A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. 

By M. Guizot

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

VOLUME VI. 

XLIX. LOUIS XIV. AND HIS COURT

L. LOUIS XIV. AND DEATH. (1711-1715. )

LI. LOUIS XV. , THE REGENCY, AND CARDINAL DUBOIS. (1715-1723. )

LII. LOUIS XV. , THE MINISTRY OF CARDINAL FLEURY. (1723-1748. )

LIII. LOUIS XV. , FRANCE IN THE COLONIES. (1745 -1763. )

LIV. LOUIS XV. , THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. --MINISTRY OF THE DUKE OFCHOISEUL. (1748-1774. )

LV. LOUIS XV. , THE PHILOSOPHERS

LVI. LOUIS XVI. , MINISTRY OF M. TURGOT. (1774-1776. )

LVII. LOUIS XVI. , FRANCE ABROAD. --THE UNITED STATES' WAR OFINDEPENDENCE. (17751783. )

LVIII. LOUIS XVI. , FRANCE AT HOME. --MINISTRY OF M. NECKER. (1776-1781. )

LIX. LOUIS XVI. , M. DE CALONNE, AND THE ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES. (1781-1787. )LX. LOUIS XVI. , CONVOCATION OF THE STATESGENERAL. (1787-1789. )

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS:

HOTEL DE VILLE, PARIS FRONTISPIECE. 

YPRES 151

BRUSSELS 159

NAMUR 161

ANTWERP 233

LOUIS XVI. 347

MARIE ANTOINETTE 456

LIST OF WOOD-CUT ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The Grand Monarch in his State Robes 9

Madame de la Valliere 10

Madame de Montespan 12

The Iron Mask 14

Bed-chamber Etiquette 15

Madame de Maintenon and the Duchess of Burgundy. 27

Death of Madame de Maintenon. 34

The King leaving the Death-bed of Monseigneur 36

Louis XIV. In Old Age 47

The Death-bed of Louis XIV 50

Versailles at Night 52

The Regent Orleans 54

The Bed of Justice 57

John Law 62

La Rue Quincampoix 68

The Duke of Maine 71

The Duchess of Maine 72

Cardinal Dubois 78

Peter the Great and Little Louis XV 82

Belzunce amid the Plague-stricken 96

The Boy King and his People 104

Death of the Regent 107

Louis XV 110

Cardinal Fleury 110

Mary Leczinska 121

Death of Plelo 130

"Moriamur pro rege nostro. " 142

Louis XV. And his Councillors 148

Louis XV. And the Ambassador of Holland 151

Marshal Saxe 154

Battle of Fontenoy 157

Arrest of Charles Edward 166

Dupleix 168

La Bourdonnais 170

Dupleix meeting the Soudhabar of the Deccan 174

Death of the Nabob of the Carnatic 174

Lally at Pondicherry 184

Champlain 190

Death of General Braddock 203

Death of Wolfe 209

Madame de Pompadour 215

Attack on Fort St. Philip. 218

Assassination of Louis XV. By Damiens 221

Death of Chevalier D'Assas 233

"France, thy Parliament will cut off thy Head too!" 249

Defeat of the Corsicans at Golo 256

Montesquieu 269

Fontenelle 274

Voltaire 277

The Rescue of "La Henriade. " 283

Arrest of Voltaire 298

Diderot 314

Alembert 317

Diderot and Catherine II 321

Buffon 323

Rousseau and Madame D'Epinay 338

Turgot's Dismissal 367

Destruction of the Tea 378

Suffren 413

The Reading of "Paul and Virginia. " 427

Necker Hospital 432

"There are my Sledges, Sirs. " 458

Lavoisier 465

Cardinal Rohan's Discomfiture 470

Arrest of the Members 502

A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. 

CHAPTER XLIX. ----LOUIS XIV. AND HIS COURT. 

Louia XIV. Reigned everywhere, over his people, over his age, often overEurope; but nowhere did he reign so completely as over his court. Neverwere the wishes, the defects, and the vices of a man so completely a lawto other men as at the court of Louis XIV. During the whole period of hislong life. When near to him, in the palace of Versailles, men lived, andhoped, and trembled; everywhere else in France, even at Paris, menvegetated. The existence of the great lords was concentrated in thecourt, about the person of the king. Scarcely could the most importantduties bring them to absent themselves for any time. They returnedquickly, with alacrity, with ardor; only poverty or a certain rusticpride kept gentlemen in their provinces. "The court does not make onehappy, " says La Bruyere, "it prevents one from being so anywhere else. "

At the outset of his reign, and when, on the death of Cardinal Mazarin, he took the reins of power in hand, Louis XIV. Had resolved to establishabout him, in his dominions and at his court, "that humble obedience onthe part of subjects to those who are set over them, " which he regardedas "one of the most fundamental maxims of Christianity. " "As theprincipal hope for the reforms I contemplated establishing in my kingdomlay in my own will, " says he in his Memoires, "the first step towardstheir foundation was to render my will quite absolute by a line ofconduct which should induce submission and respect, rendering justicescrupulously to any to whom I owed it, but, as for favors, granting themfreely and without constraint to any I pleased and when I pleased, provided that the sequel of my acts showed that, for all my giving noreason to anybody, I was none the less guided by reason. "

[Illustration: THE GRAND MONARCH IN HIS STATE ROBES----9]

