THE ELECTIONS. 119 



commencement of their amendments by the minions of a rooted sys- 

 tem. The parliament of Paris was infected with the subservience of 

 the court. When the corvee was suppressed or substituted by a dis- 

 tributive law, it was advanced by that assembly, " que le peuple de 

 France etait taillable et corveable a volonte, que 1'etait une partie 

 de la constitution que le roi etait dans 1'impuissance de changer." In 

 the edict of Versailles of 1776, abolishing monopolies, the preamble 

 of the minister expatiated with unanswerable foresight and illustration 

 on the benefits of liberty of trade. Notwithstanding, the nobility, 

 the parliament, the clergy, were combined against the provident sa- 

 gacity of Turgot and Malesherbes. The youthful king, directed by 

 the mean capacity of Maurepas, one of those pernicious mixtures, 

 who flatter and mislead the imbecility of grandeur, was reclaimed 

 from his designs of government reform. Malesherbes, disgusted at 

 a base conspiracy against improvement, retired from the administra- 

 tion ; the resignation of his colleague was demanded. Turgot was 

 driven from his situation of comptroller-general, when meditating 

 measures, which would have purified and might have saved the mo- 

 narchy. He designed to organize municipal administrations and as- 

 semblies throughout all the provinces. This was raising servitude 

 from its prostration, with the vital breath of liberty. It was commu- 

 nicating a paternal blessing to a people, who knew its rulers only by 

 the burthens of injustice, and the spoliation of repacity. He de- 

 signed a fair partition of the imposts among the nobles, clergy, and 

 the tiers-etat. He proposed to remedy the defects of the financial 

 system, by the partial sale of royal lands ; be resolved on a reduction 

 of the taxes. He conceived a plan of national education the salu- 

 tary project of raising popular intelligence to a just conception of its 

 rights ; and, at the same time, of the duties of loyalty and social or- 

 der. But Turgot, with the views of a humane philosopher, with ge- 

 nius and perception great as those of Montesquieu, recoiled from the 

 vexatious conflict with confirmed corruption. He had not the ener- 

 getic passions, the indefatigable assiduity, the supple arts required to 

 dissipate the vicious strength of the noblesse, to captivate the fickle 

 mind of Louis, to subvert the firm but covert influence of Maurepas. 

 Had his comprehensive, his beneficient intentions been animated and 

 sustained by physical efficiency, he might have crushed his enemies 

 amidst the acclamations of reviving liberty ; he might have smitten 

 down the insolent pretensions of the nobles and the clergy amidst the 

 popular enthusiasm ; but his very virtues were alarmed at the in- 

 evitable horrors of his task ; and as the bold and eloquent M. Ler- 

 minier has remarked, "II resta desarme, sans les qualites et sans les 

 vices des hommes faits pour agiter et changer les empires."* Is it 

 needful to recall to the remembrance of any one but ordinarily conver- 

 sant with history, the reign of contumacious folly which extended 

 from the ministry of Turgot to that awful crisis when the book of 

 crime was dabbled with the blood of eloquence, of heroism, and of 

 science when the sufferings of a nation were succeeded by the orgies 

 of a nation's vengeance when Vergniand in the glorious promise of 



* De F Influence de la Philosophic. 



