A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times Volume VI Part 24

Banishment far away from the capital, from the ferment of spirits, and from the noisy centre of their admirers, had more than once brought down the pride of the members of Parliament; they were now sustained by the sympathy ardently manifested by nearly all the sovereign courts.

"Incessantly repeated stretches of authority," said the Parliament of Besanccon, "forced registrations, banishments, constraint and severity instead of justice, are astounding in an enlightened age, wound a nation that idolizes its kings, but is free and proud, freeze the heart and might break the ties which unite sovereign to subjects and subjects to sovereign." The Parliament of Paris declared that it needed no authority for its sittings, considering that it rendered justice wherever it happened to be a.s.sembled. "The monarchy would be transfigured into a despotic form," said the decree, "if ministers could dispose of persons by sealed letters (_lettres de cachet_), property by beds of justice, criminal matters by change of venue (_evocation_) or ca.s.sation, and suspend the course of justice by special banishments or arbitrary removals."

Negotiations were going on, however; the government agreed to withdraw the new imposts which it had declared to be indispensable; the Parliament, which had declared itself incompetent as to the establishment of taxes, prorogued for two years the second twentieth. "We left Paris with glory upon us, we shall return with mud," protested M. d'Espremesnil in vain; more moderate, but not less resolute, Duport, Robert de St.

Vincent, and Freteau sought to sustain by their speeches the wavering resolution of their colleagues. The Parliament was recalled to Paris on the 19th of September, 1787.

The state of Europe inclined men's minds to reciprocal concessions; a disquieting good understanding appeared to be growing up between Russia and Austria. The Emperor Joseph II. had just paid a visit to the Crimea with the czarina. "I fancy I am still dreaming," wrote the Prince of Ligne, who had the honor of being in the trip, "when in a carriage with six places, which is a real triumphal car adorned with ciphers in precious stones, I find myself seated between two persons on whose shoulders the heat often sets me dozing, and I hear, as I wake up, one of my comrades say to the other 'I have thirty' millions of subjects, they say, counting males only.' 'And I twenty-two,' replies the other, 'all included.' 'I require,' adds the former, 'an army of at least six hundred thousand men between Kamtchatka and Riga.' 'With half that,'

replies the other, 'I have just what I require.' G.o.d knows how we settle all the states and great personages. 'Rather than sign the separation of thirteen provinces, like my brother George,' says Catherine II. sweetly, 'I would have put a bullet through my head.' 'And rather than give in my resignation like my brother and brother-in-law, by convoking and a.s.sembling the nation to talk over abuses, I don't know what I wouldn't have done,' says Joseph II." Before the two allies could carry out their designs against Turkey, that ancient power, enfeebled as it was, had taken the offensive at the instigation of England; the King of Sweden, on his side, invaded Russia; war burst out in all directions. The traditional influence of France remained powerless in the East to maintain peace; the long weakness of the government was everywhere bearing fruit.

Nowhere was this grievous impotence more painfully striking than in Holland. Supported by England, whose slavish instrument he had been for so long, the stadtholder William V. was struggling, with the help of the mob, against the patriotic, independent, and proud patricians. For the last sixty years the position of Holland had been constantly declining in Europe. "She is afraid of everything," said Count de Broglie in 1773; "she puts up with everything, grumbles at everything, and secures herself against nothing." "Holland might pay all the armies of Europe," people said in 1787, "she couldn't manage to hold her own against any one of them." The civil war imminent in her midst and fomented by England had aroused the solicitude of M. de Calonne; he had prepared the resources necessary for forming a camp near Givet; his successor diverted the funds to another object. When the Prussians entered Dutch territory, being summoned to the stadtholder's aid by his wife, sister of the young King Frederick William II., the French government afforded no a.s.sistance to its ally; it confined itself to offering an asylum to the Dutch patriots, long encouraged by its diplomatists, and now vanquished in their own country, which was henceforth under the yoke of England. "France has fallen, I doubt whether she will get up again," said the Emperor Joseph II. "We have been caught napping," wrote M. de La Fayette to Washington; "the King of Prussia has been ill advised, the Dutch are ruined, and England finds herself the only power which has gained in the bargain."

