CHAPTER VII.
THE FIRST REPUBLIC.
For the antiquary, the prints produced in France before the Revolution must ever possess the greatest interest, indicating as they do so clearly the tastes, the vanity, the luxury of that beau monde which was the France of those days when the lower orders counted for nothing, being but the hewers of wood, the drawers of water, and the chair-à-canon with which her kings and marshals won glory.
No attempt was made to hide the corruption and immorality which prevailed at Court—the amours of the kings were openly acknowledged, the highest titles were bestowed upon their mistresses, and the royal arms of France were borne by their almost innumerable offspring.
Although some of these women were of the humblest origin they affected a taste for literature and art, and the names of Diane de Poitiers, duchesse de Valentinois; Gabrielle d’Estrées; Marie Touchet; la Duchesse de la Vallière; la Marquise de Maintenon; Madame de Montespan; la Marquise de Pompadour; la Comtesse du Barry, with many others of lesser note, remind us that they formed extensive libraries. Books bearing their arms and ciphers on the bindings, or their book-plates, are still those most eagerly sought for by collectors of to-day. But what a bagatelle was all this as compared with the vast sums these courtesans drained from the nation, and the degradation they inflicted upon the aristocracy into whose ranks they and their children were elevated. Whilst on the other hand, the arrogance of the old nobility, their selfishness, their cruelty to their dependants, and their refusal to forego any of their pay or privileges in the black days of famine and national bankruptcy towards the close of the eighteenth century, hastened their fall and that of the monarchy.
Sir Walter Scott states that at the outbreak of the Revolution there were about eighty thousand families enjoying all the rights and privileges of nobility; and the order was divided into different classes, which looked on each other with mutual jealousy and contempt.
On this point let us quote the reports of two acknowledged authorities. M. de Saint-Allais, in his book “L’Ancienne France,” observes: “Nos historiens les plus accrédités ont remarqué qu’il existait en France, avant la Révolution, environ soixante dix mille fiefs, ou arrière-fiefs dont a peu près 3,000 étaient érigés en duchés, marquisats, comtés, vicomtés et baronies, et qu’ils comptaient aussi en ce royaume environ 4,000 families d’ancienne noblesse, c’est-à-dire de noblesse chevaleresque et immémoriale, et environ 90,000 familles qui avaient acquis la noblesse par l’exercice de charges de magistrature et de finances ou par le service militaire ou par des anoblissements quelconques.” Whilst in his “Nobles et Vilains,” M. Chassant states: “Il y avait en France, en 1788, au moins 8,000 marquis, comtes, et barons, dont 2,000 au plus l’étaient légitimement, 4,000 bien dignes de l’être, mais qui ne l’étaient que par tolérance abusive.”
From these statements it is evident that the number of nobles, or soi-disant nobles, was enormous; that their privileges (many of them grossly immoral) caused them to be extremely unpopular; that to keep up some kind of state and show made them exacting as landlords, whilst the etiquette of their rank prevented them from embarking in any kind of trade or business, so that employments in the Court, the Church, the Army, Law and the Civil Service, were almost entirely monopolized by this class. These offices, though highly paid, were, of course, totally unproductive, and created still further burdens to fall on the shoulders of the overtaxed lower orders.