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by Edward J. Lowell

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Title: The Eve of the French Revolution

Author: Edward J. Lowell

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THE EVE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

BY

EDWARD J. LOWELL



TO MY WIFE





PREFACE


There are two ways in which the French Revolution may be considered. We
may look at the great events which astonished and horrified Europe and
America: the storming of the Bastille, the march on Versailles, the
massacres of September, the Terror, and the restoration of order by
Napoleon. The study of these events must always be both interesting and
profitable, and we cannot wonder that historians, scenting the
approaching battle, have sometimes hurried over the comparatively
peaceful country that separated them from it. They have accepted easy
and ready-made solutions for the cause of the trouble. Old France has
been lurid in their eyes, in the light of her burning country-houses.
The Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, they think, must have been
wretches, or they could not so have suffered. The social fabric, they
are sure, was rotten indeed, or it would never have gone to pieces so
suddenly.

There is, however, another way of looking at that great revolution of
which we habitually set the beginning in 1789. That date is, indeed,
momentous; more so than any other in modern history. It marks the
outbreak in legislation and politics of ideas which had already been
working for a century, and which have changed the face of the civilized
world. These ideas are not all true nor all noble. They have in them a
large admixture of speculative error and of spiritual baseness. They
require to-day to be modified and readjusted. But they represent sides
of truth which in 1789, and still more in 1689, were too much overlooked
and neglected. They suited the stage of civilization which the world had
reached, and men needed to emphasize them. Their very exaggeration was
perhaps necessary to enable them to fight, and in a measure to supplant,
the older doctrines which were in possession of the human mind.
Induction, as the sole method of reasoning, sensation as the sole origin
of ideas, may not be the final and only truth; but they were very much
needed in the world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and
they found philosophers to elaborate them, and enthusiasts to preach
them. They made their way chiefly on French soil in the decades
preceding 1789.

The history of French society at that time has of late years attracted
much attention in France. Diligent scholars have studied it from many
sides. I have used their work freely, and acknowledgment will be found
in the foot-notes; but I cannot resist the pleasure of mentioning in
this preface a few of those to whom I am most indebted; and first M.
Albert Babeau, without whose careful researches several chapters of this
book could hardly have been written. His studies in archives, as well as
in printed memoirs and travels, have brought much of the daily life of
old France into the clearest light. He has in an eminent degree the
great and thoroughly French quality of telling us what we want to know.
His impartiality rivals his lucidity, while his thoroughness is such
that it is hard gleaning the old fields after him.

Hardly less is my indebtedness to the late M. Aimé Chérest, whose
unfinished work, "La Chute de l'ancien régime," gives the most
interesting and philosophical narrative of the later political events
preceding the meeting of the Estates General. To the great names of de
Tocqueville and of Taine I can but render a passing homage. The former
may be said to have opened the modern mind to the proper method of
studying the eighteenth century in France, the latter is, perhaps, the
most brilliant of writers on the subject; and no one has recently
written, or will soon write, about the time when the Revolution was
approaching without using the books of both of them. And I must not
forget the works of the Vicomte de Broc, of M. Boiteau, and of M.
Rambaud, to which I have sometimes turned for suggestion or
confirmation.

Passing to another branch of the subject, I gladly acknowledge my debt
to the Right Honorable John Morley. Differing from him in opinion almost
wherever it is possible to have an opinion, I have yet found him
thoroughly fair and accurate in matters of fact. His books on Voltaire,
Rousseau, and the Encyclopaedists, taken together, form the most
satisfactory history of French philosophy in the eighteenth century with
which I am acquainted.

Of the writers of monographs, and of the biographers, I will not speak
here in detail, although some of their books have been of very great
service to me. Such are those of M. Bailly, M. de Lavergne, M. Horn, M.
Stourm, and M. Charles Gomel, on the financial history of France; M. de
Poncins and M. Desjardins, on the cahiers; M. Rocquain on the
revolutionary spirit before the revolution, the Comte de Luçay and M. de
Lavergne, on the ministerial power and on the provincial assemblies and
estates; M. Desnoiresterres, on Voltaire; M. Scherer, on Diderot; M. de
Loménie, on Beaumarchais; and many others; and if, after all, it is the
old writers, the contemporaries, on whom I have most relied, without the
assistance of these modern writers I certainly could not have found them
all.

In treating of the Philosophers and other writers of the eighteenth
century I have not endeavored to give an abridgment of their books, but
to explain such of their doctrines as seemed to me most important and
influential. This I have done, where it was possible, in their own
language. I have quoted where I could; and in many cases where quotation
marks will not be found, the only changes from the actual expression of
the author, beyond those inevitable in translation, have been the
transference from direct to oblique speech, or some other trifling
alterations rendered necessary in my judgment by the exigencies of
grammar. On the other hand, I have tried to translate ideas and phrases
rather than words.

EDWARD J. LOWELL.

June 24, 1892.




CONTENTS.


INTRODUCTION

I. THE KING AND THE ADMINISTRATION

II. LOUIS XVI. AND HIS COURT

III. THE CLERGY

IV. THE CHURCH AND HER ADVERSARIES

V. THE CHURCH AND VOLTAIRE

VI. THE NOBILITY

VII. THE ARMY

VIII. THE COURTS OF LAW

IX. EQUALITY AND LIBERTY

X. MONTESQUIEU

XI. PARIS

XII. THE PROVINCIAL TOWNS

XIII. THE COUNTRY

XIV. TAXATION

XV. FINANCE

XVI. "THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA"

XVII. HELVETIUS, HOLBACH, AND CHASTELLUX

XVIII. ROUSSEAU'S POLITICAL WRITINGS

XIX. "LA NOUVELLE HÉLOÏSE" AND "ÉMILE"

XX. THE PAMPHLETS

XXI. THE CAHIERS

XXII. SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL MATTERS IN THE CAHIERS

XXIII CONCLUSION

INDEX OF EDITIONS CITED





THE EVE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.




INTRODUCTION.


It is characteristic of the European family of nations, as distinguished
from the other great divisions of mankind, that among them different
ideals of government and of life arise from time to time, and that
before the whole of a community has entirely adopted one set of
principles, the more advanced thinkers are already passing on to
another. Throughout the western part of continental Europe, from the
sixteenth to the eighteenth century, absolute monarchy was superseding
feudalism; and in France the victory of the newer over the older system
was especially thorough. Then, suddenly, although not quite without
warning, a third system was brought face to face with the two others.
Democracy was born full-grown and defiant. It appealed at once to two
sides of men's minds, to pure reason and to humanity. Why should a few
men be allowed to rule a great multitude as deserving as themselves? Why
should the mass of mankind lead lives full of labor and sorrow? These
questions are difficult to answer. The Philosophers of the eighteenth
century pronounced them unanswerable. They did not in all cases advise
the establishment of democratic government as a cure for the wrongs
which they saw in the world. But they attacked the things that were,
proposing other things, more or less practicable, in their places. It
seemed to these men no very difficult task to reconstitute society and
civilization, if only the faulty arrangements of the past could be done
away. They believed that men and things might be governed by a few
simple laws, obvious and uniform. These natural laws they did not make
any great effort to discover; they rather took them for granted; and
while they disagreed in their statement of principles, they still
believed their principles to be axiomatic. They therefore undertook to
demolish simultaneously all established things which to their minds did
not rest on absolute logical right. They bent themselves to their task
with ardent faith and hope.

The larger number of people, who had been living quietly in the existing
order, were amused and interested. The attacks of the Philosophers
seemed to them just in many cases, the reasoning conclusive. But in
their hearts they could not believe in the reality and importance of the
assault. Some of those most interested in keeping the world as it was,
honestly or frivolously joined in the cry for reform and for
destruction.

At last an attempt was made to put the new theories into practice. The
social edifice, slowly constructed through centuries, to meet the
various needs of different generations, began to tumble about the
astonished ears of its occupants. Then all who recognized that they had
something at stake in civilization as it existed were startled and
alarmed. Believers in the old religion, in old forms of government, in
old manners and morals, men in fear for their heads and men in fear for
their estates, were driven together. Absolutism and aristocracy,
although entirely opposed to each other in principle, were forced into
an unnatural alliance. From that day to this, the history of the world
has been largely made up of the contests of the supporters of the new
ideas, resting on natural law and on logic, with those of the older
forms of thought and customs of life, having their sanctions in
experience. It was in France that the long struggle began and took its
form. It is therefore interesting to consider the government of that
country, and its material and moral condition, at the time when the new
ideas first became prominent and forced their way toward fulfillment.

It is seldom in the time of the generation in which they are propounded
that new theories of life and its relations bear their full fruit. Only
those doctrines which a man learns in his early youth seem to him so
completely certain as to deserve to be pushed nearly to their last
conclusions. The Frenchman of the reign of Louis XV. listened eagerly to
Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau. Their descendants, in the time of
his grandson, first attempted to apply the ideas of those teachers.
While I shall endeavor in this book to deal with social and political
conditions existing in the reign of Louis XVI., I shall be obliged to
turn to that of his predecessor for the origin of French thoughts which
acted only in the last quarter of the century.



CHAPTER I.

THE KING AND THE ADMINISTRATION.


When Louis XVI. came to the throne in the year 1774, he inherited a
power nearly absolute in theory over all the temporal affairs of his
kingdom. In certain parts of the country the old assemblies or
Provincial Estates still met at fixed times, but their functions were
very closely limited. The _Parliaments_, or high courts of justice,
which had claimed the right to impose some check on legislation, had
been browbeaten by Louis XIV., and the principal one, that of Paris, had
been dissolved by his successor. The young king appeared, therefore, to
be left face to face with a nation over which he was to exercise direct
and despotic power. It was a recognized maxim that the royal was law.
[Footnote: Si veut le roi, si veut la loi.] Moreover, for more than two
centuries, the tendency of continental governments had been toward
absolutism. Among the great desires of men in those ages had been
organization and strong government. A despotism was considered more
favorable to these things than an aristocracy. Democracy existed as yet
only in the dreams of philosophers, the history of antiquity, and the
example of a few inconsiderable countries, like the Swiss cantons. It
was soon to be brought into greater prominence by the American
Revolution. As yet, however, the French nation looked hopefully to the
king for government, and for such measures of reform as were deemed
necessary. A king of France who had reigned justly and strongly would
have received the moral support of the most respectable part of his
subjects. These longed for a fair distribution of public burdens and for
freedom from unnecessary restraint, rather than for a share in the
government. The admiration for the English constitution, which was
commonly expressed, was as yet rather theoretic than practical, and was
not of a nature to detract from the loyalty undoubtedly felt for the
French crown.

Every monarch, however despotic in theory, is in fact surrounded by many
barriers which it takes a strong man to overleap. And so it was with the
king of France. Although he was the fountain of justice, his judicial
powers were exercised through magistrates many of whom had bought their
places, and could therefore not be dispossessed without measures that
were felt to be unjust and almost revolutionary. The breaking up of the
Parliament of Paris, in the latter years of the preceding reign, had
thrown the whole body of judges and lawyers into a state of discontent
bordering on revolt. The new court of justice which had superseded the
old one, the Parlement Maupeou as it was called, after the name of the
chancellor who had advised its formation, was neither liked nor
respected. It was one of the first acts of the government of Louis XVI.
to restore the ancient Parliament of Paris, whose rights over
legislation will be considered later, but which exercised at least a
certain moral restraint on the royal authority.

But it was in the administrative part of the government, where the king
seemed most free, that he was in fact most hampered. A vast system of
public offices had been gradually formed, with regulations, traditions,
and a professional spirit. This it was which had displaced the old
feudal order, substituting centralization for vigorous local life.

The king's councils, which had become the central governing power of the
state, were five in number. They were, however, closely connected
together. The king himself was supposed to sit in all of them, and
appears to have attended three with tolerable regularity. When there was
a prime minister, he also sat in the three that were most important. The
controller of the finances was a member of four of the councils, and the
chancellor of three at least. As these were the most important men in
the government, their presence in the several councils secured unity of
action. The boards, moreover, were small, not exceeding nine members in
the case of the first four in dignity and power: the Councils of State,
of Despatches, of Finance, and of Commerce. The fifth, the Privy
Council, or Council of Parties, was larger, and served in a measure as a
training-school for the others. It comprised, beside all the members of
the superior councils, thirty councilors of state, several intendants of
finance, and eighty lawyers known as _maîtres des requêtes_.
[Footnote: De Lucay, _Les Secrétaires d'État, 418, 419, 424, 442, 448,
449.]

The functions of the various councils were not clearly defined and
distinguished. Many questions would be submitted to one or another of
them as chance or influence might direct. Under each there were a number
of public offices, called bureaux, where business was prepared, and
where the smaller matters were practically settled. By the royal
councils and their subordinate public offices, France was governed to an
extent and with a minuteness hardly comprehensible to any one not
accustomed to centralized government.

The councils did nothing in their own name. The king it was who
nominally settled everything with their advice. The final decision of
every question was supposed to rest with the monarch himself. Every
important matter was in fact submitted to him. Thus in the government of
the country, the king could at any moment take as much of the burden
upon his own shoulders as they were strong enough to bear.

The legislative power was exercised by the councils. It was a question
not entirely settled whether their edicts possessed full force of law
without the assent of the high courts or parliaments. But with the
councils rested, at least, all the initiative of legislation. The
process of lawmaking began with them, and by them the laws were shaped
and drafted.

They also possessed no small part of the judiciary power. The custom of
removing private causes from the regular courts, and trying them before
one or another of the royal councils, was a great and, I think, a
growing one. This appellate jurisdiction was due in theory partly to the
doctrine that the king was the origin of justice; and partly to the idea
that political matters could not safely be left to ordinary tribunals.
The notion that the king owes justice to all his subjects and that it is
an act of grace, perhaps even a duty on his part, to administer it in
person when it is possible to do so, is as old as monarchy itself.

Solomon in his palace, Saint Louis under his oak, when they decided
between suitors before them, were exercising the inherent rights of
sovereignty, as understood in their day. The late descendants of the
royal saint did not decide causes themselves except on rare occasions,
but in questions between parties followed the decision of the majority
of the council that heard the case. Thus the ancient custom of seeking
justice from a royal judge merely served to transfer jurisdiction to an
irregular tribunal.[Footnote: De Lucay, _Les Secrétaires d'État_,
465.]

The executive power was both nominally and actually in the hands of the
councils. Great questions of foreign and domestic policy could be
settled only in the Council of State.[Footnote: Sometimes called
Conseil d'en haut, or Upper Council.] But the whole administration
tended more and more in the same direction. Questions of detail were
submitted from all parts of France. Hardly a bridge was built or a
steeple repaired in Burgundy or Provence without a permission signed by
the king in council and countersigned by a secretary of state. The
Council of Despatches exercised disciplinary jurisdiction over authors,
printers, and booksellers. It governed schools, and revised their rules
and regulations. It laid out roads, dredged rivers, and built canals. It
dealt with the clergy, decided differences between bishops and their
chapters, authorized dioceses and parishes to borrow money. It took
general charge of towns and municipal organization. The Council of
Finance and the Council of Commerce had equally minute questions to
decide in their own departments.[Footnote: De Lucay, _Les Secrétaires
d'État_, 418. For this excessive centralization, see, also, De
Tocqueville, _L'ancien Régime et la Révolution_, passim.]

Evidently the king and his ministers could not give their personal
attention to all these matters. Minor questions were in fact settled by
the bureaux and the secretaries of state, and the king did little more
than sign the necessary license. Thus matters of local interest were
practically decided by subordinate officers in Paris or Versailles,
instead of being arranged in the places where they were really
understood. If a village in Languedoc wanted a new parsonage, neither
the inhabitants of the place, nor any one who had ever been within a
hundred miles of it, was allowed to decide on the plan and to regulate
the expense, but the whole matter was reported to an office in the
capital and there settled by a clerk. This barbarous system, which is by
no means obsolete in Europe, is known in modern times by the barbarous
name of bureaucracy.

The royal councils and their subordinate bureaux had their agents in the
country. These were the intendants, men who deserve attention, for by
them a very large part of the actual government was carried on. They
were thirty-two in number, and governed each a territory, called a
généralité. The Intendants were not great lords, nor the owners of
offices that had become assimilated to property; they were hard-working
men, delegated by the council, under the great seal, and liable to be
promoted or recalled at the royal pleasure. They were chosen from the
class of _maîtres des requêtes_, and were therefore all lawyers and
members of the Privy Council. Thus the unity of the administration in
Versailles and the provinces was constantly maintained.

It had originally been the function of the intendants to act as legal
inspectors, making the circuit of the provincial towns for the purpose
of securing uniformity and the proper administration of justice in the
various local courts.[Footnote: Du Boys, i. 517.] They retained to the
end of the monarchy the privilege of sitting in all the courts of law
within their districts.[Footnote: De Lucay, _Les Assemblées
provinciales_, 31.] But their duties and powers had grown to be far
greater than those of any officer merely judicial. The intendant had
charge of the interests of the Catholic religion and worship, and the
care of buildings devoted to religious purposes. He also controlled the
Protestants, and all their affairs. He encouraged and regulated
agriculture and commerce. He settled many questions concerning military
matters and garrisons. The militia was entirely managed by him. He
cooperated with the courts of justice in the control of the police. He
had charge of post-roads and post-offices, stage coaches, books and
printing, royal or privileged lotteries, and the suppression of illegal
gambling. He was, in fact, the direct representative of the royal power,
and was in constant correspondence with the king's minister of state.
And as the power of the crown had constantly grown for two centuries, so
the power of the intendant had constantly grown with it, tending to the
centralization and unity of France and to the destruction of local
liberties.

As the intendants were educated as lawyers rather than as
administrators, and as they were often transferred from one province
to another after a short term of service, they did not acquire full
knowledge of their business. Moreover, they did not reside regularly
in the part of the country which they governed, but made only flying
visits to it, and spent most of their time near the centre of
influence, in Paris or Versailles. Yet their opportunities for doing
good or harm were almost unlimited. Their executive command was nearly
uncontrolled; for where there were no provincial estates, the
inhabitants could not send a petition to the king except through the
hands of the intendant, and any complaint against that officer was
referred to himself for an answer.[Footnote: For the intendants, see
Necker, _De l'administration_, ii. 469, iii. 379. Ibid., _Mémoire au
roi sur l'établissement des administrations provinciales_, passim. De
Lucay, _Les Assemblées provinciales_, 29. Mercier, _Tableau de Paris_,
ix. 85. The official title of the intendant was _commissaire
départi_.]

The intendants were represented in their provinces by subordinate
officers called sub-delegates, each one of whom ruled his petty district
or _élection_. These men were generally local lawyers or
magistrates. Their pay was small, they had no hope of advancement, and
they were under great temptation to use their extensive powers in a
corrupt and oppressive manner.[Footnote: De Lucay, _Les Assemblées
provinciales_, 42, etc.]

Beside the intendant, we find in every province a royal governor. The
powers of this official had gradually waned before those of his rival.
He was always a great lord, drawing a great salary and maintaining great
state, but doing little service, and really of far less importance to
the province than the new man. He was a survival of the old feudal
government, superseded by the centralized monarchy of which the
intendant was the representative.[Footnote: The _generalité_
governed by the intendant, and the _province_ to which the royal
governor was appointed, were not always coterminous.]



CHAPTER II.

LOUIS XVI. AND HIS COURT.


A centralized government, when it is well managed and carefully watched
from above, may reach a degree of efficiency and quickness of action
which a government of distributed local powers cannot hope to equal. But
if a strong central government become disorganized, if inefficiency, or
idleness, or, above all, dishonesty, once obtain a ruling place in it,
the whole governing body is diseased. The honest men who may find
themselves involved in any inferior part of the administration will
either fall into discouraged acquiescence, or break their hearts and
ruin their fortunes in hopeless revolt. Nothing but long years of
untiring effort and inflexible will on the part of the ruler, with power
to change his agents at his discretion, can restore order and honesty.

There is no doubt that the French administrative body at the time when
Louis XVI. began to reign, was corrupt and self-seeking. In the
management of the finances and of the army, illegitimate profits were
made. But this was not the worst evil from which the public service was
suffering. France was in fact governed by what in modern times is called
"a ring." The members of such an organization pretend to serve the
sovereign, or the public, and in some measure actually do so; but their
rewards are determined by intrigue and favor, and are entirely
disproportionate to their services. They generally prefer jobbery to
direct stealing, and will spend a million of the state's money in a
needless undertaking, in order to divert a few thousands into their own
pockets.

They hold together against all the world, while trying to circumvent
each other. Such a ring in old France was the court. By such a ring will
every country be governed, where the sovereign who possesses the
political power is weak in moral character or careless of the public
interest; whether that sovereign be a monarch, a chamber, or the mass of
the people.[Footnote: "Quand, dans un royaume, il y a plus d'avantage à
faire sa cour qu'à faire son devoir, tout est perdu." Montesquieu, vii.
176, (_Pensées diverses_.)]

Louis XVI., king of France and of Navarre, was more dull than stupid,
and weaker in will than in intellect. In him the hobbledehoy period had
been unusually prolonged, and strangers at court were astonished to see
a prince of nineteen years of age running after a footman to tickle him
while his hands were full of dirty clothes.[Footnote: Swinburne, i.
11.] The clumsy youth grew up into a shy and awkward man, unable to find
at will those accents of gracious politeness which are most useful to
the great. Yet people who had been struck at first only with his
awkwardness were sometimes astonished to find in him a certain amount of
education, a memory for facts, and a reasonable judgment.[Footnote:
Campan, ii. 231. Bertrand de Moleville, _Histoire_, i. Introd.;
_Mémoires_, i. 221.] Among his predecessors he had set himself
Henry IV. as a model, probably without any very accurate idea of the
character of that monarch; and he had fully determined he would do what
in him lay to make his people happy. He was, moreover, thoroughly
conscientious, and had a high sense of the responsibility of his great
calling. He was not indolent, although heavy, and his courage, which was
sorely tested, was never broken. With these virtues he might have made a
good king, had he possessed firmness of will enough to support a good
minister, or to adhere to a good policy. But such strength had not been
given him. Totally incapable of standing by himself, he leant
successively, or simultaneously, on his aunt, his wife, his ministers,
his courtiers, as ready to change his policy as his adviser. Yet it was
part of his weakness to be unwilling to believe himself under the
guidance of any particular person; he set a high value on his own
authority, and was inordinately jealous of it. No one, therefore, could
acquire a permanent influence. Thus a well-meaning man became the worst
of sovereigns; for the first virtue of a master is consistency, and no
subordinate can follow out with intelligent zeal today a policy which he
knows may be subverted tomorrow.

The apologists of Louis XVI. are fond of speaking of him as
"virtuous." The adjective is singularly ill-chosen. His faults were
of the will more than of the understanding. To have a vague notion of
what is right, to desire it in a general way, and to lack the moral
force to do it,--surely this is the very opposite of virtue.

The French court, which was destined to have a very great influence on
the course of events in this reign and in the beginning of the French
Revolution, was composed of the people about the king's person. The
royal family and the members of the higher nobility were admitted into
the circle by right of birth, but a large place could be obtained only
by favor. It was the court that controlled most appointments, for no
king could know all applicants personally and intimately. The stream of
honor and emolument from the royal fountain-head was diverted, by the
ministers and courtiers, into their own channels. Louis XV had been led
by his mistresses; Louis XVI was turned about by the last person who
happened to speak to him. The courtiers, in their turn, were swayed by
their feelings, or their interests. They formed parties and
combinations, and intrigued for or against each other. They made
bargains, they gave and took bribes. In all these intrigues, bribes, and
bargains, the court ladies had a great share. They were as corrupt as
the men, and as frivolous. It is probable that in no government did
women ever exercise so great an influence.

The factions into which the court was divided tended to group themselves
round certain rich and influential families. Such were the Noailles, an
ambitious and powerful house, with which Lafayette was connected by
marriage; the Broglies, one of whom had held the thread of the secret
diplomacy which Louis XV. had carried on behind the backs of his
acknowledged ministers; the Polignacs, new people, creatures of Queen
Marie Antoinette; the Rohans, through the influence of whose great name
an unworthy member of the family was to rise to high dignity in the
church and the state, and then to cast a deep shadow on the darkening
popularity of that ill-starred princess. Such families as these formed
an upper class among nobles, and the members firmly believed in their
own prescriptive right to the best places. The poorer nobility, on the
other hand, saw with great jealousy the supremacy of the court families.
They insisted that there was and should be but one order of nobility,
all whose members were equal among themselves.[Footnote: See among
other places the Instructions of the Nobility of Blois to the deputies,
_Archives parlementaires_, ii. 385.]

The courtiers, on their side, thought themselves a different order of
beings from the rest of the nation. The ceremony of presentation was the
passport into their society, but by no means all who possessed this
formal title were held to belong to the inner circle. Women who came to
court but once a week, although of great family, were known as "Sunday
ladies." The true courtier lived always in the refulgent presence of his
sovereign.[Footnote: Campan, iii. 89.]

The court was considered a perfectly legitimate power, although much
hated at times, and bearing, very properly, a large share of the odium
of misgovernment. The idea of its legitimacy is impressed on the
language of diplomacy, and we still speak of the Court of St. James, the
Court of Vienna, as powers to be dealt with. Under a monarchy, people do
not always distinguish in their own minds between the good of the state
and the personal enjoyment of the monarch, nor is the doctrine that the
king exists for his people by any means fully recognized. When the Count
of Artois told the Parliament of Paris in 1787 that they knew that the
expenses of the king could not be regulated by his receipts, but that
his receipts must be governed by his expenses, he spoke a half-truth;
yet it had probably not occurred to him that there was any difference
between the necessity of keeping up an efficient army, and the
desirability of having hounds, coaches, and palaces. He had not
reflected that it might be essential to the honor of France to feed the
old soldiers in the Hotel des Invalides, and quite superfluous to pay
large sums to generals who had never taken the field and to colonels who
seldom visited their regiments. The courtiers fully believed that to
interfere with their salaries was to disturb the most sacred rights of
property. In 1787, when the strictest economy was necessary, the king
united his "Great Stables" and "Small Stables," throwing the Duke of
Coigny, who had charge of the latter, out of place. Although great pains
were taken to spare the duke's feelings and his pocket, he was very
angry at the change, and there was a violent scene between him and the
king. "We were really provoked, the Duke of Coigny and I," said Louis
good-naturedly afterwards, "but I think if he had thrashed me, I should
have forgiven him." The duke, however, was not so placable as the king.
Holding another appointment, he resigned it in a huff. The queen was
displeased at this mark of temper, and remarked to a courtier that the
Duke of Coigny did not appreciate the consideration that had been shown
him.

"Madam," was the reply, "he is losing too much to be content with
compliments. It is too bad to live in a country where you are not sure
of possessing today what you had yesterday. Such things used to take
place only in Turkey."[Footnote: Besenval, ii. 255.]

It is not easy, in looking at the French government in the eighteenth
century, to decide where the working administration ended, and where the
useless court that answered no real purpose began. The ministers of
state were reckoned a part of the court. So were many of the upper
civil-servants, the king's military staff, and in a sense, the guards
and household troops. So were the "great services," partaking of the
nature of public offices, ceremonial honors, and domestic labors. Of
this kind were the Household, the Chamber, the Antechamber and Closet,
the Great and the Little Stables, with their Grand Squire, First Squire
and pages, who had to prove nobility to the satisfaction of the royal
herald. There was the department of hunting and that of buildings, a
separate one for royal journeys, one for the guard, another for police,
yet another for ceremonies. There were five hundred officers "of the
mouth," table-bearers distinct from chair-bearers. There were tradesmen,
from apothecaries and armorers at one end of the list to saddle-makers,
tailors and violinists at the other.

When a baby is at last born to Marie Antoinette (only a girl, to every
one's disappointment), a rumor gets about that the child will be
tended with great simplicity. The queen's mother, the Empress Maria
Theresa, in distant Vienna, takes alarm. She does not approve of "the
present fashion according to Rousseau" by which young princes are
brought up like peasants. Her ambassador in Paris hastens to reassure
her. The infant will not lack reasonable ceremony. The service of her
royal person alone will employ nearly eighty attendants.[Footnote:
Mercy-Argenteau, iii. 283, 292.] The military and civil households of
the king and of the royal family are said to have consisted of about
fifteen thousand souls, and to have cost forty-five million francs per
annum. The holders of many of the places served but three months
apiece out of every year, so that four officers and four salaries were
required, instead of one.

With such a system as this we cannot wonder that the men who
administered the French government were generally incapable and
self-seeking. Most of them were politicians rather than
administrators, and cared more for their places than for their
country. Of the few conscientious and patriotic men who obtained
power, the greater number lost it very speedily. Turgot and
Malesherbes did not long remain in the Council. Necker, more cautious
and conservative, could keep his place no better. The jealousy of
Louis was excited, and he feared the domination of a man of whom the
general opinion of posterity has been that he was wanting in
decision. Calonne was sent away as soon as he tried to turn from
extravagance to economy. Vergennes alone, of the good servants,
retained his office; perhaps because he had little to do with
financial matters; perhaps, also, because he knew how to keep himself
decidedly subordinate to whatever power was in the ascendant. The
lasting influences were that of Maurepas, an old man who cared for
nothing but himself, whose great object in government was to be
without a rival, and whose art was made up of tact and gayety; and
that of the rival factions of Lamballe and Polignac, guiding the
queen, which were simply rapacious.

The courtiers and the numerous people who were drawn to Versailles by
business or curiosity were governed by a system of rules of gradual
growth, constituting what was known as "Étiquette." The word has passed
into common speech. In this country it is an unpopular word, and there
is an impression in many people's minds that the thing which it
represents is unnecessary. This, however, is a great delusion. Étiquette
is that code of rules, not necessarily connected with morals, by which
mutual intercourse is regulated. Every society, whether civilized or
barbarous, has such a code of its own. Without it social life would be
impossible, for no man would know what to expect of his neighbors, nor
be able promptly to interpret the words and actions of his fellow-men.
It is in obedience to an unwritten law of this kind that an American
takes off his hat when he goes into a church, and an Asiatic, when he
enters a mosque, takes off his shoes; that Englishmen shake hands, and
Africans rub noses. Where étiquette is well understood and well adapted
to the persons whom it governs, men are at ease, for they know what they
may do without offense. Where it is too complicated it hampers them,
making spontaneous action difficult, and there is no doubt that the
étiquette that governed the French court was antiquated, unadvisable and
cumbrous. Its rules had been devised to prevent confusion and to
regulate the approach of the courtiers to the king. As all honors and
emoluments came from the royal pleasure, people were sure to crowd about
the monarch, and to jostle each other with unmannerly and dangerous
haste, unless they were strictly held in check. Every one, therefore,
must have his place definitely assigned to him. To be near the king at
all times, to have the opportunity of slipping a timely word into his
ear, was an invaluable privilege. To be employed in menial offices about
his person was a mark of confidence. Rules could not easily be revised,
for each of them concerned a vested right. Those in force in the reign
of Louis XVI. had been established by his predecessors when manners were
different.

At the close of the Middle Ages privacy may be said to have been a
luxury almost unknown to any man. There was not room for it in the
largest castle. Solitude was seldom either possible or safe. People
were crowded together without means of escape from each other. The
greatest received their dependents, and often ate their meals, in
their bedrooms. A confidential interview would be held in the
embrasure of a window. Such customs disappeared but gradually from
the sixteenth century to our own. But by the latter part of the
eighteenth, modern ways and ideas were coming in. Yet the étiquette of
the French court was still old-fashioned. It infringed too much on the
king's privacy; it interfered seriously with his freedom. It exposed
him too familiarly to the eyes of a nation overprone to ridicule. A
man who is to inspire awe should not dress and undress in public. A
woman who is to be regarded with veneration should be allowed to take
her bath and give birth to her children in private.[Footnote: See the
account of the birth of Marie Antoinette's first child, when she was
in danger from the mixed crowd that filled her room, stood on chairs,
etc., 19th Dec. 1778. Campan, i. 201. At her later confinements only
princes of the blood, the chancellor and the ministers, and a few
other persons were admitted. Ibid., 203.]

Madame Campan, long a waiting-woman of Marie Antoinette, has left an
account of the toilet of the queen and of the little occurrences that
might interrupt it. The whole performance, she says, was a masterpiece
of étiquette; everything about it was governed by rules. The Lady of
Honor and the Lady of the Bedchamber, both if they were there together,
assisted by the First Woman and the two other women, did the principal
service; but there were distinctions among them. The Lady of the
Bedchamber put on the skirt and presented the gown. The Lady of Honor
poured out the water to wash the queen's hands and put on the chemise.
When a Princess of the Royal Family or a Princess of the Blood was
present at the toilet, the Lady of Honor gave up the latter function to
her. To a Princess of the Royal Family, that is to say to the sister,
sister-in-law, or aunt of the king, she handed the garment directly; but
to a Princess of the Blood (the king's cousin by blood or marriage) she
did not yield this service. In the latter case, the Lady of Honor handed
the chemise to the First Woman, who presented it to the Princess of the
Blood. Every one of these ladies observed these customs scrupulously, as
appertaining to her rank.

One winter's day it happened that the Queen, entirely undressed, was
about to put on her chemise. Madame Campan was holding it unfolded. The
Lady of Honor came in, made haste to take off her gloves and took the
chemise. While she still had it in her hands there came a knock at the
door, which was immediately opened. The new-comer was the Duchess of
Orleans, a Princess of the Blood. Her Highness's gloves were taken off,
she advanced to take the shift, but the Lady of Honor must not give it
directly to her, and therefore passed it back to Madame Campan, who gave
it to the princess. Just then there came another knock at the door, and
the Countess of Provence, known as Madame, and sister-in-law to the
king, was ushered in. The Duchess of Orleans presented the chemise to
her. Meanwhile the Queen kept her arms crossed on her breast, and looked
cold. Madame saw her disagreeable position, and without waiting to take
off her gloves, merely threw away her handkerchief and put the chemise
on the Queen. In her haste she knocked down the Queen's hair. The latter
burst out laughing, to hide her annoyance; and only murmured several
times between her teeth: "This is odious! What a nuisance!"

This anecdote gives but an instance of the well-known and not unfounded
aversion of Marie Antoinette to the étiquette of the French court. But
the young queen made no attempt to reform that étiquette; she tried only
to evade it. Much has been written about Marie Antoinette as a woman,
her terrible misfortunes and the fortitude with which she bore them
having evoked the sympathy of mankind. Her conduct as a queen-consort
has been less considered. The woman was lively and amiable, possessing a
great personal charm, which impressed those who approached her; but that
mattered little to the nation, whose dealings were with the queen. What
were the duties of her office and how did she fulfill them?

The first thing demanded of her was parade. She had to keep up the
splendor and attractiveness of the French monarchy. This, in spite of
her impatience of étiquette, was of all her public duties the one which
she best performed. Her manners were dignified, gracious, and
appropriately discriminating. It is said that she could bow to ten
persons with one movement, giving, with her head and eyes, the
recognition due to each separately.

She had also the art of talking to several people at once, so that each
one felt as if her remarks had been addressed to himself, and the
equally important art (sometimes called royal) of remembering faces and
names. As she passed from one part of her palace to another, surrounded
by the ladies of her court, she seemed to the spectator to surpass them
all in the nobility of her countenance and the dignified grace of her
carriage. She had the crowning beauty of woman, a well-poised and
proudly carried head. Her gait was a gliding motion, in which the steps
were not clearly distinguishable. Foreigners generally were enchanted
with her, and to them she owes no small part of her posthumous
popularity. The French nobility, on the other hand, complained, not
unreasonably, that the queen was too exclusively devoted to the society
of a few intimate companions, for whose sake she neglected other people.
Her court, on this account, was sometimes comparatively deserted. But a
young queen can hardly be very severely blamed if she often prefers her
pleasures and her friends to the tedious duties of her position. Marie
Antoinette had had little education or guidance. Her likes and dislikes
were strong, nor was she entirely above petty spite. "You tell me,"
wrote Maria Theresa to her daughter on one occasion, "that for love of
me you treat the Broglies well, although they have been disrespectful to
you personally. That is another odd idea. Can a little Broglie be
disrespectful to you? I do not understand that. No one was ever
disrespectful to me, nor to any of your ten brothers and sisters." It
was no fair-weather queen that wrote this most royal reproof. Marie
Antoinette never rose to this height of dignity, where the great lady
sits above the clouds. In her days of prosperity she certainly never
approached it. Perhaps no mortal woman ever reached it in early life.
[Footnote: Mercy-Argenteau, _passim_, and especially i. 218, 265,
279; ii. 218, 232, 312, 525; iii. 56, 113, 132 and _n_., 157, 265,
490. Tilly, _Mémoires,_ 230. Cognel, 59, 84; Wraxall, i. 85;
Walpole's _Letters,_ vi. 245 (23d Aug. 1776), etc.]

It is one of the most important duties of a queen-consort to set a good
example in morals. Here Marie Antoinette was deficient. Her private
conduct has probably been slandered, but she brought the slanders on
herself. Beside the code of morals, there is in every country a code of
proprieties, and people who habitually do that which is considered
improper have only themselves to thank if a harsh construction is put on
their doubtful actions. The scandals concerning Marie Antoinette were
numberless and public. The young queen of France chose for her intimate
companions men and women of bad reputation. Her brother, Joseph II., was
shocked when he visited her, at the familiar manners which she
permitted. He wrote to her that English travelers compared her court to
Spa, then a famous gambling-place, and he called the house of the
Princess of Guéménée, which she was in the habit of frequenting, "a real
gambling-hell." Accusations of cheating at cards flew about the palace,
and one courtier had his pocket picked in the royal drawing-room. The
queen was constantly surrounded by dissipated young noblemen, who on
race days were allowed to come into her presence in costumes which
shocked conservative people. She herself was recognized at public masked
balls, where the worst women of the capital jostled the great nobles of
the court. When she had the measles, four gentlemen of her especial
friends were appointed nurses, and hardly left her chamber during the
day and evening. People asked ironically what four ladies would be
appointed to nurse the king if he were ill. In her amusements she was
seldom accompanied by her husband. It hardly told in her favor that the
latter was a man for whom a young and high-spirited woman could not be
expected to entertain any very passionate affection.

The country was deeply in debt, and during a part of the reign an
expensive war was going on. It was obviously the queen's duty to
retrench her own expenses, and to set an example of economy. Yet her
demands on the treasury were very great. Her personal allowance was
much larger than that of the previous queen, and she was frequently in
debt. Her losses at play were considerable, in spite of her husband's
well-known aversion to gambling. She increased the number of expensive
and useless offices about her court. She was constantly accessible to
rapacious favorites. The feeble king could at least recognize that he
owed something to his subjects; the queen appears to have thought that
the revenues of France were intended principally to provide means for
the royal bounty to people who had done nothing to deserve it. On the
other hand, she acknowledged the duty of private charity, and believed
that thereby she was earning the gratitude of her subjects. That the
taxpayer was entitled to any consideration is an idea that does not
seem to have entered her mind.

Had Marie Antoinette been the wife of a strong and able king, she would
probably have been quite right in avoiding interference in the
government of the state. Being married to Louis XVI., it was inevitable
that she should try to direct his vacillating will in public matters. It
therefore becomes pertinent to ask whether her influence was generally
exerted on the right side.

It is evident that in the earlier part of her reign the affairs of the
state did not interest her, though her feelings were often strongly
moved for or against persons. Her preference for Choiseul and his
adherents, over Aiguillon and his party, was natural and well founded.
The Duke of Choiseul was not only the author of the Austrian alliance
and of the queen's marriage, but was also the ablest minister who had
recently held favor in France. Had Marie Antoinette possessed as much
influence over her husband in 1774 as she obtained later, she might
perhaps have overcome what seems to have been one of his strongest
prejudices, and have brought Choiseul back to power, to the benefit of
the country. But her efforts in that direction were unavailing. In her
relations with the other ministers, Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker, her
voice was generally on the side of extravagance and the court, and
against economy and the nation. This, far more than the intrigues of
faction, was the cause of the unpopularity that pursued her to her
grave. If the court of France was a corrupt ring living on the country,
Marie Antoinette was not far from being its centre.



CHAPTER III.

THE CLERGY.


The inhabitants of France were divided into three orders, differing in
legal rights. These were the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Commons, or
Third Estate. The first two, which are commonly spoken of as the
privileged orders, contained but a small fraction of the population
numerically, but their wealth and position gave them a great importance.

The clergy formed, as the philosophers were never tired of complaining,
a state within a state. No accurate statistics concerning it can be
obtained. The whole number of persons vowed to religion in the country,
both regular and secular, would seem to have been between one hundred
and one hundred and thirty thousand. They owned probably from one fifth
to one quarter of the soil. The proportion was excessive, but it does
not appear that the lay inhabitants of the country were thereby crowded.
Like other landowners, the clergy had tenants, and they were far from
being the worst of landlords. For one thing, they were seldom absentees.
The abbot of a monastery might spend his time at Versailles, but the
prior and the monks remained, to do their duty by their farmers. It is
said that the church lands were the best cultivated in the kingdom, and
that the peasants that tilled them were the best, treated.[Footnote:
Barthelémy, _Erreurs et mensonges historiques, xv. 40._ Article
entitled _La question des congregations il y a cent ans_, quoting
largely from Féroux, _Vues d'un Solitaire Patriote_, 1784. See also
Genlis, _Dictionnaire des Étiquettes,_ ii. 79. Mathieu, 324.
Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 133.] In any case the church was rich. Its
income from invested property, principally land, has been reckoned at
one hundred and twenty-four million livres a year. It received about as
much more from tithes, beside the amount, very variously reckoned, which
came in as fees, on such occasions as weddings, christenings, and
funerals.

Tithes were imposed throughout France for the support of the clergy.
They were not, however, taken upon all Articles of produce, nor did they
usually amount to one tenth of the increase. Sometimes the tithe was
compounded for a fixed rent in money; sometimes for a given number of
sheaves, or measures of wine per acre. Oftener it was a fixed proportion
of the crop, varying from one quarter to one fortieth. In some places
wood, fruit, and other commodities were exempt; in other places they
were charged. Tithe was in some cases taken of calves, lambs, chickens,
sucking pigs, fleeces, or fish; and the clergy or the tithe owners were
bound to provide the necessary bulls, rams, and boars. A distinction was
usually made between the Great tithes, levied on such common articles as
corn and wine, and the Small tithes, taken from less important crops. Of
these the former were often paid to the bishops, the latter to the
parish priest. The tithes had in some cases been alienated by the church
and were owned by lay proprietors. In general, it is believed that this
tax on the agricultural class in France amounted to about one eighteenth
of the gross product of the soil.[Footnote: Chassin, _Les cahiers
due clergé_, 36. Bailly, ii. 414, 419. Boiteau, 41. Rambaud, ii. 58
_n._ Taine, _L'ancien Régime_ (book i. chap ii.). The livre
of the time of Louis XVI. is commonly reckoned to have had at least
twice the purchasing power of the franc of to-day.]

The whole body of the clergy, as it existed within the boundaries of the
kingdom, was not subject to the same rules and laws. The larger part of
it formed what was known as the "Clergy of France," and possessed
peculiar rights and privileges presently to be described. Those
ecclesiastics, however, who lived in certain provinces, situated
principally in the northern and eastern part of the country, and annexed
to the kingdom since the beginning of the sixteenth century, were called
the "Foreign Clergy." These did not share the rights of the larger body,
but depended more directly on the papacy. They paid certain taxes from
which the Clergy of France were exempt. The mode of appointment to
bishoprics and abbacies was different among them from what it was in the
rest of the country. Throughout France, and in all affairs,
ecclesiastical and secular, were anomalies such as these.

The Church of France enjoyed great and peculiar privileges, both among
the churches of Christendom, and among the Estates of the French realm.
By the Concordat, or treaty of 1516, made between Pope Leo X. and King
Francis I., the nomination to bishroprics and to considerable
ecclesiastical benefices had been given to the king, while the Holy
Father kept only a right of veto on appointments. The _annates_, or
first-fruits of the bishoprics, taxes equal in theory to one year's
revenue on every change of incumbent, but in fact of less amount than
that, were paid to the Pope, and these, with other dues, made up a sum
of three or four million livres sent annually from France to Rome. On
the other hand, the Clergy of France was the only body in the state
which had undisputed constitutional rights independent of the throne.
Its ordinary assemblies were held once in ten years. The country was
divided into sixteen ecclesiastical provinces, each under the
superintendence of an archbishop. In each of these provinces a meeting
was held, composed of delegates of the various dioceses. Each of these
provincial meetings elected two bishops and two other ecclesiastics,
either regular or secular. These deputies received, from their
constituents, instructions called _cahiers_ to be taken by them to
the Ordinary Assembly of the clergy, which was held in Paris. This body
granted subsidies to the king, managed the debt and other secular
affairs of the clergy, and pronounced unofficially even in matters of
doctrine. Smaller Assemblies, nearly equal in power, came together at
least once during the interval which elapsed between the meetings of the
Ordinary Assemblies; so that as often as once in five years the Church
of France exercised a true political activity. The sum voted to the king
was called a Free Gift[Footnote: Don Gratuit], and the name was not
altogether inappropriate, for, although required was stated by the
king's ministers, conditions were not infrequently exacted of the crown.
Thus in 1785, on the occasion of a gift of eighteen million livres, the
suppression of the works of Voltaire was demanded. And once at least, as
late as 1750, on the occasion of a squabble between the church and the
court, the clergy had refused to make any grant whatsoever. The total
amount of the Free Gift voted during the reign of Louis XVI. was
65,800,000 livres, or less than four and a half millions a year on an
average. The grant was not annual, but was made in lump sums from time
to time; a vote of two thirds of the assembly being necessary for making
it. The assembly itself assessed the tax on the dioceses. A commission
managed the affairs of the clergy when no assembly was sitting. The
order had its treasury, and its credit was good. The king was its debtor
to the extent of about a hundred million livres.

The clergy itself was in debt. Instead of raising directly, by
taxation of its members, the money which it paid to the state, it had
acquired the habit of borrowing the necessary sum. The debt thus
incurred appears to have been about one hundred and thirty-four
million livres. In addition to the amount necessary for interest on
this debt, and for a provision for its gradual repayment, the order
had various expenses to meet. For these purposes it taxed itself to an
amount of more than ten million livres a year. On the other hand it
received back from the king a subsidy of two and a half million
livres. From most of the regular, direct taxes paid by Frenchmen the
Clergy of France was freed. [Footnote: _Revue des questions
historiques_, 1st July, 1890 (L'abbé L. Bourgain, _Contribution du
clergé à l'impôt_). Sciout, i. 35. Boiteau, 195. Rambaud,
ii. 44. Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 308. The financial
statement given above refers to the Clergy of France only. Its
pecuniary affairs are as difficult and doubtful as those of every part
of the nation at this period, and have repeatedly been made the
subject of confused statement and religious and political
controversy. The Foreign Clergy paid some of the regular taxes, giving
the state about one million livres a year on an income of twenty
million livres. Boiteau, 196.]

The bishops were not subject to the secular tribunals, but other clerks
came under the royal jurisdiction in temporal matters. In spiritual
affairs they were judged by the ecclesiastical courts.

The income of the clergy, had it been fairly distributed, was amply
sufficient for the support of every one connected with the order. It
was, however, divided with great partiality. There were set over the
clergy, both French and foreign, eighteen archbishops and a hundred and
twenty-one bishops, beside eleven of those bishops _in partibus
infidelium_, who, having no sees of their own in France, might be
expected to make themselves generally useful. These hundred and fifty
bishops were very highly, though unequally paid. The bishoprics, with a
very few exceptions, were reserved for members of the nobility, and this
rule was quite as strictly enforced under Louis XVI. as under any of his
predecessors. Nothing prevented the cumulation of ecclesiastical
benefices, and that prelate was but a poor courtier who did not enjoy
the revenue of several rich abbeys. Nor was it in money and in
ecclesiastical preferment alone that the bishops were paid for the
services which they too often neglected to perform.

Not a few of them were barons, counts, dukes, princes of the Holy Roman
Empire, or peers of France by virtue of their sees. Several rose to be
ministers of state. Even in that age they were accused of worldliness.
It was a proverb that with Spanish bishops and French priests an
excellent clergy could be made. But not all the French bishops were
worldly, nor neglectful of their spiritual duties. Among them might be
found conscientious and serious prelates, abounding both in faith and
good works, living simply and bestowing their wealth in charity.
[Footnote: Rambaud, ii. 37. Mathieu, 151.]

After the bishops came the abbots. As their offices were in the gift of
the king, and as no discipline was enforced upon them, they were chiefly
to be found in the antechambers of Versailles and in the drawing-rooms
of Paris. They were not even obliged to be members of the religious
orders they were supposed to govern.[Footnote: The abbots of abbeys
_en commende_ were appointed by the king. These appear to have been
most of the rich abbeys. There were also _abbayes régulières_,
where the abbot was elected by the brethren. Rambaud, ii. 53. The
revenues of the monasteries were divided into two parts, the _mense
abbatiale_, for the abbot, the _mense conventuelle_, for the
brethren. Mathieu, 73.] Leaving the charge of their monasteries to the
priors, they spent the incomes where new preferment was to be looked
for, and devoted their time to intrigues rather than to prayers. No
small part of the revenues of the clergy was wasted in the dissipations
of these ecclesiastic courtiers. They were imitated in their vices by a
rabble of priests out of place, to whom the title of abbot was given in
politeness, the little _abbés_ of French biography and fiction.
These men lived in garrets, haunted cheap eating-houses, and appeared on
certain days of the week at rich men's tables, picking up a living as
best they could. They were to be seen among the tradesmen and suitors
who crowded the levees of the great, distinguishable in the throng by
their black clothes, and a very small tonsure. They attended the toilets
of fashionable ladies, ever ready with the last bit of literary gossip,
or of social scandal. They sought employment as secretaries, or as
writers for the press. The church, or indeed, the opposite party, could
find literary champions among them at a moment's notice. Nor was hope of
professional preferment always lacking. It is said that one of the
number kept an ecclesiastical intelligence office. This man was
acquainted with the incumbents of valuable livings; he watched the state
of their health, and calculated the chances of death among them. He knew
what patrons were likely to have preferment to give away, and how those
patrons were to be reached. His couriers were ever on the road to Rome,
for the Pope still had the gift of many rich places in France, in spite
of the Concordat.[Footnote: Mercier, ix. 350.]

