The intelligence that saw Italy so clearly saw France also, and her exigencies, marking out “a national senate composed equally of all the orders of the state, and which, on questions of peace and war, would hold the kings in check by the necessity of obtaining supplies”; also saw the approaching decay of Turkey, and wished to make Greece flourishing once more, to acquire possession of the holy places, to overcome the barbarians of Northern Africa by a union of Christian powers, which, “once well united in a kind of Christian Republic, according to the project of Henry the Fourth detailed by the Abbé Saint-Pierre, would have something better to do than fighting to destroy each other as they now do.”[330] Naturally this singular precocious intelligence reached across the Atlantic, and here he became one of our prophets:—
“Another great event to arrive upon the round earth is this. The English have in North America domains great, strong, rich, well regulated. There are in New England a parliament, governors, troops, white inhabitants in abundance, riches, and, what is worse, a marine.
“I say that some fine morning these dominions may separate from England, rise and erect themselves into an independent republic.
“What will happen then? Do people think of this? A country civilized by the arts of Europe, in a condition to communicate with it by the present perfection of its marine, and which will thus appropriate our arts in proportion to their improvement,—patience! such a country in several centuries will make great progress in population and in refinement; such a country in a short time will render itself master of America, and especially of the gold-mines.”
Then, dwelling on the extension of commercial freedom and the improvement of the means of communication, he exclaims, with lyrical outburst:—
“And you will then see how beautiful the earth will be! what culture! what new arts and new sciences! what safety for commerce! Navigation will precipitate all nations towards each other. A day will come when one will go about in a populous and orderly city of California as one goes in the stage-coach of Meaux.”[331]
The published works of D’Argenson do not enable us to fix the precise date of these remarkable words. They are from the “Thoughts on the Reformation of the State,” and the first three paragraphs appear to have been written as early at least as 1733, while his intimacy with the Abbé Saint-Pierre was at its height; the fourth somewhat later;[332] but all preceding Turgot and John Adams. Each, however, spoke from his own soul, and without prompting.
TURGOT, 1750, 1770, 1776, 1778.
Among the illustrious names of France few equal that of Turgot. He was a philosopher among ministers, and a minister among philosophers. Malesherbes said of him, that he had the heart of L’Hôpital and the head of Bacon. Such a person in public affairs was an epoch for his country and for the human race. Had his spirit prevailed, the bloody drama of the French Revolution would not have occurred, or it would at least have been postponed: I think it could not have occurred. He was a good man, who sought to carry into government the rules of goodness. His career from beginning to end was one continuous beneficence. Such a nature was essentially prophetic, for he discerned the natural laws by which the future is governed.
He was of an ancient Norman family, whose name suggests the god Thor. He was born at Paris, 1727, and died, 1781. Being a younger son, he was destined for the Church, and began his studies as an ecclesiastic at the ancient Sorbonne. Before registering an irrevocable vow, he announced his repugnance to the profession, and turned aside to other pursuits. Law, literature, science, humanity, government, now engaged his attention. He associated himself with the authors of the “Encyclopédie,” and became one of its contributors. In other writings he vindicated especially the virtue of Toleration. Not merely a theorist, he soon arrived at the high post of Intendant of Limoges, where he developed talent for administration and sympathy with the people. The potato came into Limousin through him. But he continued to employ his pen, particularly on questions of political economy, which he treated as a master. On the accession of Louis the Sixteenth he was called to the Cabinet as Minister of the Marine, and shortly afterwards gave up this place to be the head of the Finances. Here he began a system of rigid economy, founded on curtailment of expenses and enlargement of resources. The latter was obtained especially by removal of disabilities from trade, whether at home or abroad, and the substitution of a single tax on land for a complex multiplicity of taxes. The enemies of progress were too strong at that time, and the King dismissed the reformer. Good men in France became anxious for the future; Voltaire, in his distant retreat, gave a shriek of despair, and addressed to Turgot remarkable verses entitled “Épître à un Homme.” Worse still, the good edicts of the minister were rescinded, and society was put back.