Abridged from Le Correspondant.
THE MARQUIS DE CHASTELLUX.
In the bleak region of Upper Burgundy, not far from the domain of Vauban, stands the old manor of Chastellux, famous since the fifteenth century as the birth-place of two brothers, one of whom became an admiral, the other a marshal of France. From this feudal stronghold came forth one of the most amiable of the courtiers of Louis XVI.—a disciple of Voltaire and Hume, a rival of Turgot and Adam Smith, a friend of Washington and Jefferson, a forerunner of the revolutionists of 1789, a philosopher, an historian, a political economist, something of a poet, something of a naturalist, something of an artist, a man of taste, an enthusiastic student, a brilliant talker, and an elegant writer. The rude Sieurs de Chastellux would have been not a little astonished could they have foreseen what character of man was destined to inherit their title.
François Jean de Beauvoir, first known as Chevalier and afterward Marquis de Chastellux, was born at Paris in 1734. He was a son of the Count de Chastellux, lieutenant-general of the armies of the king, by Mlle. d'Aguesseau, daughter of the chancellor. His mother, being left a widow at an early period, withdrew thereupon into the privacy of domestic life, and the young marquis had the good fortune to be brought up under the eyes of the Chancellor d'Aguesseau himself. He entered the army at sixteen, and was hardly twenty-one before he had risen to be colonel. He distinguished himself highly during the campaigns of the Seven Years' War, and it was as a reward of his gallantry no less than out of compliment to his hereditary rank that he was selected on one occasion to present to the king the flags of a conquered city. It is hard to understand how, in the midst of such an active life, he could find time for study; but for all that he knew Greek, Latin, English, and Italian, and had some acquaintance with every branch of science cultivated in his time. From boyhood he showed a zealous interest in every sort of invention or discovery which promised to be of practical use [{182}] to mankind. When the principle of inoculation for small-pox was first broached in Europe, everybody shrank in alarm from the experiment. The young marquis had himself inoculated without his mother's knowledge, and then, running to Buffon, who knew his family, exclaimed joyfully, "I am saved, and my example will be the means of saving many others."
When peace was declared in 1763, he was not yet thirty. With his eminent gifts of mind and person, a brilliant career in society lay open to him, but he aimed to be something more than a mere man of fashion. His first literary productions were biographical sketches of two of his brother officers, MM. de Closen and de. Belsunce, which appeared in the Mercure, in 1765. He wrote a lively and graceful little essay on the "Union of Poetry and Music,"—the same subject which Marmontel afterward treated in his poem of Polymnie. The great quarrel between the schools of Gluck and Piccini did not break out until ten years later; but mutterings of the coming tempest were heard already. Italian music had its enthusiastic admirers and its implacable foes, and in the midst of their disputes Monsigny and Grétry had just given to France a lyric school of her own by creating the comic opera. M. de Chastellux, like everybody else in those days, was passionately fond of the theatre, and he espoused the cause of Italian music with the ardor that characterized everything he did. About the same time he fell into the society of the Encyclopoedists, and allied himself with Helvétius, d'Alembert, Turgot, and the rest of the philosophical party, who received the illustrious recruit with open arms.
About the same time that M. de Chastellux left the army, and made his debut in civil life, the Scottish historian and philosopher, David Hume, arrived in Paris, with the British ambassador, Lord Hertford. He became the lion of the day. Courtiers and philosophers fell down and worshipped him; his skeptical opinions were eagerly imbibed, and the three years that he spent in the French capital became, owing to his extraordinary influence, one of the most important epochs in the literary history of the eighteenth century. M. de Chastellux shared in the general enthusiasm; and the "Essays" and "Political Discourses" of Hume, together with the Essai sur les moeurs et l'esprit des nations of Voltaire, which had appeared a few years before, wrought upon his mind a deep and lasting impression. The united influence of these two authors led him to a course of study which resulted in a work upon which his reputation was finally established. This was his celebrated treatise, "On Public Felicity; or, Considerations on the Condition of Man at different Periods of his History," in two volumes. It bears a resemblance to both its parents. It is historical, like the Essai sur les moeurs, and dogmatic, like the "Essays" and "Discourses." And that is one of its defects. The "Considerations" on the condition of man at various periods serve by way of introduction to the author's theory of public felicity; but the second part is inferior to the first. The body of the book is sacrificed to the introduction.
