Chapter 4

FOOTNOTES:[35]Historical View of French Revolution, by J. Michelet, i., 66.[36]History of the Bastille, Chambers' Miscellany.[37]Old Régime, p. 191.

FOOTNOTES:

[35]Historical View of French Revolution, by J. Michelet, i., 66.

[36]History of the Bastille, Chambers' Miscellany.

[37]Old Régime, p. 191.

CHAPTER VI.

THE COURT AND THE PARLIAMENT.

Death of Louis XV.—Education of Louis XVI.—Maurepas, Prime Minister.—Turgot; his Expulsion from Office.—Necker.—Franklin.—Sympathy with the Americans.—La Fayette.—Views of the Court.—Treaty with America.—Popularity of Voltaire.—Embarrassment of Necker.—Compte Rendu au Roi.—Necker driven into Exile.—Enslavement of France.—New Extravagance.—Calonne.

Asthe clock of Versailles tolled the hour of twelve at midnight of the 10th of May, 1774, Louis XV., abandoned by all, alone in his chamber, died. In the most loathsome stages of the confluent small-pox, his body had for several days presented but a mass of corruption. Terror had driven all the courtiers from the portion of the palace which he occupied, and even Madame du Barry dared not approach the bed where her guilty paramour was dying. The nurse hired to attend him could not remain in the apartment, but sat in an adjoining room. A lamp was placed at the window, which she was to extinguish as soon as the king was dead. Eagerly the courtiers watchedthe glimmering of that light that they might be the first to bear to Louis, the grandson of the king, the tidings thathewas monarch of France.

Louis was then hardly twenty years of age.[39]His wife, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, Queen of Austria, was scarcely nineteen. They had been married four years. Marie Antoinette was one of the most beautiful of women, but from infancy she had been educated in the belief that kings and nobles were created to illustrate life by gayety and splendor, and that the people were created only to be their servants.[40]

The taper was extinguished, and the crowd of courtiers rushed to the apartment of the Dauphin to hail him as Louis XVI. The tidings, though expected, for a moment overwhelmed them both, and, encircled in each other's arms, they fell upon their knees, while Louis exclaimed, "O God! guide us, protect us, we are too young to govern."[41]They then entered the grand saloon, where they received the congratulations of all the dignitaries of the Church and the State. All were anxious to escape from the palace whose atmosphere was tainted, and hardly an hour elapsed ere the new court, in carriages and on horseback, left Versailles and were passing rapidly to the Chateau of Choisy, one of the favorite rural palaces of Louis XV. The loathsome remains of the king were left to the care of a few under-servants to be hurried to their burial.

It was not yet four o'clock in the morning. The sleepless night, the chill morning air, the awful scene of death from which they had come, oppressed all spirits. Soon, however, the sun rose warm and brilliant; a jocular remark dispelled the mental gloom, and in two hours they arrived at the palace a merry party exulting in the new reign. The education of Louis XVI. had been such that he was still but a boy, bashful, self-distrusting, and entirely incompetent to guide the kingdom through the terrific storm which for ages had been gathering. He had not the remotest idea of the perils with which France was surrounded. He was an exceedingly amiable young man, of morals most singularly pure for that corrupt age, retiring and domestic in his tastes, and sincerely desirous of promoting the happiness of France. Geography was the only branch of learning in which he appeared to take any special interest. He framed, with much sagacity, the instructions for the voyage of La Pérouse around the world in 1786, and often lamented the fate of this celebrated navigator, saying, "I see very well that I am not fortunate."[42]How mysterious the government of God, that upon the head of this benevolent, kind-hearted, conscientious king should have been emptied, even to the dregs, those vials of wrath which debauched and profligate monarchs had been treasuring up for so many reigns!

LOUIS XVI. AND LA PÉROUSE.

Louis had no force of character, and, destitute of self-reliance, was entirely guided by others. At the suggestion of his aunt, Adelaide, he called to the post of prime minister Count Maurepas, who was eighty years of age, and who, having been banished from Paris by Madame de Pompadour, had been living for thirty years in retirement. Thus France was handed over in these hours of peril to a king in his boyhood and a prime minister in his dotage. Was it chance? Was it Providence? Clouds and darkness surround God's throne!

M. Turgot was appointed to the post of utmost difficulty and danger—the administration of the finances. He had acquired much reputation by the skill with which, for twelve years, he had administered the government of the Province of Limousin. The kingdom of France was already in debt more than four thousand millions of francs ($800,000,000).[43]As the revenue was by no means sufficient to pay the interest upon this debt and the expenses of the government, new loans had been incessantly resorted to, and national bankruptcy was near at hand. To continue borrowing was ruin; to impose higher taxes upon the people impossible. There were but two measures which could be adopted. One was to introduce a reform of wide-sweeping and rigid economy, cutting down salaries, abolishing pensions and sinecures, and introducing frugality into the pleasure-haunts of the court. Turgot was too well acquainted with the habits of the courtiers to dream that it was in the power of any minister to enforce this reform. There remained only the plan to induce the clergy and the nobles to allow themselves to be taxed, and thus to bear their fair proportion of the expenses of the state. Turgot fully understood the Herculean task before him in attempting this measure, and in a letter to the king he wrote:

"We will have no bankruptcies, no augmentation of the taxes, no loans. I shall have to combat abuses of every kind, to combat those who are benefited by them, and even the kindness, sire, of your own nature. I shall be feared, hated, and calumniated; but the affecting goodness with which you pressed my hands in yours, to witness your acceptance of my devotion to your service, is never to be obliterated from my recollection, and must support me under every trial."[44]

Several of Turgot's measures of reform the privileged class submitted to, though with reluctance and with many murmurs; but when he proposed that a tax should be fairly and equally levied upon proprietors of every description, a burst of indignant remonstrance arose from the nobles which drowned his voice. To suggest that ahigh-bornman was to be taxed like onelow-bornwas an insult too grievous to be borne. The whole privileged class at once combined, determined to crush the audacious minister thus introducing the doctrine of equal taxation into the court of aristocratic privilege.

Madame du Barry, in a pet, four years before, had abolished the Parliament of Paris, which was entirely under the control of the aristocracy. Louis XVI., seeking popularity, restored the Parliament. Unfortunately for reform, the nobles had now an organized body with which to make resistance. The Parliament, the clergy, the old minister Maurepas, and even the young queen, all united in a clamorous onset upon Turgot, and he was driven from the ministry, having been in office but twenty months.[45]The Parliament absolutely refused to register the obnoxious decree. The inexperienced and timid king, frightened by the clamor, yielded, and abandoned his minister. Had the king been firm, he might, perhaps, have carried his point; but want of capacity leads to results as disastrous as treachery, and the king, though actuated by the best intentions, was ignorant and inefficient. Though the king held abed of justice,[46]and ordered the edicts registered, they remained as dead letters and were never enforced.