The echo of humiliations abroad came to swell the dull murmur of public discontent. Disturbance was arising everywhere. "From stagnant chaos France has pa.s.sed to tumultuous chaos," wrote Mirabeau, already an influential publicist, despite the irregularity of his morals and the small esteem excited by his life; "there may, there should come a creation out of it." The Parliament had soon resumed its defiant att.i.tude; like M. de La Fayette at the a.s.sembly of notables, it demanded the convocation of the States-general at a fixed epoch, in 1792; it was the date fixed by M. de Brienne in a vast financial scheme which he had boldly proposed for registration by the court. By means of a series of loans which were to reach the enormous total of four hundred and twenty millions, the States-general, a.s.sembled on the conclusion of this vast operation, and relieved from all pecuniary embarra.s.sment, would be able to concentrate their thoughts on the important interests of the future.

At the same time with the loan-edict, Brienne presented to the Parliament the law-scheme, for so long a time under discussion, on behalf of Protestants.

The king had repaired in person to the palace in royal session; the keeper of the seals, Lamoignon, expounded the necessity of the edicts.

"To the monarch alone," he repeated, "belongs the legislative power, without dependence and without part.i.tion." This was throwing down the gauntlet to the whole a.s.sembly as well as to public opinion. Abbe Sabatier and Councillor Freteau had already spoken, when Robert de St.

Vincent rose, an old Jansenist and an old member of Parliament, accustomed to express his thoughts roughly. "Who, without dismay, can hear loans still talked of?" he exclaimed "and for what sum? four hundred and twenty millions! A plan is being formed for five years? But, since your Majesty's reign began, have the same views ever directed the administration of finance for five years in succession? Can you be ignorant, sir (here he addressed himself to the comptroller-general), that each minister, as he steps into his place, rejects the system of his predecessor in order to subst.i.tute that which he has devised? Within only eight months, you are the fourth minister of finance, and yet you are forming a plan which cannot be accomplished in less than five years!

The remedy, sir, for the wounds of the state has been pointed out by your Parliament: it is the convocation of the Statesgeneral. Their convocation, to be salutary, must be prompt. Your ministers would like to avoid this a.s.sembly whose surveillance they dread. Their hope is vain. Before two years are over, the necessities of the state will force you to convoke the States-general."

M. d'Espremesnil was overcome; less violent than usual, he had, appealed to the king's heart; for a moment Louis XVI. appeared to be moved, and so was the a.s.sembly with him; the edicts were about to be enregistered despite the efforts of the opposition; already the premier president was collecting the votes; the keeper of the seals would not, at this grave moment, renounce any kingly prerogative. "When the king is at the Parliament, there is no deliberation; his will makes law," said the legal rule and the custom of the magistracy. Lamoignon went up to the throne; he said a few words in a low voice. "Mr. Keeper of the seals, have the edicts enregistered," said Louis XVI. The minister immediately repeated the formula used at beds of justice. A murmur ran through the a.s.sembly; the Duke of Orleans rose; he had recently become the head of his house through his father's death, and found himself more than ever involved in intrigues hostile to the court. "Sir," said he in a broken voice, "this registration appears to me illegal. . . . It should be distinctly stated that the registration is done by the express command of your Majesty." The king was as much moved as the prince. "It is all the same to me," he replied. "You are master, of course." "Yes,--it is legal, because I so will." The edict relative to non-Catholics was read, and Louis XVI. withdrew.

There was violent commotion in the a.s.sembly; the protest of the Duke of Orleans was drawn up in a more explicit form. "The difference between a bed of justice and a royal session is, that one exhibits the frankness of despotism and the other its duplicity," cried d'Espremesnil.

Notwithstanding the efforts of M. de Malesherbes and the Duke of Nivernais, the Parliament inscribed on the registers that it was not to be understood to take any part in the transcription here ordered of gradual and progressive loans for the years 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, and 1792. In reply, the Duke of Orleans was banished to Villers-Cotterets, whilst Councillors Freteau and Sabatier were arrested and taken to a state-prison.

