state in Europe. He carefully watched the judges to see that they did not render wrongful decisions or take bribes. He commissioned jurists to compile the laws and to make them so simple and clear that no one would violate them through ignorance. He abolished the old practice of torturing suspected criminals to make them confess their guilt.
Education, as well as justice, claimed his attention; he founded elementary schools, so that as many as possible of his subjects could learn at least to read and write. In religious affairs, Frederick allowed great individual liberty; for he was a deist, and, like other deists of the time, believed in religious toleration.
More important even than justice, education, and toleration, he considered the promotion of material prosperity among his people. He would have considered himself a failure, had his reign not meant “good times” for farmers and merchants. He encouraged industry. He fostered the manufacture of silk. He invited thrifty farmers to move from other countries and to settle in Prussia. He built canals. Marshes were drained and transformed into rich pasture-land. If war desolated a part of the country, then, when peace was concluded, Frederick gave the farmers seed and let them use his war-horses before the plow. He advised landlords to improve their estates by planting orchards; and he encouraged peasants to grow turnips as fodder for cattle. Much was done to lighten the financial burdens of the peasantry, for (as Frederick himself declared) if a man worked all day in the fields, “he should not be hounded to despair by tax-collectors.”
Taxes were not light by any means, but everybody knew that the king was not squandering the money. Frederick was not a man to lavish fortunes on worthless courtiers; he diligently examined all accounts; and his officials dared not be extravagant for fear of being corporally punished, or, what was worse, of being held up to ridicule by the cruel wit of their royal master.
It was only this marvelous economy and careful planning that enabled Prussia to support an army of 200,000 men and to embark upon a policy of conquest, by which Silesia and a third of Poland were won. On the army alone Frederick was willing to spend freely, but even in this department he made sure that Prussia received its money’s worth. Tireless drill, strict discipline, up-to-date arms, and well-trained officers made the Prussian army the envy and terror of eighteenth- century Europe.
In dwelling upon his seemingly successful attempts to govern in the light of reason and common sense, we have almost forgotten Frederick’s love of philosophy. Let us recur to it before we take leave of him; for benevolent despotism was only one side of the philosophical monarch. He liked to play his flute while thinking how to outwit Maria Theresa; he delighted in making witty answers to tiresome reports and petitions; he enjoyed sitting at table with congenial companions discussing poetry, science, and the drama. True, he did not encourage the rising young German poets Lessing and Goethe. He thought their work vulgar and uninspired. But he invited literary Frenchmen to come to Berlin, and he put new life into the Berlin Academy of Science. Even Voltaire was for a time a guest at Frederick’s court, and the amateurish poems written in French by the Prussian king were corrected by the “prince of philosophers.”
[Sidenote: Catherine the Great of Russia, 1762-1796]
While Frederick was demonstrating that “the prince is but the first servant of the state,” Catherine II was playing the enlightened despot in Russia. In the course of her remarkable career, [Footnote: See above, pp. 380 ff.] Catherine found time to write flattering letters to French philosophers, to make presents to Voltaire, and to invite Diderot to tutor her son. She posed, too, as a liberal-minded monarch, willing to discuss the advisability of giving Russia a written constitution, or of emancipating the serfs. Schools and academies were established, and French became the language of polite Russian society.
At heart Catherine was little moved by desire for real reform or by pity for the peasants. She had the heavy whip–the knout–applied to the bared backs of earnest reformers. Her court was scandalously immoral, and she violated the conventions of matrimony without a qualm. For some excuse or another, the promised constitution was never written, and the lot of the serfs tended to become actually worse. To the governor of Moscow, the tsarina wrote: “My dear prince, do not complain that the Russians have no desire for instruction; if I institute schools, it is not for us,–it is for Europe, where we must keep our position in public opinion. But the day when our peasants shall wish to become enlightened, both you and I will lose our places.” This shows clearly that while Catherine wished to be considered an enlightened despot, she was at heart quite the reverse. Her true character was not to be made manifest until the outbreak of the French Revolution, and then Catherine of Russia was to preach a crusade against reform.
[Sidenote: Charles III of Spain, 1759-1788]
There were other benevolent despots, however, who were undoubtedly sincere. Charles III, with able ministers, made many changes in Spain. [Footnote: Charles III had previously been king of Naples (1735-1759) and had instituted many reforms in that kingdom] The Jesuits were suppressed; the exaggerated zeal of the Inquisition was effectually checked; police were put on the streets of Madrid; German farmers were encouraged to settle in Spain; roads and canals were built; manufactures were fostered; science was patronized; and the fleet was nearly doubled. When Charles III died, after a reign of almost thirty years, the revenues of Spain had tripled, and its population had increased from seven to eleven millions.
[Sidenote: Joseph I of Portugal, 1750-1777]
Charles’s neighbor, Joseph I of Portugal, possessed in the famous Pombal a minister who was both a typical philosopher and an active statesman. Under his administration, industry, education, and commerce throve in Portugal as in Spain. Gustavus III (1771-1792) of Sweden similarly made himself the patron of industry and the friend of the workingman. In Italy, the king of Sardinia was freeing his serfs, while in Tuscany several important reforms were being effected by Duke Leopold, a younger brother of the Habsburg emperor, Joseph II.
[Sidenote: Joseph II of Austria, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire]
Joseph II, archduke of Austria and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, carried the theory of enlightened despotism to its greatest lengths. He was at once the most enthusiastic and the most unsuccessful of all the benevolent despots. In him is to be observed the most striking example of the aims, and likewise the weaknesses, of this generation of philosopher-kings.
[Sidenote: His Heritage from Maria Theresa]
Before we consider Joseph’s career, it is important to understand what his mother, Maria Theresa (1740-1780), had already done for the Habsburg realms. We are familiar with her brave conduct in defense of her hereditary lands against the unscrupulous ambition of Frederick the Great. [Footnote: See above ch. xi.] For her loss of Silesia she had obtained through the partition of Poland some compensation in Galicia and Moldavia. Her domestic policy is of present concern.
The troops furnished by vote of provincial assemblies, she welded together into a national army. German became the official language of military officers; and a movement was begun to supplant Latin by German in the civil administration. The privileges of religious orders were curtailed in the interest of strong government; and the papal bull suppressing the Jesuits was enforced. The universities were remodeled; and the elaborate system of elementary and secondary schools, then established, survived with but little change until 1869.
Maria Theresa had begun reform along most of the lines which her son was to follow. But in two important particulars she was unlike him and unlike the usual enlightened despot. In the first place, she was politic rather than philosophical. She did not attempt wholesale reforms, or blindly follow fine theories, but introduced practical and moderate measures in order to remedy evils. She was very careful not to offend the prejudices or traditions of her subjects. Secondly, Maria Theresa was a devout Roman Catholic. Love of her subjects was not a theory with her,–it was a religious duty. A cynical Frederick the Great might laugh at conscience, and to a Catherine morality might mean nothing; but Maria Theresa remained an ardent Christian in an age of unbelief and a pure woman when loose living was fashionable.
[Sidenote: Policies and Plans of Joseph II, 1780-1790]
Her eldest son, Joseph II, [Footnote: Holy Roman Emperor (1765-1790), and sole ruler of the Habsburg dominions (1780-1790).] was brought up a Roman Catholic, and although strongly influenced by Rousseau’s writings, never seceded from the Church. But neither religion nor expediency was his guiding principle. He said, “I have made Philosophy the legislator of my Empire: her logical principles shall transform Austria.”
There was something very noble in the determination of the young ruler to do away with all injustice, to relieve the oppressed, and to lift up those who had been trampled under foot. His ambition was to make Austria a strong, united, and prosperous kingdom, to be himself the benefactor of his people, to protect the manufacturer, and to free the serf. Austria was to be remodeled as Rousseau would have wished–except in respect of Rousseau’s basic idea of popular sovereignty.
It is a pity that Joseph II cannot be judged simply by his good intentions, for he was quite unfitted to carry out wholesome reforms. He had derived his ideas from French philosophers rather than from actual life; he was so sure that his theories were right that he would take no advice; he was impatient and would brook no delay in the wholesale application of his theories. Regardless of prejudice, regardless of tradition, regardless of every consideration of political expediency, he rushed ahead on the path of reform.
To Joseph II it mattered not that Austria had long been the stronghold and her rulers the champions of Catholic Christianity. He insisted that no papal bulls should be published in his dominions without his own authorization; he nominated the bishops; he confiscated church lands. Side altars and various emblems were removed from the churches, not because they were useless, for humble Christians still prayed to their God before such altars, but because the emperor thought side altars were signs of superstition. The old and well-loved ceremonies were altered at his command. Many monasteries were abolished. The clergy were to be trained in schools controlled by the emperor. And, to cap the climax, heretics and Jews were to be not only tolerated, but actually given the same rights as orthodox Catholics.
Many of these measures were no doubt desirable, and one or two of them might have been accomplished without causing much disturbance, but by trying to reform everything at once, Joseph only shocked and angered the clergy and such of his people as piously loved their religion.
His political policies, which were no more wisely conceived or executed, were three in number. (1) He desired to extend his possessions eastward to the Black Sea and southward to the Adriatic, while the distant Netherlands might conveniently be exchanged for near- by Bavaria. (2) He wished to get rid of all provincial assemblies and other vestiges of local independence, and to have all his territories governed uniformly by officials subject to himself. (3) He aimed to uplift the lower classes of his people, and to put down the proud nobles, so that all should be equal and all alike should look up to their benevolent, but all-powerful, ruler.
The first of these policies brought him only disastrous wars. His designs on Bavaria were frustrated by Frederick the Great, who posed as the protector of the smaller German states. In the Balkan peninsula his armies fought much and gained little.
His administrative policy was as unfortunate as his territorial ambition. Maria Theresa had taken some steps to simplify the administration of her heterogeneous dominions, but she had wisely allowed Hungary, Lombardy, and the Netherlands to preserve certain of the traditions and formulas of self-government, and she did everything to win the loyalty and confidence of her Hungarian subjects. Joseph, on the other hand, carried the sacred crown of St. Stephen–treasured by all Hungarians–to Vienna; abolished the privileges of the Hungarian Diet, or congress; and with a stroke of the pen established a new system of government. He divided his lands into thirteen provinces, each under a military commander. Each province was divided into districts or counties, and these again into townships. There would be no more local privileges but all was to be managed from Vienna. The army was henceforth to be on the Prussian model, and the peasants were to be forced to serve their terms in it. German was to be the official language throughout the Habsburg realm. This was all very fine on paper, but in practice it was a gigantic failure. The Austrian Netherlands rose in revolt rather than lose their local autonomy; the Tyrol did likewise; and angry protests came from Hungary. Local liberties and traditions could not be abolished by an imperial decree.
Finally, in his attempts to reconstruct society, Joseph came to grief. He directed that all serfs should become free men, able to marry without the consent of their lord, privileged to sell their land and to pay a fixed rent instead of being compelled to labor four days a week for their lord. Nobles and peasants alike were to share the burdens of taxation, all paying 13 per cent on their land. Joseph intended still further to help the peasantry, for, he said “I could never bring myself to skin two hundred good peasants to pay one do-nothing lord more than he ought to have.” He planned to give everybody a free elementary education, to encourage industry, and to make all his subjects prosperous and happy.