There was in Paris a wealthy Protestant banker, born in Geneva, of great financial celebrity, M. Necker. He was called to take the place of Turgot. Warned by the fate of his predecessor and seeing precisely the same difficulties staring him in the face, he resolved to try the expedient of economy, cutting off pensions and abolishing sinecures. But the nobles, in Churchand State, disliked this as much as being taxed, and immediately their clamor was renewed.[47]

Just at this time the American war of independence commenced. All France was in a state of enthusiasm in view of a heroic people struggling to be free. And when the American delegation appeared in Paris, headed by Franklin, all hearts were swept along by a current which neither king nor nobles could withstand. The republican simplicity of Franklin in his attire and manners produced an extraordinary impression upon all classes. The French ladies in particular were lavish in their attentions. Several fêtes were given in his honor, at one of which the most beautiful of three hundred ladies crowned him with a laurel wreath, and then kissed him on both cheeks. Almost every saloon was ornamented with his bust, bearing the inscription, "Eripuit cœlo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."

All the latent spirit of freedom which had so long been slowly accumulating burst forth with a power which alarmed the court. Not a few of the nobles, disgusted with the aristocratic oppression which was ruining France, gave their sympathies to the American cause. The Marquis la Fayette, then but eighteen years of age, openly and enthusiastically applauded the struggle of the colonists. Marie Antoinette, instinctively hating a war in which the people were contending against royalty, expressed much indignation that La Fayette should utter such sentiments in the Palace of Versailles. Joseph II. of Austria, brother of Marie Antoinette, then on a visit to the French court, was asked by a lady his opinion of the subject which was now engrossing every mind. He replied, "I must decline answering; my business is to be a Royalist" (Mon métier à moi c'est d'être Royaliste).[48]

It is hardly possible for one now to realize the enthusiasm with which the American war, at that time, inspired France. Even the court hated England, and wished to see that domineering power humbled. The mind of the nation had just awakened and was thoroughly aroused from the lethargy of ages. Theories, dreams, aspirations had exhausted themselves, and yet there was in France no scope whatever for action. America opened a theatre for heroic enterprise. France had given the theory of liberty, America was illustrating that theory by practice. The popular cry so effectually drowned every other voice that even the king was compelled to yield. A treaty with America was signed which drew from the treasury of France twelve hundred millions of francs ($240,000,000), in support of American independence.[49]But for the substantial aid thus rendered by the fleet and the army of France it can hardly be doubted that the American Revolution would have been crushed, Washington and Franklin would have been hanged as traitors, and monarchical historians would elegantly have described the horrors of the great American rebellion.[50]

The king, however, had sufficient intelligence to appreciate the suicidal act he was thus compelled to perform. With extreme reluctance he signed the treaty which recognized the right of nations to change their government. The doctrine of thesovereignty of the peoplewas thus legitimated in France. That one sentiment unresisted would sweep Europe of its despotic thrones. As the king signed the treaty, Feb. 8, 1778, he remarked to his minister, "You will remember, sir, that this is contrary to my opinion."[51]The same weakness which constrained Louis XVI. to abandon Turgot to his enemies, compelled him to perform this act which his views of state policy condemned. "How painful," he writes, in his private correspondence, "to be obliged, for reasons of state, to sign orders and commence a great war contrary alike to my opinions and my wishes."[52]

In the midst of these transactions Voltaire, after an absence of twenty-seven years, much of which time he had passed in his retreat at Ferney, about five miles from Geneva, revisited Paris. He was then eighty-four years of age. The court hated the bold assailer of corruptions, and refused to receive him. But the populace greeted him with enthusiasm unparalleled. He attended the theatre where his last play, "Irene," was acted. Immediately upon his appearance the whole audience, rising, greeted him with long and tumultuous applause. As, overpowered with emotion, he rose to depart, with trembling limbs and with flooded eyes, men of the highest rank and beautiful women crowded around him and literally bore him in their arms to his carriage. He could only exclaim, "Do you wish to kill me with joy?" A crowd with lighted torches filled the streets, making his path brilliant as day, and shouts of triumph arose which appalled the courtiers in the saloons of the palace. A few weeks after this, May 30, 1778, Voltaire died. The Archbishop of Paris refused to allow him Christian burial, and the court forbade his death to be mentioned in the public journals. His corpse was taken from the city and buried secretly at an old abbey at Scellières. This petty persecution only exasperated the friends of reform. A month after the death of Voltaire, Rousseau also passed away to the spirit-land.

The situation of Necker was now deplorable. The kingdom was involved in an enormously expensive war. The court would not consent to any diminution of its indulgences, and the privileged class would not consent to be taxed. Necker was almost in despair. He borrowed of every one who would lend, and from the already exhausted people with sorrow, almost with anguish, gleaned every sou which the most ingenious taxation could extort.

"Never shall I forget," he wrote, in 1791, "the long, dark staircase of M. Maurepas, the terror and the melancholy with which I used to ascend it, uncertain of the success of some idea that had occurred to me, likely, if carried into effect, to produce an increase of the revenue, but likely at the same time to fall severely though justly on some one or other; the sort of hesitation and diffidence with which I ventured to intermingle in my representations any of those maxims of justice and of right with which my own heart was animated."

For a time Necker succeeded by loans and annuities in raising money, but at last it became more difficult to find lenders, and national bankruptcy seemed inevitable. And what is national bankruptcy? It is the paralysis of industry, and wide-spreading consternation and woe. Thousands of widows and orphans had all their patrimony in the national funds. The failure of these funds was to them beggary and starvation. The hospitals, the schools, the homes of refuge for the aged and infirm—all would lose their support. The thousands in governmental employ and those dependent upon them would be left in utter destitution. The bankruptcy of a solitary merchant may send poverty to many families—the bankruptcy of a nation sends paleness to the cheeks and anguish to the hearts of millions.

In this exigence Necker adopted the bold resolve to publish an honest account of the state of the finances, that the nation, nobles, and unennobled might see the destruction toward which the state was drifting. Necker thought that, if the facts were fairly presented, the privileged class, in view of the ruin otherwise inevitable, would consent to bear their share of taxation, manifestly the only possible measure which could arrest the disaster. He consequently, in 1781, published his celebratedCompte Rendu au Roi. The impression which this pamphlet produced was amazing. Two hundred thousand copies were immediately called for, and the appalling revelation went with electric speed through the whole length and breadth of the land. It was read in the saloon, in the work-shop, and in the hamlet. Groups of those who could not read were gathered at all corners to hear it read by others.