By the scandalousness of his life, as well as by his obstructive buildings in the Palais-Royal, the Duke of Orleans had lost favor with the public; his protest and his banishment restored him at once to his popularity. The Parliament piled remonstrance upon remonstrance, every day more and more haughty in form as well as in substance. Dipping into the archives in search of antiquated laws, the magistrates appealed to the liberties of olden France, mingling therewith the novel principles of the modern philosophy. "Several pretty well-known facts," they said, "prove that the nation, more enlightened as to its true interests, even in the least elevated cla.s.ses, is disposed to accept from the hands of your Majesty the greatest blessing a king can bestow upon his subjects --liberty. It is this blessing, Sir, which your Parliament come to ask you to restore, in the name of a generous and faithful people. It is no longer a prince of your blood, it is no longer two magistrates whom your Parliament ask you to restore in the name of the laws and of reason, but three Frenchmen, three men."

To peremptory demands were added perfidious insinuations.

"Such ways, Sir," said one of these remonstrances, "have no place in your heart, such samples of proceeding are not the principles of your Majesty, they come from another source." For the first time the queen was thus held up to public odium by the Parliament which had dealt her a fatal blow by acquitting Cardinal Rohan; she was often present at the king's conferences with his ministers, reluctantly and by the advice of M. de Brienne, for and in whom Louis XVI. never felt any liking or confidence.

"There is no more happiness for me since they have made me an intriguer,"

she said sadly to Madame Campan. And when the latter objected: "Yes,"

replied the queen, "it is the proper word: every woman who meddles in matters above her lights and beyond the limits of her duty, is nothing but an intriguer; you will remember, however, that I do not spare myself, and that it is with regret I give myself such a t.i.tle. The other day, as I was crossing the Bull's Eye (_Eil de Boeuf_), to go to a private committee at the king's, I heard one of the chapel-band say out loud, 'A queen who does her duty remains in her rooms at her needlework.'

I said to myself: 'Thou'rt quite right, wretch; but thou know'st not my position; I yield to necessity and my evil destiny.'" A true daughter of Maria Theresa in her imprisonment and on the scaffold, Marie Antoinette had neither the indomitable perseverance nor the simple grandeur in political views which had restored the imperial throne in the case of her ill.u.s.trious mother. She weakened beneath a burden too heavy for a mind so long accustomed to the facile pleasures of youth. "The queen certainly has wits and firmness which might suffice for great things,"

wrote her friend, the Count of La Marck, to M. de Mercy Argenteau, her mother's faithful agent in France; "but it must be confessed that, whether in business or in mere conversation, she does not always exhibit that degree of attention and that persistence which are indispensable for getting at the bottom of what one ought to know, in order to prevent errors and to insure success."

The same want of purpose and persistence of which the Count of La Marck complained was strikingly apparent everywhere and in all matters; the Duke of Orleans was soon tired of banishment; he wrote to the queen, who obtained his recall. The ministers were making mysterious preparations for a grand stroke. The Parliament, still agitated and anxious, had at last enregistered the edict relating to non-Catholics. Public opinion, like the government, supported it eagerly; the principles of tolerance which had prompted it were henceforth accepted by all; certain bishops and certain bigots were still trying to hinder this first step towards a legal status for a long while refused to Protestants. M. d'Espremesnil, an earnest disciple of the _philosophe inconnu,_ the mystic St. Martin, just as he had been the dupe of Mesmer and of Cagliostro, was almost single-handed in the Parliament in his opposition to the registration of the edict. Extending his hand towards the crucifix, he exclaimed with violence: "Would you crucify him a second time?" The court was a better judge of Christian principles, and Protestants were permitted to be born, to marry, and to die on French territory. The edict did not as yet concede to them any other right.

The contest extended as it grew hotter; everywhere the parliaments took up the quarrel of the court of Paris; the formation of the provincial a.s.semblies furnished new centres of opposition; the petty n.o.blesse made alliance with the magistracy; the antagonism of principles became every day more evident; after the five months elapsed since the royal session, the Parliament was still protesting against the violence done to it.

"I had no need to take or count the votes," said the king's reply; "being present at the deliberation, I judged for myself without taking any account of plurality. If plurality in my courts were to force my will, the monarchy would be nothing but an aristocracy of magistrates." "No, sir, no aristocracy in France, but no despotism either," replied the members of parliament.

The indiscretion of a printer made M. d'Espremesnil acquainted with the great designs which were in preparation; at his instigation the Parliament issued a declaration as to the reciprocal rights and duties of the monarch and the nation. "France," said the resolution, "is a monarchy hereditary from male to male, governed by the king following the laws; it has for fundamental laws the nation's right to freely grant subsidies by means of the States-general convoked and composed according to regulation, the customs and capitulations of the provinces, the irremovability of the magistrates, the right of the courts to enregister edicts, and that of each citizen to be judged only by his natural judges, without liability ever to be arrested arbitrarily." "The magistrates must cease to exist before the nation ceases to be free," said a second protest.

