Kitabı oku: «The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789», sayfa 19

CHAPTER II

HOW THIS VAGUE PERTURBATION OF THE HUMAN MIND SUDDENLY BECAME IN FRANCE A POSITIVE PASSION, AND WHAT FORM THIS PASSION AT FIRST ASSUMED

In the year 1787 this vague perturbation of the human mind, which I have just described, and which had for some time past been agitating the whole of Europe without any precise direction, suddenly became in France an active passion directed to a positive object. But, strange to say, this object was not that which the French Revolution was to attain: and the men who were first and most keenly affected by this new passion were precisely those whom the Revolution was to devour.

At first, indeed, it was not so much the equality of rights as political freedom which was looked for; and the Frenchmen who were first moved themselves, and who set society in motion, belonged not to the lower but to the highest order. Before it sunk down to the people, this new-born detestation of absolute and arbitrary power burst forth amongst the nobles, the clergy, the magistracy, the most privileged of the middle classes,—those in short who, coming nearest in the State to the master, had more than others the means of resisting him and the hope of sharing his power.

But why was the hatred of despotism the first symptom? Was it not because in this state of general dissatisfaction, the common ground on which it was most easy to agree was that of war against a political power, which either oppressed every one alike or supported that by which every one was oppressed; and because the noble and the rich found in liberty the only mode of expressing this dissatisfaction, which they felt more than any other class?

I shall not relate how Louis XVI. was led by financial considerations to convoke about him, in an assembly, the members of the nobility, the clergy, and the upper rank of the commons, and to submit to this body of ‘Notables’ the state of affairs. I am discussing history, not narrating it. It is well known that this assembly, which met at Versailles on the 22nd February, 1787, consisted of nine peers of France, twenty noblemen, eight privy councillors, four masters of requests, ten marshals of France, thirteen archbishops or bishops, eighteen chief judges, twenty-two municipal officers of different cities, twelve deputies of the provinces which had retained their local estates, and some other magistrates—in all from 125 to 130 members.⁹⁷ Henry IV. had once before used the same means to postpone the meeting of the States-General and to obtain without them a sort of public sanction to his measures: but the times were changed. In 1596 France was at the close of a long revolution, wearied by her efforts, and distrustful of her powers, seeking nothing but rest, and asking of her rulers no more than an external deference. The Notables caused her without difficulty to forget the States-General. But in 1787 they only revived the recollection of them in her memory. In the reign of Henry IV., these princes, these nobles, these bishops, these wealthy commoners who were summoned to advise the King, were still the masters of society. They could therefore control the movement they had set on foot. Under Louis XVI. in 1787 these same classes retained only the externals of power. We have seen that the substance of it was lost to them for ever. They were, so to speak, hollow bodies, resonant but easily crushed: still capable of exciting the people, incapable of directing it.

This great change had come about insensibly and imperceptibly. By none was it clearly perceived. Those most affected by it knew not that it had taken place. Even their opponents doubted it. The whole nation had lived so long apart from its own concerns, that it took but a hazy view of its condition. All the evils from which it suffered seemed to have merged in a spirit of opposition and a dislike for the existing Government. No sooner were the Notables assembled than, forgetting that they were the nominees of the sovereign, chosen by him to give their advice and not their injunctions, they proceeded to act as the representatives of the country. They demanded the public accounts, they censured the acts of the Government, they attacked most of the measures, the execution of which they were merely asked to facilitate. Their assistance was sought: they proffered their opposition.

Public opinion instantly rose in their favour, and threw its whole weight on their side. Then was witnessed the strange spectacle of a Government proposing measures favourable to the people without ceasing to be unpopular, and of an Assembly resisting these measures with the support of public favour.