The principle of absolute power, firmly fixed in the young king's mind, began to pervade his court from the time that he disgraced Fouquet andceased to dissemble his affection for Mdlle. De La Valliere. She wasyoung, charming, and modest. Of all the king's favorites she alone lovedhim sincerely. "What a pity he is a king!" she would say. Louis XIV. Made her a duchess; but all she cared about was to see him and pleasehim. When Madame de Montespan began to supplant her in the king's favor, the grief of Madame de La Valliere was so great that she thought sheshould die of it. Then she turned to God, in penitence and despair. Twice she sought refuge in a convent at Chaillot. "I should have leftthe court sooner, " she sent word to the king on leaving, "after havinglost the honor of your good graces, if I could have prevailed upon myselfnever to see you again; that weakness was so strong in me that hardly nowam I capable of making a sacrifice of it to God; after having given youall my youth, the rest of my life is not too much for the care of mysalvation. " The king still clung to her. "He sent M. Colbert to beg herearnestly to come to Versailles, and that he might speak with her. M. Colbert escorted her thither; the king conversed for an hour with her, and wept bitterly. Madame de Montespan was there to meet her with openarms and tears in her eyes. " "It is all incomprehensible, " adds Madamede Sevigne; "some say that she will remain at Versailles, and at court, others that she will return to Chaillot; we shall see. " Madame de LaValliere remained three years at court, "half penitent, " she said humbly, detained there by the king's express wish, in consequence of the tempersand jealousies of Madame de Montespan, who felt herself judged andcondemned by her rival's repentance. Attempts were made to turn Madamede La Valliere from her inclination for the Carmelites: "Madame, " saidMadame Scarron to her one day, "here are you one blaze of gold: have youreally considered that at the Carmelites' before long, you will have towear serge?" She, however, persisted. She was already practising insecret the austerities of the convent. "God has laid in this heart thefoundation of great things, " said Bossuet, who supported her in herconflict: "the world puts great hinderances in her way and God greatmercies; I have hopes that God will prevail; the uprightness of her heartwill carry everything. "

[Illustration: Madame de la Valliere----10]

"When I am in trouble at the Carmelites', " said Madame de La Valliere, asat last she quitted the court, "I will think of what those people havemade me suffer. " "The world itself makes us sick of the world, " saidBossuet in the sermon he preached on the day of her taking the dress;"its attractions have enough of illusion, its favors enough ofinconstancy, its rebuffs enough of bitterness, there is enough ofinjustice and perfidy in the dealings of men, enough of unevenness andcapriciousness in their intractable and contradictory humors--there isenough of it all, without doubt, to disgust us. " "She was dead to me theday she entered the Carmelites, " said the king, thirty-five years later, when the modest and fervent nun expired at last, in 1710, at her convent, without having ever relaxed the severities of her penance. He hadmarried the daughter she had given him to the Prince of Conti. "Everybody has been to pay compliments to this saintly Carmelite, " saysMadame de Sevigne, without appearing to perceive the singularity of thealliance between words and ideas; "I was there too with Mademoiselle. The Prince of Conti detained her in the parlor. What an angel appearedto me at last! She had to my eyes all the charms we had seen heretofore. I did not find her either puffy or sallow; she is less thin, though, andmore happy-looking. She has those same eyes of hers, and the sameexpression; austerity; bad living, and little sleep have not made themhollow or dull; that singular dress takes away nothing of the easy graceand easy bearing. As for modesty, she is no grander than when shepresented to the world a princess of Conti, but that is enough for aCarmelite. In real truth, this dress and this retirement are a greatdignity for her. " The king never saw her again, but it was at her sidethat Madame de Montespan, in her turn forced to quit the court, went toseek advice and pious consolation. "This soul will be a miracle ofgrace, " Bossuet had said. 

[Illustration: Madame de Montespan 12]

It was no longer the time of "this tiny violet that hides itself in thegrass, " as Madame de Sevigne used to remark. Madame de Montespan washaughty, passionate, "with hair dressed in a thousand ringlets, amajestic beauty to show off to the ambassadors: "she openly paraded thefavor she was in, accepting and angling for the graces the king waspleased to do her and hers, having the superintendence of the householdof the queen whom she insulted without disguise, to the extent ofwounding the king himself. "Pray consider that she is your mistress, " hesaid one day to his favorite. The scandal was great; Bossuet attemptedthe task of stopping it. It was the time of the Jubilee: neither theking nor Madame de Montespan had lost all religious feeling; the wrath ofGod and the refusal of the sacraments had terrors for them still. Madamede Montespan left the court after some stormy scenes; the king set outfor Flanders. "Pluck this sin from your heart, Sir, " Bossuet wrote tohim; "and not only this sin, but the cause of it; go even to the root. In your triumphant march amongst the people whom you constrain torecognize your might, would you consider yourself secure of a rebelfortress if your enemy still had influence there? We hear of nothing butthe magnificence of your troops, of what they are capable under yourleadership! And as for me, Sir, I think in my secret heart of a war farmore important, of a far more difficult victory which God holds outbefore you. What would it avail you to be dreaded and victoriouswithout, when you are vanquished and captive within?" "Pray God for me, "wrote the bishop at the same time to Marshal Bellefonds, "pray Him todeliver me from the greatest burden man can have to bear, or to quenchall that is man in me, that I may act for Him only. Thank God, I havenever yet thought, during the whole course of this business, of mybelonging to the world; but that is not all; what is wanted is to be aSt. Ambrose, a true man of God, a man of that other life, a man in whomeverything should speak, with whom all his words should be oracles of theHoly Spirit, all his conduct celestial; pray, pray, I do beseech you. "

At the bottom of his soul, and in the innermost sanctuary of hisconscience, Bossuet felt his weakness; he saw the apostolic severancefrom the world, the apostolic zeal and fervor required for the holycrusade he had undertaken. "Your Majesty has given your promise to Godand the world, " he wrote to Louis XIV. In, ignorance of the secretcorrespondence still kept up between the king and Madame de Montespan. "I have been to see her, " added the prelate. "I find her pretty calm;she occupies herself a great deal in good works. I spoke to her as wellas to you the words in which God commands us to give Him our whole heart;they caused her to shed many tears; may it please God to fix these truthsin the bottom of both your hearts, and accomplish His work, in order thatso many tears, so much violence, so many strains that you have put uponyourselves, may not be fruitless. "

The king was on the road back to Versailles; Madame de Montespan was toreturn thither also, her duties required her to do so, it was said;Bossuet heard of it; he did not for a single instant delude himself as tothe emptiness of the king's promises and of his own hopes. Hedetermined, however, to visit the king at Luzarches. Louis XIV. Gave himno time to speak. 