Bold and defiant in its grotesque mixture of the ancient principles of the magistracy with the novel theories of philosophy, the resolution of the Parliament was quashed by the king. Orders were given to arrest M. d'Espremesnil and a young councillor, Goislard de Montsabert, who had proposed an inquiry into the conduct of the comptrollers commissioned to collect the second twentieth. The police of the Parliament was perfect and vigilant; the two magistrates were warned and took refuge in the Palace of Justice; all the chambers were a.s.sembled and the peers convoked. Ten or a dozen appeared, notwithstanding the king's express prohibition.

The Parliament had placed the two threatened members "under the protection of the king and of the law;" the premier president, at the head of a deputation, had set out for Versailles to demand immunity for the accused; the court was in session awaiting his return.

The mob thronged the precincts of the Palace, some persons had even penetrated into the grand chamber; no deliberations went on. Towards midnight, several companies of the French guards entered the hall of the Pas-Perdus; all the exits were guarded. The court was in commotion, the young councillors demanded that the deliberations should go on publicly.

"Gentlemen," said President de Gourgues, "would you derogate from the ancient forms?" The spectators withdrew. The Marquis d'Agoult, aide-major of the French guards, demanded admission; he had orders from the king. The ushers opened the doors; at sight of the magistrates in scarlet robes, motionless upon their seats, the officer was for a moment abashed; he cast his eye from bench to bench, his voice faltered when he read the order signed by the king to arrest "MM. d'Espremesnil and De Montsabert, in the grand chamber or elsewhere." "The court will proceed to deliberate thereon, sir," replied the president. "Your forms are to deliberate," hotly replied M. d'Agoult, who had recovered himself; "I know nothing of those forms, the king's orders must be executed without delay; point out to me those whom I have to arrest." Silence reigned throughout the hall; not a word, not a gesture indicated the accused.

Only the dukes and peers made merry aloud over the n.o.bleman charged with so disagreeable a mission: he repeated his demand: "We are all d'Espremesnil and Montsabert," exclaimed the magistrates. M. d'Agoult left the room.

He soon returned, accompanied by an exon of the short robe, named Larchier. "Show me whom I have to arrest," was the officer's order.

The exon looked all round the room; he knew every one of the magistrates; the accused were sitting right in front of him. "I do not see MM. d'Espremesnil and Montsabert anywhere," he at last said, tremulously.

M. d'Agoult's threats could not get any other answer out of him.

The officer had gone to ask for fresh orders; the deputation sent to Versailles had returned, without having been received by Louis XVI., of whom an audience had not been requested. The court wanted to send some of the king's people at once to notify a fresh request; the troops guarded all the doors, n.o.body could leave the Palace.

"Gentlemen," said d'Espr4mesnil at last, "it would be contrary to our honor as well as to the dignity of the Parliament to prolong this scene any further; and, besides, we cannot be the ruin of Larchier; let M. d'Agoult be shown in again." The officer was recalled, the magistrates were seated and covered. "Sir," said M. d'Espremesnil, "I am one of those you are in search of. The law forbids me to obey orders irregularly obtained (_surpris_) of the sovereign, and it is to be faithful to him that I have not mentioned who I am until this moment.

I call upon you to state whether, in case I should not go with you voluntarily, you have orders to drag me from this building." "Certainly, sir." D'Agoult was already striding towards the door to order in his troops. "Enough," said M. d'Espremesnil; "I yield to force;" and, turning to his colleagues, "Gentlemen," he said, "to you I protest against the violence of which I am the object; forget me and think henceforth of nothing but the common weal; I commend to you my family; whatever may be my fate, I shall never cease to glory in professing to the last hour the principles which do honor to this court." He made a deep obeisance, and followed the major, going out by the secret staircases in order to avoid the crowd whose shouts could be heard even within the palace buildings. Goislard de Montsabert followed his colleague's example: he was confined at Pierre-Encise; M. d'Espremesnil had been taken to the Isle of St. Marguerite.