Thus the Government proposed to reform the salt tax (la gabelle), which pressed so heavily and often so cruelly on the people. It would have abolished forced labour, reformed the taille, and suppressed the twentieths, a species of tax from which the upper classes had continued to make themselves exempt. In place of these taxes, which were to be abolished or reformed, a land-tax was to be imposed, on the very same basis which has since become the basis of the land-tax of France, and the custom-houses, which placed grievous restrictions on trade and industry, were to be removed to the frontier of the kingdom. Beside, and almost in the place of, the Intendants who administered each province, an elective body was to be constituted, with the power not only of watching the conduct of public business, but, in most cases, of directing it. All these measures were conformable to the spirit of the times. They were resisted or postponed by the Notables. Nevertheless, the Government remained unpopular, and the Notables had the public cry in their favour.

Fearing that he had not been understood, the Minister, Calonne, explained in a public document that the effect of the new laws would be to relieve the people from a portion of the taxes, and to throw that portion on the rich. That was true, but the Minister was still unpopular. ‘The clergy,’ said he elsewhere, ‘are, before all things, citizens and subjects. They must pay taxes like all the rest. If the clergy have debts, a part of their property must be sold to discharge them.’ That again was to aim at one of the tenderest points of public opinion: the point was touched, but the public were unmoved.

On the question of the reform of the taille, the Notables opposed it on the ground that it could not relieve those who paid it without imposing an excessive burden on the other tax-payers, especially on the nobility and clergy, whose privileges on the score of taxation had already been reduced to almost nothing. The abolition of internal custom-houses was objected to peremptorily on behalf of the privileges of certain provinces, which were to be treated with great forbearance.

They highly approved in principle the creation of provincial assemblies. But they desired that, instead of uniting together the three Orders in these small local bodies, they should be separated, and always be presided over by a nobleman or a prelate, for, said some of the Committees of Notables, ‘these assemblies would tend to democracy if they were not guided by the superior lights of the first Order.’

Nevertheless, the popularity of the Notables remained unshaken to the end: nay, it was continually on the increase. They were applauded, incited, encouraged: and when they resisted the Government, they were loudly cheered on to the attack. The King, hastening to dismiss them, thought himself obliged to offer them his public thanks.

Not a few of these persons are said to have been amazed at this degree of public favour and sudden power. They would have been far more astonished at it if they could have foreseen what was about to follow: if they had known that these same laws, which they had resisted with so much popular applause, were founded on the very principles which were to triumph in the Revolution; that the traditional institutions which they opposed to the innovations of the Government were precisely the institutions which the Revolution was about to destroy.

That which caused the popularity of these Notables was not the form of their opposition, but the opposition itself. They criticised the abuses of the Government; they condemned its prodigality; they demanded an account of its expenditure; they spoke of the constitutional laws of the country, of the fundamental principles which limit the unlimited power of the Crown, and, without precisely demanding the interposition of the nation in the government by the States-General, they perpetually suggested that idea. This was enough.

The Government had already long been suffering from a malady which is the endemic and incurable disease of powers that have undertaken to order, to foresee, to do everything. It had assumed a universal responsibility. However men might differ in the grounds of their complaints, they agreed in blaming the common source of them; what had hitherto been no more than a general inclination of mind, then became a universal and impetuous passion. All the secret sores caused by daily contact with dilapidated institutions, which chafed both manners and opinion in a thousand places—all the smothered animosities kept alive by divided classes, by contested positions, by absurd or oppressive distinctions, rose against the supreme power. Long had they sought a pathway to the light of day: that path once opened they rushed blindly along it. It was not their natural path, but it was the first they found open. Hatred of arbitrary power became then their sole passion, and the Government their common enemy.

CHAPTER III

HOW THE PARLIAMENTS OF FRANCE, FOLLOWING PRECEDENT, OVERTHREW THE MONARCHY

The feudal Government, whose ruins still sheltered the nation, had been a government in which arbitrary power, violence, and great freedom were commingled. Under its laws, if actions had often been restricted, speech was habitually independent and bold. The legislative power was exercised by kings, but never without control. When the great political assemblies of France ceased to be, the Parliaments took, in some sort, the place of them; and before they enregistered in the code that regulated their judicial proceedings a new law decreed by the King, they stated to the sovereign their objections, and made known to him their opinions.