"We wetted with our tears," writes M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, who acted an illustrious part in those days, "those pages which a citizen minister had imprinted with luminous and comfortable reflections, and where he was turning all his attention to the prosperity of the French with a sensibility deserving of their gratitude. Thepeopleblessed him as its savior. But all those nourished by abuses formed a confederacy against the man who seemed about to wrest their prey from them."

Necker was desirous of introducing some popular element into the government. There was now a numerous body of men belonging to the unprivileged class, energetic and enlightened, whose voice ought to be heard in the administration of affairs as representatives of the people. He therefore recommended that there should be provincial parliaments in the different departments of France, somewhat corresponding with the present legislatures in the United States. In a few of the provinces there were already parliaments, but they were composed exclusively of the privileged class. Turgot also had contemplated provincial legislatures, which he desired to constitute as the organ of thepeople, and to be composed only of members of the Tiers Etat.[53]Necker, however, hoped to conciliate the nobles by giving the privileged body an equal representation with the unprivileged in these assemblies. One half were to be representatives of the clergy and the nobility, and the other half of the people, though the people numbered millions, while the clergy and nobles numbered but thousands.

Necker's report showed that the interest upon the public debt absorbed one third of the revenues; that the remaining two thirds were by no means sufficient for carrying on the government, and that, consequently, the burden was continually growing heavier by loans and accumulations.[54]The suggestions of Necker, to give the people a voice in the administration of affairs and to tax high-born men equally with low-born, created intense opposition. The storm became too fierce to be resisted. Both the king and the prime minister yielded to its violence, and Necker, like Turgot, was driven with contumely from the ministry and into exile. The hearts of the people followed the defeated minister to his retreat. These outrages were but making the line which separated the privileged from the unprivileged more visible, and were rousing and combining the masses. The illustrious financier, in his retirement, wrote his celebrated work upon the administration of the finances, a work which contributed much to the enlightenment of the public mind.[55]The intellect of the nation was roused, as never before, to the discussion of the affairs of state. In the parlor, the counting-room, the work-shop, the farm-house, and the field, all were employed in deliberating upon the one great topic which engrossed universal attention. And yet the nobles and their partisans, with infatuation inexplicable, resisted all measures of reform; a singular illustration of the Roman adage, "Quem Deus vult perdere priusquam dementat" (whom God would destroy he first makes mad).

Indeed, the opposition was sufficiently formidable to appal any minister. There were eighty thousand nobles, inheriting the pride and prestige of feudal power, with thousands, dependent upon their smiles, rallying around them as allies. There were the officers in the army, who were either hereditary nobles or, still worse, men of wealth who had purchased titles of nobility. There were a hundred thousand persons who, in various ways, had purchased immunity from the burdens of state, and were thus within the limits of the privileged class, and hated by the people, though despised by the nobles. There were two hundred thousand priests bound by the strongest of possible ties to the hierarchy, the humble class depending for position and bread upon their spiritual lords and obliged by the most solemn oaths to obey their superiors. And these priests, intrusted with the keys of heaven and of hell, as was supposed by the unenlightened masses, held millions in subjection by the most resistless powers of superstition. There were sixty thousand in the cloisters of the monasteries, many of them dissolute in the extreme, and who were necessarily subservient to the ecclesiastics. There were the farmers general, the collectors of the revenue, and all the vast army of office-holders, who were merely the agents of the court.

"This formidable mass of men," says M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, "were in possession of all France. They held her by a thousand chains. They formed, in a body, what was termedla haute nation. All the rest was the people."[56]

Though the privileged class and their dependents, which we have above enumerated, amounted to but a few hundred thousand, perhaps not five hundred thousand in all, and the people amounted to some twenty-five millions, still all the power was with the aristocracy. The mass of the people were merely slaves, unarmed, unorganized, uneducated. They had been degraded and dispirited by ages of oppression, and had no means of combining or of uttering a united voice which should be heard.

Immediately succeeding M. Necker in the ministry of finance came M. Fleury and M. d'Ormesson. They were both honest, well-meaning men, but were promptly crushed by a burden which neither of them was at all capable of bearing. Their names are hardly remembered. Maurepas was now dead. The Americans, aided by France, had achieved their independence, and France and England were again at peace. The king now selected M. de Calonne from the Parliament, as Minister of Finance. He was a man of brilliant genius, of remarkably courtly manners, but licentious and extravagant. The king hoped, by his selecting Calonne, to diminish that opposition of the Parliament which was daily growing more inveterate against the crown. For a time the new minister was exceedingly popular. His high reputation for financial skill and his suavity enabled him to effect important loans; and by the sale and the mortgage of the property of the crown he succeeded for a few months in having money in abundance. The court rioted anew in voluptuous indulgence. The beautiful palace of St. Cloud was bought of the Duke of Orleans for the queen, and vast sums were expended for its embellishment. The Palace of Rambouillet was purchased as a hunting-seat for the king. Marie Antoinette gave innumerable costly entertainments at Versailles, and rumor was rife with the scenes of measureless extravagance which were there displayed. The well-meaning, weak-minded king, having no taste for courtly pleasure and no ability for the management of affairs, either unconscious of the peril of the state or despairing of any remedy, fitted up a work-shop at Versailles, where he employed most of his time at a forge, under the guidance of a blacksmith, tinkering locks and keys. This man, Gamin, has recorded:

"The king was good, indulgent, timid, curious, fond of sleep. He passionately loved working as a smith, and hid himself from the queen and the court to file and forge with me. To set up his anvil and mine, unknown to all the world, it was necessary to use a thousand stratagems."[57]

There is a secret power calledpublic creditwhich will speedily bring such a career to its close. Public credit was now exhausted. No more money could be borrowed. The taxes for some time in advance were already pledged in payment of loans. The people, crushed by their burdens, could not bear any augmentation of taxes. The crisis seemed to have come. Calonne now awoke to the consciousness of his condition, and was overpoweredby the magnitude of the difficulties in which he was involved. There was but one mode of redress—an immediate retrenchment of expenses and the including of the privileged class in the assessment of taxes. Whoever had attempted this had been crushed by the aristocratic Parliament. Could Calonne succeed? After long and anxious deliberation he became conscious that it would be impossible to induce the Parliament to consent to such a reform, that it would be very hazardous to call a meeting of the States-General, where thepeoplecould make their voice to be heard, and yet it was essential to have some public body upon which he could lean for support. He therefore recommended that the king should convene an assembly of the notables, to be composed of such individuals as the king should select from the clergy, the nobles, and the magistracy, they all belonging to the privileged class. Such an assembly had never been convened since Richelieu called one in 1626.