"Do not say a word to me, sir, " said he, not without blushing, do not saya word; I have given my orders, they will have to be executed. " Bossuetheld his tongue. "He had tried every thrust; had acted like a pontiff ofthe earliest times, with a freedom worthy of the earliest ages and theearliest bishops of the Church, " says St. Simon. He saw the inutility ofhis efforts; henceforth, prudence and courtly behavior put a seal uponhis lips. It was the time of the great king's omnipotence and highestsplendor, the time when nobody withstood his wishes. The greatMademoiselle had just attempted to show her independence: tired of notbeing married, with a curse on the greatness which kept her astrand, shehad made up her mind to a love-match. "Guess it in four, guess it inten, guess it in a hundred, " wrote Madame de Sevigne to Madame deCoulanges: "you are not near it; well, then, you must be told. M. DeLauzun is to marry on Sunday at the Louvre, with the king's permission, mademoiselle . . . Mademoiselle de . . . Mademoiselle, guess the name. . . He is to marry Mademoiselle, my word! upon my word! my sacredword! Mademoiselle, the great Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle daughter of thelate Monsieur, Mademoiselle grand-daughter of Henry IV. , Mademoiselled'Eu, Mademoiselle de Dombes, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Mademoiselled' Orleans, Mademoiselle, cousin-german to the king, Mademoiselledestined to the throne, Mademoiselle, the only match in France who wouldhave been worthy of Monsieur!" The astonishment was somewhat premature;Mademoiselle did not espouse Lauzun just then, the king broke off themarriage. "I will make you so great, " he said to Lauzun, "that you shallhave no cause to regret what I am taking from you; meanwhile, I make youduke, and peer, and marshal of France. " "Sir, " broke in Lauzun, insolently, "you have made so many dukes that it is no longer an honor tobe one, and as for the baton of marshal of France, your Majesty can giveit me when I have earned it by my services. " He was before long sent toPignerol, where he passed ten years. There he met Fouquet, and thatmysterious personage called the Iron Mask, whose name has not yet beendiscovered to a certainty by means of all the most ingenious conjectures. It was only by settling all her property on the Duke of Maine afterherself that Mademoiselle purchased Lauzun's release. The king had givenhis posts to the Prince of Marcillac, son of La Rochefoucauld. He at thesame time overwhelmed Marshal Bellefonds with kindnesses. 

[Illustration: The Iron Mask----14]

"He sent for him into his study, " says Madame de Sevigne, --and said tohim, 'Marshal, I want to know why you are anxious to leave me. Is it adevout feeling? Is it a desire for retirement? Is it the pressure ofyour debts? If the last, I shall be glad to set it right, and enter intothe details of your affairs. ' The marshal was sensibly touched by thiskindness: 'Sir, ' said he, 'it is my debts; I am over head and ears. I cannot see the consequences borne by some of my friends who haveassisted me, and whom I cannot pay. ' 'Well, ' said the king, 'they musthave security for what is owing to them. I will give you a hundredthousand francs on your house at Versailles, and a patent of retainder(_brevet de retenue_--whereby the emoluments of a post were not lost tothe holder's estate by his death) for four hundred thousand francs, whichwill serve as a policy of assurance if you should die; that being so, youwill stay in my service. ' In truth, one must have a very hard heart notto obey a master who enters with so much kindness into the interests ofone of his domestics; accordingly, the marshal made no objection, andhere he is in his place again, and loaded with benefits. "

The king entered benevolently into the affairs of a marshal of France; hepaid his debts, and the marshal was his domestic; all the court had cometo that; the duties which brought servants in proximity to the king'sperson were eagerly sought after by the greatest lords. Bontemps, hischief valet, and Fagon, his physician, as well as his surgeon Marachal, very excellent men, too, were all-powerful amongst the courtiers. LouisXIV. Had possessed the art of making his slightest favors prized; to holdthe candlestick at bedtime (_au petit coucher_), to make one in the tripsto Marly, to play in the king's own game, such was the ambition of themost distinguished; the possessors of grand historic castles, of finehouses at Paris, crowded together in attics at Versailles, too happy toobtain a lodging in the palace. The whole mind of the greatestpersonages, his favorites at the head, was set upon devising means ofpleasing the king; Madame de Montespan had pictures painted in miniatureof all the towns he had taken in Holland; they were made into a bookwhich was worth four thousand pistoles, and of which Racine and Boileauwrote the text; people of tact, like M. De Langlee, paid court to themaster through those whom he loved. "M. De Langlee has given Madame deMontespan a dress of the most divine material ever imagined; the fairiesdid this work in secret, no living soul had any notion of it; and itseemed good to present it as mysteriously as it had been fashioned. Madame de Montespan's dressmaker brought her the dress she had ordered ofhim; he had made the body a ridiculous fit; there was shrieking andscolding as you may suppose. The dressmaker said, all in a tremble, 'Astime presses, madame, see if this other dress that I have here might notsuit you for lack of anything else. ' 'Ah! what material! Does it comefrom heaven? There is none such on earth. ' The body is tried on; it isa picture. The king comes in. The dressmaker says, 'Madame, it is madefor you. ' Everybody sees that it is a piece of gallantry; but on whosepart? 'It is Langl4e, ' says the king; 'it is Langlee. ' 'Of course, 'says Madame de Montespan, 'none but he could have devised such a device;it is Langlee, it is Langlee. ' Everybody repeats, 'it is Langlee;' theechoes are agreed and say, 'it is Langlee;' and as for me, my child, Itell you, to be in the fashion, 'it is Langlle. ' "

[Illustration: Bed-chamber Etiquette----15]

All the style of living at court was in accordance with the magnificenceof the king and his courtiers; Colbert was beside himself at the sums thequeen lavished on play. Madame de Montespan lost and won back fourmillions, in one night at bassette; Mdlle. De Fontanges gave away twentythousand crowns' worth of New Year's gifts; the king had justaccomplished the dauphin's marriage. "He made immense presents on thisoccasion; there is certainly no need to despair, " said Madame de Sevigne, "though one does not happen to be his valet; it may happen that, whilstpaying one's court, one will find one's self underneath what he showersaround. One thing is certain, and that is, that away from him allservices go for nothing; it used to be the contrary. " All the court wereof the same opinion as Madame de Sevigne. 