[Sidenote: Failure of Joseph II]
But the peasants disliked compulsory military service and misunderstood his reforms; the nobles were not willing to be deprived of their feudal rights; the bourgeoisie was irritated by his blundering attempts to encourage industry; the clergy preached against his religious policy. He reigned only ten years; yet he was hated by many and loved by none; he had met defeat abroad, and at home his subjects were in revolt.
Little wonder that as he lay dying (1790) with hardly friend or relative near to comfort him, the discouraged reformer should have sighed: “After all my trouble, I have made but few happy, and many ungrateful.” He directed that most of his “reforms” should be canceled, and proposed as an epitaph for himself the gloomy sentence: “Here lies the man who, with the best intentions, never succeeded in anything.” [Footnote: The epitaph was not quite true. The serfs in Austria retained at least part of the liberty he had granted.]
[Sidenote: Weakness of Benevolent Despotism]
Joseph II was not the only benevolent despot who met with discouragement. The fatal weakness of “enlightened despotism” was its failure to enlist the sympathy and support of the people. Absolute rulers like Joseph II tried to force reforms on their peoples whether the reforms were popularly desired or not. As a result, few of their measures were lasting, and ingratitude was uniformly their reward.
If all kings had possessed the supreme ability and genius of a Frederick the Great, enlightened despotism might still be in vogue. The trouble was that even well-meaning monarchs like Joseph II were unpractical; and many sovereigns were not even well-meaning. In Prussia, the successor of Frederick the Great, King Frederick William II, had neither ability nor character; his weak rule undid the work of Frederick. The same thing happened in other countries: weakness succeeded ability, extravagance wasted the fruits of economy, and corruption ruined the work of reform. Absolute monarchy without good intentions proved terribly oppressive.
THE FRENCH MONARCHY
In no country was the evil side of absolutism exhibited so unmistakably as in France. During the eighteenth century the French government went from bad to worse, until at last it was altered not by peaceful reform but by violent revolution.
[Sidenote: French People better off than their Neighbors]
As far as their actual condition was concerned, the people of France were, on the whole, better off than most Germans or Italians. Next to England, France had the most numerous, prosperous, and intelligent middle class; and her peasants were slightly above the serfs of other Continental countries. But the very fact that in material well-being they were a little better off than their neighbors, made the French people more critical of their government. The lower classes had not all been ground down until they were mere slaves without hope or courage; on the contrary, there were many sturdy farmers and thrifty artisans who hoped for better days and bitterly resented inequalities in society and abuses in the government. The bourgeoisie was even less inclined to bow to tyranny; it was numerous, intelligent, wealthy, and influential; it could see the mistakes of the royal administration and was hopeful of gaining a voice in the government. Thus, the people of France were keener to feel wrongs and to resent the injustice of undutiful monarchs.
Let us glance at the crying abuses in the French state of the eighteenth century, and then we shall understand how great was the guilt of that pleasure-loving despot–Louis XV (1715-1774).
[Sidenote: The Administration]
[Sidenote: The King]
The French administrative system was confused and oppressive. In theory, it was quite simple–the government was the king. As Louis XV haughtily remarked: “The sovereign authority is vested in my person… the legislative power exists in myself alone… my people are one only with me; national rights and national interests are necessarily combined with my own and only rest in my hands.”
But in practice, the king could not alone make laws, keep order, and collect taxes, especially when he spent whole days hunting or gambling. He contented himself with spending the state money, getting into wars, and occasionally interfering with the work of his ministers. And it was necessary to intrust the actual conduct of affairs to a complicated system or no-system of royal officials.
[Sidenote: The Royal Council]
The highest rung in the ladder of officialdom was the Royal Council. It was composed of the half dozen chief ministers and about thirty councilors who helped their chiefs to supervise the affairs of the kingdom,–issuing decrees, conferring on foreign policy, levying taxes, and acting on endless reports from local officials.
[Sidenote: Local Administration. The Intendants]
The Royal Council had numerous local representatives. There were the bailiffs and seneschals, whose actual powers had quite disappeared, but whose offices served to complicate matters. Then there were the governors of provinces, well-fed gentlemen with fat salaries and little to do. The bulk of local administration fell into the hands of the intendants and their sub-delegates. Each of the thirty-four intendants –the so-called “Thirty Tyrants of France”–was appointed by the king’s ministers and was like a petty despot in his district (_généralité_).
The powers of the intendant were extensive. He decided what share of the district taxes each village and taxpayer should bear. He had his representatives in each parish of his district, and through them he supervised the police, the preservation of order, and the recruiting of the army. He relieved the poor in bad seasons. The erection of a church, or the repair of a town hall, needed his sanction. When the Royal Council ordered roads to be built, it was the intendant and his men who directed the work and called the peasants out to do the labor. With powers such as these, it was little wonder that the intendant was called _Monseigneur_–“My lord.”
[Sidenote: The Parlement of Paris]
The system of Royal Council, intendants, and sub-intendants would have been comparatively simple, had it not been complicated by the presence of numerous other political bodies, each of which claimed certain customary powers. First of all, there was the _Parlement_, or supreme court, of Paris, primarily a judicial body which registered the royal decrees. If the Parlement disliked a decree, it might refuse to register it, until the king should hold a “bed of justice”–that is, should formally summon the Parlement and in person command it to register his decree.
[Sidenote: Provincial Estates]
Then there were provincial “Estates,” or assemblies, in a few of the provinces. [Footnote: Such provinces were called _pays d’état_ and included Brittany, Languedoc, Provence, Roussillon, Dauphiné, Burgundy, Franche Comté, Alsace, Lorraine, Artois, Flanders, Corsica, etc. The local assemblies in these _pays d’état_ were by no means representative of all the inhabitants. The remaining provinces, in which no vestiges of provincial self-government survived, were called _pays d’élection_: they included Ile de France, Orléanais, Champagne and Brie, Maine, Anjou, Poitou, Guyenne and Gascony, Limousin, Auvergne, Lyonnais, Bourbonnais, Touraine, Normandy, Picardy, etc.] These bodies, survivals of the middle ages, did not make laws but had a voice in the apportionment of taxes among the parishes of the province, and exercised powers of supervision over road-building and the collection of taxes.
[Sidenote: Town Councils]
The government of the towns was peculiar. The old gilds, now including only a small number of the wealthiest burghers, elected a Town Council, which managed the property of the town, appointed tax-collectors, saw that the town hall was kept in repair, and supervised the collection of customs duties on goods brought into the town. It is easy to perceive how the Town Council and the intendant would have overlapping powers, and how considerable confusion might arise, especially since in different towns the nature and the powers of the Town Council differed widely. Matters were complicated still further by the fact that the mayors of the towns were not elected by the council, but appointed by the crown.
In rural districts there was a trace of the same conflict between the system of intendants and the survivals of local self-government. Summoned by the clanging church bell, all the men of the village met on the village green. And the simple villagers, thus gathered together as a town meeting or communal assembly, might elect collectors of the _taille_, or might perhaps petition the intendant to repair the parsonage or the bridge.
[Sidenote: Confusion in Administration]
Possibly the reader may now begin to realize that confusion was a prime attribute of the French administrative system. The common people were naturally bewildered by the overlapping functions of Royal Council, Parlement, provincial estates, governors, bailiffs, intendants, subintendants, mayors, town councils, and village assemblies. The system, or lack of system, gave rise to corruption and complication without insuring liberty. The most trivial affairs were regulated by overbearing and exacting royal officials. Everything depended upon the honesty and industry or upon the meanness and caprice of these officials. Each petty officer transmitted long reports to his superior; but the general public was kept in the dark about official matters, and was left to guess, as best it could, the reasons for the seemingly unreasonable acts of the government. If an intendant increased the taxes on a village, the ignorant inhabitants blamed it upon official “graft” or favoritism. Or, if hard times prevailed, or if a shaky bridge broke down, the villagers were prone in any case to find fault with the government, for the more mysterious and powerful the government was, the more likely was it to bear the blame for all ills.
Confusion in administrative offices was not the only confusion in eighteenth-century France. There was no uniformity or simplicity in standards of weight and measure, in coinage, in tolls, in internal customs-duties. But worst of all were the laws and the courts of justice.
[Sidenote: Confusion in Laws]
What was lawful in one town was often illegal in a place not five miles distant. Almost four hundred sets or bodies of law were in force in different parts of France. In some districts the old Roman laws were still retained; elsewhere laws derived from early German tribes were enforceable. Many laws were not even in writing; and such as were written were more often in Latin than in French. The result was that only unusually learned men knew the law, and common people stumbled along in the dark. The laws, moreover, were full of injustice and cruelty. An offender might have his hand or ear cut off, or his tongue torn out; he might be burned with red-hot irons or have molten lead poured into his flesh. Hanging was an easy death compared to the lingering torture of having one’s bones broken on a wheel.
[Sidenote: Confusion in Law Courts]
The courts were nearly as bad as the laws. There were royal courts, feudal courts, church courts, courts of finance, and military courts; and it was a wise offender who knew before which court he might be tried. Extremely important cases might be carried on appeal to the highest courts of the realm–the Parlements–of which there were thirteen, headed in honor by that of Paris.
[Sidenote: Prevalence of Injustice]
Although courts were so plenteous, justice was seldom to be found. Persons wrongfully accused of crime were tortured until they confessed deeds they had never committed. The public was not admitted to trials, so no one knew on what grounds the sentence was passed, and the judge gave no reason for his verdict. Civil lawsuits were appealed from court to court and might drag on for years until the parties had spent all their money. Lawyers were more anxious to extract large fees from their clients than to secure justice for them.
[Sidenote: “Noblesse de la Robe”]
Confused laws and conflicting jurisdictions were often made worse by the character of the judges who presided over royal courts. Many of them were rich bourgeois who had purchased their appointment from the king. For a large price it was possible to buy a judgeship or seat in a Parlement, not only for a lifetime but as an hereditary possession. It has been estimated that 50,000 bourgeois families possessed such judicial offices: they formed a sort of lower nobility, exempted from certain taxes and very proud of their honors. Naturally envious were his neighbors when the “councilor” appeared in his grand wig and his enormous robe of silk and velvet, attended by a page who kept the robe from trailing in the dust. No wonder these bourgeois judges were called “the nobility of the robe.”
In some way or other the “noble of the robe” had to compensate himself for the price of his office and the cost of his robe. One bought an office for profit as well as for honor. For to the judge were paid the court fees and fines; and no shrewd judge would let a case pass him without exacting some kind of a fee. Even more profitable were the indirect gains. If Monsieur A had gained his case in court, it was quite to be expected that in his joy Monsieur A would make a handsome present to the judge who had given the decision. At least, that is the way the judge would have put it. As a plain matter of fact the judges were bribed, and justice was too often bought and sold like judgeships.
