by calling it "a ring for the queen's finger." The ring cost, indeed, 7,700,000 francs, but "the king of France then had an income of 447,000,000. What could be said of any private individual who, with 477,000 livres income, should, for once in his life, give his wife diamonds worth 7,000 or 8,000 livres?"1438People would say that the gift is moderate, and that the husband is reasonable.
To properly understand the history of our kings, let the fundamental principle be always recognized that France is their land, a farm transmitted from father to son, at first small, then slowly enlarged, and, at last, prodigiously enlarged, because the proprietor, always alert, has found means to make favorable additions to it at the expense of his neighbors; at the end of eight hundred years it comprises about 27,000 square leagues of territory. His interests and his vanity harmonize, certainly, in several areas with public welfare; he is, all in all, not a poor administrator, and, since he has always expanded his territory, he has done better than many others. Moreover, around him, a number of expert individuals, old family councilors, withdrawn from business and devoted to the domain, with good heads an gray beards, respectfully remonstrate with him when he spends too freely; they often interest him in public improvements, in roads, canals, homes for the invalids, military schools, scientific institutions and charity workshops; in the control of trust-funds and foundations, in the tolerance of heretics, in the postponement of monastic vows to the age of twenty-one, in provincial assemblies, and in other reforms by which a feudal domain becomes transformed into a modern domain. Nevertheless, the country, feudal or modern, remains his property, which he can abuse as well as use; however, whoever uses with full sway ends by abusing with full license. If, in his ordinary conduct, personal motives do not prevail over public motives, he might be a saint like Louis IX, a stoic like Marcus Aurelius, while remaining a seignior, a man of the world like the people of his court, yet more badly brought up, worse surrounded, more solicited, more tempted and more blindfolded. At the very least he has, like them, his own vanity, his own tastes, his own relatives, his mistress, his wife, his friends, all intimate and influential solicitors who must first be satisfied, while the nation only comes after them.—The result is, that, for a hundred years, from 1672 to 1774, whenever he makes war it is through wounded pride, through family interest, through calculation of private advantages, or to gratify a woman. Louis XV maintains his wars yet worse than in undertaking them;"1439while Louis XVI, during the whole of his foreign policy, finds himself hemmed in by the marriage he has made.—At home the king lives like other nobles, but more grandly, because he is the greatest lord in France; I shall describe his court presently, and further on we shall see by what exactions this pomp is made possible. In the meantime let us note two or three details. According to authentic statements, Louis XV expended on Mme. de Pompadour thirty-six millions of livres, which is at least seventy-two millions nowadays1440According to d'Argenson,1441in 1751, he has 4,000 horses in his stable, and we are assured that his household alone, or his person, "cost this year 68,000,000," almost a quarter of the public revenue. Why be astonished if we look upon the sovereign in the manner of the day, that is to say, as a lord of the manor enjoying of his hereditary property? He constructs, he entertains, he gives festivals, he hunts, and he spends money according to his station. Moreover, being the master of his own funds, he gives to whomsoever he pleases, and all his selections are favors. Abbé de Vermond writes to Empress Maria Theresa1442
"Your Majesty knows better than myself, that, according to immemorial custom, three-fourths of the places honors and pensions are awarded not on account of services but out of favor and through influence. This favor was originally prompted by birth, alliance and fortune; the fact is that it nearly always is based on patronage and intrigue. This procedure is so well established, that is respected as a sort of justice even by those who suffer the most from it. A man of worth not able to dazzle by his court alliances, nor through a brilliant expenditure, would not dare to demand a regiment, however ancient and illustrious his services, or his birth. Twenty years ago, the sons of dukes and ministers, of people attached to the court, of the relations and protégés of mistresses, became colonels at the age of sixteen. M. de Choiseul caused loud complaints on extending this age to twenty-three years. But to compensate favoritism and absolutism he assigned to the pure grace of the king, or rather to that of his ministers, the appointment to the grades of lieutenant-colonel and major which, until that time, belonged of right to priority of services in the government; also the commands of provinces and of towns. You are aware that these places have been largely multiplied, and that they are bestowed through favor and credit, like the regiments. The cordon bleu and the cordon rouge are in the like position, and abbeys are still more constantly subject to the régime of influence. As to positions in the finances, I dare not allude to them. Appointments in the judiciary are the most conditioned by services rendered; and yet how much do not influence and recommendation affect the nomination of intendants, first presidents" and the others?
