VI. Well-Meaning Government.

     Infinite, vague aspirations.—Generosity of sentiments and
     of conduct.—The mildness and good intentions of the
     government.—Its blindness and optimism.

An aristocracy imbued with humanitarian and radical maxims, courtiers hostile to the court, privileged persons aiding in undermining privileges, presents to us a strange spectacle in the testimony of the time. A contemporary states that it is an accepted principle "to change and upset everything."4246 High and low, in assemblages, in public places, only reformers and opposing parties are encountered among the privileged classes.

"In 1787, almost every prominent man of the peerage in the Parliament declared himself in favor of resistance. . . . I have seen at the dinners we then attended almost every idea put forward, which, soon afterwards, produced such startling effects."4247 Already in 1774, M. de Vaublanc, on his way to Metz, finds a diligence containing an ecclesiastic and a count, a colonel in the hussars, talking political economy constantly4248. "It was the fashion of the day. Everybody was an economist. People conversed together only about philosophy, political economy and especially humanity, and the means for relieving the people, (le bon peuple), which two words were in everybody's mouth." To this must be added equality; Thomas, in a eulogy of Marshal Saxe says, "I cannot conceal it, he was of royal blood," and this phrase was admired. A few of the heads of old parliamentary or seigniorial families maintain the old patrician and monarchical standard, the new generation succumbing to novelty. "For ourselves," says one of them belonging to the youthful class of the nobility,4249 "with no regret for the past or anxiety for the future, we marched gaily along over a carpet of flowers concealing an abyss. Mocking censors of antiquated ways, of the feudal pride of our fathers and of their sober etiquette, everything antique seemed to us annoying and ridiculous. The gravity of old doctrines oppressed us. The cheerful philosophy of Voltaire amused and took possession of us. Without fathoming that of graver writers we admired it for its stamp of fearlessness and resistance to arbitrary power. . . . Liberty, what-ever its language, delighted us with its spirit, and equality on account of its convenience. It is a pleasant thing to descend so long as one thinks one can ascend when one pleases; we were at once enjoying, without forethought, the advantages of the patriciate and the sweets of a commoner philosophy. Thus, although our privileges were at stake, and the remnants of our former supremacy were undermined under our feet, this little warfare gratified us. Inexperienced in the attack, we simply admired the spectacle. Combats with the pen and with words did not appear to us capable of damaging our existing superiority, which several centuries of possession had made us regard as impregnable. The forms of the edifice remaining intact, we could not see how it could be mined from within. We laughed at the serious alarm of the old court and of the clergy which thundered against the spirit of innovation. We applauded republican scenes in the theater,4250 philosophic discourses in our Academies, the bold publications of the literary class."—If inequality still subsists in the distribution of offices and of places, "equality begins to reign in society. On many occasions literary titles obtain precedence over titles of nobility. Courtiers and servants of the passing fashion, paid their court to Marmontel, d'Alembert and Raynal. We frequently saw in company literary men of the second and third rank greeted and receiving attentions not extended to the nobles of the provinces. . . . Institutions remained monarchical, but manners and customs became republican. A word of praise from d'Alembert or Diderot was more esteemed than the most marked favor from a prince. . . It was impossible to pass an evening with d'Alembert, or at the Hôtel de Larochefoucauld among the friends of Turgot, to attend a breakfast at the Abbé Raynal's, to be admitted into the society and family of M. de Malesherbes, and lastly, to approach a most amiable queen and a most upright king, without believing ourselves about to enter upon a kind of golden era of which preceding centuries afforded no idea. . . . We were bewildered by the prismatic hues of fresh ideas and doctrines, radiant with hopes, ardently aglow for every sort of reputation, enthusiastic for all talents and beguiled by every seductive dream of a philosophy that was about to secure the happiness of the human species. Far from foreseeing misfortune, excess, crime, the overthrow of thrones and of principles, the future disclosed to us only the benefits which humanity was to derive from the sovereignty of Reason. Freedom of the press and circulation was given to every reformative writing, to every project of innovation, to the most liberal ideas and to the boldest of systems. Everybody thought himself on the road to perfection without being under any embarrassment or fearing any kind of obstacle. We were proud of being Frenchmen and, yet again, Frenchmen of the eighteenth century . . . . Never was a more terrible awakening preceded by a sweeter slumber or by more seductive dreams."