Much inquiry has been made as to the first origin of this usurpation of legislative power by judicial authority. It is vain to seek that origin elsewhere than in the general manners of the time, which could not tolerate, or even conceive, a power so absolute and secret, as not, at least, to admit of discussion on the terms of obedience. The institution was in nowise premeditated. It sprang spontaneously from the very root of the ideas then prevalent and from the usages alike of subjects and of kings.

An edict, before it was put in force, was sent down to the Parliament. The agents of the Crown explained its principles and its merits; the magistrates discussed it. All this was done in public, in open debate, with that virility which characterised all the institutions of the Middle Ages. It frequently happened that the Parliament sent deputies to the King, several times over, to supplicate him to modify or withdraw an edict. If the King came down in person, he allowed his own law to be debated with vivacity, sometimes with violence, in his presence. But when at last his will was made known, all was silence and obedience: for the magistracy acknowledged that they were no more than the first officers and representatives of the sovereign; their duty was to advise but not to coerce him.

In 1787, the ancient precedents of the monarchy were faithfully and strictly followed. The old machine of Royal government was again set in motion: but it became apparent that the machine was propelled by some new motive power of an unknown kind, which, instead of causing it to move onwards, was about to break it in pieces.

The King then, according to custom, caused the new edicts to be brought down to the Parliament: and the Parliament, equally according to custom, laid its humble remonstrance at the steps of the throne.⁹⁸

The King replied; and Parliaments insisted. For centuries things had gone on thus, and the nation heard from time to time this sort of political dialogue carried on above its head between the sovereign and his magistrates. The practice had only been interrupted during the reign of Louis XIV. and for a time. But the novelty lay in the subject of the debate and the nature of the arguments.

This time the Parliament, before it proceeded to register the edicts, called for all the accounts of the finance department, which we should now call the budget of the State, in support of the measures; and as the King naturally declined to hand over the entire government to a body which was irresponsible and non-elected, and so to share the legislative power with a Court of Justice, the Parliament then declared that the nation alone had the right to raise fresh taxes,⁹⁹ and thereupon demanded that the nation should be convoked. The Parliament grasped the very heart of the people, but held it only for a moment.

The arguments put forward by the Magistracy in support of their demands were not less novel than the demands themselves. The King, they said, was only the administrator and not the owner of the public fortune: the representative and chief officer of the nation, not its master. Sovereignty resided in the nation itself. The nation alone could decide great questions: its rights were not dependent on the will of the sovereign; they took their being from the nature of man; they were as inalienable and indestructible as human nature itself. ‘The institution of the States-General,’ they declared, ‘is a principle founded on the rights of man and confirmed by reason.’¹⁰⁰ ‘Common interest has combined men in society, and given rise to governments: that alone can maintain them.’¹⁰¹ ‘No prescription of the States-General can run against the nature of things or against the imperishable rights of the nation.’¹⁰² ‘Public opinion is rarely mistaken: it is rare that men receive impressions contrary to truth.’¹⁰³

The King having exiled the Parliament from Paris, that body protested that liberty of speech and action was an inalienable right of man, and could not be wrested from him without tyranny, save by the regular forms of judicial procedure.

It must not be supposed that the Parliaments alleged these principles as novelties:¹⁰⁴ they were, on the contrary, very industriously traced up to the cradle of the monarchy. The judgments or decrees of the Parliament of Paris were crammed with historical quotations, frequently borrowed from the Middle Ages, in barbarous Latin. They are full of provincial capitulations, royal ordinances, beds of justice, rules, privileges, and precedents, which lost themselves in the shadows of the past.

Strangely enough, at the same moment that the Parliament of Franche-Comté proclaimed the indestructible rights of the nation, it protested against any infraction of the peculiar privileges of the province as they existed at the period of annexation under Louis XIV. So again the Parliament of Normandy invoked the States-General of the kingdom ‘to inaugurate a new order of things,’ but not the less did it demand, in the name of its own feudal traditions, the restoration of the States of Normandy, as the peculiar privilege of that province: so curiously were ideas, just born into the world, enclosed and swathed in these remains of antiquity.

