[1780-1789 A.D.]

manners and talent of a second-rate comedienne." This was a severe criticism, but if her conduct did not deserve it, she gave occasion for hasty judgment. But it is time to speak on this delicate subject.

One may imagine how the queen, having drawn on herself the enmity of the king's aunts, of monsieur, of madame, of madame d'Artois, and of the greater part of the great ladies, has been calumniated for her morals. Posterity, to get at the truth, ought to ignore nineteen-twentieths of the accusations against her; but as the ways of Roman empresses, like those of queens of the Middle Ages, are the mainspring of history, and as those of the French queens have had a powerful influence on state destinies, I will relate some facts that I have learned from those who knew the Old Régime well, and who confirmed them during the Revolution while I was writing these memoirs.

The queen, as long as Louis XV lived, conducted herself with more dignity than when she was queen of France. From that epoch, until the birth of madame,1 she did nothing to hinder the complaints which were heard with regard to her. Edward, nicknamed le beau Dillon, and M. de Coigny passed as her lovers. They went so far as to put the count of Artois on the list. "We made this discovery by accident," said a lady to me, "for the count of Artois put his foot on that of madame de . . . thinking he had put it on that of Marie Antoinette." From 1774 to 1789 the court was a strange mixture. The queen was openly reproached with having the morals credited in history to several empresses.d

The Diamond Necklace

All these scandals were to find an echo and one which even added to them though there were enough of them already. The prince of Guéménée, one of the Rohans, made a shameful bankruptcy. A short time after, another Rohan, Louis, archbishop of Strasburg, and a cardinal, a corrupt prelate and courtier, became, through his credulity, the victim of an intrigue which publicly compromised the queen. Ambitious of being made a minister, and desiring to gain the favour of Marie Antoinette, or rather to turn aside the enmity he had incurred, he bought a necklace for her which cost 1,600,000 francs. He permitted himself to be duped by an intriguing woman, the countess de la Motte-Valois, who promised to deliver it in his name. was overwhelmed with debt, despite his ecclesiastical revenues which amounted to 1,200,000 francs. He could not pay the first instalment and the jewellers applied to the king. Vergennes and Miromesnil advised the hushing up of the affair, but Louis XVI preferred to follow the advice of two intimate friends of the queen, who wished to ruin the cardinal. He ordered De Rohan to be arrested and sent to the Bastille.

He

The Rohans cried out at this; the public, ignorant of what had happened, believed it an abuse of power and an act of vengeance on the part of Marie Antoinette. The cardinal demanded to be tried by the parliament. The clergy and the pope protested against what seemed to them a violation of ecclesiastical privileges. Notwithstanding this the trial took place. The evidence revealed an incredible series of scandals; the accused had been worked upon by the swindlers into whose power he had fallen through his folly; and these swindlers represented the queen as playing a supposed rôle of venality and love-making. At the end of ten months the attorney-general

[1 That is, her daughter, afterwards the duchess d'Angoulême. The king's eldest daughter, the wife of his eldest brother (Monsieur), or the princess nearest the throne, was so called.]

[1786-1787 A.D.]

requested that sentence should be pronounced. The king and the court wished it. The parliament condemned the principal culprits, Madame de la Motte, to be branded and kept in confinement; her husband, who had sold the diamonds of the necklace in England, to confinement; and Villette, who had forged the signature of Marie Antoinette, to banishment,1 but the cardinal was acquitted by a majority of five votes. The queen was so unpopular that this acquittal was received with public applause. There was a desire at any price to make her appear guilty. Exception was even taken to Louis XVI's action when he exercised an indisputable right in exiling Louis de Rohan to one of his abbeys, while demanding that he should resign the office of grand almoner, and forbidding him to appear at court, a disgrace as necessary as it was merited (1786). The result of this trial was thus a great scandal to the higher clergy, to the court, and finally to the queen, although no one could doubt her innocence.i

The queen, in the inconsiderate gaiety of youth, of innocence, and high place, gave those handles to calumny that dissolute hypocrisy would have avoided. Her influence over her husband was not less pernicious because of her innocence; whilst the popular rumours that denied this had the terrible effect of blackening the discontent against royalty into personal odium towards the sovereign and his consort.

To the place of Maurepas in the administration, though not to his influence, succeeded Vergennes: he tried if men of mediocre talents might not manage the routine of finance; moreover, he chose them from the benches of the parliament, in hopes of conciliating that body. Joly de Fleury, and after him D'Ormesson, was placed at the head of the treasury. The government came to a complete stand for want of funds during the ministry of the latter; and talent, or a character for talent, was again sought it was difficult to find; Turgots and Neckers were rare in default of such, a man of showy parts and high pretensions was chosen-a clerk, who aped the courtier. Such was Calonne. He improvised a theory by contradicting his predecessors; an obvious mode of being original. As economy had been cried up by Necker and by Turgot, the new minister declared that profusion formed the wealth of a state. He resolved to follow Turgot's plan, the only obvious one indeed, of equalising the taxes, and levying them alike on noblesse and clergy as well as on the commons. In order to effect this, which Turgot had failed in, and Necker had not attempted, Calonne proposed to call an assembly of notables, the chiefs, in fact, of the privileged orders. He hoped to move them, or shame them, or cajole them, to consent to his proposals; and the notables were accordingly summoned to meet in the commencement of the year 1787.