This was four years before the appearance of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations." The Marquis de Mirabeau and others of his school had begun to write; but their notions of political economy were still unfamiliar to the public. M. de Chastellux may therefore be regarded as one of the first supporters of that doctrine of human perfectibility which lies at the bottom of all the prevailing opinions of the eighteenth century. To this he added another theory, that the only end of government ought to be "the greatest happiness of the greatest possible number." Nearly one hundred years ago, therefore, he discovered and developed the principle which is now one of the most popular epitomes of social science. His style is good, [{183}] but neither very concise nor very brilliant. It is now and then obscure, sometimes digressive, sometimes declamatory; but for the most part clear, lively, and abounding in those happy touches which show the writer to be a man of the world as well as an author.
It is said that the immediate occasion of his writing the book was a conversation with Mably, the author of "Observations on the History of France," who maintained that the world was constantly degenerating, and that the men of to-day were not half so good as their grandfathers. The young philosopher, his head full of the new ideas, resolved to demonstrate the superiority of the present over the past. The first edition of his work appeared in 1772, two years before the death of Louis XV. It was printed anonymously in Holland. Everywhere it was read with avidity, abroad as well as in France. It was translated into English, German, and Italian. Voltaire read it at Ferney, and was so much struck by it that he covered his copy with marginal notes—not always of approbation—which were reproduced in a new edition of the work by the author's son, in 1822.
Despite great merits, which cannot be denied it, the essay "On Public Felicity" is now almost forgotten. In the historical portion, M. de Chastellux passes in review all the nations of ancient and modern times, for the purpose of showing that the general condition of man has never before been so good as it is now. The fundamental principle of his work is disclosed in the following profession of faith: "To say that man is born to be free, that his first care is to preserve his liberty when he enjoys it, and to recover it when he has lost it, is to attribute to him a sentiment which he shares with the whole animal kingdom, and which cannot be called in question. And if we add that this liberty is by its very nature indefinite, and that the liberty of one individual can only be limited by that of another, we do but express a truth which few in this enlightened age will be found to contradict. Look at society from this point of view, and you will see nothing but a series of encroachments and resistances; and if you want to form a just idea of government, you must consider it as the equilibrium which ought to result from these opposing struggles.… Government and legislation are only secondary and subordinate objects. They ought to be regarded merely as means through which men may preserve in the social state the greatest possible portion of natural liberty."
It is melancholy to see how, in a work that has so much to recommend it, the chapter which treats of the establishment of Christianity is disfigured by the skeptical philosophy of the age. Our regret at this is perhaps the more keen because the fault was altogether without excuse. Turgot had argued before the Sorbonne, only a few years previously, that a belief in the progress of the human race, so far from being incompatible with the doctrine of redemption, is its necessary consequence. De Chastellux might have shown that, if the coming of our Lord did not immediately effect a sensible reformation throughout the civilized world, it was because the vices and bad passions of the old pagan society long survived the overthrow of the old pagan gods. But there is this to be said for him: if he does not evince an adequate appreciation of the great moral revolution effected by Christianity, he at least does not speak of it in the same insolent tone that was fashionable in his day. When he comes down to modern times, and treats of density of population in its relation to national prosperity, he repeats the popular fallacy that the multiplication of religious orders exerts a pernicious influence upon the progress of population. But when from general views he descends to statistics, he refutes his own arguments. "The number of monks in France," he says, "according to a careful enumeration [{184}] made by order of government, a few years ago, was 26,674, and it certainly is not less now." In point of fact, the real number when the property of the clergy was confiscated in 1790 was only 17,000; and what is that in a population of 24,000,000 or 26,000,000? The army withdraws from the marriage state twenty times that number of men, in the vigor of their age; whereas the greater part of the monks are men in the decline of life.