The Ancient Regime Part 31

Emanc.i.p.ated from real despotism, the Third-Estate becomes excited against possible despotism, imagining itself in slavery in consenting to remain subject. A proud spirit has recovered itself, become erect, and, the better to secure its rights, is going to claim all rights. To the people who since antiquity has been subject to masters, it is so sweet, so intoxicating to put themselves in their places, to put the former masters in their place, to say to himself, they are my representatives, to regard himself a member of the sovereign power, king of France in his individual sphere, the sole legitimate author of all rights and of all functions!--In conformity with the doctrines of Rousseau the registers of the Third-Estate unanimously insist on a const.i.tution for France; none exists, or at least the one she possesses is of no value. Thus far "the conditions of the social compact have been ignored;"[4347] now that they have been discovered they must be written out. To say, with the n.o.bles according to Montesquieu, that the const.i.tution exists, that its great features need not be changed, that it is necessary only to reform abuses, that the States-General exercise only limited power, that they are incompetent to subst.i.tute another regime for the monarchy, is not true. Tacitly or expressly, the Third-Estate refuses to restrict its mandate and allows no barriers to be interposed against it. It requires its deputies accordingly to vote "not by orders but each by himself and conjointly."--"In case the deputies of the clergy or of the n.o.bility should refuse to deliberate in common and individually, the deputies of the Third-Estate, representing twenty-four millions of men, able and obliged to declare itself the National a.s.sembly not-withstanding the scission of the representation of 400,000 persons, will propose to the King in concert with those among the Clergy and the n.o.bility disposed to join them, their a.s.sistance in providing for the necessities of the State, and the taxes thus a.s.sented to shall be apportioned among all the subjects of the king without distinction."[4348]--Do not object that a people thus mutilated becomes a mere crowd, that leaders cannot be improvised, that it is difficult to dispense with natural guides, that, considering all things, this Clergy and this n.o.bility still form a select group, that two-fifths of the soil is in their hands, that one-half of the intelligent and cultivated cla.s.s of men are in their ranks, that they are exceedingly well-disposed and that old historic bodies have always afforded to liberal const.i.tutions their best supports. According to the principle enunciated by Rousseau we are not to value men but to count them. In politics numbers only are respectable; neither birth, nor property, nor function, nor capacity, is a t.i.tle to be considered; high or low, ignorant or learned, a general, a soldier, or a hod-carrier, each individual of the social army is a unit provided with a vote; wherever a majority is found there is the right.

Hence, the Third-Estate puts forth its right as incontestable, and, in its turn, it proclaims with Louis XIV, "I am the State."

This principle once admitted or enforced, they thought, all will go well.

"It seemed," says an eye-witness,[4349] "as if we were about to be governed by men of the golden age. This free, just and wise people, always in harmony with itself, always clear-sighted in choosing its ministers, moderate in the use of its strength and power, never could be led away, never deceived, never under the dominion of; or enslaved by, the authority which it confided. Its will would fashion the laws and the law would const.i.tute its happiness."

The nation is to be regenerated, a phrase found in all writings and in every mouth. At Nangis, Arthur Young finds this the sub-stance of political conversation[4350]. The chaplain of a regiment, a curate in the vicinity, keeps fast hold of it; as to knowing what it means that is another matter. It is impossible to find anything out through explanations of it otherwise than "a theoretic perfection of government, questionable in its origin, hazardous in its progress, and visionary in its end." On the Englishman proposing to them the British const.i.tution as a model they "hold it cheap in respect of liberty" and greet it with a smile; it is, especially, not in conformity with "the principles." And observe that we are at the residence of a grand seignior, in a circle of enlightened men. At Riom, at the election a.s.semblies,[4351] Malouet finds "persons of an ordinary stamp, pract.i.tioners, petty lawyers, with no experience of public business, quoting the 'Contrat Social,'

vehemently declaiming against tyranny, and each proposing his own const.i.tution." Most of them are without any knowledge whatever, mere traffickers in chicane; the best instructed entertain mere schoolboy ideas of politics. In the colleges of the University no history is taught[4352]. "The name of Henry IV., says Lavalette, was not once uttered during my eight years of study, and, at seventeen years of age, I was still ignorant of the epoch and the mode of the establishment of the Bourbons on the throne." The stock they carry away with them consists wholly, as with Camille Desmoulins, of sc.r.a.ps of Latin, entering the world with brains stuffed with "republican maxims," excited by souvenirs of Rome and Sparta, and "penetrated with profound contempt for monarchical governments." Subsequently, at the law school, they learn something about legal abstractions, or else learn nothing. In the lecture-courses at Paris there are no students; the professor delivers his lecture to copyists who sell their copy-books. If a pupil should attend himself and take notes he would be regarded with suspicion; he would be charged with trying to deprive the copyists of the means of earning their living. A diploma, consequently, is worthless. At Bourges one is obtainable in six months; if the young man succeeds in comprehending the law it is through later practice and familiarity with it.--Of foreign laws and inst.i.tutions there is not the least knowledge, scarcely even a vague or false notion of them. Malouet himself entertains a meager idea of the English Parliament, while many, with respect to ceremonial, imagine it a copy of the Parliament of France.--The mechanism of free const.i.tutions, or the conditions of effective liberty, that is too complicated a question. Montesquieu, save in the great magisterial families, is antiquated for twenty years past.

