For some time the King had been more chearful than usual: after so many vexations and fatigues, he now began to breathe a little; he was at leisure to be often with me, and to hunt as much as he could. Never was a Prince so fond of this exercise. His eagerness in it often fatigued him beyond all bounds. I one day represented to him, that he made a toil of that pleasure, and that it would be better for him to be more moderate in it; that excess in any thing was hurtful: but he answered, that the more he hunted, the better he found himself. This is a new medical system; the court-physicians, who are all for motion and agitation, will have kings to spend half their life on horse-back.
But a great satisfaction, which that justly beloved Prince now felt, was the having given some relief to his burthened subjects. He had remitted three millions of the land-tax, abolished the hundredth denier, and the pence per livres levied on this impost. Though this was no great good, it presaged the end of a great evil.
At the same time, Lewis XV. ordered an inquiry into the nature of the taxes; of all imposts, the land-tax was found to be the most burthensome, as not proportioned to the real income. The old tax was still levied, without considering any decays, or damages of estates and lands; many a market-town, or village, which had formerly been able to pay large sums, was now no longer so; yet the same duty was required.
The government deliberated on ways for abolishing such an unequal tax, and substitute another of a more proportionate assessment. This had, for some time past, been often proposed, but always rejected. It was now again taken into consideration, and after the most minute discussions, it was found best to leave things as they were, lest worse inconveniences might ensue. It is said, there are abuses in government, the reformation of which would do more harm than the very abuse itself. This was the opinion of the ministers, and of the King himself; but it was not mine, having always thought that no good can come from evil. We had often little debates about government, for Lewis XV. as I have said in the beginning of these Memoirs, has a great deal of wit and good-sense, and especially a very ready penetration. “You, Madam, would he say to me, look on the political community as a private family, whereas it is to be considered as an universal society, consisting of different bodies, the conjunction of which constitutes the state. Amidst this immensity of objects, conducted by men of opposite views and interests; the security and well-being of the state is upheld by those very things which seem to undermine it. In a private family, there is only one single plan of administration, the abuses are few, easily animadverted on, and the reformation of them restores that unity of government which is the perfection of such a society: but in the general community, good is to be continually ballanced by evil, and in this equipoize lies the political order of the state.”
“If so, Sir, said I to him, how is it that those states, where the most abuses are reformed, are the best governed. The Muscovites, of all the European nations, were the least civilized, and consequently the most unhappy, till Peter the Great appeared, who vigorously suppressing abuses of all kinds, from his reformation has sprung a powerful nation, a rich and happy people.
“Brandenburgh had neither force nor power; the art of war was scarce known there; it lay in obscurity; it was of no account among the states of Europe; and this contemptible condition was, in a great measure, owing to many abuses which its sovereigns either could not or would not reform. But in our times, one of its sovereigns has suppressed abuses, introduced political order and military discipline, and this reformation has enabled him to act a capital part on the theatre of Europe.”
“England is said once to have been nothing, till the parliament took in hand to form its power. It has since been continually retouching the political system, and correcting a number of abuses, which, for several centuries, hindered this state from emerging into power and reputation; and now its bills shew the continued system of its greatness.
“France, Sir, is a home instance of this. Lewis XIII. a weak Prince, and wholly governed by his ministers, concerned not himself about abuses; he left the state as he found it, full of mismanagement and disorder. Your great grand-father changed the whole, and by the reformation he brought about in all the branches of government, imparted, as it were, a new genius to his people.
“France, during the first years of Lewis XIV. rose to a pitch of glory and grandeur beyond any thing ever seen in the Roman empire.”
Here the King smiled, and very obligingly said to me, “I own, Madam, I did not think you had been so well acquainted with these points; it gives me infinite pleasure that, besides the graces of wit and vivacity, you are possessed of that knowledge which enlarges and revives the judgment. The world is often deceived in those matters, continued the King, and the greatness of Princes is almost ever confounded with the happiness of the people. A Sovereign may make reformations in his kingdom, and his subjects be never the better for them; he is the only gainer by the change.