Necker, entering on his duties, finds twenty-eight millions in pensions paid from the royal treasury, and, at his fall, there is an outflow of money showered by millions on the people of the court. Even during his term of office the king allows himself to make the fortunes of his wife's friends of both sexes; the Countess de Polignac obtains 400,000 francs to pay her debts, 100,000 francs dowry for her daughter, and, besides, for herself, the promise of an estate of 35,000 livres income, and, for her lover, the Count de Vaudreil, a pension of 30,000 livres; the Princess de Lamballe obtains 100,000 crowns per annum, as much for the post of superintendent of the queen's household, which is revived on her behalf, as for a position for her brother.1443The king is reproached for his parsimony; why should he be sparing of his purse? Started on a course not his own, he gives, buys, builds, and exchanges; he assists those belonging to his own society, doing everything in a style becoming to a grand seignior, that is to say, throwing money away by handfuls. One instance enables us to judge of this: in order to assist the bankrupt Guéménée family, he purchases of them three estates for about 12,500,000 livres, which they had just purchased for 4,000,000; moreover, in exchange for two domains in Brittany, which produce 33,758 livres income, he makes over to them the principality of Dombes which produces nearly 70,000 livres income.1444—When we come to read the Red Book further on we shall find 700,000 livres of pensions for the Polignac family, most of them revertible from one member to another, and nearly 2,000,000 of annual benefits to the Noailles family.—The king has forgotten that his favors are mortal blows, "the courtier who obtains 6,000 livres pension, receiving the taille of six villages."1445Each largess of the monarch, considering the state of the taxes, is based on the privation of the peasants, the sovereign, through his clerks, taking bread from the poor to give coaches to the rich.—The center of the government, in short, is the center of the evil; all the wrongs and all the miseries start from it as from the center of pain and inflammation; here it is that the public abscess comes to the head, and here will it break.1446
Such is the just and fatal effect of privileges turned to selfish purposes instead of being exercised for the advantage of others. To him who utters the word, "Sire or Seignior" stands for the protector who feeds, the ancient who leads."1447With such a title and for this purpose too much cannot be granted to him, for there is no more difficult or more exalted post. But he must fulfill its duties; otherwise in the day of peril he will be left to himself. Already, and long before the day arrives, his flock is no longer his own; if it marches onward it is through routine; it is simply a multitude of persons, but no longer an organized body. Whilst in Germany and in England the feudal régime, retained or transformed, still composes a living society, in France1448its mechanical framework encloses only so many human particles. We still find the material order, but we no longer find the moral order of things. A lingering, deep-seated revolution has destroyed the close hierarchical union of recognized supremacies and of voluntary deference. It is like an army in which the attitudes of chiefs and subordinates have disappeared; grades are indicated by uniforms only, but they have no hold on consciences. All that constitutes a well-founded army, the legitimate ascendancy of officers, the justified trust of soldiers, the daily interchange of mutual obligations, the conviction of each being useful to all, and that the chiefs are the most useful all, is missing. How could it be otherwise in an army whose staff-officers have no other occupation but to dine out, to display their epaulettes and to receive double pay? Long before the final crash France is in a state of dissolution, and she is in a state of dissolution because the privileged classes had forgotten their characters as public men.
1401 (return)[ "Rapport de l'agence du clergé," from 1775 to 1780, pp. 31-34.—Ibid. from 1780 to 1785, p. 237.]
1402 (return)[ Lanfrey, "L'Eglise et les philosophes," passim.]
1403 (return)[ Boiteau, "Etat de la France en 1789," pp. 205, 207.—D'Argenson "Mémoires," May 5, 1752, September 3, 22, 25, 1753; October 17, 1753, and October 26, 1775.—Prudhomme, "Résumé général des cahiers des Etats-Généraux," 1789, (Registers of the Clergy).—"Histoire des églises du désert," par Charles Coquerel, I. 151 and those following.]
1404 (return)[ De Ségur, "Mémoires," vol. I. pp. 16, 41.—De Bouillé, "Mémoires," p. 54.—Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," V. I. p. 237, proofs in detail.]
1405 (return)[ Somewhat like the socialist societies including the welfare states where a caste of public pensionaries, functionaries, civil servants and politicians weigh like a heavy burden on those who actually do the work.. (SR.)]
1406 (return)[ An antechamber in the palace of Versailles in which there was a round or bull's-eye window, where courtiers assembled to await the opening of the door into the king's apartment.—TR.]
1407 (return)[ "La France ecclésiastique," 1788.]
1408 (return)[ Grannier de Cassagnac, "Des causes de la Rèvolution Française," III. 58.]
1409 (return)[ Marmontel, "Mémoires," . II. book XIII. p. 221.]