Useless and ill-judged violence, which excited the pa.s.sions of the public without intimidating opponents! The day after the scene of May 6th, at the moment when the whole magistracy of France was growing hot over the thrilling account of the arrest of the two councillors, the Parliament of Paris was sent for to Versailles (May 8, 1788).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Arrest of the Members----502]

The magistrates knew beforehand what fate awaited them. The king uttered a few severe words. After a pompous preamble, the keeper of the seals read out six fresh edicts intended to ruin forever the power of the sovereign courts.

Forty-seven great baillie-courts, as a necessary intermediary between the parliaments and the inferior tribunals, were henceforth charged with all civil cases not involving sums of more than twenty thousand livres, as well as all criminal cases of the third order (estate). The representations of the provincial a.s.sembly of Dauphiny severely criticised the impropriety of this measure. "The ministers," they said, "have not been afraid to flout the third estate, whose life, honor, and property no longer appear to be objects worthy of the sovereign courts, for which are reserved only the causes of the rich and the crimes of the privileged." The number of members of the Parliament of Paris was reduced to sixty-nine. The registration of edicts, the only real political power left in the hands of the magistrates, was transferred to a plenary court, an old t.i.tle without stability and without tradition, composed, under the king's presidency, of the great functionaries of state, a.s.sisted by a small number of councillors. The absolute power was thus preparing a rampart against encroachments of authority on the part of the sovereign courts; it had fortified itself beforehand against the pretensions of the States-general, "which cannot pretend to be anything but a more extended council on behalf of the sovereign, the latter still remaining supreme arbiter of their representations and their grievances."

Certain useful ameliorations in the criminal legislation, amongst others total abolition of torture, completed the sum of edicts. A decree of the council declared all the parliarnents prorogued until the formation of the great bailliecourts. The plenary court was to a.s.semble forthwith at Versailles. It only sat once; in presence of the opposition amongst the majority of the men summoned to compose it, the ministers, unforeseeing and fickle even with all their ability and their boldness, found themselves obliged to adjourn the sittings indefinitely. All the members of the Parliament of Paris had bound themselves by a solemn oath not to take a place in any other a.s.sembly. "In case of dispersal of the magistracy," said the resolution entered upon the registers of the court, "the Parliament places the present act as a deposit in the hands of the king, of his august family, of the peers of the realm, of the States- general, and of each of the orders, united or separate, representing the nation."

At sight of this limitation, less absolute and less cleverly calculated, of the attempts made by Chancellor Maupeou, after seventeen years' rapid marching towards a state of things so novel and unheard of, the commotion was great in Paris; the disturbance, however, did not reach to the ma.s.ses, and the disorder in the streets was owing less to the Parisian populace than to mendicants, rascals of sinister mien, flocking in, none knew why, from the four points of the compa.s.s. The provinces were more seriously disturbed. All the sovereign courts rose up with one accord; the Parliament of Rouen declared "traitors to the king, to the nation, to the province, perjured and branded with infamy, all officers and judges"

who should proceed in virtue of the ordinances of May 8. "The authority of the king is unlimited for doing good to his subjects," said one of the presidents, "but everybody should put limits to it when it turns towards oppression." It was the very commandant of the royal troops whom the magistrates thus reproached with their pa.s.sive obedience.

Normandy confined herself to declarations and speeches; other provinces went beyond those bounds: Brittany claimed performance "of the marriage contract between Louis XII. and the d.u.c.h.ess Anne." Notwithstanding the king's prohibition, the Parliament met at Rennes. A detachment of soldiers having been ordered to disperse the magistrates, a band of gentlemen, supported by an armed mob, went to protect the deliberations of the court. Fifteen officers fought duels with fifteen gentlemen. The court issued a decree of arrest against the holders of the king's commission. The youth of Nantes hurried to the aid of the youth of Rennes. The intermediary commission of the states ordered the bishops to have the prayers said which were customary in times of public calamity, and a hundred and thirty gentlemen carried to the governor a declaration signed by the n.o.blesse of almost the whole province. "We, members of the n.o.blesse of Brittany, do declare infamous those who may accept any place, whether in the new administration of justice or in the administration of the states, which is not recognized by the laws and const.i.tutions of the province." A dozen of them set off for Versailles to go and denounce the ministers to Louis XVI. Being put in the Bastille, eighteen of their friends went to demand then back; they were followed by fifty others.