LOUIS XVI. AS LOCKSMITH.

FOOTNOTES:[38]Historical View of the French Revolution, by J. Michelet, vol. i., p. 64.[39]Louis XVI. was born Aug. 22, 1754. In May, 1770, when not quite sixteen, he married Marie Antoinette. In May, 1774, he wanted three months of being twenty years of age. Marie Antoinette was born Nov. 2, 1755. She was but fourteen years and six months old when married. She was but eighteen years and six months old when she became Queen of France.—Encyclopædia Americana.[40]"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision! I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy."—Burke's Reflections.[41]Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, i., 75.[42]Encyclopædia Americana, article Louis XVI.[43]Encyclopædia Americana, article Louis XV.[44]Précis de la Revolution, par M. Lacretelle.[45]"On the very threshold of the business he must propose to make the clergy, the noblesse, the very Parliament subject to taxes! One shriek of indignation and astonishment reverberates through all the chateau galleries. M. de Maurepas has to gyrate. The poor king, who had written (to Turgot) a few weeks ago, 'Il n'y a que vous et moi qui aimions le peuple' (There is none but you and I who love the people), must now write a dismissal, and let the French Revolution accomplish itself pacifically or not, as it can."—Carlyle, French Revolution, i., 41."The nobles and the prelates, it seems, considered themselves degraded if they were to contribute to the repair of the roads; and they would no doubt have declared that their dignity and their existence, the very rights of property itself, were endangered, if they were now, for the first time, they would have said, in the history of the monarchy, to be subjected to the visits of the tax-gatherer."—Lectures on the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth, vol. i., p. 102.[46]Lit de justicewas a proceeding in which the king, with his court, proceeded to the Parliament, and there, sitting upon the throne, caused those edicts which the Parliament did not approve to be registered in his presence.—Encyclopædia Americana.[47]It is not necessary to allude to De Clugny, who immediately succeeded Turgot, but who held his office six months only and attempted nothing.[48]Woman in France, by Julia Kavanagh, p. 211. Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, vol. i., p. 375.[49]Hist. Phil. de la France, par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, t. i., p. 28. Audouin states that the war cost France, from 1778 to 1782, fourteen hundred millions of livres ($280,000,000).[50]"The queen never disguised her dislike to the American war. She could not conceive how any one could advise a sovereign to aim at the humiliation of England through an attack on the sovereign authority, and by assisting a people to organize a republican constitution. She often laughed at the enthusiasm with which Franklin inspired the French."—Madame Campan's Mem. of Marie Antoinette, ii., 29.[51]Lectures on Fr. Rev., by Wm. Smyth, i., 109.[52]Cor. Conf. de Louis XVI., ii., 178.[53]Lectures on the French Revolution, by William Smyth, i., 115.[54]"The notion that our maladies were incapable of remedy, and that no human mind could cure them, added keenly to the general grief. We saw ourselves plunged into a gulf of debts and public engagements, the interest alone of which absorbed the third part of the revenue, and which, far from being put into a course of liquidation, were continually accumulating by loans and anticipations."—History of the French Revolution, by M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 19.[55]"And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden of the finances for five years long. Without wages—for he refused such—cheered only by public opinion and the ministering of his noble wife. He, too, has to produce his scheme of taxing; clergy, noblesse to be taxed—like a mere Turgot. Let Necker also depart; not unlamented."—Carlyle, French Revolution, vol. i., p. 46.[56]M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 22.[57]Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI., by the Abbé Soulavie, vol. ii., p. 191.

FOOTNOTES:

[38]Historical View of the French Revolution, by J. Michelet, vol. i., p. 64.

[39]Louis XVI. was born Aug. 22, 1754. In May, 1770, when not quite sixteen, he married Marie Antoinette. In May, 1774, he wanted three months of being twenty years of age. Marie Antoinette was born Nov. 2, 1755. She was but fourteen years and six months old when married. She was but eighteen years and six months old when she became Queen of France.—Encyclopædia Americana.

[40]"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision! I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy."—Burke's Reflections.

[41]Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, i., 75.

[42]Encyclopædia Americana, article Louis XVI.

[43]Encyclopædia Americana, article Louis XV.

[44]Précis de la Revolution, par M. Lacretelle.

[45]"On the very threshold of the business he must propose to make the clergy, the noblesse, the very Parliament subject to taxes! One shriek of indignation and astonishment reverberates through all the chateau galleries. M. de Maurepas has to gyrate. The poor king, who had written (to Turgot) a few weeks ago, 'Il n'y a que vous et moi qui aimions le peuple' (There is none but you and I who love the people), must now write a dismissal, and let the French Revolution accomplish itself pacifically or not, as it can."—Carlyle, French Revolution, i., 41."The nobles and the prelates, it seems, considered themselves degraded if they were to contribute to the repair of the roads; and they would no doubt have declared that their dignity and their existence, the very rights of property itself, were endangered, if they were now, for the first time, they would have said, in the history of the monarchy, to be subjected to the visits of the tax-gatherer."—Lectures on the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth, vol. i., p. 102.

"The nobles and the prelates, it seems, considered themselves degraded if they were to contribute to the repair of the roads; and they would no doubt have declared that their dignity and their existence, the very rights of property itself, were endangered, if they were now, for the first time, they would have said, in the history of the monarchy, to be subjected to the visits of the tax-gatherer."—Lectures on the French Revolution, by Wm. Smyth, vol. i., p. 102.

[46]Lit de justicewas a proceeding in which the king, with his court, proceeded to the Parliament, and there, sitting upon the throne, caused those edicts which the Parliament did not approve to be registered in his presence.—Encyclopædia Americana.

[47]It is not necessary to allude to De Clugny, who immediately succeeded Turgot, but who held his office six months only and attempted nothing.

[48]Woman in France, by Julia Kavanagh, p. 211. Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Madame Campan, vol. i., p. 375.

[49]Hist. Phil. de la France, par Ant. Fantin Desodoards, t. i., p. 28. Audouin states that the war cost France, from 1778 to 1782, fourteen hundred millions of livres ($280,000,000).

[50]"The queen never disguised her dislike to the American war. She could not conceive how any one could advise a sovereign to aim at the humiliation of England through an attack on the sovereign authority, and by assisting a people to organize a republican constitution. She often laughed at the enthusiasm with which Franklin inspired the French."—Madame Campan's Mem. of Marie Antoinette, ii., 29.