[Sidenote: Abuses in the Army]
Corruption and abuses were not confined to the civil government and the courts of law; the army, too, was infected. In the ranks were to be found hired foreigners, unwilling peasants dragged from their farms, and the scum of the city slums. Thousands deserted every year. Had the discontented troops been well commanded, they might still have answered the purpose. But such was not the case. There were certainly enough officers–an average of one general for every 157 privates. But what officers they were! Dissolute and dandified generals drawing their pay and never visiting their troops, lieutenants reveling in vice, instead of drilling and caring for their commands. Noble blood, not ability, was the qualification of a commander. Counts, who had never seen a battlefield, were given military offices, and the seven-year-old Duc de Frousac was a colonel.
[Sidenote: Confusion in Finance]
Confused administration, antiquated laws, corrupt magistrates, and a disorganized army showed the weakness of the French monarchy; but financial disorders threatened its very existence,–for a government out of money is as helpless as a fish out of water.
The destructive wars, costly armies, luxurious palaces, and extravagant court of Louis XIV had left to the successors of the Grand Monarch many debts, an empty treasury, and an overtaxed people. If ever there was need of care and thrift, it was in the French monarchy in the eighteenth century.
Yet the king’s ministers did not even trouble themselves to keep orderly accounts. Bills and receipts were carelessly laid away; no one knew how much was owed or how much was to be expected by the treasury; and even the king himself could not have told how much he would run into debt during the year. While it lasted, money was spent freely.
[Sidenote: Royal Revenue]
The amount of money required by the king would have made taxes very heavy anyway, but bad methods of assessment and collection added to the burden. The royal revenue was derived chiefly from three sources: the royal domains, the direct taxes, and the indirect taxes. From the royal domains, the lands of which the king was landlord as well as sovereign, a considerable but ever-diminishing income was derived.
[Sidenote: Direct Taxes]
[Sidenote: The Income Tax]
[Sidenote: The Poll Tax]
The direct taxes were the prop of the treasury, for they could be increased to meet the demand, at least as long as the people would pay. There were three direct taxes–the _taille_, the _capitation_, and the _vingtième_. The _vingtième_, or “twentieth,” was a tax on incomes5 per cent [Footnote: Five per cent in theory; in practice in the reign of Louis XVI it was 11 per cent] on the salary of the judge, on the rents of the noble, on the earning of the artisan, on the produce of the peasant. The clergy were entirely exempted from this tax; the more influential nobles and bourgeois contrived to have their incomes underestimated, and the burden fell heaviest on the poorer classes. _Capitation_ was a general poll or head tax, varying in amount according to whichever of twenty-two classes claimed the individual taxpayer. Maid-servants, for example, paid annually three _livres_ and twelve _sous_. [Footnote: A _livre_ was worth about a _franc_ (20 cents) and a _sou_ was equivalent to one cent.]
[Sidenote: The Taille or Land Tax]
The most important and hated direct tax was the _taille_ or land tax,–practically a tax on peasants alone. The total amount to be raised was apportioned among the intendants by the Royal Council, and by the intendants among the villages of their respective districts. At the village assembly collectors were elected, who were thereby authorized to demand from each villager a share of the tax, according to his ability to pay. As a result of this method, each villager tried to appear poor so as to be taxed lightly; whole villages looked run- down in order to be held for only a small share; and influential politicians often obtained alleviation for parts of the country.
[Sidenote: Indirect Taxes]
[Sidenote: “Tax Farming”]
The indirect taxes were not so heavy, but they were bitterly detested. There were taxes on alcohol, metal-ware, cards, paper, and starch, but most disliked of all was that on salt (the _gabelle_). Every person above seven years of age was supposed annually to buy from the government salt-works seven pounds of salt at about ten times its real value. [Footnote: It should be understood, of course, that the _gabelle_ was higher and more burdensome in some provinces than in others.] Only government agents could legally sell salt, and smugglers were fined heavily or sent to the galleys. These indirect taxes were usually “farmed out,” that is, in return for a lump sum the government would grant to a company of speculators the right to collect what they could. These speculators were called “farmers-general,”–France could be called their farm [Footnote: Etymologically, the French word for farm (_ferme_) was not necessarily connected with agriculture, but signified a fixed sum (_firma_) paid for a certain privilege, such as that of collecting a tax.] and money its produce. And they farmed well. After paying the government, the “farmers” still had millions of francs to distribute as bribes or as presents to great personages or to retain for themselves. Thus, millions were lost to the treasury.
[Sidenote: The Burden of Taxation]
Taxes could not always be raised to cover emergencies, nor collected so wastefully. The peasants of France were crushed by feudal dues, tithes, and royal taxes. The bourgeoisie were angered by the income tax, by the indirect taxes, by the tolls and internal customs, and by the monopolistic privileges which the king sold to his favorites. How long the unprivileged classes would bear the burden of taxation, while the nobles and clergy were almost free, no one could tell; but signs of discontent were too patent to be ignored.
Louis XIV (1643-1715) at the end of his long reign perceived the danger. As the aged monarch lay on his deathbed, flushed with fever, he called his five-year-old great-grandson and heir, the future Louis XV, to the bedside and said: “My child, you will soon be sovereign of a great kingdom. Do not forget your obligations to God; remember that it is to Him that you owe all that you are. Endeavor to live at peace with your neighbors; do not imitate me in my fondness for war, nor in the exorbitant expenditure which I have incurred. Take counsel in all your actions. Endeavor to _relieve the people at the earliest possible moment_, and thus to accomplish what, unfortunately, I am unable to do myself.”
[Sidenote: Louis XV, 1715-1774]
It was good advice. But Louis XV was only a boy, a plaything in the hands of his ministers. In an earlier chapter [Footnote: See above, pp. 255 f.] we have seen how under the duke of Orleans, who was prince regent from 1715 to 1723, France entered into war with Spain, and how finance was upset by speculation; and how under Cardinal Fleury, who was minister from 1726 to 1743, the War of the Polish Election (1733- 1738) was fought and the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) begun.
When in 1743 the ninety-year-old Cardinal Fleury died, Louis XV announced that he would be his own minister. But he was not a Frederick the Great. At the council table poor Louis “opened his mouth, said little, and thought not at all.” State business seemed terribly dull, and the king left most of it to others.
But of one thing, Louis XV could not have enough–and that was pleasure. He much preferred pretty girls to pompous ministers of state, and spent most of his time with the ladies and the rest of the time either hunting or gambling. In spite of the fact that he was married, Louis very easily fell in love with a charming face; at one time he was infatuated by the duchess of Châteauroux, then by Madame de Pompadour, and later by Madame du Barry. Upon his mistresses he was willing to lavish princely presents,–he gave them estates and titles, had them live at Versailles, and criminally allowed them to interfere in politics; for their sake he was willing to let his country go to ruin.
The character of the king was reflected in his court. It became fashionable to neglect one’s wife, to gamble all night, to laugh at virtue, to be wasteful and extravagant. Versailles was gay; the ladies painted their cheeks more brightly than ever, and the lords spent their fortunes more recklessly.
But Versailles was not France. France was ruined with wars and taxes. Louis XIV had said, “Live at peace with your neighbors”; but since his death four wars had been waged, culminating in the disastrous Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), by which French commerce had been destroyed and the French colonies had been lost. [Footnote: The formal annexation of Lorraine in 1766 and of Corsica in 1768 afforded some crumbs of comfort for Louis XV.] Debts were multiplied and taxes increased. What with war, extravagance, and poor management, Louis XV left France a bankrupt state.
[Sidenote: Growing complaints against the French Monarchy under Louis XV]
Complaints were loud and remonstrances bitter, and Louis XV could not silence them, try as he might. Authors who criticized the government were thrown into prison: radical writings were confiscated or burned; but criticism persisted. Enemies of the government were imprisoned without trial in the Bastille by _lettres de cachet_, which were orders for arrest signed in blank by the king, who sometimes gave or sold them to his favorites, so that they, too, might have their enemies jailed. Yet the opposition to the court ever increased. Resistance to taxation centered in the Parlement of Paris. It refused to register the king’s decrees, and remained defiant even after Louis XV had angrily announced that he would not tolerate interference with his prerogatives. The quarrel grew so bitter that all the thirteen Parlements of France were suppressed (1771), and in their stead new royal courts were established.
Opposition was only temporarily crushed; and Louis XV knew that graver trouble was brewing. He grew afraid to ride openly among the discontented crowds of Paris; the peasants saluted him sullenly; the treasury was empty; the monarchy was tottering. Yet Louis XV felt neither responsibility nor care. “It will surely last as long as I,” he cynically affirmed; “my successor may take care of himself.”
[Sidenote: Louis XVI, 1774-1792]
His successor was his grandson, Louis XVI (1774-1792), a weak-kneed prince of twenty years, very virtuous and well-meaning, but lacking in intelligence and will-power. He was too awkward and shy to preside with dignity over the ceremonious court; he was too stupid and lazy to dominate the ministry. He liked to shoot deer from out the palace window, or to play at lock-making in his royal carpentry shop. Government he left to his ministers.
[Sidenote: Turgot]
At first, hopes ran high, for Turgot, friend of Voltaire and contributor to the _Encyclopedia_, was minister of finance (1774- 1776), and reform was in the air. Industry and commerce were to be unshackled; _laisser-faire_ was to be the order of the day; finances were to be reformed, and taxes lowered. The clergy and nobles were no longer to escape taxation; taxes on food were to be abolished; the peasants were to be freed from forced labor on the roads. But Turgot only stirred up opposition. The nobles and clergy were not anxious to be taxed; courtiers resented any reduction of their pensions; tax-farmers feared the reforming minister; owners of industrial monopolies were frightened; the peasants misunderstood his intentions; and riots broke out. Everybody seemed to be relieved when, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed.
[Sidenote: Necker]
Turgot had been a theorist; his successor was a businessman. Jacques Necker was well known in Paris as a hard-headed Swiss banker, and Madame Necker’s receptions were attended by the chief personages of the bourgeois society of Paris. During his five years in office (1776-1781) Necker applied business methods to the royal finances. He borrowed 400,000,000 francs from his banker friends, reformed the collection of taxes, reduced expenditures, and carefully audited the accounts. In 1781 he issued a report or “Account Rendered of the Financial Condition.” The bankers were delighted; the secrets of the royal treasury were at last common property; [Footnote: _The Compte Rendu_, as it was called in France, was really not accurate; Necker, in order to secure credit for his financial administration, made matters appear better than they actually were.] and Necker was praised to the skies.
[Sidenote: Marie Antoinette]
While Necker’s Parisian friends rejoiced, his enemies at court prepared his downfall. Now the most powerful enemy of Necker’s reforms and economies was the queen, Marie Antoinette. She was an Austrian princess, the daughter of Maria Theresa, and in the eyes of the French people she always remained a hated foreigner–“the Austrian,” they called her–the living symbol of the ruinous alliance between Habsburgs and Bourbons which had been arranged by a Madame de Pompadour and which had contributed to the disasters and disgrace of the Seven Years’ War [Footnote: See above, pp. 358 ff]. While grave ministers of finance were puzzling their heads over the deficit, gay Marie Antoinette was buying new dresses and jewelry, making presents to her friends, giving private theatricals, attending horse-races and masked balls. The light- hearted girl-queen had little serious interest in politics, but when her friends complained of Necker’s miserliness, she at once demanded his dismissal.