The officers of the Ba.s.signy regiment had taken sides with the opposition, and discussed the orders sent to them. Among the great lords of the province, attached to the king's own person, MM. de La Tremoille, de Rieux, and de Guichen left the court to join their protests to those of their friends; the superintendent, Bertrand de Molleville, was hanged- in effigy and had to fly.

In Bearn, the peasantry had descended from the mountains; hereditary proprietors of their little holdings, they joined the n.o.blesse to march out and meet the Duke of Guiche, sent by the king to restore order.

Already the commandant of the province had been obliged to authorize the meeting of the Parliament. The Bearnese bore in front of their ranks the cradle of Henry IV., carefully preserved in the Castle of Pau. "We are no rebels," they said: "we claim our contract and fidelity to the oaths of a king whom we love. The Bearnese is free-born, he will not die a slave. Let the king have all from us in love and not by force; our blood is his and our country's. Let none come to take our lives when we are defending our liberty."

Legal in Normandy, violent in Brittany, tumultuous in Bearn, the parliamentary protests took a politic and methodical form in Dauphiny.

An insurrection amongst the populace of Gren.o.ble, soon supported by the villagers from the mountains, had at first flown to arms at the sound of the tocsin. The members of the Parliament, on the point of leaving the city, had been detained by force, and their carriages had been smashed.

The troops offered little resistance; an entry was effected into the house of the governor, the Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, and, with an axe above his head, the insurgents threatened to hang him to the chandelier in his drawing-room if he did not convoke the Parliament. Ragged ruffians ran to the magistrates, and compelled them to meet in the sessions-hall. The members of Parliament succeeded with great difficulty in pacifying the mob. As soon as they found themselves free, they hastened away into exile. Other hands had taken up their quarrel. A certain number of members of the three orders met at the town hall, and, on their private authority, convoked for the 21st of July the special states of Dauphiny, suppressed a while before by Cardinal Richelieu.

The Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre had been superseded by old Marshal Vaux, rough and ready. He had at his disposal twenty thousand men. Scarcely had he arrived at Gren.o.ble, when he wrote to Versailles. "It is too late," he said. The prerogatives of royal authority were maintained, however. The marshal granted a meeting of the states-provincial, but he required permission to be asked of him. He forbade the a.s.sembly to be held at Gren.o.ble. It was in the Castle of Vizille, a former residence of the dauphins, that the three orders of Dauphiny met, closely united together in wise and patriotic accord. The Archbishop of Vienne, Lefranc de Pompignan, brother of the poet, lately the inveterate foe of Voltaire, an ardently and sincerely pious man, led his clergy along the most liberal path; the n.o.blesse of the sword, mingled with the n.o.blesse of the robe, voted blindly all the resolutions of the third estate; these were suggested by the real head of the a.s.sembly, M. Mounier, judge-royal of Gren.o.ble, a friend of M. Necker's, an enlightened, loyal, honorable man, destined ere long to make his name known over the whole of France by his courageous resistance to the outbursts of the National a.s.sembly.

Unanimously the three orders presented to the king their claims to the olden liberties of the province; they loudly declared, however, that they were prepared for all sacrifices and aspired to nothing but the common rights of all Frenchmen. The double representation of the third in the estates of Dauphiny was voted without contest, as well as equal a.s.sessment of the impost intended to replace forced labor. Throughout the whole province the most perfect order had succeeded the first manifestations of popular irritation.

It was now more than a year since Brienne had become chief minister.

MM. de Segur and de Castries had retired, refusing to serve under a man whom they did not esteem. Alone, shut up in his closet, the archbishop listened without emotion to the low murmur of legal protests, the noisy tumult of insurrections. "I have foreseen all, even civil war. The king shall be obeyed, the king knows how to make himself obeyed," he kept repeating in the a.s.sured tones of an oracle. Resolved not to share the responsibility of the reverse he foresaw, Baron de Breteuil sent in his resignation.

Meanwhile the treasury was found to be empty; Brienne appealed to the clergy, hoping to obtain from ecclesiastical wealth one of those gratuitous gifts which had often come in aid of the State's necessities.