It was a tradition of the old monarchy that the Parliament should use in its remonstrances animated and almost violent language: a certain exaggeration of words was conceded to it. The most absolute sovereigns had tolerated this licence of speech, by reason, indeed, of the powerlessness of those who uttered it: as they were certain in the end to be reduced to obedience and compressed within narrow limits, the indulgence of a free utterance was readily left to them. The Parliament, moreover, was wont to make a great deal of noise for a small result: what it said went beyond what it meant: this franchise had become a sort of right of the magistracy.

On this occasion the Parliament carried their ancient freedom to a degree of licence never heard before; for a new-born fire was burning in their hearts and unconsciously inflamed their language. Certainly, among the governments of our own time, which are almost all, nevertheless, governments maintained by the sword, not one could allow its ministers and its measures to be attacked in such terms by the representatives of its own authority.

‘Despotism, Sire,’ said the Parliament of Paris, ‘is substituted for the laws of the realm, and the magistracy is no more than the instrument of arbitrary power.... Would that Your Majesty could interrogate the victims of that power, confined forgotten in impenetrable prisons, the abode of silence and injustice; those whom intrigue, cupidity, the jealousy of power, the thirst of vengeance, the fear or the hatred of justice, private pique or personal convenience, have caused to be put there.’ Then drawing a parallel between two citizens, one rich and the other poor, the latter being oppressed by the former, the Parliament added—‘Is indigence then a crime? Have flesh and blood no claims? Does a man without credit, or a poor man, cease to be a citizen?’

It was especially on the subject of taxation and against the collectors of the revenue that, even in the calmest times, the judicial bodies were accustomed to inveigh with extreme violence. No sooner was the new tax announced than the Parliament of Paris declared it to be disastrous; consternation followed the proposal; its adoption would give rise to a general mourning.¹⁰⁵ The population, harassed by fiscal exactions, were at their wits’ end.¹⁰⁶ To arrogate to one’s self the power of levying tribute without the States-General was to declare aloud that the sovereign seeks not to be a king of France, but a king of serfs.¹⁰⁷ The substance of the people was become the prey of the cupidity of courtiers and the rapacity of contractors.¹⁰⁸

Great as was the excitement of that time, it would still be very difficult to account for the language of these magistrates without recalling what had been said so many times before on the same subject. As under the old monarchy most of the taxes were levied on account of private persons, who held them on farm, or by their agents; for centuries past men had accustomed themselves to look upon taxation as it bore on the private emolument of certain individuals, and not as the common income of the nation. Taxes were commonly denounced as odious exactions. The salt duty was styled the infernal machine of the gabelle: those who collected the taxes were spoken of as public robbers, enriched by the poverty of everybody else. So said the tax-payers; the courts of justice held the same language; and even the Government, which had leased to these very farmers the rights they exercised, scarcely spoke differently of them. It seemed as if their business was not its own, and that it sought a way of escape amidst the clamour which pursued its own agents.

When, therefore, the Parliament of Paris spoke in this manner on the subject of taxes, it merely followed an old and general practice. The play was the same, but the audience was changed; and the clamour, instead of dying away as it had commonly done within the limit of the classes whom their privileges caused to be but little affected by taxation, was now so loud and so reiterated that it penetrated to those classes which bore the heaviest burden, and ere long filled them with indignation.

If the Parliament employed new arguments to vindicate its own rights, the Government employed arguments not less new in defence of its ancient prerogatives. For example, in a pamphlet attributed to the Court, which appeared about that time, the following passage occurs:—‘It is a question of privilege which excites the Parliament. They want to retain their exemption from taxation; this is nothing but a formidable combination between the nobility of sword and gown to continue under colour of liberty to humble and enslave the commons, whom the King alone defends, and means to raise.’¹⁰⁹

‘My object has been’ said Calonne, ‘to slay the hydra of privileges, exemptions, and abuses.’¹¹⁰