THE ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES (1787 A.D.)

In February, the assembly of notables was opened at Versailles. Calonne, in a solemn discourse, disclosed his plans; and, to prove the necessity of reform, confessed a deficit of 112,000,000 francs. His plans alone for taxing the privileged orders were sufficiently distasteful to his hearers, especially to the clergy, who claimed and exercised the right of taxing themselves in their own synods. The deficit gave a handle for discontent; and Calonne, in unjustly throwing part of it upon Necker, called forth a triumphant exculpation from that financier, whom he exiled in answer. Hence Necker's party, [ Implicated in this scandal was that superlative charlatan, Cagliostro, who was acquitted, but banished.]

[1787 A.D.]

including the writers of the day, the ecclesiastics, and the greater portion of the noblesse, were in instant opposition to Calonne, whom they accused of seeking to despoil and humble the higher classes. They called for an account of the revenue and expenditure. After much struggle and reluctance, it was granted. The receipt amounted to 400,000,000 francs, whilst the annual expenditure exceeded that by 150,000,000. Such a contrast with the confidence and profusion of the minister afforded ample ground of censure against him. Calonne, whose only support lay in the count of Artois (afterwards Charles X), whose debts he had paid, and in the Polignacs, was obliged to succumb.

THE FINANCES OF BRIENNE

A new minister was now chosen from the triumphant notables. This was the archbishop of Toulouse,-Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne, "as weak a head," says Madame de Staël, "as ever was covered by the peruque of a counsellor of state." He had fought in behalf of privilege, although, in common with the assembly which he led, he affected to be merely actuated by indignation against the profligate Calonne. The notables dispersed, and left Brienne to enjoy the vanity and the difficulties of his pre-eminent station. The archbishop of Toulouse had now to keep his tacit promise of respecting the exemption of the privileged orders from general taxation; and yet, in order to gain the popular voice, he was obliged to affect the contrary policy. His vanity and love of place made him stoop to play so base and dangerous a part. The assent of the notables to Calonne's plans of taxation and reform had no legislative force; but still its moral influence was so great that had Brienne immediately drawn up an edict for a territorial impost, and presented it to the parliament, the legists durst not have refused to sanction it. But Brienne hesitated, and manoeuvred to gain time, sending to the parliament edicts establishing stamp duties and abolishing corvées, and bringing forward the vital question of the land tax but in their wake.

By this means the parliament were allowed both leisure and pretext for resistance. In that body there existed much diversity of opinion. The presidents and elders were attached to their own privileges, which they felt were allied to those of noblesse and clergy. The provincial assemblies proposed by Turgot, Necker, and Calonne were odious to them; and the great question of the territorial impost did not please them, since it was evident that its effect would be to raise the crown above all want to its ancient height of superiority. This last result was indeed dreaded on all hands, though avowed by none, and was the principal motive of that discontented and seditious spirit that opposed all reform, as saving the country from anarchy to plunge it into despotism. The parliament was embarrassed by these conflicting views and circumstances. One thing, however, was evident, that both notables and minister had cast off the onus of decreeing the territorial impost, or the odium of rejecting it, upon the parliament: and the parliament now sought to follow their example, in doing neither one nor the other. But how to escape?

There was no way except down a precipice; and they took it. They declared that they had no more right than the notables to sanction laws or taxes; thus contradicting their past pretensions for centuries, and abdicating at once their right to stand in the place of a national assembly. The king being unable to decree new laws or taxes, and the notables and parliament successively avowing their incompetence to aid him, the states-general became the only resource. This fearful name, that men dreaded to utter, was never

[1787 A.D.]

theless uppermost in the thoughts of all. Necessity must have suggested it to the dullest. But it was unheard of, until a pert member, gathering audacity from the impulse of his wit, gave utterance to it in the shape of a pun. "It is not states of expenditure and income that we want," said he, "but states-general." When one thus had the audacity to speak the word, thousands found courage to re-echo it.

This sounded as a thunderclap to the court and to Brienne, who was prepared for the refusal or acquiescence of the parliament, but not for this detested alternative. He was enraged. The refractory body was summoned to a bed of justice at Versailles; and the two edicts of the stamp duty and land tax were forcibly registered, the

minister losing sight of his deference towards the higher orders. The parliament returned to its sitting, protested, and declared the registry of the edicts null. Brienne exiled the body to Troyes. Justice was thus suspended; and the government yielded. The parliament was recalled; it gratified Brienne by registering a new loan to meet urgent necessities, and in return the archbishop promised that the states-general should be convoked within five years.