[51]Lectures on Fr. Rev., by Wm. Smyth, i., 109.

[52]Cor. Conf. de Louis XVI., ii., 178.

[53]Lectures on the French Revolution, by William Smyth, i., 115.

[54]"The notion that our maladies were incapable of remedy, and that no human mind could cure them, added keenly to the general grief. We saw ourselves plunged into a gulf of debts and public engagements, the interest alone of which absorbed the third part of the revenue, and which, far from being put into a course of liquidation, were continually accumulating by loans and anticipations."—History of the French Revolution, by M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 19.

[55]"And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden of the finances for five years long. Without wages—for he refused such—cheered only by public opinion and the ministering of his noble wife. He, too, has to produce his scheme of taxing; clergy, noblesse to be taxed—like a mere Turgot. Let Necker also depart; not unlamented."—Carlyle, French Revolution, vol. i., p. 46.

[56]M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, vol. i., p. 22.

[57]Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI., by the Abbé Soulavie, vol. ii., p. 191.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ASSEMBLY OF THE NOTABLES.

Measures of Brienne.—The Bed of Justice.—Remonstrance of Parliament.—Parliament Exiled.—Submission of Parliament.—Duke of Orleans.—Treasonable Plans of the Duke of Orleans.—Anxiety of the Queen.—The Diamond Necklace.—Monsieur, the King's Brother.—Bagatelle.—Desperation of Brienne.—Edict for abolishing the Parliaments.—Energy of the Court.—Arrest of D'Espréménil and Goislard.—Tumults in Grenoble.—Terrific Hail-storm.

TheNotables, one hundred and forty-four in number, nearly all ecclesiastics, nobles, or ennobled, met at Versailles, Jan. 29, 1787. Calonne expected that this body, carefully selected by the king, would advise that all orders should make common cause and bear impartially the burden of taxation. Sustained by the moral power of this advice he hoped that the measure could be carried into execution. He presented his statement of affairs. Though he endeavored to conceal the worst, the Notables were appalled. Three hundred and fifty millions of dollars had been borrowed within a few years, and the annual deficit was thirty-five millions of dollars.[58]Cautiously he proposed his plan of impartial taxation. It was the signal for a general assault upon the doomed minister. He was literally hooted down. Not only the Assembly of Notables, but the clergy, the Parliament, the nobles all over the realm pounced upon him, led even by the queen and the Archbishop of Paris; and Calonne, without a friend, was compelled to resign his office and to fly from France.[59]

The clergy were exceedingly exasperated against Calonne, for they deemed the proposition to tax the possessions of the Church as sacrilegious. The most active of the opponents of Calonne was Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse. He was a bold, resolute, ambitious man, and by the influence of the queen was appointed to succeed Calonne. "As public credit was dead," said a wag, "an archbishop was summoned to bury the remains."[60]The spirit of discontent and of menace was now becoming every day more extended and alarming, and the Revolution was gaining strength.

Among the Notables thus assembled there were some warm advocates of popular liberty. La Fayette was perhaps the most conspicuous of these. He spoke boldly againstlettres de cachetand other abuses. The Count d'Artois, afterward Charles X., reproved him for this freedom. La Fayette firmly, yet with caution, responded, "When a Notable is summoned to speak his opinion he must speak it."[61]

One of the first acts of Brienne was to abolish the Assembly of Notables.

Their session continued but nine weeks, being dissolved May 25, 1787. He then struggled for a time in the midst of embarrassments inextricable until he was compelled to propose the same measure which had already been three times rejected with scorn, and which had driven three ministers in disgrace from Paris—the taxing of the nobles. He did every thing in his power to prepare the way for the suggestion, and connected the obnoxious bill with another less objectionable, hoping that the two might pass together. But the clergy and the nobles were on the alert.

Two thirds of the territory of the kingdom had been grasped by the Church and the nobles. One third only belonged to the people. Brienne proposed aterritorial tax which should fall upon all landed proprietors alike. There was an instantaneous shout of indignation from the whole privileged class, and the cry "Away with him," "Hustle him out," spread from castle to castle, and from convent to convent.

It was acustom, rather than a law, that no royal decree could pass into effect until it had been registered by Parliament; and it was acustom, rather than a law, that, if the Parliament refused to register a decree, the king could hold what is called abed of justice; that is, could summon the Parliament into his presence and command the decree to be registered. As the king could banish, or imprison, or behead any one at his pleasure, no Parliament had as yet ventured to disobey the royal command.

The Parliament declined registering the decree taxing the property of the clergy and the nobles. The king peremptorily summoned the whole refractory body to appear before him. It was the 6th of August, 1787. In a vast train of carriages, all the members, some one hundred and twenty in number, wheeled out from Paris to the Palace of Versailles. There the king with his own lips ordered them to register the decree. Obedient to the royal order it was registered, and the Parliament, sullen and exasperated, was rolled back again to the metropolis. The people contemplated the scene in silent expectation, and by thousands surrounded the Parliament on its return, and greeted them with acclamations.

Emboldened by the sympathy of the people in this conflict with the court, the Parliament ventured to enter upon its records a remonstrance against the violent procedure; and, to gain still more strength from popular approval, they made the strange assertion that Parliament was not competent to register tax edicts at all; that for this act the authority of the three estates of the realm was essential, convened in the States-General. This was, indeed, unheard of doctrine, for the Parliament had for centuries registered such decrees. It, however, answered its purpose; it brought the masses of the people at once and enthusiastically upon their side.

This call for the States-General was the first decisive step toward bringing the people into the field. Tumultuous crowds surrounded the palace where the Parliament held its session, and with clapping of hands and shouts received the tidings of the resolutions adopted. The king, indignant, issuedletters de cacheton the night of the 14th, and the next morning the whole body was arrested and taken in carriages into banishment to Troyes, a dull city about one hundred miles from Paris. The blessings of the people followed the Parliament;[62]"for there are quarrels," says Carlyle, "in which even Satan, bringing help, were not unwelcome."

Paris was now in a state of commotion. Defiant placards were posted upon the walls, and there were angry gatherings in the streets. The two brothers of the king, subsequently Louis XVIII. and Charles X., entered Paris in state carriages to expunge from the records of the Parliament the obnoxious protests and resolutions. They came with a well-armed retinue. The stormy multitudes frowned and hissed, and were only dispersed by the gleam of the sword.

