J07 



TURGENEV, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH. 



TURGOT, ANNE-ROBERT-JACQUES. 



108 



of Russia), published at St. Petersburg in 1841-42 as part of the great 

 series issued by the Imperial Archaeological Commission. The volumes 

 were issued under the editorship of Vostokov, who states in the 

 preface that to collect them Turgenev had travelled in Germany, Italy, 

 England, Denmark, and Sweden ; but if so, his researches had either 

 been far from industrious or far from successful. The documents that 

 he produces from England are only twenty-three in number, aud all 

 taken from the Cottonian and Harleiaii collections at the British 

 Museum. His acquisitions from other countries are still more scanty, 

 with the exception of the library of the Vatican, which supplied him 

 with the greater part of the materials of his volumes, and in these he 

 had the benefit of the previous researches of the Polish historian 

 Albcrtraudi. Turgenev died at Moscow on the 17th of December 

 1845. A supplementary volume to the 'Moniinenta' was published 

 in 1848. 



* TURGENEV, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH, the younger brother of 

 the preceding, born in 1790, studied at Gottingen, and was associated 

 as Russian Commissioner in 1813 with the Baron von Stein in the 

 provisional government of the German provinces reconquered from 

 France. Uo returned to Russia deeply impressed with the vigorous 

 line of action of Stein, and with those liberal views in general which 

 were then encouraged by the Emperor Alexander. In 1818 he pub- 

 lished the earliest work on political economy in the Russian language, 

 ' Opuit Teorii Nalagov,' or ' Attempt at a Theory of Taxation,' which 

 was so successful as to reach a second edition in the next year. The 

 abolition of the Russian system of serfage afterwards became the 

 leading object of his life ; and when the Russian government, towards 

 the close of Alexander's reign, entered on a retrograde policy, he 

 became associated with the secret societies which then sprung up in 

 great profusion. He was abroad on foreign travel at the time that 

 the great outbreak of these associations was suddenly caused by the 

 accession of the Emperor Nicolas in 1825, and terminated in their 

 total defeat and the destruction of the principal conspirators. Turge- 

 nev was condemned to death in his absence, and he has since resided 

 abroad, chiefly at Paris, on remnants of property saved to him by his 

 brother Alexander. In 1847 he published at Paris a work in three 

 volumes, in French, entitled 'Russia aud the Russians,' and in 1848 a 

 pamphlet entitled ' Russia at the present Crisis.' These works, which 

 are written with much eloquence and spirit, are directed against the 

 line of policy adopted by the Emperor Nicolas, which the author 

 considered as sacrificing the real interests of Russia to a Quixotic 

 defence of legitimist and in particular of Austrian ideas. 



* TURGENEV, IVAN, a Russian author of rising reputation, first 

 made himself known by some poems published in 1843 and 1845, and 

 afterwards became a contributor to the ' Sovremennik,' or ' Contem- 

 porary,' a leading periodical of St. Petersburg, first established by 

 Pushkin. A series of articles by Turgenev in 1852, entitled 'Zapiski 

 Okhotnika,' or ' Papers of a Sportsman,' attracted so much attention 

 that they were republished separately, have run through several 

 editions, and have since been translated into French, German, and 

 English, the latter however merely from the French version. They 

 are entitled ' Russian Life in the Interior, or the Experiences of a 

 Sportsman, edited by J. D. Meiklejohn/ Edinburgh, 1855. Turgenev's 

 sketches of the Russian serfs, like those of the English peasantry in 

 Miss Mitford's ' Village/ though exceedingly pleasant in themselves, 

 have the defect of only giving the best side of the original. 



TURGOT, ANN E-ROBERT- JACQUES, was born in Paris on the 

 10th of May 1727. He was descended from one of the most ancient 

 families in Normandy : his father, Michel-Etienne Turgot, was Presi- 

 dent aux Requetes du Palais, and afterwards Prevot des Marchands, 

 councillor of state, and first president of the Great Council ; and his 

 great-great-grandfather, Jacques Turgot, was one of the presidents of 

 the noblesse in Normandy in the States of 1614. Being the youngest 

 of three sons, Turgot was destined by his parents for the ecclesiastical 

 profession, for which his taste for study, the modesty and simplicity 

 of his manners, and a sort of timidity which kept hitn aloof from 

 dissipation, appeared to fit him. But he very early formed a resolu- 

 tion not to be an ecclesiastic. With his passion for science, as well as 

 literature and poetry, it might be supposed that, having obtained his 

 father's consent to his plan of not entering the church, he would have 

 desired no other employment than that of a man of letters. But 

 Turgot resolved, without discarding his favourite pursuits, to adopt a 

 more active employment than that of a mere man of letters or science. 

 Having determined to adopt the profession of the bar, or the robe, as 

 it was called in France before the Revolution, he selected that branch 

 or department, the members of which used to be called Masters of 

 Requests (Maitres des Requetes). The maitres des roquetes seem 

 originally to have been magistrates who laid the written requests or 

 petitions of parties before the king's council presided over by the 

 chancellor. The term afterwards also came to signify those members 

 of the profession of the robe, or bar, whose business it was to make a 

 verbal report of cases before the council of state. (' Dictionnaire de 

 JJA.cade'mie Frangaise,' art. 'Requete.') It would appear indeed that the 

 business of a rnaitre de requetes, as followed by Turgot, corresponded 

 in some respects with that of a counsel in England practising before the 

 privy council; with this difference however, that the maitres des 

 requctes were not employed by parties or for them, but by and for 

 the court : so that in some respects they resembled rather our masters 



in Chancery ; with this difference again, that the Master in Chancery's 

 report is written ; and neither spoken nor yet read by himself. 