A new power was beginning to appear on the horizon, with such modesty andbackwardness that none could as yet discern it, least of all could theking. Madame de Montespan had looked out for some one to take care ofand educate her children. She had thought of Madame Scarron; sheconsidered her clever; she was so herself, "in that unique style whichwas peculiar to the Mortemarts, " said the Duke of St. Simon; she was fondof conversation; Madame Scarron had a reputation of being rather ablue-stocking; this the king did not like; Madame de Montespan had herway; Madame Scarron took charge of the children secretly and in anisolated house. She was attentive, careful, sensible. The king wasstruck with her devotion to the children intrusted to her. "She canlove, " he said; "it would be a pleasure to be loved by her. " Theconfidence of Madame de Montespan went on increasing. "The person ofquality (Madame de Montespan) has no partnership with the person who hasa cold (Madame Scarron), for she regards her as the confidential person;the lady who is at the head of all (the queen) does the same; she is, therefore, the soul of this court, " writes Madame de Sevigne in 1680. There were, however, frequent storms; Madame de Montespan was jealous andhaughty, and she grew uneasy at the nascent liking she observed in theking for the correct and shrewd judgment, the equable and firm temper, ofhis children's governess. The favor of which she was the object did notcome from Madame de Montespan. The king had made the Parliamentlegitimatize the Duke of Maine, Mdlle. De Nantes, and the Count of Vexin;they were now formally installed at Versailles. Louis XIV. Often chattedwith Madame Scarron. She had bought the estate of Maintenon out of theking's bounty. He made her take the title. The recollection of Scarronwas displeasing to him. "It is supposed that I am indebted for thispresent to Madame de Montespan, " she wrote to Madame de St. Geran; "I oweit to my little prince. The king was amusing himself with him one day, and, being pleased with the manner with which he answered his questions, told him that he was a very sensible little fellow. 'I can't helpbeing, ' said the child, 'I have by me a lady who is sense itself. ''Go and tell her, ' replied the king, 'that you will give her this eveninga hundred thousand francs for your sugar-plums. ' The mother gets me intotrouble with the king, the son makes my peace with him; I am never fortwo days together in the same situation, and I do not get accustomed tothis sort of life, I who thought I could make myself used to anything. "She often spoke of leaving the court. "As I tell you everythinghonestly, " she wrote in 1675 to her confessor, Abbe Gobelin, "I will nottell you that it is to serve God that I should like to leave the placewhere I am; I believe that I might work out my salvation here andelsewhere, but I see nothing to forbid us from thinking of our repose, and withdrawing from a position that vexes us every moment. I explainedmyself badly if you understood me to mean that I am thinking of being anun; I am too old for a change of condition, and, according to theproperty I shall have, I shall look out for securing one full oftranquillity. In the world, all reaction is towards God; in a convent, all reaction is towards the world; there is one great reason; that of agecomes next. " She did not, however, leave the court except to take to thewaters the little Duke of Maine, who had become a cripple after a seriesof violent convulsions. "Never was anything more agreeable than thesurprise which Madame de Maintenon gave the king, " writes Madame deSdvigne to her daughter. "He had not expected the Duke of Maine till thenext day, when he saw him come walking into his room, and only holding bythe hand of his governess; he was transported with joy. M. Do Louvois onher arrival went to call upon Madame de Maintenon; she supped at Madamede Richelieu's, some kissing her hand, others her gown, and she makingfun of them all, if she is not much changed; but they say that she is. "The king's pleasure in conversing with the governess became more markedevery day; Madame de Montespan frequently burst out into bittercomplaints. "She reproaches me with her kindnesses, with her presents, with those of the king, and has told me that she fed me, and that I amstrangling her; you know what the fact is; it is a strange thing that wecannot live together and that we cannot separate. I love her, and Icannot persuade myself that she hates me. " They found themselves alonetogether in one of the court carriages. "Let us not be duped by such athing as this, " said Madame de Montespan, rudely; "let us talk as if wehad no entanglements between us to arrange; it being understood, ofcourse, " added she, "that we resume our entanglements when we get back. ""Madame de Maintenon accepted the proposal, " says Madame de Caylus, whotells the story, "and they kept their word to the letter. " Madame deMaintenon had taken a turn for preaching virtue. "The king passed twohours in my closet, " she wrote to Madame de St. Geran; "he is the mostamiable man in his kingdom. I spoke to him of Father Bourdaloue. Helistened to me attentively. Perhaps he is not so far from thinking ofhis salvation as the court suppose. He has good sentiments and frequentreactions towards God. " "The star of Quanto (Madame de Montespan) ispaling, " writes Madame de Sevigne to her daughter; "there are tears, natural pets, affected gayeties, poutings--in fact, my dear, all iscoming to an end. People look, observe, imagine, believe that there areto be seen as it were rays of light upon faces which, a month ago, werethought to be unworthy of comparison with others. If Quanto had hiddenher face with her cap at Easter in the year she returned to Paris, shewould not be in the agitated state in which she now is. The spirit, indeed, was willing, but great is human weakness; one likes to make themost of a remnant of beauty. This is an economy which ruins rather thanenriches. " "Madame de Montespan asks advice of me, " said Madame deMaintenon; "I speak to her of God, and she thinks I have someunderstanding with the king; I was present yesterday at a very animatedconversation between them. I wondered at the king's patience, and at therage of that vain creature. It all ended with these terrible words: 'Ihave told you already, madame; I will not be interfered with. '"

Henceforth Madame de Montespan "interfered with" the king. He gave thenew dauphiness Madame de Maintenon as her mistress of the robes. "I amtold, " writes Madame de Sevigne, "that the king's conversations donothing but increase and improve, that they last from six to ten o'clock, that the daughter-in-law goes occasionally to pay them a shortish visit, that they are found each in a big chair, and that, when the visit isover, the talk is resumed. The lady is no longer accosted without aweand respect, and the ministers pay her the court which the rest do. Nofriend was ever so careful and attentive as the king is to her; she makeshim acquainted with a perfectly new line of country--I mean theintercourse of friendship and conversation, without chicanery and withoutconstraint; he appears to be charmed with it. "

Discreet and adroit as she was, and artificial without being false, Madame de Maintenon gloried in bringing back the king and the court tothe ways of goodness. "There is nothing so able as irreproachableconduct, " she used to say. The king often went to see the queen; thelatter heaped attentions upon Madame de Maintenon. "The king nevertreated me more affectionately than he has since she had his ear, " thepoor princess would say. The dauphiness had just had a son. The joy atcourt was excessive. "The king let anybody who pleased embrace him, "says the Abbe de Croisy; "he gave everybody his hand to kiss. Spinola, in the warmth of his zeal, bit his finger; the king began to exclaim. 'Sir, ' interrupted the other, 'I ask your Majesty's pardon; but, if Ihadn't bitten you, you would not have noticed me. ' The lower ordersseemed beside themselves, they made bonfires of everything. The portersand the Swiss burned the poles of the chairs, and even the floorings andwainscots intended for the great gallery. Bontemps, in wrath, ran andtold the king, who burst out laughing and said, 'Let them be; we willhave other floorings. '"

The least clear-sighted were beginning to discern the modest beams of arising sun. Madame de Montespan, who had a taste for intellectualthings, had not long since recommended Racine and Boileau to the king towrite a history of his reign. They had been appointed historiographers. "When they had done some interesting piece, " says Louis Racine in hisMemoires, "they used to go and read it to the king at Madame deMontespan's. Madame de Maintenon was generally present at the reading. She, according to Boileau's account, liked my father better than him, andMadame de Montespan, on the contrary, liked Boileau better than myfather, but they always paid their court jointly, without any jealousybetween them. When Madame de Montespan would let fall some rather tartexpressions, my father and Boileau, though by no means sharp-sighted, observed that the king, without answering her, looked with a smile atMadame de Maintenon, who was seated opposite to him on a stool, and whofinally disappeared all at once from these meetings. They met her in thegallery, and asked her why she did not come any more to hear theirreadings. She answered very coldly, 'I am no longer admitted to thosemysteries. ' As they found a great deal of cleverness in her, they weremortified and astonished at this. Their astonishment was very muchgreater, then, when the king, being obliged to keep his bed, sent forthem with orders to bring what they had newly written of history, andthey saw as they went in Madame de Maintenon sitting in an arm-chair nearthe king's pillow, chatting familiarly with his Majesty. They were justgoing to begin their reading, when Madame do Montespan, who had not beenexpected, came in, and after a few compliments to the king, paid suchlong ones to Madame de Maintenon, that the king, to stop them, told herto sit down. 'As it would not be fair, ' he added, 'to read without you awork which you yourself ordered. ' From this day, the two historians paidtheir court to Madame de Maintenon as far as they knew how to do so. "

The queen had died on the 30th of July, 1683, piously and gently, as shehad lived. "This is the first sorrow she ever caused me, " said the king, thus rendering homage in his superb and unconscious egotism, to thepatient virtue of the wife he had put to such cruel trials. Madame deMaintenon was agitated but resolute. "Madame de Montespan has plungedinto the deepest devoutness, " she wrote, two months after the queen'sdeath; "it is quite time she edified us; as for me, I no longer think ofretiring. " Her strong common sense and her far-sighted ambition, farmore than her virtue, had secured her against rocks ahead; henceforth shesaw the goal, she was close upon it, she moved towards it with an evenstep. The king still looked in upon Madame de Montespan of an eveningon his way to the gaming-table; he only staid an instant, to pass on toMadame de Maintenon's; the latter had modestly refused to become lady inattendance upon the dauphiness. She, however, accompanied the king onall his expeditions, "sending him away always afflicted, but, neverdisheartened. " Madame de Montespan, piqued to see that the king nolonger thought of anybody but Madame de Maintenon, "said to him one dayat Marly, " writes Dangeau, "that she has a favor to ask of him, which wasto let her have the duty of entertaining the second-carriage people andof amusing the antechamber. " It required more than seven years of wrathand humiliation to make her resolve upon quitting the court, in 1691. 

The date has never been ascertained exactly of the king's privatemarriage with Madame de Maintenon. It took place, probably, eighteenmonths or two years after the queen's death; the king was forty-seven, Madame de Maintenon fifty. 

"She had great remains of beauty, bright and sprightly eyes, animcomparable grace, " says St. Simon, who detested her; "an air of ease, and yet of restraint and respect; a great deal of cleverness, with aspeech that was sweet, correct, in good terms, and naturally eloquent andbrief. "

Madame do La Valliere had held sway over the young and passionate heartof the prince, Madame de Montespan over the court, Madame de Maintenonalone established her empire over the man and the king. "Whilst givingup our heart, we must remain absolute master of our mind, " Louis XIV. Had written, "separate our affections from our resolves as a sovereign, that she who enchants us may never have liberty to speak to us of ourbusiness or of the people who serve us, and that they be two thingsabsolutely distinct. " The king had scrupulously applied this maxim;Mdlle. De La Valliere had never given a thought to business; Madame deMontespan had sought only to shine, disputing the influence of Colbertwhen he would have put a limit upon her ruinous fancies, leaning forsupport at the last upon Louvois, in order to counterbalance the growingpower of Madame de Maintenon; the latter alone had any part in affairs, a smaller part than has frequently been made out, but important, nevertheless, and sometimes decisive. Ministers went occasionally to dotheir work in her presence with the king, who would turn to her when thequestions were embarassing, and ask, "What does your Solidity think?"The opinions she gave were generally moderate and discreet. "I did notmanage to please in my conversation about the buildings, " she wrote toCardinal Noailles, "and what grieves me is to have caused vexation to nopurpose. Another block of chambers is being built here at a cost of ahundred thousand francs; Marly will soon be a second Versailles. Thepeople, what will become of them?" And later on: "Would you thinkproper, monsignor, to make out a list of good bishops? You could send itme, so that, on the occasions which are constantly occurring, I mightsupport their interests, and they might have the business referred tothem in which they ought to have a hand, and for which they are theproper persons. I am always spoken to when the question is of them; andif I were better informed, I should be bolder. " "It is said that youmeddle too little with business, " Fenelon wrote to her in 1694; "yourmind is better calculated for it than you suppose. You ought to directyour whole endeavors to giving the king views tending to peace, andespecially to the relief of the people, to moderation, to equity, tomistrust of harsh and violent measures, to horror for acts of arbitraryauthority, and finally to love of the Church, and to assiduity in seekinggood pastors for it. " Neither Fenelon nor Madame de Maintenon had seenin the revocation of the edict of Nantes "an act of arbitrary authority, or a harsh and violent measure. " She was not inclined towardspersecution, but she feared lest her moderation should be imputed to aremnant of prejudice in favor of her former religion, "and this it is, "she would say, "which makes me approve of things quite opposed to mysentiments. " An egotistical and cowardly prudence, which caused peopleto attribute to Madame de Maintenon, in the severities against theHuguenots, a share which she had not voluntarily or entirely assumed. 

Whatever the apparent reserve and modesty with which it was cloaked, thereal power of Madame de Maintenon over the king's mind peeped out moreand more into broad daylight. She promoted it dexterously by her extremeanxiety to please him, as well as by her natural and sincere attachmentto the children whom she had brought up, and who had a place near theheart of Louis XIV. Already the young Duke of Maine had been sent to thearmy at the dauphin's side; the king was about to have him married[August 29, 1692] to Mdlle. De Charolais; carefully seeking for hisnatural children alliances amongst the princes of his blood, he hadrecently given Mdlle. De Nantes, daughter of Madame de Montespan, to theduke, grandson of the great Conde. "For a long time past, " says St. Simon, "Madame de Maintenon, even more than the king, had been thinkingof marrying Mdlle. De Blois, Madame de Montespan's second daughter, tothe Duke of Chartres; he was the king's own and only nephew, and thefirst moves towards this marriage were the more difficult in thatMonsieur was immensely attached to all that appertained to his greatness, and Madame was of a nation which abhorred misalliances, and of acharacter which gave no promise of ever making this marriage agreeable toher. " The king considered himself sure of his brother; he had set hisfavorites to work, and employed underhand intrigues. "He sent for theyoung Duke of Chartres, paid him attention, told him he wanted to havehim settled in life, that the war which was kindled on all sides put outof his reach the princesses who might have suited him, that there were noprincesses of the blood of his own age, that he could not better testifyhis affection towards him than by offering him his daughter whose twosisters had married princes of the blood; but that, however eager hemight be for this marriage, he did not want to put any constraint uponhim, and would leave him full liberty in the matter. This language, addressed with the awful majesty so natural to the king to a prince whowas timid, and had not a word to say for himself, put him at his wits'end. " He fell back upon the wishes of his father and mother. "That isvery proper in you, " replied the king; "but, as you consent, your fatherand mother will make no objection;" and, turning to Monsieur, who waspresent, "Is it not so, brother?" he asked. Monsieur had promised; amessenger was sent for Madame, who cast two furious glances at herhusband and her son, saying that, as they were quite willing, she hadnothing to say, made a curt obeisance, and went her way home. Thitherthe court thronged next day; the marriage was announced. "Madame waswalking in the gallery with her favorite, Mdlle. De Chateau-Thiers, taking long steps, handkerchief in hand, weeping unrestrainedly, speakingsomewhat loud, , gesticulating and making a good picture of Ceres afterthe rape of her daughter Proserpine, seeking her in a frenzy, anddemanding her back from Jupiter. Everybody saluted, and stood aside outof respect. Monsieur had taken refuge in lansquenet; never was anythingso shamefaced as his look or so disconcerted as his whole appearance, andthis first condition lasted more than a month with him. The Duke ofChartres came into the gallery, going up to his mother, as he did everyday, to kiss her hand. At that moment, Madame gave him a box of the earso loud that it was heard some paces off, and given as it was before thewhole court, covered the poor prince with confusion, and overwhelmed thecountless spectators with prodigious astonishment. " That did not preventor hamper the marriage, which took place with great pomp at Versailles onthe 18th of February, 1692. The king was, and continued to the last, theabsolute and dread master of all his family, to its remotest branches. 

He lost through this obedience a great deal that is charming and sweetin daily intercourse. For him and for Madame de Maintenon the great andinexhaustible attraction of the Duchess of Burgundy was her gayety andunconstrained ease, tempered by the most delicate respect, which thisyoung princess, on coming as quite a child to France from the court ofSavoy, had tact enough to introduce, and always maintain, amidst the mostintimate familiarity. "In public, demure, respectful with the king, andon terms of timid propriety with Madame de Maintenon, whom she nevercalled anything but aunt, thus prettily blending rank and affection. In private, chattering, frisking, fluttering around them, at one timeperched on the arm of one or the other's chair, at another playfullysitting on their knee, she would throw herself upon their necks, embracethem, kiss them, fondle them, pull them to pieces, chuck them under thechin, tease them, rummage their tables, their papers, their letters, reading them sometimes against their will, according as she saw that theywere in the humor to laugh at it, and occasionally speaking thereon. Admitted to everything, even at the reception of couriers bringing themost important news, going into the king at any hour, even at the timethe council was sitting, useful and also fatal to ministers themselves, but always inclined to help, to excuse, to benefit, unless she wereviolently set against anybody. The king could not do without her; when, rarely, she was absent from his supper in public, it was plainly shown bya cloud of more than usual gravity and taciturnity over the king's wholeperson; and so, when it happened that some ball in winter or some partyin summer made her break into the night, she arranged matters so wellthat she was there to kiss the king the moment he was awake, and to amusehim with an account of the affair. " [Memoires de St. Simon, t. X. P. 186. ]

[Illustration: Madame de Maintenon and the Duchess of Burgundy. ----27]

The dauphiness had died in 1690; the Duchess of Burgundy was, therefore, almost from childhood queen of the court, and before long the idol of thecourtiers; it was around her that pleasures sprang up; it was for herthat the king gave the entertainments to which he had habituatedVersailles, not that for her sake or to take care of her health he wouldever consent to modify his habits or make the least change in his plans. "Thank God, it is over!" he exclaimed one day, after an accident to theprincess; "I shall no longer be thwarted in my trips, and in all I desireto do, by the representations of physicians. I shall come and go as Ifancy; and I shall be left in peace. " Even in his court, and amongst hismost devoted servants, this monstrous egotism astounded and scandalizedeverybody. "A silence in which you might have heard an ant movesucceeded this sally, " says St. Simon, who relates the scene; "we lookeddown; we hardly dared draw breath. Everybody stood aghast. To the verybuilders-men and gardeners everybody was motionless. This silence lastedmore than a quarter of an hour. The king broke it, as he leaned againsta balustrade of the great basin, to speak about a carp. Nobody made anyanswer. He afterwards addressed his remarks about these carp to somebuilder's-men who did not keep up the conversation in the regular way; itwas but a question of carp with them. Everything was at a low ebb, andthe king went away some little time after. As soon as we dared look atone another out of his sight, our eyes meeting told all. " There was noventuring beyond looks. Fenelon had said, with severe charity, "God willhave compassion upon a prince beset from his youth up by flatterers. "

Flattery ran a risk of becoming hypocrisy. On returning to a regularlife, the king was for imposing the same upon his whole court; theinstinct of order and regularity, smothered for a while in the heyday ofpassion, had resumed all its sway over the naturally proper and steadymind of Louis XIV. His dignity and his authority were equally involvedin the cause of propriety and regularity at his court; he imposed thisyoke as well as all the others; there appeared to be entire obedience;only some princes or princesses escaped it sometimes, getting about thema few free-thinkers or boon-companions; good, honest folks showedingenuous joy; the virtuous and far-sighted were secretly uneasy at thefalsehood, and deplored the pressure put on so many consciences and somany lives. The king was sincere in his repentance for the past, manypersons in his court were as sincere as he; others, who were not, affected, in order to please him, the externals of austerity; absolutepower oppressed all spirits, extorting from them that hypocriticalcomplaisance which is liable to engender; corruption was already broodingbeneath appearances of piety; the reign of Louis XV. Was to see itsdeplorable fruits displayed with a haste and a scandal which are to beexplained only by the oppression exercised in the last years of KingLouis XIV. 

Madame de Maintenon was like the genius of this reaction towardsregularity, propriety, order; all the responsibility for it had beenthrown upon her; the good she did has disappeared beneath the evil sheallowed or encouraged; the regard lavished upon her by the king hascaused illusions as to the discreet care she was continually taking toplease him. She was faithful to her friends, so long as they were infavor with the king; if they had the misfortune to displease him, she, at the very least, gave up seeing them; without courage or hardihood towithstand the caprices and wishes of Louis XIV. , she had gained andpreserved her empire by dint of dexterity and far-sighted supplenessbeneath the externals of dignity. 

She never forgot her origin. "I am not a grandee, " she would say;"I am a mushroom. " Her life, entirely devoted to the king, had become averitable slavery; she said as much to Mdlle. D'Aumale at St. Cyr. "Ihave to take for my prayers and for mass the time when everybody else isstill sleeping. For, when once they begin coming into my room, at halfpast seven, I haven't another moment to myself. They come filing in, andnobody goes out without being relieved by somebody higher. At last comesthe king; then, of course, they all have to go out; he remains with me upto mass. I am, still in my night-cap. The king comes back after mass;then the Duchess of Burgundy with her ladies. They remain whilst I dine. I have to keep up the conversation, which flags every moment, and tomanage so as to harmonize minds and reconcile hearts which are as far aspossible asunder. The circle is all round me, and I cannot ask foranything to drink; I sometimes say to them (aside), 'It is a great honor, but really I should prefer a footman. ' At last they all go away todinner. I should be free during that time, if Monseigneur did notgenerally choose it for coming to see me, for he often dines earlier inorder to go hunting. He is very difficult to entertain, having verylittle to say, and finding himself a bore, and running away from himselfcontinually; so I have to talk for two. Immediately after the king hasdined, he comes into my room with all the royal family, princes andprincesses; then I must be prepared for the gayest of conversation, andwear a smiling face amidst so much distressing news. When this companydisperses, some lady has always something particular to say to me; theDuchess of Burgundy also wants to have a chat. The king returns fromhunting. He comes to me. The door is shut, and nobody else is admitted. Then I have to share his secret troubles, which are no small number. Arrives a minister; and the king sets himself to work. If I am notwanted at this consultation, which seldom happens, I withdraw to somefarther distance and write or pray. I sup, whilst the king is still atwork. I am restless, whether he is alone or not. The king says to me, 'You are tired, Madame; go to bed. ' My women come. But I feel that theyinterfere with the king, who would chat with me, and does not like tochat before them; or, perhaps, there are some ministers still there, whomhe is afraid they may overhear. Wherefore I make haste to undress, somuch so that I often feel quite ill from it. At last I am in bed. Theking comes up and remains by my pillow until he goes to supper. But aquarter of an hour before supper, the dauphin and the Duke and Duchess ofBurgundy come in to me again. At ten, everybody goes out. At last I amalone, but very often the fatigues of the day prevent me from sleeping. "