Another large part of the revenues of the church was devoted to the
support of the convents. These contained from sixty to seventy thousand
persons, more of them women than men. Owing to various causes, and
especially to the action of a commission appointed to examine all
convents, and to reform, close, or consolidate such as might need to be
so treated, the number of regular religious persons fell off more than
one half during the last twenty-five years of the monarchy. Yet many of
the functions which in modern countries are left to private charity, or
to the direct action of the state, were performed in old France by
persons of this kind. The care of the poor and sick and the education of
the young were largely, although not entirely, in the hands of religious
orders. Some monks, like the Benedictines of St. Maur, devoted their
lives to the advancement of learning. But there were also monks and nuns
who rendered no services to the public, and were entirely occupied with
their own spiritual and temporal interests, giving alms, perhaps, but
only incidentally, like other citizens. Against these the indignation of
the French Philosophers was much excited. Their celibacy was attacked,
as contrary to the interests of the state; they were accused of laziness
and greed. How far were the Philosophers right in their opposition? It
is impossible to discuss in detail here the policy of allowing or
discouraging religious corporations in a state. Should men and women be
permitted to retire from the struggles and duties of active life in the
world? Is the monastery, with its steady and depressing routine, its
religious observances, often mechanical, and its quiet life, more or
less degrading than the wearing toil of the world without, and the
coarse pleasures of the club or the tavern? Is it better that a woman,
whom choice or necessity has deprived of every probability of governing
a home of her own, should struggle against the chances and temptations
of city life, or the constant drudgery of spinsterhood in the country;
or that she should find the stupefying protection of a convent? These
questions have seldom been answered entirely on their own merits. They
have presented themselves in company with others even more important;
with questions of freedom of conscience and of national existence. The
time seems not far distant when they must be reconsidered for their own
sake. Already in France the persons leading a monastic life are believed
to be twice as numerous as they were at the outbreak of the Revolution.
It is difficult to ascertain the number in our own country, but it is
not inconsiderable.[Footnote: Rambaud (ii. 52 and _n._) reckons
100,000 in the 18th century and 158,500 to-day in France, but the
figures for the last century are probably too high, at least if 1788 be
taken as the point of comparison. Sadlier's _Catholic Directory_,
1885, p. 116, gives the number of Catholic religions in the Archdiocese
of New York at 117 regular priests, 271 brothers, 2136 religious women,
in addition to 279 secular priests.]

A pleasant life the inmates of some convents must have had of it. The
incomes were large, the duties easy.

Certain houses had been secularized and turned into noble chapters. The
ladies who inhabited them were freed from the vow of poverty. They wore
no religious vestment, but appeared in the fashionable dress of the day.
They received their friends in the convent, and could leave it
themselves to reenter the secular life, and to marry if they pleased.
Such a chapter was that of Remiremont in Lorraine, whose abbess was a
princess of the Holy Roman Empire, by virtue of her office. Her crook
was of gold. Six horses were harnessed to her carriage. Her dominion
extended over two hundred villages, whose inhabitants paid her both
feudal dues and ecclesiastical tithes. Nor were her duties onerous. She
spent a large part of her time in Strasburg, and went to the theatre
without scruple. She traveled a good deal in the neighborhood, and was a
familiar figure at some of the petty courts on the Rhine. The canonesses
followed her good example. Some of them were continually on the road.
Others stayed at home in the convent, and entertained much good company.
They dressed like other people, in the fashion, with nothing to mark
their religious calling but a broad ribbon over the right shoulder, blue
bordered with red, supporting a cross, with a figure of Saint Romaric.
No lady was received into this chapter who could not show nine
generations or two hundred and twenty-five years of chivalric, noble
descent, both on the father's and on the mother's side.

Such requirements as this were extreme, but similar conditions were not
unusual. The Benedictines of Saint Claude, transformed into a chapter of
canonesses, required sixteen quarterings for admission; that is to say,
that every canoness must show by proper heraldic proof, that her sixteen
great--grandfathers and great--grandmothers were of noble blood. The
Knights of Malta required but four quarterings. They had two hundred and
twenty commanderies in France, with eight hundred Knights. The Grand
Priory gave an income of sixty thousand livres to the Prior, who was
always a prince. The revenues of the order were 1,750,000 livres.

But very rich monasteries were exceptional after all. Those where life
was hard and labor continuous were far more common. In some of them,
forty men would be found living on a joint income of six thousand livres
a year. They cultivated the soil, they built, they dug. They were not
afraid of great undertakings in architecture or engineering, to be
accomplished only after long years and generations of labor, for was not
their corporation immortal? Then we have the begging orders, infesting
the roads and villages, and drawing several million livres a year from
the poorer classes, which supported and grumbled at them. And against
the luxury of the noble chapters must be set the silence, the vigils,
the fasts of La Trappe. This monastery stood in a gloomy valley, sunk
among wooded hills. The church and the surrounding buildings were mostly
old, and all sombre and uninviting. Each narrow cell was furnished with
but a mattress, a blanket and a table, without chair or fire. The monks
were clad in a robe and a hood, and wore shoes and stockings, but had
neither shirt nor breeches. They shaved three times a year. Their food
consisted of boiled vegetables, with salad once a week; never any butter
nor eggs. Twice in the night they rose, and hastened shivering to the
chapel. Never did they speak, but to their confessor; until, in his last
hour, each was privileged to give to the prior his dying messages.
Hither, from the active and gay world of philosophy and frivolity would
suddenly retire from time to time some young officer, scholar, or
courtier. Here, bound by irrevocable vows, he could weep over his sins,
or gnash his teeth at the folly that had brought him, until he found
peace at last in life or in the grave.

To enjoy the temporal privileges of the religious life neither any great
age nor any extensive learning was required. To hold a cure of souls or
the abbacy of a "regular" convent (whose inmates chose their abbot), a
man must be twenty-five years old. But an abbot appointed by the king
need only be twenty-two, a canon of a cathedral fourteen, and a chaplain
seven. It cannot be doubted that persons of either sex were obliged to
make irrevocable vows, without any proof of free vocation, or any reason
to expect a fixed resolution. Daughters and younger sons could thus be
conveniently disposed of. A larger share was left for the family, for
the religious were civilly dead, and did not take part in the
inheritance. On the other hand, misfortune and want need not be feared
for the inmate of the convent. If a nun were lost to the joys of the
world, she was lost to its cares. To make such a choice, to commit
temporal suicide, the very young should surely not be admitted. Yet it
was not until 1768 that the time for taking final vows was advanced to
the very moderate age of twenty-one for young men and eighteen for
girls.[Footnote: Rambaud, ii. 45. Mathieu, 43. Chassin, 25. Boiteau,
176. Bailly, 421. Mme. d'Oberkirch, 127. Mme. de Genlis, _Dict. des
Étiquettes_, i. Ill _n._, _Le Comte de Fersen et la Cour de
France_, I. xxix. Mercier, xi. 358.]

The secular clergy was about as numerous as the regular. It was
principally composed of the _curés_ and _vicaires_ who had charge of
parishes.[Footnote: The bishops, of course, belonged to the secular
clergy. So, in fact, did the canons; who, on account of the similarity
of their mode of life, have been treated with the regulars. In the
French hierarchy the _curé_ comes above the _vicaire_. The relation
is somewhat that of _parson_ and _curate_ in the church of England.]
These men were mostly drawn from the lower classes of society, or at
any rate not from the nobility. They had therefore very little chance
of promotion. Some of them in the country districts were very poor;
for the great tithes, levied on the principal crops, generally
belonged to the bishops, to the convents of regulars, or to laymen;
and only the lesser tithes, the occasional fees,[Footnote: _Casuel._]
and the product of a small glebe were reserved for the parish priest,
and the latter was liable to continual squabbles with the peasants
concerning his dues. But the parish priest, with all other churchmen,
was exempt from the state taxes, although obliged to pay a proportion
of the _décimes_,[Footnote: _Décime_, in the singular, was an
extraordinary tax levied on ecclesiastical revenue for some object
deemed important. _Décimes_, in the plural, was the tax paid annually
by bénéfices. _Dîme_, tithe (see Littré, _Décime_). It seems a
question whether the proportion of the _décimes_ paid by the parish
priests was too large. See _Revue des questions historiques_, 1st July
1890, 102. Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 313.] or special tax
laid by the clergy on their own order. Moreover, the government set a
minimum;[Footnote: _Portion congrue._] and if the income of the parish
priest fell below it, the owner of the great tithes was bound to make
up the difference. This minimum was set at five hundred livres a year
for a _curé_ in 1768, and raised to seven hundred in 1785. A _vicaire_
received two hundred and three hundred and fifty. These amounts do not
seem large, but they must have secured to the country priest a
tolerable condition, for we do not find that the clerical profession
was neglected.

Apart from considerations of material well being, the condition of the
parish priest was not undesirable. He was fairly independent, and could
not be deprived of his living without due process of law. His house was
larger or smaller according to his means, but his authority and
influence might in any case be considerable. He had more education and
more dealings with the outer world than most of his parishioners. To him
the intendant of the province might apply for information concerning the
state of his village, and the losses of the peasants by fire, or by
epidemics among their cattle. His sympathy with his fellow-villagers was
the warmer, that like them he had a piece of ground to till, were it
only a garden, an orchard, or a bit of vineyard. Round his door, as
round theirs, a few hens were scratching; perhaps a cow lowed from her
shed, or followed the village herd to the common. The priest's servant,
a stout lass, did the milking and the weeding. In 1788, a provincial
synod was much disturbed by a motion, made by some fanatic in the
interest of morals, that no priest should keep a serving-maid less than
forty-five years of age. The rule was rejected on the ground that it
would make it impossible to cultivate the glebes. Undoubtedly, the
priests themselves often tucked up the skirts of their cassocks, and
lent a hand in the work. They were treated by their flocks with a
certain amount of respectful familiarity. They were addressed as
_messire_. With the joys and sorrows of their parishioners, their
connection was at once intimate and professional. Their ministrations
were sought by the sick and the sad, their congratulations by the happy.
No wedding party nor funeral feast was complete without them.[Footnote:
Turgot, v. 364. This letter is very interesting, as showing the
importance of the _curés_ and their possible dealings with the
intendant. Mathieu, 152. Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 157. A good study
of the clergy before the Revolution is found in an article by Marius
Sepet (_La société française à la veille de la révolution_), in the
_Revue des questions historiques_, 1st April and 1st July, 1889.]

The privileges and immunities which the Church of France enjoyed had
given to her clergy a tone of independence both to the Pope and to the
king. We have seen them accompanying their "free gifts" to the latter by
requests and conditions. Toward the Holy See their attitude had once
been quite as bold. In 1682 an assembly of the Church of France had
promulgated four propositions which were considered the bulwarks of the
Gallican liberties.

(1.) God has given to Saint Peter and his successors no power, direct or
indirect, over temporal affairs.

(2.) Ecumenical councils are superior to the Pope in spiritual matters.

(3.) The rules, usages and statutes admitted by the kingdom and the
Church of France must remain inviolate.

(4.) In matters of faith, decisions of the Sovereign Pontiff are
irrevocable only after having received the consent of the church.

These propositions were undoubtedly a part of the law of France, and
were fully accepted by a portion of the French clergy. But the spirit
that dictated them had in a measure died out during the corrupt reign of
Louis XV. The long quarrel between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, which
agitated the Galilean church during the latter part of the seventeenth
and the earlier half of the eighteenth century, had tended neither to
strengthen nor to purify that body. A large number of the most serious,
intelligent and devout Catholics in France had been put into opposition
to the most powerful section of the clergy and to the Pope himself. Thus
the Church of France was in a bad position to repel the violent attacks
made upon her from without.[Footnote: Rambaud, ii. 40. For a Catholic
account of the Jansenist quarrel, see Carné, _La monarchie française
au 18me siècle_, 407.]

For a time of trial had come to the Catholic Church, and the Church of
France, although hardly aware of its danger, was placed in the forefront
of battle. It was against her that the most persistent and violent
assault of the Philosophers was directed. Before considering the
doctrines of those men, who differed among themselves very widely on
many points, it is well to ask what was the cause of the great
excitement which their doctrines created. Men as great have existed in
other centuries, and have exercised an enormous influence on the human
mind.

But that influence has generally been gradual; percolating slowly,
through the minds of scholars and thinkers, to men of action and the
people. The intellectual movement of the eighteenth century in France
was rapid. It was the nature of the opposition which they encountered
which drew popular attention to the attacks of the Philosophers.



CHAPTER IV.

THE CHURCH AND HER ADVERSARIES.


The new birth of learning in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had
been followed by the strengthening and centralization of government,
both in church and state. France had its full share of this change. Its
civil government became the strongest in Europe, putting down every
breath of opposition. Against the political conduct of Louis XIV neither
magistrate nor citizen dared to raise his voice. The Church of France,
on the other hand, in close alliance with the civil power, became almost
irresistible in her own sphere. The Catholic Church throughout Europe
had been the great schoolmaster of civilization. It had fallen into the
common fault of schoolmasters, the assumption of infallibility. It was,
moreover, a state within all states. Its sovereign, the Pope, the most
powerful monarch in Christendom, is chosen in accordance with a curious
and elaborate set of regulations, by electors appointed by his
predecessors. His rule, nominally despotic, is limited by powers and
influences understood by few persons outside of his palace. His
government, although highly centralized, is yet able to work efficiently
in all the countries of the earth. It is served by a great body of
officials, probably less corrupt on the whole than those of any other
state. They are kept in order, not only by moral and spiritual
sanctions, but by a system of worldly promotion. They wield over their
subjects a tremendous weapon, sometimes borrowed, but seldom long or
very skillfully used by laymen, and called, in clerical language,
excommunication. This, when it is confined to the denial of religious
privileges, may be considered a spiritual weapon. But in the eighteenth
century the temporal power of Catholic Europe was still in great measure
at the service of the ecclesiastical authorities. Obedience to the
church was a law of the state. Although Frenchmen were no longer
executed for heresy in the reign of Louis XVI., they still were
persecuted. The property of Protestants was unsafe, their marriages
invalid. Their children might be taken from them. Such toleration as
existed was precarious, and the Church of France was constantly urging
the temporal government to take stronger measures for the extirpation of
heresy.

The church had succeeded in implanting in the minds of its votaries one
opinion of enormous value in its struggle for power. Originally and
properly an association for the practice and spreading of religion, the
corporation had succeeded in making itself an object of worship. One
great reason why atheism took root in France was the impossibility,
induced by long habit, of distinguishing between religion and
Catholicism, and of conceiving that the one may exist without the other.
The by-laws of the church had become as sacred as the primary duties of
piety; and the injunction to refrain from meat on Fridays was
indistinguishable by most Catholics, in point of obligation, from the
injunction to love the Lord their God.

The Protestant churches which separated themselves from the Church of
Rome in the sixteenth century carried with them much of the intolerant
spirit of the original body. It is one of the commonplace sneers of the
unreflecting to say that religious toleration has always been the dogma
of the weaker party. The saying, if it were true, which it is not, yet
would not be especially sagacious. Toleration, like other things, has
been most sought by those whose need of it was greatest. But they have
not always recognized its value. It was no small step in the progress of
the human mind that was taken when men came to look on religious
toleration as desirable or possible. That the state might treat with
equal favor all forms of worship was an opinion hardly accepted by wise
and liberal-minded men in the eighteenth century. It may be that the
fiery contests of the Reformation were still too near in those days to
let perfect peace be safe or profitable.

Yet religious toleration was making its way in men's minds. Cautiously,
and with limitations, the doctrine is stated, first by Locke, Bayle, and
Fénelon in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, then by almost
all the great writers of the eighteenth. The Protestants, with their
experience of persecution, assert that those persons should not be
tolerated who teach that faith should not be kept with heretics, or that
kings excommunicated forfeit their crowns and kingdoms; or who attribute
to themselves any peculiar privilege or power above other mortals in
civil affairs; in short, they exclude the Catholics. Atheists also may
be excluded, as being under no possible conscientious obligation to
dogmatize concerning their negative creed. The Catholics maintain the
right of the sovereign to forbid the use of ceremonies, or the
profession of opinions, which would disturb the public peace.
Montesquieu, a nominal Catholic only, declares that it is the
fundamental principle of political laws concerning religion, not to
allow the establishment of a new form if it can be prevented; but when
one is once established, to tolerate it. He refuses to say that heresy
should not be punished, but he says that it should be punished only with
great circumspection. This left the case of the French Protestants to
all appearances as bad as before; for the laws denied that they had been
established in the kingdom, and the church always asserted that it was
mild and circumspect in its dealings with heretics. Voltaire will not
say that those who are not of the same religion as the prince should
share in the honors of the state, or hold public office. Such
limitations as these would seem to have deprived toleration of the
greater part of its value, by excluding from its benefits those persons
who were most likely to be persecuted. But the statement of a great
principle is far more effectual than the enumeration of its limitations.
Toleration, eloquently announced as an ideal, made its way in men's
minds. "Absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial
liberty, is the thing we stand in need of," cries Locke, and the saying
is retained when his exceptions concerning the Catholics are forgotten.
"When kings meddle with religion," says Fénelon, "instead of protecting,
they enslave her."[Footnote: Locke, vi. 46, 46 (Letter on Toleration).
Bayle, Commentary on the Text "Compelle intrare" (for atheists), ii.
431, a., Fénelon, Oeuvres, vii. 123 (Essai philosophique sur le
gouvernement civil). Montesquieu, Oeuvres, iv. 68; v. 175 (Esprit des
Lois, liv. xii. ch. v. and liv. xxxv. ch. x.). Felice, Voltaire, xli.
247 (Essai sur la tolérance).]

The Church of France had long been cruel to her opponents. The
persecution of the French Protestants, which preceded and followed the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, is known to most readers. It
was long and bloody. But about the middle of the eighteenth century it
began to abate. The last execution for heresy in France appears to have
taken place in 1762. A Protestant meeting was surprised and attacked by
soldiers in 1767. Some eight or ten years later than this, the last
prisoner for conscience' sake was released from the galleys at Toulon.
But no religion except the Roman Catholic was recognized by the state;
and to its clergy alone were entrusted certain functions essential to
the conduct of civilized life. No marriage could be legally solemnized
but by a Catholic priest. No public record of births was kept but in the
parish registers. As a consequence of this, no faithful Protestant could
be legally married at all, and all children of Protestant parents were
bastards, whose property could be taken from them by the nearest
Catholic relative. It is true that the courts did much to soften the
execution of these laws; but the judges, with the best intentions, were
sometimes powerless; and all judges did not mean to act fairly by
heretics.

Slowly, during the lifetime of a generation, the Protestants gained
ground. The coronation-oath contained a clause by which the king
promised to exterminate heretics. When Louis XVI. was to be crowned at
Rheims, Turgot desired to modify this part of the oath. He drew up a new
form. The clergy, however, resisted the innovation, and Maurepas, the
prime minister, agreed with them. The young king, with characteristic
weakness, is said to have muttered some meaningless sounds, in place of
the disputed portion of the oath.

In 1778, an attempt was made to induce the Parliament of Paris to
interfere in behalf of the oppressed sectaries, It was stated that since
1740, more than four hundred thousand marriages had been contracted
outside of the church, and that these marriages were void in law and the
constant cause of scandalous suits. But the Parliament, by a great
majority, rejected the proposal to apply to the king for relief. In
1775, and again in 1780, the assembly of the clergy protested against
the toleration accorded to heretics. It is not a little curious that at
a time when a measure of simple humanity was thus opposed by the highest
court of justice in the realm, and by the Church of France in its
corporate capacity, a foreign Protestant, Necker, was the most important
of the royal servants.

The spirit of the church, or at least of her leading men, is expressed
in the Pastoral Instruction of Lefranc de Pompignan, Archbishop of
Vienne, perhaps the most prominent French ecclesiastic of the century.
The church, he says, has never persecuted, although misguided men have
done so in her name. The sovereign should maintain the true religion,
and is himself the judge of the best means of doing it. But religion
sets bounds to what a monarch should do in her defense. She does not ask
for violent or sanguinary measures against simple heretics. Such
measures would do more harm than good. But when men have the audacity to
exercise a pretended and forbidden ministry, injurious to the public
peace, it would be absurd to think that rigorous penalties applied to
their misdeeds are contrary to Christian charity. And in connection with
toleration, the prelate brings together the two texts, "Judge not, that
ye be not judged;"--"but he that believeth not is condemned already."
This plan of dealing gently with Protestants, while so maltreating their
pastors as to make public worship or the administration of sacraments
very difficult, was a favourite one with French churchmen.

The great devolution was close at hand. On the last day of the first
session of the Assembly of Notables, in the spring of 1787, Lafayette
proposed to petition the king in favor of the Protestants. His motion
was received with almost unanimous approval by the committee to which it
was made, and the Count of Artois, president of that committee, carried
a petition to Louis XVI. accordingly. His Majesty deigned to favor the
proposal, and an edict for giving a civil status to Protestants was
included in the batch of bills submitted to the Parliament of Paris for
registration. The measure of relief was of the most moderate character.
It did not enable the sectaries of the despised religion to hold any
office in the state, nor even to meet publicly for worship. Yet the
opposition to the proposed law was warm, and was fomented by part of the
nobility and of the clergy. One of the great ladies of the court called
on each counselor of the Parliament, and left a note to remind him of
his duty to the Catholic religion and the laws. The Bishop of Dol told
the king of France that he would be answerable to God and man for the
misfortunes which the reestablishment of Protestantism would bring on
the kingdom. His Majesty's sainted aunt, according to the bishop, was
looking down on him from that heaven where her virtues had placed her,
and blaming his conduct. Louis XVI. resented this language and found
manliness enough to send the Bishop of Dol back to his see. On the 19th
of January, 1788, the matter was warmly debated in the Parliament
itself. D'Espréménil, one of the counselors, was filled with excitement
and wrath at the proposed toleration. Pointing to the image of Christ,
which hung on the wall of the chamber, "would you," he indignantly
exclaimed, "would you crucify him again?" But the appeal of bigotry was
unavailing. The measure passed by a large majority.[Footnote: For the
last persecution of the Protestants, see Felice, 422. Howard,
Lazzarettos, 55. Coquerel, 93. Geffroy, i. 406. Chérest, i. 45, 382. For
the oath, Turgot, i. 217; vii. 314, 317. See also Dareste, vii. 20,
Lefranc de Pompignan, i. 132. Geffroy, i. 410; ii. 85. Droz, ii. 38.
Sallier, Annales françaises, 136 n. The majority was 94 to 17. Seven
counselors and three bishops retired without voting.]

It was not against Protestants alone that the clergy showed their
activity. The church, in its capacity of guardian of the public morals
and religion, passed condemnation on books supposed to be hostile to its
claims. In this matter it exercised concurrent jurisdiction with the
administrative branch of the government and with the courts of law. A
new book was liable to undergo a triple ordeal. A license was required
before publication, and the manuscript was therefore submitted to an
official censor, often an ecclesiastic. Thence it became the custom to
print in foreign countries, books which contained anything to which
anybody in authority might object, and to bring them secretly into
France. The presses of Holland and of Geneva were thus used. Sometimes,
instead of this, a book would be published in Paris with a foreign
imprint. Thus "Boston" and "Philadelphia" are not infrequently found on
the title-pages of books printed in France in the reign of Louis XVI.
Such books were sold secretly, with greater or less precautions against
discovery, for the laws were severe; an ordinance passed as late as 1757
forbade, under penalty of death, all publications which might tend to
excite the public mind. So loose an expression gave discretionary power
to the authorities. The extreme penalty was not enforced, but
imprisonment and exile were somewhat capriciously inflicted on authors
and printers.

But a book that had received the _imprimatur_ of the censor was not
yet safe. The clergy might denounce, or the Parliament condemn it. The
church was quick to scent danger. An honest scholar, an upright and
original thinker, could hardly escape the reproach of irreligion or of
heresy. Nor were the laws fairly administered. It might be more
dangerous to be supposed to allude disagreeably to the mistress of a
prince, than to attack the government of the kingdom. Had a severe law
been severely and consistently enforced, slander, heresy, and political
thought might have been stamped out together. Such was in some measure
the case in the reign of Louis XIV. But under the misrule of the
courtiers of his feeble successors, no strict law was adhered to. There
was a common tendency to wink at illegal writings of which half the
public approved. Malesherbes, for instance, was at one time at the head
of the official censors. He is said to have had a way of warning authors
and publishers the day before a descent was to be made upon their
houses. Under laws thus enforced, authors who held new doctrines learned
to adapt their methods to those of the government. Almost all the great
French writers of the eighteenth century framed some passages in their
books for the purpose of satisfying the censor or of avoiding
punishment. They were profuse in expressions of loyally to church and
state, in passages sometimes sounding ludicrously hollow, sometimes
conveying the most biting mockery and satire, and again in words hardly
to be distinguished from the heartfelt language of devotion. They became
skillful at hinting, and masters of the art of innuendo. They attacked
Christianity under the name of Mahometanism, and if they had occasion to
blame French ministers of state, would seem to be satirizing the viziers
of Turkey. Politics and theology are subjects of unceasing and vivid
interest, and their discussion cannot be suppressed, unless minds are to
be smothered altogether. If any measure of free thought and speech is to
be admitted, the engrossing topics will find expression. If people are
not allowed pamphlets and editorials, they will bring out their ideas in
poems and fables. Under Louis XV and Louis XVI, politics took possession
of popular songs, and theology of every conceivable kind of writing.
There was hardly an advertisement of the virtues of a quack medicine, or
a copy of verses to a man's mistress, that did not contain a fling at
the church or the government. There can be no doubt that the moral
nature of authors and of the public suffered in such a course. Books
lost some of their real value. But for a time an element of excitement
was added to the pleasure both of writers and readers. The author had
all the advantage of being persecuted, with the pleasing assurance that
the persecution would not go very far. The reader, while perusing what
seemed to him true and right, enjoyed the satisfaction of holding a
forbidden book. He had the amusement of eating stolen fruit, and the
inward conviction that it agreed with him.[Footnote: Lomenie, Vie de
Beaumarchais, i. 324. Montesquieu, i. 464 (Lettres persanes, cxlv.).
Mirabeau, L'ami des hommes, 238 (pt. ii. oh, iv.). Anciennes Lois, xxii.
272. Lanfrey, 193.]

The writers who adopted this course are mostly known as the
"Philosophers." It is hard to be consistent in the use of this word as
applied to Frenchmen of the eighteenth century. The name was sometimes
given to all those who advocated reform or alteration in church or
state. In its stricter application, it belongs to a party among them; to
Voltaire and his immediate followers, and especially to the
Encyclopaedists.

"Never," says Voltaire, in his "English Letters," "will our
philosophers make a religious sect, for they are without enthusiasm."
This was a favorite idea with the disciples of the great cynic, but the
event has disproved its truth. The Philosophers in Voltaire's lifetime
formed a sect, although it could hardly be called a religious one. The
Patriarch of Ferney himself was something not unlike its pontiff.
Diderot and d'Alembert were its bishops, with their attendant clergy of
Encyclopaedists. Helvetius and Holbach were its doctors of atheology.
Most reading and thinking Frenchmen were for a time its members.
Rousseau was its arch-heretic. The doctrines were materialism, fatalism,
and hedonism. The sect still exists. It has adhered, from the time of
its formation, to a curious notion, its favorite superstition, which may
be expressed somewhat as follows: "Human reason and good sense were
first invented from thirty to fifty years ago." "When we consider," says
Voltaire, "that Newton, Locke, Clarke and Leibnitz, would have been
persecuted in France, imprisoned at Rome, burnt at Lisbon, what must we
think of human reason? It was born in England within this century."
[Footnote: Voltaire (Geneva ed. 1771) xv. 99 (Newton). Also (Beuchot's
ed.) xv. 351 (Essai sur les Moeurs) and passim. The date usually set by
Voltaire's modern followers is that of the publication of the Origin of
Species; although no error is more opposed than this one to the great
theory of evolution.] And similar expressions are frequent in his
writings. The sectaries, from that day to this, have never been wanting
in the most glowing enthusiasm. In this respect they generally surpass
the Catholics; in fanaticism (or the quality of being cocksure) the
Protestants. They hold toleration as one of their chief tenets, but
never undertake to conceal their contempt for any one who disagrees with
them. The sect has always contained many useful and excellent persons,
and some of the most dogmatic of mankind.



CHAPTER V.

THE CHURCH AND VOLTAIRE.


The enemies of the Church of France were many and bitter, but one man
stands out prominent among them. Voltaire was a poet, much admired in
his day, an industrious and talented historian, a writer on all sorts of
subjects, a wit of dazzling brilliancy; but he was first, last, and
always an enemy of the Catholic Church, and although not quite an
atheist, an opponent of all forms of religion. For more than forty years
he was the head of the party of the Philosophers. During all that time
he was the most conspicuous of literary Frenchmen. Two others, Rousseau
and Montesquieu, may rival him in influence on the modern world, but his
followers in the regions of thought are numerous and aggressive to-day.

Voltaire was born in 1694 the son of a lawyer named Arouet. There are
doubts as to the origin of the name he has made so famous; whether it
was derived from a fief possessed by his mother, or from an anagram of
AROUET LE JEUNE. At any rate, the name was adopted by the young poet, at
his own fancy, a case not without parallel in the eighteenth century.
[Footnote: As in the case of D'Alembert. For Voltaire's name, see
Desnoiresterres, _Jeunesse de Voltaire_, 161.]

Voltaire began early to attract public attention. Before he was
twenty-five years old he had established his reputation as a wit, had
spent nearly a year in the Bastille on a charge of writing satirical
verses, and had produced a successful tragedy. In this play a couplet
sneering at priests might possibly have become a familiar quotation
even had it been written by another pen.[Footnote: _Oedipe_, written
in 1718. "Nos prêtres ne sont point ce qu'un vain peuple pense; Notre
credulité fait toute leur science." Act IV., Scene I.] For several
years Voltaire went on writing, with increasing reputation. In 1723,
his great epic poem, "La Henriade," was secretly circulated in
Paris.[Footnote: Desnoiresterres, _Jeunesse_, 297.] The author was
one of the marked men of the town. At the same time his reputation
must have been to some extent that of a troublesome fellow. And in
December of that year an event occurred which was destined to drive
the rising author from France for several years, and add bitterness to
a mind naturally acid.

The details of the story are variously told. It appears that Voltaire
was one evening at the theatre behind the scenes, and had a dispute with
the Chevalier de Chabot, of the family of Rohan. "Monsieur de Voltaire,
Monsieur Arouet, what's your name!" the chevalier is said to have called
out. "My name is not a great one, but I am no discredit to it," answered
the author. Chabot lifted his cane, Voltaire laid his hand on his sword.
Mademoiselle Lecouvreur, the actress, for whose benefit, perhaps, the
little dispute was enacted, took occasion to faint. Chabot went off,
muttering something about a stick.

A few days later, Voltaire was dining at the house of the Duke of Sulli.
A servant informed him that some one wanted to see him at the door. So
Voltaire went out, and stepped quietly up to a coach that was standing
in front of the house. As he put his head in at the coach door, he was
seized by the collar of his coat and held fast, while two men came up
behind and belabored him with sticks. The Chevalier de Chabot, his noble
adversary, was looking on from another carriage.

When the tormentors let him go, Voltaire rushed back into the house and
appealed to the Duke of Sulli for vengeance, but in vain. It was no
small matter to quarrel with the family of Rohan. Then the poet applied
to the court for redress, but got none. It is said that Voltaire's
enemies had persuaded the prime minister that his petitioner was the
author of a certain epigram, addressed to His Excellency's mistress, in
which she was reminded that it is easy to deceive a one-eyed Argus. (The
minister had but one eye.) Finally Voltaire, seeing that no one else
would take up his quarrel, began to take fencing lessons and to keep
boisterous company. It is probable that he would have made little use of
any skill he might have acquired as a swordsman. Voltaire was not
physically rash. The Chevalier de Chabot, although he held the
commission of a staff-officer, was certainly no braver than his
adversary, and was in a position to take no risks. Voltaire was at first
watched by the police; then, perhaps after sending a challenge, locked
up in the Bastille. He remained in that state prison for about a
fortnight, receiving his friends and dining at the governor's table. On
the 5th of May, 1726, he was at Calais on his way to exile in England.
[Footnote: Desnoiresterres, _Jeunesse_, 345.]

Voltaire spent three years in England, years which exercised a deep
influence on his life. He learned the English language exceptionally
well, and practiced writing it in prose and verse. He associated on
terms of intimacy with Lord Bolingbroke, whom he had already known in
France, with Swift, Pope, and Gay. He drew an epigram from Young. He
brought out a new and amended edition of the "Henriade," with a
dedication in English to Queen Caroline. He studied the writings of
Bacon, Newton, and Locke. Thus to the Chevalier de Chabot, and his
shameful assault, did French thinkers owe, in no small measure, the
influence which English writers exercised upon them.

While in England, Voltaire was taking notes and writing letters. These
he probably worked over during the years immediately following his
return to France. The "Lettres Philosophiques," or "Letters concerning
the English Nation," were first published in England in 1733. They were
allowed to slip into circulation in France in the following year.
Promptly condemned by the Parliament of Paris as "scandalous and
contrary to religion and morals, and to the respect due to the powers
that be," they were "torn and burned at the foot of the great
staircase," and read all the more for it.

It is no wonder that the church, and that conservative if sometimes
heterodox body, the Parliament of Paris, should have condemned the
"English Letters." A bitter satire is leveled at France, with her
religion and her government, under cover of candid praise of English
ways and English laws. What could the Catholic clergy say to words like
these, put into the mouth of a Quaker? "God forbid that we should dare
to command any one to receive the Holy Ghost on Sunday to the exclusion
of the rest of the faithful! Thank Heaven we are the only people on
earth who have no priests! Would you rob us of so happy a distinction?
Why should we abandon our child to mercenary nurses when we have milk to
give him? These hirelings would soon govern the house and oppress mother
and child. God has said: `Freely ye have received; freely give.' After
that saying, shall we go chaffer with the Gospel, sell the Holy Ghost,
and turn a meeting of Christians into a tradesman's shop? We do not give
money to men dressed in black, to assist our poor, to bury our dead, to
preach to the faithful. Those holy occupations are too dear to us to be
cast off upon others."[Footnote: Voltaire, xxxvii. 124.]

Having thus attacked the institution of priesthood in general, Voltaire
turns his attention in particular to the priests of France and England.
In morals, he says, the Anglican clergy are more regular than the
French. This is because all ecclesiastics in England are educated at the
universities, far from the temptations of the capital, and are called to
the dignities of the church at an advanced age, when men have no
passions left but avarice and ambition. Advancement here is the
recompense of long service, in the church as well as in the army. You do
not see boys becoming bishops or colonels on leaving school. Moreover,
most English priests are married men. The awkward manners contracted at
the university, and the slight intercourse with women usual in that
country, generally compel a bishop to be content with his own wife.
Priests sometimes go to the tavern in England, because custom allows it;
but if they get drunk, they do so seriously, and without making scandal.

"That indefinable being, who is neither a layman nor an ecclesiastic, in
a word, that which we call an _abbé_, is an unknown species in
England. Here all priests are reserved, and nearly all are pedants. When
they are told that in France young men known for their debauched lives
and raised to the prelacy by the intrigues of women make love publicly,
amuse themselves by composing amorous songs, give long and dainty
suppers every night, and go thence to ask the enlightenment of the Holy
Spirit, and boldly call themselves successors of the apostles, they
thank God that they are Protestants;--but they are vile heretics, to be
burned by all the devils, as says Master Francois Rabelais. Which is why
I have nothing to do with them."[Footnote: Voltaire, xxxvii. 140.]

While the evil lives of an important part of the French clergy are
thus assailed, the doctrines of the Church are not spared. The
following is from the letter on the Socinians. "Do you remember a
certain orthodox bishop, who in order to convince the Emperor of the
consubstantiality [of the three Persons of the Godhead] ventured to
chuck the Emperor's son under the chin, and to pull his nose in his
sacred majesty's presence? The Emperor was going to have the bishop
thrown out of the window, when the good man addressed him in the
following fine and convincing words: `Sir, if your Majesty is so angry
that your son should be treated with disrespect, how do you think that
God the Father will punish those who refuse to give to Jesus Christ
the titles that are due to Him?' The people of whom I speak say that
the holy bishop was ill-advised, that his argument was far from
conclusive, and that the Emperor should have answered: `Know that
there are two ways of showing want of respect for me; the first is not
to render sufficient honor to my son, the other is to honor him as
much as myself.'"[Footnote: Voltaire, xxxvii. 144.] Such words as
these were hardly to be borne. But the French authorities recognized
that there was a greater and more insidious danger to the church in
certain other passages by which Frenchmen were made to learn some of
the results of English abstract thought.

Among the French writers of the eighteenth century are several men of
eminent talent; one only whose sinister but original genius has given a
new direction to the human mind. I shall treat farther on of the ideas
of Rousseau. The others, and Voltaire among them, belong to that class
of great men who assimilate, express, and popularize thought, rather
than to the very small body of original thinkers. Let us then pause for
a moment, while studying the French Philosophers and their action on
the church, and ask who were their masters.

Montaigne, Bayle, and Grotius may be considered the predecessors on the
Continent of the French Philosophic movement, but its great impulse came
from England. Bacon had much to do with it; Hooker and Hobbes were not
without influence; Newton's discoveries directed men's minds towards
physical science; but of the metaphysical and political ideas of the
century, John Locke was the fountain-head. Some Frenchmen have in modern
times disputed his claims. To refute these disputants it is only
necessary to turn from their books to those of Voltaire and his
contemporaries. The services rendered by France to the human race are so
great that her sons need never claim any glory which does not clearly
belong to them. All through modern history, Frenchmen have stood in the
front rank of civilization. They have stood there side by side with
Englishmen, Italians, and Germans. International jealousy should spare
the leaders of human thought. They belong to the whole European family
of nations. The attempt to set aside Locke, Newton, and Bacon, as guides
of the eighteenth century belongs not to that age but to our own.

The works of Locke are on the shelves of most considerable libraries;
but many men, now that the study of metaphysics is out of fashion, are
appalled at the suggestion that they should read an essay in three
volumes on the human understanding, evidently considering their own
minds less worthy of study than their bodies or their estates. It may be
worth while, therefore, to give a short summary of those theories, or
discoveries of Locke which most modified French thought in the
eighteenth century. The great thinker was born in 1632 and died in 1704.
His principal works were published shortly after the English Revolution
of 1688, but had been long in preparation; and the "Essay on the Human
Understanding" is said to have occupied him not less than twenty years.

It is the principal doctrine of Locke that all ideas are derived from
sensation and reflection. He acknowledges that "it is a received
doctrine that men have native ideas and original characters stamped upon
their minds in their very first being;" but he utterly rejects every
such theory. It is his principal business to protest and argue against
the existence of such "innate ideas." Virtue he believes to be generally
approved because it is profitable, not on account of any natural leaning
of the mind in its direction. Conscience "is nothing else but our own
opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude or pravity of our own
actions." Memory is the power in the mind to revive perceptions which it
once had, with this additional perception annexed to them, that it has
had them before. Wit lies in the assemblage of ideas, judgment in the
careful discrimination among them. "Things are good or evil only in
reference to pleasure or pain;" ... "our love and hatred of inanimate,
insensible beings is commonly founded on that pleasure or pain which we
receive from their use and application any way to our senses, though
with their destruction; but hatred or love of beings incapable of
happiness or misery is often the uneasiness or delight which we find in
ourselves, arising from a consideration of their very being or
happiness. Thus the being and welfare of a man's children or friends,
producing constant delight in him, he is said constantly to love them.
But it suffices to note that our ideas of love and hatred are but
dispositions of the mind in respect of pleasure or pain in general,
however caused in us."

We have no clear idea of substance nor of spirit. Substance is that
wherein we conceive qualities of matter to exist; spirit, that in which
we conceive qualities of mind, as thinking, knowing, and doubting. The
primary ideas of body are the cohesion of solid, and therefore separate
parts, and a power of communicating motion by impulse. The ideas of
spirit are thinking and will, or a power of putting body into motion by
thought, and, which is consequent to it, liberty. The ideas of
existence, mobility, and duration are common to both.

Locke's intelligence was clear enough to perceive that these two ideas,
spirit and matter, stand on a similar footing. Less lucid thinkers have
boldly denied the existence of spirit while asserting that of matter.
Locke's system would not allow him to believe that either conception
depended on the nature of the mind itself. He therefore rejected the
claims of substance as unequivocally as those of spirit, declaring it to
be "only an uncertain supposition of we know not what, i. e., of
something whereof we have no particular, distinct, positive idea, which
we take to be the substratum or support of those ideas we know." Yet he
inclines on the whole toward materialism. "We have," he says, "the ideas
of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether
any mere material being thinks, or no; it being impossible for us, by
the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover
whether omnipotency has not given to some system of matter, fitly
disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to
matter so disposed a thinking immaterial substance, it being, in respect
of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive
that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking,
than that he should superadd to it another substance, with a faculty of
thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort
of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which
cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and
power of the Creator."... "All the great ends of morality and religion,"
he adds, "are well secured without philosophical proof of the soul's
immateriality." As to our knowledge "of the actual existence of things,
we have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence, and a demonstrative
knowledge of the existence of God; of the existence of anything else, we
have no other but a sensitive knowledge, which extends not beyond the
objects present to our senses."[Footnote: Is not an intuitive knowledge
suspiciously like an innate idea? Locke's _Works_, i. 38, 39, 72,
82, 137, 145, 231; ii. 10, 11, 21, 331, 360, 372 (Book i. ch. 3, 4, Book
ii. ch. 1, 10, 11, 20, 23, Book iv. ch. 3).]

The eulogy of Locke in Voltaire's "Lettres Philosophiques" gave
especial offense to the French churchmen. Voltaire writes to a friend
that the censor might have been brought to give his approbation to all
the letters but this one. "I confess," he adds, "that I do not
understand this exception, but the theologians know more about it than
I do, and I must take their word for it."[Footnote: Voltaire, li. 356
(_Letter to Thieriot,_ 24 Feb. 1733).] The letter to which the censor
objected was principally taken up with the doctrine of the materiality
of the soul. "Never," says Voltaire, "was there perhaps a wiser or a
more methodical spirit, a more exact logician, than Locke."
... "Before him great philosophers had positively decided what is the
soul of man; but as they knew nothing at all about it, it is very
natural that they should all have been of different minds." And he
adds in another part of the letter, "Men have long disputed on the
nature and immortality of the soul. As to its immortality, that cannot
be demonstrated, since people are still disputing about its nature;
and since, surely, we must thoroughly know a created being to decide
whether it is immortal or not. Human reason alone is so unable to
demonstrate the immortality of the soul, that religion has been
obliged to reveal it to us. The common good of all men demands that we
should believe the soul to be immortal; faith commands it; no more is
needed, and the matter is almost decided. It is not the same as to its
nature; it matters little to religion of what substance is the soul,
if only it be virtuous. It is a clock that has been given us to
regulate, but the maker has not told us of what springs this clock is
composed."[Footnote: Voltaire, xxxvii. 177, 182 (_Lettres
philosophiques._ In the various editions of Voltaire's collected works
published in the last century these letters do not appear as a series,
but their contents is distributed among the miscellaneous articles,
and those of the _Dictionnaire philosophique_. The reason for this
was that the letters, having been judicially condemned, might have
brought their publishers into trouble if they had appeared under their
own title. Bengesco, ii. 9. Desnoiresterres, _Voltaire à Cirey_, 28,
Voltaire, xxxvii. 113. In Beuchot's edition the letters appear in
their original form).]

The "Lettres philosophiques" may be considered the first of Voltaire's
polemic writings. They exhibit his mordant wit, his clear-sightedness
and his moral courage. There is in them, perhaps, more real gayety,
more spontaneous fun, than in his later books. Voltaire was between
thirty-five and forty years old when they were written, and although
he possessed to the end of his long life more vitality than most men,
yet he was physically something of an invalid, and his many exiles and
disappointments told upon his temper. From 1734, when these letters
first appeared in France, to 1778, when he died, worn out with years,
labors, quarrels, and honors, his activity was unceasing. He had many
followers and many enemies, but hardly a rival. Voltaire was and is
the great representative of a way of looking at life; a way which was
enthusiastically followed in his own time, which is followed with
equal enthusiasm to-day. This view he expressed and enforced in his
numberless poems, tragedies, histories, and tales. It formed the
burden of his voluminous correspondence. As we read any of them, his
creed becomes clear to us; it is written large in every one of his
more than ninety volumes. It may almost be said to be on every page of
them. That creed may be stated as follows: We know truth only by our
reason. That reason is enlightened only by our senses. What they do
not tell us we cannot know, and it is mere folly to waste time in
conjecturing. Imagination and feeling are blind leaders of the
blind. All men who pretend to supernatural revelation or inspiration
are swindlers, and those who believe them are dupes. It may be
desirable, for political or social purposes, to have a favored
religion in the state, but freedom of opinion and of expression should
be allowed to all men, at least to all educated men; for the populace,
with their crude ideas and superstitions, may be held in slight
regard.

Voltaire's hatred was especially warm against the regular clergy.
"Religion," he says, "can still sharpen daggers. There is within the
nation a people which has no dealings with honest folk, which does not
belong to the age, which is inaccessible to the progress of reason, and
over which the atrocity of fanaticism preserves its empire, like certain
diseases which attack only the vilest populace." The best monks are the
worst, and those who sing "Pervigilium Veneris" in place of matins are
less dangerous than such as reason, preach, and plot. And in another
place he says that "a religious order should not a part of history." But
it is well to notice that Voltaire's hatred of Catholicism and of
Catholic monks is not founded on a preference for any other church. He
thinks that theocracy must have been universal among early tribes, "for
as soon as a nation has chosen a tutelary god, that god has priests.
These priests govern the spirit of the nation; they can govern only in
the name of their god, so they make him speak continually; they set
forth his oracles, and all things are done by God's express commands."
From this cause come human sacrifices and the most atrocious tyranny;
and the more divine such a government calls itself, the more abominable
it is.

All prophets are imposters. Mahomet may have begun as an enthusiast,
enamored of his own ideas; but he was soon led away by his reveries; he
deceived himself in deceiving others; and finally supported a doctrine
which he believed to be good, by necessary imposture. Socrates, who
pretended to have a familiar spirit, must have been a little crazy, or a
little given to swindling. As for Moses, he is a myth, a form of the
Indian Bacchus. The Koran (and consequently the Bible) may be judged by
the ignorance of physics which it displays. "This is the touchstone of
the books which, according to false religions, were written by the
Deity, for God is neither absurd nor ignorant." Several volumes are
devoted by Voltaire to showing the inconsistencies, absurdities and
atrocities of the Old and New Testaments, and the abominations of the
Jews.

The positive religious opinions of Voltaire are less important than
his negations, for the work of this great writer was mainly to
destroy. He was a theist, of wavering and doubtful faith. He was well
aware that any profession of atheism might be dangerous, and likely to
injure him at court and with some of his friends. He thought that
belief in God and in a future life were important to the safety of
society, and is said to have sent the servant out of the room on one
occasion when one of the company was doubting the existence of the
Deity, giving as a reason that he did not want to have his throat
cut. Yet it is probable that his theism went a little deeper than
this. He says that matter is probably eternal and self-existing, and
that God is everlasting, and self-existing likewise. Are there other
Gods for other worlds? It may be so; some nations and some scholars
have believed in the existence of two gods, one good and one
evil. Surely, nature can more easily suffer, in the immensity of
space, several independent beings, each absolute master of its own
portion, than two limited gods in this world, one confined to doing
good, the other to doing evil. If God and matter both exist from
eternity, "here are two necessary entities; and if there be two there
may be thirty. We must confess our ignorance of the nature of
divinity."

It is noticeable that, like most men on whom the idea of God does not
take a very strong hold, Voltaire imagined powers in some respects
superior to Deity. Thus he says above that nature can more easily
suffer several independent gods than two opposed ones. Having supposed
one or several gods to put the universe in order, he supposes an order
anterior to the gods. This idea of a superior order, Fate, Necessity,
or Nature, is a very old one. It is probably the protest of the human
mind against those anthropomorphic conceptions of God, from which it
is almost incapable of escaping. Voltaire and the Philosophers almost
without exception believed that there was a system of natural law and
justice connected with this superior order, taught to man by instinct.
Sometimes in their system God was placed above this law, as its
origin; sometimes, as we have seen, He was conceived as subjected to
Nature. "God has given us a principle or universal reason," says
Voltaire, "as He has given feathers to birds and fur to bears; and
this principle is so lasting that it exists in spite of all the
passions which combat it, in spite of the tyrants who would drown it
in blood, in spite of the impostors who would annihilate it in
superstition. Therefore the rudest nation always judges very well in
the long run concerning the laws that govern it; because it feels that
these laws either agree or disagree with the principles of pity and
justice which are in its heart." Here we have something which seems
like an innate idea of virtue. But we must not expect complete
consistency of Voltaire. In another place he says, "Virtue and vice,
moral good and evil, are in all countries that which is useful or
injurious to society; and in all times and in all places he who
sacrifices the most to the public is the man who will be called the
most virtuous. Whence it appears that good actions are nothing else
than actions from which we derive an advantage, and crimes are but
actions that are against us. Virtue is the habit of doing the things
which please mankind, and vice the habit of doing things which
displease it. Liberty, he says elsewhere, is nothing but the power to
do that which our wills necessarily require of us."[Footnote: Voltaire,
xx. 439 (_Siècle de Louis XIV._, ch. xxxvii.), xxi. 369 (_Louis XV._),
xv. 34, 40, 123, 316 (_Essai sur les moeurs_), xliii. 74 (_Examen
important de Lord Bolingbroke_), xxxi. 13 (_Dict. philos. Liberté_)
xxxvii. 336 (Traité de métaphysique_). For general attacks on the
Bible and the Jews, see (_Oeuvres_, xv. 123-127, xliii. 39-205, xxxix.
454-464. Morley's _Diderot_, ii. 178). Notice how many of the
arguments that are still repeated nowadays concerning the Mosaic
account of the creation, etc. etc., come from Voltaire. Notice also
that Voltaire, while too incredulous of ancient writers, was too
credulous of modern travelers.]

The Church of France was both angered and alarmed by the writings of
Voltaire and his friends, and did her feeble best to reply to them. But
while strong in her organization and her legal powers, her internal
condition was far from vigorous. Incredulity had become fashionable even
before the attacks of Voltaire were dangerous. An earlier satirist has
put into the mouth of a priest an account of the difficulties which
beset the clergy in those days. "Men of the world," he says, "are
astonishing. They can bear neither our approval nor our censure. If we
wish to correct them, they think us ridiculous. If we approve of them,
they consider us below our calling. Nothing is so humiliating as to feel
that you have shocked the impious. We are therefore obliged to follow an
equivocal line of conduct, and to check libertines not by decision of
character but by keeping them in doubt as to how we receive what they
say. This requires much wit. The state of neutrality is difficult. Men
of the world, who venture to say anything they please, who give free
vent to their humor, who follow it up or let it go according to their
success, get on much better.

"Nor is this all. That happy and tranquil condition which is so much
praised we do not enjoy in society. As soon as we appear, we are obliged
to discuss. We are forced, for instance, to undertake to prove the
utility of prayer to a man who does not believe in God; the necessity of
fasting to another who all his life has denied the immortality of the
soul. The task is hard, and the laugh is not on our side."[Footnote:
Montesquieu, _Lettres persanes_, i. 210, 211, Lettre lxi.]

The prelates appointed to their high offices by Louis XV. and his
courtiers were not the men to make good their cause by spiritual
weapons. There was no Bossuet, no Fénelon in the Church of France of the
eighteenth century. Her defense was intrusted to far weaker men. First
we have the archbishops, Lefranc de Pompignan of Vienne and Elie de
Beaumont of Paris. Then come the Jesuit Nonnotte and the managers of the
Mémoires de Trévoux, the Benedictine Chaudon, the Abbé Trublet, the
journalist Fréron, and many others, lay and clerical. The answers of the
churchmen to their Philosophic opponents are generally inconclusive.
Lefranc de Pompignan declared that the love of dry and speculative truth
was a delusive fancy, good to adorn an oration, but never realized by
the human heart. He sneered at Locke and at the idea that the latter had
invented metaphysics. His objections and those of the Catholic church to
that philosopher's teachings were chiefly that the Englishman maintained
that thought might be an attribute of matter; that he encouraged
Pyrrhonism, or universal doubt; that his theory of identity was
doubtful, and that he denied the existence of innate ideas. All these
matters are well open to discussion, and the advantage might not always
be found on Locke's side. But in general the Catholic theologians and
their opponents were not sufficiently agreed to be able to argue
profitably. They had no premises in common. If one of two disputants
assumes that all ideas are derived from sensation and reflection, and
the other, that the most important of them are the result of the
inspiration of God, there is no use in their discussing minor points
until those great questions are settled. The attempt to reconcile views
so conflicting has frequently been made, and no writings are more dreary
than those which embody it. But men who are too far apart to cross
swords in argument may yet hurl at each other the missiles of
vituperation, and there were plenty of combatants to engage in that sort
of warfare with Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Encyclopaedists.

