An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 58

[Sidenote: The _parlements_ help to prepare the way for the Revolution.]

Struggles between the _parlements_ and the ministers were very frequent in the eighteenth century. They prepared the way for the Revolution, first, by bringing important questions to the attention of the people; for there were no newspapers and no parliamentary or congressional debates to enable the public to understand the policy of the government.

Secondly, the _parlements_ not only frankly criticised the proposed measures of the king and his ministers, but they familiarized the nation with the idea that the king was not really at liberty to alter what they called "the fundamental laws" of the state. By this they meant that there was an unwritten const.i.tution, of which they were the guardians and which limited the king's power. In this way they promoted the growing discontent with a government which was carried on in secret, and which left the nation at the mercy of the men in whom the king might for the moment repose confidence.

[Sidenote: Public opinion.]

It is a great mistake to suppose that public opinion did not exercise a powerful check upon the king, even under the autocratic old regime. It was, as one of Louis XVI's ministers declared, "an invisible power which, without treasury, guards, or an army, ruled Paris and the court,--yes, the very palace of the king." The latter half of the eighteenth century was a period of outspoken and acrid criticism of the whole existing social and governmental system. Reformers, among whom many of the king's ministers were counted, loudly and eloquently discussed the numerous abuses and the vicious character of the government, which gradually came to seem just as bad to the people of that day as it would to us now.

[Sidenote: Discussion of public questions.]

Although there were no daily newspapers to discuss public questions, large numbers of pamphlets were written and circulated by individuals whenever there was an important crisis, and they answered much the same purpose as the editorials in a modern newspaper. These pamphlets and the books of the time sometimes treated the government, the clergy, or the Catholic religion, with such open contempt, that the king, the clergy, or the courts felt it necessary to prevent their circulation. The _parlement_ of Paris now and then ordered some offensive writing to be burned by the common hangman. Several distinguished writers were even imprisoned for expressing themselves too freely, and some booksellers and printers banished. But the attempted suppression of free discussion seemed an outrage to the more thoughtful among the public, and rather promoted than prevented the consideration of the weaknesses of the church and of the king's government.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Voltaire]

[Sidenote: Voltaire, 1694-1778.]

214. By far the most conspicuous and important reformer of the eighteenth century was Voltaire (1694-1778), who was born twenty years before Louis XIV died, and yet lived to see Louis XVI mount the throne.

"When the right sense of historical proportion is more fully developed in men's minds, the name of Voltaire will stand out like the names of the great decisive movements in the European advance, like the Revival of Learning or the Reformation. The existence, character, and career of this extraordinary person const.i.tuted in themselves a new and prodigious era" (Morley). To understand Voltaire and the secret of his fame would be to understand France before the Revolution. His mission was to exalt and popularize reason; and since a great part of the inst.i.tutions of his day were not based upon reason, but upon mere tradition, and were utterly opposed to common sense, "the touch of reason was fatal to the whole structure, which instantly began to crumble."

[Sidenote: Voltaire's wide influence and popularity.]

Voltaire had little respect for the past which had bequeathed to France her disorderly government and, above all, her church. His keen eye was continually discovering some new absurdity in the existing order, which, with incomparable wit and literary skill, he would expose to his eager readers. He was interested in almost everything; he wrote histories, dramas, philosophic treatises, romances, epics, and innumerable letters to his innumerable admirers. He was a sort of intellectual arbiter of Europe, such as Petrarch and Erasmus had been. The vast range of his writings enabled him to bring his bold questionings to the attention of all sorts and conditions of men,--not only to the general reader, but even to the careless playgoer.

[Sidenote: Voltaire's attack upon the church.]

While Voltaire was successfully inculcating free criticism in general, he led in a relentless attack upon the most venerable, probably the most powerful, inst.i.tution in France, the Roman Catholic church. The absolute power of the king did not greatly trouble him, but the church, with, as he deemed, its deep-seated opposition to a free exercise of reason and its hostility to reform, seemed to him fatally to block all human progress. He was wont to close his letters with the exhortation, "Crush the infamous thing." The church, as it fully realized, had never encountered a more deadly enemy. Not only was Voltaire supremely skillful in his varied methods of attack, but there were thousands of both the thoughtful and the thoughtless ready to applaud him; for many had reached the same conclusions, although they might not be able to express their thoughts so persuasively as he. Voltaire repudiated the beliefs of the Protestant churches as well as of the Roman church. He was, however, no atheist, as his enemies--and they have been many and bitter--have so often a.s.serted. He believed in G.o.d, and at his country home near Geneva he dedicated a temple to Him. Like many of his contemporaries he was a deist, and held that G.o.d had revealed Himself in nature and in our hearts, not in Bible or church.