In 1761 Turgot was appointed intendant of Limoges. The office of 

 iutenrlant of a province in France, before the Revolution, was an 

 administrative office. Turgot had, with a view of preparing himself 

 for the duties of his new office, specially studied those branches of 

 science which had most relation to them, particularly such of the 

 physical and mathematical sciences as applied to agriculture, to manu- 

 factures, to commerce, and the construction of public works. During 

 the thirteen years that the province of the Limousin was under the 

 administration of Turgot, the more equitable distribution of imposts, 

 the making of roads, the militia, tho providing of subsistence for the 

 people, and the protection of commerce, were the principal objects of 

 his labours. He also applied himself to give activity to the Society of 

 Agriculture of Limoges, and to direct its labours towards a useful 

 end ; he caused the midwives, who were scattered over the country, 

 to be properly instructed ; he secured to the people, during epidemics, 

 the assistance of skilful physicians ; and he introduced into his district 

 the cultivation of potatoes, which the people at first looked down 

 upon as a sort of food unfit for man ; but Turgot overcame their pre- 

 judices by using them at his own table. 



Turgot's plans for the ' repartition des impots,' and for the removal 

 of the ' corve'es,' the old contrivance for the repair of roads and 

 bridges, deserve, on account of their importance, a few words of 

 explanation. 



The greater part of the lands of Turgot's province of the Limousin 

 was farmed by ' metayers,' whom the owner of the land furnished 

 with the seed, cattle, implements of husbandry, and. everything neces- 

 sary for the cultivation of the farm. Under this form of cultivation, 

 Condorcet says, it was very difficult to distinguish between thut 

 portion of the whole produce of the land which was to pay the 

 expenses of cultivation, in other words, the interest, or rather profits, 

 of the capital advanced in the shape of cattle and implements of hus- 

 bandry, as well as the wages of labour, and that portion which 

 remained after such payment in the shape or under the name of 

 ' produit net,' or rent. But it is evident that, according to the above 

 account, the metayers bore only the character of labourers, wit':. out 

 in any degree partaking of that of capitalists. Consequently, what- 

 ever part of the produce went to them must be considered simply as 

 the wages of labour ; while what went to the proprietors consisted at 

 once of the rent and the profits of capital. 



Instead of the impots or land tax being raised upon that part of the 

 whole produce which could be justly considered as produit net or rent, 

 the only part which consistently with justice and with sound princi- 

 ples of public economy can be subjected to taxation, the tax was 

 imposed and levied without reference to that, and a part, probably tho 

 principal part of the tax, operated as a tax upon labour and capital. 

 Turgot laboured long and ardently, but in vain, to obtain an adjust- 

 ment of this matter a measure which he considered of such para- 

 mount importance, that he remarked, that no man who really believed 

 the 'irupot territorial,' or land-tax, properly apportioned, impracticable 

 or unjust, could possess sound views on administration. Turgot seems 

 to have considered that the best mode of levying the land-tax was to 

 take a certain proportion of the rent. He seems also to have con- 

 sidered that this tax, properly apportioned and levied, would super- 

 sede the necessity of all other taxes. He says, " A fixed law might 

 terminate for ever all disputes between the government and the 

 people, and particularly by fixing one scale for war and another for 

 peace. Arrangements would be made in consequence in purchases 

 and sales, and the part of the rent that bears the tax would no longer 

 be purchased, any more than the share of the curd. At the end of 

 some time it is very true that nobody would" pay taxes. But the king 

 would be proprietor of a proportional part of the revenue of all the 

 land. This revenue would increase with the riches of the nation ; 

 and if this increase of wealth increased wants there would be a suffi- 

 ciency to supply them. The riches of the king would be the measure 

 of the riches of the nation; and the adminietration, always afiV -cted 

 by the reaction of its errors, would constantly be instructed by the 

 simple calculation of the produce of the taxes." (' OSuvres de Turgot,' 

 torn, iv., p. 255.) 



Another great object of Turgot's labours was to deliver the Limousin 

 from the oppressive burden of the corvee's ; which consisted in the 

 repair of the highroads by the compulsory labour of tho poor 

 inhabitants of the district. This impost pressed directly and exclu- 

 sively on the poor man, the principle having been adopted of exacting 

 it in kind. The hardship was extreme : men who had only their day's 

 wages to live on were compelled to work without wages; the beasts 

 necessary to the tillage of the ground were taken away from their 

 work without regard to the inconveniences thereby occasioned. 

 Besides this, the roads were made with ill-will. The workmen were 

 ignorant of the art of road-making; so that the frequent repairs of 

 the roads, either made badly or with bad material*, were necessary 

 consequences. Turgot proposed to the ' communauteV adjoining the 

 high-roads to have the work done by contract. By this means the 

 original construction of the roads was at once more substantial aud 

 more economical, and they could be kept up afterwards at a less cost. 

 Thus those features of the corve'es that implied constraint and personal 

 servitude disappeared. The unjust distribution of the impost for pay- 



