Beacon Lights of History, Volume 08: Great Rulers

by John Lord

In such a state of things, a most oppressive system of taxation was the necessary result. In no country in modern times have the burdens of the people been so great. Taxes were imposed to the utmost extent that they were able to bear, without their consent; and upon the slightest resistance or remonstrance they were imprisoned and treated as criminals. So great were the taxes on land, that nearly two-thirds of the whole gross produce, it has been estimated, went to the State, and three-quarters of the remainder to the landlord. The peasant thus only received about one-twelfth of the fruit of his labors; and on this pittance his family was supported. Taxes were both direct and indirect, levied upon every article of consumption, upon everything that was imported or exported, upon income, upon capital, upon the transmission of property, upon even the few privileges which were enjoyed. But not one-half that was collected went to the royal treasury; it was wasted by the different collectors and sub-collectors. In addition to the ordinary burdens were enormous monopolies, granted to nobles and courtiers, by which the income of the State was indirectly plundered. The poor man groaned amid his heavy labors and great privations, without exciting compassion or securing redress.

And, in addition to his taxes, the laborer was deprived of all the privileges of freedom. He was injured, downtrodden, mocked, and insulted. The laws were unequal, and gave him no security; game of the most destructive kind was permitted to run at large through the fields, and yet the people were not allowed to shoot a hare or a deer upon their own grounds. Numerous edicts prohibited hoeing and weeding, lest young partridges should be destroyed. The people were bound to repair the roads without compensation, to grind their corn at the landlord's mill, bake their bread in his ovens, and carry their grapes to his wine-press. They had not the benefit of schools, or of institutions which would enable them to improve their minds. They could not rise above the miserable condition in which they were born, or even make their complaints heard. Feudalism, in all its social distinctions, and in all its oppressive burdens, crushed them as with an iron weight, or bound them as with iron fetters. This weight they could not throw off, these fetters they could not break. There was no alternative but in submission,--forced submission to overwhelming taxes, robberies, insults, and injustice, both from landed proprietors and the officers of the crown.

Those, however, who lived upon the unrequited toil of the people lived out of sight of their sorrows,--not in beautiful châteaux, as their ancestors did, by the side of placid rivers and on the skirts of romantic forests, or amid vineyards and olive-groves, but in the capital or the court. Here, like Roman senators of old, they squandered the money which they had obtained by extortion and corruption of every sort. Amid the palaces of Versailles they displayed all the vanities of dress, all the luxuries of their favored life. Here, as lesser stars, they revolved around the great central orb of regal splendor, proud to belong to another world than that in which the plebeian millions toiled and suffered. At Versailles they attempted to ignore their own humanity, to forget their most pressing duties, and to despise the only pursuits which could have elevated their minds or warmed their hearts.