Were there s.p.a.ce at command a great many good things and plenty of bad ones might be told of this extraordinary man. He was often superficial in his judgments, and sometimes jumped to unwarranted conclusions. He saw only the evil in the church, and seemed incapable of understanding all that it had done for mankind during the bygone ages. He maliciously attributed to evil motives teachings which were accepted by the best and loftiest of men. He bitterly ridiculed even the holiest and purest aspirations, along with the alleged deceptions of the Jesuits and the quarrels of the theologians. He could, however, fight bravely against wrong and oppression.[386] The abuses against which he fought were in large part abolished by the Revolution. It is extremely unfair to notice only his mistakes and exaggerations, as many writers, both Catholic and Protestant, have done, for he certainly did more than any one else to prepare the way for the great and permanent reform of the church, as a political and social inst.i.tution, in 1789-1790.

[Sidenote: Rousseau, 1712-1778.]

Next to Voltaire the writer who did most to cultivate discontent was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). His famous little treatise, _The Social Contract_, takes up the great question, By what right does one man rule over others? The book opens with the words: "Man is born free and yet is now everywhere in chains. One man believes himself the master of others and yet is after all more of a slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can render it legitimate? I believe that I can answer that question." It is, Rousseau declares, the will of the people that renders government legitimate. The real sovereign is the people. Although they may appoint a single person, a king, to manage the government for them, they should make the laws, since it is they who must obey them. We shall find that the first French const.i.tution accepts Rousseau's doctrine and defines law as "the expression of the general will,"--not the will of a king reigning by the grace of G.o.d.

[Sidenote: Montesquieu.]

Montesquieu, the most profound of the political writers of the eighteenth century, did his part in opening the eyes of thoughtful Frenchmen to the disadvantages of their government by his eulogy of the limited monarchy of England. He pointed out that the freedom which Englishmen enjoyed was due to the fact that the three powers of government--legislative, executive, and judicial--were not as in France in the same hands. Parliament made the laws, the king executed them, and the courts, independent of both, saw that they were observed. He believed that the English would lose their liberties so soon as these powers fell under the control of one person or body of persons. This principle of "the separation of powers" is now recognized in many modern governments, notably in that of the United States.

[Sidenote: The new science of political economy.]

215. About the middle of the eighteenth century the science of political economy was born. Scholars began to investigate far more thoroughly than ever before the sources and distribution of the wealth of the nation.

The unjust system of taxation, which tended to exempt the richer cla.s.ses from their just share of the public burdens; the wasteful and irritating methods of collecting the taxes; the interior customs lines, preventing the easy pa.s.sage of goods from one part of France to another; the extravagance of the king's household; the pensions granted to undeserving persons; every evil of the bungling, iniquitous old regime was brought under the scrutiny of the new thinkers, who tested the existing system by the light of reason and the welfare of the great ma.s.s of the people.

[Sidenote: Economists argue against government restrictions on trade and manufacture.]

The economists wrote treatises on taxation, scattered pamphlets about, and conducted a magazine or two. They not only brought the existing economic evils home to the intelligent reader, but suggested remedies for them.

The French government had been in the habit of regulating well-nigh everything. In order that the goods that were produced in France might find a ready sale abroad, the government fixed the quality and width of the cloth which might be manufactured and the character of the dyes which should be used.[387] The king's ministers kept a constant eye upon the dealers in grain and breadstuffs, forbidding the storing up of these products or their sale outside a market. In this way they had hoped to prevent speculators from acc.u.mulating grain in times of scarcity in order to sell it at a high rate.

It was now pointed out that these government restrictions produced some very bad results. They failed to prevent famine, and in the case of industry they discouraged new inventions and the adoption of better methods. The economists claimed that it would be far better to leave the manufacturer to carry on his business in his own way. They urged the king to adopt the motto, _laissez faire_, "Let things alone," if he would see his realms prosper.[388]

[Accession of Louis XVI.]

216. In 1774 the old king, Louis XV, died after a long and disgraceful reign. His unsuccessful wars had brought France to the verge of bankruptcy, and his ministers had been unable to meet the obligations of the government. The taxes were already so oppressive as to arouse great discontent, and yet the government was running behind seventy million dollars a year. His grandson and successor, Louis XVI (1774-1793), was a young man of excellent intentions. He was only twenty, and his wife, the beautiful Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, was still younger. The new king almost immediately summoned Turgot, the ablest of the economists, and placed him in the most important of the government offices, that of controller general.

[Sidenote: Turgot controller general, 1774-1776.]

Turgot was an experienced government official as well as a scholar. For thirteen years he had been the king's representative in Limoges, one of the least prosperous portions of France. There he had had ample opportunity to see the vices of the prevailing system of taxation. He had made every effort to induce the government to better its methods, and had tried to familiarize the people with the principles of political economy. Consequently, when he was put in charge of the nation's finances, it seemed as if he and the conscientious young king might find some remedy for the long-standing abuses.

[Sidenote: Turgot advocates economy.]

The first and most natural measure was economy, for only in that way could the government be saved from bankruptcy, and the burden of taxation be lightened. Turgot felt that the vast amount spent in maintaining the luxury of the royal court at Versailles should be reduced. The establishments of the king, the queen, and the princes of the blood royal cost the state annually toward twelve million dollars.

Then the French king had long been accustomed to grant "pensions" in a reckless manner to his courtiers, and this required nearly twelve million dollars more. Any attempt, however, to reduce this amount would arouse the immediate opposition of the courtiers, and it was the courtiers who really governed France. They had every opportunity to influence the king's mind against a man whose economies they disliked.