Of what avail are studies of ancient France? "What is the result of so much and such profound research? Laborious conjecture and reasons for doubting."[4353] It is much more convenient to start with the rights of man and to deduce the consequences. Schoolboy logic suffices for that to which collegiate rhetoric supplies the tirades.--In this great void of enlightenment the vague terms of liberty, equality and the sovereignty of the people, the glowing expressions of Rousseau and his successors, all these new axioms, blaze up like burning coals, discharging clouds of smoke and intoxicating vapor. High-sounding and vague language is interposed between the mind and objects around it; all outlines are confused and the vertigo begins. Never to the same extent have men lost the purport of outward things. Never have they been at once more blind and more chimerical. Never has their disturbed reason rendered them more tranquil concerning real danger and created more alarm at imaginary danger. Strangers with cool blood and who witness the spectacle, Mallet du Pan, Dumont of Geneva, Arthur Young, Jefferson, Gouverneur Morris, write that the French are insane. Morris, in this universal delirium, can mention to Washington but one sane mind, that of Marmontel, and Marmontel speaks in the same style as Morris. At the preliminary meetings of the clubs, and at the a.s.semblies of electors, he is the only one who opposes unreasonable propositions. Surrounding him are none but the excited, the exalted about nothing, even to grotesqueness[4354]. In every act of the established regime, in every administrative measure, "in all police regulations, in all financial decrees, in all the graduated authorities on which public order and tranquility depend, there was naught in which they did not find an aspect of tyranny. . .

On the walls and barriers of Paris being referred to, these were denounced as enclosures for deer and derogatory to man."--

"I saw," says one of these orators, "at the barrier Saint-Victor, sculptured on one of the pillars--would you believe it?----an enormous lion's head, with open jaws vomiting forth chains as a menace to those who pa.s.sed it. Could a more horrible emblem of slavery and of despotism be imagined!"--"The orator himself imitates the roar of the lion.

The listeners were all excited by it and I, who pa.s.sed the barrier Saint-Victor so often, was surprised that this horrible image had not struck me. That very day I examined it closely and, on the pilaster, I found only a small buckler suspended as an ornament by a little chain attached by the sculptor to a little lion's mouth, like those we see serving as door-knockers or as water-c.o.c.ks."--Perverted sensations and delirious conceptions of this kind would be regarded by physicians as the symptoms of mental derangement, and we are only in the early months of the year 1789!--In such excitable and over-excited brains the powerful fascination of words is about to create phantoms, some of them hideous, the aristocrat and the tyrant, and others adorable, the friend of the people and the incorruptible patriot, so many disproportionate, imaginary figures, but which will replace actual living persons, and which the maniac is to overwhelm with his praise or pursue with his fury.

VI. Summary

Thus does the philosophy of the eighteenth century descend among the people and propagate itself. Ideas, on the first story of the house, in handsome gilded rooms, serve only as an evening illumination, as drawing room explosives and pleasing Bengal lights, with which people amuse themselves, and then laughingly throw from the windows into the street. Collected together in the story below and on the ground floor, transported to shops, to warehouses and into business cabinets, they find combustible material, piles of wood a long time acc.u.mulated, and here do the flames enkindle. The conflagration seems to have already begun, for the chimneys roar and a ruddy light gleams through the windows; but "No," say the people above, "those below would take care not to set the house on fire, for they live in it as we do. It is only a straw bonfire and a burning chimney, and a little water will extinguish it; and, besides, these little accidents clear the chimney and burn out the soot."

Take care! Under the vast deep arches supporting it, in the cellars of the house, there is a magazine of powder.

NOTES:

[Footnote 4301: I have verified these sentiments myself, in the narration of aged people deceased twenty years ago. Cf. ma.n.u.script memoirs of Hardy the bookseller (a.n.a.lyzed by Aubertin), and the "Travels of Arthur Young."]

[Footnote 4302: Aubertin, ibid., 180, 362.]

