An aristocracy in all its vigour not only carries on the affairs of a country, but directs public opinion, gives a tone to literature, and the stamp of authority to ideas; but the French nobility of the eighteenth century had entirely lost this portion of its supremacy; its influence had followed the fortunes of its power; and the position it had occupied in the direction of the public mind had been entirely abandoned to the writers of the day, to occupy as they pleased. Nay more, this very aristocracy whose place they thus assumed, favoured their undertaking. So completely had it forgotten the fact that general theories, once admitted, inevitably transform themselves in time into political passions and deeds, that doctrines the most adverse to the peculiar rights, and even to the existence, of the nobility were looked upon as ingenious exercises of the mind; the nobles even shared as a pleasant pastime in these discussions, and quietly enjoyed their immunities and privileges whilst they serenely discussed the absurdity of all established customs.
Astonishment has frequently been expressed at the singular blindness with which the higher classes under the old monarchy of France thus contributed to their own ruin. But whence could they have become more enlightened? Free institutions are not less necessary to show the greater citizens their perils than to secure to the lesser their rights. For more than a century since the last traces of public life had disappeared in France, no shock, no rumour had ever warned those most directly interested in the maintenance of the ancient constitution that the old building was tottering to its fall. As nothing had changed in its external aspect, they imagined that everything had remained the same. Their minds were thus bounded by the same horizon at which that of their fathers had stopped. In the public documents of the year 1789 the nobility appears to have been as much preoccupied with the idea of the encroachments of the royal power as it could possibly have been in those of the fifteenth century. On the other hand, the unfortunate Louis XVI. just before his own destruction by the incursion of democracy, still continued (as has been justly remarked by Burke) to look upon the aristocracy as the chief rival of the royal power, and mistrusted it as much as if he was still living in the days of the Fronde. The middle and lower classes on the contrary were in his eyes, as in those of his forefathers, the surest support of the throne.
But that which must appear still more strange to men of the present day—men who have the shattered fragments of so many revolutions before their eyes—is the fact, that not the barest notion of a violent revolution ever entered into the minds of the generation which witnessed it. Such a notion was never discussed, for it was never conceived. Those minor shocks which the exercise of political liberty is continually imparting to the best constituted societies, serve daily to call to mind the possibility of an earthquake, and to keep public vigilance on the alert; but in the state of society of France in the eighteenth century, on the brink of this abyss, nothing had yet indicated that the fabric leaned.
On examining with attention the Instructions drawn up by the three Orders before their convocation in 1789—by all the three, the nobility and clergy, as well as the Tiers-État—noting seriatim all the demands made for the changes of laws or customs, it will be seen with a sort of terror, on terminating this immense labour, and casting up the sum total of all these particular requirements, that what was required is no less than the simultaneous and systematic abolition of every law and every usage current throughout the country; and that what was impending must be one of the most extensive and dangerous revolutions that ever appeared in the world. Yet the very men who were so shortly to become its victims knew nothing of it. They fancied that the total and sudden transformation of so ancient and complicated a state of society was to be effected, without any concussion, by the aid and efficacy of reason alone; and they fatally forgot that maxim which their forefathers, four hundred years before, had expressed in the simple and energetic language of their time: ‘Par requierre de trop grande franchise et libertés chet-on en trop grande servaige.’ (By requiring too great liberty and franchise, men fall into too great servitude.)
It was not surprising that the nobility and middle classes, so long excluded from all public action, should have displayed this strange inexperience; but what astonishes far more is, that the very men who had the conduct of public affairs, the ministers, the magistrates, and the Intendants, should not have evinced more foresight. Many of them, nevertheless, were very clever men in their profession, and were thoroughly possessed of all the details of the public administration of their time; but in that great science of government, which teaches the comprehension of the general movement of society, the appreciation of what is passing in the minds of the masses, and the foreknowledge of the probable results—they were just as much novices as the people itself. In truth, it is only the exercise of free institutions that can teach the statesman this principal portion of his art.
This may easily be seen in the Memoir addressed by Turgot to the King in 1775, in which, among other matters, he advised his Majesty to summon a representative assembly, freely elected by the whole nation, to meet every year, for six weeks, about his own person, but to grant it no effective power. His proposal was, that this assembly should take cognisance of administrative business, but never of the government—should offer suggestions rather than express a will—and, in fact, should be commissioned to discuss laws, but not to make them. ‘In this wise,’ said the Memoir, ‘the royal power would be enlightened, but not thwarted, and public opinion contented without danger: for these assemblies would have no authority to oppose any indispensable operation; and if, which is most improbable, they should not lend themselves to this duty, his Majesty would still be the master to do as he pleases.’
It was impossible to show greater ignorance of the true bearing of such a measure, and of the spirit of the times. It has frequently happened, it is true, that towards the end of a revolutionary period, such a proposal as that made by Turgot has been carried into effect with impunity, and that a shadow of liberty has been granted without the reality. Augustus made the experiment with success. A nation fatigued by a prolonged struggle may willingly consent to be duped in order to obtain repose; and history shows that enough may then be done to satisfy it, by collecting from all parts of the country a certain number of obscure or dependent individuals, and making them play before it the part of a political assembly for the wages they receive. There have been several examples of the kind. But at the commencement of a revolution such experiments always fail; they inflame, without satisfying the people. This truth, known to the humblest citizen of a free country, was not known to Turgot, great administrator as he was.
If now it be taken into consideration that this same French nation, so ignorant of its own public affairs, so utterly devoid of experience, so hampered by its institutions, and so powerless to amend them, was also in those days the most lettered and witty nation of the earth, it may readily be understood how the writers of the time became a great political power, and ended by being the first power in the country.
In England those who wrote on the subject of government were connected with those who governed; the latter applied new ideas to practice—the former corrected or controlled their theories by practical observation. But in France the political world remained divided into two separate provinces, with no mutual intercourse. One portion governed; the other established abstract principles on which all government ought to be founded. Here measures were taken in obedience to routine; there general laws were propounded, without even a thought as to the means of their application. These kept the direction of affairs; those guided the intelligence of the nation.
Above the actual state of society—the constitution of which was still traditional, confused, and irregular, and in which the laws remained conflicting and contradictory, ranks sharply sundered, the conditions of the different classes fixed whilst their burdens were unequal—an imaginary state of society was thus springing up, in which everything appeared simple and co-ordinate, uniform, equitable, and agreeable to reason. The imagination of the people gradually deserted the former state of things in order to seek refuge in the latter. Interest was lost in what was, to foster dreams of what might be; and men thus dwelt in fancy in this ideal city, which was the work of literary invention.