They do not content themselves with dreams, with pure desires, with passive aspirations. They are active, and truly generous; a worthy cause suffices to secure their devotion. On the news of the American rebellion, the Marquis de Lafayette, leaving his young wife pregnant, escapes, braves the orders of the court, purchases a frigate, crosses the ocean and fights by the side of Washington. "The moment the quarrel was made known to me," he says, "my heart was enlisted in it, and my only thought was to rejoin my regiment." Numbers of gentlemen follow in his footsteps. They undoubtedly love danger; "the chance of being shot is too precious to be neglected."4251 But the main thing is to emancipate the oppressed; "we showed ourselves philosophers by becoming paladins,"4252 the chivalric sentiment enlisting in the service of liberty. Other services besides these, more sedentary and less brilliant, find no fewer zealots. The chief personages of the provinces in the provincial assemblies,4253 the bishops, archbishops, abbés, dukes, counts, and marquises, with the wealthiest and best informed of the notables in the Third-Estate, in all about a thousand persons, in short the social elect, the entire upper class convoked by the king, organize the budget, defend the tax-payer against the fiscal authorities, arrange the land-registry, equalize the taille, provide a substitute for the corvée, provide public roads, multiply charitable asylums, educate agriculturists, proposing, encouraging and directing every species of reformatory movement. I have read through the twenty volumes of their procès-verbaux: no better citizens, no more conscientious men, no more devoted administrators can be found, none gratuitously taking so much trouble on themselves with no object but the public welfare. Never was an aristocracy so deserving of power at the moment of losing it; the privileged class, aroused from their indolence, were again becoming public men, and, restored to their functions, were returning to their duties. In 1778, in the first assembly of Berry, the Abbé de Seguiran, the reporter, has the courage to state that "the distribution of the taxes should be a fraternal partition of public obligations."4254 In 1780 the abbés, priors and chapters of the same province contribute 60,000 livres of their funds, and a few gentlemen, in less than twenty-four hours, contribute 17,000 livres. In 1787, in the assembly of Alençon the nobility and the clergy tax themselves 30,000 livres to relieve the indigent in each parish subject to taxation4255. in the month of April, 1787, the king, in an assembly of the notables, speaks of "the eagerness with which archbishops and bishops come forward claiming no exemption in their contributions to the public revenue." In the month of March, 1789, on the opening of the bailiwick assemblies, the entire clergy, nearly all the nobility, in short, the whole body of the privileged class voluntarily renounce their privileges in relation to taxation. The sacrifice is voted unanimously; they themselves offer it to the Third-Estate, and it is worth while to see their generous and sympathetic tone in the manuscript procès-verbaux.

"The nobility of the bailiwick of Tours," says the Marquis de Lusignan,4256 "considering that they are men and citizens before being nobles, can make amends in no way more in conformity with the spirit of justice and patriotism that animates the body, for the long silence to which it has been condemned by the abuse of ministerial power, than in declaring to their fellow-citizens that, in future, they will claim none of the pecuniary advantages secured to them by custom, and that they unanimously and solemnly bind themselves to bear equally, each in proportion to his fortune, all taxes and general contributions which the nation shall prescribe."

"I repeat," says the Comte de Buzançois at the meeting of the Third-Estate of Berry, "that we are all brothers, and that we are anxious to share your burdens. . . . We desire to have but one single voice go up to the assembly and thus manifest the union and harmony which should prevail there. I am directed to make the proposal to you to unite with you in one memorandum."

"These qualities are essential in a deputy," says the Marquis de Barbancon speaking for the nobles of Chateauroux, "integrity, firmness and knowledge; the first two are equally found among the deputies of the three orders; but knowledge will be more generally found in the Third-Estate, which is more accustomed to public affairs."

