The same spirit animated the Government of the time. In spite of his want of strength, his lamentable irresolution, and his well-intentioned lethargy of mind, Louis XVI possessed not a few of the qualities in which good kings excel—a high standard of morality and duty, a large fund of quiet simplicity and courage, a readiness to listen to the advice of wiser men, a marked sensitiveness to public opinion, and a genuine desire to serve his people. Louis had not been long upon the throne before he gave proof of his benevolent intentions by appointing to the office of Comptroller-General the greatest practical reformer of the day. Under Turgot the new spirit penetrated rapidly into every department. The extravagances of the Court were cut down. Useful changes were introduced into the system of farming and collecting the taxes. The Corvées were converted into a regular impost, from which the privileged classes were not exempt. The guilds, which monopolised and fettered trade, were suppressed. Fresh encouragement was offered to agriculture and commerce. Free trade in corn was established within the kingdom. The minister talked of commuting feudal dues, and dreamed of abolishing the inequalities of taxation. A spirit of gentleness and consideration came over the administration. The Government not only introduced reforms; it condescended to recommend them to the public, to point out their necessity, to explain their intention. 'The burden of this charge,' said the Royal edict which abolished the Corvées, 'falls solely upon those who possess nothing but the right to toil.' 'The right to work,' ran the preamble to the edict which suppressed the guilds, 'is the most sacred of all possessions, and every institution which infringes it, violates the natural rights of man.'

In the same way, Necker, when he succeeded Turgot, appealed for support to public opinion. He recognised the 'invisible power which commanded obedience even in the King's palace,' and endeavoured to justify his policy by publishing an account of the state of the finances. In the same way, though Turgot and Necker fell, and their schemes perished with them, the reforming spirit continued to affect the Government all through Louis' reign. Change after change, experiment after experiment, attested the readiness of the Crown to bend before the forces of the time. The measures taken, first of all to suppress, and afterwards partly to restore the guilds, destroyed the old relations between employers and workmen, while they did little to establish a more complete or satisfactory system in their place. And thus, when the Revolution came, there reigned generally among the artisans of the great towns a sense of uncertainty and discontent, which rendered discipline impossible and mischief easy.

Again, only a year before the Revolution, one royal decree transformed the administration of justice in France; while a year earlier, in 1787, another bold and memorable measure completed the reform begun as an experiment some years before, and established provincial assemblies in all the Pays d'Élection. The importance of this step, which has been sometimes overlooked among the graver changes of a later day, can hardly be exaggerated; for it introduced, almost without warning, a new principle into the government of the country. By the side of the autocratic Intendants, new provincial assemblies were created, which stripped the Intendants of most of their powers, or, if they resisted, entered into active competition with them. By the side of the autocratic Sub-Delegates, new district assemblies were formed, to pursue a similar course of action in a smaller sphere. In place of the ancient parochial assemblies, and in the midst of the inequalities and privileges, of which French villages were the familiar scene, and which in themselves remained unaltered, new, elective, municipal bodies sprang up to assert democratic methods, among conditions wholly irreconcilable with democratic ideas. When one considers the scope of these important changes, their novelty, their inconsistencies, and the suddenness with which they were made, one realises something of the confusion and paralysis which they must have produced in the public service, and one begins to understand why the agents of the Government proved so powerless, in spite of their prestige, when they had to face the crisis in 1789. On the very eve of the Revolution, Louis and his advisers, forgetful of the salutary maxim that the most dangerous moment for a bad Government is the moment when it meddles with reform, had deliberately destroyed the old, despotic, administrative system, which, at the end of the eighteenth century, formed the only certain mainstay of the throne.