Her demand was granted, for the kind-hearted, well-intentioned Louis XVI could not bear to deprive his pretty, irresponsible Marie Antoinette and her charming friends,–gallant nobles of France,–of their pleasures. Their pleasures were very costly; and fresh loans could be secured by the obsequious new finance-minister, Calonne, only at high rates of interest.
From the standpoint of France, the greatest folly of Louis XVI’s reign was the ruinous intervention in the War of American Independence (1778- 1783). The United States became free; Great Britain was humbled; Frenchmen proved that their valor was equal to their chivalry; but when the impulsive Marquis de Lafayette returned from assisting the Americans to win their liberty, he found a ruined France. The treasury was on the verge of collapse. From the conclusion of the war in 1783 to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, every possible financial expedient was tried–in vain.
[Sidenote: The Problem of Taxation]
To tax the so-called privileged classes–the clergy and the nobles– might have helped; and successive finance ministers so counseled the king. But it was absolutely against the spirit of the “old régime.” What was the good of being a clergyman or a noble, if one had no privileges and was obliged to pay taxes like the rest? To tax all alike would be in itself a revolution, and the tottering divine-right monarchy sought reform, not revolution.
[Sidenote: The Assembly of Notables, 1787]
Yet in 1786 the interest-bearing debt had mounted to $600,000,000, the government was running in debt at least $25,000,000 a year, and the treasury-officials were experiencing the utmost difficulty in negotiating new loans. Something had to be done. As a last resort, the king convened (1787) an Assembly of Notables–145 of the chief nobles, bishops, and magistrates–in the vain hope that they would consent to the taxation of the privileged and unprivileged alike. The Notables were not so self-sacrificing, however, and contented themselves with abolishing compulsory labor on the roads, voting to have provincial assemblies established, and demanding the dismissal of Calonne, the minister of finance. The question of taxation, they said, should be referred to the Estates-General. All this helped the treasury in no material way.
[Sidenote: Convocation of the Estates-General]
A new minister of finance, who succeeded Calonne,–Archbishop Loménie de Brienne,–politely thanked the Notables and sent them home. He made so many fine promises that hope temporarily revived, and a new loan was raised. But the Parlement of Paris, which together with the other Parlements had been restored early in the reign of Louis XVI, soon saw through the artifices of the suave minister, and positively refused to register further loans or taxes. Encouraged by popular approval, the Parlement went on to draw up a declaration of rights, and to assert that subsidies could constitutionally be granted only by the nation’s representatives–the ancient Estates-General. This sounded to the government like revolution, and the Parlements were again abolished. The abolition of the Parlements raised a great cry of indignation; excited crowds assembled in Paris and other cities; and the soldiers refused to arrest the judges. Here was real revolution, and Louis XVI, frightened and anxious, yielded to the popular demand for the Estates- General.
In spite of the fact that every one talked so glibly about the Estates- General and of the great things that body would do, few knew just what the Estates-General was. Most people had heard that once upon a time France had had a representative body of clergy, nobility, and commoners, somewhat like the British Parliament. But no such assembly had been convoked for almost two centuries, and only scholars and lawyers knew what the old Estates-General had been. Nevertheless, it was believed that nothing else could save France from ruin; and in August, 1788, Louis XVI, after consulting the learned men, issued a summons for the election of the Estates-General, to meet in May of the following year.
[Sidenote: Failure of Absolutism in France]
The convocation of the Estates-General was the death-warrant of divine- right monarchy in France. It meant that absolutism had failed. The king was bankrupt. No half-way reforms or pitiful economies would do now. The Revolution was at hand.
ADDITIONAL READING
THE BRITISH MONARCHY, 1760-1800. General accounts: A. L. Cross, _History of England and Greater Britain_ (1914), ch. xlv, a brief résumé; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. VI (1909), ch. xiii; A. D. Innes, _History of England and the British Empire_, Vol. III (1914), ch. vii-ix, xi; C. G. Robertson, _England under the Hanoverians_ (1911); J. F. Bright, _History of England_, Vol. III, _Constitutional Monarchy_, 1689-1837; William Hunt, _Political History of England, 1760-1801_ (1905), Tory in sympathy; and W. E. H. Lecky, _A History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, London ed., 7 vols. (1907), and _A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century_, 5 vols. (1893), the most complete general histories of the century. Special studies: E. and A. G. Porritt, _The Unreformed House of Commons_, new ed., 2 vols. (1909), a careful description of the undemocratic character of the parliamentary system; J. R. Fisher, _The End of the Irish Parliament_ (1911); W. L. Mathieson, _The Awakening of Scotland, 1747-1797_ (1910); _Correspondence of George III with Lord North, 1768-1783_, ed. by W. B. Donne, 2 vols. (1867), excellent for illustrating the king’s system of personal government; Horace Walpole, _Letters_, ed. by Mrs. P. Toynbee, 16 vols. (1903-1905), a valuable contemporary source as “Walpole is the acknowledged prince of letter writers”; G. S. Veitch, _The Genesis of Parliamentary Reform_ (1913), a clear and useful account of the agitation in the time of Pitt and Fox; W. P. Hall, _British Radicalism, 1791-1797_ (1912), an admirable and entertaining survey of the movement for political and social reform in England; J. H. Rose, _William Pitt and National Revival_ (1911), dealing with the years 1781-1791. There are biographies of _William Pitt_ (the Younger) by Lord Rosebery (1891) and by W. D. Green (1901); and _The Early Life of Charles James Fox_ by Sir G. 0. Trevelyan (1880) affords a delightful picture of the life of the time. Also see books listed under ENGLISH SOCIETY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, pp. 427 f., above.
THE BENEVOLENT DESPOTS. Brief general accounts: H. E. Bourne, _The Revolutionary Period in Europe, 1763-1815_ (1914), ch. ii, iv, v; J. H. Robinson and C. A. Beard, _The Development of Modern Europe_, Vol. I (1907), ch. x, xi; H. M. Stephens, _Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815_ (1893), ch. i; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. VI (1909), ch. xii, xviii-xx, xxii, xvi; E. F. Henderson, _A Short History of Germany_, Vol. II (1902), ch. v, excellent on Frederick the Great. With special reference to the career of Charles III of Spain: Joseph Addison, _Charles III of Spain_ (1900); M. A. S. Hume, _Spain, its Greatness and Decay, 1479-1788_ (1898), ch. xiv, xv; François Rousseau, _Règne de Charles III d’Espagne, 1759- 1788,_ 2 vols. (1907), the best and most exhaustive work on the subject; Gustav Diercks, _Geschichte Spaniens von der fruhesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart_, 2 vols. (1895-1896), a good general history of Spain by a German scholar. On Gustavus III of Sweden: R. N. Bain, _Scandinavia, a Political History of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, from 1513 to 1900_ (1905). On the Dutch Netherlands in the eighteenth century: H. W. Van Loon, _The Fall of the Dutch Republic_ (1913). On Joseph II: A. H. Johnson, _The Age of the Enlightened Despot, 1660-1789_ (1910), ch. x, an admirable brief introduction to the subject; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. VIII (1904), ch. xi, on Joseph’s foreign policy; William Coxe (1747-1828), _History of the House of Austria_, Vol. III, an excellent account though somewhat antiquated; Franz Krones, _Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs_, Vol. IV (1878), Books XIX, XX, a standard work; Karl Ritter, _Kaiser Joseph II und seine kirchlichen Reformen_; G. Holzknecht, _Ursprung und Herkunft der reformideen Kaiser Josefs II auf kirchlichem Gebiete_ (1914). For further details of the projects and achievements of Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa, see bibliographies accompanying Chapter XI, above; and for those of Catherine II of Russia, see bibliography of Chapter XII, above.
THE FRENCH MONARCHY, 1743-1789. Brief general accounts: Shailer Mathews, _The French Revolution_ (reprint 1912), ch. vi-viii; A. J. Grant, _The French Monarchy, 1483-1789_, Vol. II (1900), ch. xix-xxi; G. W. Kitchin, _A History of France_, Vol. III (4th ed., 1899), Book VI, ch. iii-vii; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. VIII (1904), ch. ii- iv; E. J. Lowell, _The Eve of the French Revolution_ (1892), an able survey; Sophia H. MacLehose, _The Last Days of the French Monarchy_ (1901), a popular narrative. More detailed studies: J. B. Perkins, _France under Louis XV_, 2 vols. (1897), an admirable treatment; Ernest Lavisse (editor), _Histoire de France_, Vol. VIII, Part II, _Règne de Louis XV, 1715-1774_ (1909), and Vol. IX, Part I, _Règne de Louis XVI, 1774-1789_ (1910), the latest and most authoritative treatment in French; Felix Rocquain, _The Revolutionary Spirit Preceding the French Revolution_, condensed Eng. trans. by J. D. Hunting (1891), a suggestive account of various disorders immediately preceding 1789; Leon Say, _Turgot_, a famous little biography translated from the French by M. B. Anderson (1888); W. W. Stephens, _Life and Writings of Turgot_ (1895), containing extracts from important decrees of Turgot; Alphonse Jobez, _La France sous Louis XV_, 6 vols. (1864-1873), and, by the same author, _La France sous Louis XVI_, 3 vols. (1877-1893), exhaustive works, still useful for particular details but in general now largely superseded by the _Histoire de France_ of Ernest Lavisse; Charles Gomel, _Les causes financières de la révolution française: les derniers contrôleurs généraux_, 2 vols. (1892-1893), scholarly and especially valuable for the public career of Turgot, Necker, Calonne, and Loménie de Brienne; Rene Stourm, _Les finances de l’ancien régime et de la révolution_, 2 vols. (1885); Aimé Cherest, _La chute de l’ancien regime_, 1787-1789, 3 vols. (1884-1886), a very detailed study of the three critical years immediately preceding the Revolution; F. C. von Mercy-Argenteau, _Correspondance secrète avec l’impératrice Marie- Thérèse, avec les lettres de Marie-Thérèse et de Marie-Antoinette_, 3 vols. (1875); and _Correspondance secrète avec l’empereur Joseph II et le prince de Kaunitz_, 2 vols. (1889-1891), editions of original letters and other information which Mercy-Argenteau transmitted to Vienna from 1766 to 1790, very valuable for the contemporary pictures of court-life at Versailles (selections have been translated and published in English). Also see books listed under FRENCH SOCIETY ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION, p. 427, above.
CHAPTER XV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION INTRODUCTORY
The governments and other political institutions which flourished in the first half of the eighteenth century owed their origins to much earlier times. They had undergone only such alterations as were absolutely necessary to adapt them to various places and changing circumstances. Likewise, the same social classes existed as had always characterized western Europe; and these classes–the court, the nobles, the clergy, the bourgeoisie, the artisans, the peasants–continued to bear relations to each other which a hoary antiquity had sanctioned. Every individual was born into his class, or, as the popular phrase went, to “a station to which God had called him,” and to question the fundamental divine nature of class distinctions seemed silly if not downright blasphemous.