"A new order of things is unfolding before us," says the Abbé Legrand in the name of the clergy of Chateauroux; "the veil of prejudice is being torn away and giving place to Reason. She is possessing herself of all French hearts, attacking at the root whatever is based on former opinion and deriving her power only from herself."

Not only do the privileged classes make advances but it is no effort to them; they use the same language as the people of the Third-Estate; they are disciples of the same philosophers and seem to start from the same principles. The nobility of Clermont in Beauvoisis4257 orders its deputies "to demand, first of all, an explicit declaration of the rights belonging to all men." The nobles of Mantes and Meulan affirm "that political principles are as absolute as moral principles, since both have reason for a common basis." The nobles of Rheims demand "that the king be entreated to order the demolition of the Bastille." Frequently, after such expressions and with such a yielding disposition, the delegates of the nobles and clergy are greeted in the assemblies of the 'Third-Estate with the clapping of hands, "tears" and enthusiasm. On witnessing such effusions how can one avoid believing in concord? And how can one foresee strife at the first turn of the road on which they have just fraternally entered hand in hand?

Wisdom of this melancholy stamp is not theirs. They set out with the principle that man, and especially the man of the people, is good; why conjecture that he may desire evil for those who wish him well? They are conscientious in their benevolence and sympathy for him. Not only do they utter these sentiments but they give them proof. "At this moment," says a contemporary,4258 "the most active pity animates all breasts; the great dread of the opulent is to appear insensible." The archbishop of Paris, subsequently followed and stoned, is the donator of 100,000 crowns to the hospital of the Hôtel-Dieu. The intendant Berthier, who is to be massacred, draws up the new assessment-roll of the Ile-de-France, equalizing the taille, which act allows him to abate the rate, at first, an eighth, and next, a quarter4259. The financier Beaujon constructs a hospital. Necker refuses the salary of his place and lends the treasury two millions to re-establish public credit. The Duc de Charost, from 17704260 down, abolishes seigniorial corvées on his domain and founds a hospital in his seigniory of Meillant. The Prince de Beaufremont, the presidents de Vezet, de Chamolles, de Chaillot, with many seigniors beside in Franche-Comté, follow the example of the king in emancipating their serfs4261. The bishop of Saint-Claude demands, in spite of his chapter, the enfranchisement of his mainmorts. The Marquis de Mirabeau establishes on his domain in Limousin a gratuitous bureau for the settlement of lawsuits, while daily, at Fleury, he causes nine hundred pounds of cheap bread to be made for the use of "the poor people, who fight to see who shall have it."4262 M. de Barral, bishop of Castres, directs his curates to preach and to diffuse the cultivation of potatoes. The Marquis de Guerchy himself mounts on the top of a pile of hay with Arthur Young to learn how to construct a hay-stack. The Marquis de Lasteyrie imports lithography into France. A number of grand seigniors and prelates figure in the agricultural societies, compose or translate useful books, familiarize themselves with the applications of science, study political economy, inform themselves about industries, and interest themselves, either as amateurs or promoters, in every public amelioration. "Never," says Lacretelle again, "were the French so combined together to combat the evils to which nature makes us pay tribute, and those which in a thousand ways creep into all social institutions." Can it be admitted that so many good intentions thus operating together are to end in destruction?—All take courage, government as well as the higher class, in the thought of the good accomplished, or which they desire to accomplish. The king remembers that he has restored civil rights to the Protestants, abolished preliminary torture, suppressed the corvée in kind, established the free circulation of grains, instituted provincial assemblies, built up the marine, assisted the Americans, emancipated his own serfs, diminished the expenses of his household, employed Malesherbes, Turgot and Necker, given full play to the press, and listened to public opinion4263. No government displayed greater mildness; on the 14th of July, 1789, only seven prisoners were confined in the Bastille, of whom one was an idiot, another kept there by his family, and four under the charge of counterfeiting4264. No sovereign was more humane, more charitable, more preoccupied with the unfortunate. In 1784, the year of inundations and epidemics, he renders assistance to the amount of three millions. Appeals are made to him direct, even for personal accidents. On the 8th of June, 1785, he sends two hundred livres to the wife of a Breton laboring-man who, already having two children, brings three at once into the world4265. During a severe winter he allows the poor daily to invade his kitchen. It is quite probable that, next to Turgot, he is the man of his day who loved the people most.—His delegates under him conform to his views; I have read countless letters by intendants who try to appear as little Turgots. "One builds a hospital, another admits artisans at his table;"4266 a certain individual undertakes the draining of a marsh. M. de la Tour, in Provence, is so beneficent during a period of forty years that the Tiers-Etat vote him a gold medal in spite of himself4267. A governor delivers a course of lectures on economical bread-making.—What possible danger is there for shepherds of this kind amidst their flocks? On the king convoking the States-General nobody had "any suspicion," nor fear of the future. "A new State constitution is spoken of as an easy performance, and as a matter of course."4268—"The best and most virtuous men see in this the beginning of a new era of happiness for France and for the whole civilized world. The ambitious rejoice in the broad field open to their desires. But it would have been impossible to find the most morose, the most timid, the most enthusiastic of men anticipating any one of the extraordinary events towards which the assembled states were drifting."

