“The Comptroller-general has acquainted me that he knows not where to find any more money. The intendants of the provinces have wrote to the war-office, that it is utterly impossible to raise another militia; to which the intendant of Guienne adds, that in his province the people are starving; those, Sire, were my motives for hastening the conclusion of the peace.”
These reasons, however, did not prevail with the great men of the army, who still wanted to be fighting. They were big with hopes, which the peace seemed to quash. I remember Lewis XV. one day talking on this subject, said to me, that he had not a general officer in his troops who cared what became of the state, if he could but get a Marshal’s staff.
The King, who had rewarded Marshal Saxe, did not forget the Count St. Severin, making him a minister of state. This Count, though not a great genius, had good rational sense, which he made to answer as well as a superior understanding. He was slow in business, but sure; and his phlegmatic disposition was better adapted to surmount those difficulties, which ever put fervid and eager minds to a full stand. He was a stranger to agitations; his passions moved in subordination to political laws. Resentment, anger, sallies of passion, spirit of party, with all the other prepossessing foibles which ruled most ministers, were never seen in him. Those he used to call the reverse of the medal of plenipotentiaries. In a negociation he moved straight on to his drift, without stopping by the way. He had a natural love for peace, and thus the more chearfully applied himself to forward a definitive treaty.
M. de Belleisle told me, that he found one great fault in him, which was the want of a proper regard to military men, however illustrious by their rank or merit; for after all, added he, there is no making a good peace but by dint of victories; and it is the general, and not the plenipotentiary, who gains battles.
France however was quite spent; the means made use of for supporting the war had been so violent as to break all the springs of power. The ministers complained greatly of the state of France, and openly said, at the peace, that they did not know where to begin the administration.
Paris is not the place where the general distress most manifests itself. The luxury, such as it is, prevailing there conceals the public indigence. There poverty itself appears in embroidery and ribbons, whilst in all the other parts of France it goes quite bare. The court had written into the provinces for a report of the state of things. M. de Belleisle has shewn me several memoirs of those times, transmitted to Versailles by the intendants of the provinces. The tenour of the first way this:
“My Lord,
“You ask me for a state of the finances in this province; that is soon done: there are none. I don’t believe that the whole province could produce a hundred thousand livres in specie: the poverty is so general, that all distinction of ranks is at an end. The louis d’ors are like to become scarce pieces, so as soon to be seen only in the cabinets of the curious.”
The other is from the intendant of a province naturally very fertile, but which could not be cultivated for want of money. His report to the minister was as follows:
“My Lord,