For a month Parliament remained at Troyes, excessively weary of exile. In the mean time Brienne had no money, and could raise none. Both parties were ready for accommodation. The crown consented to relinquish thetax upon the nobles, and to summon the States-General in five years. Parliament consented to register an edict for aloanof one hundred millions of dollars, the burden of which was to fall upon thepeoplealone. With this arrangement the exiled Parliament was brought back on the 20th of September. "It went out," said D'Espréménil, "covered with glory. It came back covered with mud."

On the 20th of September the king appeared before the Parliament in person, to present the edict for the loan and the promise to convoke the States-General at the close of five years.

There was at that time in Parliament a cousin of the king, the Duke of Orleans, one of the highest nobles of the realm.[63]Inheriting from his father the enormous Orleans property, and heir, through his wife, to the vast estates of the Duke of Penthièvre, he was considered the richest man in France, enjoying an income of seven million five hundred thousand francs a year ($1,500,000). For years he had been rioting in measureless debauchery. His hair was falling off, his blood was corrupted, and his bronzed facewas covered with carbuncles.[64]Sated with sensual indulgence, the passion for political distinction seized his soul. As heir to the dukedom of Penthièvre, he looked forward to the office of high admiral. In preparation he ventured upon a naval campaign, and commanded the rear guard of M. d'Orvilliers' fleet in the battle off Ushant. Rumor affirmed that during the battle he hid in the hold of the ship. The court, exasperated by his haughtiness, and jealous of his power, gladly believed the story, and overwhelmed him with caricatures and epigrams. Some time after this he ascended in a balloon, and as he had previously descended a mine, where he had shown but little self-possession, it was stated that he had shown all the elements his cowardice.[65]The king withheld from him, thus overwhelmed with ridicule, the office of admiral, and conferred it upon his nephew, the son of the Count d'Artois.

The Duke of Orleans was envenomed by the affront, and breathed vengeance. While in this state of mind, and refusing to present himself at court, he received another indignity still more exasperating. A matrimonial alliance had been arranged between the eldest daughter of the Duke of Orleans and the son of Count d'Artois, the Duke d'Angoulême. An income of four hundred thousand francs ($80,000) per annum had been settled upon the prospective bride. She had received the congratulations of the court, and the foreign ministers had been authorized to communicate to their respective courts the approaching nuptials, when Marie Antoinette, alarmed by the feeble health of her two sons, and thinking that the son of the Count d'Artois might yet become heir to the throne of France, broke off the match, and decided that her daughter, instead of the daughter of the Duke of Orleans, should marry the young Duke d'Angoulême.[66]

The Duke of Orleans was now ready to adopt any measures of desperation for the sake of revenge. Though one of the highest and most opulent of the aristocrats of Europe, he was eager to throw himself into the arms of the popular party, and to lead them in any measures of violence in their assaults upon the crown.[67]

When Louis XVI. met the Parliament to secure the registry of the edict for a new loan, a strong opposition was found organized against him, and he encountered silence and gloomy looks. The king had not intended to hold abed of justicewith hiscommands, but merely a royal sitting for friendly conference. But the antagonism was so manifest that he was compelled to appeal to his kingly authority, and toorderthe registry of the edict. The Duke of Orleans rose, and with flushed cheek and defiant tone, entered a protest. Two members, his confederates, ventured to sustain him. This insult royalty could not brook. The duke was immediately sent into exile to one of his rural estates, and the two other nobles were sent to prison.

A fierce conflict was now commenced between the king and the Parliament. The Parliament passed a decree condemning arbitrary arrests. The king, by an order in council, canceled the decree. The Parliament reaffirmed it. The king was exasperated to the highest degree, but, with the united Parliament and the popular voice against him, he did not dare to proceed to extreme measures. Louis XIV. would have sent every man of them to the Bastille or the scaffold. But the days of Louis XIV. were no more.

It may at first thought seem strange that in this conflict thepeopleshould have sided with the Parliament. But the power of the crown was the great power they had to dread, and which they wished to see humbled. It was to them a matter of much more moment that thedespotism of the courtshould be curtailed than that the one act of taxation should be passed in their favor. Men of far-reaching sagacity must have guided the populace to so wise a decision. Inequality of taxation was but one of the innumerable wrongs to which the people were exposed. What they needed was a thorough reform in the government which should correctallabuses. To attain this it was first indispensable that despotism should be struck down. Therefore their sympathies were with the Parliament in its struggle against the crown, though it so happened that the conflict arose upon a point adverse to the popular interest.

The Duke of Orleans began seriously to contemplate the dethronement of his cousin and the usurpation of the crown. With almost boundless wealth at his command, and placing himself at the head of the popular party, now rising with such resistless power, he thought the plan not difficult of accomplishment. He had traveled in England, had invested large sums there, had formed friendship with the sons of the king, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. The court of St. James was bitterly exasperated against the court of Louis XVI. for aiding in the emancipation of America. The Duke of Orleans consequently doubted not that he could rely upon the friendship of England in the introduction of a new dynasty to France.[68]

And now the parliaments which had been organized in many of the provinces made common cause with the Parliament of Paris, and sent in their remonstrances against the despotism of the crown. Gloom now pervaded the saloons of Versailles. Marie Antoinette, with pale cheek and anxious brow, wandered through the apartments dejected and almost despairing. Groves and gardens surrounded her embellished with flowers and statues and fountains. The palace which was her home surpassed in architectural grandeur and in all the appliances of voluptuous indulgence any abode which had ever before been reared upon earth. Obsequious servants and fawning courtiers anticipated her wishes, and her chariot with its glittering outriders swept like a meteor through the enchanting drives which art, aided by the wealth of a realm, had constructed, and yet probably there was not a woman in the whole realm, in garret or hut or furrowed field, who bore a heavier heart than that which throbbed within the bosom of the queen. The king was a harmless, inoffensive, weak-minded man, spending most of his time at the forge. It was well understood that the queen, energetic and authoritative, was the real head of the government, and that every act of vigor originated with her. She consequently became peculiarly obnoxious to theParliament, and through them to the people; and Paris was flooded with the vilest calumnies against her.

There was at that time fluttering about Versailles a dissolute woman of remarkable beauty, the Countess Lamotte. She forged notes against the queen, and purchased a very magnificent pearl necklace at the price of three hundred thousand dollars. Cardinal Rohan was involved in the intrigue. The transaction was noised through all Europe. The queen was accused of being engaged in a swindling transaction with a profligate woman to cheat a jeweler, and was also accused of enormous extravagance in wishing to add to the already priceless jewels of the crown others to the amount of three hundred thousand dollars. The queen was innocent; but the public mind exasperated wished to believe all evil of her. Men, haggard and hungry, and without employment; women ragged and starving, and with their starving children in their arms, were ever repeating the foul charge against the queen as a thief, an accomplice with a prostitute, one who was willing to see the people starve if she might but hang pearls about her neck. The story was so universally credited, and created such wide-spread exasperation, that Talleyrand remarked, "Mind that miserable affair of the necklace. I should be nowise surprised if it should overturn the French monarchy."