4201 (return)
[ Macaulay.]

4202 (return)
[ Stendhal, "Rome, Naples et Florence," 371.]

4203 (return)
[ Morellet, "Mémoires," I. 139 (on the writings and conversations of Diderot, d,Holbach and the atheists). "At that time, in this philosophy, all seemed innocent enough, it being confined to the limits of speculation, and never seeking, even in its boldest flights, anything beyond a calm intellectual exercise."]

4204 (return)
[ "L'Homme aux quarante écus." Cf. Voltaire, "Mémoires," the suppers given by Frederick II. "Never in any place in the world was there greater freedom of conversation concerning the superstitions of mankind."]

4205 (return)
[ Morellet, "Mémoires," I. 133.]

4206 (return)
[ Galiani, "Correspondance, passim."]

4207 (return)
[ Bachaumont, III. 93 (1766), II. 202 (1765).]

4208 (return)
[ Geffroy, "Gustave III.," I. 114.]

4209 (return)
[ Villemain, "Tableau de la Litterature au dix-huitième siècle," IV. 409.]

4210 (return)
[ Grimm, "corresp. littéraire," IV. 176. De Ségur, "Mémoires," I. 113.]

4211 (return)
[ "Princesse de Babylone."—Cf. "le Mondain."]

4212 (return)
[ Here we may have an important motive for the socialist attitudes towards sexual morality as it was during the activie nineteen seventies until the unexpected appearance of AIDS put an abrupt end to the proceedings. (SR.)]

4213 (return)
[ Mme. d'Epinay, ed. Boiteau, I. 216: at a supper given by Mlle. Quinault, the comedian, at which are present Saint-Lambert, the Prince de. . . . , Duclos and Mme. d'Epinay.]

4214 (return)
[ For example, the father of Marmant, a military gentleman, who, having won the cross of St. Louis at twenty-eight, abandons the service because he finds that promotion is only for people of the court. In retirement on his estates he is a liberal, teaching his son to read the reports made by Necker. (Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires," I. 9).]

4215 (return)
[ Aubertin, "L'Esprit public," in the 18th century, p. 7.]

4216 (return)
[ Montesquieu, "Lettres Persanes," (Letter 61).—Cf. Voltaire, ("Dîner du Comte de Boulainvilliers").]

4217 (return)
[ Aubertin, pp. 281, 282, 285, 289.]

4218 (return)
[ Horace Walpole, "Letters and Correspondence," Sept. 27th, 1765, October 18th, 28th, and November 19th, 1766.]

4219 (return)
[ "Journal et Mémoires de Collé," published by H. Bonhomme, II. 24 (October, 1755), and III.165 (October 1767).]

4220 (return)
[ "Corresp. littéraire," by Grimm (September, October, 1770).]