[Sidenote: Dislocation of Society in Eighteenth Century]
Such ideas were practical so long as society was comparatively static and fixed, but they were endangered as soon as the human world was conceived of as dynamic and progressive. The development of trade and industry, as has been emphasized, rapidly increased the numbers, wealth, and influence of the bourgeoisie, or middle class, and quite naturally threw the social machine out of gear. The merchants, the lawyers, the doctors, the professors, the literary men, began to envy the nobles and clergy, and in turn were envied by the poor townsfolk and by the downtrodden peasants. With the progress of learning and study, thoughtful persons of all classes began to doubt whether the old order of politics and society was best suited to the new conditions and new relations. The “old régime” was for old needs; did it satisfy new requirements?
[Sidenote: Influence of Philosophy]
To this question the philosophers of the eighteenth century responded unequivocally in the negative. Scientists, of whom the period was full, had done much to exalt the notions that the universe is run in accordance with immutable laws of nature and that man must forever utilize his reasoning faculties. It was not long before the philosophers were applying the scientists’ notions to social conditions. “Is this reasonable?” they asked, or, “Is that rational?” Montesquieu insisted that divine-right monarchy is unreasonable. Voltaire poked fun at the Church and the clergy for being irrational. Rousseau claimed that class inequalities have no basis in reason. Beccaria taught that arbitrary or cruel interference with personal liberty is not in accordance with dictates of nature or reason.
Philosophy did not directly effect a change; it was merely an expression of a growing belief in the advisability of change. It reflected a conviction, deep in many minds, that the old political institutions and social distinctions had served their purpose and should now be radically adapted to the new order. Every country in greater or less degree heard the radical philosophy, but it was in France that it was first heeded.
[Sidenote: The Revolution]
In France, between the years 1789 and 1799, occurred a series of events, by which the doctrine of democracy supplanted that of divine- right monarchy, and the theory of class distinctions gave way to that of social equality. These events, taken together, constitute what we term the French Revolution, and, inasmuch as they have profoundly affected all political thought and social action throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they are styled, by way of eminence, the Revolution.
[Sidenote: The Revolution French]
Why the Revolution started in France may be suggested by reference to certain points which have already been mentioned in the history of that country. France was the country which, above any other, had perfected the theory and practice of divine-right monarchy. In France had developed the sharpest contrasts between the various social classes. It was likewise in France that the relatively high level of education and enlightenment had given great vogue to a peculiarly destructive criticism of political and social conditions. Louis XIV had erected his absolutism and had won for it foreign glory and prestige only by placing the severest burdens upon the French people. The exploitation of the state by the selfish, immoral Louis XV had served not to lighten those burdens but rather to set forth in boldest relief the inherent weaknesses of the “old régime.” And Louis XVI, despite all manner of pious wishes and good intentions, had been unable to square conditions as they were with the operation of antique institutions. One royal minister after another discovered to his chagrin that mere “reform” was worse than useless. A “revolution” would be required to sweep away the mass of abuses that in the course of centuries had adhered to the body politic.
[Sidenote: Differences between the French and English Revolutions]
At the outset, any idea of likening the French Revolution to the English Revolution of the preceding century must be dismissed. Of course the English had put one king to death and had expelled another, and had clearly limited the powers of the crown; they had “established parliamentary government.” But the English Revolution did not set up genuine representative government, much less did it recognize the theory of democracy. Voting remained a special privilege, conferred on certain persons, not a natural right to be freely exercised by all. Nor was the English Revolution accompanied by a great social upheaval: it was in the first instance political, in the second instance religious and ecclesiastical; it was never distinctly social. To all intents and purposes, the same social classes existed in the England of the eighteenth century as in the England of the sixteenth century, and, with the exception of the merchants, in much the same relation to one another.
[Sidenote: The French Revolution in Two Periods]
How radical and far-reaching was the French Revolution in contrast to that of England will become apparent as we review the course of events in France during the decade 1789-1799. A brief summary at the close of this chapter will aim to explain the significance of the Revolution. Meanwhile, we shall devote our attention to a narrative of the main events.
The story falls naturally into two parts: First, 1789-1791, the comparatively peaceful transformation of the absolute, divine-right monarchy into a limited monarchy, accompanied by a definition of the rights of the individual and a profound change in the social order; second, 1792-1799, the transformation of the limited monarchy into a republic, attended by the first genuine trial of democracy, and attended likewise by foreign war and internal tumult. The story, in either of its parts, is not an easy one, for the reason that important rôles are played simultaneously by five distinct groups of interested persons.
[Sidenote: Rôle of the Court and the Privileged]
In the first place, the people who benefit by the political and social arrangements of the “old régime” will oppose its destruction. Among these friends of the “old régime” may be included the royal court, headed by the queen, Marie Antoinette, and by the king’s brothers, the count of Provence and the count of Artois, and likewise the bulk of the higher clergy and the nobles–the privileged classes, generally. These persons cannot be expected to surrender their privileges without a struggle, especially since they have been long taught that such privileges are of divine sanction. Only dire necessity compels them to acquiesce in the convocation of the Estates-General and only the mildest measures of reform can be palatable to them. They hate and dread revolution or the thought of revolution. Yet at their expense the Revolution will be achieved.
[Sidenote: Rôle of the Bourgeoisie]
In the second place, the bourgeoisie, who have the most to lose if the “old régime” is continued and the most to gain if reforms are obtained, will constitute the majority in all the legislative bodies which will assemble in France between 1789 and 1799. Their legislative decrees will in large measure reflect their class interests, and on one hand will terrify the court party and on the other will not fully satisfy the lower classes. The real achievements of the Revolution, however, will be those of the bourgeois assemblies.
[Sidenote: Rôle of the Urban Proletariat]
In the third place, the artisans and poverty-stricken populace of the cities, notably of Paris, will through bitter years lack for bread. They will expect great things from the assemblies and will revile the efforts of the court to impede the Revolution. They will shed blood at first to defend the freedom of the assemblies from the court, subsequently to bring the assemblies under their own domination. Without their cooperation the Revolution will not be achieved.
[Sidenote: Rôle of the Peasantry]
In the fourth place, the dull, heavy peasants, in whom no one has hitherto suspected brains or passions, long dumb under oppression, will now find speech and opinions and an unwonted strength. They will rise against their noble oppressors and burn castles and perhaps do murder. They will force the astonished bourgeoisie and upper classes to take notice of them and indirectly they will impress a significant social character upon the achievements of the Revolution.
[Sidenote: Rôle of the Foreign Powers]
Finally, the foreign monarchs must be watched, for they will be intensely interested in the story as it unfolds. If the French people be permitted with impunity to destroy the very basis of divine-right monarchy and to overturn the whole social fabric of the “old régime,” how long, pray, will it be before Prussians, or Austrians, or Russians shall be doing likewise? With some thought for Louis XVI and a good deal of thought for themselves, the monarchs will call each other “brother” and will by and by send combined armies against the revolutionaries in France. At that very time the success of the Revolution will be achieved, for all classes, save only the handful of the privileged, will unite in the cause of France, which incidentally becomes the cause of humanity. Bourgeoisie, townsfolk, peasants, will go to the front and revolutionary France will then be found in her armies. Thereby not only will the Revolution be saved in France, but in the end it will be communicated to the uttermost parts of Europe.
THE END OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE, 1789
[Sidenote: France on the Eve of the Revolution]
When the story opens, France is still the absolute, divine-right monarchy which Louis XIV had perfected and Louis XV had exploited. The social classes are still in the time-honored position which has been described in Chapter XIII. But all is not well with the “old régime.” In the country districts the taxes are distressingly burdensome. In the cities there is scarcity of food side by side with starvation wages. Among the bourgeoisie are envy of the upper classes, an appreciation of the critical philosophy of the day, and a sincere admiration of what seem to be happier political and social conditions across the Channel in Great Britain. The public debt of France is enormous, and a large part of the national income must, therefore, be applied to the payment of interest: even the courtiers of Louis XVI find their pensions and favors and sinecures somewhat reduced. When the privileged classes begin to feel the pinch of hard times, it is certain that the finances are in sore straits.
[Sidenote: Financial Embarrassment]
In fact, all the great general causes of the French Revolution, which may be inferred from the two preceding chapters, may be narrowed down to the financial embarrassment of the government of Louis XVI. The king and his ministers had already had recourse to every expedient consistent with the maintenance of the “old regime” save one, and that one–the convocation of the Estates-General–was now to be tried. It might be that the representatives of the three chief classes of the realm would be able to offer suggestions to the court, whereby the finances could be improved and at the same time the divine-right monarchy and the divinely ordained social distinctions would be unimpaired.
[Sidenote: Convocation of the Estates-General]
With this idea of simple reform in mind, Louis XVI in 1788 summoned the Estates-General to meet at Versailles the following May. The Estates- General were certainly not a revolutionary body. Though for a hundred and seventy-five years the French monarchs had been able to do without them, they were in theory still a legitimate part of the old-time government. Summoned by King Philip the Fair in 1302, they had been thenceforth convoked at irregular intervals until 1614. Their organization had been in three separate bodies, representing by election the three estates of the realm–clergy, nobility, and commoners (Third Estate). Each estate voted as a unit, and two out of the three estates were sufficient to carry a measure. It usually happened that the clergy and nobility joined forces to outvote the commoners. The powers of the Estates-General had always been advisory rather than legislative, and the kings had frequently ignored or violated the enactments of the assembly. In its powers as well as in its organization, the Estates-General differed essentially from the Parliament of England. By the Estates-General the ultimate supremacy of the royal authority had never been seriously questioned.
[Sidenote: Election of the Estates-General]
The elections to the Estates-General were held in accordance with ancient usage throughout France in the winter of 1788-1789. Also, in accordance with custom, the electors were invited by the king to prepare reports on the condition of the locality with which they were familiar and to indicate what abuses, if any, existed, and what remedies, in their opinion, were advisable.
[Sidenote: The Cahiers]
By the time the elections were complete, it was apparent that the majority of the French people desired and expected a greater measure of reform than their sovereign had anticipated. The reports and lists of grievances that had been drafted in every part of the country were astounding. To be sure, these documents, called _cahiers_, were not revolutionary in wording: with wonderful uniformity they expressed loyalty to the monarchy and fidelity to the king: in not a single one out of the thousand _cahiers_ was there a threat of violent change. But in spirit the _cahiers_ were eloquent. All of them reflected the idea which philosophy had made popular that reason demanded fundamental, thoroughgoing reforms in government and society. Those of the Third Estate were particularly insistent upon the social inequalities and abuses long associated with the “old régime.” It was clear that if the elected representatives of the Third Estate carried out the instructions of their constituents, the voting of additional taxes to the government would be delayed until a thorough investigation had been made and many grievances had been redressed.
[Sidenote: The Third Estate]
On the whole, it was probable that the elected representatives of the Third Estate would heed the _cahiers_. They were educated and brainy men. Two-thirds of them were lawyers or judges; many, also, were scholars; only ten could possibly be considered as belonging to the lower classes. A goodly number admired the governmental system of Great Britain, in which the royal power had been reduced; the class interests of all of them were directly opposed to the prevailing policies of the French monarchy. The Third Estate was too intelligent to follow blindly or unhesitatingly the dictates of the court.