[Footnote 4303: Voltaire, "Siecle de Louis XV," ch. x.x.xI; "Siecle de Louis XIV," ch. x.x.x. "Industry increases every day. To see the private display, the prodigious number of pleasant dwellings erected in Paris and in the provinces, the numerous equipages, the conveniences, the acquisitions comprehended in the term luxe, one might suppose that opulence was twenty times greater than it formerly was. All this is the result of ingenuity, much more than of wealth. . . The middle cla.s.s has become wealthy by industry. . . . Commercial gains have augmented. The opulence of the great is less than it was formerly and much larger among the middle cla.s.s, the distance between men even being lessened by it. Formerly the inferior cla.s.s had no resource but to serve their superiors; nowadays industry has opened up a thousand roads unknown a hundred years ago."]

[Footnote 4304: John Law (Edinbourgh 1672--dead in Venice 1729) Scotch financier, who founded a bank in Paris issuing paper money whose value depended upon confidence and credit. He had to flee France when his system collapsed and died in misery. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4305: Arthur Young, II. 360, 373.]

[Footnote 4306: De Tocqueville, 255.]

[Footnote 4307: Aubertin, 482.]

[Footnote 4308: Roux and Buchez, "Histoire parlementaire." Extracted from the accounts made up by the comptrollers-general, I. 175, 205.--The report by Necker, I. 376. To the 206,000,000 must be added 15,800,000 for expenses and interest on advances.]

[Footnote 4309: Compare this to the situation in year 1999 where irresponsible democratic governments sell enormous fortunes in the form of bonds to the popular pension funds, fortunes which they expect that the next generation shall repay. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4310: Roux and Buchez, I. 190. "Rapport," M. de Calonne.]

[Footnote 4311: Champfort, p. 105.]

[Footnote 4312: De Tocqueville, 261.]

[Footnote 4313: D'Argenson, April 12, 1752, February 11, 1752, July 24, 1753, December 7, 1753.--Archives nationales, O1, 738.]

[Footnote 4314: Characters in Moliere's comedies.--TR.]

[Footnote 4315: De Segur. I. 17.]

[Footnote 4316: Lucas de Montigny, Letter of the Marquis de Mirabeau, March 23, 1783.]

[Footnote 4317: Mme. Vigee-Lebrun, I. 269, 231. (The domestic establishment of two farmers-general, M. de Verdun, at Colombes, and M.

de St. James, at Neuilly).--A superior type of the bourgeois and of the merchant has already been put on the stage by Sedaine in "Le Philosophe sans le Savoir."]

[Footnote 4318: John Andrews, "A comparative view," etc. p. 58.]

[Footnote 4319: De Tilly, "Memoires," I. 31.]

[Footnote 4320: Goffroy, "Gustave III," letter of Mme. Stael (August, 1786).]

[Footnote 4321: Mme. de Genlis, "Adele et Theodore" (1782), I.

312.--Already in 1762, Bachaumont mentions several pieces written by grand seigniors, such as "Clytemnestre," by the Comte de Lauraguais; "Alexandre," by the Chevalier de Fenelon; "Don Carlos," by the Marquis de Ximenes.]

[Footnote 4322: Champfort, 119.]

[Footnote 4323: De Vaublanc, I. 117.--Beugnot, "Memoires," (the first and second pa.s.sages relating to society at the domiciles of M. de Brienne, and the Duc de Penthievre.)]

[Footnote 4324: Barbier, II, 16; III. 255 (May, 1751). "The king is robbed by all the seigniors around him, especially on his journeys to his different chateaux, which are frequent."--And September, 1750.----Cf. Aubertin, 291, 415 ("Memoires," ma.n.u.script by Hardy).]

[Footnote 4325: Treaties of Paris and Hubersbourg, 1763.--The trial of La Chalotais, 1765.--Bankruptcy of Terray, 1770.--Destruction of the Parliament, 1771.--The first part.i.tion of Poland, 1772.--Rousseau, "Discours sur l'inegalite," 1753.--"Heloise," 1759.--"Emile" and "Contrat Social," 1762.]

[Footnote 4326: De Barante, "Tableau de la litterature francaise au dix-huitieme siecle," 312.]

[Footnote 4327: "Mercure britannique," vol. II, 360.]

[Footnote 4328: Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'epreuves," p. 21.]

[Footnote 4329: "Memoires," by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.]

[Footnote 4330: "Le Compere Mathieu," by Dulaurens (1766). "Our sufferings are due to the way in which we are brought up, namely, the state of society in which we are born. Now that state being the source of all our ills its dissolution must become that of all our good."]

[Footnote 4331: The "Tableau de Paris," by Mercier (12 vols.), is the completest and most exact portrayal of the ideas and aspirations of the middle cla.s.s from 1781 to 1788.]

[Footnote 4332: "Correspondence," by Metra, XVII, 87 (August 20, 1784).]

[Footnote 4333: "Belisarious," is from 1780, and the "Oath of the Horatii," from 1783.]

[Footnote 4334: Geffroy, "Gustave II et la cour de France." "Paris, with its republican spirit, generally applauds whatever fails at Fontainebleau." (A letter by Madame de Stael, Sept. 17, 1786).]