4221 (return)
[ Mme. De Genlis, "Adèle et Théodore," I, 312.]

4222 (return)
[ De Goncourt, "La femme au dix-huitième siècle," 371-373.—Bachaumont, I. 224 (April 13, 1763).]

4223 (return)
[ Mme. de Genlis, "Adèle et Théodore," II. 326.]

4224 (return)
[ "Tableau de Paris," III.44.]

4225 (return)
[ Métra. "Correspondance secrète," XVII. 387 (March 7, 1785).]

4226 (return)
[ De Goncourt, ibid. 456.—Vicomtesse de Noailles, "Vie de la Princesse de Poix," formerly de Beauvau.]

4227 (return)
[ The Abbé de Latteignaut, canon of Rheims, the author of some light poetry and convivial songs, "has just composed for Nicolet's theater a parade in which the intrigue is supported by a good many broad jests, very much in the fashion at this time. The courtiers who give the tone to this theater think the canon of Rheims superb." (Bachaumont, IV. 174, November, 1768).]

4228 (return)
[ Bachaumont, III. 253.—Châteaubriand, "Mémoires," I. 246.]

4229 (return)
[ Champfort, 279.]

4230 (return)
[ Merlin de Thionville, "Vie et correspondance," by Jean Raynaud. ("La Chartreuse du Val Saint-Pierre." Read the entire passage).—"Souvenirs Manuscrits," by M—..]

4231 (return)
[ Rivarol, "Mémoires," I. 344.]

4232 (return)
[ Mercier, IV. 142. "In Auvergne, says M. de Montlosier, I formed for myself a society of priests, men of wit, some of whom were deists and others open atheists, with whom I carried on a contest with my brother." ("Mémoires," I.37).]

4233 (return)
[ Lafayette. "Mémoires," III. 58.]

4234 (return)
[ "Dict. Phil." article "Wheat."—The most important work of Quesnay is of the year 1758, "Tableau économique."]

4235 (return)
[ D'Argenson, "Mémoires," IV. 141; VI. 320, 465; VII. 23; VIII. 153, (1752, 1753, 1754).—Rousseau's discourse on Inequality belongs also to 1753. On this steady march of opinion consult the excellent work of d'Aubertin, "L'Esprit public au dix-huitième siècle."]

4236 (return)
[ This seems to be prophetic of the night of August 4, 1789.]

4237 (return)
[ "Corresp. de Laurette de Malboissière," published by the Marquise de la Grange. (Sept. 4, 1762, November 8, 1762).]

4238 (return)
[ Madame du Deffant in a letter to Madame de Choiseul, (quoted by Geffroy), "Gustave et la cour de France," I. 279.]

4239 (return)
[ Geffroy, ibid. I. 232, 241, 245.]

4240 (return)
[ Geffroy, ibid. I.267, 281. See letters by Madame de Boufflers (October, 1772, July 1774).]

4241 (return)
[ Ibid.. I. 285. The letters of Mme. de la March (1776, 1777, 1779).]

4242 (return)
[ A victim of religious rancor against the protestants, whose cause, taken op by Voltaire, excited great indignation.—TR.]

4243 (return)
[ Bachaumont, III. 14 (March 28, 1766. Walpole, Oct. 6, 1775).]

4244 (return)
[ Geffloy, ibid. (A letter by Mme Staël, 5776).]

4245 (return)
[ Collé, "Journal," III. 437 (1770): "Women have got the upper hand with the French to such an extent, they have so subjugated them, that they neither feel nor think except as they do."]

4246 (return)
[ "Correspondance," by Métra, III. 200; IV. 131.]

4247 (return)
[ "Mémoires du Chancelier Pasquier," Ed. Plon Paris 1893, Vol. I. page 26.]

4248 (return)
[ De Vaublanc, "Souvenirs," I. 117, 377.]

4249 (return)
[ De Ségur, "Mémoires," I. 17.]