The Church herself was feeling the influence of the times. Without relaxing in her pretensions to the maintenance of privileges, the ecclesiastical a.s.sembly thought itself bound to plead the cause of that magistracy which it had so, often fought. "Our silence," said the remonstrances, "would be a crime, of which the nation and posterity would never absolve us. Your Majesty has just effected at the bed of justice of May 8, a great movement as regards things and persons. Such ought to be a consequence rather than a preliminary of the States-general; the will of a prince which has not been enlightened by his courts may be regarded as a momentary will. Your Majesty has issued an edict carrying the restoration of the plenary court, but that court has recalled an ancient reign without recalling ancient ideas. Even if it had been once the supreme tribunal of our kings, it now presents no longer that numerous a.s.semblage of prelates, barons, and lieges united together. The nation sees nothing in it but a court-tribunal whose complaisance it would be afraid of, and whose movements and intrigues it would dread in times of minority and regency. . . . Our functions are sacred, when, from the height of the altars, we pray heaven to send down blessings on kings and on their subjects; they are still so, when, after teaching people their duties, we represent their rights and make solicitations on behalf of the afflicted, on behalf of the absent despoiled of their position and their liberty. The clergy of France, Sir, stretch forth to you their suppliant hands; it is so beautiful to see might and puissance yielding to prayer! The glory of your Majesty is not in being King of France, but in being King of the French, and the heart of your subjects in the fairest of your domains." The a.s.sembly of the clergy granted to the treasury only a poor gift of eighteen hundred thousand livres.

All the resources were exhausted, disgraceful tricks had despoiled the hospitals and the poor; credit was used up, the payments of the State were backward; the discount-bank (_caisse d'escompte_) was authorized to refuse to give coin. To divert the public mind from this painful situation, Brienne proposed to the king to yield to the requests of the members of Parliament, of the clergy, and of the n.o.blesse themselves.

A decree of August 8, 1788, announced that the States-general would be convoked May 1, 1789: the re-establishment of the plenary court was suspended to that date. Concessions wrested from the weakness and irresolution of governments do not strengthen their failing powers.

Brienne had exhausted his boldness as well as his basenesses; he succ.u.mbed beneath the outcry of public wrath and mistrust. He offered the comptroller-generalship to M. Necker, who refused. "He told XVI.

"Mercy," is the expression in Brienne's own account, "that under a minister who, like me, had lost the favor of the public, he could not do any good." A court-intrigue at last decided the minister's fall. The Count of Artois, egged on by Madame de Polignac, made urgent entreaties to the queen; she was attached to Brienne; she, however, resigned herself to giving him up, but with so many favors and such an exhibition of kindness towards all his family, that the public did not feel at all grateful to Marie Antoinette. Already Brienne had exchanged the archbishopric of Toulouse for that of Sens, a much richer one. "The queen offered me the hat and anything I might desire," writes the prelate, "telling me that she parted from me with regret, weeping at being obliged to do so, and permitting me to kiss her (_l'embra.s.ser_) in token of her sorrow and her interest." "After having made the mistake of bringing him into the ministry," says Madame Campan [_Memoires,_ t. i.

p. 33], "the queen unfortunately made an equally grave one in supporting him at the time of a disgrace brought upon him by the despair of the whole nation. She considered it only consistent with her dignity to give him, at his departure, ostensible proofs of her esteem, and, her very sensibility misleading her, she sent him her portrait adorned with precious stones and the patent of lady of the palace for his niece, Madame de Courcy, saying that it was necessary to indemnify a minister sacrificed by the trickery of courts and the factious spirit of the nation. I have since seen the queen shed bitter tears over the errors she committed at this period."

On the 25th of August, 1788, the king sent for M. Necker.

A burst of public joy greeted the fall of the detested minister and the return of the popular minister. There were illuminations in the provinces as well as at Paris, at the Bastille as well as the houses of members of Parliament; but joy intermingled with hate is a brutal and a dangerous one: the crowd thronged every evening on the Pont-Neuf, forcing carriages as well as foot pa.s.sengers to halt in front of Henry IV.'s statue. "Hurrah for Henry IV.! To the devil with Lamoignon and Brienne!" howled the people, requiring all pa.s.sers to repeat the same cry. It was remarked that the Duke of Orleans took pleasure in crossing over the Pont-Neuf to come in for the cheers of the populace. "He was more crafty than ambitious, more depraved than naturally wicked," says M.