But they were not great feudal nobles, like the Guises and the Epernons, such as combined to awe even regal power under the House of Valois,--men who could coin money and exercise judicial authority in their own domain,--but timid and subservient courtiers, as embarrassed in their affairs as was the King himself. Nevertheless, many of the ancient privileges of feudalism were enjoyed by them. They were exempt from many taxes which oppressed merchants and farmers; they alone were appointed to command in the army and navy; they alone were made prelates and dignitaries in the Church; they were comparatively free from arrest when their crimes were against society and God rather than the government; they were distinguished from the plebeian class by dress as well as by privileges; and they only had access to court and a share in the plunder of the kingdom. Craving greater excitements than that which even Versailles afforded, they built, in the Faubourg St. Germain, those magnificent hotels which are still the dreary but imposing monuments of aristocratic pride; and here they plunged into every form of excess and folly for which Paris has always been distinguished. But it was in their splendid equipages, and in their boxes at the opera, that they displayed the most striking contrast to the habits of the plebeian people with whom they were surrounded. Their embroidered vests, their costly silks and satins, their emerald and diamond buckles, their point-lace ruffles, their rare furs, their jewelled rapiers, and their perfumed handkerchiefs were peculiar to themselves,--for in those days wealthy shopkeepers, and even the daughters of prosperous notaries, could ill afford such luxuries, and were scarcely allowed to shine in them if they would. A velvet coat then cost more than one thousand francs; while the ruffs and frills, and diamond studs and knee-buckles, and other appendages to the dress of a gentleman, swelled the amount to scarcely less than forty thousand francs, or sixteen hundred louis-d'or. If a distinguished advocate was admitted to the presence of royalty, he must appear in simple black. Gorgeous dresses were reserved only for the noblesse, some one hundred and fifty thousand privileged persons; all the rest were roturiers, marked by some emblem of meanness or inferiority, whatever might be their intellectual and moral worth. Never were the noblesse more enervated; and yet they always appeared in a mock-heroic costume, with swords dangling at their sides, or hats cocked after a military fashion on their heads. As the strength of Samson of old was in his locks, so the degenerate nobles of this period guarded with especial care these masculine ornaments of the person; and so great was the contagion for wigs and hair-powder, that twelve hundred shops existed in Paris to furnish this aristocratic luxury. The muses of Rome in the days of her decline condescended to sing on the arts of cookery and the sublime occupations of hunting and fishing; so in the heroic times of Louis XV. the genius of France soared to comprehend the mysteries of the toilet. One eminent savant, in this department of philosophical wisdom, absolutely published a bulky volume on the principles of hair-dressing, and followed it--so highly was it prized--by a no less ponderous supplement. This was the time when the cuisine of nobles was as famous as their toilets, and when recipes for different dishes were only equalled in variety by the epigrams of ribald poets. It was a period not merely of degrading follies, but of shameless exposure of them,--when men boasted of their gallantries, and women joked at their own infirmities; and when hypocrisy, if it was ever added to their other vices, only served to make them more ridiculous and unnatural. The rouge with which they painted their faces, and the powder which they sprinkled upon their hair were not used to give them the semblance of youthful beauty, but rather to impart the purple hues of perpetual drunkenness, such as Rubens gave to his Bacchanalian deities, united with the blanched whiteness of premature old age. Licentiousness without shame, drunkenness without rebuke, gambling without honor, and frivolity without wit characterized, alas, a great proportion of that "upper class" who disdained the occupations and sneered at the virtues of industrial life.

But these dissipated courtiers had a model constantly before their eyes, whose more excessive follies it were difficult to rival; and this was the King himself, whom the whole nation was called upon to obey. If Louis XIV. was a Nebuchadnezzar, unapproachable from pride, Louis XV. was a Sardanapalus in effeminacy and insouciant revelries. The shameless infamies of his life were too revolting to bear more than a passing allusion; and I should blush to tear away the historic veil which covers up his vices from the common eye. I shrink from showing to what depths humanity can sink, even when clothed in imperial purple and seated on the throne of state. The countless memoirs of that wicked age have however, exposed to the indignant eye of posterity the regal debaucheries of Versailles and the pollutions of the Pare aux Cerfs,--that infamous seraglio which cost the State one hundred millions of livres, at the lowest estimate. And this was but a part of the great system of waste and folly. Five hundred millions of the national debt were incurred for expenses too ignominious to be even named. The King, however, was not fond of pomp; it was fatiguing for him to bear, and he generally shut himself from the sight and intercourse of any but convivial friends,--no, not friends, for to absolute monarchs the pleasures of friendship are denied; I should have said, the panderers to his degrading pleasures. Never did the Papal court at Avignon or Rome, even in the worst ages of mediaeval darkness, witness more scandalous enormities than those which disgraced the whole reign of Louis XV., either in the days of his minority, when the kingdom was governed by the Duke of Orleans, or in his latter years, when the Duke of Choiseul was the responsible adviser of the crown. The Palais Royal, the Palais Luxembourg, the Trianon, and Versailles were alternately scenes of excesses which would have disgraced the reigns of the most degenerate of Saracenic caliphs. So vile was the court, that a celebrated countess one day said, at a public festival, that "God, after having formed man, took the mud which was left, and made the souls of princes and footmen."

And the King hated business as much as he hated pomp. Unlike his predecessor, he left everything in the hands of his servants. Nothing wearied him so much as an interview with a minister, or a dispatch from a general. In the society of his mistresses he abnegated his duties as a monarch, and the labors of his life were employed in gratifying their resentments and humoring their caprices. Their complaints were more potent than the suggestions of ministers, or the remonstrances of judges. In idle frivolities his time was passed, neglectful of the great interests which were intrusted to him to guard; and the only attainment of which he was proud was a knack of making tarts and bon-bons, with which he frequently regaled his visitors.