It is not necessary to linger here over the episodes of Louis' reign. Turgot and Necker fell in turn; but Necker carried with him from office a reputation for sound finance, for disinterestedness, and for honest liberality of opinion, which won for him a name out of all proportion to his powers. He left behind him a problem of ever-increasing difficulty, and a deficit alarmingly enlarged by the intervention of France in the American war. For a time, after the overthrow of Necker, reactionary influences had their way. The wastefulness of the Treasury continued. The spectre of reform was for the moment laid. And at the head of that splendid and light-hearted Court, which combined the profuse traditions of the Grand Monarque with the gay philanthropy that was the fashion of the day, and resented all economies as mean, and radical innovations as thoroughly ill-bred, there stood, conspicuous in brilliancy and beauty, the figure of the Queen. Wilful and proud, unthinking and extravagant, intolerant of disagreeable facts, because she was wholly ignorant of their truth, already widely calumniated and misjudged, but destined to face far worse calumnies, which partisanship, in the mask of history, has repeated since, Marie Antoinette has never ceased to command the interest and attention of posterity, as her tragic story, and the fall to which her errors partly led, have never ceased to move its pity and respect. In 1783, Calonne took office as Comptroller-General, and for four years, encouraged by the favour of the Queen and Court, and helped by his own surprising agility and resource, Calonne maintained his place. Money was found at ruinous expense to supply the necessities of the Government and the rapacious claims of courtiers. Every day bankruptcy came more distinctly into view. At last Calonne, unable to carry on his system any longer, fell back upon a desperate expedient. He summoned, in February, 1787, an extraordinary assembly of Notables, consisting of nobles, bishops, magistrates and officials, laid before them frankly the situation of affairs, and gaily informed them that within the last ten years the Government had borrowed no less than fifty millions sterling.

It is curious to notice the attitude of this assembly, and the way in which its action was received by the country. As might be expected, the Notables, consisting almost entirely of members of the privileged orders, were not prepared to make large personal sacrifices to save the state. When Calonne audaciously proposed to them the abolition of privileges and exemptions, and asked them to submit to a heavy tax, he fell, amid a storm of reproaches from the courtiers, who regarded him as a deserter from their ranks. But instead of carrying popular sympathy with him, Calonne found that his opponents, although they were resisting reform, had usurped the popularity of reformers. The Notables adroitly shifted the ground of attack to the conduct of the Government. They demanded the public accounts. They censured the acts of the Administration. And simply because they assailed the Government, and ventured to criticise and oppose the Crown, they suddenly found themselves, to their own surprise, transformed into popular heroes, and their conduct and courage applauded all over the kingdom. The same thing happened after Calonne's fall. Loménie de Brienne, the Archbishop of Toulouse, succeeded to Calonne's office, and found himself compelled to take up many of Calonne's plans. Thereupon the Parlement of Paris stepped to the front, and following the example of the Notables, accepted some of the Minister's reforms, and particularly the edict for the establishment of provincial assemblies, while they rejected the new taxes, which were an inseparable part of the Government's scheme. In vain the King threatened and punished the members of the Parlement. The Parlement, borrowing the language of the times, and forgetting that they themselves were only a privileged and exclusive corporation, posed as the representatives of the nation, and demanded that the States-General should be summoned to express the national will.

The Government attempted to carry its schemes through with a high hand. All over the kingdom, the local Parlements, the judicial magistracy of France, took up the cause of the exiled Parlement of Paris, echoed its tones, and even threatened dangerous rebellion. In Dauphiné, in particular, the clergy, nobles, and commons of the province, gathering at Vizille, and led by the courageous eloquence of Mounier, protested against the policy of the Minister, and defied the Crown. The nation, caring little for the rights or wrongs of the quarrel, but delighted to see the all-powerful Government baffled and assailed, welcomed the Parlements as national deliverers, and proclaimed them the champions of popular freedom. For a moment the strange spectacle offered of the privileged orders in France defending their privileges, with the enthusiastic support of the nation, against the Government, which wished to destroy them in the interests of all. In face of this extraordinary union, the Government recoiled. Alarmed by the increase of riots and disorder, by the high price of food, by the disaffection in the army, by the Ministry's total loss of credit, and by the prospect of bankruptcy in the immediate future, the King decided to consult the nation. He announced that the States-General, the ancient, representative Parliament of France, would again, after the lapse of a century and three-quarters, assemble to debate the destinies of the kingdom. Then the popularity of the privileged bodies died as suddenly as it had begun. In August, 1788, Necker was recalled to office, and a general outburst of rejoicing celebrated the astonishing surrender of the Crown.