On the two sides, treatises, comedies, tales, and epigrams were written.
It was not difficult to point out that the sayings of the various
opponents of the church were inconsistent with each other; that Rousseau
contradicted Voltaire, that Voltaire contradicted himself. There were
many weak places in the armor of those warriors. Pompignan discourses at
great length, dwelling more especially on the worship which the
Philosophers paid to physical science, on their love of doubt, and on
their mistaken theory that a good Christian cannot be a patriot.
Chaudon, perhaps the cleverest of the clerical writers, sometimes throws
a well directed shaft. "That same Voltaire," he says, "who thinks that
satires against God are of no consequence, attaches great importance to
satires written against himself and his friends. He is unwilling to see
the pen snatched from the hands of the slanderers of the Deity; but he
has often tried to excite the powers that be against the least of his
critics." This was very true of Voltaire, who was as thin-skinned as he
was violent; and who is believed to have tried sometimes to silence his
opponents by the arbitrary method of procuring from some man in power a
royal order to have them locked up. Palissot, in a very readable comedy,
makes fun of Diderot and his friends. As for invective, the supply is
endless on both sides. The Archbishop of Paris condemns the "Émile" of
Rousseau as containing a great many propositions that are "false,
scandalous, full of hatred of the church and her ministers, erroneous,
impious, blasphemous, and heretical." The same prelate argues as
follows: "Who would not believe, my very dear brethren, from what this
impostor says, that the authority of the church is proved only by her
own decisions, and that she proceeds thus: `I decide that I am
infallible, therefore so I am.' A calumnious imputation, my very dear
brethren! The constitution of Christianity, the spirit of the
Scriptures, the very errors and the weakness of the human mind tend to
show that the church established by Jesus Christ is infallible. We
declare that, as the Divine Legislator always taught the truth, so his
church always teaches it. We therefore prove the authority of the
church, not by the church's authority, but by that of Jesus Christ, a
process as accurate as the other, with which we are reproached, is
absurd and senseless."

The arguments of the clerical writers were not all on this level.
Chaudon and Nonnotte prepared a series of articles, arranged in the
form of a dictionary, in which the Catholic doctrine is set forth,
sometimes clearly and forcibly. But it is evident that the champions
of Catholicism in that age were no match in controversy for her
adversaries.[Footnote: Lefranc de Pompignan, i. 27 (_Instruction
pastorale sur la prétendue philosophie des incredules). Dictionnaire
antiphilosophique,_ republished and enlarged by Grosse under the title
_Dictionnaire d'antiphilosophisme,_ Palissot, _Les philosophes._
Beaumont's "_mandement_" given in Rousseau, (_Oeuvres,_ vii. 22,
etc. See also Barthelémy, _Erreurs et mensonges,_ 5e, l3e, 14e Série,
articles on _Fréron, Nonnotte, Trublet,_ and _Patrouillet.
Confessions de Fréron._ Nisard, _Les ennemis de Voltaire_). The
superiority of the Philosophers over the churchmen in argument is too
evident to be denied. Carné, 408.]

The strength of a church does not lie in her doctors and her orators,
still less in her wits and debaters, though they all have their uses.
The strength of a church lies in her saints. While these have a large
part in her councils and a wide influence among her members, a church
is nearly irresistible. When they are few, timid and uninfluential,
knowledge and power, nay, simple piety itself, can hardly support her.
In the Church of France, through the ages, there have been many
saints; but in the reigns of Louis XVI. and his immediate predecessor
there were but few, and none of prominence. The persecution of the
Jansenists, petty as were the forms it took, had turned aside from
ardent fellowship in the church many of the most earnest, religious
souls in France. The atmosphere of the country was not then favorable
to any kind of heroism. Such self-devoted Christians as there were
went quietly on their ways; their existence to be proved only when, in
the worst days of the Revolution, a few of them should find the crown
of martyrdom.



CHAPTER VI.

THE NOBILITY.


The second order in the state was the Nobility. It is a mistake,
however, to suppose that this word bears on the Continent exactly the
same meaning as in England. Where all the children of a nobleman are
nobles, a strict class is created. An English peerage, descending only
to the eldest son, is more in the nature of an office. The French
_noblesse_ in the latter years of the old monarchy comprised nearly
all persons living otherwise than by their daily toil, together with the
higher part of the legal profession. While the clergy had political
rights and a corporate existence, and acted by means of an assembly, the
nobility had but privileges. This, however, was true only of the older
provinces, the "Lands of Elections," whose ancient rights had been
abolished. In some of the "Lands of Estates," which still kept a remnant
of self-government, the order was to some extent a political body with
constitutional rights.

The nobility have been reckoned at about one hundred thousand souls,
forming twenty-five or thirty thousand families, owning one fifth of the
soil of France. Only a part of this land, however, was occupied by the
nobles for their gardens, parks, and chases. The greater portion was let
to farmers, either at a fixed rent, or on the _métayer_ system, by
which the landlord was paid by a share of the crops. And beside his rent
or his portion, the noble received other things from his tenants:
payments and services according to ancient custom, days of labor, and
occasional dues. He could tramp over the ploughed lands with his
servants in search of game, although he might destroy the growing corn.
The game itself, which the peasant might not kill, was still more
destructive. Such rights as these, especially where they were harshly
enforced, caused both loss and irritation to the poor. Although there
were far too many absentees among the great families, yet the larger
number of the nobles spent most of their time at home on their estates,
looking after their farms and their tenants, attending to local
business, and saving up money to be spent in visits to the towns, or to
Paris. When they were absent, their bailiffs were harder masters than
themselves. Unfortunately the eyes of the noble class were turned rather
to the enjoyments of the city and the court than to the duties of
country life on their estates, an inevitable consequence of their loss
of local power.

If the nobles had few political rights, they had plenty of public
privileges. They were exempt from the most onerous taxes, and the best
places under the government were reserved for them. Therefore every man
who rose to eminence or to wealth in France strove to enter their ranks,
and since nobility was a purchasable commodity, through the
multiplication of venal offices which conferred it, none who had much
money to spend failed to secure the coveted rank. Thus the order had
come to comprise almost all persons of note, and a great part of the
educated class. To describe its ideas and aspirations is to describe
those of most of the leaders of France. Nobility was no longer a mark of
high birth, nor a brevet of distinction; it was merely a sign that a
man, or some of his ancestors, had had property. Of course all persons
in the order were not equal. The descendants of the old families, which
had been great in the land for hundreds of years, despised the mushroom
noblemen of yesterday, and talked contemptuously of "nobility of the
gown." Theirs was of the sword, and dated from the Crusades. And under
Louis XVI., after the first dismissal of Necker, there was a reaction,
and ground gained by the older nobility over the newer, and by both over
the inferior classes. As the Revolution draws near and financial
embarrassment grows more acute, the pickings of the favored class have
become scarcer, while the appetite for them has increased. Preferment in
church or state must no longer go to the vulgar.

There is a distinction among nobles quite apart from the length of their
pedigree. We find a higher and a lower nobility, with no clear line of
division between them. They are in fact the very rich, whose families
have some prominence, and the moderately well off. For it may be noticed
that among nobles of all times and countries, although wealth unaided
may not give titles and place, it is pretty much a condition precedent
for acquiring them. A man may be of excellent family, and poor; but to
be a great noble, a man must be rich. In old France the road to
preferment was through the court; but to shine at court a considerable
income was required; and so the _noblesse de cour_ was more or less
identical with the richer nobility.

In this small but influential part of the nation, both the good and the
bad qualities which are favored by court life had reached a high degree
of development. The old French nobility has sometimes been represented
as exhibiting the best of manners and the worst of morals. I believe
that both sides of the picture have been painted in too high colors. The
courtier was not always polite, nor were all great nobles libertines.
Faithful husbands and wives were by no means exceptional; although, as
in other places, well behaved people did not make a parade of their
morality. There is such a thing as a French prig; but prigs are neither
common nor popular in France. Before the Revolution the art of pleasing
was more studied than it is to-day,--that art by which men and women
make themselves agreeable to their acquaintance.

"In old times, under Louis XV. and Louis XVI.," says the Viscount of
Ségur, "a young man entering society made what was called a
_début_. He cultivated accomplishments. His father suggested and
directed this work, for work it was; but the mother, the mother only,
could bring her son to that last degree of politeness, of grace and
amiability, which completed his education. Beside her natural
tenderness, her pride was so much at stake that you may judge what care,
what studied pains, she used in giving her children, on their entrance
into society, all the charm that she could develop in them, or bestow
upon them. Thence came that rare politeness, that exquisite taste, that
moderation in speech and jest, that graceful carriage, in short that
combination which characterized what was called good company, and which
always distinguished French society even among foreigners. If a young
man, because of his youth, had failed in attention to a lady, in
consideration for a man older than himself, in deference for old age,
the mother of the thoughtless young fellow was informed of it by her
friends the same evening; and on the following day he was sure to
receive advice and reproof."[Footnote: The Viscount of Ségur was
brother to the Count of Ségur, from the preface to whose Memoirs this
extract is taken.]

The instruction thus early given was not confined to forms. Indeed,
French society in that day was probably less formal in some ways than
any other European society; and in Paris people were more free than in
the provinces. Although making a bow was a fine art, although a lady's
curtsey was expected to be at once "natural, soft, modest, gracious, and
dignified," ceremonious greetings were considered unnecessary, and few
compliments were paid. To praise a woman's beauty to her face would have
been to disparage her modesty. Good manners consisted in no small part
in distinguishing perfectly what was due to every one, and in expressing
that distinction with lightness and grace. Different modes of address
were appropriate toward parents, relations, friends, acquaintances,
strangers, your superiors in rank, your poor dependents, yet all must be
treated with courtesy and consideration. Such manners are possible only
where social distinctions are positively ascertained. In old France, at
least, every man had his place and knew where he was.

But it was in their dealings with ladies that the Frenchmen of that day
showed the perfection of their system. Vicious they might be, but
discourteous they were not. No well-bred man would then appear in a
lady's room carelessly dressed, or in boots. In speech between the
sexes, the third person was generally used, and a gentleman in speaking
to a lady dropped his voice to a lower tone than he employed to men.
Gentlemen were careful before ladies not to treat even each other with
familiarity. Still less would one of them, however intimate he might be
with a lady's husband or brother, speak to her of his friend by any name
less formal than his title. These habits have left their mark in France
and elsewhere to this day; but the mark is fast disappearing, not
altogether to the advantage of social life.[Footnote: Genlis,
Dictionnaire des Étiquettes, i. 94, 218; ii. 194, 347.]

Friendship between men was sometimes carried so far as to interfere with
the claims of domestic affection. At least it was faithful and sincere,
and the man on whom fortune had frowned, the fallen minister, or the
disgraced courtier, was followed in his adversity by the kindness of his
friends. Of all the virtues this is perhaps the one which in our hurried
age tends most to disappear. It is left for the occupation of idle
hours, and the smallest piece of triviality which can be tortured into
the name of business, is allowed to crowd away those constantly repeated
attentions which might add a true grace and refinement to the lives of
those who gave and of those who received them. It is often said that
friendships are formed only in youth. Is not this partly because youth
Revolution, men of all ages made friendships, and supported them by the
consideration for others which is at the bottom of all politeness. The
Frenchman is nervous and irritable. When he lets his temper get beyond
his control, he is fierce and violent. He has little of the easy-going
good-nature under inconveniences, which some branches of the Teutonic
race believe themselves to possess. He has less kindly merriment than
the Tuscan. But he has trained himself for social life; and has learned,
when on his good behavior, to make others happy about him. And it is
part of the well-bred Frenchman's pride and happiness to be almost
always on his good behavior.

In one respect Paris in the eighteenth century was more like a
provincial town than like a great modern capital. Acquaintanceship had
not swallowed up intimacy. A man or a woman did not undertake to keep on
terms of civility with so many people that he could not find time to see
his best friends oftener than once or twice a year. The much vaunted
_salons_ of the old monarchy were charming, in great measure
because they were reasonably organized. An agreeable woman would draw
her friends about her; they would meet in her parlor until they knew
each other, and would be together often enough to keep touch
intellectually. The talker knew his audience and felt at home with it.
The listener had learned to expect something worth hearing. The mistress
of the house kept language and men within bounds, and had her own way of
getting rid of bores. But even French wit and vivacity were not always
equal to the demands upon them. "I remember," says Montesquieu, "that I
once had the curiosity to count how many times I should hear a little
story, which certainly did not deserve to be told or remembered; during
three weeks that it occupied the polite world, I heard it repeated two
hundred and twenty-five times, which pleased me much."[Footnote:
_Oeuvres_, vii 179 _(Pensées diverses)._]

Beside the tie of friendship we may set that of the family. In old
France this bond was much closer than it is in modern America. If a man
rose in the world, the benefit to his relations was greater than now;
and there was no theory current that a ruler, or a man in a position of
trust, should exclude from the places under him those persons with whom
he is best acquainted, and of whose fidelity to himself and to his
employers he has most reason to be sure. On the other hand, a disgrace
to one member of a family spread its blight on all the others, and the
judicial condemnation of one man might exclude his near relations from
the public service--a state of things which was beginning to be
repugnant to the public conscience, but which had at least the merit of
forming a strong band to restrain the tempted from his contemplated
crime.

In fact, the old idea of the family as an organic whole, with common
joys, honors, and responsibilities, common sorrows and disgraces, was
giving way to the newer notion of individualism. In France, however, the
process never went so far as it has done in some other countries,
including our own.

Good manners were certainly the rule at the French court, but there
were exceptions, and not inconspicuous ones, for Louis XV. was an
unfeeling man, and Louis XVI. was an awkward one. When Mademoiselle
Genêt, fifteen years old, was first engaged as reader to the former
king's daughters, she was in a state of agitation easy to imagine. The
court was in mourning, and the great rooms hung with black, the state
armchairs on platforms, several steps above the floor, the feathers
and the shoulder-knots embroidered with tinsel made a deep impression
on her. When the king first approached, she thought him very
imposing. He was going a-hunting, and was followed by a numerous
train. He stopped short in front of the young girl and the following
dialogue took place:--

"Mademoiselle Genêt, I am told that you are very learned; that you know
four or five foreign languages."

"I know only two, sir," trembling.

"Which are they?"

"English and Italian."

"Do you speak them fluently?"

"Yes, sir, very fluently."

"That's quite enough to put a husband out of temper;" and the king went
on, followed by his laughing train, and left the poor little girl
standing abashed and disconsolate.[Footnote: Campan, i. pp. vi. viii.]

The memoirs of the time are full of stories proving that the rigorous
enforcement of étiquette and the general training in good manners had
not done away with eccentricity of behavior. The Count of Osmont, for
instance, was continually fidgeting with anything that might come under
his hand, and could not see a snuff-box without ladling out the snuff
with three fingers, and sprinkling it over his clothes like a Swiss
porter. He sometimes varied this pleasant performance by putting the box
itself under his nose, to the great disgust of whomever happened to be
its owner. He once spent a week at the house of Madame de Vassy, a lady
who was young and good-looking enough, but stiff and ceremonious. This
lady wore a skirt of crimson velvet over a big panier, and was covered
with pearls and diamonds. Madame de Vassy would not reprove Monsieur
d'Osmont in words for his method of treating her magnificent golden
snuff-box; but used to get up from her place at the card-table as soon
as he had so used it, empty all the snuff into the fireplace, and ring
for more. D'Osmont, meanwhile, would go on without noticing her, laugh
and swear over his cards, and get in a passion with himself if the luck
ran against him. Yet when he was not playing, the man was lively, modest
and amiable, and except for his fidgety habits, had the tone of the best
society.[Footnote: Dufort, ii. 46.]

That which above all things distinguished the French nobility, and
especially the highest ranks of it, from the rest of mankind was the
amount of leisure which it enjoyed. Most people in the world have to
work, most aristocracies to govern The English gentleman of the
eighteenth century farmed his estates, acted as a magistrate, took
part in politics. Living in the country, he was a mighty hunter. The
French nobleman, unless he were an officer in the army (and even the
officers had inordinately long leave of absence), had nothing to do
but to kill time. Only the poorer country gentlemen ever thought of
farming their own lands. For the unemployed nobles of Paris, there was
but occasional sport to be had. Indeed, the Frenchman, although he
likes the more violent and tumultuous kinds of hunting, is not easily
interested in the quieter and more lasting varieties of sport. He will
joyfully chase the wild boar, when horses, dogs, and horns, with the
admiration of his friends and servants, concur to keep his blood
boiling; but he will not care to plod alone through the woods for a
long afternoon on the chance of bringing home a brace of woodcock; nor
can he mention fishing without a sneer. Being thus deprived of the
chief resource by which Anglo-Saxons combine activity and indolence,
the French nobility cultivated to their highest pitch those human
pleasures which are at once the most vivid and the most delicate. They
devoted themselves to society and to love-making. Too quick-witted to
fall into sloth, too proud to become drunkards or gluttons, they
dissipated their lives in conversation and stained their souls with
intrigue. Never, probably, have the arts which make social intercourse
delightful been carried to so high a degree of excellence as among
them. Never perhaps, in a Christian country, have offenses against the
laws of marriage been so readily condoned, where outward decency was
not violated, as in the upper circles of France in the century
preceding the Revolution.

The vice of Parisian society under Louis XV. and his grandson presented
a curious character. Adultery had acquired a regular standing, and
connections dependent upon it were openly, if tacitly recognized. Such
illicit alliances were even governed by a morality of their own, and the
attempt to induce a woman to be unfaithful to her criminal lover might
be treated as an insult.[Footnote: Witness Rousseau and Mme. d'Houdetot
in the _Confessions_. Mlle. d'Aydie was accounted very virtuous for
dissuading her lover from marrying her, even after the birth of her
child, for fear of injuring his prospects. Yet the match would not seem,
to modern ideas, to have been a very unequal one.] But this pedantry of
vice was not always maintained. There were men and women in high life
who changed their connections very frequently, yielding to the caprice
of the moment, as the senses or the wit might lead them. Such people
were not passionate, but simply depraved; yet the mass of the community,
deterred partly by fear of ridicule, and partly by the Philosophic
spirit which had decided that chastity was not a part of natural morals,
did not visit them with very severe condemnation.

If eccentricity sometimes overrode étiquette and even politeness, good
morals and religion not infrequently made a stand against corruption.
There were loving wives and careful mothers among the highest nobility.
Of the Duchess of Ayen we get a description from her children. Her
mansion was in the Rue St. Honoré, and had a garden running back almost
to that of the Tuileries (for the Rue de Rivoli was not then in
existence). The house was known for the beauty of its apartments, and
for the superb collection of pictures which it contained. After dinner,
which was served at three o'clock, the duchess would retire to her
bedchamber, a large room hung with crimson damask, and take her place in
a great armchair by the fire. Her books, her work, her snuff-box, were
within reach. She would call her five girls about her. These, on chairs
and footstools, squabbling gently at times for the places next their
mother, would tell of their excursions, their lessons, the little events
of every day. There was nothing frivolous in their education. Their old
nurse had not filled their minds with fairy tales, but with stories from
the Old Testament and with anecdotes of heroic actions.

The pleasures of these girls were simple. Once or twice in a summer they
went on a visit to their grandfather, the Marshal de Noailles at Saint
Germain en Laye. In the autumn they spent a week with their other
grandfather, Monsieur d'Aguesseau at Fresnes. An excursion into the
suburbs, a ride on donkeys on the slopes of Mont Valérien, made up their
innocent dissipations. Their most frivolous excitement was to see their
governess fall off her donkey.

The piety of the duchess might in some respects appear extravagant. Her
fourth daughter had two beggars of the parish for god-parents, as a
constant reminder of humility. The same child was of a violent and
willful disposition, but was converted at the age of eleven and became
mild, patient, and studious. The conversion of so young a sinner, and
the seriousness with which the event was treated by the family, seem
rather to belong to the atmosphere of Puritanism than to that of the
Catholicism of the eighteenth century. But if the religion of the
Duchess of Ayen sometimes led her to fantastic extremes, these were not
its principal characteristics. Her piety was applied to the conduct of
her daily life and to the education of her daughters in honesty,
reasonableness, and self-devotion. Their faith and hers were to be
tested by the hardest trials, and to be victorious both in prison and on
the scaffold. We are fortunate in possessing their biographies. In how
many cases at the same time and in the same country did similar virtues
go unrecorded?[Footnote: Vie de Madame de Lafayette, Mme. de Montagu.]

As for the smaller nobility, the "sparrow hawks,"[Footnote: Hobéraux.]
living in the country, they dwelt among their less exalted neighbors,
doing good or evil as the character of each one of them directed.
Sometimes we find them on friendly terms with the villagers, acting as
godfathers and godmothers to the children, summoning the peasants to
take part in the chase, or to dance in the courtyard of the castle. We
find them endowing hospitals, giving alms, keeping an eye on the conduct
of the village priest. A continual interchange of presents goes on
between the cottage and the great house. A new lord is welcomed by
salvos of musketry, the ladies of his family are met by young girls
bearing flowers. Such relations as these are said to have grown less
common as the great Revolution drew near. It has often been remarked of
the Vendée and Brittany, where a larger proportion of lords resided on
their estates than was the case elsewhere, that a friendlier feeling was
there cultivated between the upper and the lower classes; and that it
was in those provinces that a stand was made by lords and peasants alike
for the maintenance of the old order of things. In some parts of the
country the peasants and their lords were continually quarreling and
going to law. The royal intendant was besieged with complaints. The poor
could not get their pay for their work. They received blows instead of
money. Arrogance and injustice on the one side were met by impudence and
fraud on the other. The old leadership had passed away. The upper class
had lost its power and its responsibility; it insisted the more
tenaciously on its privileges. Exemption from certain taxes was the
chief of these, but there were others as irritating if less important.
Quarrels arose with the priest about the lord's right to be first given
the holy water. One vicar in his wrath deluged his lordship's new wig.

In general, we may conceive of the lesser nobles, deprived of their
useful function of regulating and administering the country, leading
somewhat penurious and useless lives. They hunted a good deal, they
slept long. Generally they did not eat overmuch, for gluttony is not a
vice of their race. They grumbled at the ascendency of the court, and at
the new army-regulations. They preserved in their families the noble
virtues of dignity and obedience. Children asked their parents' blessing
on their knees before they went to bed. The elder Mirabeau, the grim
Friend of Men, still knelt nightly before his mother in his fiftieth
year. The children honored their parents in fact as well as in form, and
took no important step in life without paternal consent. The boys ran
rather wild in their youth, but settled down at the approach of middle
life; the oldest inheriting the few or barren paternal acres; the
younger sons equally noble, and thus debarred from lucrative
occupations, pushing their fortunes in the army. The girls were married
young or went into a convent. Marriages were arranged entirely by the
parents. "My father," said a young nobleman, "I am told that you have
agreed on a marriage for me. Would you be kind enough to tell me if the
report be true, and what is the name of the lady?" "My son," answered
his parent, "be so good as to mind your own business, and not to come to
me with questions."[Footnote: Babeau, _Le Village_, 158. Ch. de
Kibbe, 169. Mme. de Montagu, 57. Genlis, _Dictionnaire des
Étiquettes,_ i. 71. Lavergne, _Les Économistes,_ 127.]



CHAPTER VII.

THE ARMY.


The nobility of France was essentially a military class. Its privileges
were claimed on account of services rendered in the field. The priests
pray, the nobles fight, the commons pay for all; such was the theory of
the state. It is true that the nobility no longer furnished the larger
part of the armies; that the old feudal levies of ban and rear-ban, in
which the baron rode at the head of his vassals, were no longer called
out. But still the soldier's life was considered the proper career of
the nobleman. A large proportion of the members of the order were
commissioned officers, and most officers were members of the order.

The rule which required proofs of nobility as a prerequisite to
obtaining a commission was not severely enforced in the reign of Louis
XV., and in the earlier years of his successor. In many regiments it was
usual to promote one or two deserving sergeants every year. In others
the necessary certificate of birth could be signed by any nobleman and
was often obtained from greed or good-nature. Moreover, an order of 1750
had provided that officers of plebeian extraction should sometimes be
ennobled for distinguished services. But in 1781, a new rule was
established. No one could thenceforth receive a commission as second
lieutenant who could not show four generations of nobility on his
father's side, counting himself. Thus were all members of families
recently ennobled excluded from the service, and no door was left open
to the military ambition of people belonging to the middle class;
although that class was yearly increasing in importance. Moreover,
strict genealogical proofs were required, the candidate for a commission
having to submit his papers to the royal herald. Exceptions were made in
favor of the sons of members of the military order of Saint Louis.
[Footnote: Ségur, i. 82, 158. Chérest, i. 14. Anciennes lois françaises,
22d May, 1781. The regiments to which the regulation applies are those
of French infantry (not foreign regiments), cavalry, light horse,
dragoons, and chasseurs à cheval. This would seem to exclude the
artillery and engineers. The foreign regiments appear to have been
included in a later order. Chérest, i. 24.]

But all nobles were not on the same footing in the army. Among the
regimental officers two classes might be distinguished. There were, on
the one hand, the ensigns, lieutenants, captains, majors, and
lieutenant-colonels, who generally belonged to the poorer nobility. They
served long and for small pay, with little hope of the more brilliant
rewards of the profession. They did their work and stayed with their
regiments, although leave of absence was not difficult to obtain in time
of peace. Their lives were hard and frugal, a captain's pay not
exceeding twenty-five hundred livres, which was perhaps doubled by
allowances. On the other hand were the colonels and second colonels,
young men of influential families, who, at most, passed through the
lower ranks to learn something of the duties of an officer. Their
commissions were procured by favor. There was scarce a bishop about the
court who did not have a candidate for a colonelcy, scarcely a pretty
woman who did not aspire to make her friend a captain. The rich young
men, thus promoted, threw their money about freely in camp and garrison.
Thus if the nobility had exclusive privileges, the court had privileges
that excluded those of the rest of the nobility, and in the very last
days of the old monarchy, these also were enhanced. The Board of War in
1788, decided that no one should become a general officer who had not
previously been a colonel; and colonels' commissions, besides being very
expensive, were given, as above stated, by favor alone. Thus on the eve
of the Revolution were the bands of privilege drawn tighter in France.
[Footnote: Ségur, i. 154. Chérest, ii. 90.] The colonels thus appointed
were generally not wanting in courage. The French nobility of all
degrees was ready enough to give its blood on the battle-field. Thus the
son of the Duke of Boufflers, fourteen years old, had been made colonel
of the regiment which bore the name of his family. The duke served as a
lieutenant-général in the same army. Fearing that the boy might not know
how to behave in battle, the father, on the first occasion, obtained
permission from the Marshal, Maurice de Saxe, commander of the army, to
accompany his son as a volunteer. The boy's regiment was ordered to
attack the intrenched village of Raucoux. The young colonel and his
father, followed by two pages, led their men against the intrenchments.
When they reached the works, the duke took his son in his arms and threw
him over the parapet. He himself followed, and both came off unhurt, but
the two pages were shot dead.[Footnote: Montbarey, i. 38.]

In America, as in Europe, the young favorites of fortune were ready
enough to fight. Such men as Lauzun, Ségur, or the Viscount of Noailles
asked nothing better than adventures, whether of war or love; but in
peace they could not be looked on as satisfactory or hard-working
officers. Yet they and their like continued to get advancement.
Ordinances might be passed from time to time, requiring age or length of
service, but ordinances in old France did not apply to the great. The
poorer nobility might grumble, but the court families continued to get
the good places. The lieutenant-colonels and the other working officers
of the army had but little chance of rising to be general officers. Even
before the order of 1788, promotion fell to the courtier colonels. The
baton of the marshals of France was placed in the hands only of the very
highest nobility. All over Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, armies were often commanded by men born to princely rank.
That this did not necessarily mean that they were ill commanded may be
shown by the names of Turenne and Condé, Maurice de Saxe and Eugène of
Savoy, Prince Henry of Prussia I and Frederick the Great.

While the higher commands were thus monopolized (or nearly so) by the
rich and powerful, the poorer nobility flocked into the army, to occupy
the subordinate ranks of commissioned officers. Sometimes they came
through the military schools. The most important of these had been
founded at Paris in 1750, by the financier Paris-Duverney. Here several
hundred young gentlemen, mostly born poor and preferably the sons of
officers, received a military education. The boys came to the school
from their homes in the country between the ages of nine and eleven,
rustic little figures sometimes, in wooden shoes and woolen caps, like
the peasant lads who had been their early playmates. They were taught
the duties of gentlemen and officers, cleanliness, an upright carriage,
the manual and tactics, and something of military science. Other
schools, kept by monks, existed in the provinces where the young
aspirants for commissions learned engineering and the theory of
artillery. But many young a noblemen entered their career by a process
more in accordance with youthful tastes. We find boys in camp in time of
war, evading the orders which forbade entering the service before the
age of sixteen. Children of twelve and thirteen are wounded in battle.
[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie militaire_, ii. 7, 45. Montbarey, i. 18.]

As the only form of active life in which most nobles could take part
was found in the army, there was always too large a number of
officers, and too great a proportion of the military expenses was
devoted to them. In 1787 hardly more than one in three of those
holding commissions was in active service. The number of soldiers
under Louis XVI. was less than a hundred and fifty thousand actually
with the colors. There were thirty-six thousand officers, on paper;
thirteen thousand actively employed. The soldiers cost the state
44,100,000 livres a year, the officers 46,400,000 livres.[Footnote:
Babeau, Vie militaire, i. 15; ii. 90, 145. Necker, De l'Administration,
ii. 415, 418.]

The relation between the officers and the soldiers of the old French
army was more intimate and kindly than that existing in any other
European army of the time. For both, their regiment was a home, and the
military service a lifelong profession. They had entered it young, and
they hoped to die in it. Their relation to each other had become a part
of the structure of their minds; a condition of coherent thought. A
soldier might rise from the ranks and become a lieutenant, or even a
captain, but such promotion was infrequent; few common soldiers had the
education or the means to aspire to it. On the other hand, the command
of a company was sometimes almost hereditary. The captain might be lord
of the village in which his soldiers were born. In that case he would
care for them in sickness, and perhaps even grant a furlough when the
private was much needed by his family at home. His own chance of
promotion was small. He expected to do the work of his life in that
company, among those soldiers, with perhaps his younger brother, or, in
time, his son, as his lieutenant. It would seem that in the years
immediately preceding the French Revolution these kindly relations were
in some measure dying out. The captain was no longer so closely
connected with his company as he had been. Officialism was taking the
place of those personal connections which had characterized the feudal
system. The gulf between soldiers and officers, if not harder to cross
for the ambitious, separated the commonplace members of each group more
widely from those of the other.[Footnote: Babeau, Vie militaire, i. 43,
189. Montbarey, ii. 272. Moore's View, i. 365.]

The private soldiers of King Louis XVI., who stood in long white lines
on parade at Newport, while their many colored flags floated above and
the officers brandished their spontoons in front, or who rushed in
night attack on the advanced redoubt at Yorktown, were not, like
modern European soldiers, brought together by conscription. They were,
nominally at least, volunteers. Unruly lads, mechanics out of work,
runaway apprentices, were readily drawn into the service by skillful
recruiting officers. Thirty years before, it had been the custom of
these landsharks to cheat or bully young men into the service. The raw
youth, arriving in Paris from the country, had been offered by a
chance acquaintance a place as servant in a gentleman's family, and
after signing an engagement had found himself bound for eight years to
serve His Majesty, in one of his regiments of foot. The young
barber-surgeon had waked from a carouse with the king's silver in his
pocket. Such things were still common in Germany. In France some
effort had been made to regulate the activity of the recruiting
officers. Complaints of force or fraud in enlistment received
attention from the authorities. The soldiers of Louis XVI., therefore,
were engaged with comparative fairness. The infantry came mostly from
the towns, the cavalry and artillery from the country. The soldiers
were derived from the lowest part of the population. Whether they
improved or deteriorated in the service depended on their officers. In
any case they became entirely absorbed in it. The soldier did not keep
even the name by which he had been known in common life. He assumed,
or was given, a _nom de guerre_ such as La Tulippe, La Tendresse,
Pollux, Pot-de-Vin, Vide-bouteille, or Va-de-bon-coeur. His term of
service was seven or eight years, but he was by no means sure of
getting a fair discharge at the end of it; and was in any case likely
to reenlist. Thus the recruit had, in fact entered upon the profession
of his life.[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie militaire_, i. 55, 136,
182. Mercier, x. 273. Ségur, i. 222; _Encyc. méth. Art milit._ ii. 177
(_Desertion_)]

The uniforms of the day were ill adapted to campaigning. The French
soldier of the line wore white clothes with colored trimmings, varying
according to his regiment. On his head was perched the triangular cocked
hat of the period, standing well out over his ears, but hardly shading
his eyes. Beneath it his hair was powdered, or rather, pasted; for the
powder was sifted on to the wet hair, and caked in the process. The
condition of the mass after a rainy night at the camp-fire may be
imagined. In some regiments the wearing of a moustache was required, and
those soldiers whom nature had not supplied with such an ornament were
obliged to put on a false one, fastened with pitch, which was liable to
cause abcesses on the lip. Sometimes a fine, uniform color was produced
in the moustaches of a whole regiment by means of boot-blacking. Broad
white belts were crossed upon the breast. The linen gaiters, white on
parade, black for the march, came well above the knee, and a superfluous
number of garters impeded the step. It was a tedious matter to put these
things on; and if a pebble got in through a button-hole, the soldier was
tempted to leave it in his shoe, until it had made his foot sore.
Uniforms were seldom renewed. The coat was expected to last three years,
the hat two, the breeches one.[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie militaire_,
i. 93. _Encyc. méth. Art milit._ i. 589 (_Chaussure_) ii. 179.
Susane, ix. (_Plates_). See also a very interesting little book by
a great man, Maurice de Saxe, _Les Rêveries_.]

All parts of the soldier's uniform were tight and close fitting. I think
that this was learned from the Prussians. The ideal of the army as a
machine seems to have originated, or at least to have been first worked
out in Germany. Such an ideal was a natural consequence of the military
system of the age. Of the soldiers of Frederick the Great only one-half
were his born subjects. Other German princes enlisted as many foreigners
as they could. In the French army were many regiments of foreign
mercenaries. Nowhere was the pay high, or the soldier well treated.
Desertion was very common. Under these circumstances mechanical
precision became an invaluable quality. The soldier must be held in very
strict bands, for if left free he might turn against the power that
employed him.

The connection between a rigid system in which nothing is left to the
soldier's intelligence or initiative, and a tight uniform, which
confines his movements, is both deep and evident. If a man is never to
have his own way, his master will inevitably find means to make him
needlessly uncomfortable. As the modern owner of a horse sometimes
diminishes the working power of the animal by check-reins and
martingales, so the despot of the eighteenth century buckled and
buttoned his military cattle into shape, and made them take unnatural
paces. But even under these disadvantages the French soldiers
surpassed all others in grace and ease of bearing. Officers were
sometimes accused of sacrificing the efficiency of their commands to
appearances. The evolutions of the troops involved steps more
appropriate to the dancing-master than to the drill sergeant.
[Footnote: Montbarey, ii. 272.] Such criticisms as these have often
been made on the French soldier by his own countrymen and by
foreigners. But those who think he can be trifled with on this
account, are apt to find themselves terribly mistaken.

The food of the soldiers was coarse and barely sufficient. The pay was
so absorbed by the requirements of the uniform, many of the smaller
parts of which were at the expense of the men, and by the diet, that
little was left for the almost necessary comforts of drink and tobacco.
The barracks, handsome outside, were close and crowded within. During
this reign orders were given that only two men should sleep in a bed. In
some garrisons soldiers were still billeted on the inhabitants. In
sickness they were better cared for than civilians, the military
hospitals being decidedly better than those open to the general public.
[Footnote: Lafayette told the Assembly of Notables in 1787 that the food
of the soldiers was insufficient for their maintenance. _Mémoires_,
i. 215. Ségur, i. 161.]

If we compare the material condition of the French soldier in the latter
years of the old monarchy with that of other European soldiers of his
day, we shall find him about as well treated as they were. If we compare
those times with these, we shall find that he is now better clothed, but
not better fed than he was then.[Footnote: Babeau, _Vie
militaire_, i. 374]

"The soldiers are very clean," writes an English traveler in France in
the year 1789; "so far from being meagre and ill-looking fellows, as
John Bull would persuade us, they are well-formed, tall, handsome men,
and have a cheerfulness and civility in their countenances and manner
which is peculiarly pleasing. They also looked very healthy, great care
is taken of them."[Footnote: Rigby, 13.]

The period of twenty-five years that preceded the Revolution was a time
of attempted reform in the French army. The defeats of the Seven Years'
War had served as a lesson. The Duke of Choiseul, the able minister
of Louis XV., abolished many abuses. The manoeuvres of the troops
became more regular, the discipline stricter and more exact for a time.
The Duke of Aiguillon ousted Choiseul, by making himself the courtier of
the strumpet Du Barry, and things appear to have slipped back. Then the
old king died, and Aiguillon followed his accomplice into exile. Louis
XVI. found his finances in disorder, his army and navy demoralized. The
death of the minister of war in 1775 gave him the opportunity to make
one of his well-meant and feeble attempts at reform. He called to the
ministry an old soldier, the Count of Saint-Germain, who had for some
time been living in retirement. The count had seen much foreign service,
was in full sympathy neither with the French army nor with the French
court, and was moreover a man who had little knack at getting on with
anybody. He had written a paper on military reforms, and thus attracted
notice. In vain, when in office, he attacked some crying abuses,
especially the privileges granted to favored regiments and favored
persons. While he disgusted the court in this way, he raised a storm of
indignation in the army by his love of foreign innovations, and
especially of one practice considered deeply degrading. This was the
punishment of minor offenses by flogging with the flat of the sword;
using a weapon especially made for that purpose. The arguments in favor
of this punishment are obvious. It is expeditious; it is disagreeable to
the sufferer, but does not rob the state of his services, nor subject
him to the bad influences and foul air of the guard-house. The
objections are equally apparent. Flogging, which seems the most natural
and simple of punishments to many men in an advanced state of
civilization, is hated by others, hardly more civilized, with a deadly
hatred. In the former case it inflicts but a moderate injury upon the
skin; in the latter, it strikes deep into the mind and soul. It would be
hard to say beforehand in which way a nation will take it. The English
soldier of Waterloo, like the German of Rossbach, received the lash
almost as a joke. The Frenchman, their unsuccessful opponent on those
fields, could hardly endure it. Grenadiers wept at inflicting the sword
stroke, and their colonel mingled his tears with theirs. "Strike with
the point," cried a soldier, "it hurts less!"

To some of the foreigners in the French service this sensitiveness
seemed absurd. The Count of Saint-Germain consulted, on the subject, a
major of the regiment of Nassau, who had risen from the ranks. "Sir,"
said the veteran, "I have received a great many blows; I have given a
great many, and all to my advantage."[Footnote: Ségur, i. 80. Mercier,
vii. 212. Besenval, ii. 19. Allonville. _Mem. sec._ 84. Montbarey,
i. 311. Flogging in some form and German ways in general seem to have
been introduced into the French army as early as Choiseul's time, and
more or less practiced through the reign of Louis XVI.; but the great
discontent appears to date from the more rigorous application of such
methods by Saint-Germain. Montbarey. Dumouriez, i. 370 (liv. ii. ch.
iii).]

The spirit of reform was in the air, and ardent young officers would let
nothing pass untried. The Count of Ségur tells a story of such an one;
and although no name be given, he seems to point to the brother-in-law
of Lafayette, the brave Viscount of Noailles.

"One morning," says Ségur, "I saw a young man of one of the first
families of the court enter my bedroom. I had been his friend from
childhood. He had long hated study, and thought only of pleasure, play,
and women. But recently he had been seized with military ardor, and
dreamed but of arms, horses, school of theory, exercises, and German
discipline.

"As he came into my room, he looked profoundly serious; he begged me to
send away my valet. When we were alone: `What is the meaning, my dear
Viscount,' said I, `of so early a visit and so grave a beginning? Is it
some new affair of honor or of love?'

"`By no means,' said he, `but it is on account of a very important
matter, and of an experiment that I have absolutely resolved to make. It
will undoubtedly seem very strange to you; but it is necessary in order
to enlighten me on the great subject we are all discussing; we can judge
well only of what we have ourselves undergone. When I tell you my plan
you will feel at once that I could intrust it only to my best friend,
and that none but he can help me to execute it. In a word, here is the
case: I want to know positively what effect strokes with the flat of the
sword may have on a strong, courageous, well-balanced man, and how far
his obstinacy could bear this punishment without weakening. So I beg you
to lay on until I say "Enough."'

"Bursting out laughing at this speech, I did all I could to turn him
aside from his strange plan, and to convince him of the folly of his
proposal; but it was useless. He insisted, begged and conjured me to do
him this pleasure, with as many entreaties as if it had been a question
of getting me to render him some great service.

"At last I consented and resolved to punish his fancy by giving him his
money's worth. So I set to work; but, to my great astonishment, the
sufferer, coldly meditating on the effect of each blow, and collecting
all his courage to support it, spoke not a word and constrained himself
to appear unmoved; so that it was only after letting me repeat the
experiment a score of times that he said: `Friend, it is enough. I am
contented; and I now understand that this must be an efficacious method
of conquering many faults.'

"I thought all was over; and up to that point the scene had seemed to me
simply comic; but just as I was about to ring for my valet to dress me,
the Viscount, suddenly stopping me, said: `One moment, please; all is
not finished; it is well that you should make this experiment, too.'

"I assured him that I had no desire to do so, and that it would by no
means change my opinion, which was entirely adverse to an innovation so
opposed to the French character.

"`Very well,' answered he, `but I ask it not for your sake but for mine.
I know you; although you are a perfect friend, you are very lively, a
little fond of poking fun, and you would perhaps make a very amusing
story of what has just happened between us, at my expense, among your
ladies.'

"`But is not my word enough for you?' I rejoined.

"`Yes,' said he, `in any more serious matter; but anyway, if I am only
afraid of an indiscretion, that fear is too much. And so, in the name of
friendship, I beg you, set me completely at ease on that point by taking
back what you have been kind enough to lend me so gracefully. Moreover,
I repeat it, believe me, you will profit by it and be glad to have
judged for yourself this new method that is so much discussed.'

"Overcome by his prayers, I let him take the fatal weapon; but after he
had given me the first stroke, far from imitating his obstinate
endurance, I quickly called out that it was enough, and that I
considered myself sufficiently enlightened on this grave question. Thus
ended this mad scene; we embraced at parting; and in spite of my desire
to tell the story, I kept his secret as long as he pleased."[Footnote:
Ségur, i. 84.]

The discipline of the French army, like that of other bodies, military
and civil, depended much less on regulations than on the individual
character of the men in command for the time being. France was engaged
in but one war during the reign of Louis XVI., and in that war the
land forces were occupied only in America. "The French discipline is
such," writes Lafayette to Washington from Newport, "that chickens and
pigs walk between the lines without being disturbed, and that there is
in the camp a cornfield of which not one leaf has been touched." And
Rochambeau tells with honest pride of apples hanging on the trees
which shaded the soldier's tents. "The discipline of the French army,"
he says, "has always followed it in all its campaigns. It was due to
the zeal of the generals, of the superior and regimental officers, and
especially to the good spirit of the soldier, which never failed." But
Rochambeau was a working general, and Lafayette had done his best in
France that, as far as was possible, the French commander in America
should have working officers under him. Neither in war nor in peace
have the French always been famous for their discipline; and the
discontent which had been caused by the changes above mentioned had
not tended to strengthen it in the closing years of the monarchy.
"Whatever idea I may have formed of the want of discipline and of the
anarchy which reigned among the troops," says Besenval, "it was far
below what I found when I saw them close," and circumstances confirm
the testimony of this not over-trustworthy witness.[Footnote:
Washington, vii. 518. Rochambeau, i. 255, 314. Fersen,
i. 39. 67. Besenval, ii. 36.]

It was in the latter part of the previous reign that the adventure of
the Count of Bréhan had taken place; but the story is too characteristic
to be omitted, and the spirit which it showed continued to exist down to
the very end of the old monarchy.

The Count of Bréhan, after serving with distinction in the Seven Years'
War, had retired from the army, and devoted his time to society and the
fine arts. He was called to Versailles one day by the Duke of Aiguillon,
prime minister to Louis XV., his friend and cousin. "I have named you to
the king," said the duke, "as the only man who would be able to bring
the Dauphiny regiment into a state of discipline. The line officers, by
their insubordinate behavior, have driven away several colonels in
succession. If I were offering you a favor, you might refuse; but this
is an act of duty, and I have assured the king that you would undertake
it."

"You do me justice," answered Bréhan. "I will take the command of the
regiment, but I must make three conditions. I must have unlimited power
to reward and punish; I must be pardoned if I overstep the regulations;
and if I succeed in bringing the regiment into good condition, I am not
to be obliged to keep it for more than a year."

His conditions granted, Bréhan set out for Marseilles, where the
regiment was quartered. On his arrival in that city, he put up at a
small and inconspicuous inn, and, dressed as a civilian, made his way on
foot to a coffee-house, which was said to be a favorite lounging-place
of the officers of the Dauphiny regiment. Taking a seat, he listened to
the conversation going on about him, and soon made out that the
insubordinate subalterns were talking about their new colonel, and of
the fine tricks they would play him on his arrival. Picking out two
young officers who were making themselves particularly conspicuous, he
interrupted their conversation.

"You do not know," he says, "the man whom you want to drive away. I
advise you to mind what you do, or you may get into a scrape."

"Who is this jackanapes that dares to give us advice?"

"A man who will not stand any rudeness, and who demands satisfaction!"
cries Bréhan, unbuttoning his civilian's coat and showing his military
order of Saint Louis.

So he goes out with the young fellows, and all the way to the place
where they are to fight, he chaffs and badgers them. This puts them more
and more out of temper, so that when they reach the ground they are very
much excited, while he is perfectly cool. He wounds them one after the
other; then, turning to the witnesses: "Gentlemen," says he, "I believe
I have done enough, for a man who has been traveling night and day all
the way from Paris. If anybody wants any more, he can easily find me. I
am not one of the people who get out of the way."

Thereupon he leaves them, goes back to his inn, puts on his uniform,
calls on the general commanding the garrison, and sends orders to the
officers of the Dauphiny regiment to come and see him. These presently
arrive, and are thoroughly astonished when they recognize the man whom
they met in the coffee-house, and who has just wounded two of their
comrades. But Bréhan pretends not to know any of them, speaks to all
kindly, tells them of the severe orders that he bears in case of
insubordination, and expresses the hope and conviction that there will
be no trouble. He then asks if all the officers of the regiment are
present. They answer that two gentlemen are ill. "I will go to see
them," says the new colonel, "and make sure that they are well taken
care of." He does in fact visit his late adversaries, and finds them in
great trepidation. They try to make excuses, but Bréhan stops them. "I
do not want to know about anything that happened before I took command,"
he says, "and I am quite sure that henceforth I shall have only a good
report to make to the king of all the officers of my regiment, with whom
I hope to live on the best of terms."

By this firm and conciliatory conduct, the Count of Bréhan inspired the
Dauphiny regiment with respect and affection. He restored its discipline
and left it when his service was over, much regretted by all its
officers.[Footnote: Allonville, i. 162.]

The lieutenants of the French army were united in an association called
the Calotte. The legitimate object of this society was to lick young
officers into shape, by obliging them to conform to the rules of
politeness and proper behavior, as understood by their class. For this
purpose the senior lieutenant of each regiment was the chief of the
regimental club, and there was a general chief for the whole army.
Offenses against good manners, faults of meanness, or oddity of
behavior, were discouraged by admonitions, given privately by the chief,
or publicly in the convivial meetings of the club. Moral pressure might
be carried so far in an aggravated case, as to cause the culprit to
resign his commission. The society in fact represented an organized
professional spirit; and although not recognized by the regulations, was
favored by the superior officers.[Footnote: Calotte=scull cap, here
fool's-cap. Concerning this society, see a series of _feuilletons_
in the _Moniteur Universel,_ Nov. 25th to 30th, 1864 by Gen.
Ambert; also _Encyclopédie méthodique, Art militaire. Militaire,_
iv. 101-103 (article _Calotte_); Ségur, i. 132.]

When discipline was relaxed, the Calotte assumed too great powers. Not
content with moral means, it undertook to enforce its decrees by
physical ones; and it extended its jurisdiction far above the rank of
lieutenant.

At the outbreak of the war between France and England in 1778, two camps
were formed in Normandy and Brittany for the purpose of training the
army, and perhaps with some intention of making a descent on the English
coast. The young French officers swarmed to these camps and divided
their time between drill and pleasure. On one occasion, seats had been
reserved on a hill for some Breton ladies, who were to see the
manoeuvres. Two colonels, escorting two ladies of the court who had
recently arrived from Paris, undertook to appropriate the chairs for
their companions. A squabble such as is common on such occasions was the
result.

The Count of Ségur, above mentioned, was acting as aide-de-camp to the
commanding general. A few days after the quarrel about the chairs, just
as he was going to begin a game of prisoners' base, two officers who
were his friends informed him privately that the Calotte had ordered the
two colonels who had given offense on that occasion to be publicly
tossed in blankets and that the sentence was about to be carried out.
Ségur, to gain time, ordered the drummers to beat an alarm. The game was
broken up, every officer ran to his colors, and the aide-de-camp
hastened to explain the matter to the astonished general. The proposed
punishment was deferred and finally prevented; but the escape from a
scandalous breach of discipline had been a narrow one.

As the Revolution drew nearer, its spirit became evident in the army.
The Count of Guibert, the most talented and influential member of the
Board of War in 1788, was the object of satire and epigram. The younger
officers conspired to spoil the success of his manoeuvres. The
experiments that had been tried, the frequent changes in the
regulations, had unsettled their ideas. In their reaction against the
disagreeable rigor of German discipline, they protested that English
officers alone, and not the machine-like soldiers of a despot, were the
models for freemen. The common soldiers caught the spirit of
insubordination from those who commanded them. Especially, the large
regiment of French Guards, a highly privileged body, permanently
quartered in Paris, was infected with the spirit of revolt. Its men were
conspicuous in the early troubles of the Revolution, acting on the side
of the mob.[Footnote: Chérest, i. 552. Miot de Mélito, i. 3.]