In addition to all this the report was spread abroad that the children of Marie Antoinette were illegitimate; that the king had not sufficient capacity to reign; that his next brother, called Monsieur, subsequently Louis XVIII., was engaged in a conspiracy with the Parliament to eject Louis XVI. from the throne, and to establish a government of the nobles, of which Monsieur should be the nominal head. It is by no means improbable that this plan was formed. It will account for many of the actions of the nobles during the first stages of the Revolution.[69]

The second brother of the king, Count d'Artois, a very elegant and accomplished man of fashion, fond of pleasure, and with congenial tastes with the young and beautiful queen, was accused, though probably without foundation, of being her paramour and the father of her children. He had erected, just outside the walls of Paris, in the woods of Boulogne, a beautiful little palace which he calledBagatelle. This was the seat of the most refined voluptuousness and of the most costly indulgence.

The queen now knew not which way to turn from the invectives which were so mercilessly showered upon her. It was in vain to attempt an answer. Her lofty spirit so far sustained her as to enable her in public to appear with dignity. But in her boudoir she wept in all the anguish of a crushed and despairing heart. "One morning at Trianon," writes Madame Campan, "I went into the queen's chamber when she was in bed. There were letters lying upon her bed and she was weeping bitterly. Her tears were mingled with sobs, which she occasionally interrupted by exclamations of 'Ah! that I were dead. Wretches! monsters! what have I done to them?' I offered her orange-flower-water and ether. 'Leave me, if you love me; it would be better to kill me at once.' At this moment she threw her arm over my shoulder and began weeping afresh."[70]

Parliament had registered the edict for a loan of one hundred millions of dollars. It would be no burden to them. The people alone were to be taxed for the debt. But public credit was dead. No one would lend. Brienne was also assailed with lampoons and caricatures and envenomed invectives, until, baited and bayed from every direction, he became almost distracted.[71]Burning with fever and with tremulous nerves, he paced his chamber-floor, ready for any deed of desperation which could extricate him from his woe. All this the Parliament in Paris and the twelve parliaments in the departments enjoyed, for it was the object of the nobles, who mainly formed these bodies, to wrest back from the monarchy that feudal power which energetic kings had wrested from them. The people were ready to sustain the nobles, though their enemies, in their attack upon the crown, and the nobles were also eager to call in the people to aid them in their perilous conflict. Some of the nobles, however, more far-sighted, strongly opposed the calling of the States-General. The majority, however, prevailed, and decreed to call a meeting of the states, but with the proviso that five years were to elapse before they should be convened.

Brienne was now goaded to desperation. He determined to break down the parliaments. Secretly he matured a plan for the formation of a series of minor courts, where all small causes could be tried, and a superior court for registering edicts. Thus there would be absolutely nothing left for the parliaments to do, and they could be abolished as useless. These courts, the superior to be called thePlenary Courtand the othersGrand Bailliages, were to be composed of courtiers carefully selected, who would be subservient to the wishes of the king.[72]

It was a shrewd measure, but one which required the strictest secrecy in its execution. Such a coup d'état must come as a sudden stroke, or so powerful a body as the Parliament would be able to ward off the blow. The whole kingdom was then divided into a number of provinces, over each of which a governor, called an intendant, presided, appointed by the king. The royal edict was to be placed secretly in the hands of each of these intendants, with minute directions how to act, and they were promptly and secretly to organize the courts, so that upon an appointed day all should be accomplished, the new machinery in motion, and the power of the parliaments annihilated. So important was it that profound secrecy should be observed that printers were conveyed in disguise by night to one of the saloons of Versailles, where they brought their type and put up their press to print the royal edict. Sentries stood at the doors and the windows of their work-room and their food was handed in to them. M. d'Espréménil, one of the most active and influential members of Parliament, suspecting some stratagem, succeeded, through a bribe of twenty-five hundred dollars, in obtaining a copy of the edict. In the greatest excitement he hastened back to Paris and presented himself in Parliament with the edict in his hand. Itwas the 3d of May, 1788. The members listened with breathless eagerness to the reading of the paper, which was to their body a death-warrant. The edict required all the military to be assembled on the appointed day, ready for action. The intendants were to march an armed force to those cities of the provinces where parliaments had been in session, and, when the new courts were to be organized, to enforce the decree. None of the intendants or commanders of the troops knew what was to be done, but confidential agents of the king were to be sent to all these places, that at the same day and on the same hour the order might be received and executed all over France.

There succeeded this reading at first a universal outbreak of indignation. They then took an oath to resist, at the peril of their lives, all measures tending to the overthrow of the old French parliaments. The tidings that the plot had been detected were borne speedily to the court at Versailles. Fierce passion now added fury to the battle. Twolettres de cachetwere issued to seize D'Espréménil and another active member of the opposition, Goislard, and silence them in the Bastille. Warned of their danger they escaped through scuttles and over the roofs of houses to the Palace of Justice, dispatched runners in every direction to summon the members, and then, laying aside their disguise, assumed their robes of office. An hour had not elapsed ere Parliament was in session and all Paris in commotion. Parliament immediately voted that the two members should not be given up, and that their session was permanent and subject to no adjournment until the pursuit of the two victims was relinquished. All the avenues of the Palace of Justice were inundated with a throng of excited citizens, bewildered by this open and deadly antagonism between the Parliament and the court. All the day and all the night and all the next day, for thirty-six hours, the session of stormy debate and fierce invective continued. Again gloomy night settled down over sleepless Paris. But suddenly there was heard the roll of drums and the bugle-blast and the tramp of armed men. Captain d'Agoust, at the head of the royal troops, marched from Versailles with infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Sternly and rapidly by torch-light the soldiers advanced, clearing their way through the multitudes crowding the court-yards and avenues of the Palace of Justice.[73]

At the head of a file of soldiers with gleaming bayonets and loaded muskets, D'Agoust, a soldier of cast-iron face and heart, mounted the stairs, strode with the loud clatter of arms into the hall, and demanded, in the name of the king, M. Duval d'Espréménil and M. Goislard de Monsabert. As he did not know these persons he called upon them to come forward and surrender themselves. For a moment there was profound silence, and then a voice was heard, "We are all D'Espréménils and Monsaberts." For a time there was great tumult, as many voices repeated the cry.