Whilst, however, these discussions were going on upon the principle of government, the daily work of administration threatened to stop: there was no money. The Parliament had rejected the measures relating to taxation. It refused to sanction a loan. In this perplexity the King, seeing that he could not gain over the Assembly, attempted to coerce it. He went down to the Chamber, and before he proceeded to command their submission, less eager to exercise his rights than to confirm them, he caused the Edicts to be again debated in his presence. He began by laying down that his authority was absolute. The legislative power resided in its integrity in his hands. He required no extraordinary powers to carry on the government. The States-General, when he chose to consult them, could only tender advice; he was still the supreme arbiter of their representations and their grievances. This sitting took place on November 19th, 1787. Having said thus much, every one was allowed to speak in his presence. The most opposite and often violent propositions were asserted to his face during a discussion of eight hours; after which he withdrew, declaring, as his last word, that he refused to convoke the States-General at present, though he promised them for the year 1791.

Yet, after having thus suffered his most acknowledged and least formidable rights to be contested in his own presence, the King resolved to resume the exercise of those which were most disputed and most unpopular. His own act had opened the mouths of the speakers, but he sought to punish them for having spoken. In one of its remonstrances the Parliament of Paris had said, ‘Sire, the French monarchy would be reduced to a state of despotism if, under the King’s authority, Ministers could dispose of personal freedom by lettres de cachet, and of the rights of property by lits de justice, of civil and criminal affairs by scire facias,¹¹¹ and of the judicature itself by partial exile or by the arbitrary translation of judges.’

To which the King replied: ‘If the greater number of votes in my Courts can constrain my will, the monarchy would become a mere aristocracy of magistrates.’ ‘Sire,’ rejoined the Parliament, ‘no aristocracy in France, but no despotism.’¹¹²

Two men, in the course of this struggle, had especially distinguished themselves by the boldness of their speeches and by their revolutionary attitude: these were M. Goislard and M. d’Eprémenil. It was resolved to arrest them. Then occurred a scene, the prelude, so to speak, of the great tragedy that was to follow, well calculated to exhibit an easy-going Government under the aspect of tyranny.

Informed of the resolution taken against them, these two magistrates left their homes, and took refuge in the Parliament itself, in the full dress of their Order, where they were lost amidst the crowd of judges forming that great body. The Palace of Justice was surrounded by troops, and the doors guarded. Viscount d’Agoult, who commanded them, appeared alone in the great Chamber. The whole Parliament was assembled, and sitting in the most solemn form. The number of the judges, the venerable antiquity of the Court, the dignity of their dress, the simplicity of their demeanour, the extent of their power, the majesty of the very hall, filled with all the memorials of our history, all contributed to make the Parliament the greatest and most honoured thing in France, after the Throne.

In presence of such an Assembly the officer stood at first at gaze. He was asked who sent him there. He answered in rough but embarrassed accents, and demanded that the two members whom he was ordered to arrest should be pointed out to him. The Parliament sat motionless and silent. The officer withdrew—re-entered—then withdrew again; the Parliament, still motionless and silent, neither resisting nor yielding. The time of year was that when the days are shortest. Night came on. The troops lit fires round the approaches to the Palace, as round a besieged fort. The populace, astonished by so unwonted a sight, surrounded them in crowds, but stood aloof: the populace was touched but not yet excited, and therefore stood aloof to contemplate, by the light of those bivouac fires, a scene so new and unwonted under the monarchy. For there it might see how the oldest Government in Europe applied itself to teach the people to outrage the majesty of the oldest institutions, and to violate in their sanctuary the most august of ancient powers.

This lasted till midnight, when D’Eprémenil at last rose. He thanked the Parliament for the effort it had made to save him. He declined to trespass longer on the generous sympathy of his colleagues. He commended the commonwealth and his children to their care, and, descending the steps of the court, surrendered himself to the officer. It seemed as if he was leaving that assembly to mount the scaffold. The scaffold, indeed, he was one day to mount, but that was in other times and under other powers. The only living witness of this strange scene, Duke Pasquier, has told me that at these words of D’Eprémenil the whole Assembly burst into tears, as if it had been Regulus marching out of Rome to return to the horrid death which awaited him in Carthage. The Marshal de Noailles sobbed aloud. Alas! how many tears were ere long to be shed on loftier woes than these. Such grief was no doubt exaggerated, but not unreal. At the commencement of a revolution the vivacity of emotions greatly exceeds the importance of events, as at the close of revolutions it falls short of them.