The militia of old France does not call for a long notice. It consisted
of from sixty to eighty thousand men, whose chief duty was in garrison
in time of war, and who during peace were not kept constantly together,
but assembled from time to time for drill. As the term of service was
six years, the number of men drawn did not exceed fifteen thousand
annually. This was surely no great drain on a population of twenty-six
millions. Militia duty was greatly hated, however. This appears to have
been because men did not volunteer for it, but were drafted; and because
many persons were exempted from the draft. This immunity covered not
only the sons of aged parents who were dependent on them for support,
but privileged persons of all sorts, from apothecaries to advocates,
gentlemen and their servants and game-keepers. The burden was thus
thrown entirely on the poorer peasantry.[Footnote: Broc, i. 117;
Babeau, _Le Village_, 259.]

The navy in the time of Louis XVI. reached a high state of efficiency.
The war of 1778 to 1783 was in great measure a naval war, and although
the French and their allies were worsted in some of the principal
actions, the general result may be held to have been favorable to them.
The navy at the outbreak of hostilities consisted of about seventy ships
of the line, and as many frigates and large corvettes, with a hundred
smaller vessels. These ships were built on admirable models, for the
French marine architects were well-trained and skillful; but the
materials and the construction were not equal in excellence to the
design. The invention of coppering the ships' bottoms, and thus adding
to their speed, although generally practiced in England, had been
applied in France only to the smaller part of the navy. The French,
however, had an advantage over the English in the fact that ships of the
same nominal class were in reality larger and broader of beam among the
former than among the latter, so that the French were sometimes able to
fight their lower batteries in rough water, when the English had to keep
their lower ports closed.

The naval officers of France were almost all noblemen, and received a
careful professional training. Yet the practice of transferring officers
of high rank from the army to the navy had not been completely
abandoned. Thus d'Estaing, who commanded with little distinction on the
North American coast in 1778, was no sailor, but a lieutenant-général,
artificially turned into a vice-admiral. Such cases, however, were not
common, and in general the French commanders erred rather by adhering
too closely to naval rule, than by want of professional training. In the
navy, as elsewhere, no great original talent was developed during this
reign, which was a time of expectation rather than of action.

The men, like the officers, were good and well-trained, except when the
lack of sailors obliged the government to employ soldiers on shipboard.
It is noticeable that the seamen bore the rope's end with equanimity,
although the landsmen were so much offended at flogging with the flat of
the sword. Nor do I find any complaint of want of discipline at sea.

The administration of naval affairs was less satisfactory than the ships
or the crews. The magazines were not well provided; and the stores were
probably bad, for the fleets were subject to epidemics.[Footnote:
Chabaud-Arnault, 189, 196, 214. Charnoek, iii. 222, 282 Ségur, i. 138.
Chevalier.]

In general the navy appears to have suffered less than the army from the
fermentation of the public mind. Marine affairs must always remain the
concern of a special class of men, cut off by absorbing occupations from
the interests and sympathies of the rest of mankind.



CHAPTER VIII

THE COURTS OF LAW.


While the greater and more conspicuous part of the French nobility lived
by the sword, a highly respectable portion of the order wore the
judicial gown. Prominent in French affairs in the eighteenth century we
find the Parliaments, a branch of the old feudal courts of the kings of
France, retaining the function of high courts of justice, and playing,
moreover, a certain political part. In the Parliament of Paris, on
solemn occasions, sat those few members of the highest nobility who held
the title of Peers of France. With these came the legal hierarchy of
First President, presidents _à mortier_ and counselors, numbering
about two hundred. The members were distributed, for the purposes of
ordinary business, among several courts, the Great Chamber, five courts
of Inquest, two courts of Petitions, etc.[Footnote: Grand' Chambre,
Cour des Enquêtes, Cour des Requêtes.] The Parliament of Paris possessed
original and appellate jurisdiction over a large part of central
France,--too large a part for the convenience of suitors,--but there
were twelve provincial parliaments set over other portions of the
kingdom. The members of these courts, and of several other tribunals of
inferior jurisdiction, formed the magistracy, a body of great dignity
and importance.

We have seen that the church possessed certain political rights; that it
held assemblies and controlled taxes. The political powers of the
parliaments were more limited, amounting to little more than the right
of solemn remonstrance. Under a strong monarch, like Louis XIV., this
power remained dormant; under weak kings, like his successors, it became
important.

The method of passing a law in the French monarchy was this. The king,
in one of his councils, issued an edict, and sent it to the Parliament
of Paris, or to such other Parliaments as it might concern, for
registration. If the Parliament accepted the edict, the latter was
entered in its books, and immediately promulgated as law. If the
Parliament did not approve, and was willing to enter on a contest with
the king and his advisers, it refused to register. In that case the king
might recede, or he might force the registration. This was done by means
of what was called a _bed of justice_. His Majesty, sitting on a
throne (whence the name of the ceremony), and surrounded by his officers
of state, personally commanded the Parliament to register, and the
Parliament was legally bound to comply. As a matter of fact, it did
sometimes continue to remonstrate; it sometimes adjourned, or ceased to
administer justice, by way of protest; but such a course was looked on
as illegal, and severe measures on the part of the king and his
counselors--the court, as the phrase went,--were to be expected. These
measures might take the form of imprisonment of recalcitrant judges, or
of exile of the Parliament in a body. Sometimes new courts of justice,
more closely dependent on the king's pleasure, were temporarily
established. Such were the Royal Chamber and the famous Maupeou
Parliament under Louis XV., the Plenary Court of Louis XVI. Had these
monarchs been strong men, the new courts would undoubtedly have
superseded the old Parliaments altogether; as it was, they led only to
confusion and uncertainty.[Footnote: Du Boys, Hist. du droit criminel
de la France, ii. 225, 239.]

Throughout the reign of Louis XV. the Parliament of Paris was fighting
against the church, while the court repeatedly changed sides, but
oftener inclined to that of clergy. The controversy was theological in
its origin, the magistrates being Jansenist in their proclivities, while
the Church of France was largely controlled by the Molinist, or Jesuit
party. The contest was long and doubtful, neither side obtaining a full
victory. It was the fashion in the Philosophic party to represent the
whole matter as a miserable squabble. Yet, apart from the importance of
the original controversy, which touched the mighty but insoluble
questions of predestination and free-will, the quarrel had a true
interest for patriotic Frenchmen. The Roman Church was contending for
the absolute and unlimited control of religious matters; the Parliament
for the supremacy of law in the state.

In the reign of Louis XVI. the Parliament was principally engaged in
struggles of another character. The magistrates were members of a highly
privileged class. Their battle was arrayed for vested rights against
reforms. From the time of Turgot to that of Lomenie de Brienne and the
Notables, the Parliament of Paris, sometimes in sympathy with the
nation, sometimes against it, was vigorously resisting innovations. Yet
so great was the irritation then felt against the royal court that the
Parliament generally gained a temporary popularity by its course of
opposition.

The courts of justice, and especially the Parliaments, were controlled
by men who had inherited or bought their places.[Footnote: Under Louis
XIV, the price of a place of _président à mortier_ was fixed at
350,000 livres, that of a _maître des requêtes_ at 150,000 livres,
that of a counselor at 90,000 to 100,000 livres. The place of First
President was not venal, but held by appointment. Martin, xiii. 53 and
n. The general subject of the venality of offices is considered in the
chapter on Taxation.] This, while offering no guarantee of capacity,
assured the independence of the judges. As the places were looked on as
property, they were commonly transmitted from father to son, and became
the basis of that nobility of the gown which played a large part in
French affairs. The owner of a judicial place was obliged to pass an
examination in law, before he could assume its duties and emoluments.
This examination differed in severity at different times and in the
different Parliaments. In the latter part of the eighteenth century it
would appear to have been very easy at Paris, but harder in some of the
provinces. The Parliaments, in any case, retained control over admission
to their own bodies. Although they could not nominate, they could refuse
certificates of capacity and morality. They insisted that none but
counselors should be admitted to the higher places, and that candidates
should be men of means, "so that, in a condition where honor should be
the only guide, they might be able to live independently of the profits
accessory to their labors, which should never have any influence." This
caution was especially necessary as the judges were paid in great
measure by the fees, or costs, which under the quaint name of spices
were borne by the parties. Originally these fees had in fact consisted
of sugar plums, not more than could be eaten in a day, but subsequently
they had been commuted and increased until they amounted to considerable
sums.[Footnote: Bastard d'Estang, i. 122, 245; Du Boys, 535.]

By requiring pecuniary independence and social position, together with a
certain amount of learning and of personal character, the tone of the
upper courts was kept good, the magistrates being generally among the
most learned, solid, and respectable men in France. They seem also to
have been hard-working and honest, although prejudiced in favor of their
own privileged class. As the Revolution drew near, they fell into the
common weakness of their age and country, the worship of public opinion,
and the love of popularity. We find the Parliament of Paris undergoing,
and even courting, the applause of the mob in its own halls of justice.
Like the great Assembly which was soon to have in its hands the
destinies of France, the most dignified court of justice in the land
failed to perceive that the deliberative body that allows itself to be
influenced or even interrupted by spectators, will soon, and deservedly,
lose respect and power.[Footnote: De Tocqueville praises the
independence of the old magistrates, who could neither be degraded nor
promoted by the government, Oeuvres, iv. 171 (Ancien Régime, ch. xi.).
Montesquieu, iii. 217 (Esp. des lois, liv. v. ch. xix.). Mirabeau, L'Ami
des hommes, 212, 219. Bastard d'Estang, ii. 611, 621. Grimm, xi. 314.]

When we pass from the consideration of the political functions of the
Parliaments, and of their composition, to that of the ordinary
administration of justice, we are struck by the diversity of the law in
civil matters, and by its severity in criminal affairs. The kingdom of
France, as it existed in the eighteenth century, was made up of many
provinces and cities, various in their history. Each one had its local
customs and privileges. The complication of rules of procedure and
rights of property was almost infinite. The body of the law was derived
from sources of two distinct kinds, from feudal custom and from Roman
jurisprudence. The customs which arose, or were first noted, in the
Middle Ages, originating as, they did in the manners of barbarian
tribes, or in the exigencies of a rude state of society, were products
of a less civilized condition of the human mind than the laws of Rome.
From a very early period, therefore, the most intelligent and educated
lawyers all over Europe were struggling, more or less consciously, to
bring customary feudal law into conformity with Roman ideas. These
legists recognized that in many matters the custom had definitely fixed
the law; but whenever a doubtful question arose, they looked for
guidance to the more perfect system. "The Roman law," they said, "is
observed everywhere, not by reason of its authority, but by the
authority of reason." This idea was peculiarly congenial to the tone of
thought current in the eighteenth century.

Even in England the common and customary law was enlarged at that time
and adapted to new conditions in accordance with Latin principles, by
the genius of Lord Mansfield and other eminent lawyers. In France the
process began earlier and lasted longer. Domat, d'Aguesseau, and Pothier
were but the successors of a long line of jurists. By the time of Louis
XVI., some uniformity of principle had been introduced; but everywhere
feudal irregularity still worried the minds of Philosophers and vexed
the temper of litigants. The courts were numerous and the jurisdiction
often conflicting. The customs were numberless, hardly the same for any
two lordships. To the subjects of Louis XVI., believing as they did that
there was a uniform, natural law of justice easily discoverable by man,
this state of things seemed anomalous and absurd. "Shall the same case
always be judged differently in the provinces and in the capital? Must
the same man be right in Brittany and wrong in Languedoc?" cries
Voltaire. And the inconvenience arising from this excessive variety of
legal rights, together with the vexatious nature of some of them, did
more perhaps than any other single cause to engender in the men of that
time their too great love of uniformity.[Footnote: "Servatur ubique jus
romanum, non ratione imperii, sed rationis imperio." Laferrière, i. 82,
532. See Ibid., i. 553 n., for a list of eighteen courts of
extraordinary jurisdiction, and of five courts of ordinary jurisdiction,
viz.; 1, Parlemens, 2, Présidiaux, 3, Baillis et sénéchaux royaux, 4,
Prévôts royaux, 5, Juges seigneuriaux. Voltaire, xxi. 419 (_Louis
XV._), Sorel, i. 148.]

It has been said that the judges of the higher courts were generally
honest. In the lower courts, and especially in those tribunals which
still depended on the lords, oppression and injustice appear to have
been not uncommon. The bailiffs who presided in them were often partial
where the interests of the lords whose salaries they received were
concerned. And even when we come to the practice before the Parliaments,
the American reader will sometimes be struck with astonishment at the
extent to which members of those high tribunals were allowed by custom
to be influenced by the private and personal solicitation of parties.
The whole spirit of the continental system of civil and criminal law is
here at variance with that of the Anglo-Saxon system. English and
American judges are like umpires in a conflict; French judges like
interested persons conducting an investigation. The latter method is
perhaps the better for unraveling intricate cases, but the former would
seem to expose the bench to less temptation. A judge who is long
closeted with each of the contestants alternately must find it harder to
keep his fingers from bribes and his mind from prejudice than a judge
who is prevented by strict professional étiquette from seeing either
party except in the full glare of the court-room, and from listening to
any argument of counsel, save where both sides are represented.
Accusations of bribery, even of judges, were common in old France. The
lower officers of the court took fees openly. Thick books, under the
name of mémoires, were published, with the avowed intention of
influencing the public and the courts in pending cases.[Footnote: For a
statement that influential persons went unpunished in criminal matters
and got the better of their adversaries in civil matters by means of
_lettres de cachet_, and for instances, see Bos. 148; a long list
of iniquitous judgments, Ibid., 190, etc.]

One judicial abuse especially contrary to fair dealing had become very
common. Powerful and influential persons could have their cases removed
from the tribunals in which they were begun, and tried in other courts
where from personal influence they might expect a more favorable result.
It was not only the royal council that could draw litigation to itself.
The practice was widespread. By a writ called _committimus_, the
tribunal by which an action was to be tried could be changed.

This appears to have been a frequent cause of failure of justice.

As for the criminal proceedings of the age, there was hardly a limit to
their cruelty. Under Louis XV. the prisons were filthy dens, crowded and
unventilated, true fever-holes. A private cell ten feet square, for a
man awaiting trial, cost sixty francs a month. Large dogs were trained
to watch the prisoners and to prevent their escape. Twice a year, in May
and September, the more desperate convicts left Paris for the galleys.
They made the journey chained together in long carts, so that eight
mounted policemen could watch a hundred and twenty of them. The galleys
at Toulon appear to have been less bad than the prisons in Paris. They
were kept clean and well-aired, and the prisoners were fairly well fed
and clothed; but some of them had been imprisoned for forty, fifty, or
even sixty years. They were allowed to for themselves and to earn a
little money. They were divided into three classes, deserters,
smugglers, and thieves, distinguished by the color of their caps.
[Footnote: Mercier, iii. 265, x. 151. Howard, Lazarettos, 54.]

Torture was regarded as a regular means for the discovery of crime. It
was administered in various ways, the forms differing from province to
province. They included the application of fire to various parts of the
body, the distension of the stomach and lungs by water poured into
mouth, thumbscrews, the rack, the boot. These were but methods of
investigation, used on men and women whose crime was not proved. They
might be repeated after conviction for the discovery of accomplices. The
greater part of the examination of accused persons was carried on in
private, and during it they were not allowed counsel for their defense.
They were confronted but once with the witnesses against them, and that
only after those witnesses had given their evidence and were liable to
the penalties of perjury if they retracted it. Many offenses were
punishable with death. Thieving servants might be executed, but under
Louis XVI. public feeling rightly judged the punishment too severe for
the offense, so that masters would not prosecute nor judges condemn for
it.[Footnote: Counsel were not allowed in France for that important
part of the proceedings which was carried on in secret. Voltaire,
xlviii. 132. In England, at that time, counsel were not allowed of right
to prisoners in cases of felony; but judges were in the habit of
straining the law to admit them. Strictly they could only instruct the
prisoner in matters of law. Blackstone iv. fol. 355 (ch. 27). The
English seem for a long time to have entertained a wholesome distrust of
confessions. Blackstone, _ubi supra_. How far is the Continental
love of confessions derived from the church; and how far is the love of
the church for confessions a result of the ever present busybody in
human nature?]

Other criminals did not escape so easily. A most barbarous method of
execution was in use. The wheel was set up in the principal cities of
France. The voice of the crier was heard in the streets as he peddled
copies of the sentence. The common people crowded about the scaffold,
and the rich did not always scorn to hire windows overlooking the scene.
The condemned man was first stretched upon a cross and struck by the
executioner eleven times with an iron bar, every stroke breaking a bone.
The poor wretch was then laid on his back on a cart wheel, his broken
bones protruding through his flesh, his head hanging, his brow dripping
bloody sweat, and left to die. A priest muttered religious consolation
by his side. By such sights as these was the populace of the French
cities trained to enjoy the far less inhuman spectacle of the
guillotine.[Footnote: Mercier, iii. 267. Howard says that the gaoler at
Avignon told him that he had seen prisoners under torture sweat blood.
Lazarettos, 53.]

It was not until the middle of the century that men's minds were fairly
turned toward the reform of the criminal law. Yet eminent writers had
long pointed out the inutility of torture. "Torture-chambers are a
dangerous invention, and seem to make trial of patience rather than of
truth," says Montaigne; but he thinks them the least evil that human
weakness has invented under the circumstances. Montesquieu advanced a
step farther. He pointed out that torture was not necessary. "We see
today a very well governed nation [the English] reject it without
inconvenience." ... "So many clever people and so many men of genius have
written against this practice," he continues, "that I dare not speak
after them. I was about to say that it might be admissible under
despotic governments, where all that inspires fear forms a greater part
of the administration; I was about to say that slaves among the Greeks
and Romans,--but I hear the voice of nature crying out against me."
Voltaire attacked the practice in his usual vivacious manner; but, with
characteristic prudence suggested that torture might still be applied in
cases of regicide.[Footnote: Montaigne, ii. 36 (liv. ii. ch. v). So I
interpret the last words of the chapter. Montesquieu, iii. 260
(_Esprit des Lois,_ liv. vi. ch. 17). Voltaire, xxxii. 52
(_Dict. philos. Question_), xxxii. 391 (_Ibid., Torture_).]

Such scattered expressions as these might long have remained unfruitful.
But in 1764 appeared the admirable book of the Milanese Marquis
Beccaria, and about thirteen years later the Englishman John Howard
published his first book on the State of the Prisons. Beccaria shared
the ideas of the Philosophers on most subjects. Where he differed from
them, it was as Rousseau differed, in the direction of socialism. But in
usefulness to mankind few of them can compare with him. From him does
the modern world derive some of its most important ideas concerning the
treatment of crime. Extreme, like most of the Philosophers of his age;
unable, like them, to recognize the proper limitations of his theories,
he has yet transformed the thought of civilized men on one of the most
momentous subjects with which they have to deal. So great is the change
wrought in a hundred years by his little book, that it is hard to
remember as we read it that it could ever have been thought to contain
novelties. "The end of punishment... is no other than to prevent the
criminal from doing farther injury to society, and to prevent others
from committing the like offense." "All trials should be public." "The
more immediately after the commission of a crime the punishment is
inflicted, the more just and useful it will be." "Crimes are more
effectually prevented by the _certainty_ than by the severity of
punishment." These are the commonplaces of modern criminal legislation.
The difficulty lies in applying them. In the eighteenth century their
enunciation was necessary. "The torture of a criminal during his trial
is a cruelty consecrated by custom in almost every nation," says
Beccaria. Indeed it seems to have been legal in his day all over the
Continent, although restricted in Prussia and obsolete in practice in
Holland. Beccaria opposed torture entirely, on broad grounds. As to
torture before condemnation he holds it a grievous wrong to the
innocent, "for in the eye of the law, every man is innocent whose crime
has not been proved. Besides, it is confounding all relations to expect
that a man should be both the accuser and the accused, and that pain
should be the test of truth; as if truth resided in the muscles and
sinews of a wretch in torture. By this method, the robust will escape
and the weak will be condemned." The penalties proposed by Beccaria are
generally mild,--he would have abolished that of death altogether,--his
reliance being on certainty and not on severity of punishment.
[Footnote: Beccaria, _passim_. Lea, _Superstition and Force_,
515.]

It was not to be expected that Beccaria's book should work an immediate
change in the manners of Christendom. The criminal law remained
unaltered at first, in theory and practice. But the consciences of the
more advanced thinkers were affected. In 1766, at Abbeville, a young man
named La Barre was convicted of standing and wearing his hat while a
religious procession was passing, singing blasphemous songs, speaking
blasphemous words, and making blasphemous gestures. There was much
popular excitement at the time on account of the mutilation of a
crucifix standing on a bridge in the town, but La Barre was not shown to
have been concerned in this outrage. The judges at Abbeville appear to
have laid themselves open to the accusation of personal hostility to
him. The young man, having been tortured, was condemned to make public
confession with a rope round his neck, before the church of Saint
Vulfran, where the injured crucifix: had been placed, to have his tongue
cut out, to be beheaded, and to have his body burned. This outrageous
sentence was confirmed by the Parliament of Paris. The superstitious
king, Louis XV., would not grant a pardon. The capital sentence was
executed, but the cutting out of the tongue was omitted, the executioner
only pretending to do that part of his work. La Barre's head fell, amid
the applause of a cruel crowd which admired the skillful stroke of the
headsman. A thrill of indignation, not unmixed with fear, ran through
the liberal party in France. The anger and grief of Voltaire were loudly
expressed. It was at least an improvement on the state of public feeling
in former generations that such severity should not have met with
universal acquiescence.[Footnote: The best account of the affair of La
Barre which I have met is in Desnoiresterres, _Voltaire et
Rousseau_, 465.]

The practice of torture was not without defenders. One of them asked
what could be done to find stolen money if the thief refused to say
where he had hidden it. But this was not his only argument. "The accused
himself," he said, "has a guarantee in torture, which makes him a judge
in his own case, so that he becomes able to avoid the capital punishment
attached to the crime of which he is accused." And this writer
confidently asserts that for a single example which might be cited in
two or three centuries of an innocent man yielding to the violence of
torture, a million cases of rightful punishment could be mentioned.
[Footnote: Muyard de Vougland, quoted in Du Boys, ii. 205 ]

Yet the march of progress was fairly rapid in the latter part of the
eighteenth century. In the jurisprudence of that age a distinction was
made between preparatory torture, which was administered to suspected
persons to make them confess, and previous torture, which was
inflicted on the condemned, previous to execution, to obtain the
accusation of accomplices. The former of these, by far the greater
disgrace to civilization, was abolished in France on the 24th of
August, 1780; the latter not until, 1788, and then only provisionally.
Thus was one of the greatest of modern reforms accomplished before the
Revolution. About the same time many ordinances were passed for the
amelioration of French prisons. They were about as bad as those of
other countries, and that was very bad indeed.[Footnote: _Question
préparatoire; question préalable, sometimes called q. définitive_.
Desmaze, _Supplices_, 177. Desjardins, p. xx. Howard, _passim_. The
English have long boasted that torture is not allowed by their law;
and although the _peine forte et dure_ was undoubted torture, the
boast is in general not unfounded. Torture was abolished in several
parts of Germany in the eighteenth century, but lingered in other
parts until the nineteenth. It was not done away in Baden until
1831. Lea, _Superstition and Force_, 517.]

The courts of law did not act against persons alone. The Parliament of
Paris was in the habit of passing condemnation on books supposed to
contain dangerous matter. The suspected volume was brought to the bar
of the court by the advocate general, the objectionable passages were
read, and the book declared to be "heretical, schismatical, erroneous,
blasphemous, violent, impious," and condemned to be burned by the public
executioner. Then a fagot was lighted at the foot of the great steps
which may still be seen in front of the court-house in Paris. The street
boys and vagabonds ran to see the show. The clerk of the court, if we
may believe a contemporary, threw a dusty old Bible into the fire, and
locked the condemned book, doubly valuable for its condemnation, safely
away in his book-case.[Footnote: Mercier, iv. 241.]

As for the author, the Parliament would sometimes proceed directly
against him, but oftener he was dealt with by an order under the royal
hand and seal, known as a _lettre de cachet_[Footnote: The
_lettre de cachet_ was written on paper, signed by the king, and
countersigned by a minister. It was so sealed that it could not be
opened without breaking the seal. It was reputed a private order.
Larousse.] Arbitrary imprisonment, without trial, is a thing so
outrageous to Anglo-Saxon feelings that we are apt to forget that it has
until recent years formed a part of the regular practice of most
civilized nations. It is considered necessary to what is called the
_police_ of the country, a word for which we have in English no
exact equivalent. Police, in this sense, not only punishes crime, but
averts danger. Acts which may injure the public are prevented by
guessing at evil intentions; and criminal enterprises are not allowed to
come to action.

This sort of protection is a part of the function of every government;
but on the Continent, in old times, and still in some countries, long
and painful imprisonment of men who had never been convicted of any
crime was considered one of the proper methods of police. It was
justified in some measure in French eyes by the fact that secrecy saved
the feelings of innocent families, which thus did not suffer in the
public estimation for the misdeeds of one unruly member. In France,
where the family is much more of a unit than in English-speaking
countries, the disgrace of one person belonging to it affects the others
far more seriously. The _lettre de cachet_ of old France, confining
its victim in a state prison, was too elaborate a method to be used with
the turbulent lower classes--for them there were less dignified forms of
proceeding; but it was freely employed against persons of any
consequence. Spendthrifts and licentious youths were shut up at the
request of their relations. Authors of dangerous books were readily
clapped into the Bastille, Vincennes or Fors l'Evêque. Voltaire,
Diderot, Mirabeau, and many others underwent that sort of confinement;
and the first of them is said to have procured by his influence the
incarceration of one of his own literary enemies. Fallen statesmen were
fortunate when they did not pass from the cabinet to the prison, but
were allowed the alternative of exile, or of seclusion in their own
country houses. But this was not the worst. The _lettre de cachet_
was too often the instrument of private hate. Signed carelessly, or even
in blank, by the king, it could be procured by the favorite or the
favorite's favorite, for his own purposes. And if the victim had no
protector to plead his cause, he might be forgotten in captivity and
waste a lifetime.

For such abuses as this, there is no remedy but publicity. If, on the
one hand, too much has been made of the romantic story of the Bastille,
which was certainly not a standing menace to most peaceable Frenchmen,
too great stress, on the other hand, may be laid on the undoubted fact
that under Louis XVI. the grim old fortress contained but few prisoners,
and that some of them were persons who might have been cast into prison
under any system of government. In the reign of that king's immediate
predecessor great injustice had been committed. Nor had arbitrary
proceedings been entirely renounced by the government of Louis XVI.
itself. In the very last year before that in which the Estates General
met at Versailles, the royal ministers imprisoned in the Bastille twelve
Breton gentlemen, whose crime was that they importunately presented a
petition from the nobles of their province. The apartments which they
were to occupy were filled with other prisoners, so room was made by
removing these unhappy occupants to the madhouse at Charenton, whence
they were released only in the following year by order of a committee of
the National Assembly.[Footnote: Barère, i. 281. Perhaps the most
terrifying thing about the Bastille was that no one really knew what
went on inside. Mercier thinks that the common people were not afraid of
it, iii. 287, 289.]



CHAPTER IX.

EQUALITY AND LIBERTY.


It was as a privileged order that the Nobility of France principally
excited the ill-will of the common people. The more thoughtful Frenchmen
of the eighteenth century, all of them at least who have come to be
known by the name of Philosophers, set before themselves two great
ideals. These were equality and liberty. The aspiration after these was
accompanied in their minds by contempt for the past and its lessons,
misunderstanding of the benefits which former ages had bequeathed to
them, and hatred of the wrongs and abuses which had come down from
earlier times. Among them the word gothic was a violent term of
reproach, aimed indiscriminately at buildings, laws, and customs.
History, with the exception of that of Sparta, was thought to consist
far more of warnings than of models. Just before the Revolution, a
number of persons who had met in a lady's parlor were discussing the
education of the Dauphin. "I think," said Lafayette," that he would do
well to begin his History of France with the year 1787."

This tendency to depreciate the past was due in a measure to the
preference, natural to lively minds, for deductive over inductive
methods of thought. It is so much easier and pleasanter to assume a few
plausible general principles and meditate upon them, than to amass and
compare endless series of dry facts, that not by long chastening will
the greater part of the world be brought to the more arduous method. Nor
should enthusiasm for one of the great processes of thought cause
contempt of the other. Even the great inductive French philosopher of
the eighteenth century, Montesquieu, failed in a measure to grasp the
continuity of history; and drew the facts for his study rather from
China and from England than from France, rather from the Roman republic
than the existing monarchy. Fear of the censor and of the civil and
ecclesiastical tribunals, which would not bear the open discussion of
questions of present interest, doubtless added to this tendency.

The idea of equality at first seems simple, but equality may be of many
kinds. Absolute equality in all respects between two human beings, no
one has ever seen, and no one perhaps has ever thought of desiring. All
the relations of life are founded on inequality. By their differences
husband and wife, friend and friend, are made necessary and endeared to
each other; the parent protects and serves the child, the child obeys
and helps the parent; the citizen calls on the magistrate to guard his
rights, the magistrate enforces the laws which have their sanction in
the consent of the body of citizens. Equality as a political ideal is
therefore a limited equality. It may extend to condition, it may be
confined to civil rights, or to opportunities.

The Philosophers of the eighteenth century, followed by a school in our
day, universally assumed that an approximate equality of condition was
desirable. Rousseau agreed with Montesquieu, in believing that a small
republic, none of whose citizens were either very rich or very poor, was
likely to be in a desirable condition. Virtue, they thought, would be
its especial characteristic. In some of the Swiss cantons, and later in
the struggling American colonies of Great Britain, Frenchmen discovered
communities approaching their ideal in respect to the equal distribution
of wealth; and their discovery in the latter case was not without great
results. This kind of equality has since passed away from large portions
of America, as it must always disappear where civilization increases.
Good people mourn its departure; some few, perhaps, would patiently
endure its return. They are about as numerous as those who abandon city
life to dwell permanently in the country, also the home of comparative
equality of condition. The theoretic admiration for this sort of
equality was shared by a large and enlightened part of the French
nobility. Thus the order was weakened by the fact that many of its own
members did not believe in its claims.

Another kind of equality is that of civil rights. Before the Revolution,
France was ruled by law, but all Frenchmen were not ruled by the same
law. There were privileged persons and privileged localities. Of these
anomalies, sometimes working hardship, the minds of intelligent men at
that time were especially impatient. They believed, as has been said, in
natural laws, implanted in every breast, finding their expression in
every conscience; and many of them entertained a crude notion that such
laws could easily be applied to the enormously complicated facts of
actual life. Assuming such laws to exist, as absolute as mathematical
axioms and far easier of application, all variation was error, all
anomaly absurd, all claims of a privileged class unfair and unfounded.

Equality of civil rights is also desired from the fear of oppression; a
very important motive in the eighteenth century, when the great still
had the power to be very oppressive at times. We have seen the treatment
which Voltaire received at the hands of a member of one of the great
families. Outrages still more flagrant appear to have been not uncommon
in the reign of Louis XV., and although there had probably never been a
time in France so free from them as that of his successor, their memory
was still fresh. It is in their decrepitude that political abuses are
most ferociously attacked. When young and lusty they are formidable.

Again, there is equality of opportunity. This is desired as a means of
subverting equality of condition to our own advantage, as a chance to be
more than equal to our fellow-men. This kind is longed for by the able
and ambitious. Where it is denied, the strongest good men will be less
useful to the state, unless they happen to be favorably placed at birth;
the strongest bad men perhaps more dangerous, because more discontented.
It is this sort of equality, more than any other, which the French
Philosophers and their followers actually secured for Frenchmen, and in
a less degree for other Europeans of to-day. By their efforts, the
chance of the poor but talented child to rise to power and wealth has
been somewhat increased. This chance, when they began their labors, was
not so hopeless as it is often represented. It is not now so great as it
is sometimes assumed to be. Still, there has been one decided advance.
We have seen that under the old monarchy many important places were
reserved for members of the noble class, and practically for a few
families among them. Since that monarchy passed away, the opportunity to
serve the state, with the great prizes which public life offers to the
strong and the aspiring, has been thrown open, theoretically at least,
to all Frenchmen.

If the idea of equality be comparatively simple, that of liberty is very
much the reverse. The word, in its general sense, signifies little more
than the absence of external control. In politics it is used, in the
first place, for the absence of foreign conquest, and in this sense a
country may be called free although it is governed by a despot. The next
signification of liberty is political right, and this is the sense in
which it has been most used until recent years. When a tyrant overthrew
the liberties of a Greek city, he substituted his own personal rule for
the rights of an oligarchy. The mass of the inhabitants may have been
neither better nor worse off than before. When Hampden resisted the
encroachments of King Charles I, he was fighting the battle of the upper
and middle classes against despotism, and we hold him one of the
principal champions of liberty. Indeed, liberty in this sense is so far
from being identical with equality, that many of those who have been
foremost in its defense have been members of aristocracies and holders
of slaves. To accuse them of inconsistency is to be misled by the
ambiguous meaning of a word. They fought for rights which they believed
to be their own; they denied that the rights of all men were identical.
During the eighteenth century in France, certain bodies, such as the
clergy and the Parliament of Paris, were struggling for political
liberties in this older sense, and before the outbreak of the French
Revolution many of the most enlightened of the nobility hoped to acquire
such liberties. Much blood and confusion might have been spared, and
many useful reforms accomplished, had Frenchmen clutched less wildly at
the phantom of equality, and sought the safer goal of political liberty.

Another sort of liberty, although it has undoubtedly been desired by
individuals in all ages, is almost entirely modern as an ideal for
civilized communities. This is the absence of interference, not only of
a foreign power or of a lawless oppressor, but of the very law itself.
The desire for such freedom as this, would in almost all ages of the
world have been held inconsistent with proper respect for order and
security. It would have been considered no more than the wicked longing
of an unchastened spirit, the temptation of the Evil One himself. In the
eighteenth century, however, we see the rise of new opinions. It may be
that order had become so firmly established in the European world that a
reaction could safely set in. At any rate we find a new way of looking
at things. "Independence," a word which had been often used by the
clerical party, and always as a term of reproach, is treated by the
Philosophers with favor. Toleration of all kinds of opinions, and of
most kinds of spoken words, is making way.[Footnote: In spite of the
impatience shown by Voltaire of any criticism of himself, he and his
followers did more than any other men that ever lived to make criticism
free to all writers.] A new school of thinkers is adapting the new form
of thought to economical matters. _Laissez faire; laissez passer_.
Restrict the functions of government. Order will arise from the average
of contending interests; right direction is produced by the sum of
conflicting forces. The doctrine has exerted enormous influence since
the French Revolution in resisting the claims of socialism,--that new
form of tyranny in which all are to be the despot and each the slave.
But few of the Philosophers accepted it entirely. Most of them desired
the constant interference of the government for one purpose or another,
and many believed in the power, almost the omnipotence, of a mythical
personage, borrowed in part from Plutarch and commonly called the
Legislator.

The history and action of this personage may be roughly stated as
follows. Every nation now civilized was in early days in a barbarous
condition. Once upon a time, a great man came from somewhere, and
brought a complete set of laws, morals, and manners with him. To these
laws and customs he generally ascribed a divine origin. The nation to
which they were proclaimed adopted them, and the people's subsequent
happiness and prosperity were in proportion to their excellence. The
reasons which are supposed to have induced the barbarous tribe to change
all its habits at the bidding of one man are seldom given, or if given,
are ludicrously inadequate. The theory of the legislator is now out of
date. It is generally held that the institutions of every race have
grown up with it, that they are appropriate to its nature and history,
gradually modified sometimes by act of the national will, and more or
less changed under foreign influences, but that their general character
cannot suddenly be subverted. Its institutions thus as truly belong to a
civilized race, as the skin without fur or the erect position belong to
mankind. There is some evidence in support of either theory, and the
truth will probably be found to lie between them, although nearer to the
latter. Yet the effect of a higher civilization implanted on a lower one
seems at times singularly rapid. The story of the legislator is a part
of most early histories and mythologies. The classical model has
generally been held to be either Minos or Lycurgus. There were few
clever men in France between the years 1740 and 1790 who did not dream
of trying on the sandals of those worthies.

While the ideas attached to equality and to liberty were vague and
indefinite, it was generally assumed that they would coincide. Liberty
and equality, however, have tendencies naturally opposed to each other.
Remove the exterior forces which control the wills of men, overturn
foreign domination, give every citizen political rights, reduce the
interference of laws to a minimum, and the natural differences and
inequalities of physical, mental, and moral strength, or power of will,
inherent in mankind, will have the fuller opportunity to act. The strong
improve their natural advantage, they acquire dominion over their weaker
neighbors, they monopolize opportunities for themselves, their friends
and their children. Only by keeping all men in strict subjection to
something outside of themselves can all be kept in comparative equality.
This fact was instinctively apprehended by one school of French
thinkers. We shall see that the followers of Rousseau, while posing as
champions of Liberty, were in fact the founders of a system which is the
very antithesis of individual freedom.[Footnote: It is perhaps needless
to remark that I have touched here only on the political meanings of the
word Liberty. In the eighteenth century the word was much used in its
philosophical sense, and the eternal problem of necessity and free-will
was warmly discussed.]



CHAPTER X.

MONTESQUIEU.


One man stands out among the French nobility of the gown in the
eighteenth century, influencing human thought beyond the walls of the
court-room; one Philosopher who looks on existing society as something
to be saved and directed. The work of Voltaire and his followers was
principally negative. Their favorite task was demolition. The ugly and
uninhabitable edifices of Rousseau's genius required for their erection
a field from which all possible traces of civilized building had been
removed. But Montesquieu, while he satirized the vices of the society
which he saw about him, yet appreciated at their full value the benefits
of civilization. He recognized that change is always accompanied by
evil, even if its preponderating result be good, and that it should be
attempted only with care and caution. His ideas influenced the leading
men of the second half of the century somewhat in proportion to their
judgment and in inverse proportion to their enthusiasm.

Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron of Montesquieu, born in 1689, was by
inheritance one of the presidents of the Parliament of Bordeaux.
[Footnote: In his youth he was known as Charles Louis de la Brède, the
name being taken from a fief of his mother. The name of Montesquieu he
inherited from an uncle, together with his place of _président à
mortier_. Vian, _Histoire de Montesquieu_, 16, 30.] He was recognized
in early life as a rising man, a respectable magistrate, sensible and
brilliant rather than learned; a man of the world, rich and thrifty,
not very happily married, and fond of the society of ladies. In
appearance he was ugly, with a large head, weak eyes, a big nose, a
retreating forehead and chin. In temperament he was calm and cheerful.
"I have had very few sorrows," he says, "and still less
ennui."--"Study has been to me a sovereign remedy against the troubles
of life, and I have never had a grief that an hour's reading would not
dissipate." He was shy, he tells us, but less among bright people than
among stupid ones. Good-natured he appears to have been, and somewhat
selfish; easily amused, less by what people said than by their way of
saying it. He was a good landlord and a kind master. It is told of him
that one day, while scolding one of his servants, he turned round with
a laugh to a friend standing by. "They are like clocks," said he, "and
need winding up now and then".[Footnote: See the medallion given in
Vian, and said by the _Biographie universelle_ to be the only
authentic portrait. Also Montesq. vii. 150, (_Pensées diverses.
Portrait de M. par lui-même_, apparently written when he was about
forty). Also Vian, 141.]

Montesquieu set himself a high standard of duty. In a paper intended
only for his son, he writes: "If I knew something which was useful to
myself and injurious to my family, I should reject it from my mind. If I
knew of anything which was useful to my family and which was not so to
my country, I should try to forget it. If I knew something useful to my
country, which was injurious to Europe and the human race, I should
consider it a crime."[Footnote: Montesq., vii. 157.]

Montesquieu's first book appeared in 1721, a book very different from
those which followed it. It is witty and licentious after a rather
stately fashion, full of keen observation and cutting satire. In
contrast to the books of other famous writers of the century, the
"Persian Letters" are eminently the work of a gentleman;--of a French
gentleman, when the Duke of Orléans was Regent.

The "Lettres Persanes" are, as their name suggests, the supposed
correspondence of two rich Persians, Usbek and Rica, traveling in France
and exchanging letters with their friends and their eunuchs in Persia.
The letters which the travelers receive, containing the gossip of their
harems, form but the smaller portion of the book, and are evidently
intended to give it variety and lightness. In the letters which they
write to their Persian correspondents we have the satirical picture of
French society. How far had the ruling, infallible church sunk in the
minds of Frenchmen, when a well-placed and rather selfish man could
write what follows.

"The Pope is the chief of the Christians. He is an old idol, to which
people burn incense from the force of habit. In old times he was
formidable even to princes; for he deposed them as easily as our
magnificent Sultans depose the kings of Irimette and of Georgia. But he
is no longer feared. He calls himself the successor of one of the
earliest Christians, known as Saint Peter; and it is certainly a rich
inheritance, for he has enormous treasures and a rich country under his
dominion."

The bishops are legists, subordinate to the Pope. They have two
functions. When assembled they make articles of faith as he does. When
separate, they dispense people from obeying the law. For the Christian
religion is full of difficult observances; and it is thought to be
harder to do your duty than to have bishops to give you dispensation.
The doctors, bishops, and monks are constantly raising questions on
religious subjects, and dispute for a long time, until at last an
assembly is held to decide among them. In no kingdom have there been as
many civil wars as in that of Christ.[Footnote: Montesq., i. 124.
Letter xxix.]

Farther on we have a picture of the way in which religion is regarded in
French society. It is less a subject of sanctification than of dispute.
Courtiers, soldiers, even women, rise up against ecclesiastics and ask
them to prove what the others have resolved not to believe. This is not
because people have determined their minds by reason, nor that they have
taken the trouble to examine the truth or falsehood of this religion
which they reject. They are rebels who have felt the yoke and who have
shaken it off before they have known it. They are, therefore, no firmer
in their unbelief than in their faith. They live in an ebbing and
flowing tide, which unceasingly carries them from one to the other.
[Footnote: Montesq., i. 251. Letter lxxv.] Making a large allowance for
satire, we have yet an interesting and doleful picture of a small but
important part of the French nation. And it is noticeable that the
Persian Letters precede by thirteen years Voltaire's "Philosophical," or
"English Letters."[Footnote: 1721-1734.]

Montesquieu argues that it is well to have several sects in a country,
as they keep a watch on each other, and every man is anxious not to
disgrace his party. But it is for toleration and not for equality that
the author pleads. A state church seemed almost necessary to thought in
the early part of the eighteenth century. Yet Montesquieu has no great
liking for any form of dogmatic religion; in this he belongs distinctly
with the Philosophers; morality is, in his eyes, the great, perhaps the
only thing to be desired; obedience to law, love to men, filial piety,
those, he says, are the first acts of all religions; ceremonies are good
only on the supposition that God has commanded them; but about the
commands of God it is easy to be mistaken, for there are two thousand
religions, each of which puts in its claim. Thus was the great argument
of the Catholics, that the multiplicity of Protestant sects--provided
their falsity, turned against its inventors.[Footnote: Ibid., i. 164.
Letter xlvi. Compare with Montesquieu's opinion, expressed in the
_Spirit of the Laws_, that the sovereign should neither allow the
establishment of a new form of religion, nor persecute one already
established.]

The licentiousness of the "Persian Letters" has been mentioned. It is
one of the most noticeable features of the writings of the Philosophers
of the eighteenth century that the whole subject of sexual morality is
viewed by them from a standpoint different from that taken by ourselves.
The thinking Frenchmen of that age believed that there was a system of
natural morals, imposed on man by his own nature and the nature of
things. They believed that there was also an artificial system resting
only on positive law, or on the ordinances of the church. It was the
tendency of the ecclesiastical mind to ignore that distinction. That
tendency had been pushed too far and had produced a reaction.

The distinction is one which is not quite disregarded even by men of
those races which have most respect for law. Nobody feels that the
injunction to keep off the grass in a public park, or the rule to pass
to the right in driving, is of quite the same sort of obligation as
the precept to keep your hands from picking and stealing. A far
greater amount of odium is incurred by the known breach of a rule of
natural morals, than by that of a rule depending solely on the
ordinance of the legislative power. Smuggling may be mentioned as a
crime coming near the dividing line in the popular feeling of most
countries. Few men would feel as much disgraced at being caught by a
custom-house officer, with a box of cigars hidden under the trowsers
at the bottom of their trunk, as at being seized in the act of
stealing the same box from the counter of a tobacconist. In countries
where the laws are arbitrary and the law-making power distrusted, this
distinction is more strongly marked than where the government has the
full confidence and approbation of the community. The more progressive
Frenchmen of a hundred and fifty years ago believed the laws of their
country to be bad in many respects. They therefore thought that there
was a great difference between what jurists call _prohibited wrong_
and _wrong in itself_.

Now, admitting this distinction to exist in men's minds, there is one
large class of crimes and vices which is put in one category by most
Anglo-Saxons and which was put in the other by the French Philosophers.
These are the breaches of the sexual laws. It is one of the greatest
services of the church to Christendom that she has always laid
particular emphasis on the duty of chastity. It is one of her greatest
errors, that she has exalted the practice of celibacy over that of
conjugal fidelity. The Philosophers, as was their custom, looked abroad
on the practice of various nations. They found that some of the ancients
granted divorce freely at the request of either party. They learned that
Orientals generally allowed polygamy. They saw in their own country a
low state of sexual morals among the highest classes, partly due perhaps
to the example of a depraved court. Observation and desire concurred
with hatred of the clergy to warp their judgments. They forgot, at least
in part, that chastity is the foundation of the family and the civilized
state; that divorce and polygamy, although of momentous importance, are
but secondary questions; that on sexual self-restraint civilization
rests, as much as on respect for life and property. On the false theory
that unchastity is but an artificial crime, the delusive invention of an
ascetic church, will, I think, be found to depend much that has been
worst in the practice of Frenchmen, much that is most disgusting in
their literature.[Footnote: The commandment "Thou shalt not commit
adultery" is equally applicable to polygamists and monogamists. It was
originally promulgated to the former, and to a nation in which a man
could put away his wife.]

This theory is seldom held unreservedly. In the "Persian Letters" it
goes no farther than an elaborate apology for divorce, a scathing
denunciation of celibacy, and a general licentiousness of tone. The
later writings of Montesquieu are free from indecency. But it is
noticeable of him, perhaps the most high-minded of the Philosophers, and
of the rest of them, that while they constantly insist on the importance
of virtue, they hardly rank chastity among the virtues.[Footnote: See
the story of a Guebir who marries his sister, Montesq., i. 226, Letter
lxvii. The point appears to be that the laws forbidding marriage in
cases of consanguinity are arbitrary.]

The monarchy fares little better than the church in the "Persian
Letters." "The King of France," says Rica, "is the most powerful prince
in Europe. He has no gold-mines like his neighbor the King of Spain; but
he has more wealth than the latter, for he draws it from the vanity of
his subjects, more inexhaustible than mines. He has been known to
undertake and carry on great wars, with no other resource than titles of
honor to sell; and by a prodigy of human pride, his troops were paid,
his forts furnished, his fleets equipped."

"Moreover, this king is a great magician; he rules the very minds of his
subjects; he makes them think as he pleases. If he has only one million
dollars in his treasury and needs two, he has but to assure them that
one dollar is worth two, and they believe him. If he has a difficult war
to carry on, and has no money, he has but to put it into their heads
that a piece of paper is bullion, and immediately they are convinced. He
even goes so far as to make them believe that he cures them of all
manner of diseases by touching them. Such is the strength and power that
he has over their minds."[Footnote: Ibid., i. 110, Letter xxiv.
Referring to the sale of offices and titles, to the habit of debasing
the coinage, and to that of touching for scrofula.]

"What I tell you of this prince need not astonish you, There is another
magician stronger than he; who is no less master of the king's spirit,
than the king himself is of that of others. This magician is called the
Pope. Sometimes he makes the king believe that three are only one; that
the bread people eat is not bread, that the wine that they drink is not
wine, and many things of the same kind."

Rica has seen the young king, Louis XV. His countenance is majestic and
charming; a good education, added to a good natural disposition, gives
promise of a great sovereign. But Rica is informed that you cannot tell
about these western kings until you know of their mistress and their
confessor. "Under a young prince these exercise rival powers; under an
old one, they are united. The strength of a young king makes the dervish
weak; but the mistress turns both strength and weakness to account."
[Footnote: Montesq., i. 339, Letter cvii.]

The Christian princes long ago freed all the slaves in their states;
saying that Christianity made all men equal. This religious action was
very useful to them, for it abridged the power of their chief lords.
Since then, they have conquered new countries where slavery was
profitable. They have forgotten their religion and allowed slaves to be
bought and sold.[Footnote: Ibid., i. 252, Letter lxxv.]

The French are more governed by the laws of honor than the Persians,
because they are more free. But the sanctuary of honor, reputation, and
virtue seems to be built in republics, where a man may feel that he has
indeed a country. In Greece and Rome a crown of leaves, a statue, the
praise of the state, were recompense enough for a battle won or a city
taken. Switzerland and Holland, with the poorest soil in Europe, are
the most populous countries for their area. Liberty--and opulence,
which always follows it--draws strangers to the country. Political
equality among citizens generally produces equality of fortune, and
scatters abundance and life.

But under an arbitrary government, the prince, his courtiers, and a few
individuals, possess all the wealth, while the rest of the country
suffers from extreme poverty.[Footnote: Montesq., i. 291, Letter
lxxxix. See also pp. 381, 386, Letters cxxii., cxxiv.]

The satirical character of the "Persian Letters" is sufficiently evident
from the extracts given above. But Montesquieu is far more widely and
justly known as a wise and learned writer on government than as a
satirist. The book we have been considering was by far the lightest, as
it was the earliest, of his considerable writings. The good sense,
caution, and conservatism of his nature appear in the "Persian Letters"
less conspicuously than in his later works; yet, even there, are in
marked contrast to the haste and shallowness of many of the
Philosophers. "It is true'," he says, "that laws must sometimes be
altered, but the case is rare; and when it happens, they should be
touched with a trembling hand; and so many solemnities should be
observed, and so many precautions used, that the people may naturally
conclude that the laws are very sacred, since so many formalities are
necessary to abrogate them."[Footnote: Ibid., i. 401, Letter cxxix.]

Here is an opinion, overstated perhaps, but not without its frequent
illustrations since he wrote it. "It seems ... that the largest heads
grow narrow when they are assembled, and that where there are, most wise
men, there is least wisdom. Large bodies are always deeply attached to
details, to vain customs; and essential matters are always postponed. I
have heard that a king of Aragon, having assembled the Estates of Aragon
and Catalonia, the first meetings were taken up in deciding in what
language the deliberations should be held. The dispute was lively, and
the Estates would have broken up a thousand times, had not an expedient
been hit upon, which was that the questions should be put in Catalonian
and the answers given in Aragonese."[Footnote: Montesq., i. 344, Letter
cix. See several of the principal deliberative bodies of the world so
bound by their own rules that they can scarcely move; and compare with
them in point of efficiency the small legislatures and boards which
manage many important and complicated interests promptly, sitting with
closed doors.]

"I have never heard people talk about public law," he says in another
letter, "that they did not inquire carefully what was the origin of
society; which strikes me as absurd. If men did not form a society, if
they separated and fled from each other, we should have to ask the
reason of it, and to seek out why they kept apart. But they are created
all bound to each other, the son is born near his father and stays
there; this is society, and the cause of society."[Footnote: Ibid., i.
301, Letter xciv.]