In the earliest history of the Estates-General, the Third Estate had been of comparatively slight importance either in society or in politics, and Philip the Fair had proclaimed that the duty of its members was “to hear, receive, approve, and perform what should be commanded of them by the king.” But between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries the relative social importance of the bourgeoisie had enormously increased. The class was more numerous, wealthier, more enlightened, and more experienced in the conduct of business. It became clearer with the lapse of time that it, more than nobility or clergy, deserved the right of representing the bulk of the nation. This right Louis XVI had seemed in part to recognize by providing that the number of elected representatives of the Third Estate should equal the combined numbers of those of the First and Second Estates. The commoners naturally drew the deduction from the royal concession that they were to exercise paramount political influence in the Estates- General of 1789.
The Third Estate, as elected in the winter of 1788-1789, was fortunate in possessing two very capable leaders, Mirabeau and Sieyès, both of whom belonged by office or birth to the upper classes, but who had gladly accepted election as deputies of the unprivileged classes. With two such leaders, it was extremely doubtful whether the Third Estate would tamely submit to playing an inferior role in future.
[Sidenote: Mirabeau]
Mirabeau (1749-1791) was the son of a bluff but good-hearted old marquis who was not very successful in bringing up his family. Young Mirabeau had been so immoral and unruly that his father had repeatedly obtained _lettres de cachet_ from the king in order that prison bars might keep him out of mischief. Released many times only to fall into new excesses, Mirabeau found at last in the French Revolution an opportunity for expressing his sincere belief in constitutional government and an outlet for his almost superhuman energy. From the convocation of the Estates-General to his death in 1791, he was one of the most prominent men in France. His gigantic physique, half-broken by disease and imprisonment, his shaggy eyebrows, his heavy head, gave him an impressive, though sinister, appearance. And for quickness in perceiving at once a problem and its solution, as well as for gifts of reverberating oratory, he was unsurpassed.
[Sidenote: Sieyès]
Of less force but greater tact was the priest, Sieyès (1748-1836), whose lack of devotion to Christianity and the clerical calling was matched by a zealous regard for the skeptical and critical philosophy of the day and for the practical arts of politics and diplomacy. It was a pamphlet of Sieyès that, on the eve of the assembling of the Estates- General, furnished the Third Estate with its platform and program. “What is the Third Estate?” asks Sieyès. “It is everything,” he replies. “What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing! What does it desire? To be something!”
[Sidenote: Meeting of the Estates-General (May, 1789)] [Sidenote: Constitutional Question Involved in the Organization of the Estates-General]
The position of the Third Estate was still officially undefined when the Estates-General assembled at Versailles in May, 1789. The king received his advisers with pompous ceremony and a colorless speech, but it was soon obvious that he and the court intended that their business should be purely financial and that their organization should be in accordance with ancient usage; the three estates would thus vote “by order,” that is, as three distinct bodies, so that the doubled membership of the Third Estate would have but one vote to the privileged orders’ two. With this view the great majority of the nobles and a large part of the clergy, especially the higher clergy, were in full sympathy. On their side the commoners began to argue that the Estates-General should organize itself as a single body, in which each member should have one vote, such voting “by head” marking the establishment of true representation in France, and that the assembly should forthwith concern itself with a general reformation of the entire government. With the commoners’ argument a few of the liberal nobles, headed by Lafayette, and a considerable group of the clergy, particularly the curates, agreed; and it was backed up by the undoubted sentiment of the nation. Bad harvests in 1788 had been followed by an unusually severe winter. The peasantry was in an extremely wretched plight, and the cities, notably Paris, suffered from a shortage of food. The increase of popular distress, like a black cloud before a storm, gave menacing support to the demands of the commoners.
[Sidenote: The King Defied by the Third Estate] [Sidenote: The “Oath of the Tennis Court,” 20 June, 1789]
Over the constitutional question, fraught as it was with the most significant consequences to politics and society, the parties wrangled for a month. The king, unwilling to offend any one, shilly-shallied. But the uncompromising attitude of the privileged orders and the indecision of the leaders of the court at length forced the issue. On 17 June, 1789, the Third Estate solemnly proclaimed itself a National Assembly. Three days later, when the deputies of the Third Estate came to the hall which had been set apart in the palace of Versailles for their use, they found its doors shut and guarded by troops and a notice to the effect that it was undergoing repairs. Apparently the king was at last preparing to intervene in the contest himself. Then the commoners precipitated a veritable revolution. Led by Mirabeau and Sieyès, they proceeded to a great public building in the vicinity, which was variously used as a riding-hall or a tennis court. There, amidst intense excitement, with upstretched hands, they took an oath as members of the “National Assembly” that they would not separate until they had drawn up a constitution for France. The “Oath of the Tennis Court” was the true beginning of the French Revolution. Without royal sanction, in fact against the express commands of the king, the ancient feudal Estates-General had been transformed, by simple proclamation of the nation’s representatives, into a National Assembly, charged with the duty of establishing constitutional government in France. The “Oath of the Tennis Court” was the declaration of the end of absolute divine- right monarchy and of the beginning of a limited monarchy based on the popular will.
What would the king do under these circumstances? He might overwhelm the rebellious commoners by force of arms. But that would not solve his financial problems, nor could he expect the French nation to endure it. It would likely lead to a ruinous civil war. The only recourse left open to him was a game of bluff. He ignored the “Oath of the Tennis Court,” and with majestic mien commanded the estates to sit separately and vote “by order.” But the commoners were not to be bluffed. Now joined by a large number of clergy and a few nobles, they openly defied the royal authority. In the ringing words of Mirabeau, they expressed their rebellion: “We are here by the will of the people and we will not leave our places except at the point of the bayonet.” The weak-kneed, well-intentioned Louis XVI promptly acquiesced. Exactly one week after the scene in the tennis court, he reversed his earlier decrees and directed the estates to sit together and vote “by head.”
[Sidenote: Transformation of the Estates-General into the National Constituent Assembly]
By 1 July, 1789, the first stage in the Revolution was completed. The nobles and clergy were meeting with the commoners. The Estates-General had become the National Constituent Assembly. As yet, however, two important questions remained unanswered. In the first place, how would the Assembly be assured of National freedom from the intrigues and armed force of the court? In the second place, what direction would the reforms of the Assembly take?
[Sidenote: The Court Prepares to Use Force against the Assembly]
The answer to the first question was speedily evoked by the court itself. As early as 1 July, a gradual movement of royal troops from the garrisons along the eastern frontier toward Paris and Versailles made it apparent that the king contemplated awing the National Assembly into a more deferential mood. The Assembly, in dignified tone, requested the removal of the troops. The king responded by a peremptory refusal and by the dismissal of Necker [Footnote: Necker had been restored to his office as director-general of finances in 1788] the popular finance- minister. Then it was that Paris came to the rescue of the Assembly.
[Sidenote: Popular Uprising at Paris in Behalf of the Assembly] [Sidenote: The Destruction of the Bastille, 14 July, 1789]
The Parisian populace, goaded by real want, felt instinctively that its own cause and that of the National Assembly were identical. Fired by an eloquent harangue of a brilliant journalist, Camille Desmoulins (1760- 1794) by name, they rushed to arms. For three days there was wild disorder in the city. Shops were looted, royal officers were expelled, business was at a standstill. On the third day–14 July, 1789–the mob surged out to the east end of Paris, where stood the frowning royal fortress and prison of the Bastille. Although since the accession of Louis XVI the Bastille no longer harbored political offenders, nevertheless it was still regarded as a symbol of Bourbon despotism, a grim threat against the liberties of Paris. The people would now take it and would appropriate its arms and ammunition for use in defense of the National Assembly. The garrison of the Bastille was small and disheartened, provisions were short, and the royal governor was irresolute. Within a few hours the mob was in possession of the Bastille, and some of the Swiss mercenaries who constituted its garrison had been slaughtered.
[Sidenote: Revolution in the Government of Paris: the Commune]
The fall of the Bastille was the first serious act of violence in the course of the Revolution. It was an unmistakable sign that the people were with the Assembly rather than with the king. It put force behind the Assembly’s decrees. Not only that, but it rendered Paris practically independent of royal control, for, during the period of disorder, prominent citizens had taken it upon themselves to organize their own government and their own army. The new local government–the “commune,” as it was called–was made up of those elected representatives of the various sections or wards of Paris who had chosen the city’s delegates to the Estates-General. It was itself a revolution in city government: it substituted popularly elected officials in place of royal agents and representatives of the outworn gilds. And the authority of the commune was sustained by a popularly enrolled militia, styled the National Guard, which soon numbered 48,000 champions of the new cause.
[Sidenote: Temporary Acquiescence of the King]
The fall of the Bastille was such a clear sign that even Louis XVI did not fail to perceive its meaning. He instantly withdrew the royal troops and recalled Necker. He recognized the new government of Paris and confirmed the appointment of the liberal Lafayette to command the National Guard. He visited Paris in person, praised what he could not prevent, and put on a red-white-and-blue cockade–combining the red and blue of the capital city with the white of the Bourbons–the new national tricolor of France. Frenchmen still celebrate the fourteenth of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, as the independence day of the French nation.
[Sidenote: Renewed Intrigues of the Royal Family against the Assembly]
For a while it seemed as though reform might now go forward without further interruption. The freedom of the Assembly had been affirmed and upheld. Paris had settled down once more into comparative repose. The king had apparently learned his lesson. But the victory of the reformers had been gained too easily. Louis XVI might take solemn oaths and wear strange cockades, but he remained in character essentially weak. His very virtues–good intentions, love of wife, loyalty to friends–were continually abused. The queen was bitterly opposed to the reforming policies of the National Assembly and actively resented any diminution of royal authority. Her clique of court friends and favorites disliked the decrease of pensions and amusements to which they had long been accustomed. Court and queen made common cause in appealing to the good qualities of Louis XVI. What was the weak king to do under the circumstances? He was to fall completely under the domination of his entourage.
[Sidenote: Demonstrations of the Parisian Women at Versailles, October, 1789]
The result was renewed intrigues to employ force against the obstreperous deputies and their allies, the populace of Paris. This time it was planned to bring royal troops from the garrisons in Flanders. And on the night of 1 October, 1789, a supper was given by the officers of the bodyguard at Versailles in honor of the arriving soldiers. Toasts were drunk liberally and royalist songs were sung. News of the “orgy,” as it was termed, spread like wildfire in Paris, where hunger and suffering were more prevalent than ever. That city was starving while Versailles was feasting. The presence of additional troops at Versailles, it was believed, would not only put an end to the independence of the Assembly but would continue the starvation of Paris. More excited grew the Parisians.
On 5 October was presented a strange and uncouth spectacle. A long line of the poorest women of Paris, including some men dressed as women, riotous with fear and hunger and rage, armed with sticks and clubs, screaming “Bread! bread! bread!” were straggling along the twelve miles of highway from Paris to Versailles. They were going to demand bread of the king. Lafayette and his National Guardsmen, who had been unable or unwilling to allay the excitement in Paris, marched at a respectful distance behind the women out to Versailles.