Having thus struck a blow at the whole body of the Parliaments, represented by their chief, it only remained to annihilate their power. Six edicts were simultaneously published.¹¹³ These edicts, which roused all France, were designed to effect several of the most important and useful reforms which the Revolution has since accomplished: the separation of the legislative and judicial powers, the abolition of exceptional courts of justice, and the establishment of all the principles which, to this day, govern the judicial organisation of France, both civil and criminal. All these reforms were conceived in the true spirit of the age, and met the real and lasting wants of society. But, as they were aimed at the privileged jurisdiction of the Parliaments, they struck down the idol of the hour, and they emanated from a power which was detested. That was enough. In the eyes of the nation these new edicts were a triumph of absolute government. The time had not yet come when everything may be pardoned by democracy to despotism in exchange for order and equality. In a moment the nation rose. Each Parliament became at once a focus of resistance round which the Orders of the province grouped themselves, so as to present a firm front to the action of the central power of government.

France was at that time divided, as is well known, into thirteen judicial provinces, each of which was attached to a Parliament. All these Parliaments were absolutely independent of one another, all of them had equal prerogatives, all of them were invested with the same right of discussing the mandates of the legislator before submitting to them. This organisation will be seen to have been natural, on looking back to the time when most of these courts of justice were founded. The different parts of France were so dissimilar in their interests, their disposition, their customs, and their manners, that the same legislation could not be applied to all of them at once. As a distinct law was usually enacted for each province, it was natural that in each province there should be a Parliament whose duty it was to test this law. In more recent times, the French having become more similar, one law sufficed for all: but the right of testing the law remained divided.

An edict of the King applying equally to the whole of France, after it had been accepted and executed in a certain manner in one part of the territory, might still be modified or contested in the twelve other parts. That was the right, but that was not the custom. For a long period of time the separate Parliaments had ceased to contest anything, save the administrative rules, which might be peculiar to their own province. They did not debate the general laws of the kingdom, unless the peculiar interests of their own province seemed to be affected by some one of their provisions. As for the principle of such laws, their opportunity or efficiency, these were considerations they did not commonly entertain. On these points they were wont to rely on the Parliament of Paris, which, by a sort of tacit agreement, was looked up to by all the other Parliaments as their political guide.

On this occasion each Parliament chose to examine these edicts, as if they concerned its own province alone, and as if it had been the sole representative of France; each province chose, too, to distinguish itself by a separate resistance in the midst of the general resistance they encountered. All of these discussed the principle of each edict, as well as its special application. A clause which had been accepted without difficulty by one of these bodies was obstinately opposed elsewhere: one of them barely notices what called forth the indignation of another. Assailed by thirteen adversaries at once, each of which attacked with different weapons and struck in different places, the Government, amidst all these bodies, could not lay its hand upon a single head.

But, what was even more remarkable than the diversity of these attacks, was the uniform intention which animated them. Each of the thirteen courts struggled after its own fashion and upon its own soil, but the sentiment which excited them was identically the same. The remonstrances made at that time by the different Parliaments, and published by them, would fill many volumes; but open the book where you will, you seem to be reading the same page: always the same thoughts expressed for the most part in the same words. All of them demanded the States-General in the name of the imprescriptible rights of the nation: all of them approved the conduct of the Parliament of Paris, protested against the acts of violence directed against it, encouraged it to resist, and imitated, as well as it could, not only its measures, but the philosophical language of its opposition. ‘Subjects,’ said the Parliament of Grenoble, ‘have rights as well as the sovereign—rights which are essential to all who are not slaves.’ ‘The just man,’ said the Parliament of Normandy, ‘does not change his principles when he changes his abode.’ ‘The King,’ said the Parliament of Besançon, ‘cannot wish to have for his subjects humiliated slaves.’¹¹⁴ The tumult raised at the same time by all these magistrates scattered over the surface of the country sounds like the confused noise of a multitude: listen attentively to what they are saying: it is as the voice of one man.