A satirical book, like the "Persian Letters," could not have been openly
published in France under Louis XV. The first edition was in fact
printed at Amsterdam, although Cologne appeared on the title-page as the
place of publication. The book was anonymous, but Montesquieu was well
known to be the author, and speedily acquired a great reputation. After
several years, for things did not move fast in Old France, he was
proposed for election to the Academy. To be one of the forty members of
that body is the legitimate ambition of the literary Frenchman. The
Cardinal de Fleury, who was prime minister, is said to have announced
that the king would never consent to the election of the author of the
"Persian Letters." He added that he had not read the book, but that
people in whom he had confidence assured him that it was dangerous.
According to Voltaire, Montesquieu thereupon had a garbled edition of
the Letters hastily printed, himself took a copy to the Cardinal,
induced His Eminence to read a part of it, and, with the help of
friends, prevailed on him to alter his decision. Such a trick is more
worthy of Voltaire, who continually denied his own works, than of
Montesquieu, who, I believe, never did so. D'Alembert tells the story in
a way entirely creditable to the latter. He says that Montesquieu saw
the minister, told him that for private reasons he did not give his name
to the "Persian Letters," but that he was far from disowning a book of
which he did not think he had cause to be ashamed. He then insisted that
the Letters should be judged after reading them, and not on hearsay.
Thereupon the Cardinal read the book, was pleased with it and with its
author, and withdrew his opposition to the latter's election to the
Academy.[Footnote: _Nouvelle Biographie Universelle. Voltaire (Siècle
de Louis XIV. liste des écrivains)_. D'Alembert, vi. 252. The date of
Montesquieu's election was Jan. 24, 1728. See a discussion of the whole
story in Vian, 100. Montesquieu is there said to have threatened to
leave France, and to have declined a pension at this time. Montesquieu
tells the story of the pension, but without fixing a date: "Je dis que
n'ayant pas fait de bassesse, je n'avais pas besoin d'etre consolé par
des graces," vii. 157. Voltaire was always jealous of Montesquieu's
reputation; and also, at this time, out of temper with the Academy, to
which he was elected only in 1746.]

A little before this time Montesquieu resigned his place as one of the
presidents of the Parliament of Bordeaux, selling the life estate in it,
but reserving the reversion for his son. Having thus obtained leisure,
he set out on a long course of travel, lasting three years. "In France,"
said he later, "I make friends with everybody; in England with nobody;
in Italy I make compliments to every one; in Germany I drink with every
one." "When I go into a country, I do not look to see if there are good
laws, but whether they execute those they have; for there are good laws
everywhere."[Footnote: Vian, 90. Montesq. vii. 186, 189.]

Montesquieu arrived in England in the autumn of 1729, sailing from
Holland in the yacht of Lord Chesterfield, whose acquaintance he had
made on the Continent. He spent seventeen months in the country, and, in
spite of his epigram about making friends with nobody, saw some of the
most eminent men, including Swift and Pope, was received by the Royal
Society, and presented at Court. At a time when England and the English
language were little known in France, he studied them in a way which
deeply influenced all his views of government. "In London," he says,
"liberty and equality. The liberty of London is the liberty of the best
people,[Footnote: _Honnestes gens,_ which cannot be exactly
translated. Montesq., vii. 185. Vian, 112.] in which it differs from the
liberty of Venice, "which is the liberty of debauchery." The equality of
London is also the equality of the best people, in which it differs from
the liberty of Holland, which is the liberty of the populace."

"England is at present the most free country in the world; I do not
except any republic. I call it free because the prince can do no
conceivable harm to anybody; because his power is controlled and limited
by a law. But if the lower chamber should become them mistress, its
power would be unlimited and dangerous, because it would have executive
power also; whereas now unlimited power is in the parliament and the
king, and the executive power in the king, whose power is limited. A
good Englishman must, therefore, seek to defend liberty equally against
the attacks of the crown and those of the chamber."[Footnote: Montesq.,
vii. 195 (_Notes sur l'Angleterre_).]

Montesquieu brought back from England an admiration of what he had seen
there as genuine, and far more discriminating than that of Voltaire.
While the studies of Montesquieu were principally directed to the
political institutions of the country, those of Voltaire embraced the
philosophy and social life of England. Through these two great men, more
perhaps than through any others, English ideas were spread in France in
the middle of the eighteenth century.[Footnote: Voltaire returned from
England a few months before Montesquieu went there in 1729.]

Montesquieu now went on with his studies with an enlarged mind. He would
appear, before he started on his travels, to have already formed the
project of writing a great work on the Spirit of the Laws. But in 1784
he published a smaller book, the "Greatness and Decadence of the
Romans." It is said that this essay was composed of a part of the
material collected for the Spirit of the Laws, and was published
separately in order not to give the Romans too large a place in the more
important work. This has been doubted, but there is nothing either in
the subject or in the treatment to make it improbable. Nor is it
important, so long as between the two books there is unity of purpose
and agreement of method.

The "Greatness and Decadence of the Romans" is a study of philosophic
history. In form it is not unlike Machiavelli's Discourses on the first
ten books of Livy. That remarkable work would have been most profitable
reading for Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, as it must be in all
times for students of the science of politics. Of republics Machiavelli
had more experience than Montesquieu. Both considered the republican
form of government the most desirable; both thought it impossible
without the preservation of substantial equality of property among the
citizens. Montesquieu, who knew more of monarchy than Machiavelli, had
also more faith in it. Both hated the Rule of the Roman Church.
[Footnote: Machiavelli, ii. 210. Montesq., ii. 136, 140. Mach., ii.
130.] The Frenchman excels the Italian in practical wisdom; he is also
more brilliant. By his brilliancy he may sometimes have been led away,
but I think not often. While we feel in reading Voltaire that the
sparkling point is often the cause of the saying, with Montesquieu we
are generally struck with the weight of thought in what we read.

"The tyranny of a prince," says Montesquieu, "does not bring him
nearer to ruin, than indifference to the public good brings a
republic. The advantage of a free state is that the revenues are
better administered--but how if they are worse? The advantage of a
free state is that there are no favorites; but when that is not the
case, and when instead of enriching the prince's friends and
relations, all the friends and relations of all those who share in the
government have to be enriched, all is lost; the laws are evaded more
dangerously than they are violated by a prince, who, being always the
greatest citizen of a state, has the most interest in its
preservation."[Footnote: Montesq., ii. 139.]

Kings, as Montesquieu points out, are less envied than aristocracies;
for the king is too far above most of his subjects to excite
comparisons, while the nobility is not so placed. Republics, where birth
confers no privileges, are, he thinks, happier in this respect than
other countries; for the people can envy but little an authority which
it grants and withdraws at its pleasure. Montesquieu forgets that every
chance to rise which excites in the strong and virtuous a noble
emulation, will cause in the weak and sour the corresponding base
passion of envy. Complete despotism he believes to be impossible. There
is in every nation a general spirit on which all power is founded.
Against this, the ruler is powerless. It is wise not to disturb
established forms and institutions, for the very causes which have made
them last hitherto may maintain them in the future, and these causes are
often complicated and unknown. When the system is changed, theoretic
difficulties may be overcome, but drawbacks remain which only use can
show. It is folly in conquerors to wish to make the conquered adopt new
laws and customs, and it is useless; for under any form of government,
subjects can obey. Men are never more offended than when their
ceremonies and customs are interfered with. Oppression is sometimes a
proof of the esteem in which they are held; interference with their
customs is always a mark of contempt.[Footnote: Montesq., ii. 181, 315,
316, 266, 174, 209.]

Such are some of the general opinions of Montesquieu, found in the
"Greatness and Decadence of the Romans." In the same book occurs the
expression of an idea (afterwards repeated and worked out), which was to
be perhaps the most fruitful of his teachings. "The laws of Rome," he
says, "had wisely divided the public power among a great number of
offices, which sustained, arrested, and moderated each other; and as
each had but a limited power, every citizen was capable of attaining to
any one of them; and the people, seeing several persons pass before it
one after the other, became accustomed to none of them."[Footnote:
Ibid., ii. 200.]

This idea that the division of power was highly desirable, that a system
of checks and balances in government would tend to secure freedom, never
took firm root in France. Indeed, Montesquieu, as he himself had partly
foreseen, was more praised than read in his own country.[Footnote:
Ibid., vii. 157 (Pensées diverses. Portrait de M par lui-même).] But in
the distant colonies of America the "Greatness and Decadence of the
Romans" and the "Spirit of the Laws" found eager students. The thoughts
of Montesquieu were embodied in the constitutions of new states, whose
social and economic condition was not far removed from that which he
considered the most desirable. In these states the doctrine of the
division of powers was consciously and carefully adopted, with the most
beneficent results. This division was not a new idea to the American
colonists: it was already in a measure a part of their institutions. But
there can be little doubt that the idea was enforced in their minds by
being clearly stated by one of the writers on political subjects whom
they most admired.[Footnote: We have seen that Montesquieu had arrived
at this idea from the study of the English Constitution as it existed in
his day. In respect to the division of powers, the government of the
United States conforms far more nearly to his idea than does the present
government of England, in which the system of balanced powers has been
superseded by that of government by the Lower Chamber, of which he
pointed out the danger. The full results of this change will be known
only to future generations.]

Fourteen years had passed from the time of the publication of the
"Greatness and Decadence of the Romans," when in 1748 appeared the great
work of Montesquieu, the "Spirit of the Laws." The book is announced by
its author as something entirely original, "a child without a mother."
[Footnote: _Prolem sine matre creatam_, on the title-page.] Nor is
the claim altogether unfounded, although any reader familiar with the
"Politics" of Aristotle can hardly fail to observe the resemblance
between that great book and the other. Nor is it a detraction from the
genius of Montesquieu to say that the comparison will not be altogether
in his favor.

Montesquieu's scheme is announced in the title originally given to his
book. "Of the Spirit of the Laws, or of the relation which the laws
should have to the constitution of every government, manners, climate,
religion, commerce, etc. To which the author has added new researches
into the Roman laws concerning inheritance, into French laws, and into
feudal laws." Thus we see that the principal subject of the book is the
relation of laws to the circumstances of the country in which they
exist. In this also is its chief value and its claim to originality.
The Philosophers of the eighteenth century, following the example of the
churches, believed that there was an absolute standard of justice to
which all laws could easily be referred, independently of the country in
which the laws existed. If the laws of Naples differed from those of
Prussia, the laws which governed the phlegmatic Dutchman from those
which contained the excitable inhabitant of Marseilles, one or the other
set of laws, or both of them, must be wrong. The Civil Law of the Latin
races, the Common Law of England, each claimed to be the expression of
perfect abstract reason. The church with its canon, the same for all
races and climates, confirmed the theory. To all these came Montesquieu
with a teaching that would reconcile their claims.

"Law in general is human reason, in so far as it governs all the nations
of the earth; and the political and civil laws of each nation should be
but the particular cases to which that human reason is applied."

"They should be so adapted to the people for whom they are made, that it
is a very great chance if those of one nation will apply to another."

"They must be in relation to the nature and the principle of the
government which is established, or about to be established; whether
they form it, as do political laws; or maintain it, as do civil laws."

"They must be in relation to the _physical_ nature of the country;
to the frozen, burning, or temperate climate; to the quality of the
soil, the situation and size of the country; to the style of life of the
people, as farmers, hunters, or shepherds; they should be in relation to
the amount of liberty which the constitution may allow; to the religion
of the inhabitants, their inclinations, their wealth, their numbers,
their customs, their morals, and their manners. Finally, they have
relations to each other; they have them to their own origin, to the
object of the legislator, to the order of things on which they are
established. They should be considered from all these points of view."

"This is what I undertake to do in this work. I will examine all these
relations. They form together what is called `the Spirit of the Laws.'"
[Footnote: Montesq., iii. 99 (liv. i. c. 3).]

It will be noticed that Montesquieu by no means denies that there are
general principles of justice. On the contrary, he positively asserts
it.[Footnote: Ibid., iii. 91 (liv. i. c. 1).] But the great value of
his teaching consists in the other lesson. "It is better to say that the
government most in conformity with nature is that whose particular
disposition is most in relation to the disposition of the people for
which it is established." This principle may certainly be deduced from
Aristotle; but it was none the less necessary to teach it in the
eighteenth century; it is none the less necessary to teach it to-day.
[Footnote: Ibid., iii. 99; Aristotle, _Politics_, liv. vii. c. ii.]

The conception was a great one, so simple that it seems impossible that
it could ever have been missed; but it was combated with violence on its
announcement, and many brilliant and learned men have failed to grasp
it.[Footnote: Montesq., iv. 145 _n_] Such are the persons in our
own time who praise despotism in France, or who would set up
parliamentary government in India. Montesquieu probably carried his
theories too far. To the north he assigned energy and valor, as if the
most widely conquering nations that Europe had then known had been the
Norwegian and the Finn, instead of the Macedonian, the Italian, and the
Spaniard. Sterility of soil he considered favorable to republics,
fertility to monarchies. It was natural that a man in revolt against the
long spiritual tyranny that had oppressed thought in Europe should have
attributed excessive importance to material causes. Not the less did the
idea contain its share of truth. Nor was his statement of this, which we
may call his favorite theory, always excessive. "Several things," he
says, "govern man; climate, religion, laws, the maxims of government,
the examples of things past, morals, manners; whence comes a general
spirit which is their result. Sometimes one of these forces dominates
and sometimes another."[Footnote: Montesq., iv. 307 (liv. xix. c. 4).]

It may be noted of Montesquieu, and as often of Voltaire, that each of
them is constantly led astray by imperfect knowledge of foreign, and
especially of barbarous and savage nations. Since the voyages and
conquests of the Renaissance, accounts of strange countries had abounded
in Europe, written in many cases by men anything but accurate, if not,
in the words of Macaulay, "liars by a double right, as travellers and as
Jesuits."[Footnote: _Essay on Machiavelli_.] The writers of a
hundred and fifty years ago could use no better material than was to be
had. They wished to draw instruction from distant objects, and their
spy-glasses distorted shapes and modified colors. Imperfect knowledge of
foreign countries sometimes led Montesquieu into curious mistakes; yet
these affected his illustrations oftener than his theories.

Having stated his general doctrine, Montesquieu proceeds to apply it. As
laws should be adapted to the nature of the government of each country,
it is essential to study that nature, and to consider what is the
_principle_, or motive force of each form of government. "There is
this difference," he says, "between the nature of the government and its
principle: that its nature is what makes it such as it is, and its
principle what makes it act. One is its especial structure, and the
other the human passions which cause it to operate."[Footnote:
Montesq., iii, 120 (liv. iii. c. 1).]

Four kinds of government are recognized by Montesquieu: democratic,
aristocratic, monarchical, and despotic. The principle of democracy he
holds to be _virtue_, without which popular government cannot
continue to exist.[Footnote: Montesq., iii. 122 (liv. iii. c. 3).] An
aristocratic state needs less virtue, because the people is kept in
check by the nobles. But the nobility can with difficulty repress the
members of their own order, and do justice for their crimes. In default
of great virtue, however, an aristocratic state can exist if the ruling
class will practice _moderation_.[Footnote: Ibid., iii. 126 (liv.
c. 4).] In monarchies great things can be done with little virtue, for
in them there is another moving principle, which is honor.[Footnote:
Ibid., iii. 128 (liv. iii. c. 5, 6, and 7).] This sort of government is
founded on the prejudice of each person and each sort of men; it rests
on ranks, preferences, and distinctions, so that emulation often
supplies the place of virtue. In a monarchy there will be many tolerable
citizens, but seldom a very good man, who loves the state better than
himself. The motive principle of a despotism is _fear_[Footnote:
Ibid., iii. 135 (liv. iii. c. 9).]; for in despotic states virtue is
unnecessary, and honor would be dangerous. These qualities of virtue,
honor, and fear, may not exist in every republic, monarchy, and
despotism; but they should do so, if the government is to be perfect of
its kind.[Footnote: Ibid., iii. 140 (liv. iii. c. 11).]

It is worth while to remember, when considering the "Spirit of the
Laws," that Montesquieu oftenest had in his mind, when speaking of
democratic republics, those of Greece; when speaking of aristocratic
republics, early Rome and Venice; of monarchies, France and England; of
despotisms, the East.[Footnote: But he sometimes refers to England as a
country where a republic is hidden under the forms of a monarchy.
Montesq, iii. 216 (liv. V. c. 19).]

Under each form of government, education and the laws should work
together to strengthen the motive principle belonging to that form.
Especially is this necessary in republics, for honor, which sustains
monarchies, is favored by the passions; but virtue, on which democracies
depend, implies renunciation of self. Virtue, in a republic, is love of
the republic itself, which leads to good morals; the public good is set
above private gratification. Thus we see that monks love their order the
more, the more austere is its rule. The love of the state, in a
democracy, becomes the love of equality, and thus limits ambition to the
desire to render great services to the republic. The love of equality
and frugality are principally excited by equality and frugality
themselves, when both are established by law. The laws of a democratic
state should encourage equality in every way; as by forbidding last
wills, and preventing the acquisition of large landed estates. In a
democracy all men contract an enormous debt to the state at their birth,
and, do what they may, they can never repay it. There should be no great
wealth in the hands of private persons, because such wealth confers
power and furnishes delights which are contrary to equality. Domestic
frugality should make public expenditure possible. Even talents should
be but moderate. But if a democratic republic be founded on commerce,
individuals may safely possess great riches; for the spirit of commerce
brings with it that of frugality, economy, moderation, labor, wisdom,
tranquillity, and order.

It is very important in a democracy to keep old laws and customs; for
things tend to degenerate, and a corrupted nation seldom does anything
great. To maintain an aristocratic republic, moderation is necessary.
The nobles should be simple in their lives and hardly distinguishable
from plebeians. Distinctions offensive to pride, such as laws
forbidding intermarriage, are to be avoided. Privileges should belong to
the senate as a body and simple respect only be paid to the individual
senators.[Footnote: Montesq., iii. 151 (liv. iv. c. 5). Ibid., iii.
165-183 (liv. v. c. 2-8).]

As honor is the motive principle of monarchy, the laws should support
it, and be adapted to sustain that _nobility_ which is the parent
and the child of honor. Nobility must be hereditary; it must have
prerogatives and rights; it forms the link between the prince and the
nation. Monarchical government has the great advantage over the
republican form, that, as affairs are in a single hand, there is the
greater promptitude of execution. But there should still be something to
moderate the will of the prince. This is best found, not in the nobility
itself, but in such bodies as courts of law with constitutional rights,
like the French Parliaments.[Footnote: In a despotic government the
motive principle is fear. The governor of the town must be absolutely
responsible Montesq., iii, 191 (liv, v. c. 10).]

Montesquieu has been much blamed, both in his own age and since, for his
partiality to the monarchy as he found it existing in France. While
recognizing that a republic was a more just and equal form of
government, he thought that monarchy was that best suited to his time
and country. Many people who have watched the history of France since
his day will be found to agree with him. While defending some practices
which are now considered among the flagrant abuses of old France, he
recommended some reforms which would have been very salutary. It is
often wiser to find excuses for retaining an old custom than reasons for
introducing a new one; and Montesquieu was a conservative, made so by
his nature, his social position, his wealth, his education as a lawyer,
his age and his experience. When he wrote the "Persian Letters" he might
possibly have been willing to overthrow the principal institutions of
his country for the sake of remedying abuses; but when he had spent
twenty years over the "Spirit of the Laws," when he had realized the
complication of life, and the interdependence of things, he was more
ready to reform than to destroy.

In a despotic government the motive principle is fear. The governor of
the town must be absolutely responsible to the governor of the province,
or the latter cannot be entirely responsible to the sovereign. Thus
absolutism extends throughout the state. As there is no law but the will
of the prince, and as that law cannot be known in detail to every one,
there must be a great number of petty tyrants dependent on those
immediately above them.[Footnote: Montesq., ii. 209 (liv. v. c. 16).]

After a not very successful attempt to define liberty, which he decides
to be the power to do that which we ought to desire and not to do that
which we ought not to desire,[Footnote: Ibid., iv. 2-4 (liv. xi. c. 2,
3).] Montesquieu tells us that political liberty is found only in
limited governments, for all men who have power will tend to abuse it,
and will go on until they meet with obstacles; as virtue itself needs to
be restrained. Various nations, he then says, have various objects:
conquest was that of Rome, war of Sparta, commerce of Marseilles; there
is a country the direct object of whose constitution is political
liberty. That country is England.[Footnote: Montesquieu, here and
elsewhere, avoids mentioning England or France by name; a curious
affectation. The references, however, are unmistakable.]

There are in every state three kinds of power, the legislative, the
executive, and the judicial. Political liberty in a citizen is the
tranquillity of mind which comes from the opinion he has of his own
security; and to give him this liberty the government must be such that
no citizen can be afraid of another. Now this security can exist only
where the legislative, executive, and judicial powers are in different
hands. In most of the monarchies of Europe the government is limited,
because the prince, who has the first two powers, leaves the third to
others; he makes laws and executes them, but he appoints other men to
act as judges in his place. In the republics of Italy all three powers
are united. The same body of magistrates makes the laws, executes them,
and judges every citizen according to its pleasure; such a body is as
despotic as an eastern prince.[Footnote: This judgment is somewhat
softened as to Venice. The most conspicuous example in modern times of
the tyranny of a single popular body is that of France under the
Convention.] The judicial power, says Montesquieu (with the English jury
in his mind), should not be given to a permanent senate, but exercised
by persons drawn from the body of the people, forming a tribunal which
lasts only as long as necessity may require it. In serious cases the
criminal should combine with the law to choose his judges, or at least
should have a right of challenge. The legislative and executive powers
can with less danger be given to permanent bodies, because they are not
exercised against individuals. He then commends representative
government and the freedom left to members of Parliament in the English
system. He believes the people more capable of choosing representatives
wisely than of deciding questions, an opinion on which modern experience
may have thrown some doubt. He approves of the existence of a second
chamber, composed of persons distinguished by birth, wealth, or honors;
for if such were mixed with the people and given only one vote apiece
like the others, the common liberty would be their slavery, and they
would have no interest in defending it, because it would oftenest be
turned against themselves.[Footnote: Montesq., iv. 7 (liv. xi. c. 6).]

The government of France, says Montesquieu, has not, like that of
England, liberty for its direct object; it tends only to the glory of
the citizen, the state, and the prince. But from this glory comes a
spirit of liberty, which in France can do great things, and can
contribute as much to happiness as liberty itself. The three powers are
not there distributed as in England; but they have a distribution of
their own, according to which they approach more or less to political
liberty; and if they did not approach it, the monarchy would degenerate
into despotism.[Footnote: Montesq., iv. 24. (liv. xi. c. 7).] This
sounds somewhat like an empty phrase; yet there undoubtedly were in
Montesquieu's time some checks on the absolutism of a French monarch.
"If subjects owe obedience to kings, kings on their part owe obedience
to the laws," said the Parliament of Paris in 1753. And outside of its
own boundaries France had long been considered a limited monarchy.
[Footnote: Rocquain, 170. Machiavelli, ii. 140, 215, 322 (Discourses on
the first ten books of Livy).] Apart from the limitations imposed by the
privileges of the church and of the Parliaments, there appear to have
been some acknowledged fundamental laws (the succession of the crown in
the male line was one of them) which it would have been beyond the power
of the sovereign for the time being to destroy. And public opinion, as
Montesquieu has already told us, has power even in the most despotic
countries. In a European nation, not broken in spirit by long-continued
tyranny, and possessing the printing-press, this power must always be
very great.

As for Montesquieu's admiration of the English form of government, it
doubtless concurred with other causes to encourage on the Continent the
study of English political methods. Those methods have since been
adopted by many continental states, with hardly as many modifications to
adapt them to local circumstances as might have been desirable. But it
is the modern English constitution, in which power lies almost entirely
in the House of Commons, and is exercised by its officers, that has been
thus copied. In America the principle of the division of powers has been
carried farther than it ever was in England; and is, of all parts of
their form of government, that from which many intelligent Americans
would be most loath to part.

We have seen enough of Montesquieu's attacks on the church. The most
violent of them were made in his youth, and in a book avowedly
satirical. In mature life, writing in a more philosophical spirit, his
language is temperate and wise. "It is bad reasoning against religion,"
he says, "to bring together in a great work a long enumeration of the
evils which she has produced, unless you also recount the good she has
done. If I should tell all the harm which civil laws, monarchy, or
republican government have done in the world, I should say frightful
things."[Footnote: Montesq., v. 117 (liv. xxiv. c. 2).] This idea was
far beyond the reach of Voltaire.

Montesquieu goes on to argue about different forms of religion.
Mahometanism he holds especially suited to despotism, Christianity to
limited governments. Catholicism is adapted to monarchies,
Protestantism, and especially Calvinism, to republics. Where fatalism is
a religious dogma, the penalties imposed by law must be more severe, and
the watch kept on the community more vigilant, so that men may be driven
by these motives who otherwise would abandon self-restraint; but if the
dogma of liberty be established, the case is otherwise. Climate is not
without influence on religion. The ablutions required of a Mahometan are
useful in his warm country. The Protestant of Northern Europe has to
work harder for a living than the Catholic of the South, and therefore
desires fewer religious holidays. If a state can prevent the
establishment of a new form of religion within its borders, it will find
it well to do so; but if several religions are established, they should
not be allowed to interfere with each other. Penal laws in religious
matters should be avoided; for each religion has its own spiritual
penalties, and to put a man between the fear of temporal punishment, on
the one hand, and the fear of spiritual punishment on the other,
degrades his soul. The possessions of the clergy should be limited by
laws of mortmain.[Footnote: Ibid., v. 124-136 (liv. xxiv. c. 5-14).]

The spirit of moderation should be the spirit of the legislator. This
Montesquieu declared to be the great theme of his book. Political good,
like moral good, is always found between extremes.[Footnote: Montesq.,
v. 379 (liv. xxix. c. 1).]

It was this moderation which made the "Spirit of the Laws" distasteful
to the more ardent Philosophers. Sharing in many of the feelings of his
contemporaries, and especially in their distrust of the church,
Montesquieu was yet unwilling to go to the same extremes as they. His
chapter on Uniformity and the criticisms made on it by Condorcet, form
an admirable instance of this.

"There are certain ideas of uniformity," says Montesquieu, "which
sometimes take possession of great minds (for they touched Charlemagne),
but which invariably strike small ones. These find in them a kind of
perfection which they recognize, because it is impossible not to see it;
the same weights in matters of police, the same measures in commerce,
the same laws in the state, the same religion in all its parts. But is
this always desirable without exceptions? Is the evil of changing always
less than the evil of suffering? And would not the greatness of genius
rather consist in knowing in what case uniformity is necessary, and in
what case difference? In China, the Chinese are governed by the Chinese
ceremonies, and the Tartars by Tartar ceremonies; yet this is the nation
in all the world which is most devoted to tranquillity. So long as the
citizens obey the law, what matters it that they shall all obey the
same?"

This chapter (the whole of it is given above, and it may pass in the
"Spirit of the Laws" for one of middling length), is, according to
Condorcet, "one of those which have acquired for Montesquieu the
indulgence of all prejudiced people, of all who hate intellectual light;
of all protectors of abuses, etc." And after going on with his invective
for some time, Condorcet states the substance of his argument as
follows: "As truth, reason, justice, the rights of men, the interest of
property, of liberty, of security, are the same everywhere, we do not
see why all the provinces of one state, or even why all states should
not have the same criminal laws, the same civil laws, the same laws of
commerce, etc. A good law must be good for all men, as a true
proposition is true for all. The laws which appear as if they should be
different for different countries, either pronounce on objects which
should not be regulated by laws, like most commercial regulations, or
are founded on prejudices and habits which should be uprooted; and one
of the best means of destroying them is to cease to sustain them by
laws."[Footnote: Montesq., v. 412 (liv. xxix. c. 18). Condorcet, i.
377. Yet Condorcet speaks elsewhere of Montesquieu as having made a
revolution in men's minds on the subject of law. D'Alembert, i. 64
(Condorcet's _Éloge de d'Alembert_). Rousseau also teaches that all
laws and institutions are not adapted to all nations, but it is because
he considers most nations childish or effete.]

In these two passages we have the issue between Montesquieu and the
Philosophic party fairly joined. He alone of the great Frenchmen of his
century recognized the enormous complication of human life and human
affairs. Not denying that there are fundamental principles of justice,
he saw that those principles are hard to formulate truly, harder to
apply wisely. For their application he offered many valuable
suggestions. These were lost in the rush and hurry of approaching
revolution. The superb simplicity of mind which could ignore the
diversities of human nature was perhaps necessary for the uprooting of
old abuses. But the delicate task of constructing a permanent government
cannot succeed unless the differences as well as the resemblances among
men be taken into account.



CHAPTER XI.

PARIS.


The members of the Third Estate differed among themselves far more than
did those of the Clergy or the Nobility. This order comprised the rich
banker and the beggar at his gate, the learned encyclopaedist and the
water-carrier that could not spell his name. Every layman, not of noble
blood, belonged to the Third Estate. And although this was the
unprivileged order, there were privileged bodies and privileged persons
within it. Corporations, guilds, cities, and whole provinces possessed
rights distinct from those of the rest of the country.

In the reign of Louis XVI. the city of Paris held a position, in the
world even more prominent than that which it holds to-day. For France
was then incontestably the first European power, and Paris was then, as
it is now, not only the capital and the metropolis, but the heart and
centre of life in France. The population was variously estimated at from
six to nine hundred thousand. The city was growing in size, and new
houses were continually erected. There was so much building at times
during this reign, that masons worked at night, receiving double wages.
Architects and master masons were becoming rich, and rents were high
when compared to those of other places. Strangers and provincials
flocked to Paris for the winter and returned to the country during the
fine season. Sentimentalists read the works of Rousseau and praised a
country life, but then as now few people that could afford to stay in
the city, and had once been caught by its fascination, cared to live
permanently out of town.[Footnote: Mercier, iv. 205, vii. 190. Babeau,
Paris en 1789, 27.]

The public buildings and gardens were worthy of the first city in
Europe. With some of them travelers of to-day are familiar. The larger
number of the remarkable churches now standing were in existence before
the Revolution. Of the palaces then in the city, the three most famous
have met with varied fates. The Luxembourg, which was the residence of
the king's eldest brother, is the least changed. To the building itself
but small additions have been made. Its garden was and is a quiet,
orderly place where respectable family groups sit about in the shade.
The Louvre has been much enlarged. Under Louis XVI. it consisted of the
buildings surrounding the eastern court, of a wing extending toward the
river (the gallery of Apollo), and of a long gallery, since rebuilt,
running near the river bank and connecting this older palace with the
Tuileries. About one-half of the space now enclosed between the two
sides of the enormous edifice, and known as the Place du Carrousel, was
then covered with houses and streets. The land immediately to the east
of the Tuileries palace was not built upon, but part of it was enclosed
by a tall iron railing. Such a railing, either the original one or its
successor, was to be seen in the same place until recent times and may
be standing to-day. The Place du Carrousel, as it then existed outside
of this railing, was a square of moderate size surrounded by houses.

The Palace of the Tuileries itself has had an eventful history since
Louis XVI. came to the throne, and has only in recent years been
utterly swept from the ground. But the gardens which bear its name are
little changed. The long raised terraces ran along their sides then as
now; although there was no Rue de Rivoli, and the only access to the
gardens on the north side was by two or three streets or lanes from
the Rue Saint-Honore. Within the garden the arrangement of broad,
sunny walks and of shady horse-chestnuts was much the same as now.
Well-dressed persons walked about or sat under the trees, and the
unwashed crowd was admitted only on two or three holidays every
year. In consequence of this exclusion the wives of respectable
citizens used to come unattended to take the air in the gardens. They
were brought in sedan-chairs, from which they alighted at the gate.
What is now the Place de la Concorde was then the Place Louis Quinze,
with an equestrian statue of that "well-beloved" monarch where
the obelisk stands. Not far from the pedestal of that statue
overturned,--not far from the entrance of the street called
Royal,--near the place where many people had been crushed to death in
the crowd assembled to see the fireworks in honor of the marriage of
the Dauphin and the Princess Marie Antoinette of Austria,--was to
stand the scaffold on which that Dauphin and that princess, after
reaching the height of earthly splendor, were to pay for their own
sins and weaknesses and for those of their country.

To the west of the square came the Champs Elysées, still somewhat rough
in condition, but with people sitting on chairs even then to watch the
carriages rolling by, as they still do on any fine afternoon. The
Boulevards stretched their shady length all round the city, and were a
fashionable drive and walk, near which the smaller theatres rose and
throve, evading the monopoly of the opéra and the Français. But the
boulevards were almost the only broad streets. Those interminable,
straight avenues which even the brilliancy and movement of Paris can
hardly make anything but tiresome, had not yet been cut. The streets
were narrow and shady; most of them not very long, nor mathematically
straight, but keeping a general direction and widening here and there
into a little square before a church door, or curving to follow an
irregularity of the ground. Such streets were not in accordance with the
taste of the age and caused progressive people to complain of Paris.
Rousseau, who had seen Turin, was disappointed in the French capital. On
arriving he saw at first only small, dirty, and stinking streets, ugly
black houses, poverty, beggars, and working people; and the impression
thus made was never entirely effaced from his mind, in spite of the
magnificence which he recognized at a later time. Young thought that
Paris was not to be compared with London; and Thomas Jefferson wrote
that the latter, though handsomer than Paris, was not so handsome as
Philadelphia. But the Parisian liked his uneven streets well enough.
There were fine things to be seen in them. Although the city was
crowded, there were gardens in many places, belonging to convents and
even to private persons. And once in your walk you might come out upon a
bridge, where, if there were not houses built upon it, you might catch a
breath of the fresh breeze, and watch the sun disappearing behind the
distant village of Chaillot; for nowhere does he set more gloriously
than along the Seine.[Footnote: _Paris à travers les ages._
Babeau, _Paris en 1789_. Cognel, 27, 74. Rousseau, xvii. 274
(_Confessions_, Part i. liv. iv.). Young, i. 60; Randall's
_Jefferson_, i. 447.]

The houses were tall and dark, and the streets narrow and muddy. There
was little water to use, and none to waste, for the larger part of the
city depended upon wells or upon the supply brought in buckets from
the Seine. The scarcity was hardly to be regretted, for there were few
drains to carry dirty water away, and the gutter was full enough
already. It ran down the middle of the street, which sloped gently
toward it, and there were no sidewalks. When it rained, this
street-gutter would rise and overflow, and enterprising men would come
out with little wooden bridges on wheels and slip them in between the
carriages, and give the quick-footed walker an opportunity to cross
the torrent, if he did not slip in from the wet plank; while a pretty
woman would sometimes trust herself to the arms of a burly
porter.[Footnote: See the print in Fournel, 539, after Granier.
Conductors were coming into use before the Revolution. _Encyc. meth.
Jurisp._, x. 716.] The houses had gutters along the eaves, but no
conductors coming down the walls, so that the water from the roofs was
collected and came down once in every few yards in a torrent, bursting
umbrellas, and deluging cloaks and hats. The manure spread before sick
men's doors to deaden the sound of wheels was washed down the street
to add to the destructive qualities which already characterized the
mud of Paris. An exceptionally heavy fall of snow would entirely get
the better of the authorities, filling the streets from side to side
with pools of slush, in which fallen horses had been known to drown.
When the sun shone again all was lively as before; the innumerable
vehicles crowded the streets from wall to wall, with their great hubs
standing well out beyond the wheels, and threatened to eviscerate the
pedestrian, as he flattened himself against the house. The carriages
of the nobility dashed through the press, the drivers calling out to
make room; they were now seldom preceded by runners in splendid
livery, as had been the fashion under the former reign, but sometimes
one or two huge dogs careered in front, and the Parisians complained
that they were first knocked down by the dogs and then run over by the
wheels. At times came street cleaners and swept up some of the mud,
and carted it away, having first freely spattered the clothes of all
who passed near them. In some streets were slaughter-houses, and
terrified cattle occasionally made their way into the neighboring
shops. The signs swung merrily overhead. They appealed to the most
careless eye, being often gigantic boots, or swords, or gloves,
marking what was for sale within; or if in words, they might be
misspelt, and thus adapted to a rude understanding. Large placards on
the walls advertised the theatres. Street musicians performed on their
instruments. Ballad-singers howled forth the story of the last great
crime. Amid all the hubbub, the nimble citizen who had practiced
walking as a fine art, picked his careful way in low shoes and white
silk stockings; hoping to avoid the necessity of calling for the
services of the men with clothes-brush and blacking who waited at the
street corners.[Footnote: Mercier, xii. 71, i. 107, 123, 215, 216.
Young, i. 76. In 1761 the signs in the principal streets were reduced
to a projection of three feet. Later, they were ordered to be set flat
against the walls. Babeau, _Paris_, 42; but see Mercier. Names were
first put on the street corners in 1728. Babeau, _Paris_, 43.
Franklin, _L'Hygiène_.]

They were a fine sight, these citizens of Paris, before the male half of
the world had adopted, even in its hours of play, the black and gray
livery of toil. The Parisians of the latter part of King Louis XVI.'s
reign affected simplicity of attire, but not gloom. The cocked hat was
believed to have permanently driven out the less graceful round hat. It
was jauntily placed on the wearer's own hair, which was powdered and
tied behind with a black ribbon. For the coat, stripes were in fashion,
of light blue and pink, or other brilliant colors. The waistcoat and
breeches might be pale yellow, with pink bindings and blue buttons; the
garters and the clocks of the white stockings, blue; the shoes black,
with plain steel buckles. This would be an appropriate costume for the
street; although many people wore court-mourning from economy, and
forgot to take it off when the court did. A handsome snuff-box, often
changed, and a ring, were part of the costume of a well-dressed man; and
it was usual to wear two watches, probably from an excessive effort
after symmetry; while it is intimated by the satirist that clean lace
cuffs were sometimes sewn upon a dirty shirt.[Footnote: Babeau,
_Paris_, 214. Fashion plates in various books. For evening dress,
suits all of black were beginning to come in towards 1789. In the street
gentlemen were beginning to dress like grooms, aping the English. The
sword was still worn at times, even by upper servants, but the cane was
fast superseding it. Women also carried canes, which helped them to walk
in their high-heeled shoes. Mercier, xi. 229, i. 293.]

The costume of gentlemen in this reign was as graceful in shape as any
that has been worn in modern Europe. The coat and waistcoat were rather
long and followed the lines of the person; the tight breeches met the
long stockings just below the knee, showing the figure to advantage. The
dress of ladies, on the other hand, was stiff, grotesque, and ungainly;
waists were worn very long, and hoops were large and stiff. But the most
noticeable thing was the huge structure which, almost throughout the
reign, was built upon ladies' heads. As it varied between one and three
feet in height, and was very elaborate in design, it could not often be
taken down. No little skill was required to construct it, and poor girls
could sometimes earn a living by letting out their heads by the hour to
undergo the practice of clumsy barbers' apprentices. At one time red
hair came into fashion and was simulated by the use of red powder. The
colors for clothes varied with the invention of the milliners, and the
habit of giving grotesque names to new colors had already arisen in
Paris. About 1782, "fleas' back and belly," "goose dung," and "Paris
mud" were the last new thing. Caps "à la Boston," and "à la
Philadelphie," had gone out. Instead of the fashion-plates with which
Paris has since supplied the world, but which under Louis XVI. were only
just coming into use, dolls were dressed in the latest style by the
milliners and sent to London, Berlin, and Vienna.[Footnote: Franklin,
_Les soins de toilette_. Mercier, viii. 295, ii. l97, l98, 213]

The dress of the common people was more brilliant and varied than it is
in our time, but probably less neat. Cleanliness of person has never
been a leading virtue among the French poor. Although there were
elaborate bathing establishments in the river, a large proportion of the
people hardly knew what it was to take a bath.[Footnote: But Young
says, "In point of cleanliness I think the merit of the two nations is
divided; the French are cleaner in their persons, and the English in
their houses." Young, i. 291. The whole comparison there given of French
and English customs is most interesting.] The sentimental milkmaids of
Greuze are no more like the tanned and wrinkled women that sold milk in
the streets of Paris, than the court-shepherdesses of Watteau and
Boucher were like the rude peasants that watched their sheep on the Jura
mountains. But the Parisian cockney was fond of dress, and would rather
starve his stomach than his back. The milliners' shops, where the pretty
seamstresses sat sewing all day in sight of the street, reminding the
Parisians of seraglios, were never empty of those who had money to
spend. For leaner purses, the women who sat under umbrellas in front of
the Colonnade of the Louvre had bargains of cast-off clothing; and there
were booths along the quays on Sunday, and a fair in the Place de la
Greve on Monday.[Footnote: Mercier, viii. 269, ix. 294, v. 281, ii.
267.]

It is sometimes said of our own times that the rich have become richer
and the poor poorer than in former days. I believe that this is entirely
untrue, and that in the second half of the nineteenth century a smaller
proportion of the inhabitants of civilized countries suffers from hunger
and cold than ever before. Whatever be the figures by which fortunes are
counted, there is no doubt that the visible difference between the rich
and the poor was greater in the reign of Louis XVI. than in our own
time.[Footnote: Mercier mentions fortunes varying from 100,000 to
900,000 livres income, and speaks of the former as common, i. 172.
Meanwhile clerks got from 800 to 1500 livres and even less. Those with
1200 wore velvet coats, ii. 118.] In spite of the fashion of simplicity
which was one of the affectations of those days, the courtier still on
occasion glittered in brocade. His liveried servants waited about his
door. His lackeys climbed behind his coach, and awoke the dimly lighted
streets with the glare of their torches, as the heavy vehicle bore him
homeward from the supper and the card-table. The luxuries of great
houses were relatively more expensive. A dish of early peas might cost
six hundred francs. Six different officials (a word less dignified would
hardly suit the importance of the subject), had charge of the
preparation of his lordship's food and drink, and bullied the numerous
train of serving-men, kitchen-boys, and scullions. There was the
_maître d'hôtel_, or housekeeper, who attended to purchases and to
storing the food; the chief cook, for soups, _hors d'oeuvre_,
_entrées_, and _entremets_; the pastry-cook, with general
charge of the oven; the roaster, who fattened the poultry and larded the
meat before he put the turnspit dog into the wheel; an Italian
confectioner for sweet dishes; and a butler to look after the wine.
Bread was usually brought from the bakers, even to great houses, and was
charged for by keeping tally with notches on a stick. Baking was an
important trade in Paris, and in times of scarcity the bakers were given
the first chance to buy wood. For delicacies, there was the great shop
at the Hôtel d'Aligre in the Rue Saint Honoré, a "famous temple of
gluttony," where truffles from Perigord, potted partridges from Nérac,
and carp from Strasbourg were piled beside dates, figs, and pots of
orange jelly; and where the foreigner from beyond the Rhine, or the
Alps, could find his own sauerkraut or macaroni.[Footnote: Mercier, x.
208, xi. 229, 346, xii. 243.]

At the tables of the rich it was usual to entertain many guests; not in
the modern way, by asking people for a particular day and hour, but by
general invitation. The host opened his house two or three times a week
for dinner or supper, and anybody who had once been invited was always
at liberty to drop in. Thus arose a class of respectably dressed people
who were in the habit of dining daily at the cost of their acquaintance.
After dinner it was the fashion to slip away; the hostess called out a
polite phrase across the table to the retreating guest, who replied with
a single word.[Footnote: Mercier, i. 176, ii. 225. _La Robe dine, La
finance soupe._ Mercier says that a man who was a whole year without
calling at a house where he had once been admitted had to be presented
over again, and make some excuse, as that he had traveled, etc. This the
hostess pretended to believe.] It was of course but a small part of the
inhabitants of Paris that ate at rich men's tables. The fare of the
middle classes was far less elaborate; but it generally included meat
once or twice a day. The markets were dirty, and fish was dear and bad.
The duties which were levied at the entrance of the town raised the
price of food, and of the wine which Frenchmen find equally essential.
Provisions were usually bought in very small quantities, less than a
pound of sugar at a time. Enough for one meal only was brought home, in
a piece of printed paper, or an old letter. Unsuccessful books thus
found their use at the grocer's. Before dinner the supply for dinner was
bought; before supper, that for supper. After the meal nothing was left.
The poorer citizens carried their dinners to be baked at the cook-shops,
and saved something in the price of wood. The lower classes had their
meat chopped fine and packed in sausages, as is still done in Germany,
an economical measure by which many shortcomings are covered up and no
scrap is lost.[Footnote: Ibid., i. 219, xii. 128.]

The use of coffee had become universal. It was sold about the streets
for two sous a cup, including the milk and a tiny bit of sugar. While
the rich drank punch and ate ices, the poor slaked their thirst with
liquorice water, drawn from a shining cylinder carried on a man's back.
The cups were fastened to this itinerant fountain by long chains, and
were liable to be dashed from thirsty lips in a crowd by any one passing
between the drinker and the water-seller.[Footnote: Mercier, viii. 270,
_n_., iv. 154, xii. 296, v. 310. See plates in Fournel, 509, 516.]

For the very poor there was second-hand food, the rejected scraps of the
rich. In Paris they were nasty enough; but at Versailles, where the king
and the princes lived, even people that were well to do did not scorn to
buy dishes that had been carried untouched from a royal table. Near the
poultry market in Paris, a great pot was always hanging on the fire,
with capons boiling in it; you bought a boiled fowl with its broth, a
savory mess. In general the variety of food was increasing. Within forty
years the number of sorts of fruit and vegetables in use had almost
doubled.[Footnote: Ibid., v. 85, 249. Genlis, _Dictionnaire des
Étiquettes_, ii. 40, _n_., citing Buffon. Scraps of food are
still sold in the Central Market of Paris.]

The population was divided into many distinct classes, but there was a
good deal of intercourse from class to class, nor was it extremely
difficult for the able and ambitious to rise in the world. The
financiers had become rich and important, but were regarded with
jealousy. In an aristocratic state the nobles think it all wrong that
any one else should have as much money as themselves. This is not
strange; but it is more remarkable that the common people are generally
of the same opinion, and that, while the profusion of the great noble is
looked on as no more than the liberality which belongs to his station,
the extravagance of the mere man of money is condemned and derided. This
tendency was increased in France by the fact that many of the greatest
fortunes were made by the farmers of the revenue, who were hated as
publicans even more than they were envied as rich men. Yet one
financier, Necker, although of foreign birth, was perhaps the most
popular man in France during this reign, and it was not the least of
Louis's follies or misfortunes that he could not bring himself to share
the admiration of his people for his Director General of the Treasury.

The mercantile class in Paris did not hold a high position. The merchant
was too much of a shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper was too much of a
huckster. The smallest sale involved a long course of bargaining. This
was perhaps partly due to the fact, admirable in itself, that the wife
was generally united with her husband in the management of the shop. The
customary law of Paris was favorable to the rights of property of
married women; and the latter were associated with their husbands in
commerce and consulted in all affairs. This habit is still observed in
France. It tends to draw husband and wife together, by uniting their
occupations and their interests. Unfortunately it tends also to the
neglect of children, especially in infancy, when their claims are
exacting. Thus the Frenchwoman of the middle class is in some respects
more of a wife and less of a mother than the corresponding Anglo-Saxon.
The babies, even of people of very moderate means, were generally sent
out from Paris into the country to be nursed. Later in the lives of
children, girls were kept continually with their mothers, watched and
guarded with a care of which we have little conception. Boys were much
more separated from their parents, and left to schoolmasters. Neither
boys nor girls were trusted or allowed to gain experience for themselves
nearly as much as we consider desirable.[Footnote: Mercier, i. 53, v.
231, ix. 173, vi. 325.]

Marriages were generally left to the discretion of parents, except in
the lowest classes; and parents were too often governed by pecuniary,
rather than by personal considerations in choosing the wives and
husbands of their sons and daughters. Such a system of marriage would
seem unbearable, did we not know that it is borne and approved by the
greater part of mankind. It is possible that the chief objection to it
is to be found less in the want of attachment between married people,
which might be supposed to be its natural result, than in the diminution
of the sense of loyalty. In England and America it is felt to be
disgraceful to break a contract which both parties have freely made,
with their eyes open; and this feeling greatly reenforces the other
motives to fidelity. Yet while the rich and idle class in France, if the
stories of French writers may be trusted, has always been honeycombed
with marital unfaithfulness, there are probably no people in the world
more united than the husbands and wives of the French lower and middle
classes. Working side by side all the week with tireless industry,
sharing a frugal but not a sordid life, they seek their innocent
pleasures together on Sundays and holidays. The whole neighborhood of
Paris is enlivened with their not unseemly gayety, as freely shared as
the toil by which it was earned. The rowdyism of the sports in which men
are not accompanied by women, the concentrated vulgarity of the summer
boarding-house, where women live apart from the men of their families,
are almost equally unknown in France. In the latter part of the
eighteenth century many of the comfortable burghers of Paris owned
little villas in the suburbs, whither the family retired on Sundays,
sometimes taking the shop-boy as an especial favor. The common people
also were to be found in great numbers in the suburban villages, such as
Passy, Auteuil, or in the Bois de Boulogne, dancing on the green;
although in the reign of Louis XVI. they are said to have been less gay
than before.[Footnote: Mercier, in. 143, iv. 162, xii. 101.]

Artists, artisans, and journeymen, in their various degrees, formed
classes of great importance, for Paris was famous for many sorts of
manufactures, and especially for those which required good taste. But
it was noticed that on account of the abridgment of the power of the
trade-guilds, and the consequent rise of competition, French goods
were losing in excellence, while they gained in cheapness; so that it
was said that workmanship was becoming less thorough in Paris than in
London.

The police of Paris was already remarkable for its efficiency. The
inhabitants of the capital of France lived secure in their houses, or
rode freely into the country, while those of London were in danger of
being stopped by highwaymen on suburban roads, or robbed at night by
housebreakers in town. From riots, also, the Parisians had long been
singularly free, and for more than a century had seen none of
importance, while London was terrified, and much property destroyed in
1780 by the Gordon riots. In spite of the forebodings of some few
pessimists, people did not expect any great revolution, but rather
social and economic reforms. It was believed that the powers of
repression were too strong for the powers of insurrection. The crash
came, at last, not through the failure of the ordinary police, but from
demoralization at the centre of government and in the army. While Louis
still reigned in peace at Versailles, the administration of Paris went
on efficiently. Correspondence was maintained with the police of other
cities. Criminals and suspected persons, when arrested, could be
condemned by summary process. The Lieutenant General of Police had it in
his discretion to punish without publicity. The more scandalous crimes
were systematically hidden from the public; a process more favorable to
morality than to civil liberty. For the criminal classes in Paris
arbitrary imprisonment was the common fate, and disreputable men and
women Were brought in by bands.[Footnote: Mercier, vi. 206. Monier,
396.]

The liability to arbitrary arrest affected the lives of but a small
proportion of the citizens after all. To most Parisians it was far more
important that the streets were safe by day and night; that fire-engines
were provided, and Capuchin monks trained to use them, while soldiers
hastened to the fire and would press all able-bodied men into the
service of passing buckets; that small civil cases were promptly and
justly disposed of.[Footnote: Mercier, i. 197, 210, ix. 220, xii. 162
(_Jurisdiction consulaire_).]