4250 (return)
[ Ibid. I. 151. "I saw the entire Court at the theater in the château at Versailles enthusiastically applaud Voltaire's tragedy of 'Brutus,' and especially these lines:

Je suis fils de Brutus, et je porte en mon coeur La liberté gravée et les rois en horreur."]

4251 (return)
[ De Lauzun, 80 (in relation to his expedition into Corsica).]

4252 (return)
[ De Ségur, I. 87.]

4253 (return)
[ The assemblies of Berry and Haute-Guyenne began in 1778 and 1779; those of other generalships in 1787. All functioned until 1789. (Cf. Léonce de Lavergne, "Les Assemblées provinciales").]

4254 (return)
[ Léonce de Lavergne, ibid. 26, 55, 183. The tax department of the provincial assembly of Tours likewise makes its demands on the privileged class in the matter of taxation.]

4255 (return)
[ Procés-verbaux of the prov. ass. of Normandy, the generalship of Alençon, 252.—Cf. Archives nationales, II, 1149: in 1778 in the generalship of Moulins, thirty-nine persons, mostly nobles, supply from their own funds 18,950 livres to the 60,000 livres allowed by the king for roads and asylums.]

4256 (return)
[ Archives nationales, procès-verbaux and registers of the States-General, vol. XLIX. p.712, 714 (the nobles and clergy of Dijon); vol. XVI. p. 183 (the nobles of Auxerre) vol. XXIX. pp.352, 455, 458 (the clergy and nobles of Berry); vol. CL. p.266 (the clergy and nobles of Tours); vol. XXIX; the clergy and nobles of Chateauroux, (January 29, 1789); pp. 572, 582. vol. XIII. 765 (the nobles of Autun).—See as a summary of the whole, the "Résumé des Cahiers" by Prud'homme, 3 vols.]

4257 (return)
[ Prud'homme, ibid.. II. 39, 51, 59. De Lavergne, 384. In 1788, two hundred gentlemen of the first families of Dauphiny sign, conjointly with the clergy and the Third-Estate of the province, an address to the king in which occurs the following passage: "Neither time nor obligation legitimizes despotism; the rights of men derive from nature alone and are independent of their engagements."]

4258 (return)
[ Lacretelle, "Hist. de France au dix-huitième siècle," V.2.]

4259 (return)
[ Procès-verbeaux of the prov. ass. of the Ile-de-France (1787), p.127.]

4260 (return)
[ De Lavergne, ibid.. 52, 369.]

4261 (return)
[ "Le cri de la raison," by Clerget, curé d'Onans (1789), p.258.]

4262 (return)
[ Lucas de Montigny, "Mémoires de Mirabeau," I. 290, 368.—Théron de Montaugé, "L'agriculture et les classes rurales dans le pays Toulousain," p. 14.]

4263 (return)
[ "Foreigners generally could scarcely form an idea of the power of public opinion at this time in France; they can with difficulty comprehend the nature of that invisible power which commands even in the king's palace." (Necker, 1784, quoted by De Tocqueville).]

4264 (return)
[ Granier de Cassagnac, II. 236.—M. de Malesherbes, according to custom, inspected the different state prisons, at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. "He told me himself that he had only released two." (Senac de Meilhan, "Du gouvemement, des moeurs, et des conditions en France.").]

4265 (return)
[ Archives nationales, II. 1418, 1149, F. 14, 2073. (Assistance rendered to various suffering provinces and places.)]

4266 (return)
[ Aubertin, p.484 (according to Bachaumont).]

4267 (return)
[ De Lavergne, 472.]

4268 (return)
[ Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," I.426.—Sir Samuel Romilly, "Mémoires," I. 99.—"Confidence increased even to extravagance," (Mme. de Genlis).—On the 29th June, 1789, Necker said at the council of the king at Marly, "What is more frivolous than the fears now entertained concerning the organization of the assembly of the States-General? No law can be passed without obtaining the king's assent" (De Barentin, "Mémoires," p. 187).—Address of the National Assembly to its constituents, October 2, 1789. "A great revolution of which the idea should have appeared chimerical a few months since has been effected amongst us."]