By the time Lafayette reached the royal palace, the women were surrounding it, howling and cursing, and demanding bread or blood; only the fixed bayonets of the troops from Flanders had prevented them from invading the building, and even these regular soldiers were weakening. Lafayette at once became the man of the hour. He sent the soldiers back to the barracks and with his own force undertook the difficult task of guarding the property and lives of the royal family and of feeding and housing the women for the night. Despite his precautions, it was a wild night. There was continued tumult in the streets and, at one time, shortly before dawn, a gang of rioters actually broke into the palace and groped about in search of the queen’s apartments. Just in the nick of time the hated Marie Antoinette hurried to safer quarters, although several of her personal bodyguard were killed in the mêlée.
When the morning of 6 October had come, Lafayette addressed the crowd, promising them that they should be provided for, and, at the critical moment, there appeared at his side on the balcony of the palace the royal family–the king, the little prince, the little princess, and the queen–all wearing red-white-and-blue cockades. A hush fell upon the mob. The respected general leaned over and gallantly kissed the hand of Marie Antoinette. A great shout of joy went up. Apparently even the queen had joined the Revolution. The Parisians were happy, and arrangements were made for the return journey.
[Sidenote: Forcible Removal of the Court and Assembly from Versailles to Paris]
The procession of 6 October from Versailles to Paris was more curious and more significant than that of the preceding day in the opposite direction. There were still the women and the National Guardsmen and Lafayette on his white horse and a host of people of the slums, but this time in the midst of the throng was a great lumbering coach, in which rode Louis and his wife and children, for Paris now insisted that the court should no longer possess the freedom of Versailles in which to plot unwatched against the rights of the French people. All along the procession reechoed the shout, “We have the baker and the baker’s wife and the little cook-boy–now we shall have bread.” And so the court of Louis XVI left forever the proud, imposing palace of Versailles, and came to humbler lodgings [Footnote: In the palace of the Tuileries.] in the city of Paris.
Paris had again saved the National Assembly from royal intimidation, and the Assembly promptly acknowledged the debt by following the king to that city. After October, 1789, not reactionary Versailles but radical Paris was at once the scene and the impulse of the Revolution.
The “Fall of the Bastille” and the “March of the Women to Versailles” were the two picturesque events which assured the independence of the National Assembly from the armed force and intrigue of the court. Meanwhile, the answer to the other question which we propounded above, “What direction would the reforms of the Assembly take?” had been supplied by the people at large.
[Sidenote: Disintegration of the Old Régime throughout France] [Sidenote: Peasant Reprisals against the Nobility]
Ever since the assembling of the Estates-General, ordinary administration of the country had been at a standstill. The people, expecting great changes, refused to pay the customary taxes and imposts, and the king, for fear of the National Assembly and of a popular uprising, hesitated to compel tax collection by force of arms. The local officials did not know whether they were to obey the Assembly or the king. In fact, the Assembly was for a time so busy with constitutional questions that it neglected to provide for local government, and the king was always timorous. So, during the summer of 1789, the institutions of the “old régime” disappeared throughout France, one after another, because there was no popular desire to maintain them and no competent authority to enforce them. The insurrection in Paris and the fall of the Bastille was the signal in July for similar action elsewhere: other cities and towns substituted new elective officers for the ancient royal or gild agents and organized National Guards of their own. At the same time the direct action of the people spread to the country districts. In most provinces the oppressed peasants formed bands which stormed and burned the châteaux of the hated nobles, taking particular pains to destroy feudal or servile title-deeds. Monasteries were often ransacked and pillaged. A few of the unlucky lords were murdered, and many others were driven into the towns or across the frontier. Amid the universal confusion, the old system of local government completely collapsed. The intendants and governors quitted their posts. The ancient courts of justice, whether feudal or royal, ceased to act. The summer of 1789 really ended French absolutism, and the transfer of the central government from Versailles to Paris in October merely confirmed an accomplished fact.
[Sidenote: The Revolution Social as well as Political]
Whatever had been hitherto the reforming policies of the National Assembly, the deputies henceforth faced facts rather than theories. Radical social readjustments were now to be effected along with purely governmental and administrative changes. The Revolution was to be social as well as political.
THE END OF THE OLD RÉGIME: THE NATIONAL CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, 1789-1791
[Sidenote: Achievements of the National Assembly, 1789-1791]
By the transformation of the Estates-General into the National Constituent Assembly, France had become to all intents and purposes a limited monarchy, in which supreme authority was vested in the nation’s elected representatives. From October, 1789, to September, 1791, this Assembly was in session in Paris, endeavoring to bring order out of chaos and to fashion a new France out of the old that was dying of exhaustion and decrepitude. Enormous was the task, but even greater were the achievements. Although the work of the Assembly during the period was influenced in no slight degree by the Parisian populace, nevertheless it was attended by comparative peace and security. And the work done was by far the most vital and most lasting of the whole revolutionary era.
Leaving out of consideration for the time the frightened royal family, the startled noblemen and clergy, the determined peasantry, and the excited townsfolk, and not adhering too closely to chronological order, let us center our attention upon the National Assembly and review its major acts during those momentous years, 1789-1791.
[Sidenote: 1. Legal Destruction of Feudalism and Serfdom]
The first great work of the Assembly was the legal destruction of feudalism and serfdom–a long step in the direction of social equality. We have already noticed how in July while the Assembly was still at Versailles, the royal officers in the country districts had ceased to rule and how the peasants had destroyed many _châteaux_ amid scenes of unexpected violence. News of the rioting and disorder came to the Assembly from every province and filled its members with the liveliest apprehension. A long report, submitted by a special investigating committee on 4 August, 1789, gave such harrowing details of the popular uprising that every one was convinced that something should be done at once.
[Sidenote: “The August Days”]
While the Assembly was debating a declaration which might calm revolt, one of the nobles–a relative of Lafayette–arose in his place and stated that if the peasants had attacked the property and privileges of the upper classes, it was because such property and privileges represented unjust inequality, that the fault lay there, and that the remedy was not to repress the peasants but to suppress inequality. It was immediately moved and carried that the Assembly should proclaim equality of taxation for all classes and the suppression of feudal and servile dues. Then followed a scene almost unprecedented in history. Noble vied with noble, and clergyman with clergyman, in renouncing the vested rights of the “old régime.” The game laws were repudiated. The manorial courts were suppressed. Serfdom was abolished. Tithes and all sorts of ecclesiastical privilege were sacrificed. The sale of offices was discontinued. In fact, all special privileges, whether of classes, of cities, or of provinces, were swept away in one consuming burst of enthusiasm. The holocaust lasted throughout the night of the fourth of August. Within a week the various independent measures had been consolidated into an impressive decree “abolishing the feudal system,” and this decree received in November the royal assent. What many reforming ministers had vainly labored for years partially to accomplish was now done, at least in theory, by the National Assembly in a few days. The so-called “August Days” promised to dissolve the ancient society of France.
It has been customary to refer these vast social changes to the enthusiasm, magnanimity, and self-sacrifice of the privileged orders. That there was enthusiasm is unquestionable. But it may be doubted whether the nobles and clergy were so much magnanimous as terrorized. For the first time, they were genuinely frightened by the peasants, and it is possible that the true measure of their “magnanimity” was their alarm. Then, too, if one is to sacrifice, he must have something to sacrifice. At most, the nobles had only legal claims to surrender, for the peasants had already taken forcible possession of nearly everything which the decree accorded them. In fact the decree of the Assembly constituted merely a legal and uniform recognition of accomplished facts.
The nobles may have thought, moreover, that liberal acquiescence in the first demands of the peasantry would save themselves from further demands. At any rate, they zealously set to work in the Assembly to modify what had been done, to secure financial or other indemnity, [Footnote: The general effect of the series of decrees of the Assembly from 5 to 11 August, 1789, was to impose some kind of financial redemption for many of the feudal dues. It was only in July, 1793, almost four years after the “August Days,” that _all_ feudal dues and rights were legally abolished without redemption or compensation.] and to prevent the enactment of additional social legislation. Outside the Assembly few nobles took kindly to the loss of privilege and property: the overwhelming majority protested and tried to stir up civil war, and, when such attempts failed, they left France and enrolled themselves among their country’s enemies.
It is not necessary for us to know precisely who were responsible for the “August Days.” The fact remains that the “decree abolishing the feudal system” represented the most important achievement of the whole French Revolution. Henceforth, those who profited by the decree were loyal friends of the Revolution, while the losers were its bitter opponents.
[Sidenote: 2. The Declaration of the Rights of Man]
The second great work of the Assembly was the guarantee of individual rights and liberties. The old society and government of France were disappearing. On what basis should the new be erected? Great Britain had its _Magna Carta_ and its Bill of Rights; America had its Declaration of Independence. France was now given a “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” This document, which reflected the spirit of Rousseau’s philosophy and incorporated some of the British and American provisions, became the platform of the French Revolution and tremendously influenced political thought in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A few of its most striking sentences are as follows: “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” The rights of man are “liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” “Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its formation. It must be the same for all.” “No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law.” Religious toleration, freedom of speech, and liberty of the press are affirmed. The people are to control the finances, and to the people all officials of the state are responsible. Finally, the influence of the propertied classes, which were overwhelmingly represented in the Assembly, showed itself in the concluding section of the Declaration: “Since private property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.”
[Sidenote: 3. Reform of Local Administration]
The next great undertaking of the National Assembly was the establishment of a new and uniform administrative system in France. The ancient and confusing “provinces,” “governments,” “intendancies,” “_pays d’état_” “_pays d’élection_” “parlements,” and “bailliages” were swept away. The country was divided anew into eighty- three departments, approximately uniform in size and population, and named after natural features, such as rivers or mountains. Each department was subdivided into districts, cantons. and communes,– divisions which have endured in France to the present time. The heads of the local government were no longer to be appointed by the crown but elected by the people, and extensive powers were granted to elective local councils. Provision was made for a new system of law courts throughout the country, and the judges, like the administrative officials, were to be elected by popular vote. Projects were likewise put forward to unify and simplify the great variety and mass of laws which prevailed in different parts of France, but this work was not brought to completion until the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.
[Sidenote: 4. Financial Regulation. 5. Secularization of Church Property, the Assignats]
Another grave matter which concerned the National Assembly was the regulation of the public finances. It will be recalled that financial confusion was the royal reason for summoning the Estates-General. And in the early days of the Assembly, the confusion became chaos: it was impossible to enforce the payment of direct taxes; indirect taxes were destroyed by legislative decree; and bankers could not be induced to make new loans. Therefore, it was to heroic measures that the Assembly resorted to save the state from bankruptcy. To provide funds, a heavy blow was struck at one of the chief props of the “old régime”–the Catholic Church. The Church, as we have seen, owned at least a fifth of the soil of France, and it was now resolved to seize these rich church lands, and to utilize them as security for the issue of paper money– the _assignats_. As partial indemnity for the wholesale confiscation, the state was to undertake the payment of fixed salaries to the clergy. Thus by a single stroke the financial pressure was relieved, the Church was deprived of an important source of its strength, and the clergy were made dependent on the new order. Of course, as often happens in similar cases, the issue of paper money was so increased that in time it exceeded the security and brought fresh troubles to the state, but for the moment the worst dangers were tided over.