And yet, in spite of these ignoble tastes and pursuits, the King was by no means deficient in natural abilities. He was much superior to even Louis XIV. in logical acumen and sprightly wit. He was an agreeable companion, and could appreciate every variety of talents. No man in his court perceived more clearly than he the tendency of the writings of philosophers which were then fermenting the germs of revolution. "His sagacity kept him from believing in Voltaire, even when he succeeded in deceiving the King of Prussia." He was favorable to the Jesuits, though he banished them from the realm; perceiving and feeling that they were his true friends and the best supports of his absolute throne,--and yet he banished them from his kingdom. He was hostile too, in his heart, to the very philosophers whom he invited to his table, and knew that they sought to undermine his power. He simply had not the moral energy to carry out the plans of that despotism to which he was devoted. Sensuality ever robs a man of the advantages and gifts which reason gives, even though they may be bestowed to an extraordinary degree. There is no more impotent slavery than that to which the most gifted intellects have been occasionally doomed. Self-indulgence is sure to sap every element of moral strength, and to take away from genius itself all power, except to sharpen the stings of self-reproach. "Louis XV. was not insensible to the dangers which menaced his throne, and would have despoiled the Parliament of the right of remonstrance; would have imposed on the Jansenists the yoke of Papal supremacy; would have burned the books of the philosophers, and have sent their authors to work out their system within the gloomy dungeons of the Bastille;" but he had not the courage, nor the moral strength, nor the power of will. He was enslaved by his vices, and by those who pandered to them; and he could not act either the king or the man. Seeing the dangers, but feeling his impotence, he affected levity, and exclaimed to his courtiers Après nous le déluge,--a prediction which only uncommon sagacity could have prompted. Immersed however in unworthy pleasures, he gave himself not much concern for the future; and this career of self-abandonment continued to the last, even after satiety and ennui had deprived the appetites of the power to please. His latter days were of course melancholy, and his miseries resulted as much from the perception of the evils to come as from the failure of the pleasures of sense. A languor, from which he was with difficulty ever roused, oppressed his life. Deaf, incapable of being amused, prematurely worn out with bodily infirmities, hated and despised by the whole nation, he dragged out his sixty-fourth year, and died of the small-pox, which he caught in one of his visits to the Pare aux Cerfs; and his loathsome remains were hastily hurried into a carriage, and deposited in the vaults of St. Denis.

As, however, during this long reign of fifty-eight years, women were the presiding geniuses of the court and the virtual directors of the kingdom, I cannot give a faithful portrait of the times without some allusion, at least, to that woman who was as famous in her day as Madame de Montespan was during the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. I single out Madame de Pompadour from the crowd of erring and infirm females who bartered away their souls for the temporary honors of Versailles. Not that proud peeress whom she displaced, the Duchesse de Châteauroux; not that low-born and infamous character by whom she was succeeded, Du Barry; not the hundreds of other women who were partners or victims of guilty pleasures, and who descended unlamented and unhonored to their ignominious graves, are here to be alluded to. But Madame de Pompadour is a great historical personage, because with her are identified the fall of the Jesuits in France, the triumph of philosophers and economists, the disgrace of ministers, and the most outrageous prodigality which ever scandalized a nation. Louis XV. was almost wholly directed by this infamous favorite. She named and displaced the controllers-general, and she herself received annually nearly fifteen hundred thousand livres, besides hotels, palaces, and estates. She was allowed to draw bills upon the treasury without specifying the service, and those who incurred her displeasure were almost sure of being banished from the court and kingdom, and perhaps sentenced, by lettre de cachet, to the dreary cells of the Bastille. She virtually had the appointment of the prelates of the Church and of the generals of the army; and so great was her ascendency that all persons, whatsoever their rank, found it expedient to pay their homage to her. Even Montesquieu praised her intellect, and Voltaire her beauty, and Maria Theresa wrote flattering letters to her. The prime minister was her tool and agent, since royalty itself yielded to her sway; even the proud ladies of the royal family condescended to flatter and to honor her. Sprung only from the middle ranks of society, she yet assumed the airs of a princess of the blood.