Order being restored, the president inquired whether D'Agoust will employ violence. "I am honored," the captain replies, "with his majesty's commission to execute his majesty's order. I would gladly execute the order without violence, but at all events I shall execute it. I leave the senate for a few minutes to deliberate which method they prefer." With his guard he left the hall.

After a brief interval the sturdy captain returned with his well-armed retinue. "We yield to force," said the two counselors, as they surrendered themselves. Their brethren gathered around their arrested companions for a parting embrace, but the soldiers cut short the scene by seizing them and leading them down, through winding passages, to a rear gate, where two carriages were in waiting. Each was placed in a carriage with menacing bayonets at his side. The populace looked on in silence. They dared notyetspeak. But they were learning a lesson. D'Espréménil was taken to an ancient fortress on one of the Isles of Hieres, in the Mediterranean, about fourteen miles from Toulon. Goislard was conveyed to a prison in Lyons.

D'Agoust, having dispatched his prisoners, returned to the Hall of Assembly, and ordered the members of Parliament to disperse. They were compelled to file out, one hundred and sixty-five in number, beneath the bayonets of the grenadiers. D'Agoust locked the doors, put the keys into his pocket, and, with his battalions, marched back to Versailles.

The Parliament of Paris was now turned into the street. But still there was no money in the treasury. The provincial parliaments were roused, and had matured their plans to resist the new courts. The 8th of May arrived, when the decree, now every where promulgated, was to be put into execution. The intendants and the king's commissioners found, at all points, organized opposition. The provincial noblesse united with the parliaments, for it was now but a struggle of the nobility against the unlimited power of the crown. A deputation of twelve was sent from the Parliament of Breton, with a remonstrance, to Versailles. They were all consigned to the Bastille. A second deputation, much larger, was sent. Agents of the king met them, and, by menaces, drove them back. A third, still more numerous, was appointed, to approach Versailles by different roads. The king refused to receive them. They held a meeting in Paris, and invited La Fayette and all patriotic Bretons in Paris to advise with them.[74]This was the origin of the Jacobin Club.

Eight parliaments were exiled. But at Grenoble they refused to surrender themselves to thelettres de cachet. The tocsin pealed forth the alarm, and booming cannon roused the masses in the city and upon the mountains to rush, with such weapons as they could seize, to protect the Parliament. The royal general was compelled to capitulate and to retire, leaving his commission unexecuted. The nobles had appealed to the masses, and armed them to aid in resisting the king, and thus had taught them their power. It seems as though supernatural intelligence was guiding events toward the crisis of a terrible revolution. Four of the parliaments were thus enabled to bid defiance to the kingly power.

The attempt to establish the new courts was a total failure. The clergy, the nobility, and the people were all against it. A universal storm ofhatred and contempt fell upon all who accepted offices in those courts. The Plenary Court held but one session, and then expired amid the hisses of all classes. The king seemed suddenly bereft of authority.

"Let a commissioner of the king," says Weber, "enter one of these parliaments to have an edict registered, the whole tribunal will disappear, leaving the commissioner alone with the clerk and president. The edict registered and the commissioner gone, the whole tribunal hastens back to declare such registration null. The highways are covered with deputations of the parliaments, proceeding to Versailles to have their registers expunged by the king's hand, or returning home to cover a new page with new resolutions still more audacious."[75]

Still there was no money, and Brienne was in despair. Wistfully he looked to his embowered chateau at Brienne, with its silent groves and verdant lawn. There, while these scenes were transpiring, had sat, almost beneath the shadow of his castle, "a dusky-complexioned, taciturn boy, under the name of Napoleon Bonaparte." This boy, forgetful of the sports of childhood, was gazing with intensest interest upon the conflict, and by untiring study, night and day, was girding himself with strength to come forth into the arena. He had already taken his side as the inexorable foe of feudal privilege and the friend of popular rights. He had already incurred the frown of his teachers for the energy with which he advocated in his themes the doctrine of equality. "The themes of Napoleon," said one of his teachers, "are like flaming missiles ejected from a volcano."

In these fearful scenes, ominous of approaching floods and earthquakes, God, in the awful mystery of his providence, took an energetic part. On the 13th of July of this year, 1788, the whole country, for one hundred and twenty miles around Paris, was laid waste by one of the most frightful hail-storms which ever beat down a harvest. Not a green blade was left. Gaunt famine was inevitably to stride over distracted, impoverished France. Consternation oppressed all hearts. It was now hastily decided that the States-General should be assembled in the following month of May. The queen was that day standing at one of the windows of Versailles, pallid, trembling, and lost in gloomy thought. She held in her hand a cup of coffee, which, mechanically, she seemed to sip. Beckoning to Madame Campan, she said to her,

"Great God! what a piece of news will be made public to-day. The king grants States-General. 'Tis a first beat of the drum of ill omen for France. This noblesse will ruin us."[76]

Brienne, who now occupied the post of prime minister, wrote to M. Necker entreating him to return to the post of Controller of the Finance. Necker refused. He was not willing to take charge of the finances with Brienne prime minister. Bankruptcy, with its national disgrace and wide-spreading misery, was at hand. On the 16th of August an edict was issued that all payments at the royal treasury should be made three fifths in cash, and the remaining two fifths in promissory notes bearing interest. As the treasury was without credit the notes were comparatively valueless. This was virtual bankruptcy, in which the state offered to pay sixty cents on the dollar. Theannouncement of this edict rolled another surge of excitement and consternation over the kingdom.

Count d'Artois called upon the queen and informed her of the terrible agitation pervading the public mind. She sat down in silence and wept. Brienne, pale, haggard, and trembling, frightened by the storm now raging, having contrived to secure for himself property to the amount of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, gave in his resignation, entered his carriage and drove off to Italy, leaving the king to struggle alone against the Revolution.[77]

During these conflicts for power between the king and the nobles the moan of twenty-five millions crushed beneath the chariot-wheels of feudal aristocracy ascended, not unheeded, to the ear of Heaven. The hour of retribution if not of recompense approached. For weary ages the people had waited for its coming with hope ever deferred. Generation after generation had come and gone, and still fathers and mothers, sons and daughters were toiling in the furrows and in the shop, exclaiming, "O God, how long!" The dawn after the apparently interminable night was now at hand, but it was the dawn not of a bright but of a lurid day. France at this time presented the spectacle of millions in misery, of some thousands obtaining by the severest toil the bare necessaries of life, and of a few hundred rioting in wealth and luxury.

Back to Index Next