1410 (return)[ Boiteau, "Etat de la France en 1789," pp. 55, 248.—D'Argenson, "Considérations sur le gouvermement de la France," p. 177. De Luynes, "Journal," XIII. 226, XIV. 287, XIII. 33, 158, 162, 118, 233, 237, XV. 268, XVI. 304.—The government of Ham is worth 11,250 livres, that of Auxerre 12,000, that of Briançon 12,000, that of the islands of Ste. Marguerite 16,000, that of Schelestadt 15,000, that of Brisach from 15 to 16,000, that of Gravelines 18,000.—The ordinance of 1776 had reduced these various places as follows: (Warroquier, II, 467). 18 general governments to 60,000 livres, 21 to 30,000; 114 special governments; 25 to 12,000 livres, 25 to 10,000 and 64 to 8,000; 176 lieutenants and commandants of towns, places, etc., of which 35 were reduced to 16,600 and 141 from 2,000 to 6,000.—The ordinance of 1788 established, besides these, 17 commands in chief with from 20,000 to 30,000 livres fixed salary and from 4,000 to 6,000 a month for residence, and commands of a secondary grade.]
1411 (return)[ Somewhat like a minister of culture in one of our western Welfare Social democracies, and which secures the support for the ruling class of a horde of "artists" of all sorts. (SR.)]
1412 (return)[ Archives nationales, H, 944, April 25, and September 20, 1780. Letters and Memoirs of Furgole, advocate at Toulouse.]
1413 (return)[ Archives nationales, O1, 738 (Reports made to the bureau-general of the king's household, March, 1780, by M. Mesnard de Chousy). Augeard, "Mémoires," 97.—Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," I. 291.—D'Argenson, "Mémoires," February 10, December 9, 1751,—"Essai sur les capitaineries royales et autres" (1789), p. 80.—Warroquier, "Etat de la France en 1789," I. 266.]
1414 (return)[ "Marie Antoinette," by D'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 377.]
1415 (return)[ 1 crown (écu) equals 6 livres under Louis XV. (SR.)]
1416 (return)[ Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," I. 296, 298, 300, 301; III. 78.—Hippeau, "Le Gouvernement de Normandie," IV. 171 (Letter from Paris, December 13, 1780).—D'Argenson, "Mémoires," September 5, 1755.—Bachaumont, January 19, 1758.—"Mémoire sur l'imposition territoriale," by M. de Calonne (1787), p. 54.]
1417 (return)[ D'Argenson, "Mémoires," December 9, 1751. "The expense to courtiers of two new and magnificent coats, each for two fête days, ordered by the king, completely ruins them."]
1418 (return)[ De Luynes, "Journal," XIV. pp. 147-295, XV. 36, 119.—D'Argenson, "Mémoires," April 8, 1752, March 30 and July 28, 1753, July 2, 1735, June 23, 1756.—Hippeau, ibid.. IV. p. 153 (Letter of May 15, 1780).—Necker, "De l'Administration des Finances," II. pp. 265, 269, 270, 271, 228.—Augeard, "Mémoires," p 249.]
1419 (return)[ Nicolardot, "Journal de Louis XVI.," p. 228. Appropriations in the Red Book of 1774 to 1789: 227,985,716 livres, of which 80,000,000 are in acquisitions and gifts to the royal family.—Among others there are 14,600,000 to the Comte d'Artois and 14,450,000 to Monsieur.—7,726,253 are given to the Queen for Saint-Cloud.—8,70,000 for the acquisition of Ile-Adam.]
1420 (return)[ Cf. "Compte général des revenus et dépenses fixes au 1er Mai, 1789" (Imprimerie royale, 1789, in 4to). Estate of Ile-Dieu, acquired in 1783 of the Duc de Mortemart, 1,000,000; estate of Viviers, acquired of the Prince de Soubise in 1784, 1,500,000.—Estates of St. Priest and of St. Etienne, acquired in 1787 of M. Gilbert des Voisins, 1,335,935.—The forests of Camors and of Floranges, acquired of the Duc de Liancourt in 1785, 1,200,000.—The county of Montgommery, acquired of M. Clement de Basville in 1785, 3,306,604.]
1421 (return)[ "Le President des Brosses," by Foisset. (Remonstrances to the king by the Parliament of Dijon, Jan. 19, 1764).]
1422 (return)[ Lucas de Montigny, "Mémoires de Mirabeau." Letter of the bailiff, May 26, 1781.—D'Argenson, "Mémoires," VI. 156, 157, 160, 76; VI. p. 320.—Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires," I. 9.—De Ferrières, "Mémoires," preface. See, on the difficulty in succeeding, the Memoirs of Dumourier. Châteaubriand's father is likewise one of the discontented, "a political frondeur, and very inimical to the court." (I. 206).—Records of the States-General of 1789, a general summary by Prud'homme, II. passim.]
1423 (return)[ "Ephémérides du citoyen," II. 202, 203.—Voltaire, "Dictionnaire philosophique," article "Curé de Campagne."—Abbé Guettée, "Histoire de l'Eglise de France," XII. 130.]
1424 (return)[ Those entitled to tithes in cereals.—TR.]