A wise minister would have endeavoured by prompt and decisive action to allay the vague excitement of the time. Every day the feeling of restlessness was spreading in the country. Paris had become a great debating club. The tension in the public mind was already extreme. Instead, however, of hurrying on the elections, instead of showing a resolution to face the crisis with enlightenment and calmness, the Government hesitated, procrastinated, wavered, and allowed all the world to see that it had formed no policy, and hardly knew what its intentions were. The meeting of the States-General was delayed until the following spring, and in the meantime the Government stimulated the fever of opinion. All through the winter of 1788-9, France was flooded with political addresses and with democratic pamphlets—among which the audacious pamphlet of the Abbé Sieyès excited general remark—calculated to raise as high as possible the hopes and pride of the Tiers-État. To add to the war of words, the Government invited all classes to draw up Cahiers or petitions of grievances, to be laid before the States-General, when they met, and thus, by its own action, it focussed the attention of its subjects on the many abuses which had been borne silently so long.

Moreover, when the important question of the constitution of the new States-General arose, the Government found it impossible to make up its mind. In the electoral arrangements, as might be expected from the innumerable local and personal rights still existing in the country, there was very great complexity and confusion. But the general principle, at any rate in the Pays d'Élection, was this. The nobles and clergy of each Bailliage, as a rule, elected their representatives directly, though the rule was subject to a good many exceptions. In the election of the commons, on the other hand, the voting was in no case direct, but had two, or even three or four degrees. All Frenchmen over twenty-five, who had paid even the smallest amount of direct taxes, had votes. They might vote for any representatives they pleased, for there was no property qualification for candidates. But they could not vote for them directly. The electoral assembly of each Bailliage thus consisted of the nobles and clergy of the Bailliage, and of a number of representatives of the commons, who had been previously elected by primary assemblies of voters in the different towns and villages of the Bailliage. When the electoral assembly of the Bailliage had been formed, the nobles, the clergy, and the electors of the Tiers-État, who composed it, separated into three distinct bodies[5], and each order chose a certain number of deputies to represent it in the States-General at Versailles. The number of deputies allowed to each Bailliage varied according to circumstances, but was mainly determined by its population and wealth.

It was arranged without opposition that the nobles and the clergy in the States-General should have, according to usage, three hundred representatives each; but then the difficult question arose, how many deputies were the Tiers-État to elect. The advocates of democracy urged, amid enthusiastic applause from the public, that the commons infinitely out-numbered the other two orders, and ought therefore to have at least double the number of representatives. On this point Louis and Necker alike wavered undecided, besieged by the importunities of the democratic feeling which they had let loose in France. In vain Necker, in November, 1788, gathered another assembly of Notables, and tried to shift his responsibility on to them. The Government at last made up its mind to concession, and announced that the commons were to have 'the double representation'—six hundred representatives in the new Parliament. But the genius of irresolution still dogged its steps. It could not even then bring itself to decide whether the three orders should sit and vote in separate Houses, or whether they should all sit in one Chamber and vote together. The timidest intelligence must have perceived that, unless the three orders were to vote in one body, the numerical superiority which the commons had obtained would be without significance, and the Government's concession to popular feeling would be merely a delusion. And yet to the last this important question was left undecided by the Crown, as a fruitful source of quarrel out of which the troubles of the Revolution might begin. So, with a Government perplexed by fears, with a local administration paralysed by a variety of recent changes, with signs of disorder multiplying upon every side, with innumerable difficulties requiring settlement, and with the fixed spirit of old traditions vainly attempting to assimilate the new, the monarchy prepared to meet the representatives of the nation, who, already flushed with triumph, and intoxicated with self-confidence and hope, advanced to realise their long-delayed millennium, and with the aid of freedom and philosophy to readjust the destinies of France.

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