The increase of humane ideas which marked the age was beginning in the
course of this reign to affect the hospitals and poor-houses as well as
the prisons, and to diminish their horrors. At the Hotel Dieu, the
greatest hospital in Paris, six patients were sometimes wedged into one
filthy bed. Yet even, there, some improvement had taken place. And while
Howard considered that hospital a disgrace to Paris, he found many other
charitable foundations in the city which did it honor. Here as elsewhere
there was no uniformity.[Footnote: Mercier, vii. 7, iii. 225. Howard,
_State of the Prisons_, 176, 177. Babeau, _La Ville_, 435.
Cognel, 88. A horrible description of the Hotel Dieu, written in 1788 by
Tenon, a member of Academy of Sciences, is given in A. Franklin,
_L'Hygiène_, 181.]

In the medical profession, the regular physicians held themselves far
above the surgeons, many of whom had been barbers' apprentices; but it
would appear that the science of surgery was better taught and was
really in a more advanced state than that of medicine. More than eight
hundred students attended the school of surgery. In medicine,
inoculation was slowly making its way, but was resorted to only by the
upper classes. Excessive bleeding and purgation were going out of
fashion, but the poor still employed quacks, or swallowed the coarse
drugs which the grocers sold cheaper than the regular apothecaries, or
relied on the universal remedy of the lower classes in Paris, a cordial
of black currants.[Footnote: It was called _Cassis_. Mercier, xii.
126, vii. 126.]

Near the Hotel Dieu was the asylum for foundlings, whither they were
brought not only from Paris, but from distant towns, and whence they
were sent out to be nursed in the country. They were brought to Paris
done up tightly in their swaddling clothes, little crying bundles,
packed three at a time into wadded boxes, carried on men's backs. The
habit of dressing children loosely, recommended by Rousseau, had not yet
reached the poor; as the habit of having babies nursed by their own
mothers, which he had also striven to introduce, had been speedily
abandoned by the rich. The mortality among the foundlings was great, for
two hundred of them were sometimes kept in one ward during their stay at
the asylum.[Footnote: Mercier, iii. 239, viii. 188. Cognel found the
asylum very clean. Cognel, 87.]

Although some falling off in the ardor of religious practices was
noticed as the Revolution drew near, the ceremonies of the church were
still visible in all their splendor. On the feast of Corpus Christi a
long procession passed through the streets, where doors and windows
were hung with carpets and tapestry. The worsted pictures, it is true,
were adapted rather to a decorative than to a pious purpose, and
over-scrupulous persons might be shocked at seeing Europa on her bull,
or Psyche admiring the sleeping Cupid, on the route of a religious
procession. Such anomalies, however, could well be disregarded. Around
the sacred Host were gathered the dignitaries of the state and the
city in their robes of office, marshaled by the priests, who for that
day seemed to command the town. In some cases, it is said, the great
lords contented themselves with sending their liveried servants to
represent them. Soldiers formed the escort. The crowd in the street
fell on its knees as the procession passed. Flowers, incense, music,
the faithful with their foreheads in the dust, all contributed to the
picturesqueness of the scene. A week later the ceremony was repeated
with almost equal pomp. On the Sunday following, there was another
procession in the northern suburbs. Naked boys, leading lambs,
represented Saint John the Baptist; Magdalens eight years old, walking
by their nurses' side, wept over their sins; the pupils of the school
of the Sacred Heart marched with downcast eyes. The Host was carried
under a dais of which the cords were held by respected citizens, and
was escorted by forty Swiss guards. A hundred and fifty censers swung
incense on the air. The diplomatic corps watched the procession from
the balcony of the Venetian ambassador, even the Protestants bowing or
kneeling with the rest. [Footnote: Mercier, iii. 78. Cognel, 101.]

From time to time, through the year, these great ceremonies were
renewed, either on a regularly returning day, or as occasion might
demand. On the 3d of July the Swiss of the rue aux Ours was publicly
carried in procession. There was a legend that a Swiss Protestant
soldier had once struck the statue of the Holy Virgin on the corner of
this street with his sword, and that blood had flowed from the wounded
image. Therefore, on the anniversary of the outrage, a wicker figure was
carried about the town, bobbing at all the sacred images at the street
corners, with a curious mixture of piety and fun. Originally it had been
dressed like a Swiss, but the people of Switzerland, who were numerous
and useful in Paris, remonstrated at a custom likely to bring them into
contempt; and the grotesque giant was thereupon arrayed in a wig and a
long coat, with a wooden dagger painted red in his hand. The grammarian
Du Marsais once got into trouble on the occasion of this procession. He
was walking in the street when one woman elbowed another in trying to
get near the statue. "If you want to pray," said the woman who had been
pushed, "go on your knees where you are; the Holy Virgin is everywhere."
Du Marsais was so indiscreet as to interfere. Being a grammarian, he was
probably of a disputatious turn of mind. "My good woman," said he, "you
have spoken heresy. Only God is everywhere; not the Virgin." The woman
turned on him and cried out: "See this old wretch, this Huguenot, this
Calvinist, who says that the Holy Virgin is not everywhere!" Thereupon
Du Marsais was attacked by the mob and forced to take refuge in a house,
whence he was rescued by the guard, which kept him shut up for his own
safety until after nightfall.[Footnote: Mercier, iv. 97. Fournel, 176.
This procession was abolished by order of the police, June 27, 1789.
Fournel, 177.]

For an occasional procession, we have one in October, 1785, when three
hundred and thirteen prisoners, redeemed from slavery among the
Algerines, were led for three days about the streets with great pomp by
brothers of the orders of the Redemption. Each captive was conducted by
two angels, to whom he was bound with red and blue ribbons, and the
angels carried scrolls emblazoned with the arms of the orders. There was
the usual display of banners and crosses, guards and policemen; there
were bands of music and palm-branches. The long march required frequent
refreshment, which was offered by the faithful, and it is said that many
of the captives and some of the professionally religious persons
indulged too freely. A drunken angel must have been a cheerful sight
indeed. The object of this procession was to raise money to redeem more
prisoners from slavery, for the Barbary pirates were still suffered by
the European powers to plunder the commerce of the Mediterranean and to
kidnap Christian sailors.[Footnote: Bachaumont, xxx. 24. Compare
Lesage, i. 347 (_Le diable boiteux_, ch. xix). For a procession of
persons delivered by charity from imprisonment for not paying their wet
nurses, see Mercier, xii. 85.]

Nor was it in great festivals alone that the religious spirit of the
people was manifested. On Sundays all shops were shut, and the common
people heard at least the morning mass, although they were getting
careless about vespers. Every spring for a fortnight about Easter, there
was a great revival of religious observance, and churches and
confessionals were crowded. But throughout the year, one humble kind of
procession might be met in the streets of Paris. A poor priest, in a
worn surplice, reverently carries the Host under an old dirty canopy. A
beadle plods along in front, with an acolyte to ring the bell, at the
sound of which the passers-by kneel in the streets and cabs and coaches
are stopped. Louis XV. once met the "Good God," as the eucharistic wafer
was piously called, and earned a short-lived popularity by going down on
his silken knees in the mud. All persons may follow the viaticum into
the chamber of the dying. The watch, if it meets the procession on its
return, will escort it back to its church.[Footnote: _Ordonnance de
la police du Châtelet concernant l'observation des dimanches et fêtes,
du 18 Novembre, 1782_. Monin, 403.]

Let us follow it in the early morning, and, taking our stand under the
porch where the broken statues of the saints are still crowned with the
faded flowers of yesterday's festival, or wandering thence about the
streets of the city, let us watch the stream of life as it flows now
stronger, now more gently hour by hour.

It is seven o'clock. The market gardeners, with their empty baskets,
are jogging on their weary horses toward the suburbs. Already they
have supplied the markets. They meet only the early clerks, fresh
shaven and powdered, hastening to their offices. At nine, the town is
decidedly awake. The young barber-surgeons ("whiting" as the Parisians
call them), sprinkled from head to foot with hair powder, carry the
curling-iron in one hand, the wig in the other, on their way to the
houses of their customers. The waiters from the lemonade-shops are
bringing coffee and cakes to the occupants of furnished lodgings. On
the boulevards, young dandies, struck with Anglomania, contend
awkwardly with their saddle-horses.

At ten lawyers in black and clients of all colors flock to the island
in the river where are the courts of law. The Palace, as the great
court-house is called, is a large and imposing pile of buildings, with
fine halls and strong prisons, and the most beautiful of gothic
chapels. But the passages are blocked with the stalls of hucksters who
sell stationery, books, and knicknacks.[Footnote: Mercier, vi. 72,
iv. 146, ix. 171. Cognel, 41.]

In the rue Neuve des Petits Champs they are drawing the royal lottery.
The Lieutenant-Général of Police, accompanied by several officers,
appears on a platform. Near him is the wheel of fortune. The wheel is
turned, it stops, and a boy with blindfolded eyes puts his hand into an
opening in the wheel, and pulls out a ticket, which he hands to the
official. The latter opens it, holding it up conspicuously in front of
him to avert suspicion of foul play. The ticket is then posted on a
board, and the boy pulls out another. The crowd is noisy and excited at
first, then sombre and discouraged as all the chances are exhausted.

Noon is the time when the Exchange is most active, and when lazy people
hang about the Palais Royal, whose gardens are the centre of news and
gossip. The antechambers of bankers and men in place are crowded with
anxious clients. At two the streets are full of diners-out, and all the
cabs are taken. They are heavy and clumsy vehicles, dirty inside and
out, and the coachmen are drunken fellows. Clerks and upper servants
dash about in cabriolets, and sober people are scandalized at seeing
women in these frivolous vehicles unescorted. "They go alone; they go in
pairs!" cries one, "without any men. You would think they wanted to
change their sex." Dandies drive the high-built English "whiski." All
are blocked among carts and drays, with sacks, and beams, and casks of
wine. For people that would go out of town there are comfortable
traveling chaises, or the cheap and wretched _carrabas_, in which
twenty persons are jolted together, and the rate of travel is but two or
three miles an hour; while on the road to Versailles, the active
postillions known as _enragés_ will take you to the royal town and
back, a distance of twenty miles, and give you time to call on a
minister of state, all within three hours.[Footnote: Mercier, vii. 114,
228, ix. 1, 266, xi. 17, xii. 253. Chérest, ii. 166.]

Between half past two and three, people of fashion are sitting down to
dinner, following the mysterious law of their nature which makes them
do everything an hour or two later in the day than other mortals. At
quarter past five the streets are full again. People are on their way
to the theatre, or going for a drive in the boulevards, and the
coffee-houses are filling. As daylight fails, bands of carpenters and
masons plod heavily toward the suburbs, shaking the lime from their
heavy shoes. At nine in the evening people are going to supper, and
the streets are more disorderly than at any time in the day. The
scandalous scenes which have disappeared from modern Paris, but which
are still visible in London, were in the last century allowed early in
the evening; but long before midnight the police had driven all
disorderly characters from the streets. At eleven the coffee-houses
are closing; the town is quiet, only to be awakened from time to time
by the carriages of the rich going home after late suppers, or by the
tramp of the beasts of burden of the six thousand peasants who nightly
bring vegetables, fruit, and flowers into the great city.[Footnote:
Ibid., iv. 148.]



CHAPTER XII.

THE PROVINCIAL TOWNS.


The provincial towns in France under Louis XVI. were only beginning to
assume a modern appearance. Built originally within walls, their houses
had been tall, their streets narrow, crooked, and dirty. But in the
eighteenth century most of the walls had been pulled down, and public
walks or drives laid out on their sites. The idea that the beauty of
cities consists largely in the breadth and straightness of their streets
had taken a firm hold on the public mind. This idea, if not more
thoroughly carried out than it can be in an old town, has much in its
favor. Before the French Revolution the broad, dusty, modern avenues,
which allow free passage to men and carriages and free entrance to light
and air, but where there is little shade from the sun or shelter from
the wind, were beginning to supersede the cooler and less windy, but
malodorous lanes where the busy life of the Middle Ages had found
shelter. Large and imposing public buildings were constructed in many
towns, facing on the public squares. With the artistic thoroughness
which belongs to the French mind, the fronts of the surrounding private
houses were made to conform in style to those of their prouder
neighbors. The streets were lighted, although rather dimly; their names
were written at their corners, and in some instances the houses were
numbered.

But such innovations did not touch every provincial town, nor cover the
whole of the places which they entered. More commonly, the old
appearance of the streets was little changed. The houses jutted out into
the narrow way, with all manner of inexplicable corners and angles. The
shop windows were unglazed, and shaded only by a wooden pent-house, or
by the upper half of a shutter. The other half might be lowered to form
a shelf, from which the wares could overrun well into the roadway. Near
the wooden sign which creaked overhead stood a statue of the Virgin or a
saint. Glancing into the dimly-lighted shop, you might see the master
working at his trade, with a journeyman and an apprentice. The busy
housewife bustled to and fro; now chaffering with a customer at the
shop-door, now cooking the dinner, or scolding the red-armed maid, in
the kitchen.[Footnote: Babeau, _La Ville_, 363. Ibid., _Les
Artisans_, 73, 82. Viollet le Duc, _Dict. d'Architecture_
(Boutique.)]

The house was only one room wide, but several stories high. Upstairs
were the chambers and perhaps a sitting-room. Even among people of
moderate means the modern division of rooms was coming into fashion, and
beds were being banished from kitchens and parlors. There were more beds
also, and fewer people in each, than in former years. On the walls of
the rooms paint and paper were taking the place of tapestry, and light
colors, with brightness and cleanliness, were displacing soft dark
tones, dirt, and vermin.[Footnote: Babeau, _Les Bourgeois_, 9, 19,
37.]

Houses were thinly built and doors and windows rattled in their
frames. The rooms in the greater part of France were heated only by
open fires, although stoves of brick or glazed pottery were in common
use in Switzerland and Germany; and wood was scarce and dear. In
countries where the winter is short and sharp, people bear it with
what patience they may, instead of providing against it, as is
necessary where the cold is more severe and prolonged. Thicker clothes
were worn in the house than when moving about in the streets. Wadded
slippers protected the feet against the chill of the brick floors, and
the old sat in high-backed chairs to cut off the draft, with
footstools under their feet. Chilblains were, and are still, a
constant annoyance of European winter. The dressing-gown was in
fashion in France as in America, where we frequently see it in
portraits of the last century. Similar garments had been in use in the
Middle Ages. They belong to cold houses.[Footnote: Babeau, _Les
Artisans_, 123. In 1695 the water and wine froze on the king's table
at Versailles, _Les Bourgeois_, 23.]

The dress of the working-classes, which had been very brilliant at the
time of the Renaissance, had become sombre in the seventeenth century,
but was regaining brilliancy in the eighteenth. The townspeople dressed
in less bright colors than the peasants of the country, but not cheaply
in proportion to their means. Already social distinctions were
disappearing from costume, and it was remarked that a master-workman, of
a Sunday, in his black coat and powdered hair, might be mistaken for a
magistrate; while the wife of a rich burgher was hardly distinguishable
from a noblewoman.[Footnote: Babeau, _Les Artisans_, 13, 199.
Handiwork was very cheap. Babeau gives the bill for a black gown costing
210 livres 15 sous, of which only 3 livres was for the making; _Les
Bourgeois_, 169 n.]

Great thrift was practiced by the poorer townspeople of the middle
class, but their lives were not without comfort. We read of a family in
a small town of Auvergne before the middle of the century, composed of a
man and his wife, with a large number of children, the wife's mother,
her two grandmothers, her three aunts, and her sister, all sitting about
one table, and living on one modest income. The husband and father had a
small business and owned a garden and a little farm. In the garden
almost enough vegetables were raised for the use of the family. Quinces,
apples, and pears were preserved in honey for the winter. The wool of
their own sheep was spun by the women, and so was the flax of their
field, which the neighbors helped them to strip of an evening. From the
walnuts of their trees they pressed oil for the table and for the lamp.
The great chestnuts were boiled for food. The bread also was made of
their own grain, and the wine of their own grapes.

In the country towns, among people of small means, a healthy freedom was
allowed to boys and girls. There were moonlight walks and singing
parties. Love matches resulted from thus throwing the young people
together, and were found not to turn out worse than other marriages. But
in large towns matches were still arranged by parents, and the girls
were educated rather to please the older people than the young men, for
it was the elders who would find husbands for them.[Footnote:
Marmontel, i. 10, 51. Babeau, _Les Bourgeois_, 315.]

Amusements were simple and rational in the cultivated middle class.
People in the provinces were not above enjoying amateur music and
recitation, and the fashion of singing songs at table, which was going
out of vogue in Paris, still held its own in smaller places. A literary
flavor, which has now disappeared, pervaded provincial society. People
wrote verses and made quotations. But this did not prevent less
intellectual pleasures. Players sometimes spent eighteen out of the
twenty-four hours at the card-table. Balls were given either by private
persons or by subscription. Dancing would begin at six and last well
into the next morning; for the dwellers in small towns will give
themselves up to an occupation or an amusement with a thoroughness which
the more hurried life of a capital will not allow. The local nobility,
and the upper ranks of the burgher class, the officers, magistrates,
civil functionaries and their families, met at these balls; for social
equality was gaining ground in France. The shopkeepers and attorneys
contented themselves, as a rule, with quieter pleasures, excursions into
the country, theatres, visits, and little supper parties. Dancing in the
open air and street shows, in which once all classes had taken part,
were now left to the poor.[Footnote: Babeau, _Les Bourgeois_, 209,
225, 241, 305.]

The journeyman sometimes lived with his master, sometimes had a room of
his own in another part of the town. He dressed poorly and lived hard;
but generally had his wine. Bread and vegetables formed the solid part
of his diet, beans being a favorite article of food. Wages appear to
have been about twenty-six sous a day for men, and fifteen for women on
an average, the value of money being perhaps twice what it is now, but
the variations were great from town to town. The hours of work were
long. People were up at four in the summer mornings, in provincial
towns, and did not stop working until nine at night. But the work was
the varied and leisurely work of home, not the monotonous drudgery of
the great factory. Moreover, holidays were more than plenty, averaging
two a week throughout the year. The French workman kept them with song
and dance and wine; but drunkenness and riot were uncommon.[Footnote:
Babeau, _Les Artisans_, 21, 34. A. Young, i. 565.]

The workman's chance of rising in his trade was far better than it is
now. There were not twice as many journeymen as masters.[Footnote:
Babeau, _Les Artisans_, 63. Perhaps more workmen under Louis XVI.
Manufactures on a larger scale were coming in. At Marseilles, 65 soap
factories employed 1000 men; 60 hatters, 800 men and 400 women.
Julliany, i. 85. But Marseilles was a large city. In smaller places the
old domestic trades still held their ground.] The capital required for
setting up in business was small, although the fees were relatively
large; the police had to be paid for a license; and the guilds for
admission.

These guilds regulated all the trade and manufactures of the country.
They held strict monopolies, and no man was allowed to exercise any
handicraft as a master without being a member of one of them. The guilds
were continually squabbling. Thus it was an unceasing complaint of the
shoemakers against the cobblers that the latter sold new shoes as well
as second-hand, a practice contrary to the high privileges of the
shoemakers' corporation. Sometimes the civil authorities were called on
to interfere. We find the trimming-makers of Paris, who have the right
to make silk buttons, obtaining a regulation which forbids all persons
wearing buttons of the same cloth as their coats, or buttons that are
cast, turned or made of horn.

Minute regulations governed manufactures exercised within the guilds.
The number of threads to the inch in cloth of various names and kinds
was strictly regulated. New inventions made their way with difficulty
against the vested rights of these corporations. Thus Le Prevost, who
invented the use of silk in making hats, was exposed to all sorts of
opposition from the other hatters, who said that he infringed their
privileges; but he overcame it by perseverance, and finally made a large
fortune. The regulations served to keep up the standard of excellence in
manufacture, which probably fell in some respects on their abolition.
They were often made to benefit the masters at the expense of the
workmen, who on their side formed secret combinations of their own,
fighting by much the same methods as such unions employ to-day. Thus in
1783 the journeymen paper-makers instituted a system of fines on their
masters, which they enforced by deserting in a body the service of those
who resisted them.[Footnote: Babeau, _Les Artisans_, 51, 108, 202,
239. Levasseur, ii. 353. Turgot, iii. 328, 347. (_Éloge de M. de
Gournay_), Mercier, xi. 363.]

The successful master of a trade, as he grew rich, might pass into the
upper middle class, the _haute bourgeoisie_. He became a
manufacturer, a merchant, perhaps even, when he retired on his fortune,
a royal secretary, with a patent of hereditary nobility. His children,
instead of leaving school when they had learned to read, write and
cipher, and had taken their first communion, stayed on, or were promoted
to a higher school, to learn Latin and Greek. His wife was called
Madame, like a duchess. She had probably assisted in his rise, not only
by good advice and domestic frugality, but by the arts of a saleswoman
and by her talent for business. Should he die while his sons were young,
she understood his affairs and could carry them on for her own benefit
and for that of her children. No longer a single maidservant, red in the
face and slatternly about the skirts, clatters among the pots in the
little dark kitchen behind the shop, or stands with her arms akimbo
giving advice to her mistress. The successful man has mounted his house
on a larger scale, and if the insolent lackeys of the great do not hang
about his door, there are at least one or two of those quiet and
attentive old men-servants, whose respectful and self-respecting
familiarity adds at once to the comfort and the dignity of life.
[Footnote: Babeau, _Les Artisans_, 158, 167, 181, 204, 271.]

It was not within the walls of his own house alone that the burgher
might be a man of importance. The towns retained to the end of the
monarchy a few of the rights for which they had struggled in earlier and
rougher times. Assemblies differently composed in different places, but
sometimes representing the guilds and fraternities and sometimes made up
of the whole body of citizens, took a part in the government of the
town. They voted on loans, on the conduct of the city's lawsuits, and on
municipal business generally. Officers were chosen in various ways, some
of them by very complicated forms of election, and some by throwing of
lots. These officers bore different titles in different places, as
consuls, echevins, syndics, or jurats. They sometimes exercised
considerable executive and judicial powers, controlling the ordinary
police of the city. Their perquisites and privileges varied from town to
town, with the color of their official robes, and the ceremonies of
their installation. The cities valued their ancient rights, shorn as
they were of much substantial importance by the centralizing servants of
the crown; and repeatedly bought them back from the king, as time after
time the old offices were abolished, and new-fashioned purchasable
mayoralties set up in their stead.[Footnote: Babeau, _La Ville_,
39. When the towns bought in the office of mayor, they had to name an
incumbent, and the town owned the office only for his lifetime and had
to buy it in again on his death. _Ibid._, 81. This looks as if the
royal office of mayor were not hereditary, In spite of the _Edit de la
Paulette_. Where no other purchaser came forward, the towns were
obliged to buy the office. _Ibid._, 79.]

The municipal authorities shared with the clergy the control of
education and the care of the poor and the sick. The last were
collected in large hospitals, many of which were inefficiently
managed.[Footnote: There were great differences from place to
place. Howard, _passim_. The hospital, poor-house, etc., at Dijon
were good; the hospital at Lyons large, but close and dirty. Rigby,
102, 113. Muirhead, 156.] It must always be borne in mind, when
thinking of the daily life of the past, that in old times, and even so
late as the second half of the last century, a high degree of
civilization and a great deal of luxury were not inconsistent with an
almost entire disregard of what we are in the habit of considering
essential conveniences. Comfort, indeed, has been well said to be a
modern word for a modern idea. Dirt and smells were so common, even a
hundred years ago, as hardly to be noticed, and diseases arising from
filth and foul air were borne as unavoidable dispensations of divine
wrath. Yet some advance had been made. Baths had been absolutely
essential in the Middle Ages when every one wore wool; the result of
the common use of linen had been at first to put them out of fashion;
under Louis XVI. they were coming in again. The itch, so common in
Auvergne early in the century that in the schools a separate bench was
set apart for the pupils who had it, was almost unknown in 1786.
Leprosy had nearly disappeared from France before the end of the
seventeenth century. The plague was still an occasional visitant in
the first quarter of the eighteenth, in spite of rigorous quarantine
regulations. On its approach towns shut their gates and manned their
walls, and the startled authorities took to cleansing and
whitewashing. In 1722, the doctors of Marseilles went about dressed
in Turkey morocco, with gloves and a mask of the same material; the
mask had glass eyes, and a big nose full of disinfectants. How the
sight of this costume affected the patients is not mentioned. When the
plague was over, the Te Deum was sung, and processions took their way
to the shrine of Saint Roch.[Footnote: Babeau, _Les Bourgeois_,
177. Ibid., _La Ville_, 443.]

Schools were established in every town. The schoolmasters formed a
guild, the writing-masters another, and neither was allowed to infringe
the prerogatives of its rival. The schoolmasters in towns were generally
appointed by the clergy, but the municipal government kept a certain
control. A good deal of the teaching of boys was done by Brotherhoods,
while that of girls was almost entirely entrusted to Sisters. In many
places primary instruction was free and obligatory, at least in name.
The law making it so had been passed under Louis XIV., for the purpose
of bringing the children of Protestants under Catholic teaching; but
this law was not always enforced. In northern France, there were evening
schools for adults, and Sunday schools where reading and writing was
taught, probably to children employed in trades during the week. A
certain amount of religious instruction preceded the ceremony of the
"first communion." As to secondary or advanced schools, they are said to
have been more numerous and accessible in the eighteenth century than
now, when they have mostly been consolidated in the larger cities. There
were five hundred and sixty-two establishments reckoned as secondary in
France in 1789, about one third of them being in the hands of
Brotherhoods. There were also many private schools licensed by the
municipal authorities. The boys when away from home lived very simply
indeed. Marmontel, who was sent from his own little town to attend the
school at a neighboring one, has left a description of his mode of life.
"I was lodged according to the custom of the school with five other
scholars, at the house of an honest artisan of the town; and my father,
sad enough at going away without me, left with me my package of
provisions for the week. They consisted of a big loaf of rye-bread, a
small cheese, a piece of bacon and two or three pounds of beef; my
mother had added a dozen apples. This, once for all, was the allowance
of the best fed scholars in the school. The woman of the house cooked
for us; and for her trouble, her fire, her lamp, her beds, her lodging
and even the vegetables from her little garden which she put in the pot,
we gave her twenty-five sous apiece a month; so that all told, except
for my clothing, I might cost my father from four to five louis a year."
This was about 1733, and the style of living may have risen a little,
even for schoolboys, during the following half century. The sons of
professional men and people of the middle class were better off in
respect to education than most young nobles; as the former were sent to
good schools, while the latter were brought up at home by incompetent
tutors. It would appear to have been easy enough for a boy to get an
education; harder for a girl. But no one who has glanced at the
literature of the time will imagine that France was then destitute of
clever women.[Footnote: Babeau, _La Ville_, 482. Ibid., _Les
Bourgeois_, 369. Marmontel, i. 16. Montbarey, i. 280. Ch. de Ribbe,
i. 320.]

In the eighteenth century great changes were taking place in the
national life. Simple artisans presumed to be more comfortable in 1789
than the first people of the town had been fifty years before. The
middle class lived in many respects like the nobility, with material
luxuries and intellectual pleasures. Yet the artificial barriers were
still maintained. The citizen, unless of noble birth, was excluded not
only from the army, but from the higher positions in the administration
and in the legal profession. The nobility of the gown was liable to be
treated with alternate familiarity and impertinence by that of the sword
or by that of the court. The last held most of the positions which
strongly appealed to vanity, many of those which bore the largest
profit. Jealousy is possible only where persons or classes come near
each other, and before the Revolution the various classes in France were
rapidly drawing together.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE COUNTRY.


There is perhaps no great country inhabited by civilized man more
favored by nature than France. Possessing every variety of surface from
the sublime mountain to the shifting sand-dune, from the loamy plain to
the precipitous rock, the land is smiled upon by a climate in which the
extremes of heat and cold are of rare occurrence. The grape will ripen
over the greater part of the country, the orange and the olive in its
southeastern corner. The deep soil of many provinces gives ample return
to the labor of the husbandman. If the inhabitants of such a country are
not prosperous, surely the fault lies rather with man than with nature.

It has been the fashion to represent the French peasant before the
Revolution as a miserable and starving creature. "One sees certain wild
animals, male and female, scattered about the country; black, livid and
all burnt by the sun; attached to the earth in which they dig with
invincible obstinacy. They have something like an articulate voice, and
when they rise on their feet they show a human face; and in fact they
are men. They retire at night into dens, where they live on black bread,
water, and roots. They spare other men the trouble of sowing, digging
and harvesting to live, and thus deserve not to lack that bread which
they have sown." This description, eloquently written by La Bruyere, has
been quoted by a hundred authors. Some have used it to embellish their
books with a sensational paragraph; others, and they are many, to show
from what wretchedness the French nation has been delivered by its
Revolution.

The advances of the last hundred years are many and great, but it is not
necessary therefore to believe that in three generations a great nation
has emerged from savagery. Let us see what part of La Bruyere's
description may be set down to rhetoric, and to the astonishment of the
scholar who looks hard at a countryman for the first time. Undoubtedly
the peasant is sunburnt; unquestionably he is dirty. His speech falls
roughly on a town-bred ear; his features have been made coarse by
exposure. His hut is far less comfortable than a city house. His food is
coarse, and not always plentiful. All these things may be true, and yet
the peasant may be intelligent and civilized. He may be as happy as most
of the toilers upon earth. He may have his days of comfort, his hours of
enjoyment.

While the French writers of the eighteenth century find fault with many
things in the condition of the peasant, their general opinion of his lot
is not unfavorable. Voltaire thinks him well off on the whole. Rousseau
is constantly vaunting not only the morality but the happiness of rural
life. Mirabeau the elder says that gayety is disappearing, perhaps
because the people are too rich, and argues that France is not decrepit
but vigorous.[Footnote: La Bruyere, _Caractères_, ii. 61 (_de
l'homme_). Voltaire, _passim_, xxxi. 481, _Dict. philos.
(Population)_. Mirabeau, _L'ami des hommes_, 316, 325, 328.]

"The general appearance of the people is different to what I expected,"
writes an English traveler, to his family, in 1789; "they are strong and
well made. We saw many most agreeable scenes as we passed along in the
evening before we came to Lisle: little parties sitting at their doors;
some of the men smoking, some playing at cards in the open air, and
others spinning cotton. Everything we see bears the mark of industry,
and all the people look happy. We have indeed seen few signs of opulence
in individuals, for we do not see so many gentlemen's seats as in
England, but we have seen few of the lower classes in rags, idleness,
and misery. What strange prejudices we are apt to take concerning
foreigners! I will own that I used to think that the French were a
trifling, insignificant people, that they were meagre in their
appearance, and lived in a state of wretchedness from being oppressed by
their superiors. What we have already seen contradicts this;[Footnote:
Observe that this was written in French Flanders. Note by Dr. Rigby.]
the men are strong and athletic, and the face of the country shows that
industry is not discouraged. The women, too,--I speak of the lower
class, which in all countries is the largest and the most useful,--are
strong and well made, and seem to do a great deal of labor, especially
in the country. They carry great loads and seem to be employed to go to
market with the produce of the fields and gardens on their backs. An
Englishwoman would, perhaps, think this hard, but the cottagers in
England are certainly not so well off; I am sure they do not look so
happy. These women with large and heavy baskets on their backs have all
very good caps on, their hair powdered, earrings, necklaces, and
crosses. We have not yet seen one with a hat on. What strikes me most in
what I have seen is the wonderful difference between this country and
England. I don't know what we may think by and by, but at present the
difference seems to be in favor of the former; if they are not happy
they look at least very like it."

"We have now traveled between four and five hundred miles in France,"
says the same traveler in another place, "and have hardly seen an acre
uncultivated, except two forests and parks, the one belonging to the
Prince of Conde, as I mentioned in a former letter, the other to the
king of France at Fontainebleau, and these are covered with woods. In
every place almost every inch has been ploughed or dug, and at this time
appears to be pressed with the weight of the incumbent crop. On the
roads, to the very edge where the travelers' wheels pass, and on the
hills to the very summit, may be seen the effects of human industry.
Since we left Paris we have come through a country where the vine is
cultivated. This grows on the sides and even on the tops of the highest
hills. It will also flourish where the soil is too poor to bear corn,
and on the sides of precipices where no animal could draw the plough."
[Footnote: Dr. Rigby, 11, 96. See also Sir George Collier, 21.]

Let us now turn to the other end of France, and hear another traveler,
one generally less enthusiastic than the last. "The vintage itself,"
says Arthur Young, "can hardly be such a scene of activity and
animation, as this universal one of treading out the corn, with which
all the towns and villages in Languedoc are now alive. The corn is all
roughly stacked around a dry, firm spot, where great numbers of mules
and horses are driven on a trot round a centre, a woman holding the
reins, and another, or a girl or two, with whips drive; the men supply
and clear the floor; other parties are dressing, by throwing the corn
into the air for the wind to blow away the chaff. Every soul is
employed, and with such an air of cheerfulness, that the people seem as
well pleased with their labor, as the farmer himself with his great
heaps of wheat. The scene is uncommonly animated and joyous. I stopped
and alighted often to see their method; I was always very civilly
treated, and my wishes for a good price for the farmer, and not too good
a one for the poor, well received."[Footnote: Arthur Young, i. 45 (July
24, 1787).]

These descriptions would give too favorable an idea if they were taken
for the whole of France. All peasant women did not powder their hair
and wear earrings. Those of France did much more field-work than those
of England. Their figures became bent, their general appearance worn;
an English observer, accustomed to the more ruddy faces of his
countrywomen, might set them down for twice their age. They often went
barefoot, and on their way to market carried their shoes on a stick
until they drew near the town. They had to be thrifty, and might be
seen picking weeds on the wayside into their aprons, to feed their
cows. All provinces were not so rich as Flanders. There were vast
stretches of waste land in France, given up to broom and heath. Wolves
and bears were still a terror to remote farms. There were, moreover,
times of famine, which the foolish regulations of the government
aggravated, by preventing the free movement of provisions within the
country. In some provinces these seasons of famine were often
repeated. Then the wretched inhabitants sank into despair. Young
people would refuse to marry, saying that it was not worth while to
bring unfortunate children into the world. But in general the country
people were laborious and happy, with enough for their daily needs,
and often merry,--resembling in that respect the English before the
Puritan revival rather than the Anglo-Saxons of more modern
times.[Footnote: A. Young, i. 6 (May 22, 1787). Ibid., i. 45 (July
24, 1787), i. 18, (June 10, 1787), i. 28 (June 28, 1787). D'Argenson,
vi. 49 (Oct. 4, 1749), vi. 322 (Dec. 28, 1850), vii. 55 (Dec. 22,
1751), viii. 8, 35, 233, ix. 160. Turgot (iv. 274) reckons that in
Limonsin, 1766, the laborers' families did not have more than 25 to 30
livres per person per annum for their support, counting all they
got. This is but 1 64/100 sou a day, and bread cost 2 1/2 sous per lb.
A. Young, i. 439. This does not seem possible. The people lived partly
on chestnuts.]

In the country, as in the towns, prosperity and material well-being were
slowly increasing. The latter years of King Louis XIV. had been years of
depression and misery. External wars, and the persecution of the
Protestants at home, heavy taxation and bad government, had reduced the
numbers and the wealth of the French nation. But with the accession of
Louis XV. in 1715, a time of recuperation had begun. During the seventy
years that followed, the population increased from about sixteen to
about twenty-six millions. The rent of land rose also. The natural
excellence of the soil, the natural intelligence of the people, were
bringing about a slow and uneven improvement.[Footnote: Clamageran,
iii. 464. Bois-Guillebert, 179, and _passim_. Horn, 1. The
improvement was not universal. Lorraine is said to have lost prosperity
from the time of its union with France in 1737. Mathieu, 316.]

One third of the soil was covered with small farms, which at the death
of every proprietor were subdivided among his children. By a curious
custom (arising in I know not what form of jealousy or caprice), the
subdivision was wantonly made more disastrous. It was usual to divide
not only the whole estate, but every part of it among the heirs. Thus,
if a peasant died possessed of six fields and left three children, it
was not the custom that each child should take two fields, and that he
who got the best should make up the difference in money to his brethren.
Perhaps cash was too scarce for that. But every one of the six fields
would be divided into three parts, one of which was given to each child,
so that instead of six separate plots of ground, there were now
eighteen. This process had been repeated until a farm might almost be
shaded by a single cherry-tree.[Footnote: Sybel, i. 22. Chérest, ii.
532. Turgot, iv. 260. English writers, from Arthur Young to Lady Verney,
wax eloquent over the evils of small holdings.]

The class of middling proprietors was very small. The incidents to the
holding of land by all who were not noble drove rising families to the
towns. The great change that has come over the French country during the
last hundred years consists, in a measure, in the formation of a class
of men owning farms of moderate size.

A large part of the soil belonged to the nobles and the clergy. The
exact proportion cannot be ascertained. It has been stated as high as
two thirds; but this is probably an exaggeration. These proprietors of
the privileged classes seldom cultivated any very large part of their
land themselves, by hired workmen, although certain privileges and
exemptions were allowed to such as chose to keep their farms in their
own hands. A few of them let their lands for a fixed rent in money.
But the greater part of the cultivated soil which was owned by the
nobility and clergy was in the hands of _metayers_, lessees who paid
their rent in the shape of a proportionate part of the crops.
Sometimes the landlord made himself responsible for a portion of the
taxes; sometimes he furnished cattle or farming implements. His share
of the gross crop was usually one half. The system, which is still
common in some parts of France, is considered a good one neither for
the landlord nor for the tenant, but is devised principally to meet
the want of capital on the part of the latter.[Footnote: Young reckons
that the price of arable land and its rent are about the same in
France as in England. The net revenue is larger in France, because
there are no poor-rates and the tithe is more moderate in that
country. The price of arable land he calculates to be on an average
20 Pounds per acre; rent 15 shillings 7d. per acre = 3 9/10 per
cent. of the salable value. From this deduct the two vingtièmes and 4
sous per livre (taxes paid by the landlord) and other expenses, and
the net revenue remains between 3 and 3 1/4 per cent. The product of
wheat in France is, however, much worse than in England, so that the
proportion obtained by the landlord is greater and that of the tenant
less. In France the landlord gets one half of the crop; in England,
one fourth to one sixth, sometimes only one tenth. A. Young, i. 353.]

We may imagine the country-houses of the nobles scattered over the face
of the country so that the traveler would come upon one of them once in
two or three miles. Sometimes the seat of the lord was an ancient
castle, with walls eight feet thick, rising above the surrounding forest
from the top of a steep hill, dark and threatening, but no longer
formidable. Within, the great hall was stone-paved. Its walls were hung
with dusky portraits and rusty armor. From the hall would open a
spacious bedroom, with tapestried walls and a monumental bedstead.
Curtains and coverlets showed the delicate embroidery of some
ancestress, long since laid to rest in the family chapel. The very
sheets had perhaps been woven by her shuttle. This bedroom, according to
old custom, was still the living-room of the family. Sometimes the
lord's house was modern, elegant, and symmetrical; it was flanked with
pavilions and in front of it was a stone terrace, with a balustrade, on
which stood vases for growing plants. Inside the house were high-studded
rooms with white walls and gilded mouldings. High-backed, crooked-legged
chairs, in the style of the last reign, were ranged against the walls;
and near the middle of the dark, slippery, well-waxed floor, were
lighter seats and stools. The grandmother's armchair with its footstool
stood at the chimney corner, where the fire was religiously lighted on
All Saints and put out at Easter, regardless of weather. Through the
tall windows that opened down to the ground might be seen the long
straight garden-walks, none too well kept, and clipped shrubs, with here
and them a marble nymph, moss-grown and broken, or a fountain out of
repair. The family did not spend much money in the place. There was
little to do except in the season for shooting.[Footnote: Taine,
_L'ancien régime_, 17. Mme. de Montagu, 59.]

In order that this last occupation may be left to the lord and his
friends, game is strictly preserved, to the great detriment of the
crops. Poachers are sharply dealt with, and the peasant may not have a
gun to protect him from wolves. There are laws enough against the
wrongs wrought by landlords and gamekeepers, against the trampling
down of young wheat, against vexatious complaints and fines, but the
country people say that such laws are not fairly enforced. Especially
is the case hard of those who live near the _capitaineries_ or royal
hunting-grounds. Here rural proprietors may not raise a new wall
without permission, lest the hares be restrained of their liberty of
eating cabbages. No crops can be cut until the appointed day, that the
young partridges be not disturbed. Deer and rabbits live at free
quarters in the cultivated fields. They are the peasants' personal
enemies, and among the first unlawful acts of the Revolution will be
their wholesale destruction.[Footnote: Olivier, 78, mentions the laws
protecting the crops. The universal complaint of the _cahiers_ proves
the grievance. See the chapter on the _cahiers_. The _capitainerie_ of
Chantilly was said to be over 100 miles in circumference. A. Young,
i. 8 (May 25, 1787).]

In every village there is a church, sometimes even in small places a
beautiful gothic building, oftener modest in size and of plain
architecture. Once or twice in a day's ride the red roofs and high
walls of a convent come in sight, not very different in appearance
from a group of farm buildings,--were it not for the chapel and its
belfry;--for here in France the farms are surrounded by high
walls. The interminable straight roads, fine pieces of engineering,
but little traveled, stretch out between the ploughed fields, with
rows of Lombardy poplars on either hand, that tantalize the sun-baked
traveler with a suggestion of shade.

The peasants live in villages oftener than in detached farms, and the
village itself is apt to have a rudely fortified appearance. The fields
that stretch about it belong to the peasants, but with a modified
ownership. Over them the lords exercise their feudal rights. There is
the _cens_, a fixed rent, annual, perpetual, inseparably attached
to the soil. It is paid sometimes in money, sometimes in grain, fruits,
or chickens, according to deed, or to long established custom. There is
the _champart_, a rent proportional to the crop, also payable to
the lord; and there is the tithe which must be given to the clergy.
Should the peasant wish to sell his holding, a fine called _lods et
ventes_, amounting in some cases to one sixth of the price, must be
paid to the lord by the purchaser, and on some estates the lord has also
the right to refuse to accept the new tenant, and to take the bargain on
his own account.[Footnote: Prudhomme, 37, 137, 515.]

These are the common incidents of feudal tenure. Rights analogous to
them may be found in England or in Germany, wherever that system has
existed. And the vestiges of a state of things far older than feudalism
have not entirely disappeared. The commons of wood and of pasturage yet
recall the time when agricultural lands were held by a common tenure.
Even that tenure itself, with its annual redistribution of the fields,
may be found in Lorraine.[Footnote: Mathieu, 322.]

There were, moreover, many irksome restrictions on the peasant. In the
lord's mill he must grind his corn; in the lord's oven he must bake his
bread; to the lord's bull his cow must be taken. Days of labor on the
lord's land might be demanded of him. Ridiculous customs, offensive to
his dignity or his vanity, might be enforced. Newly married couples were
in some parishes made to jump over the churchyard wall. In other places,
on certain nights in the year, the peasants were obliged to beat the
water in the castle ditch to keep the frogs quiet. These customs have
been considered very grievous by democratic writers, nor were they so
indifferent to the peasants themselves as the lovers of the good old
times would have us believe.[Footnote: See the rural _cahiers,
passim_. Mathieu gives the text of a customary right of
_banalité_. The fee of the _four banal_ was 1/24 of the bread
by weight; the _moulin banal_, 1/12 of the flour; the _pressoir
banal_, 1/10 to 1/12 of the wine; but the fees varied in different
places even in one province. It was complained that presses enough for
the work were not furnished, and that grapes spoiled in consequence.
Mathieu, 285.]

It was not always the lord of the soil who enjoyed and exercised the
feudal rights. He had sometimes sold them to strangers, in whose hands
they were merely revenue, and who demanded them harshly.

The origin of these customs lay in a form of civilization that had long
passed away. To understand the conditions on which the French peasants
held their lands little more than a hundred years ago, we must glance
back over many centuries. Feudalism began in military conquest. When the
barbarians overran the Roman Empire, the victorious chiefs divided the
land among their principal followers; and the titles thus conferred,
although personal at first, soon became hereditary. The man who received
or inherited land was expected to appear in the field with his followers
at the call of his chief. The tenant, in his turn, distributed the land
among his friends on conditions similar to those on which he had himself
received it; and the process might be indefinitely repeated. Thus there
came to be a hierarchy in the state, in which every member was
responsible to his immediate superiors and obliged within certain limits
to obey the man next above him, rather than the king who was supposed to
rule them all. The obligations were various, according to the conditions
on which the lands had been granted, but they always involved military
service on the part of the grantee, and protection on the part of the
grantor. The services being mutual, and the tenure the usual, or
fashionable one, most persons who held land in any other way saw fit to
conform to the feudal method; and absolute, or allodial owners, where
the tide of conquest had left any, generally, in the course of time,
surrendered their lands to some neighboring lord, and received them back
again on feudal conditions.

But the tenure here described existed only among the comparatively rich
and great. When the last feudal division had been accomplished, when the
chief had made his last grant to his captains and the soil was divided
among them, there still remained by far the larger part of the
population which owed no feudal duty and held no feudal estate. The
common soldiers of the invading army, the native people of the conquered
country and their descendants, inextricably mixed together, remained
upon the soil and cultivated it as free tenants, or as serfs. They paid
for the use of the land on which they lived in money or in a share of
the crops, or in services. They acknowledged the title of the feudal
lords over them, and while struggling to make good bargains with their
masters, they seldom set up a claim to equality, or to independence. The
peasants came to think it the natural and divinely appointed order of
things that they should obey and serve their lords, with a partial
obedience and a limited service. To ask why they were content so to
serve, would be to open one of the greatest problems of history.
Whatever the reason, over a large part of the world, and through the
greater part of historical time, men have consented to obey other men
whom they have not selected, and have generally preferred the hereditary
principle to any other in determining to whom they would look up as
their rulers.

So the French peasants and their lords went on for centuries, living
side by side, rendering each other mutual services, sometimes quarreling
and sometimes making bargains. The peasants were called on for military
service, but they and their families took refuge in the lord's castle
when the frequent wars swept over the land. The mill, whose rough
machinery was still an improvement on the rude hand-mill, or on the yet
more primitive mortar and pestle; the oven where the peasant could bake
his bread without lighting a fire on his own hearth, after the toil of
the long summer's day; the bull of famous breed in all the country-side,
were the lord's, and all his tenants must use them and pay for them, at
rates fixed by immemorial custom, or perhaps by some long forgotten
bargain, made when these conveniences were first furnished to the
dwellers in the land. The lord led his peasants to battle, he protected
them from the inhabitants of the next valley, he decided their
differences in his court, where the more considerable of his tenants sat
beside him; he governed his people, well or ill, according to his
character, but on the whole to their reasonable satisfaction. His
government, such as it might be, was their only refuge from anarchy. The
lord was governed, not very strictly, by a greater lord, who in his turn
owed duty to a greater than he; until, after one or more steps, came the
king, or overlord of the land.

The long struggle by which the kings of France had transformed this
loose chain of allegiance into the tightened band of almost absolute
monarchy, is not to be told here. From the tenth century to the
seventeenth the combat was waged with varied success. The feudal lords
lost much of their power, but kept much of their wealth and many of
their privileges. The dukes and counts, whose fathers, in their own
domains, had been as powerful as the king himself, retained their
titles, and drew their incomes, but they spent their time in attendance
on their sovereign. The petty lord still held his court of justice, over
which his bailiff usually presided, but its functions had been gradually
usurped by the royal judges. The castle, no longer needed for
protection, was transformed into a country house. But many old customs
and old rights were maintained, although their origin was forgotten. The
peasants still worked for several days in the year on the lands of their
lord, or paid a part of their crops in rent for their farms, although
these had been in the possession of their forefathers for a thousand
years.

This rent, or some rent, the peasants under Louis XVI. believed to be
just, for they did not claim absolute ownership, but they considered the
services onerous and degrading. Their ideas on these subjects were not
very definite, but of late years a general sense of wrong had been
growing in their minds. The long-lived quarrels which ever exist in the
country-side were envenomed by stronger suspicions of injustice. It was
a common complaint that the last survey and apportionment of rent had
been unfair. The lords were no longer so far removed from their poorer
neighbors as to be above envy. They were no longer so useful as to be
considered necessary evils, as a large part of the community everywhere
is prone to think of its governors.

Let us look at the life of the peasant. His cottage is not attractive; a
low thatched building, perhaps without a floor. The barn is close
against it, and the family is not averse to seeking the warmth of the
cattle and of the dunghill. The windows are without glass, and pigs and
chickens wander in and out at the open door. But the house belongs to
the peasant, and is his home. He dares not improve it for fear of
increased taxes. He cares not much to do so. It keeps him warm at night
and dry when it rains; daylight and fine weather will find him out of
doors. If he can hide away a few pieces of silver in an old stocking, he
will more readily bring them out to buy another bit of ground, than
waste them in useless comforts and luxuries of building.

The furniture was generally better than the house. A great bedstead,
with curtains of green serge, was the principal piece, the centre of
family life, the birthplace of the children, the death-bed of the
parents. It was made as high as possible, to lift the sleepers above the
damp ground. A feather-bed helped to keep them warm. A few cupboards and
chests stood about the walls of the room, dark with age and grime. They
were made of oak, or pear wood, and sometimes rudely carved. In the
eighteenth century comfort had much increased in the towns, but the
country had seen little change.

The dress, again, was generally better than the furniture. The costumes
of the provinces are often the copy of some long-forgotten fashion of
the court, simplified or changed to adapt it to rural skill and country
needs. To be well dressed is a sign of respectability; to be modestly
housed may pass for a sign of thrift. On Sundays, bright coats, blue,
gray, or olive, made their appearance. The women came out in good gowns
and clean caps. There were flowered damask waists, sleeves of white
serge, wine-colored petticoats. A gold cross was a sign of comparative
wealth, but silver jewelry was common. Leather shoes were worn by both
sexes. On week days there were wooden shoes, or bare feet in the
southern provinces, and overalls of gray linen. Under Louis XVI., cotton
began to drive out the linen and woolen cloths of former years. Being
cheaper and less strong, clothes were oftener renewed. The change was
contrary to beauty, but favorable to cleanliness.

The food of the peasant depended much on his harvest. In good years and
on good soils he was well fed; in bad years and in poor districts, ill.
Bread, the chief article of his diet, was cheaper and less good than in
England, the wheat flour being mixed with rye, barley, oats, chestnuts
or pease. The women made a soup, or porridge, by boiling this bread in
water, adding milk perhaps, or a little bit of pork for a relish. Cheese
and butter were fairly plenty, for common lands were extensive. Beef and
mutton would be eaten at Easter-tide or at the festival of the patron
saint, and most at wedding-feasts. Wine appears to have been considered
a luxury, but a common one. It would seem that a peasant who did not
taste it several times a week was accounted poor; one who drank it
freely but temperately twice a day would have been called rich. Tobacco,
the comforter of the poor, was in common use. This description of the
food of the country people applies rather to the poorer peasants, or to
those whose condition was not above the average, than to those who were
best off. In Normandy, good bread, meat, eggs, vegetables, and fruit,
with plenty of cider, formed the daily fare in prosperous farm-houses.
[Footnote: This description of the condition of the peasants is taken
chiefly from Babeau, _La vie rurale._]

The peasants were not cut off from all social and political activity.
Every rural parish formed a separate little community, very restricted
in its rights and functions, yet not without valuable corporate
powers. [Footnote: The parish and the community were generally
coterminous, but were not always so. Ibid., _Le Village_, 97.] It
could hold property, both real and personal; it could sue and be sued;
it could elect its own officers and manage its own affairs. In the
eighteenth century it became the fashion in France, as in many other
countries, to divide the common lands, but many parishes still held
large tracts in the reign of Louis XVI. The sale of their woods, the
letting of their pastures, of fishing rights, or of the office of
wine-taster in grape-growing districts, formed the revenues of the
rural community. Its expenses were many and various. It repaired the
nave of the church, the choir being kept in order at the cost of the
priest. The parsonage and the wall round the churchyard were
maintained by the parish. The drawing for the militia was at the
expense of the community. So were some of the roads. It paid the
schoolmaster and the syndic. Then there were incidental expenses, such
as the annual mass, the carriage of letters, the keeping in order of
the church clock. Sometimes the accounts of a community show a charge
for a present to some influential person, capable of helping in a
lawsuit, or of effecting a reduction of the taxes assessed on the
parish. It was a notable feature of the communal expenses, that the
lord of the village shared them with his poorer neighbors. Into these
rural matters privilege did not extend.[Footnote: But this was not
always the case. See the _cahier_ of the Artignose in Provence,
_Archives parlementaires_, vi. 249. "Clochers et autres bâtiments
généraux. (Les seigneurs n'en payent rien, même pour leurs biens
roturiers, pour les différentes charges des communautés)."]

