The French Revolution of 1789, as Viewed in the Light of Republican Institutions

by John S. C. Abbott

"We wetted with our tears," writes M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, who acted an illustrious part in those days, "those pages which a citizen minister had imprinted with luminous and comfortable reflections, and where he was turning all his attention to the prosperity of the French with a sensibility deserving of their gratitude. The people blessed him as its savior. But all those nourished by abuses formed a confederacy against the man who seemed about to wrest their prey from them."

Necker was desirous of introducing some popular element into the government. There was now a numerous body of men belonging to the unprivileged class, energetic and enlightened, whose voice ought to be heard in the administration of affairs as representatives of the people. He therefore recommended that there should be provincial parliaments in the different departments of France, somewhat corresponding with the present legislatures in the United States. In a few of the provinces there were already parliaments, but they were composed exclusively of the privileged class. Turgot also had contemplated provincial legislatures, which he desired to constitute as the organ of the people, and to be composed only of members of the Tiers Etat.[53] Necker, however, hoped to conciliate the nobles by giving the privileged body an equal representation with the unprivileged in these assemblies. One half were to be representatives of the clergy and the nobility, and the other half of the people, though the people numbered millions, while the clergy and nobles numbered but thousands.

Necker's report showed that the interest upon the public debt absorbed one third of the revenues; that the remaining two thirds were by no means sufficient for carrying on the government, and that, consequently, the burden was continually growing heavier by loans and accumulations.[54] The suggestions of Necker, to give the people a voice in the administration of affairs and to tax high-born men equally with low-born, created intense opposition. The storm became too fierce to be resisted. Both the king and the prime minister yielded to its violence, and Necker, like Turgot, was driven with contumely from the ministry and into exile. The hearts of the people followed the defeated minister to his retreat. These outrages were but making the line which separated the privileged from the unprivileged more visible, and were rousing and combining the masses. The illustrious financier, in his retirement, wrote his celebrated work upon the administration of the finances, a work which contributed much to the enlightenment of the public mind.[55] The intellect of the nation was roused, as never before, to the discussion of the affairs of state. In the parlor, the counting-room, the work-shop, the farm-house, and the field, all were employed in deliberating upon the one great topic which engrossed universal attention. And yet the nobles and their partisans, with infatuation inexplicable, resisted all measures of reform; a singular illustration of the Roman adage, "Quem Deus vult perdere priusquam dementat" (whom God would destroy he first makes mad).

Indeed, the opposition was sufficiently formidable to appal any minister. There were eighty thousand nobles, inheriting the pride and prestige of feudal power, with thousands, dependent upon their smiles, rallying around them as allies. There were the officers in the army, who were either hereditary nobles or, still worse, men of wealth who had purchased titles of nobility. There were a hundred thousand persons who, in various ways, had purchased immunity from the burdens of state, and were thus within the limits of the privileged class, and hated by the people, though despised by the nobles. There were two hundred thousand priests bound by the strongest of possible ties to the hierarchy, the humble class depending for position and bread upon their spiritual lords and obliged by the most solemn oaths to obey their superiors. And these priests, intrusted with the keys of heaven and of hell, as was supposed by the unenlightened masses, held millions in subjection by the most resistless powers of superstition. There were sixty thousand in the cloisters of the monasteries, many of them dissolute in the extreme, and who were necessarily subservient to the ecclesiastics. There were the farmers general, the collectors of the revenue, and all the vast army of office-holders, who were merely the agents of the court.

"This formidable mass of men," says M. Rabaud de St. Etienne, "were in possession of all France. They held her by a thousand chains. They formed, in a body, what was termed la haute nation. All the rest was the people."[56]

Though the privileged class and their dependents, which we have above enumerated, amounted to but a few hundred thousand, perhaps not five hundred thousand in all, and the people amounted to some twenty-five millions, still all the power was with the aristocracy. The mass of the people were merely slaves, unarmed, unorganized, uneducated. They had been degraded and dispirited by ages of oppression, and had no means of combining or of uttering a united voice which should be heard.

Immediately succeeding M. Necker in the ministry of finance came M. Fleury and M. d'Ormesson. They were both honest, well-meaning men, but were promptly crushed by a burden which neither of them was at all capable of bearing. Their names are hardly remembered. Maurepas was now dead. The Americans, aided by France, had achieved their independence, and France and England were again at peace. The king now selected M. de Calonne from the Parliament, as Minister of Finance. He was a man of brilliant genius, of remarkably courtly manners, but licentious and extravagant. The king hoped, by his selecting Calonne, to diminish that opposition of the Parliament which was daily growing more inveterate against the crown. For a time the new minister was exceedingly popular. His high reputation for financial skill and his suavity enabled him to effect important loans; and by the sale and the mortgage of the property of the crown he succeeded for a few months in having money in abundance. The court rioted anew in voluptuous indulgence. The beautiful palace of St. Cloud was bought of the Duke of Orleans for the queen, and vast sums were expended for its embellishment. The Palace of Rambouillet was purchased as a hunting-seat for the king. Marie Antoinette gave innumerable costly entertainments at Versailles, and rumor was rife with the scenes of measureless extravagance which were there displayed. The well-meaning, weak-minded king, having no taste for courtly pleasure and no ability for the management of affairs, either unconscious of the peril of the state or despairing of any remedy, fitted up a work-shop at Versailles, where he employed most of his time at a forge, under the guidance of a blacksmith, tinkering locks and keys. This man, Gamin, has recorded:

"The king was good, indulgent, timid, curious, fond of sleep. He passionately loved working as a smith, and hid himself from the queen and the court to file and forge with me. To set up his anvil and mine, unknown to all the world, it was necessary to use a thousand stratagems."[57]