[Sidenote: 6. Other Legislation against the Catholic Church]
The ecclesiastical policies and acts of the National Assembly were perhaps the least efficacious and the most fateful achievements of the Revolution. Yet it would be difficult to perceive how they could have been less radical than they were. The Church appeared to be indissolubly linked with the fortunes of old absolutist France; the clergy comprised a particularly privileged class; and the leaders and great majority of the Assembly were filled with the skeptical, Deistic, and anti-Christian philosophy of the time. In November, 1789, the church property was confiscated. In February, 1790, the monasteries and other religious houses were suppressed. In April, absolute religious toleration was proclaimed. In August, 1790, the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy” was promulgated, by which the bishops and priests, reduced in numbers, were made a civil body: they were to be elected by the people, paid by the state, and separated from the sovereign control of the pope. In December, the Assembly forced the reluctant king to sign a decree compelling all the clergy to take a solemn oath of allegiance to the “Civil Constitution.”
[Sidenote: Catholic Opposition to the Revolution]
The pope, who had already protested against the seizure of church property and the expulsion of the monks, now condemned the “Civil Constitution” and forbade Catholics to take the oath of allegiance. Thus, the issue was squarely joined. Such as took the oath were excommunicated by the pope, such as refused compliance were deprived of their salaries and threatened with imprisonment. Up to this time, the bulk of the lower clergy, poor themselves and in immediate contact with the suffering of the peasants, had undoubtedly sympathized with the course of the Revolution, but henceforth their convictions and their consciences came into conflict with devotion to their country. They followed their conscience and either incited the peasants, over whom they exercised considerable influence, to oppose further revolution, or emigrated [Footnote: The clergy who would not take the oath were called the “non-juring” clergy. Those who left France, together with the noble emigrants, were called “émigrés.”] from France to swell the number of those who, dissatisfied with the course of events in their own country, would seek the first opportunity to undo the work of the Assembly. The Catholic Church, as well as the hereditary nobility, became an unwearied opponent of the French Revolution.
[Sidenote: 7. The Constitution of 1791]
Amid all these sweeping reforms and changes, the National Constituent Assembly was making steady progress in drafting a written constitution which would clearly define the agencies of government, and their respective powers, the new limited monarchy. This constitution was completed in 1791 and signed by the king–he could do nothing else–and at once went into full effect. It was the first written constitution of any importance that any European country had had, and was preceded only slightly in point of time by that of the United States. [Footnote: The present American constitution was drafted in 1787 and went into effect in 1789, the year that the Estates-General assembled.]
The Constitution of 1791, as it was called, provided, like the American constitution, for the “separation of powers,” that is, that the law- making, law-enforcing, and law-interpreting functions of government should be kept quite distinct as the legislative, executive, and judicial departments, and should each spring, in last analysis, from the will of the people. This idea had been elaborated by Montesquieu, and deeply affected the constitution-making of the eighteenth century both in France and in the United States.
[Sidenote: Legislative Provisions]
The legislative authority was vested in one chamber, styled the “Legislative Assembly,” the members of which were chosen by means of a complicated system of indirect election. [Footnote: That is to say, the people would vote for electors, and the electors for the members of the Assembly.] The distrust with which the bourgeois framers of the constitution regarded the lower classes was shown not only in this check upon direct election but also in the requirements that the privilege of voting should be exercised exclusively by “active” citizens, that is, by citizens who paid taxes, and that the right to hold office should be restricted to property-holders.
[Sidenote: Weakness of the King under the Constitution]
Nominally the executive authority resided in the hereditary king. In this respect, most of the French reformers thought they were imitating the British government, but as a matter of fact they made the kingship not even ornamental. True, they accorded to the king the right to postpone for a time the execution of an act of the legislature–the so- called “suspensive veto”–but they deprived him of all control over local government, over the army and navy, and over the clergy. Even his ministers were not to sit in the Assembly. Tremendous had been the decline of royal power in France during those two years, 1789-1791.
[Sidenote: Summary of the Work of the National Assembly]
This may conclude our brief summary of the work of the National Constituent Assembly. If we review it as a whole, we are impressed by the immense destruction which it effected. No other body of legislators has ever demolished so much in the same brief period. The old form of government, the old territorial divisions, the old financial system, the old judicial and legal regulations, the old ecclesiastical arrangements, and, most significant of all, the old condition of holding land–serfdom and feudalism–all were shattered. Yet all this destruction was not a mad whim of the moment. It had been preparing slowly and painfully for many generations. It was foreshadowed by the mass of well-considered complaints in the _cahiers_. It was achieved not only by the decrees of the Assembly, but by the forceful expression of the popular will.
THE LIMITED MONARCHY IN OPERATION: THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (1791-1792) AND THE OUTBREAK OF FOREIGN WAR
[Sidenote: Brief Duration of Limited Monarchy in France, 1791-1792]
Great public rejoicing welcomed the formal inauguration of the limited monarchy in 1791. Many believed that a new era of Peace and prosperity was dawning for France. Yet the extravagant hopes which were widely entertained for the success of the new régime were doomed to speedy and bitter disappointment. The new government encountered all manner of difficulties, the country rapidly grew more radical in sentiment and action, and within a single year the limited monarchy gave way to a republic. The establishment of the republic was the second great phase of the Revolution. Why it was possible and even inevitable may be gathered from a survey of political conditions in France during 1792,– at once the year of trial for limited monarchy and the year of transition to the republic.
[Sidenote: Sources of Opposition to the Limited Monarchy]
By no means did all Frenchmen accept cheerfully and contentedly the work of the National Constituent Assembly. Of the numerous dissenters, some thought it went too far and some thought it did not go far enough. The former may be styled “reactionaries” and the latter “radicals.”
[Sidenote: Reactionaries]
[Sidenote: 1. The Émigrés]
The reactionaries embraced the bulk of the formerly privileged nobility and the non-juring clergy. The nobles had left France in large numbers as soon as the first signs of violence appeared–about the time of the fall of the Bastille and the peasant uprisings in the provinces. Many of the clergy had similarly departed from their homes when the anticlerical measures of the Assembly rendered it no longer possible for them to follow the dictates of conscience. These reactionary exiles, or émigrés as they were termed, collected in force along the northern and eastern frontier, especially at Coblenz on the Rhine. They possessed an influential leader in the king’s own brother, the count of Artois, and they maintained a perpetual agitation, by means of newspapers, pamphlets, and intrigues, against the new régime. They were anxious to regain their privileges and property, and to restore everything, as far as possible, to precisely the same position it had occupied prior to 1789.
[Sidenote: 2. The Court]
[Sidenote: The Flight to Varennes]
Nor were the reactionaries devoid of support within France. It was believed that the royal family, now carefully watched in Paris, sympathized with their efforts. So long as Mirabeau, the ablest leader in the National Assembly, was alive, he had never ceased urging the king to accept the reforms of the Revolution and to give no countenance to agitation beyond the frontiers. In case the king should find his position in Paris intolerable, he had been advised by Mirabeau to withdraw into western or southern France and gather the loyal nation about him. But unfortunately, Mirabeau, worn out by dissipation and cares, died prematurely in April, 1791. Only two months later the royal family attempted to follow the course against which they had been warned. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in an effort to rid themselves of the spying vigilance of the Parisians, disguised themselves, fled from the capital, and made straight for the eastern frontier, apparently to join the émigrés. At Varennes, near the border, the royal fugitives were recognized and turned back to Paris, which henceforth became for them rather a prison than a capital. Although Louis subsequently swore a solemn oath to uphold the constitution, his personal popularity vanished with his ill-starred flight, and his wife –the hated “Austrian woman”–was suspected with good reason of being in secret correspondence with the émigrés as well as with foreign governments. Marie Antoinette was more detested than ever. The king’s oldest brother, the count of Provence, was more successful than the king in the flight of June, 1791: he eluded detection and joined the count of Artois at Coblenz.
[Sidenote: 3. Conservative and Catholic Peasants.]
Had the reactionaries been restricted entirely to émigrés and the royal family, it is hardly possible that they would have been so troublesome as they were. They were able, however, to secure considerable popular support in France. A small group in the Assembly shared their views and proposed the most extravagant measures in order to embarrass the work of that body. Conservative clubs existed among the upper and well-to-do classes in the larger cities. And in certain districts of western France, especially in Brittany, Poitou (La Vendée), and Anjou, the peasants developed hostility to the course of the Revolution: their extraordinary devotion to Catholicism placed them under the influence of the non-juring clergy, and their class feeling against townspeople induced them to believe that the Revolution, carried forward by the bourgeoisie, was essentially in the interests of the bourgeoisie. Riots occurred in La Vendée throughout 1791 and 1792 with increasing frequency until at length the district blazed into open rebellion against the radicals.
[Sidenote: Radicals]
[Sidenote: 1. The Bourgeois Leaders] [Sidenote: 2. The Proletarians]
More dangerous to the political settlement of 1791 than the opposition of the reactionaries was that of the radicals–those Frenchmen who thought that the Revolution had not gone far enough. The real explanation of the radical movement lies in the conflict of interest between the poor working people of the towns and the middle class, or bourgeoisie. The latter, as has been repeatedly emphasized, possessed the brains, the money, and the education: it was they who had been overwhelmingly represented in the National Assembly. The former were degraded, poverty-stricken, and ignorant, but they constituted the bulk of the population in the cities, notably in Paris, and they were both conscious of their sorry condition and desperately determined to improve it. These so-called “proletarians,” though hardly directly represented in the Assembly, nevertheless fondly expected the greatest benefits from the work of that body. For a while the bourgeoisie and the proletariat coöperated: the former carried reforms through the Assembly, the latter defended by armed violence the freedom of the Assembly; both participated in the capture of the Bastille, in the establishment of the commune, and in the transfer of the seat of government from Versailles to Paris. So long as they faced a serious common danger from the court and privileged orders, they worked in harmony.
[Sidenote: Conflict of Interests Between Bourgeoisie and Proletariat]
But as soon as the Revolution had run its first stage and had succeeded in reducing the royal power and in abolishing many special privileges of the nobles and clergy, a sharp cleavage became evident between the former allies–between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie, to whom was due the enactment of the reforms of the National Constituent Assembly, profited by those reforms far more than any other class in the community. Their trade and industry were stimulated by the removal of the ancient royal and feudal restrictions. Their increased wealth enabled them to buy up the estates of the outlawed émigrés and the confiscated lands of the Church. They secured an effective control of all branches of government, local and central. Of course, the peasantry also benefited to no slight extent, but their benefits were certainly less impressive than those of the bourgeoisie. Of all classes in France, the urban proletariat seemed to have gained the least: to be sure they were guaranteed by paper documents certain theoretical “rights and liberties,” but what had been done for their material well-being? They had obtained no property. They had experienced no greater ease in earning their daily bread. And in 1791 they seemed as far from realizing their hopes of betterment as they had been in 1789, for the bourgeois constitution-makers had provided that only taxpayers could vote and only property-owners could hold office. The proletariat, thereby cut off from all direct share in the conduct of government, could not fail to be convinced that in the first phase of the Revolution they had merely exchanged one set of masters for another, that at the expense of the nobles and clergy they had exalted the bourgeoisie, and that they themselves were still downtrodden and oppressed. Radical changes in the constitution and radical social legislation in their own behalf became the policies of the proletariat; violence would be used as a means to an end, if other means failed.