1425 (return)[ A curate's salary at the present day (1875) is, at the minimum, 900 francs with a house and perquisites.]
1426 (return)[ Théron de Montaugé, "L'Agriculture les classes rurale, dans le pays Toulousain," p. 86.]
1427 (return)[ Périn, "la Jeunesse de Robespierre," grievances of the rural parishes of Artois, p. 320.—Boivin-Champeaux, ibid.. pp. 65, 68.—Hippeau, ibid.. VI. p. 79, et VII. 177.—Letter of M. Sergent, curate of Vallers, January 27, 1790. (Archives nationales, DXIX. portfolio 24.) Letter of M. Briscard, curate of Beaumont-la-Roger, diocese of Evreux, December 19, 1789. (ibid.. DXIX. portfolio 6.) "Tableau moral du clergé de France" (1789), p. 2.]
1428 (return)[ He who has the right of receiving the first year's income of a parish church after a vacancy caused by death.—TR.]
1429 (return)[ One who performs masses for the dead at fixed epochs.—TR.]
1430 (return)[ Grievances on the additional burdens which the Third-Estate have to support, by Gautier de Bianzat (1788), p 237.]
1431 (return)[ Hippeau, ibid. VI. 164. (Letter of the Curate of Marolles and of thirteen others,. Letter of the bishop of Evreux, March 20, 1789. Letter of the abbé d'Osmond, April 2, 1789).—Archives nationales, manuscript documents (proces-verbeaux) of the States-General, V. 148. pp. 245-47. Registers of the curates of Toulouse, t. 150, p. 282, in the representations of the Dijon chapter.]
1432 (return)[ De Toqueville, book II. This capital truth as been established by M. de Tocqueville with superior discernment.]
1433 (return)[ A term indicating a certain division of the kingdom of France to facilitate the collection of taxes. Each generalship was subdivided into elections, in which there was a tribunal called the bureau of finances. (TR.)]
1434 (return)[ Remonstrances of Malesherbes; Registers by Turgot and Necker to the king, (Laboulaye, "De l'administration française sous Louis XVI, Revue des cours littéraires, IV. 423, 759, 814.)]
1435 (return)[ Financiers have been known to tell citizens: "The ferme ( revenue-agency) ought to be able to grant you favors, you ought to be forced to come and ask for them.—He who pays never knows what he owes. The fermier is sovereign legislator in matters relating to his personal interest. Every petition, in which the interests of a province, or those of the whole nation are concerned, is regarded as penal foolhardiness if it is signed by a person in his private capacity, and as illicit association if it be signed by several." Malesherbes, ibid..]
1436 (return)[ Mme. Campan, "Mémoires," I. p. 13.—Mme. du Hausset, "Mémoires," p. 114.]
1437 (return)[ "Gustave III. et la cour de France," by Geffroy. II. 474. ("Archives de Dresde," French Correspondence, November 20, 1788.)]
1438 (return)[ Augeard, "Mémoires," p. 135.]
1439 (return)[ Mme. de Pompadour, writing to Marshal d'Estrées, in the army, about the campaign operations, and tracing for him a sort of plan, had marked on the paper with mouches (face-patches), the different places which she advised him to attack or defend." Mme. de Genlis, "Souvenirs de Félicie," p. 329. Narrative by Mme. de Puisieux, the mother-in-law of Marshal d'Estrées.]
1440 (return)[ According to the manuscript register of Mme. de Pompadour's expenses, in the archives of the préfecture of Versailles, she had expended 36,327,268 livres. (Granier de Cassagnac, I. 91.)]
1441 (return)[ D'Argenson, "Mémoires," VI. 398 (April 24, 1751).—"M. du Barry declared openly that he had consumed 18,000,000 belonging to the State." (Correspondence by Métra, I. 27).]
1442 (return)[ "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, vol. II. p. 168 (June 5, 1774).]
1443 (return)[ "Marie Antoinette," ibid.. vol. II. p. 377; vol. III. p. 391.]
1444 (return)[ Archives nationales, H, 1456, Memoir for M. Bouret de Vezelay, syndic for the creditors.]
1445 (return)[ Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traité de la population," p. 81.]
1446 (return)[ Today, our so-called popular democracies have become completely irresponsible since the elected, who have full access to the coffers of the nation, present and future, and who, through alternation and short duration of tenure, are encouraged to become irresponsible, will use large amounts to be favorably exposed in the media and to avoid any kind of mudslinging. They seem to govern their countries according to the devise: "After me the deluge." (SR.)]
1447 (return)[ Lord, in Old Saxon, signifies "he who provides food;" seignior, in the Latin of the middle ages, signifies "the ancient," the head or chief of the flock.]
1448 (return)[ Around 1780. (SR.)]