They were constantly about the monarch from the moment when he awoke in the morning until he went to bed at night; therefore they had an obvious advantage over the controller general, who only saw him in business hours.[389]

Although the privileged cla.s.s so stoutly opposed Turgot's reforms that he did not succeed in abolis.h.i.+ng the abuses himself,[390] he did a great deal to forward their destruction not many years after his retirement.

Immediately after coming into power he removed a great part of the restrictions on the grain trade. He prefaced the edict with a very frank denunciation of the government's traditional policy of preventing persons from buying and selling their grain when and where they wished.

He showed that this did not obviate famines, as the government hoped that it might, and that it caused great loss and hards.h.i.+p. If the government would only let matters alone the grain would always go to those provinces where it was most needed, for there it would bring the best price. Turgot seized this and every similar opportunity to impress important economic truths upon the minds of the people.[391]

[Sidenote: Turgot's position.]

An Italian economist, when he heard of Turgot's appointment, wrote to a friend in France as follows: "So Turgot is controller general! He will not remain in office long enough to carry out his plans. He will punish some scoundrels; he will bl.u.s.ter about and lose his temper; he will be anxious to do good, but will run against obstacles and rogues at every turn. Public credit will fall; he will be detested; it will be said that he is not fitted for his task. Enthusiasm will cool; he will retire or be sent off, and we shall have a new proof of the mistake of filling a position like his in a monarchy like yours with an upright man and a philosopher."

[Sidenote: Turgot dismissed, May 1776.]

The Italian could not have made a more accurate statement of the case had he waited until after the dismissal of Turgot, which took place in May, 1776, much to the satisfaction of the court. The king, although upright and well-intentioned, was not fond of the governmental duties to which Turgot was always calling his attention. It was much the easiest way to let things go along in the old way; for reforms not only required much extra work, but they also forced him to refuse the customary favors to those around him. The discontent of his young queen or of an intimate companion outweighed the woes of the distant peasant.

[Sidenote: Necker succeeds Turgot.]

[Sidenote: Necker's financial report.]

217. Necker, who after a brief interval succeeded Turgot, contributed to the progress of the coming revolution in two ways. He borrowed vast sums of money in order to carry on the war which France, as the ally of the United States, had undertaken against England. This greatly embarra.s.sed the treasury later and helped to produce the financial crisis which was the immediate cause of the Revolution. Secondly, he gave the nation its first opportunity of learning what was done with the public funds, by presenting to the king (February, 1781) a _report_ on the financial condition of the kingdom; this was publicly printed and eagerly read.

There the people could see for the first time how much the _taille_ and the salt tax actually took from them, and how much the king spent on himself and his favorites.[392]

[Sidenote: Calonne, controller general, 1783-1787.]

[Sidenote: Calonne informs the king that France is on the verge of bankruptcy, August, 1786.]

Necker was soon followed by Calonne, who may be said to have precipitated the momentous reform which const.i.tutes the French Revolution. He was very popular at first with king and courtiers, for he spent the public funds far more recklessly than his predecessors. But, naturally, he soon found himself in a position where he could obtain no more money. The _parlements_ would consent to no more loans in a period of peace, and the taxes were as high as it was deemed possible to make them. At last Calonne, finding himself desperately put to it, informed the astonished king that the state was on the verge of bankruptcy and that in order to save it a radical reformation of the whole public order was necessary. This report of Calonne's may be taken as the beginning of the French Revolution, for it was the first of the series of events that led to the calling of a representative a.s.sembly which abolished the old regime and gave France a written const.i.tution.

General Reading.--For general conditions in France before the Revolution, LOWELL, _Eve of the French Revolution_ (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., $2.00). MACLEHOSE, _The Last Days of the French Monarchy_ (The Macmillan Company, $2.25). DE TOCQUEVILLE, _State of Society in France before the Revolution of 1789_ (John Murray, $3.00), a very remarkable work. TAINE, _The Ancient Regime_ (Henry Holt & Co., $2.50) contains excellent chapters on the life at the king's court and upon the literature of the period. ARTHUR YOUNG, _Travels in France in 1787-1789_ (The Macmillan Company, $1.00), very interesting and valuable. For Turgot's reforms, STEPHENS, _Life and Writings of Turgot_ (Longmans, Green & Co., $4.50), containing translations from Turgot's writings. MONTESQUIEU, _The Spirit of Laws_ (The Macmillan Company, 2 vols., $2.00). ROUSSEAU, _The Social Contract_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.25, or Charles Scribner's Sons, $1.00). _Translations and Reprints,_ Vol. VI, No.

1, gives short extracts from some of the most noted writers of the eighteenth century. In Vol. V, No. 2, of the same series, may be found a "Protest of the Cour des Aides," one of the higher courts of France, issued in 1775, which casts a great deal of light upon the evils of the old regime. John Morley has written a number of works upon France before the Revolution: _Voltaire, Rousseau_, 2 vols., _Diderot and the Encyclopaedists_, 2 vols. (The Macmillan Company, $1.50 a volume).

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION