284 



FRANCE. (BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.) 



Irade required an army of officers, and, as the smug- 

 glers were armed, soldiers were also necessary. A 

 body of bold and desperate men was, therefore, con- 

 stantly on foot, and the courts were continually occu- 

 pied with the trials of smugglers. There were 

 generally about 1800 of them in the prisons, and it 

 was considered a remarkable year, if more than 300 

 were not sentenced to the galleys. However severe 

 the punishment might be, it could not deter men 

 from engaging in this business. The people consid- 

 ered this war against the government officers rather 

 meritorious than otherwise; and, as the farmers- 

 general, every year, seized the whole property of 

 many persons for arrears of taxes, they were driven 

 to an employment in which the risk was counter- 

 balanced by the great profits. To this list of oppres- 

 sions must be added the interdiction of all trade in 

 corn between the different provinces. Colbert, the 

 author of this system, expected to effect by it the 

 reduction of the price of grain, for the purpose of 

 encouraging manufactures. What, under his ad- 

 ministration, was a mistake in theory, became, under 

 his successors, and particularly in the reign of Louis 

 XV., a new source of oppression. The intendants, 

 without whose permission no grain could be exported 

 from their generalite, granted this permission only 

 for bribes. Capitalists raised the price of grain by 

 buying it up largely, in order to sell it again, at 

 enormous prices, to government, which endeavoured 

 to keep bread at a fixed price at the expense of the 

 royal treasury. It is known, that Louis XV. partook 

 in these infamous speculations. Agriculture fell into 

 decay, and in some parts of the country, particularly 

 in large cities, much suffering was caused by dearth. 

 When, however, Turgot, under Louis XVI., abol- 

 ished the restrictions on the corn trade, his enemies 

 succeeded in so far blinding the people to their own 

 interest as to be able to excite great disturbances 

 against him. It is true, that, from 1774, free trade 

 in grain was permitted in the ulterior, but the 

 exportation was in general still prohibited, and 

 agriculture, once depressed, could not easily rise 

 again, as it was charged with so many other bur- 

 dens. The supply of oread for the capital was al- 

 ways a matter which required much attention ; and 

 it was easy to alarm the inhabitants on this subject 

 by artful contrivances, as was frequently done during 

 the revolution. The reader will already have seen, 

 from this sketch of the system of taxation, to 

 what a depth of poverty and misery the lower classes 

 must have been reduced. The slave-trade in the 

 colonies was defended, on the ground, that the slave 

 generally lived much better than the French peasant. 

 '* Misery," says Mad. de Stael (Considerations sur 

 la Revolution, I. ch. 6), " produced ignorance, and 

 ignorance, in turn, augmented misery ; if, therefore, 

 it is asked, why the people showed themselves so 

 cruel during the revolution, no other cause need be 

 assigned, than tliat poverty and misery had also 

 produced a moral corruption, which was the more 

 unavoidable, that since the time of Louis XIV., or, 

 rather, since that of Francis I., the higher classes had 

 set the example of immorality and contempt of every 

 thing sacred in religious observances." The outrages 

 of the revolution were a terrible judgment upon the 

 corruption and oppressions of the higher classes. It 

 lias been said, that France now pays more taxes than 

 in 1789. But this is a mistake. His true, that, in 1789, 

 only 585,000,000 passed into the royal treasury ; but 

 we must add to this the tithes and feudal taxes which 

 have since been abolished ; and, if we consider that 

 all exemptions are abolished, and tliat the taxes are 

 now assessed on the incomes of all, it will appear that 

 the working classes at present pay much less than 

 before the revolution. At the same time, 5. the waste 



of the public money, which disgraced the government, 

 has been prevented by the constitutional government 

 of France, and the present government, it is to be 

 hoped, will carry the system of economy much 

 farther than the Bourbons. What could have exas- 

 perated the people more than to see the public 

 revenue, wrung from their scanty means, so criminally 

 squandered ! The wars of Louis XIV., his buildings, 

 his love of show, did not imbitter the feelings of 

 the people half so much as the insolent prodigality of 

 a Pampadour and a Dubarry under Louis XV. Under 

 Iris reign, a custom was introduced into the accounts, 

 which became a source and cloak of the greatest dis- 

 order the, so called, acquits a comptant, receipts sign- 

 ed by the king, for moneys which were by no means 

 actually received by him. This was merely a method 

 of avoiding a statement in the accounts of the objects 

 for which the money was paid. Louis XVI. was not 

 a spendthrift, and, in every thing which regarded 

 liimself personally, was a careful economist. Even 

 the queen Marie Antoinette, who, before the revolu- 

 tion, was accused of prodigality, has been lately 

 defended by a credible witness, madame Campan ; 

 though on this subject more particular explanations are 

 yet wanting. But the abuse of the acquits d comp- 

 tant, or, as they were also called afterwards, ordon- 

 nances auporteur, was continued under Louis XVI.. 

 and the sums taken in this way from the treasury, the 

 application of which appears only in part from the 

 private book of the king (livre rouge), amounted, from 

 1 779 to 1787, to 860,000,000 : secret services in foreign 

 affairs, and pensions and presents to the courtiers, 

 were the principal items of expenditure. These 

 favours were so freely distributed, that it was impos- 

 sible to say who could not lay claim to them ; and 

 Necker (Administration des Finances, III., 95) de- 

 votes a whole chapter to a consideration of the claims 

 of the high nobility, and the duty of a minister of 

 finances to oppose them. Whoever could not pro- 

 duce an ostensible ground for a pension or gratifica- 

 tion, offered the king some property or some right 

 for sale, and obtained thus what he wanted. Debts 

 of one of the princes of the blood royal, to the 

 amount of 16,000,000, were paid, in two years ; to 

 the useless minister of the marine, Sartine, consider- 

 able sums were granted in a similar way. The 

 notorious Beaumarchais received at one time more 

 than 1,000,000 for secret services. Here, also, the 

 evil was not alone in the weakness of the monarch, 

 but chiefly in the power of the aristocracy ; to break 

 down which, even a Richelieu or a Louis XIV. would 

 not probably have found themselves sufficiently strong-, 

 and which could be overthrown only by a radical 

 revolution. In addition to this, the royal family was 

 possessed with the unfortunate idea, that what they 

 had most to fear was the people, not the aristocracy , 

 though long before, one of the most judicious politi- 

 cians of France, the minister of state D'Argenson. 

 had endeavoured to refute this prejudice in his Con- 

 siderations sur le Goiivernement de la France, 1764. 

 When the revolution had once begun, it was clear 

 tliat it must involve the throne in the ruins of the 

 ecclesiastical and feudal tyranny, to which it had 

 attached itself. 



V. The Revolution (of the 18th century) and its 

 consequences. A nation in this condition, with such 

 deeply felt grievances, needed but a slight im- 

 pulse to urge them to resume, by force, the freedom 

 which the higher classes had wrested from them by 

 centuries of usurpation. All parts of the nation 

 were thoroughly prepared for such an event the 

 lower orders, by their misery, the cause of which 

 lay before their eyes in the enormous exactions to 

 which they were subject ; the higher classes of citi- 

 zens, by the hatred with which the overbearing 



