“All other nations are carriers to France, whereas France carries for none. This general stagnation animates others, and throws our marine into a fatal lethargy, &c. &c. &c.”
The navy has been utterly ruined, all the ships being taken by the English, except a few unserviceable ones in the harbours; and the funds appointed for fitting out a fleet are exhausted; but had there been no want of money, seamen were wanting; most of them had died in English prisons, and they who escaped the enemy perished by distress. It was impossible for France, being thinned of men, to furnish seamen.
M. Belleisle, who interfered in every branch of government, said one day to the King, in my hearing, Sire, should all the powers of Europe declare war against you, I engage to raise in your dominions a hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, who should keep them all at bay; but were I to fight an English fleet of a hundred ships of the line, where I should get twenty thousand seamen, I know not.
Another misfortune, beyond any remedy, was the necessary reduction of the troops. A hundred and fifty thousand subjects, who had fought for the crown, at the peace came to want bread: most of them, though they had been husbandmen before the war, were now no longer so. I have several times heard the Marshal de Noailles say, that a countryman, leaving the plough for the musket, is very seldom known to take to it when discharged; and he used to add, that on a hundred thousand husbandmen quitting their labour, a hundred thousand others must labour to provide them bread, otherwise a famine, and the ruin of the state, must be the consequence.
Some regulations were made to prevent the disorders to be apprehended from these reduced troops; but the remedy was more dangerous than the disease.
Of all the incumbrances, that of the military rewards were the greatest; money was required to pay the bravery of the officers in ready cash, for the military gentlemen are most impatient creditors. Formerly a St. Lewis’s cross sufficed, but it has since appeared to the officers, that a yearly sum gives a greater lustre to gallant actions.
Above ten thousand different pensions were settled on the Exchequer. A churchman who, at my desire, used sometimes to read to me the memorials on this head delivered to me for the king, would often say, that the glory accompanying fine actions must be of very little value in France, as the gentlemen of the army would not take it for a reward. The archbishop of Paris likewise used to say, that victories cost the state more than defeats.
The claimants would set forth their services with an arrogant modesty, which gave great offence to the court; especially they who had lost a limb were quite insupportable. One of these gentlemen (it was indeed after several journies to court to obtain a pension) said to me before several foreign ministers, Madam, since the King cannot give me an arm, which I have lost in his service, he should at least give me money.
Once an officer being come express with the news of the loss of a battle in Germany, the king said, Thank God, this time I shan’t be teazed about rewards. He was mistaken; for fifteen hundred officers, who had escaped the slaughter, came to Versailles, clamouring to be paid only for the great service of their being present at that action.
A lieutenant of grenadiers, to whom the secretary at war had procured a Saint Lewis’s cross without a pension, said to him, Sir, your Excellency has tied to my button-hole the sign of my courage, but you have forgot the reality of my bravery, meaning that he wanted a pension.