The public meetings of these little communities were held on certain
Sundays of the year after mass, or after vespers. Sometimes the meeting
took place in the church itself, oftener in front of it, on the green.
There the men of the village, streaming from the porch, stood or sat in
groups on the grass, under the trees. Their own elected syndic presided.
Ten was a quorum for ordinary business, but two thirds of the whole
number was necessary to confirm a loan. A fine could be imposed for
absence, or for leaving the assembly before adjournment.

In these town meetings the affairs of the community were discussed and
decided. Sales were made, land was let, repairs of public buildings or
of roads were voted. The syndic was elected. A record of the proceedings
was kept, and was afterwards submitted to the royal intendant for his
approval, without which no action was valid. This system lasted to the
eve of the Revolution, but was at that time giving way to another. Under
pretense that the public meetings were disorderly, they were gradually
obliged to surrender their functions to boards partly or wholly elected.
But certain important matters, such as the election of a schoolmaster,
were still left to the general assembly. At the same time the right of
suffrage was somewhat curtailed. Voters were required to be twenty-five
years old and to pay certain taxes.

The village had its elected head, the syndic,[Footnote: So called in
the north of France. In the south, _consul_. Babeau, _Le
Village_, 45.] whose functions were not unlike those of an American
selectman.

He was the executive officer of the community, who conducted its
business and had charge of its papers. The central government of the
country also laid tasks upon him. He had to attend to the drawing of the
militia, to report epidemics among the cattle, to enforce the laws for
the destruction of caterpillars. Beside him were other officers, also
elected by the inhabitants, but more directly the servants of the
central power than he. These were the collectors of taxes. The syndics
and collectors had much work and responsibility, with little pay and no
chance of promotion. Honest and capable men were much averse to taking
such places and often tried to escape it. The dishonest acquired illicit
gain in them, at the expense of their fellow-subjects. Serving the
community was considered less an honor than a duty, and service could be
forced on the unwilling citizen; but the inhabitants in easy
circumstances often found means to avoid the task, and the syndics and
collectors were then chosen from among the poorer and less educated
peasants. Some of them could neither read nor write.[Footnote: The
above description of the political life of the village is taken chiefly
from Babeau, _Le Village_. See also the _cahier_ of the
village of Pin (_Paris extra muros, Archives parlementaires_, v.
22, Section 1).] A public body that wishes to be well-served must not
make public service too disagreeable. France suffered at once from
overpaid courtiers, and from ill-treated syndics and collectors.

The chief layman of the village was the lord's steward (_bailli_),
who exercised the judicial functions of his master. He held himself
above the common peasants and his wife was called "Madame." Her kitchen
showed a greater array of pots and pans than that of her neighbors; her
linen and her jewelry were more abundant than theirs. The steward and
the parish priest were the most important persons in the hamlet.
[Footnote: Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 156.]

The schoolmaster came far below the priest, who had over him a right
of supervision. The main control of the schools, however, was in the
hands of the communities, which elected the masters from candidates
approved by the clergy. The latter insisted more strongly on orthodoxy
than on competence. The position of the village schoolmaster was not
brilliant. His house usually consisted of two rooms, one for the
school and one for the family; his books were few, his clothes shabby.
He was paid in part by the scholars, at the rate of three or five sous
a month for reading, higher for writing and arithmetic. In some cases
a tax of a hundred and fifty livres was laid on the parish for his
benefit. But school was not held during the whole year; the scholars
would desert in a body early in Lent, and be kept busy in the fields
until November. The master might act as surgeon, or attorney, or
surveyor; he might cultivate a plot of ground. He was expected to
assist the priest at divine service, to lead the choir, or even to
ring the bells. Simple primary schools were abundant in the country,
especially in some of the northern provinces. In some villages the
boys and girls went together, but the higher civil and ecclesiastical
authorities, the king and the bishops, more familiar with the manners
of the court than with those of the village, looked on these mixed
schools with disfavor. In general it was harder for girls to get an
education than for boys.[Footnote: Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 143.
Ibid., _Le Village_, 277. Ibid., _L'Ecole de village_, 17, 18.
Mathieu, 262. _Cahier_ of the "_Instituteurs des petites villes,
bourgs, et villages de Bourgogne," Rev. des deux Mondes_, April 15,
1881, 874. Statistics are imperfect, but from an examination of
marriage registers, Babeau gathers that the proportion of persons
married who could sign their names varied from nearly 89 per cent. of
the men and nearly 65 per cent. of the women in Lorraine, to 13 per
cent. of the men and nearly 6 per cent. of the women in the Nivernois.
The central provinces and Brittany were the most illiterate parts of
the country. _L'Ecole_, 3 _n_. 187. _Le Village_, 282 _n_. 3.]

The ambitious lad found means by which to rise. In spite of the heavy
and badly levied taxes, he might grow rich, add new fields to his
father's farm, attain in some degree to comfort and to that
consideration in his neighborhood which is perhaps the most legitimately
dear to the heart of all the worldly consequences of success. Nor was it
necessary to confine himself entirely to agriculture. The lower walks of
the law and of medicine might be attained by the son of a peasant, and
if one generation of labor were hardly long enough to reach the higher,
no career, except the few reserved for the upper nobility, was beyond
the aspiration of the rising man for his children or his children's
children. There was more modest promotion nearer at hand. The blacksmith
and the innkeeper stood in the eyes of their poorer neighbors as
instances of prosperity. The studious boy, with good luck, might become
a schoolmaster, even a parish priest. The active and pushing might, with
favor, aspire to some petty place under the central government; or to
stewardship for the lord. To what eminence of fortune might not these
prove the paths.[Footnote: Babeau, La vie rurale, 128, etc.]

Meanwhile for the unambitious, for the mass of rural mankind, there were
simpler pleasures, the dance on the green of a Sunday afternoon, the
weddings with their feasts and merry-makings, the fairs and the festival
of the patron saint of the village. There were games, ploughing matches,
grinning matches. Holidays were frequent,--too frequent, said the
learned; but probably they did not often come amiss to the peasants. On
those days they could throw off their cares and play as heartily as they
had worked. It is generally believed that the Frenchman, and especially
the French peasant, was livelier before the Revolution than he has ever
been since.[Footnote: Ibid, 187. See Goldsmith's Traveller, the lines
beginning:--

     "To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
     I turn; and France displays her bright domain."]

There was much that was hard in the condition of the rural classes, but
it was better than that of the greater part of mankind. On the continent
of Europe only the inhabitants of some small states equaled in
prosperity those of the more fortunate of the French provinces.
[Footnote: Holland and Lombardy were the richest countries in Europe.
Tuscany was especially well governed just then. A. Young, i. 480.
Serfdom still existed in some remote French provinces, especially in the
Jura mountains. Its principal characteristic was the escheating to the
lord of the property of all serfs dying childless.] And in France
prosperity was growing. The peasant's taxes were constantly getting
heavier, but his means of bearing them increased faster yet. The rising
tide of material prosperity, the great change of modern times, could be
felt, though feebly as yet, in the provinces of France.



CHAPTER XIV.

TAXATION.[Footnote: "I must again remark that clear accounts are not to
be looked for in the complex mountain of French finances." A. Young, i.
578. Young reckons the revenue at the entire command of Louis XVI. at
680,664,943 livres, i. 575. See also Stourm, ii. 182.]


The gross amount paid in taxes by the French nation before the
Revolution will never be accurately known; the subject is too vast and
complicated, and the accounts were too loosely kept. Necker in his work
on the "Administration of the Finances" reckons the sum annually paid by
the people at five hundred and eighty-five million livres. Bailly (whose
book appeared in 1830 and has not been superseded) makes the gross
amount eight hundred and eighty millions. But from this should be
deducted feudal dues and fees for membership of trade guilds, which
Bailly includes in his estimate, and which were certainly private
property, however objectionable in their character. There will remain
less than eight hundred and thirty-seven million livres as the amount
paid by about twenty-six million Frenchmen, in general and local
taxation, including tithes; an average of about thirty-two livres a
head. Was this amount excessive? Probably not, if the load had been
rightly distributed. If we allow the franc of to-day one half of the
purchasing power of the livre of 1789, the modern Frenchman yet pays
more than his great-grandfather did. But there can be little doubt that
he pays it more easily to himself. In the eighteenth century the
Englishman was probably better off than his French neighbor, but his
advantage was not undoubted. Grenville, in 1769, speaks of the
comparative lightness of taxes and cheapness of living which, he says,
must make France an asylum for British manufacturers and artificers.
Young, twenty years later, asserts that the taxes in England are much
more than double those in France, but more easily borne. Necker says
that England bears as large a burden of taxation as France, in spite of
a smaller number of inhabitants and a less amount of money in
circulation; but bears it more readily because it is better distributed.
And Chastellux, while arriving at a similar conclusion, remarks that
after all the French is, of all nations, the one that suffers most from
taxation.[Footnote: Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. 35, 51.
Bailly, ii. 275. Grenville, _The Present State of the Nation_, 35;
but this statement is made in a political pamphlet, answered and
apparently refuted by Burke, _Observations on a Late State of the
Nation._ A. Young, i. 596. Chastellux, ii. 169. For 1891 the average
taxation per head amounts to 86 francs, for 1789 to 34 livres,
_Statesman's Year Book_, 1891, p. 472, and Bailly.]

Under the old monarchy the taxes were unequally assessed in two ways.
There were differences of places and differences of persons. This is
pretty sure to be true of all countries, but in France the differences
were very large and were not sanctioned by the popular conscience. In a
country which had become strongly conscious of its unity, and which was
full of national feeling, some provinces were taxed much more heavily
than others, not for their own local purposes, but for the support of
the central government. In the first place came those provinces which
were included in the general assessment of taxes. These were divided
into twenty-four districts (_generalités_), over each of which was
an intendant. Twenty of these districts formed the heart of old France,
extending irregularly from Amiens on the north to Bordeaux on the south,
and from Grenoble on the east to the sea. To these were added the
conquered or ceded provinces: Alsace, Lorraine, Bar, the Three
Bishoprics, Franche Comté, Flanders, and Hainault, forming among them
four districts and enjoying privileges superior to those of old France.
All these formed the Lands of Election (_pays d'Election_). On the
other hand were the Lands of Estates (_pays d'États_), provinces
which had retained their assemblies, and with them some of their ancient
rights of taxing themselves, or at least of levying in their own way
those taxes which the central government imposed. This was a privilege
highly prized by the provinces which possessed it. These provinces
formed a fringe round France, and included Languedoc, Provence, the
duchy of Burgundy, Artois, Brittany, and some others. The central
administration was so oppressive, at the same time that it was clumsy
and inefficient, that every province and city was anxious to compound
for its taxes, and to settle them at a fixed rate, though a high one.
This was accomplished on the largest scale by the Lands of Estates, but
similar privileges, to a greater or less extent, were maintained by most
of the cities. We must remember, here as elsewhere, that France had not
sprung into being as a homogeneous nation with her modern boundaries.
From the accession of the House of Capet in the tenth century, province
after province had been added to the dominions of the crown. Many of
them had preserved ancient rights. Customs and tolls differed among
them, duties were exacted in passing from one to the other. Privileges,
the prizes of old wars, rights assured in some cases by solemn treaties,
had to be regarded. The wars of the Middle Ages were waged chiefly
concerning legal claims. The end of the period found all Europe full of
privileged territories, persons, or corporations. Privileges and rights
were regarded as property. Modern struggles have been for ideas, and
among the most cherished of these have been equality and uniformity. The
sacredness of property and of contract have in a measure gone down
before them.[Footnote: Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. ix.
Bailly, ii. 276. Horn, 258. Bois-Guillebert, 207. _(La détail de la
France Partie_, ii. c. vii.); Stubbs _Lectures_, 217. Walloon
Flanders was in the anomalous position of forming part of a
_généralité_, but possessing Estates. _Bailly_, ii. 327.]

Although the Provincial Estates differed in the various provinces which
possessed them, they included in almost every case members of the three
orders. The Clergy were usually represented by bishops, abbots, and
persons deputed by chapters; the Nobility either by all nobles whose
title was not less than a hundred years old, or by the possessors of
certain fiefs; the third estate, or Commons, by the mayors and deputies
of the towns. The three Orders sometimes sat apart, sometimes together.
In the intervals between their sessions their powers were delegated to
intermediate commissions, small boards for the regulation of current
affairs. There was nothing democratic in such a constitution. Even the
representatives of the commonalty were taken from among the most
privileged members of their order. Nor were the powers of the Estates
extensive. They bargained with the royal intendants for the gross amount
of the taxes to be assessed on their provinces. They divided this sum
and charged it to the various subdivisions of their territory. They
levied it by taxes similar to those of the general government.
[Footnote: Lucay, _Les assemblées provinciales_, 111. Necker,
_Mémoire au roi sur l'établissement des administrations provinciales,
passim_.]

But in spite of all drawbacks the Provincial Estates were much valued by
the provinces which possessed them. They were at least a guarantee that
some local knowledge and local patriotism would be applied to local
affairs. Moreover, they had the right of petition, a right essential to
good government, both for the information of rulers and for giving vent
to the feelings of subjects. This right is, and has long been, so nearly
free in English-speaking countries, that it is hard to realize that
there are civilized lands where men may not quietly and respectfully
express their wishes. Yet in old France, as in a large part of
Continental Europe to-day, the citizen who publicly gave an opinion on
public matters, or who pointed out a well-known public grievance, was
considered a disturber of the peace. Under such circumstances, a body of
men who were allowed to discuss and recommend might render a great
service to their country by simply using that freedom. The complaints of
the Estates of each province were transmitted to the king in council, by
a document known as a _cahier_, and the wishes thus expressed often
formed a basis of legislation, or of administrative orders.

Among the spasmodic efforts at reform made under Louis XVI. were two
attempts to extend the system of local self-government. The first was
made by Necker in 1778 and 1779. Provincial assemblies were established
in those years by way of experiment in two provinces, Berry and Haute
Guyenne. These assemblies were composed of forty-eight and fifty-two
members respectively, one half being taken from among the clergy and
nobility, one half from the Third Estate of the towns and the country. A
third of the members of the Assembly of Berry were appointed by the
king, and these elected their fellow-members, care being taken to
preserve the equality of classes. One third of the members were to be
renewed by the assembly itself once in three years. The body was,
therefore, in no way dependent on popular election. The assembly met and
voted as one chamber. Its functions were almost purely administrative,
the assessment of taxes, the care of roads and the management of
charitable institutions. All this was done under close supervision of
the intendant and, through him, of the minister. The assembly sat only
once in two years, for a time not exceeding one month, but an
intermediate commission carried on its work between its sessions. The
general plan of the Assembly of Haute Guyenne was similar to that of the
Assembly of Berry.

Eight years passed between the establishment of these experimental
assemblies and the convocation of the first Assembly of Notables at
Versailles,--eight important years in French history. Necker was driven
from power, but the two new bodies survived the reactionary policy of
his successors, and did some good service. The fallen minister kept his
popularity and his influence with the public at large. His great book on
the "Administration of the Finances" was in all hands, eighty thousand
copies having been rapidly sold. In it he expounds his favorite scheme
of Provincial Assemblies, and praises the working of the two that have
been established. He points out that they are not representative bodies,
empowered to make bargains with the king and to impede the government,
but administrative boards, entrusted by the sovereign with the duty of
watching over the interests of the people of their districts. The
Assembly of Notables of 1787 and the minister Brienne adopted Necker's
views, but not completely. They established provincial assemblies
throughout France on a plan of their own. One half of the members of
these new bodies were to be chosen in the first place by the king; the
second half being elected by the first. But at the end of three years
one quarter part of the assembly was to retire, and its place was to be
filled by a true election. This, however, was not to be direct, but in
three stages. A parochial board was to be created in every village,
composed of the lord and the priest ex officio, and of several elected
members. These parochial boards were to elect the district boards,
(_assemblées d'élection_) and the latter were to elect the new
members of the Provincial Assembly. The march of events after 1787
prevented these elections from taking place. But the nominated
assemblies met twice, once for organization and once for business. They
came too late to prevent a catastrophe, but lasted long enough to give
well-founded hopes of usefulness. The great National Assembly of 1789
and its successors might have had a far less stormy history, had all
France been accustomed, though only for one generation, to political
bodies restrained by law.[Footnote: Necker, _Compte rendu_, 74.
Ibid., _De l'Administration_, ii. 225, 292. Lavergne, _Les
Assemblées provinciales sous Louis XVI_. Lucay, _Les Assemblées
provinciales sous Louis XVI_., 163.]

Within a given province or district, there was no proportional equality
among persons in the matter of taxation. It was sometimes said that the
noble paid with his blood, the villein with his money. But the order of
the Nobility had come to include many persons who never thought of
shedding their blood for their country; to include, in fact, the rich
and prosperous generally. These were not (as they are sometimes
represented to have been), quite free from taxation. Something like one
half of the taxes were indirect, and might be supposed to be paid by all
classes in proportion to their consumption. Yet even for the indirect
taxes, privileged persons managed to find ways partially to escape. Some
of the direct taxes were deducted from salaries, or imposed on incomes,
but it was said that the rich and powerful often succeeded in having
their incomes lightly assessed. By way of increasing the inequality of
taxation, the government had a habit, when in need of more money than
usual, of adding a percentage to some old tax, instead of devising a new
one, thus bearing most heavily with the new impost on those classes
which were most severely taxed already.

First among French taxes, both in blundering unfairness and in evil
fame, came the Land Tax or _Taille_, producing for the twenty-four
districts a revenue of about forty-five million livres, or with its
accessory taxes, of about seventy-five millions.[Footnote: Bailly, ii.
307. Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. 6, 35, puts the taille at 91
millions, but I think he includes the tailles abonnées, paid by the Pays
d'états, although not those paid by cities.]

The taille was of feudal origin, and in the Middle Ages was paid to the
lord by his tenants. In the fifteenth century, however, it had already
been diverted to the royal treasury, and its product was employed in the
maintenance of troops. It was therefore paid only by villeins, for the
nobles served in person, and the clergy by substitute, if at all.

The exemption of the upper orders from liability to the taille clung
to that tax after the reason for such freedom had ceased to exist. The
tax itself early grew to be of two kinds, real and personal. The
_taille réele_, common in the southern provinces of France, was a true
land-tax, assessed according to a survey and valuation on all lands
not accounted noble, nor belonging to the church, nor to the
public. The distinction between noble and peasant lands was an old
one; and the peasant lands paid the tax even when owned by privileged
persons. [Footnote: Turgot, iv. 74.]

Over the greater part of France, however, the _taille réele_ did
not exist, and only the _taille personelle_ was in force. This bore
on the profits of the land and on all forms of industry; but the
churchmen and the nobles were exempt, at least in part.[Footnote: There
appears to have been a limit to the exemption of nobles cultivating
their own lands.] Owing to its personal nature, the tax was payable at
the residence of the person taxed. If a peasant lived in one parish and
derived most of his income from land situated in another, he was taxable
at the place of his residence, at a rate perhaps entirely different from
that of the parish in which his farm was situated. It might happen that
a large part of the lands of a parish were owned by non-residents, and
that the ability of the parish to pay its taxes was thus reduced. But
there were exceptions to the rule by which the tax followed the person,
and the whole matter was so complicated as to be a fertile cause of
dispute and of double taxation.[Footnote: Turgot, iv. 76.]

The method of assessment and levy was peculiar. The gross amount of the
taille was determined twice a year by the royal council, and apportioned
arbitrarily among the twenty-four districts (generalités) of France, and
then subdivided by various officials among the sub-districts (élections)
and the parishes. The divisions thus made were very unequal; some
provinces, sub-districts, and parishes being treated much more severely
than others, apparently rather by accident or custom than for any
equitable reason. An influential person could often obtain a diminution
of the tax of his village. When the work of subdivision was completed,
the syndics and other parish officers were notified of the tax laid on
their parishes, which were thenceforth liable for the amount. But the
taille had still to be apportioned among the inhabitants. For this
purpose from three to seven collectors were elected in every rural
community by popular vote. The collectors assessed their neighbors at
their own discretion, and were personally responsible to the government
for the whole amount assessed on the parish. In consideration of this,
and of their labor, they were allowed to collect a percentage in
addition to the taille, for their own pay.[Footnote: "Six deniers par
livre" = 2 1/2 per cent. Turgot, vii. 125. Sometimes 5 per cent. Babeau,
Le Village, 225.] The whole process was the cause of endless bickerings
and disputes, lawsuits and appeals, and the collectors were frequently
ruined in spite of all their efforts. They were ignorant peasants,
unused to accounts, sometimes unable to read. In some of the mountain
parishes of the Pyrenees their accounts were kept on notched sticks to a
period not very long before the Revolution.[Footnote: Bailly, ii. 159.
Horn, 224 Babeau, Le Village, 222, 224. Turgot, vii. 122, iv. 51.
_Encyclopédie_, xv. 841 (_Taille_). A similar practice existed
in the English Court of Exchequer, to a later date.]

The liability to the taille was joint. A gross sum was laid on the
parish, and if one person escaped, or was unable to pay, his share had
to be borne by the rest. On the other hand, if one man were
overcharged, the burden of his neighbors was lightened. Thus it was
every one's interest to seem poor. And the taxes were so important a
matter, taking so large a part of the yearly income, that they
modified the whole conduct of life. People dared not appear at their
ease, lest their shares should be increased. They hid their wealth and
took their luxuries in secret. One day, Jean Jacques Rousseau,
traveling on foot, as was his wont, entered a solitary farm-house, and
asked for a meal. A pot of skimmed milk and some coarse barley bread
were set before him, the peasant who lived in the house saying that
this was all he had. After a while, however, the man took courage on
observing the manners and the appetite of his guest. Telling Rousseau
that he was sure he was a good, honest fellow, and no spy, he
disappeared through a trap-door, and presently came back with good
wheaten bread, a little dark with bran, a ham, and a bottle of wine.
An omelet was soon sizzling in the dish. When the time came for
Rousseau to pay and depart, the peasant's fears returned. He refused
money, he was evidently distressed. Rousseau made out that the bread
and the wine were hidden for fear of the tax-gatherer; that the man
believed he would be ruined, if he were known to have anything.
[Footnote: Rousseau, xvii. 281 (_Confessions_, Part i. liv. iv.).
Vauban, 51, and _passim_. Bois-Guillebert, 191.]

As it was for the advantage of individuals to be thought poor, so it was
best for villages to appear squalid. The Marquis of Argenson writes in
his journal: "An officer of the _élection_ has come into the
village where my country-house is, and has said that the taille of the
parish would be much raised this year; he had noticed that the peasants
looked fatter than elsewhere, had seen hens' feathers lying about the
doors, that people were living well and were comfortable, that I spent a
great deal of money in the village for my household expenses, etc. This
is what discourages the peasants. This is what causes the misfortunes of
the kingdom. This is what Henry IV. would weep over were he living now."
[Footnote: D'Argenson, vi. 256 (Sept. 12, 1750). See also vi. 425, vii.
55, viii. 8, 35, 53.]

The country people had grown to be very distrustful and suspicious
wherever officials of the government were concerned. "I remember a
singular feature of this subject," says Necker. "I think it was twenty
years ago that an intendant, with the laudable intention of encouraging
the manufacture of honey and the cultivation of bees, began by asking
for statistics as to the number of hives kept in the province. The
people did not understand his intentions, they were, perhaps, suspicious
of them, and in a few days almost all the hives were destroyed."
[Footnote: _De l'Administration_, iii. 232.]

No one could be induced to pay promptly, lest he should be thought to
have money. The tax was due in four payments, from the first of October
to the last of April, but the collection of one instalment was seldom
completed before the following one was due; that of one year seldom made
before the next had come. The peasants obliged the collectors to wring
out the hard-earned copper pieces one or two at a time. The tardy were
vexed with fines and distraints. Furniture, doors, the very rafters and
floors were sold for unpaid taxes. In the time of Louis XV., if a whole
village fell too much behindhand, its four principal inhabitants might
be seized and carried off to jail. This corporal joint-liability was
ended by a law passed under the ministry of Turgot, and apparently not
repealed on his fall.[Footnote: Horn, 238; Vauban; Bailly, ii. 203;
Stourm, i. 52; Turgot, vii. 119.]

The assessment and collection of the taille presented many anomalies. In
some places commissioners had been appointed by the intendant, for the
purpose of assessing estates and of reckoning the value of day's labor
of artisans. This method worked well and gave satisfaction, but it
extended only to a few provinces.[Footnote: Babeau, _Le Village_,
214.]

From the land tax we pass to the Twentieths (_vingtièmes_
[Footnote: Not to be confounded with the _Droit de vingtième_, an
indirect tax on wine. Kaufmann, 33. Notice that the two
_vingtièmes_ are constantly spoken of as the _dixième_.]),
which, as their name implies, were in theory taxes of five per cent. on
incomes. From these the clergy only were freed (having bought of the
crown a perpetual exemption). Two twentieths and four sous in the livre
of the first twentieth, or eleven per cent., was the regular rate in the
reign of Louis XVI., and was expected to bring in from fifty-five to
sixty million livres a year. A third twentieth was laid in 1782, to last
for three years after the end of the war of the American Revolution,
then in progress. This twentieth brought in twenty-one and a half
millions only, on account of various exemptions that were allowed. The
liability to the twentieths was not joint but individual; so that when a
deduction was made from the amount charged to one tax-payer, the sum
demanded of the others was not increased.

An attempt was made to levy the twentieths on the various sorts of
income. The product of agriculture paid the largest part, but a
percentage was retained on salaries and pensions paid by the government,
and the incomes of public officers receiving fees was estimated. In
spite of the desire to include every income in the operation of this
tax, it was generally believed that valuations were habitually made too
low, and that unfair discrimination took place. The inhabitants of some
provinces, on the other hand, were thought to be overcharged. Attempts
at rectification were resisted by the courts of law, the doctrine being
asserted that the valuation of a man's income for the purposes of this
tax could not legally be increased. It is instructive to compare the
interest thus shown in the rights of the upper classes, who shared in
the payment of the twentieths, with the indifference manifested to the
arbitrary manner in which the common people were treated in levying the
Land Tax.[Footnote: Necker reckons the two _vingtièmes_ and four
sous at 55,000,000 livres. _De l'Administration_, i. 5, 6.
_Compte rendu_, 61. Ibid., _Mémoire au roi sur l'establissement
des administrations provinciales_, 25. Necker abolished the
_vingtième d'industrie_ applied to manufactures and commerce.
_Compte rendu_, 64. In his later book he speaks of it as subsisting
in a few provinces only. _De l'Administration_, i. 159. Turgot, iv.
289. Stourm, i. 54.]

The poll tax (_capitation_) was one only in name. It was in fact a
roughly reckoned income tax, and the inhabitants of France were for its
purposes divided into twenty-two classes, according to their supposed
ability to pay. In the country, the amount demanded for this tax was
usually proportioned to that of the personal taille. People who paid no
taille were assessed according to their public office, military rank,
business, or profession. The rules were complicated, giving rise to
endless disputes. In theory the very poor were exempt, but the exemption
was not very generous, for maid-servants were charged at the rate of
three livres and twelve sous a year, and there were yet poorer people
who paid less than half that amount. If the poor man failed to pay, a
garrison (_garnison_) was lodged upon him. A man in blue, with a
gun, came and sat by his fire, slept in his bed, and laid hands on any
money that might come into the house, thus collecting the tax and his
own wages. The amount levied by the poll-tax and accessories was from
thirty-six to forty-two million livres a year.[Footnote: Bailly, ii.
307. Necker, _De l'Administration_, i. 8. Mercier, iii. 98, xi. 96.
Mercier thinks that the _capitation_ was more feared than the
_dixième_, and than the _entrées_, because it attached more
directly to the individual and to his person. Does this mean greater
severity in collection? Notice that he writes of Paris, where there is
no taille.]

The indirect taxes of France were mostly farmed. Once in six years the
Controller General of the Finances for the time being entered into a
contract, nominally with a man of straw, but actually with a body of
rich financiers, who appeared as the man's sureties, and who were known
as the Farmers General. The first operation of the Farmers, after
entering into the contract, was to raise a capital sum for the purpose
of buying out their predecessors, of taking over the material on hand,
and of paying an advance to the government; for although many individual
Farmers General held over from one contract to the next, the association
was a new one for each lease. In 1774, just before the death of King
Louis XV., a new contract was made, and the capital advanced amounted to
93,600,000 livres. The Farmers were allowed interest on this sum at the
rate of ten per cent. for the first sixty millions, and of seven per
cent. for the remaining 33,600,000 livres. This interest was, however,
taxed by the government for the two twentieths.

The rent paid by the Farmers under this contract was 152,000,000 livres
a year, for which consideration they were allowed to collect the
indirect taxes and keep the product. This system, which is at least as
old as the New Testament, is now generally condemned, but in the
eighteenth century it found defenders even among liberal writers.

The Farmers General in the contract of 1774 were sixty in number, but
they did not divide among themselves all the profits of the enterprise.
It was the habit to accord to many people a share in the operations of
the farm, without any voice in its management. The people thus favored
were called croupiers; king Louis XV. himself was one of them. His
Controller General, the Abbé Terray, received a fee of three hundred
thousand livres on concluding the contract, and the promise of one
thousand livres for every million of profits. When the bargain had been
struck and the advance paid, he announced to the Farmers that further
croupes would be granted, and that sundry payments must be made to the
treasury. The profits of the undertaking were thus materially reduced.
The Farmers at first threatened to throw up their bargain, but the
Controller told them that if they did so he would not return their
advances, but only pay interest on them. In spite of this swindle, the
lease turned out on the whole much to the benefit of the Farmers.

In 1780, when the lease above mentioned expired, Necker was Director of
the Finances. He introduced reforms into the General Farm, cutting down
the number of Farmers from sixty to forty, and reducing their gains. The
collection of certain taxes was taken from them, and entrusted to new
companies. His contract was for a rent of 122,900,000 livres and the
advance was forty-eight millions, for which the Farmers received seven
per cent. Moreover, the latter were not to take the whole profit above
the rent of the Farm. The first three millions of that profit went to
the treasury, which also received one half of the remaining gains, but
croupes and pensions on the Farm were totally abolished. Necker reckons
the total sum drawn yearly by the Farmers from the people under his
administration at 184,000,000 livres, and the sums collected by the two
new companies of his own devising, for the collection of the excise on
drinkables and for the administration of the royal domains at 92,000,000
more.

The Farmers General were the most conspicuous representatives in
France of the moneyed class, which was just rising into importance
beside the old aristocracy, by whose members it was despised but
courted. Many of the Farmers were of low origin and had risen to
fortune by their own abilities. Others belonged to families which had
long made a mark in the financial world. Their luxurious style of life
was admired by the vulgar and derided by the envious. The offices of
the Farm occupied several historic houses in Paris. In the chief of
these the French Academy had once held its sittings under the
presidency of Séguier, and the walls and ceilings shone with pictures
from the brushes of Lebrun and Mignard. The warehouses and offices for
the monopoly of tobacco occupied a fine building between the Louvre
and the Tuileries, where once the duchesses of Chevreuse and of
Longueville had prosecuted their political and amorous intrigues. The
discontented tax-payers grumbled the louder at seeing the hated
publicans so handsomely lodged.[Footnote: The total receipts of the
Farm, according to Necker, were 186,000,000 livres. Against this sum
must be set 2,000,000 for salt and tobacco sold to foreigners;
16,000,000 for the cost of salt and tobacco, and 8,000,000 for the
cost of other articles to the Farm. The amount of actual taxation
collected by the Farm would therefore seem to have been about
160,000,000. Necker, _De l'Administration,_, i. 9, 14, iii. 122.
Lemoine, _Les derniers fermiers généraux, passim._ Bailly, ii. 185,
_n_. and _passim_. _Encyclopédie_, vi. 515 (_Fermes, Cinq grosses_)
vi. 513, etc. (_Fermes du roi_). Bertin, 480. Mercier, xii. 89.]

The first and most dreaded of the indirect taxes was the Salt Tax
(_gabelle_). As salt is necessary for all, it has from early days
been considered by some governments a good article for a tax, no one
being able to escape payment by going entirely without it. To make the
revenue more secure, every householder in certain parts of France was
obliged to buy seven pounds of salt a year at the warehouses of the
Farm, for every member of his family more than seven years old. In spite
of this, a certain economy in the use of the article became the habit of
the French nation, and the traveler of the nineteenth century may bless
the government of the Bourbons when for once in his life he finds
himself in a country where the cooks do not habitually oversalt the
soup.

The unfortunate Frenchmen of the eighteenth century had to pay dear for
this culinary lesson. But in this matter as in others they did not all
pay alike. The whole product of the salt tax to the treasury was about
sixty million livres, of which two thirds, or forty millions, was taken
from provinces containing a little more than one third of the population
of the kingdom. Necker, who much desired to equalize the impost,
mentions six principal categories of provinces in regard to the salt
tax; varying from those in which the sale was free, and the article
worth from two to nine livres the hundred weight, to those where it was
a monopoly of the Farm, and the salt cost the consumer about sixty-two
livres. Salt being thus worth thirty times as much in one province as in
another, it was possible for a successful smuggler to make a living by a
very few trips. The opportunity was largely used; children were trained
by their parents for the illicit traffic, but the penalties were very
severe. In the galleys were many salt-smugglers; people were shut up on
mere suspicion, and in the crowded prisons of that day were carried off
by jail-fevers.[Footnote: Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 1.
Ibid., _Compte rendu_, 82, and see the map of France divided
according to the _gabelle_ in the same volume. Bailly, ii. 163.
Clamageran, iii. 84 _n._, 296, 406. For the numerous officers and
complicated system of the _gabelle_, see _Encyclopédie_, vii.
942 (_Grenier a sel_); _Quintal_=100 French pounds; but which
of the numerous French pounds, I know not.] Of all known stimulants,
tobacco is perhaps the most agreeable and the least injurious to the
person who takes it; but no method of taking it has yet been devised
which is not liable to be offensive to the delicate nerves of some
bystander. It is probably on this account that a certain discredit has
always attached to this most soothing herb, and that it seldom gets fair
treatment in the matter of taxation. Over a large part of France,
containing some twenty-two millions of inhabitants, tobacco had been
subject to monopoly for a hundred years when Louis XVI. came to the
throne,[Footnote: With an interval of two years, during which it was
subject to a high duty. Stourm, i. 361.] yet the use of the article had
become so general that this population bought fifteen million pounds
yearly, or between five eighths and three quarters of a pound per head.
Of this amount about one twelfth was used for smoking in pipes, and the
remainder was consumed in the pleasant form of snuff. Three livres
fifteen sous a pound was the price set by the government and collected
by the Farmers, and the tobacco was often mouldy.[Footnote: Necker,
_De l'Administration_, ii. 100. Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 78.]

The excise on wine and cider (_aides_) was levied not only on the
producer, but also on the consumer, in a most vexatious manner, so that
the revenue officers were continually forcing their way into private
houses, and so that the poor peasant who quietly diluted his measure of
cider with two measures of water was lucky if he got off with a triple
tax, and did not undergo fine and forfeiture for having untaxed cider in
his house. It was moreover a principle with the officers of the excise
that wine was never given away; and as a tax was due on every sale the
poor vine-dresser could not give a part of the produce of his vineyard
to his married children, or even bestow a few bottles in alms on a poor,
sick woman without getting into trouble, and all this notwithstanding
the fact that in France in the eighteenth century, when tea and coffee
were unknown to the rural classes, and when drinking water was often
taken from polluted wells, wine or cider was generally considered
necessary to health and to life.

It is needless to consider in detail the duties on imports and exports
(_traites_). From the beginning of the eighteenth century until
three years after the end of the American War, commerce between France
and England was totally prohibited as to most articles, and subjected to
prohibitory duties in the case of the few that remained. This state of
things was tempered by a great system of smuggling, so successfully
conducted that insurance in many cases was as low as ten and even as
five per cent. Goods were sometimes taken directly from one coast to the
other on dark nights, and no reader of the literature of the last
century will need to be reminded that the "free traders" who brought
them were favorably received by the people among whom they might come to
land. Sometimes the articles were sent by circuitous routes through
Holland or Germany, on whose frontiers the same walls of prohibition did
not exist. But there were many things which could not conveniently be
smuggled, and in their case the want of competition, and still more the
lack of standards of comparison, tended to retard and injure production.
While improved machinery for spinning and weaving was common in England,
the old spindle, wheel, and house-loom still held their own in France.
In the year 1786, a commercial treaty was signed between the two
countries. By its provisions French wines were put on a better footing,
and many manufactured articles, as hardware, cutlery, linen, gauze, and
millinery were to pay but ten or twelve per cent. The confusion of
business which was the natural result of so great a change had not
ceased to be felt when the great Revolution began to disturb all
commercial relations.

It was not at the frontiers alone that commerce was subject to tolls and
duties. Trade was hampered on every road and river in the kingdom, and
so complicated were these local dues that it was said that not more than
two or three men in a generation understood them thoroughly.

Duties on food were then as now collected at the entrance of many
French cities (_octrois_). In the last century they were often partial
in their operation; such of the burghers as owned farms or gardens
outside the walls being allowed to bring in their produce without
charge, while their poorer neighbors were obliged to pay duties on all
they ate. In Paris some kinds of food, and notably fish, were both bad
and dear, because the charges at the city gate were many times as
great as the original value.[Footnote: See the pathetic _cahier_ of
the village of Pavaut, _Archives parlementaires_, v. 9. Vauban, _Dîme
royale_, 26, 51. Montesquieu, iv. 122 (_Esprit des Lois,_, liv. xiii.
c. 7). Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 113. _Encyclopédie
méthodique, Finance_, iii. 709 (_Traites_). Turgot, vii. 37. Mercier,
xi. 100. Stourm, i. 325.]

There was another burden which shared with the taille and the gabelle
the especial hatred of the French peasantry. This was the villein
service (_corvée_) which was exacted of the farmers and agricultural
laborers. The service was of feudal origin, and, while still demanded
in many cases by the lords, in accordance with ancient charters or
customs, was now also required by the state for the building of roads
and the transportation of soldiers' baggage. The demand was based on
no general law, but was imposed arbitrarily by intendants and military
commanders. The amount due by every parish was settled without appeal
by the same authorities. The peasant and his draft-cattle were ordered
away from home, perhaps just at the time of harvest. On the roads
might be seen the overloaded carts, where the tired soldiers had piled
themselves on top of their baggage, while their comrades goaded the
slow teams with swords and bayonets, and jeered at the remonstrances
of the unhappy owner. The oxen were often injured by unusual labor and
harsh treatment, and one sick ox would throw a whole team out of work.
The burden, imposed on the parish collectively, was distributed among
the peasants by their syndics, political officers, often partial, who
were sometimes accompanied in their work of selection by files of
soldiers, equally rough and impatient with the refractory peasants and
the wretched official. Turgot, who was keenly alive to the hardships
of the _corvée_, abolished it during his short term of power,
substituting a tax, but it was restored by his successor immediately
on his fall, and was not discontinued until the end of the monarchy.
[Footnote: The _corvées_ owned by the lords were limited by legal
custom to twelve days a year. _Encyclopédie_, iv. 280 (_Corvée_). I
can find no such limitations of _corvées_ imposed by the government.
Some regard seems to have been paid to peasants' convenience in fixing
the season of _corvées_ of road building, but none in those of
military transportation. Compensation was given for the latter, but it
was inadequate, hardly amounting to one fourth of the market price of
such labor. Turgot, iv. 367. Bailly, ii. 215.]

It is entirely impossible to discover, even approximately, what
proportion of a Frenchman's income was taken in taxes by the government
of Louis XVI. We may guess that the burden was too large, we may be sure
that it was ill distributed, yet under it prosperity and population were
slowly increasing.

Let us take the figures of Necker, as the most moderate. It is the
fashion to make light of Necker, and he certainly was not a man of
sufficient strength and genius to overcome all the difficulties with
which he was surrounded, but he probably knew more about the condition
of France than any other man then living. Let us then take his figures
and suppose that the two twentieths, and the four sous per livre of the
first twentieth, produced the eleven per cent. which they should
theoretically have given. In that case eleven per cent. of the country's
income was equal to fifty-five million livres. But at that rate the
direct taxes and tithes would have taken more than half the income, and
the indirect taxes more than the other half, and French subjects would
have been left with less than nothing to live on. Clearly, then, the
twentieths did not produce anything like the theoretical eleven per
cent.

M. Taine has gone into the question with apparent care, and his figures
are adopted by recent writers, but they would seem to be open to the
same objection. He reckons that some of the peasants paid over eighty
per cent. of their income. But if a man could pay that proportion to the
government year after year and not die of want, how very prosperous a
man living on the same land must be to-day if his taxes amount only to
one quarter or one third of his income. The real difficulty is one of
assessment. We can tell approximately how much the country paid; we can
never know the amount of its wealth.

How far did the rich escape taxation? The clergy of France as a body did
so in a great measure. They paid none of the direct taxes levied on
their fellow subjects. They made gifts and loans to the state, however,
and borrowed money for the purpose. For this money they paid interest,
which must be looked on as their real contribution to the expenses of
the state. But in this again they were assisted by the treasury. The
amount which finally came out of the pockets of the clergy by direct
taxation would appear to have been less than ten per cent. of their
income from invested property.

The nobility bore a larger share. The only great tax from which the
members of that order were exempted was the taille, forming less than
one half of the direct taxation, less than one sixth of the whole. But
in the other direct taxes, their wealth and influence sometimes enabled
them to escape a fair assessment.

The indirect taxes also bore heavily on the poor. They were levied
largely on necessaries, such as salt and food, or on those simple
luxuries, wine and tobacco, on which Frenchmen of all classes depend for
their daily sense of well-being. The gabelle, with its obligatory seven
pounds of salt, approached a poll-tax in its operation.

The worst features of French taxation were the arbitrary spirit which
pervaded the financial administration, the regulations never submitted
to public criticism, and the tyranny and fraud of subordinates, for
which redress was seldom attainable.[Footnote: Horn, 254.] We groan
sometimes, and with reason, at the publicity with which all life is
carried on to-day. We turn wearily from the wilderness of printed words
which surrounds the simplest matters. But only publicity and free
discussion will prevent every unscrupulous assessor and every arbitrary
clerk in the custom-house from being a petty tyrant. They will not by
themselves procure good government, but they will prevent bad government
from growing intolerable. In France, as we have seen, to print anything
which might stir the public mind was a capital offense; and while the
writer of an abstract treatise subversive of religion and government
might hope to escape punishment, the citizen who earned the resentment
of a petty official was likely to be prosecuted with virulence.



CHAPTER XV.

FINANCE.


Certain financial practices, not immediately connected with taxation,
call for a short notice; for they are among the most famous errors of
the government of old France. One of these was the habit of issuing what
were called anticipations.[Footnote: Anticipations. "On entendait par
là des assignations sur les revenus futurs, remises aux fournisseurs et
autres creanciers du Trésor et negociables entre leurs mains."
Clamageran, iii. 30. Necker, _Compte rendu_, 20. Stourm (ii. 200)
thinks the amount not excessive, while acknowledging that it was so
considered. The Anticipations formed in fact the floating debt of the
government. Gomel, 287.] These were securities with a limited time to
run, payable from a definite portion of the future revenue. They were a
favorite form of investment with certain people, and a great convenience
to the treasury, but they constantly tended to increase to an amount
which was considered dangerous. Thus the revenue of each year was spent
before it was collected; and loans were contracted, not for any urgent
and exceptional necessity of the state, but for ordinary running
expenses. Another practice was the issuing by the king in person of
drafts on the treasury. Such drafts (_acquits de comptant_) were
made payable to bearer, and it was therefore impossible for the
controller of the finances to know for what purpose they had been drawn.
Originally a device for the payment of the private expenses of the king,
these drafts had become favorite objects of the cupidity of the
courtiers; because from their form it was impossible to trace them and
discover the recipient. Under Louis XVI. they absorbed more money than
ever before. It was very easy for that weak prince to give a check to
any one who might ask him. Turgot made him promise to stop doing so, but
he had not the strength to keep his word.[Footnote: Clamageran, in.
380, n. Bailly, i. 221, ii. 214, 259. The foreign office made use of
ordonnances de comptant to the amount of several millions annually, for
subsidies to foreign governments, expenses of ambassadors, secret
service, etc. Stourm, ii. 153.]

From an early time the custom of selling public offices had taken root
in France. Before the middle of the fourteenth century we find Louis X.
selling judicial places to the highest bidder, and less than a hundred
years later the practice had extended so that all manner of petty
offices were sold by the government. This method of raising money was so
easy that, in spite of the remonstrances of estates general and the
promises of kings, it was continually extended. In the sixteenth
century, as a greater inducement to purchasers, the offices were made
transferable on certain conditions, and in 1605 they became subjects of
inheritance. Places under government were thus assimilated to other
property and passed from the holder to his heirs. The law which
established this state of things was called _Édit de la Paulette_,
after one Paulet, a farmer of the revenue.

This sale of offices bore a certain resemblance to a loan and to a tax.
The services to be performed were often unimportant, sometimes worse
than useless. But the salary attached to the office might be considered
the interest of money lent to the crown; or if the office-holder were
paid by fees, he was enabled to make good to himself the advance made to
the government by drawing money from the tax-payers. Very generally the
two forms of profit to the incumbent were combined, together with a
third, the possession, namely, of privileges, or exemption from
taxation, attached to the office.

In managing its revenue from this source, the treasury dealt fairly
neither with the office holders nor with the public. Places were created
only to be sold, and before long were abolished, either without any
promise of compensation to the buyers, or with promises destined never
to be fulfilled. This want of faith kept down the price, which was often
but ten years' purchase of the income of the place. Yet rich and poor
were eager to buy. "Sir," said a minister of finance to King Louis XIV.,
"as often as it pleases your Majesty to make an office, it pleases God
to make a fool to fill it."

Thus it came to pass that most places about the royal person, in the
courts of justice and in the treasury, and many in the municipal
governments, the professions, and the trades, were subject to sale and
purchase. Numberless persons waited at the royal table, sat in the high
courts of Parliament, weighed, measured, gauged, sold horses, oysters,
fish, or sucking pigs, shaved customers or gave hot baths, as public
functionaries and by virtue of letters patent sold to them by the crown.
The clerk kept his register, not because the information it contained
would be useful to the government, but because he or some one else had
lent money, on which the public was now paying interest in the form of
registration fees. Thus the custom of selling offices was cumbrous and
objectionable.[Footnote: Montesquieu defends the custom, however. He
maintains that the offices in a monarchy should be venal; because people
do as a family business what they would not undertake from virtue; every
one is trained to his duty, and orders in the state are more permanent.
If offices were not sold by the government they would be by the
courtiers. Montesquieu, iii. 217 (_Esprit des Lois_, liv. v.
cxix.). See also De Tocqueville, iv. 171 (_Anc. Reg_. ch. xi.). In
many cases offices were desired more for the sake of distinction and
privilege than for profit. The income was often very small. Clamageran,
ii. 196, 378, 569, 615, 665; iii. 23, 24, 102, 155, 200, 319. Necker,
_De l'Administration_, iii. 147. Thierry, i. 163. Pierre de
Lestoile, 390, _n_.]

While the taxes of France were thus devised without system and levied
without skill, the attention of a thoughtful part of the nation had been
turned to financial matters. About the middle of the century arose the
Physiocrats, the founders of modern political economy. Their leader,
Quesnay, believed that positive legislation should consist in the
declaration of the natural laws constituting the order evidently most
advantageous for men in society. When once these were understood, all
would be well, for the absurdity of all unreasonable legislation would
become manifest. He taught two cardinal principles; first, "that the
land was the only source of riches, and that these were multiplied by
agriculture;" and, second, that agriculture and commerce should be
entirely free. The former of these doctrines, after exercising a good
deal of influence by calling attention to the injustice and oppression
with which the agricultural class in France was treated, has ceased to
be believed as a statement of absolute truth. The latter, adopted with
great enthusiasm by many generous minds, has exercised a deep influence
on modern thought.

Manufactures, according to Quesnay, do no more than pay the wages and
expenses of the workmen engaged in them. But agriculture not only pays
wages and expenses, but produces a surplus, which is the revenue of the
land. He divides the nation into three classes: (1) the productive,
which cultivates the soil; (2) the proprietary, which includes the
sovereign, the land-owners, and those who live by tithes, in other words
the nobility and the clergy; and (3) the sterile, which embraces all men
who labor otherwise than in agriculture, and whose expenses are paid by
the productive and proprietary classes. Therefore he argues that taxes
should be based directly on the net product of real estate, and not on
wages nor on chattels. In other words, all taxes should be levied
directly on the income derived from land, and indirect taxation in every
shape should be abolished.

Liberty of agriculture, liberty of commerce! "Let every man be free to
cultivate in his field such crops as his interest, his means, the
nature of the ground may suggest as rendering the greatest possible
return." "Let complete liberty of commerce be maintained; for the
regulation of commerce, both internal and external, which is most
safe, most accurate, most profitable to the nation, consists in full
liberty of competition." These doctrines of Quesnay, joined with the
ideas of property and security, form the basis of the modern school of
individualism. [Footnote: Lavergne, _Les Économistes,_ 105. Quesnay,
_Oeuvres,_ 233, 306, 331 _(Maximes du gouvernement économique d'un
royaume agricole Maxime,_ iii. v. xiii. xxv.). Turgot, iv. 305.
Bois-Guillebert appears to have been the principal precursor of the
Physiocrats. Horn, _L'Économie politique avant les Physiocrates,
passim;[Greek physis] = nature,[Greek kratos] = power.]

