The first French Republic

by Horace Mann Conaway

This twelfth article was at the same time the expression of a political theory and reactionary against past practices. It was the theory of the framers of the Declaration of the Rights of Man that the nation was supreme, the monarch only an hereditary administrative agent. To maintain this status, the power of military force must be employed only for the advantage of the nation. d’Argenson, in 1754, had complained that “Le roi n’emploie plus ses forces que contre ses sujets.”[27] In 1771, when the obstinate parlement had been replaced by the Grand Conseil, troops were used to guard this substitute which was designated “Maupeou’s parlement,” and the people considered the whole procedure as contrary to the French Constitution.[28] Mirabeau had also denounced the royal army in these plain words: “Je dis que les troupes réglées sont l’instrument du despotisme, comme leur institution en fut le signal. L’exemple de nos voisins n’est pas une preuve contradictoire; et ne voit on pas en effet que toute constitution en Europe est dégénérée en arbitraire et s’accélère vers le despotisme; Les troupes réglées ont été et seront toujours le fléau de la liberté; mais ce fléau est intolérable quand il devient le rempart des déprédations.”[29]

The people in several of the cahiers manifested fear lest the monarch might endanger, by the use of an army, the national rights, and consequently asked for the dismissal of foreign troops, for a new constitution for the army, and for the destruction of internal forts.[30]

“Art. 13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.”

The inequality of taxes was, in France, an abuse recognized and condemned for centuries. Bodin, in his République, written in the sixteenth century, criticised the exemption of the clergy and of the nobility.[31] Already under Louis XIII., throughout two-thirds of France, where the taille was a personal tax, 2,000,000 of richer persons were exempt from the taille, while 8,000,000 were taxable. D’Avenel says that the workmen paid under Louis XIII. four and a half times as much as to-day, though they earned much less.[32] The grievous exemptions continued so that the Third Estate during the eighteenth century supported the chief burden of royal taxes and was subjected to onerous feudal dues besides.[33]

The Physiocrats advocated as a remedy for this injustice a system which should make the taxes proportionate to each one’s productive riches. Turgot, taking the first step towards the realization of this idea, said, in defense of his proposal for the abolition of corvées, February, 1776: “The expenses of government having for their object the interest of all, all should contribute to them; and the more one enjoys the advantages of society, the more one should regard himself honored in sharing the expenses.[34] But his efforts were vain; for the privileged classes esteemed their exemptions too highly to submit tamely to a burdensome reform; hence they stubbornly persisted in their resistance to innovations in the customary methods of collecting taxes. Nevertheless there was a growing sentiment in favor of reform;[35] so that when the cahiers of 1789 were prepared, the majority of those of the higher orders acceded to an equal partition in the burdens of the fisc.[36]

“Art. 14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, upon the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put, and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection, and the duration of the taxes.”

The French monarch, as in other European countries, from the time that the royal domains were found insufficient to meet the governmental expenses, was engaged in a continual struggle with the nation over the right to grant subsidies. The nation asserted only sporadically and incoherently its right to vote these supplies. For the French did not manifest that persistent and determined resistance to appropriations, unrequited by redress of political grievances, which their English neighbors exhibited so often and in such a marked degree. Nevertheless, during a minority or under a weak monarch, when able popular leaders flourished, the cause of the people was more stubbornly maintained. The States General claimed this guardianship in earlier days; but in the two centuries previous to the Revolution it was the Parlement of Paris that contended with increasing vigor and obstinacy against the arbitrary exactions of the king. As a final resort, it asserted, July 30, 1787, that “le principe constitutionnel de la monarchie française était que les impôts fussent consentis par ceux qui devraient les supporter.”[37] The continued and inextricable confusion of finances was the immediate cause of the calling of the Notables, and later of the States General. So far had the public sentiment reacted against the actual fiscal mismanagement, that the cashier were well-nigh unanimous in seeking for the nation the right to grant subsidies.[38]

“Art. 15. Society has a right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.”

Article 15 was both theoretical and reactionary against actual abuses. If the nation was to be supreme over all of its agents, it could only hope effectually to maintain that superiority by holding all its functionaries strictly accountable. Practical experience under the monarchy in the collection and the expenditure of finances had impressed an effective lesson upon the French people of the abuses incident to irresponsible officers. The Cour des Aides, in its noteworthy remonstrance of 1775, reviewed the status of the financial administration. The injustice of the ferme, the arbitrariness of the bureaucracy, the complexity of the system, the failure of popular petitions to reach the throne, and the need of thorough reform, were clearly set forth.[39] Then, too, Necker, by the publication of his Compte rendu (1781) and L’Administration des finances (1785), had afforded the nation a glimpse of public finances imperfect, yet in the highest degree stimulating to its curiosity.[40] As an illustration of the status of public opinion, the Notables in 1787 demanded that some report of receipts and expenses should be published annually, and that capable men, foreign to the administration, should be called to the conseil des finances for reviewing the work.[41] Here, too, the cahiers were practically a unit in their demands.