Thus were the cause and high pretensions of the court and higher orders betrayed (if submitting to necessity can be called treason) by the very ministers whom they raised to defend them. They discarded Turgot, and drove away Necker; yet Calonne, their minion, was obliged to adopt the liberal plans of his predecessors, and was in consequence superseded by a chief notable and high churchman. Vain precaution this champion of the high orders was himself not only driven reluctantly to propose the hated laws and to compel their registry, but he was obliged in addition to capitulate and yield up everything in the important promise of calling an assembly of the nation. The chief maxim of an administration had hitherto been to sail between the two shoals of bankruptcy on one hand and the states-general on the other. Brienne struck the vessel of the state on the latter sand-bank. In more favourable circumstances, with more skilful pilots, it might have righted, and floated into port; but, the wind now menacing, the popular tempest soon broke loose, and the monarchy went to pieces.

A CAPTAIN OF ARTILLERY, REIGN OF
LOUIS XVI

Such were the events of the year 1787, in which the Revolution advanced with an awful stride. The high orders retreated before it. Louis XVI reformed his court, and dismissed a crowd of high officers; but the minister, despite his concessions, was still at war with the parliament. In the resistance offered to the bed of justice, the duke of Orleans had shown himself most forward. That prince had placed himself at the head of the violent and

H. W.-VOL. XII. L

[1787-1788 A.D.] liberal, or what Weber calls the American party. He was exiled in consequence. His friends now stirred in his behalf, and raised discussion as to the legality of lettres de cachet. Brienne perceived his blunder in first castigating the parliament and then yielding to them. He resolved to imitate Maupeou, and proceed to extremities. A plan was secretly matured and prepared for dismissing the parliament, and establishing other courts, provincial and metropolitan, in lieu, with a cour plénière, or body of peers, magistrates, and notables; in fact, to constitute a high court of appeal. The project was not kept sufficiently close. D'Esprémesnil, a councillor, obtained a copy of it from the printer; and, hurrying to the Palais de Justice, assembled his brethren.

On the morrow, the parliament was to be broken. They imitated the conduct of Charles I's parliament, when the usher was at the door, in voting a declaration. This set forth that the states-general had alone the right of granting taxes; that magistrates were irremovable; that no one should be arrested without immediate trial before his natural judge. On a par with these fundamental laws, they placed the hereditary right of succession in the crown. The minister replied to this manifesto by issuing a warrant to arrest D'Esprémesnil. He took refuge in the parliament. The usher employed, knowing not his person, asked which was he; and the councillors exclaimed that they were all Esprémesnil." Nevertheless he surrendered. The king, in a bed of justice, compelled the registry of his edict, dissolving the parliament. The bailiwicks [grands bailliages] and plenary court [cour plénière] was instituted in its stead. The resistance was now general. Collisions took place universally in the provinces betwixt the troops and the people, who supported their ancient magistracy.

66

The treasury in the meantime grew empty. A loan was impossible. Brienne had recourse to his own order. He summoned a convocation of the clergy, and asked of them a subsidy. To his demands for supply, they gave in answer the universal echo, the states-general; and, as if impatient of ruin, requested the immediate convocation of the assembly. Overcome by this last blow, the minister yielded, and dared to hope from the commons that support to the throne which the noblesse, the parliament, and the clergy had successively and factiously denied. In August, 1788, appeared in consequence an arrêt of the council, convoking the states-general in the month of May of the following year.

Brienne hoped to preside over this assembly and direct its motions. "Are you not afraid to hold the states?" asked some one of him. "Sully held them," was the self-sufficient reply. But the archbishop was destined to proceed no further in the emulation of Sully. The treasury was without funds; and the day was at hand for the payment of dividends to the public creditors. The minister proposed paying part in bills. The Parisian rentiers were in a fury to find their income thus curtailed.1 An insurrection was expected; several had lately taken place in the provinces-at Rennes, at Grenoble and Brienne feared for the consequences. He hurried, in tears, to the royal closet, and besought the interference of the queen to induce Necker to aid and enter office. Necker agreed to supersede Brienne, but refused to take office with him. The archbishop was accordingly sacrificed.

[1 The archbishop was burned in effigy, and many lives were lost.]

[2"A large assembly of citizens of the three estates gathered at the hôtel-de-ville of Grenoble and decided that the states of Dauphiné, fallen into desuetude for many generations, should convene July 21st, 1788. Up to now, there had been special resistance from corporations and popular uprising; on this day was seen the national sovereignty in action for the first time. This act opened the French Revolution." MARTIN."]