At length, after six days’ posting, we reached the Palladian City, as Toulouse was called in old times, and it still, in some measure, deserved the appellation, as it could boast of three academies—des Sciences, des Beaux Arts, and des Belles Lettres—the last of which is so well known by the name of les Jeux Floraux.
We spent the winter in this capital of Languedoc, were well lodged, and had no want of society. At that time many of the first families of the province went rarely to Paris. They had large and handsome houses at Toulouse, where they spent the winter, as they spent the summer on their estates. There was no Chambre des Pairs or des Députés to take them to the metropolis, and unless they had employment at Court, or business to call them thither, they preferred remaining where they were both honoured and valued.
Toulouse was an archbishopric, and also at that time the seat of one of those Courts of Justice now abolished, which were called Parliaments.
That of Toulouse had the reputation of being corrupt and prejudiced, an accusation which in many respects was unfair. The affair of Calas, whose father was executed for supposed murder, had made a great noise. The liberals and philosophers had taken it up warmly; but, after all the inquiries we could make of unprejudiced persons, we never could decide whether the sentence was just or unjust.
From the time of the wars of the Albigenses, religious intolerance has unfortunately been prevalent on both sides of the question, and has been constantly productive of bloodshed and discord. The Protestants were violent Calvinists, and many of their antagonists bigoted Jansenists. The first, on account of their republican ideas, were often supported by the revolutionary party, which was then forming, and making great progress.
The high clergy were very tolerant, very charitable, and very delightful in society; perhaps not always sufficiently strict to the rules of that exact morality which is expected in the profession to which they were devoted. But it may be said of many of its members, who were afterwards victims of their loyalty and principles, what the celebrated Duke of Marlborough said of himself, “that he could more easily die a martyr than live a saint.”
In this number we cannot include M. de Brienne, who was at that time Archbishop of Toulouse. It was not his fate to die a martyr. He became Archbishop of Sens and Prime Minister; but his success in that post did not come up to the expectations which had been formed from his talents in the administration of his diocese and in society. He had a sensible countenance, an active person, and great facility of expression. By all accounts his quickness of comprehension was such as hardly to give time to others to explain themselves, for he seemed to understand every subject more clearly than the person whom it chiefly concerned.
It was said that Louis XVI. would not allow Monsieur de Brienne to be Archbishop of Paris on account of his connexion with a certain lady, and that the archbishop parodied on this occasion a song in the “Chasse d’Henri Quatre:”
Si le roi Louis
Voulait me donner