From her earliest years, long before she was admitted to the court, it had been the dream of this woman to seduce the King. Her father was butcher to the Invalides, and she spent nearly all the money she could command in a costly present to a great duchess, the Princess Conti, in order to be presented. She played high, and won--not a royal heart, but the royal fancy. Her dress, manners, and extraordinary beauty increased the impression she had once before made at a hunting-party; and after the levée she was sent for, and became virtually the minister of the realm. She was unquestionably a woman of great intellect, as well as of tact and beauty, and even manifested a sympathy with some sorts of intellectual excellence. She was the patroness of artists, philosophers, and poets; but she liked those best who were distinguished for their infidel or licentious speculations. She was the friend of those economists and philosophers who sapped the foundations of the social system. An imperious and insolent hauteur and reckless prodigality were her most marked peculiarities,--just such as were to be expected in an unprincipled woman raised suddenly to high position. In spite of her power, she did not escape the malignant stings of envenomed rivals or anonymous satirists. "She was rallied on the baseness of her origin; she avenged herself by making common cause with those philosophers who overturned the ancient order." She was both mistress and politician, but her politics and alliances subverted the throne which gave her all her glory. Her ascendency of course rested on her power of administering to the tastes and pleasures of the 'King, and she showed genius in the variety of amusements which she invented. She reigned twenty years, and lost her empire only by death. Madame de Maintenon had maintained her ascendency over Louis XIV. by the exercise of those virtues which extorted his respect, but Madame de Pompadour by the faculty of charming the senses. It was by her that Versailles was enriched with the most precious and beautiful of its countless wonders. Her own collection of pictures, cameos, antiques, crystals, porcelains, vases, gems, and articles of vertu was esteemed the richest and most valuable in the kingdom, and after her death it took six months to dispose of it. Her library was valued at more than a million of francs, and contained some of the rarest manuscripts and most curious books in France. The sums, however, which she spent on literary curiosities or literary men were small compared with the expenses of her toilet, of her fêtes, her balls, and her palaces. And all these expenses were open as the day in the eyes of a nation suffering from ruinous taxation, from famine, and the shame of unsuccessful war!

We are impressed with the blind and suicidal measures which all those connected with the throne instigated or encouraged in this reign,--from the King to the most infamous of his mistresses. Whoever pretended to give his aid to the monarchy helped to subvert it by the very measures which he proposed. "The Duke of Orleans, when he patronized Law, gave a shock to the whole economical system of the old regime. When this Scotch financier said to the powerful aristocracy around him, 'Silver is only to you the means of circulation, beyond this it belongs to the country,' he announced the ruin of the glebe and the fall of feudal prejudices. The bankruptcies which followed the bursting of his bubble weakened the potent charm of the word 'honor,' on which was based the stability of the throne." The courtiers, when they blazed in jewels, in embroidered silks and satins, in sumptuous equipages, and in all the costly ornaments of their times, gave employment and importance to a host of shopkeepers and handicraftsmen, who grew rich, as those who bought of them grew poor. The wealth of bankers, brokers, mercers, jewellers, tailors, and coachmakers dates to these times,--those prosperous and fortunate members of the middle-class who "inhabited the Place Vendôme and the Place des Victoires, as the nobles dwelt in the Rue de Grenelle and the Rue St. Dominique. The nobles ruined themselves by the extravagance into which they were led by the court, and their châteaux and parks fell into the hands of financiers, lawyers, and merchants, who, taking the titles of their new estates, became a parvenu aristocracy which excited the jealousy of the old and divided its ranks." The inferior, but still prosperous class, the shopkeepers, also equally advanced in intelligence and power. In those dark and dingy backrooms, in which for generations their ancestors had been immured, they now discussed their rights, and retailed the scandals which they heard. They read the sarcasms of the poets and the theories of the new philosophers. Even the tranquillity which succeeded inglorious war was favorable to the rise of the middle classes; and the Revolution was as much the product of the discontent engendered by social improvements as of the frenzy produced by hunger and despair. The court favored the improvements of Paris, especially those designed for public amusements. The gardens of the Tuileries were embellished, the Champs Elysées planted with trees, and pictures were exhibited in the grand salon of the Louvre. The Theatre Français, the Royal Opera, the Opéra Comique, and various halls for balls and festivals were then erected,--those fruitful nurseries of future clubs, those poisoned wells of popular education. Nor were charities forgotten with the building of the Pantheon and the extension of the Boulevards. The Hôpital des Enfants-Trouvés allowed mothers, unseen and unheard, to bequeath their children to the State.