The body of doctrines long known as "political economy," (for the words
seem now to be used in a larger sense), bore the mark of their origin in
the eighteenth century. Here, as elsewhere, it was the belief of
Frenchmen of that age that the application of a few simple rules derived
from natural laws would solve the difficulties of a complicated subject.
The principles of political economy were conceived as forming "a true
science, which does not yield to geometry itself in the conviction which
it carries to the soul, and which certainly surpasses all others in its
object, since that is the greatest well-being, the greatest prosperity
of the human race upon the earth."[Footnote: 2. Abbé Beaudeau, quoted
in Lavergne, _Les Économistes,_ 179.] Quesnay and Gournay founded
branches of the economic school. The latter, who printed nothing, is
chiefly known through the encomiums of Turgot. Gournay was a merchant,
and recognized that commerce and manufactures are hardly less
advantageous to a state than agriculture. This is the chief difference
of his teaching from that of Quesnay. Gournay is the author of the
famous maxim: _Laissez faire; laissez passer;_ and his whole
system depended on the idea "that in general every man knows his own
interest better than another man to whom that interest is entirely
indifferent;" and that "hence, when the interest of individuals is
exactly the same as the general interest, the best thing to do is to
leave every man to do as he likes."[Footnote: Turgot, iii. 336
(_Éloge de M. de Gournay_).]

The best known member of the economic school in France was Anne Robert
Jacques Turgot, born in Paris on the 10th of May, 1727, of a family
belonging to the higher middle class. His father was _prevost des
marchands_, or chief magistrate of the city. Young Turgot was at
first educated for the ecclesiastical life, and indeed pursued his
studies in that direction until a bishopric seemed close at hand. But he
felt no vocation to enter the priesthood. Turgot was too much the child
of his century to be content to put his great powers into the harness of
the Roman Church; he was, as he told his friends who remonstrated with
him on abandoning his brilliant prospects, too honest a man to wear a
mask all his life.

At the age of twenty-four, Turgot turned finally from the study of
divinity to that of law and administration. He was rapidly promoted to
the place of a _maître des requêtes_, a member of the lowest board
of the royal council, and nine years later he became intendant of the
district of Limoges. It was the poorest in France, but Turgot soon
became so much interested in its welfare that he refused to exchange it
for a richer one. In spite of years of dearth and of the extraordinary
measures of relief which they made necessary, he went energetically to
work at all manner of permanent reforms. He effected improvements in the
apportionment and levy of the taille. He abolished the onerous
_corvée_. He diminished the terror of compulsory service in the
militia, by permitting the engagement of substitutes. He encouraged
agriculture by distributing seeds and offering prizes for the
destruction of wolves, which were still numerous in his district, and he
waged a successful war on a moth that was ravaging the wheat crop. He
assisted in the introduction of the manufacture of pottery, still one of
the leading industries of Limoges. His reports are among the most
valuable material in existence for the study of the condition of old
France.

Soon after the accession of Louis XVI., Turgot was called to the
ministry, first, for a very short time, as secretary of the navy, and
then as Controller of the Finances. Two courses were open to the new
minister. Malesherbes, his close adherent, standing in high official
position, urged him to summon the Estates General, or at least the
Provincial Estates, and rule constitutionally. Such action would have
been a great, a serious innovation, but it was not on this ground that
Turgot opposed it. Like most of the economists of his day, he believed
at once in freedom and in despotism. "The republican constitution of
England," he had said, "sets obstacles in the way of the reform of
certain abuses." Turgot had a plan for the benefit of mankind. None but
a despot could carry it out for him. France and the world were to be set
right; and it would take absolute power to compel them into the best
course.

The new Controller of the Finances could not afford to wait. "You
accuse me of too great haste," he said to a friend, "and you forget
that in my family we die of the gout at fifty." But this haste,
combined with his awkward and haughty manners, proved the cause of his
ruin. The courtiers, whose perquisites were in danger, were disgusted
at his simplicity and economy. Although he was the friend of absolute
government, he was accused of republican austerity. And his measures
were not more popular than his manners. The harvest of 1774 had been
bad, and famine was in the land. Turgot met the situation by declaring
commerce in grain free throughout the kingdom. The harvest was again
bad in 1775, and riots broke out, for the common people had it firmly
in their minds that the price of bread was fixed by the
government. Turgot put down disturbances with a high hand, and
persevered in his measures. He abolished the _corvée_ on roads and
public works throughout France. In truth it would have been better to
modify and regulate it, for in poor countries many men had rather work
on the roads than pay for them, but such considerations as this were
foreign to his mind. He, moreover, abolished the trade-guilds
(_jurandes_), which possessed the monopoly of most kinds of
manufactures and trades, saying that God, in giving man needs and
making labor his necessary resource, had made the right to work the
property of every man, and that this property is the most sacred and
inalienable of all.[Footnote: Turgot, viii. 330. Yet the monopolies
in certain trades, as those of apothecaries, jewelers, printers, and
booksellers, were retained, probably because their strict regulation
and supervision was considered necessary. The guilds were
reestablished, with modifications, on the fall of Turgot.
_Encyclopédie méthodique, Commerce_, ii. 760, 790.] But Turgot's ideal
of freedom was entirely industrial and commercial, and not at all
political or social. He forbade all associations or assemblies of
masters or workmen, holding that the faculty granted to artisans of
the same trade to meet and join in one body is a source of evil. Under
Turgot's system, the individual workman would not have escaped the
tyranny of the masters' guild only to fall under that of the
trades-union; but one of the most essential privileges of a freeman
would have been denied him. Individual liberty to work, and political
liberty to combine, have not yet been made perfectly to coincide.

The innovations thus introduced were great; the interests threatened
were powerful. The Parliament of Paris rallied to the defense of vested
rights. It refused to register the edicts issued to enforce the
minister's innovations.

The king held a bed of justice and forced their registration; but his
weak nature was tiring of the struggle. Turgot was unpopular on all
sides, and Louis never supported a truly unpopular minister. "Only M.
Turgot and I love the people," he cried, in his impotent despair; and
then he gave way. Malesherbes, the principal supporter in the royal
council of the Controller General of the Finances, was the first to go.
Thereupon Turgot wrote the king a long and harsh letter, blaming him for
Malesherbes's resignation. "Do not forget, sir," said he, "that it was
weakness which put the head of Charles I. on the block; it was weakness
which formed the League under Henry III., which made crowned slaves of
Louis XIII. and of the present king of Portugal; it was weakness which
caused all the misfortunes of the late reign." Kings to whom such
language as this can be used are not strong enough to bear it. Turgot
was dismissed twelve days after sending the letter.[Footnote: May 12,
1776. Lavergne, _les Économistes_, 219. Turgot, iii. 335; viii.
273, 330. Bailly, ii. 210.]

The financial situation of France was undoubtedly serious. The cause of
this was far less the amount of the debt, or the excess of expenditure
over revenue, than the total demoralization of the public service. The
annual deficit at the accession of Louis XVI. is variously stated at
from twenty to forty million livres a year.[Footnote: From four to
eight million dollars.] Such a deficiency would have nothing very
appalling for a strong minister of finance, supported by a determined
sovereign, and could have been overcome by economy alone. The expenses
of the court were not less than thirty millions. Turgot proposed to
reduce them by five millions immediately and by nine millions more in
the course of a few years. Twenty-eight millions were spent in pensions,
and it requires but a superficial knowledge of the state of France to
assure us that many of these were bestowed without sufficient reason.
[Footnote: Stourm sets the pensions at thirty-two millions, and thinks
that the improper ones did not exceed six or seven millions, ii. 134.]
Important reductions might have been made in the expenditures of most of
the departments without impairing their efficiency. But to have done
this many interests would have had to be disturbed, many hardships
inflicted. Amiable persons, living without labor at the public cost,
would have been deprived of their revenues. Other agreeable and
influential men and women would have had to live without pleasant things
which they had been brought up to expect. The good-nature of the king
made him shrink from inflicting pain. He would approve of the best plans
of economy, he would promise his minister of finance to adhere to them,
he would depart from them secretly at the solicitation of his wife or of
his courtiers. The poor man wanted "to make his people happy," and he
could not bear to see those of his people who came nearest to him
discontented. The successor of Turgot was a mere courtier, not even
personally honest, whose career was fortunately cut short by death
within a few months of his nomination.

The war of the American Revolution was drawing near, and old Maurepas,
the prime minister, felt the need of a competent man to take charge of
the finances. A name was suggested to him,--that of Necker, a successful
banker. But Necker was a Protestant, a Swiss, a nobody. The title of
Controller was too high for him, so a new post was created, and he was
made Director-General of the Finances, coming into office in October,
1776.

It has been the fate of Necker to excite strong enthusiasm and violent
objurgation; but in fact he was little more than commonplace. An
ambitious man, he wanted to make a reputation, to build up the royal
credit, to found a national debt, like that of England. Did he really
believe that such a debt would pay its own interest, without additional
taxes, or did he rely on economy of expenditure and good administration,
not only to balance the ordinary accounts, but to cover the interest of
the war-loans which he was obliged to contract? How far did his cheerful
manifestoes deceive himself? What might he not really have accomplished
if the royal support had been anything more solid than a shifting
quicksand? These questions cannot be answered satisfactorily. Neither
Necker, nor anybody else, knew exactly what the government owed, or what
it borrowed. The loans contracted by Necker himself are believed to have
amounted to five hundred and thirty million livres. Of this sum it is
thought that about two hundred millions were employed in covering the
annual deficit for five years, and that three hundred and thirty
millions were spent for the extraordinary demands of the war. The money
was raised chiefly by state lotteries and by the sale of life annuities,
although many other means also were employed.

The royal lottery had been a favorite device earlier in the century. As
practiced by Necker and some of his predecessors it combined the
features of gambling and of investment. Every ticket, in addition to its
chance of drawing a prize, was in itself a pecuniary obligation of the
government, either carrying perpetual interest at four per cent., or to
be repaid at its full price in seven or nine years without interest. The
prizes were sums of money or annuities. Thus the ticket-holder did not
lose his whole stake, and ran the chance of winning a fortune. But the
operation was not brilliant for the government.

Nor was the sale of annuities more judiciously managed. Here, as in the
lotteries, Necker copied old models, without making any improvements of
importance. No account was taken of the age of the annuitants, but
incomes were sold at a fixed rate of ten per cent, of the capital
deposited for one life, nine per cent, for two lives, eight and a half
for three, eight for four. The bankers and financiers of the day were
shrewd enough to profit by this arrangement.

They bought up the obligations, and named healthy children as the
annuitants. The chance of life of these selected persons was more than
fifty years, and as the children were usually chosen at about the age of
seven, the treasury would be called on to pay its annuities for an
average term of between forty and forty-five years. As the current rate
of interest on good security was about six per cent, the operation was
not a very promising one for the state.

In spite of all these blunders Necker was liked by the nation. He
recognized the need of economy and honestly tried to reduce expenses. He
succeeded in cutting off a little of the extravagance of the court and
in simplifying the collection of the revenue. He tried to establish
provincial assemblies and to equalize the incidence of the salt-tax. And
above all, in order to sustain the royal credit, he took the country
into his confidence to some extent, and prophesied pleasant things. But
he did not stop there. The national accounts had long been considered a
government secret; Necker resolved to publish them to the world. His
famous "Compte rendu au roi" appeared in February, 1781. The portrait of
the author, excellently engraved on copper, stares complacently from the
frontispiece, above an allegorical picture, where we can make out
Justice and Abundance, while Avarice appears to bring her treasures, and
a lady in high, powdered hair, and no visible clothing, gazes astonished
from the background. The contents of the report are not such as we are
in the habit of expecting in financial documents, but are rhetorical and
self-complacent. The ordinary revenues of the country are said to exceed
the expenditures by ten million livres. As a matter of fact, no such
surplus existed, but Necker was an optimist by temperament, and was
moreover anxious to bolster credit. The nation was delighted, but
Maurepas and the court were shocked. The cupidity of the courtiers was
painted in the account in glowing language. Such a publication was
dangerous in itself, and the economical measures already taken, with
those announced as to follow, threatened many interests. Even the old
prime minister trembled for his personal power. Necker had obtained the
removal from office of one of the adherents of Maurepas, while the
latter was kept in Paris by the gout. So the usual machinery of
detraction was put in motion. Letters, pamphlets, and epigrams flew
about. While the larger part of the public was singing Necker's praises,
the smaller and more influential inner circle was conspiring against
him. He might yet have prevailed but for an act of imprudence. Although
the most conspicuous and popular man in the kingdom, he had hitherto
been excluded from the Council of State. He now asked to be admitted to
it. Louis XVI., whose Catholicism was his strongest conviction, replied
that Necker, as a Protestant, was inadmissible by law. Thereupon the
latter offered to resign his place as Director of the Finances, and the
king, by the advice of Maurepas, accepted his resignation.[Footnote:
Gomel, _passim._]

From this time all real chance of the extrication of Louis XVI. from his
financial difficulties, without a radical change of government,
disappeared forever. The controllers that succeeded Necker only plunged
deeper and deeper into debt and deficit. It is needless to follow them
in their flounderings. A long experience of the vacillation of the
government both as to persons and as to systems had discouraged the
hopes of conscientious patriotism, and strengthened the opposition to
reform of all those who were interested in abuses. From the well-meaning
king, if left to his own ways, nothing more could be hoped. Pecuniary
embarrassment, with Louis, as with many less important people, was quite
as much a symptom of weakness as a result of unmerited misfortune.



CHAPTER XVI.

"THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA."


We have seen that the church had an irreconcilable enemy in Voltaire;
that the government of France had found a critic of weight and
importance in Montesquieu; that the Economists had attacked the
financial organization of the country. But the assaults of the
Philosophic school were not leveled at the religious and civil
administration alone. The very foundations of French thought, slowly
laid through previous ages, were made in the reign of Louis XV. the
subject of examination, and by a very dogmatic set of thinkers were
pronounced to be valueless. Nor were men left at a loss for something to
put in the place of what was thus destroyed. The teachings of Locke,
explained and amplified by Condillac and many others, obtained an
authority which was but feebly disputed. The laws against free speech
and free printing, intended for the defense of the old doctrines,
deterred no one from expressing radical opinions. Only persons of
conservative and law-abiding temperament, the natural defenders of
things existing, were restrained by legal and ecclesiastical terrors.
The champions of the old modes of thought stood like mediaeval men at
arms before a discharge of artillery, prevented from rushing on the guns
of the enemy by the weight of the armor that protected them no longer.
The new philosophy, stimulated and hardly impeded by feeble attempts at
persecution, was therefore able to overrun the intellectual life of the
nation, until it found its most formidable opponent in one who was half
its ally, and who had sprung from its midst, the mighty heretic,
Rousseau.

The most voluminous work of the Philosophers is the "Encyclopaedia," a
book of great importance in the history of the human mind. The
conception of its originators was not a new one. The attempt to bring
human knowledge into a system, and to set it forth in a series of folio
volumes, had been made before. The endeavor is one which can never meet
with complete success, yet which should sometimes be made in a
philosophic spirit. The universe is too vast and too varied to be
successfully classified and described by one man, or under the
supervision of one editor. But the attempt may bring to light some
relation of things hitherto unnoticed, and the task is one of practical
utility.

The great French "Encyclopaedia" may claim two immediate progenitors.
The first is found in the works of Lord Bacon, where there is a
"Description of a Natural and Experimental History, such as may serve
for the foundation of a true philosophy," with a "Catalogue of
particular histories by titles." The second is Chambers's Cyclopaedia,
first published in 1727, a translation of which Diderot was engaged to
edit by the publisher Le Breton. Diderot, who freely acknowledges his
obligation to Bacon, makes light of that to Chambers, saying in his
prospectus that the latter owed much to French sources, that his work is
not the basis of the one proposed, that many of the articles have been
rewritten, and almost all the others corrected and altered. There is no
doubt that the whole plan of the "Encyclopaedia" was much enlarged by
Denis Diderot himself.[Footnote: Bacon, iv. 251, 265. Morley,
_Diderot_, i., 116. Diderot, _Oeuvres_, xiii. 6, 8. "If we
come out successfully we shall be principally indebted to Chancellor
Bacon, who laid out the plan of a universal dictionary of sciences and
arts _at a time when there were, so to speak, neither sciences nor
arts_."]

This eminent man was born at Langres in 1713, the son of a worthy
cutler. He was educated by the Jesuits, and on his refusal to enter
either of the learned professions of law or medicine, was set adrift by
his father,--who hoped that a little hardship would bring him to
reason,--and found himself in Paris with no resource but the precarious
one of letters. Diderot lived from hand to mouth for a time, sleeping
sometimes in a garret of his own, sometimes on the floor of a friend's
room. Once he got a place of tutor to the children of a financier, but
could not bear the life of confinement, and soon threw up his
appointment and returned to freedom. When any friend of his father
turned up on a visit to the town, he would borrow, and the old cutler at
Langres would grumble and repay. Gradually the young author rose above
want. He became one of the first literary men of his day and one of the
most brilliant talkers, rich in ideas, overflowing in language, subtle
without obscurity, suggestive, and satisfying; yet always retaining a
certain shyness, and "able to say anything, but good-morning." Yet he
was soon carried away by the excitement of conversation and of
discussion. He had a trick of tapping his interlocutor on the knee, by
way of giving point to his remarks, and the Empress Catharine II. of
Russia complained that he mauled her black and blue by the use of this
familiar gesture, so that she had to put a table between herself and him
for protection. Diderot was fond of the young, and especially of
struggling authors. To them his purse and his literary assistance were
freely given. He was delighted when a writer came to consult him on his
work. If the subject were interesting he would recognize its
capabilities at a glance. As the author read, Diderot's imagination
would fill in all deficiencies, construct new scenes in the tragedy, new
incidents, new characters in the tale. To him all these beauties would
seem to belong to the work itself, and his friends would be astonished,
after hearing him praise some new book, to find in it but few of the
good things which he had quoted from it.

Diderot's good nature was boundless. One morning a young man, quite
unknown to him, came with a manuscript, and begged him to read and
correct it. He prepared to comply with the request on the spot. The
paper, when opened, turned out to be a satire on himself and his
writings.

"Sir," said Diderot to the young man, "I do not know you; I can never
have offended you. Will you tell me the motive which has impelled you to
make me read a libel for the first time in my life? I generally throw
such things into the waste-paper basket."

"I am starving. I hoped that you would give me a few crowns not to print
it."

Instead of flying into a passion, Diderot simply remarked: "You would
not be the first author that ever was bought off; but you can do better
with this stuff. The brother of the Duke of Orleans is in retreat at
Saint Genevieve. He is religious; he hates me. Dedicate your satire to
him; have it bound with his arms on the cover; carry it to him yourself
some fine morning, and he will help you."

"But I don't know the prince; and I don't see how I can write the
dedicatory epistle."

"Sit down; I'll do it for you."

And Diderot writes the dedication, and gives it to the young man, who
carries the libel to the prince, receives a present of twenty-five
louis, and comes back after a few days to thank Diderot, who advises him
to find a more decent means of living.

The people whom the great writer helped were not always so polite. One
day he was seeing to the door a young man who had deceived him, and to
whom, after discovering it, he had given both assistance and advice.

"Monsieur Diderot," said the swindler, "do you know natural history?"

"A little; I can distinguish an aloe from a head of lettuce, and a
pigeon from a humming-bird."

"Do you know the formica leo?"

"No."

"It is a very clever little insect. It digs a hole in the ground, shaped
like a funnel. It covers the surface with fine, light sand. It attracts
silly insects and gets them to tumble in. It seizes them, sucks them
dry, and then says: `Monsieur Diderot, I have the honor to wish you
good-morning.'" Whereupon the young man ran downstairs, leaving the
philosopher in fits of laughter.[Footnote: Morley, Diderot and the
Encyclopaedists. Scherer, Diderot, passim. Morrellet, i. 29. Marmontel,
ii. 313. Mémoire sur Diderot, par Mme. de Vandeul, sa fille (a charming
sketch only 64 pages long) in Diderot, Mémoires, Corresp., etc., vol.
i.]

As a writer, the great fault of Diderot is one not common in France. He
is verbose. As we read his productions, even the cleverest, we feel that
the same thing could have been better said in fewer words. There is also
a lack of arrangement. Diderot would never take time to plan his books
before writing them. But these faults, although probably fatal to the
permanent fame of an author, are less injurious to his immediate success
than might be expected. A large part of the public does not dislike a
copious admixture of water in its intellectual drink. And Diderot
reconciles the reader to his excessive flow of words by the
effervescence of his enthusiasm. It is because his mind is overfull of
his subject that the sentences burst forth so copiously.

The first writing of Diderot that need engage our attention is his
"Letter on the Blind," published in 1749. This letter deals with the
question, how far congenital deprivation of one of the senses, and
especially blindness, would modify the conceptions of the person
affected; how far the ideas of one born blind would differ from the
ideas of those who can see. The bearing of this question on Locke's
theory that all our ideas are derived from sensation and reflection is
obvious. Diderot, in a manner quite characteristic of him, took pains to
examine the cases of persons who had actually been blind and had
recovered their sight, and where these failed him, supplied their places
by inventions of his own.[Footnote: Condorcet says of Diderot, "faisant
toujours aimer la verité, même lorsqu'entraîné par son imagination il
avait le malheur de la méconnaître." D'Alembert, _Oeuvres_, i. 79
(_Éloge par Condorcet_). There is a great deal in this remark.
Unless we can enter into the state of mind of men who tell great lies
from a genuine love of abstract truth, we shall never understand the
French Philosophers of the 18th century.]

Diderot's principal witness is Nicholas Saunderson, a blind man with a
talent for mathematics, who between 1711 and 1739 was a professor at the
University of Cambridge. Diderot quotes at some length the atheistic
opinions of Saunderson, giving as his authority the Life of the latter
by "Dr. Inchlif." No such book ever existed, and the opinions are the
product of Diderot's own reasoning. When an author treats us in this way
our confidence in his facts is hopelessly lost. His reasons, however,
remain, and the most striking of these, in the "Letter on the Blind," is
the answer given to one who attempts to prove the existence of God by
pointing out the order found in nature, whence an intelligent Creator is
presumed. In answer to this, the dying Saunderson is made to say: "Let
me believe... that if we were to go back to the birth of things and of
times, and if we should feel matter move and chaos arrange itself, we
should meet a multitude of shapeless beings, instead of a few beings
that were well organized.... I can maintain that these had no stomach,
and those no intestines; that some, to which their stomach, palate, and
teeth seemed to promise duration, have ceased to exist from some vice of
the heart or the lungs; that the abortions were successively destroyed;
that all the faulty combinations of matter have disappeared, and that
only those have survived whose mechanism implied no important
contradiction, and which could live by themselves and perpetuate their
species."[Footnote: Diderot, i. 328.] The step from the idea here
conveyed to that of the struggle for existence and of the survival of
the most fit is not a very long one.

For his "Letter on the Blind," Diderot was imprisoned at Vincennes. The
real cause of this punishment is said to have been a slight allusion in
the "Letter" to the mistress of a minister of state. But this may not
have been the only cause. There occurred about this time one of those
temporary seasons of severity which are necessary under all governments
to meet occasional outbursts of crime, but to which weak and corrupt
governments are liable with capricious frequency. Diderot sturdily
denied the authorship of the "Letter," lying as thoroughly as he had
done in that piece of writing itself, when he invented the name of
Inchlif and forged the ideas of Saunderson. This time there was more
excuse for his untruth; for the disclosure of his printer's name might
have sent that unfortunate man to prison or to the galleys. The
imprisonment of Diderot himself, at first severe, was soon lightened at
the instance of Voltaire's mistress, Madame du Châtelet. Diderot was
allowed to see his friends, and even to wander about the park of
Vincennes on parole. After three months of captivity he was released by
the influence of the booksellers interested in the "Encyclopaedia."
[Footnote: Morley, _Diderot_, i. 105.]

The first volume of that great work was in preparation. Diderot, whose
untiring energy was unequal to the task of editing the whole, and who
was, moreover, insufficiently trained for the work in some branches, and
notably in mathematics, gathered about him a band of workers which
increased as time went on, until it included a great number of
remarkable men. First in importance to the enterprise, acting with
Diderot on equal terms, was D'Alembert, an almost typical example of the
gentle scholar, who refused one brilliant position after another to
devote himself to mathematics and to literature. Next, perhaps, should
be mentioned the Chevalier de Jaucourt, a man of encyclopaedic learning,
who helped in the preparation of the book with patient enthusiasm,
reading, dictating, and working with three or four secretaries for
thirteen or fourteen hours a day. Montesquieu, whose end was
approaching, left behind him an unfinished article on Taste. Voltaire
not only sent in contributions of his own, but constantly gave
encouragement and advice, as became the recognized head of the
Philosophic school. Rousseau, whose literary reputation had recently
been made by his "Discourses," contributed articles on music for a time;
but subsequently chose to quarrel with the Encyclopaedists, whose minds
worked very differently from his. Turgot wrote several papers on
economic subjects, and in the latter part of the work, Haller, the
physiologist, and Condorcet were engaged.

The publication of the "Encyclopaedia" lasted many years, and met with
many vicissitudes. The first volume appeared in 1751, the second in
January, 1752. The book immediately excited the antagonism of the church
and of conservative Frenchmen generally. On the 12th of February, 1752,
the two volumes were suppressed by an edict of the Council, as
containing maxims contrary to royal authority and to religion. The edict
forbade their being reprinted and their being delivered to such
subscribers as had not already received their copies. The continuation
of the work, however, was not forbidden. It was believed at the time
that the administration took this step in order to silence the Jesuits,
to please the Archbishop of Paris, and perhaps to be beforehand with the
Parliament, which might have taken severer measures. It was also
intimated that certain booksellers, jealous of the success of the
undertaking, were exerting influence on the authorities. All these
enemies of the "Encyclopaedia" were not content with their first
triumph. A few days after the appearance of the edict, the manuscripts
and plates were seized by the police. They were restored to the editors
three months later. The work was one in the performance of which many
Frenchmen took pride. It is said that the Jesuits had tried to continue
it, but had failed even to decipher the papers that had been taken from
Diderot. The attack of the archbishop, who had fulminated against the
great book in an episcopal charge, had served the purpose of an
advertisement; such was the wisdom and consistency of the repressive
police of that age.

From 1753 to 1757 the publication went on without interruption, one
volume appearing every year. Seven volumes had now been published,
bringing the work to the end of the letter G. The subscription list,
originally consisting of less than two thousand names, had nearly
doubled. But the forces of conservatism rallied. In 1758 appeared
Helvetius's book "De l'Esprit," of which an account will be given in the
next chapter, and which shocked the feelings of many persons, even of
the Philosophic school. Few things could, indeed, have made the
Philosophers more unpopular than the publication by one of their own
party of a very readable book, in which the attempt was made to push
their favorite ideas to their last conclusions. This is a process which
few abstract theories can bear, for the limitations of any statement are
in fact essential parts of it. But human laziness so loves formulas, so
hates distinctions, that extreme and unmodified expressions are seized
with avidity by injudicious friends and exulting foes.

The feeling of indignation awakened in the public by the doctrines of
Helvetius gave opportunity to the opponents of the "Encyclopaedia." That
work was denounced to the Parliament of Paris, together with the book
"De l'Esprit." The learned court promptly condemned the latter to the
flames. The great compilation, on the other hand, of which the volume of
Helvetius was said to be a mere abridgment, was submitted to nine
commissioners for examination, and further publication was suspended
until they should report. While proceedings before the Parliament were
still pending, the Council of State intervened, and the "Encyclopaedia"
was arbitrarily interdicted, its privilege taken away, the sale of the
volumes already printed, and the printing of any more, alike forbidden.

It is characteristic of the condition of things existing under the weak
and vacillating government of Louis XV, that the interdict pronounced
against the "Encyclopaedia" did not stop its printing. The editor and
the publishers determined to prepare in private the ten volumes that
were still unmade, and to launch them on the world at one time. To this
work Diderot turned with boundless energy. D'Alembert, however, was
discouraged, and retired from the undertaking. For six years Diderot
labored on, never safe from interference on the part of the government,
and managing a great enterprise, with its staff of contributors and its
scores of workmen, while constantly liable to arrest and imprisonment.
Diderot worked indefatigably also with his pen; writing articles on all
sorts of subjects,--philosophy, arts, trades, and manufactures. To learn
how things were made he visited workshops and handled tools, baffled at
times by the jealousy and distrust of the workmen, who were afraid of
his disclosing their secret processes, or of his giving information to
the tax-gatherer.

The sharpest blow was yet to fall. The "Encyclopaedia" was issued by an
association of publishers which paid Diderot a moderate salary for his
services. Of these publishers one, named Le Breton, was the chief. He is
said to have been a dull man, incapable of understanding any work of
literature. It was his maxim that literary men labor for glory, and
publishers for pay, and consequently he divided the income of the
"Encyclopaedia" into two parts, giving to Diderot the glory, the danger,
and the persecution, and reserving the money for himself and his
partners. From his position in Paris he felt sure of being able to
foresee any new order launched against the "Encyclopaedia" while the
printing was in progress, and of providing against it. But the time of
publication was likely to be marked by a new storm. Under these
circumstances Le Breton resorted to a trick. After Diderot had read the
last proof of every sheet, the publisher and his foreman secretly took
it in hand, erased and cut out all that seemed rash or calculated to
excite the anger of religious or conservative people, and thus reduced
many of the principal articles to fragments. Then, to make the wrong
irremediable, they burned the manuscripts, and quietly proceeded with
the printing. This process would seem to have been continued for more
than a year. One day in 1764, when the time of publication was drawing
near, Diderot, having occasion to consult an article under the letter S,
found it badly mutilated. Puzzled at first, he presently recognized the
nature of the trick that had been played him. He turned to various parts
of the book, to his own articles and to those of other writers, and
found in many places the marks of the outrage. Diderot was in despair.
His first thought was to throw up the undertaking and to announce the
fraud to the public. The injury that would have been done to Le Breton's
innocent partners, the danger of publishing the fact that the
"Encyclopaedia" was still in process of printing,--a fact of which the
officers of the government had only personal and not official
knowledge,--determined him to go on with the publication. It may be that
Le Breton's changes had been less extensive than Diderot, in his first
excitement on making the discovery, had been led to believe. In
examining the "Encyclopaedia" no alteration of tone is observable
between the first seven and the subsequent volumes; and Grimm, to whom
we owe the story, acknowledges that none of the authors engaged with
Diderot in the work complained or even noticed that their articles had
been altered.

In 1765 the ten volumes which completed the alphabet (making seventeen
of this part of the work) were delivered to the subscribers. As a
precautionary measure, those for foreign countries were sent out first,
then those for the provinces, and lastly those for Paris. The eleven
volumes of plates were not published until 1772. A supplement of four
volumes of text and one of plates appeared in 1776 and 1777, and three
years later a table of contents in two volumes.[Footnote: Several
volumes of the original edition have the imprint of Neufchatel, and the
supplement has that of Amsterdam, although all were actually printed in
Paris. The _Encyclopaedia_ was reprinted as a whole at Geneva and
at Lausanne. Editions also appeared at Leghorn and at Lucca; besides
volumes of selections and abbreviations. Morley, _Diderot_, i. 169.
For the _Encyclopaedia_, see Morley, _Diderot_, _passim._
Soberer, _Diderot_; the correspondence of D'Alembert and Voltaire
in the works of the latter. Diderot, _Mémoires_, i. 431 (Nov. 10,
1760). Grimm, vii. 44, and especially ix. 203-217, an excellent article.
Barbier, v. 159, 169; vii. 125, 138, 141; also in the work itself the
word _Encyclopédie_ in vol. v. Mr. Morley thinks that the article
_Genève_, in vol. vii. of the _Encyclopaedia_, especially
excited the church and the Parliament to desire its suppression. The
same article drew from Rousseau his letter to D'Alembert on the theatre
at Geneva, which marks the separation between Rousseau and the
Philosophers. But in the _Discours préliminaire_ D'Alembert had
attacked Rousseau's _First Discourse_. For the excitement caused at
Geneva by the article, see Voltaire, lvii. 438 (Voltaire to D'Alembert,
Jan. 8, 1758). It is perhaps superfluous to remark that Grimm's account
of the character and ideas of Le Breton, which has been followed above,
is probably not unbiased.]

What was the great book whose history was so full of vicissitudes? Why
did the French government, the church, and the literary world so excite
themselves about a dictionary? The "Encyclopaedia" had in fact two
functions; it was a repository of information and a polemical writing.
Condorcet has thus stated the purpose of the book. Diderot, he says,
"intended to bring together in a dictionary all that had been discovered
in the sciences, what was known of the productions of the globe, the
details of the arts which men have invented, the principles of morals,
those of legislation, the laws which govern society, the metaphysics of
language and the rules of grammar, the analysis of our faculties, and
even the history of our opinions."[Footnote: D'Alembert,
_Oeuvres_, i. 79 (_Éloge par Condorcet_).] So comprehensive a
scheme was not without danger to those classes which claimed an
exclusive right to direct men's minds. As for the double nature of the
book, we have the words of two of the men most concerned in its
preparation. First there is an anecdote by Voltaire, certainly
inaccurate, probably quite imaginary, but setting forth most clearly one
cause of the interest which the "Encyclopaedia" excited.

"A servant of Louis XV. has told me that one day when the king his
master was supping at Trianon with a small party, the conversation
turned on shooting and then on gunpowder. Somebody said that the best
powder was made of equal parts of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal. The
Duke of La Vallière, better informed, maintained that for cannon the
proper proportion was one part of sulphur, one of charcoal, and five of
well-filtered, well-evaporated, and well-crystallized saltpetre.

"`It is absurd,' said the Duke of Nivernois, `that we should amuse
ourselves every day with killing partridges in the park of Versailles,
and sometimes with killing men or getting ourselves killed on the
frontier, and not know exactly what we kill with.'

"`Alas! we are in the same state about all things in the world,'
answered Madame de Pompadour. `I don't know of what the rouge is
composed that I put on my cheeks, and I should be much puzzled to say
how my stockings are made.'

"`It is a pity,' then said the Duke of La Vallière, `that His Majesty
should have confiscated our encyclopaedic dictionaries, which cost us a
hundred pistoles apiece. We should soon find in them the answers to all
our questions.'

"The king justified his confiscation. He had been warned that the
twenty-one volumes in folio, that were to be found on all the ladies'
dressing-tables, were the most dangerous thing in the world for the
French monarchy; and he wished to see for himself if that were true
before he allowed the book to be read. After supper he sent for a copy,
by three servants of his bed-chamber, each of whom brought in seven
volumes, with a good deal of difficulty.

"They saw, in the article on gunpowder, that the Duke of La Vallière
was right. Madame de Pompadour soon learned the difference between the
old-fashioned Spanish rouge, with which the ladies of Madrid colored
their cheeks, and the rouge of the ladies of Paris. She learned that
the Greek and Roman ladies were painted with the purple that came from
the murex, and consequently that our scarlet was the purple of the
ancients; that there was more saffron in the Spanish rouge and more
cochineal in the French.

"She saw how her stockings were made on the loom, and the machine used
for the purpose filled her with astonishment. `Oh, what a fine book,
sir!' she cried. `Have you confiscated this store-house of all useful
things in order to own it alone, and to be the only wise man in your
kingdom?'

"They all threw themselves upon the volumes, like the daughters of
Lycomedes on the jewels of Ulysses. Each found at once whatever he
sought. Those that had lawsuits on hand were surprised to find the
decision of their cases. The king read all the rights of his crown.
'But, really,' said he, `I don't know why they spoke so ill of this
book.'

"`Do you not see, sir,' said the Duke of Nivernois, `that it is because
it is very good? People do not attack poor and flat things of any kind.
When the women try to make a new-comer appear ridiculous, she is sure to
be prettier than they are.'

"All this time they were turning over the pages, and the Count of C----
said aloud, `Sir, you are too happy that men should have been found in
your reign able to know all the arts and to transmit them to posterity.
Everything is here, from the way of making a pin to that of casting and
of aiming your cannon; from the infinitesimal to the infinite. Thank God
for having given birth in your kingdom to men who have thus served the
whole world. Other nations are obliged to buy the "Encyclopaedia," or to
imitate it. Take all I have, if you like, but give me back my
"Encyclopaedia."'

"`But they say,' rejoined the king, `that this necessary and admirable
work has many faults.'

"`Sir,' replied the Count of C----, `at your supper there were two
ragouts that were failures. We did not eat them, but we had a very good
supper. Would you have had the whole of it thrown out of the window on
account of those two ragouts?' The king felt the force of this
reasoning, each one took back his book, and it was a happy day.

"But Envy and Ignorance did not consider themselves beaten; those two
immortal sisters kept up their cries, their cabals, their persecutions.
Ignorance is very learned in that way.

"What happened? Foreigners bought out four editions of this French work
which was proscribed in France, and made about eighteen hundred thousand
dollars.

"Frenchmen, try hereafter to understand your own interests."[Footnote:
This story is printed among "Faceties." Morley points out that Mme. de
Pompadour died before the volumes containing "Poudre" and "Rouge" were
published. Voltaire, xlviii. 57.]

We see by this anecdote, written probably to puff the book, that the
"Encyclopaedia" was recommended for the same advantages which have since
given value to scores of similar works. No other collection of general
information so large and so useful was then in existence. Elaborate
descriptions of mechanism abound in it, and are illustrated by beautiful
plates. We see before us the simple beginnings of the great
manufacturing movement of modern times. There are articles on looms, on
cabinet work, on jewelry, side by side with all that the science of that
day could teach of anatomy, medicine, and natural history. Nor were more
frivolous subjects forgotten. Nine plates are given to billiards and
tennis. Choregraphy, or the art of expressing the figures of the dance
on paper, occupies six pages of text and two of illustrations, with the
remark that it is one of the arts of which the ancients were ignorant,
or which they have not transmitted to us. There is a proposal for a new
and universal language, based of course on French; and we are reminded
by an article on Alcahest, a mysterious drug of the alchemists, to which
two columns and a half are devoted, that the eighteenth century was
nearer to the Middle Ages than the nineteenth. It was an idea of the
compilers of the "Encyclopaedia" that if ever civilization should be
destroyed mankind might turn to their volumes to learn to restore it.
[Footnote: History and geography are almost passed over in the
Encyclopaedia, while the arts and sciences are fully treated. The
contempt for history, as the tale of human errors, was common among the
Philosophers.]

Yet all this mere learning was not what came nearest to the heart of
Diderot and his fellow-workers. In a moment of excitement, when smarting
from the excisions of the publisher Le Breton, he was able to write that
the success of the book was owing in no degree to ordinary, sensible,
and common things; that perhaps there were not two men in the world who
had taken the trouble to read in it a line of history, geography,
mathematics, or even of the arts; and that what all sought in the
"Encyclopaedia" was the firm and bold philosophy of some of its writers.
[Footnote: When in a cooler mood Diderot boasts that there are people
who have read the book through. See the word _Encyclopédie_, vol.
v.]

This philosophy appears in the Preliminary Discourse by D'Alembert; it
comes up again time after time throughout the volumes. The metaphysics
are founded chiefly on those of Locke, who "may be said to have created
metaphysics as Newton created physics," by reducing them to "what in
fact they should be, the experimental physics of the soul." Beyond this
there is little unity of opinion, although much agreement of spirit. We
have articles on government and on taxation, liberally conceived, but
not agreeing as to actual measures. We have a prejudice in favor of
democracy, as the ideal form of government, and the worship of
theoretical equality, but contempt for the populace, "which discerns
nothing;" the reduction of religion to the sentiments of morality and
benevolence, and great dislike for its ministers and especially for the
members of monastic orders; the belief in the Legislator, in natural
laws and liberties, including the inalienable right of every man to
dispose of his own person and property and to do all things that the
laws allow; faith in the Philosopher, a man governed entirely by reason
as the Christian is governed by grace. To him, Truth is not a mistress
corrupting his imagination. He knows how to distinguish what is true,
what is false, what is doubtful, and he glories in being willing to
remain undetermined when he has not the material for judgment. The
Philosopher understands as well the doctrines that he rejects as those
that he adopts. His spirit brings everything to its true principles. The
nations will be happy when kings are Philosophers, or when Philosophers
are kings.

There was no uniformity of execution in the "Encyclopaedia." The editors
were not free to reject all that they did not approve. They had to
consider the feelings of their writers, and sometimes, no doubt, to
print a poor article by a valued hand. There were many long
dissertations where short articles would have been more to the purpose.
Diderot was not the man to repress the natural tendency of contributors
to wordiness. Then official censors and possible prosecutors had to be
considered. "Doubtless," says D'Alembert to Voltaire, in reply to the
latter's remonstrances, "doubtless we have bad articles on theology and
metaphysics; but with theological censors and a privilege, I defy you to
make them better. There are other articles less conspicuous where all is
repaired. Time will enable people to distinguish what we thought from
what we have said." ... "It is certain," he says in another place, "that
several of our workers have put in worthless things, and sometimes
declamation; but it is still more certain that I have not had it in my
power to alter this state of things. I flatter myself that the same
judgment will not be passed on what several of our authors and I myself
have furnished for this work, which apparently will go down to posterity
as a monument of what we would and what we could not do." On the whole
the chief of the Philosophers was satisfied. "Oh, how sorry I am," he
exclaims, "to see so much paste among your fine diamonds; but you shed
your lustre on the paste."[Footnote: Correspondence of Voltaire and
D'Alembert (A. to V., July 21, 1757; Jan. 11, 1758; V. to A., Dec. 29,
1757). Voltaire, lvii. 296, 444, 421.]



CHAPTER XVII.

HELVETIUS, HOLBACH AND CHASTELLUX.


There are two books issuing so directly from what may be called the
orthodox school of Philosophers, and so closely connected with the
"Encyclopaedia" and its authors, that they should be noticed next to the
great compilation itself. One of them has already been mentioned. It
bears the untranslatable title "De l'Esprit," a word which in this
simple and unmodified form means exactly neither wit nor spirit, but
something between the two and different from either.

The author, Helvetius, was one of those clever men whose ambition it is
to shine. The son of a fashionable physician, he had made a fortune as a
farmer of the revenue. He had been addicted, in his youth, to the
pursuit of women and of literature, and had subsequently shown
moderation in leaving his lucrative office and the dissipations of the
town and retiring into the country with a charming wife. For eight
months in the year they lived at Vore, not unvisited by Philosophers;
for four they kept open house in Paris. Both were good natured,
charitable, and benevolent. Among the Philosophers Helvetius held the
place of the rich and clever worldling, so often found in literary
circles.

The treatise "De l'Esprit" has for its object the setting forth of the
doctrine of utility in its extreme form. As a preliminary argument all
the operations of the mind are reduced to sensation. "When by a
succession of my ideas, or by the vibration which certain sounds cause
in the organ of my ears, I recall the image of an oak, then my interior
organs must necessarily be nearly in the same situation as they were at
the sight of that oak. Now this situation of the organs must necessarily
produce a sensation; it is, therefore, evident that memory is sensation.

"Having stated this principle, I say further that it is in the capacity
which we have of perceiving the resemblances or the differences, the
agreement or the disagreement, which different objects have with each
other, that all the operations of the mind consist. Now this capacity is
nothing else than physical sensibility; therefore everything is reduced
to sensation."

Utility, according to Helvetius, is the foundation of all our moral
feelings. Each person praises as just in others only those actions which
are useful to himself; every nation or society praises what is useful to
it in its corporate capacity. "If a judge acquits a guilty man, if a
minister of state promotes an unworthy one, each is just, according to
the man protected. But if the judge punishes, or the minister refuses,
they will always be unjust in the eyes of the criminal and of the
unsuccessful."... "The Christians who justly spoke of the cruelties
practiced on them by the pagans as barbarity and crime, did they not
give the name of zeal to the cruelties which they, in their turn,
practiced on these same pagans?" As the physical world is subject to
laws of motion, so is the moral world to those of interest. All men
alike strive after their own happiness. It is the diversity of passions
and tastes, some of which are in accordance with the public interest and
others in opposition to it, which form our virtues and our vices. We
should, therefore, not despise the wicked, but pity them, and thank
heaven that it has given us none of those tastes and passions which
would have obliged us to seek our happiness in other people's
misfortunes. This opinion, although extravagantly stated, was, as we
have seen, but the caricature of the doctrine of utility, as taught by
Locke and held by his followers.

Helvetius took great pains to make the treatment of his theme
interesting. He labored long over every chapter. His pages overflow with
anecdotes, with sneers at monks, and with excuses for lust. They show
the belief in the omnipotence of legislation which was common in his
day. A large space is devoted to minimizing the natural inequality of
mankind, and attributing the differences observable among men to chance
or to education. If Galileo had not happened to be walking in a garden
in Florence where certain workmen asked him a question about a pump, he
would not, according to Helvetius, have discovered the weight of the
atmosphere. It was the fall of the apple which gave Newton his theory of
gravitation. Such puerilities as these disgust us in the book; yet the
theory that greatness is but the result of an inconsiderable accident,
was not unnatural in one who had probably hit on an idea which struck
him as telling, and believed that he had thereby achieved greatness.
[Footnote: Helvetius, i. 130, 183; ii. 7, and passim. For Helvetius, see
Nouvelle Biographie universelle. Morley, Diderot, ii. 141. Grimm, iv.
80. Morellet, i. 71, 140. Morellet represents himself as a tame cat in
Helvetius's house. Marmontel, ii. 115 (liv. vi.) an excellent
description. Compare Locke, i. 261, ii. 97. The doctrine of utility is
probably nearly as old as philosophy itself. It has been well suggested
that although not the ultimate motive of virtue, utility may be the test
of morals. It was, in a measure, Helvetius that inspired Bentham.
Morley, Diderot, ii. 154.]

Helvetius had endeavored to carry the doctrines of the French followers
of Locke to their last logical conclusions, but the successful
accomplishment of that task was reserved for a stronger and steadier
hand than his. Baron Holbach was an amiable and good man, the constant
friend of the Encyclopaedists. At his house they often met, so that it
came to be known among them as the Café de l'Europe, and its master as
the "maître d'hôtel" of Philosophy. But these nicknames were used in
good part. Holbach had none of the flippancy of Helvetius. His book, the
"System of Nature," is a solemn, earnest argument, proceeding from a
clear brain and a pure heart. Our nature may revolt at his theories, but
we cannot question his honesty or his benevolence. The book, published,
as the fashion was, under a false name, yet expresses the inmost
convictions of the writer.[Footnote: The name assumed was that of
Mirabaud, once secretary to the Academy, who had died before the book
appeared. See Morley, _Diderot_, ii. 173, as to the authorship of
the _System of Nature_. It has sometimes been attributed to
Diderot, but it seems clear from internal evidence that Diderot could
not have written it. The style and the thought are both too compact to
proceed from that diffuse thinker and writer. But Diderot, who had great
influence on many men, may have suggested some of the ideas.]

"Men," he says, "will always make mistakes, when they abandon experience
for systems born of the imagination." Man exists in nature and can
imagine nothing outside of nature. Let him, therefore, cease to seek
beyond the world he inhabits for beings which shall procure for him that
happiness which nature refuses to give him. "Man is a being purely
physical. Moral man is but that being considered from a certain point of
view, that is to say, relatively to some of his ways of acting, due to
his particular organization." All human actions, visible and invisible,
are the necessary consequences of man's mechanism, and of the impulsions
which it receives from surrounding entities.

The universe is made up of matter and motion, cause and effect. Nature
is the great whole, resulting from the assemblage of different matters,
combinations, and motions. By motion only do we know the existence and
properties of other beings and distinguish them from each other. There
is continual action and reaction in all things. Love and hate in men are
like attraction and repulsion in physics, with causes more obscure. All
beings, organic and inorganic, tend to self-preservation. This tendency
in man is called self-love.

There is in reality no order nor disorder, since all things are
necessary. It is only in our minds that there exists the model of what
we call order; like other abstract ideas, it corresponds to nothing
outside of ourselves. Order is no more than the faculty of coordinating
ourselves with the beings that surround us, or with the whole of which
we form a part. But if we wish to apply the word to nature, it may stand
for a succession of actions or motions which we suppose to contribute to
a given end. We call beings intelligent when they are organized like
ourselves, and can act toward an end which we understand.

No two beings are exactly alike; differences, whether called physical or
moral, being the result of their bodily qualities. These differences are
the cause and the support of human society. If all men were alike they
would not need each other. It is a mistake to complain of this
inequality, by which we are put under the fortunate necessity of
combining. In coming together men have made an explicit or implied
compact, by which they have bound themselves to render mutual services
and not to injure each other. But as each man's nature leads him to seek
to satisfy his own passions or caprices without regard to others, law
was established to bring him back to his duty. This law is the sum of
the wills of the society, united to fix the conduct of its members, or
to direct their actions towards the common aim of the association. For
convenience, certain citizens are made executors of the popular will,
and are called monarchs, magistrates, or representatives, according to
the form of the government. But that form may be changed, and all the
powers of all persons under it revoked, at the will of the society
itself, by which and for which all government is established. Laws, to
be just, must have for their invariable end the general interests of
society; they must procure for the greatest number of citizens the
advantages for which those citizens have combined. A society whose
chiefs and whose laws do not benefit its members loses all rights over
them. Chiefs who do harm to any society lose the right to command it. By
not applying these maxims the nations are made unhappy. By the
imprudence of nations, and by the craft of those to whom power had been
entrusted, sovereigns have become absolute masters. They have claimed to
hold their powers from Heaven and not to be responsible to any one on
earth. Hence politics have become corrupt and no more than a form of
brigandage. Man unrestrained soon turns to evil. Only by fear can
society control the passions of its rulers. It must, therefore, confer
but limited powers on any one of them, and divide those forces which, if
united, would necessarily crush it.[Footnote: Holbach is clearly
indebted both to Rousseau and to Montesquieu.]

Government influences alike, and necessarily, the physical and moral
welfare of nations. As its care produces labor, activity, abundance, and
health, its neglect and its injustice produce indolence, discouragement,
famine, contagion, vices, and crimes. It can bring to light, or can
smother talents, skill, and virtue. In fact the government, distributing
rank, wealth, rewards and punishments; master of the things in which men
have learned from childhood to place their happiness, acquires a
necessary influence on their conduct, inflames their passions, turns
them as it will, modifies and settles their manners and customs.
[Footnote: _Moeurs_, a word for which we have no exact equivalent.
It includes the idea of morals as well as that of customs.] These are,
in whole nations, as in individuals, but the conduct, or general system
of will and action which necessarily results from their education, their
government, their laws, their religious opinions, their wise or foolish
institutions. In short, manners and customs are the habits of nations;
good when they produce solid and true happiness for society, and
detestable in the eyes of reason, in spite of the sanction of laws,
usage, religion, public opinion or example, when they have the support
only of habit and prejudice, which seldom consult experience and good
sense. No action is so abominable that it is not, or has not been,
approved by some nation. Parricide, infanticide, theft, usurpation,
cruelty, intolerance, prostitution, have been allowed and even
considered meritorious by some of the peoples of the earth. Religion
especially has consecrated the most revolting and unreasonable customs.

The cause of the wickedness and corruption of men is that nowhere are
they governed according to their nature. Men are bad, not because they
are born bad, but because they are made so. The great and powerful
safely crush the poor and unfortunate, who try, at the risk of their
lives, to return the evil they have suffered. The poor attack openly, or
in secret, that unjust society which gives all to some of its children
and takes all from others.

The rights of a man over his fellows can be founded only on the
happiness which he procures for them, or for which he gives them cause
to hope. No mortal receives from nature the right to command. The
authority which the father exercises over his family is founded on the
advantages which he is supposed to bestow upon it. Ranks in political
society have their basis in real or imaginary utility. The rich man has
rights over the poor man solely by virtue of the well-being which he may
bestow upon him. Genius, talents, art, and skill have claims only on
account of the pleasant and useful things with which they furnish
society. To be virtuous is to make people happy.

A society enjoys all the happiness of which it is capable when the
greater number of its memb