She was at that time seventy. She was often ailing; but the Duchess ofBurgundy was still very young, and the burden of the most private mattersof court diplomacy fell entirely upon Madame de Maintenon. "The Princessdes Ursins is about to return to Spain, " she said; "if I do not take herin hand, if I do not repair by my attentions the coldness of the Duchessof Burgundy, the indifference of the king and the curtness of the otherprinces, she will go away displeased with our court, and it is expedientthat she should praise it, and speak well of it in Spain. "

It was, in fact, through Madame de Maintenon and her correspondence withthe Princess des Ursins, that the private business between the two courtsof France and Spain was often carried on. At Madrid, far more than atVersailles, the influence of women was all-powerful. The queen ruled herhusband, who was honest and courageous, but without wit or daring; andthe Princess des Ursins ruled the queen, as intelligent and as amiable asher sister the Duchess of Burgundy, but more ambitious and more haughty. Louis XIV. Had several times conceived some misgiving of the _camareramajor's_ influence over his grandson; she had been disgraced, and thenrecalled; she had finally established her sway by her fidelity, ability, dexterity, and indomitable courage. She served France habitually, Spainand her own influence in Spain always; she had been charming, with an airof nobility, grace, elegance, and majesty all together, and accustomed tothe highest society and the most delicate intrigues, during her sojournat Rome and Madrid; she was full of foresight and calculation, butimpassioned, ambitious, implacable, pushing to extremes her amity as wellas her hatred, faithful to her master and mistress in their most crueltrials, and then hampering and retarding peace for the sake of securingfor herself a principality in the Low Countries. Without having risenfrom the ranks, like Madame de Maintenon, she had reached a less high andless safe elevation; she had been more absolutely and more daringlysupreme during the time of her power, and at last she fell with therudest shock, without any support from Madame de Maintenon. Thepretensions of Madame des Ursins during the negotiations had offendedFrance; "this was the stone of stumbling between the two supremedirectresses, " says St. Simon; after this attempt at sovereignty, therewas no longer the same accord between Madame de Maintenon and Madame desUrsins, but this latter had reached in Spain a point at which she moreeasily supposed that she could dispense with it. The Queen of Spain haddied at the age of twenty-six, in 1714; did the princess for a momentconceive the hope of marrying Philip V. In spite of the disproportion inrank and age? Nobody knows; she had already been reigning as sovereignmistress for some months, when she received from the king this stunningcommand: "Look me out a wife. " She obeyed; she looked out. Alberoni, anItalian priest, brought into Spain by the Duke of Vendome, drew herattention to the Princess of Parma, Elizabeth Farnese. The principalitywas small, the princess young; Alberoni laid stress upon her sweetnessand modesty. "Nothing will be more easy, " he said, "than for you tofashion her to Spanish gravity, by keeping her retired; in the capacityof her _camarera major, _ intrusted with her education, you will easily beable to acquire complete sway over her mind. " The Princess des Ursinsbelieved him, and settled the marriage. "Cardonne has surrendered atlast, Madame, " she wrote on the 20th of September, 1714, to Madame deMaintenon; "there is nothing left in Catalonia that is not reduced. Thenew queen, at her coming into this kingdom, is very fortunate to find nomore war there. She whom we have lost would have been beside herselfwith delight at enjoying peace after having experienced such cruelsufferings of all kinds. The longer I live, the more I see that we arenever so near a reverse of Fortune as when she is favorable, or so nearreceiving favors as when she is maltreating us. For that reason, Madame, if one were wise, one would take her inconstancy graciously. "

The time had come for Madame des Ursins to make definitive trial ofFortune's inconstancy. She had gone to meet the new queen, in full dressand with her ornaments; Elizabeth received her coldly; they were leftalone; the queen reproached the princess with negligence in her costumeMadame des Ursins, strangely surprised, would have apologized, "but, allat once there was the queen at offensive words, and screaming, summoning, demanding officers, guards, and imperiously ordering Madame des Ursinsout of her presence. She would have spoken; but the queen, withredoubled rage and threats, began to scream out for the removal of thismad woman from her presence and her apartments; she had her put out bythe shoulders, and on the instant into a carriage with one of her women, to be taken at once to St. Jean-de-Luz. It was seven o'clock at night, the day but one before Christmas, the ground all covered with ice andsnow; Madame des Ursins had no time to change gown or head-dress, to takeany measures against the cold, to get any money, or any anything else atall. " Thus she was conducted almost without a mouthful of food to thefrontier of France. She hoped for aid from the king of Spain; but nonecame; it got known that the queen had been abetted in everything andbeforehand by Philip V. On arriving at St. Jean-de-Luz, she wrote to theking and to Madame de Maintenon: "Can you possibly conceive, Madame, thesituation in which I find myself? Treated in the face of all Europe, with more contempt by the Queen of Spain than if I were the lowest ofwretches? They want to persuade me that the king acted in concert with aprincess who had me treated with such cruelty. I shall await his ordersat St. Jean-de-Luz, where I am in a small house close by the sea. I seeit often stormy and sometimes calm; a picture of courts. I shall have nodifficulty in agreeing with you that it is of no use looking forstability but in God. Certainly it cannot be found in the human heart, for who was ever more sure than I was of the heart of the King of Spain?"

The king did not reply at all, and Madame de Maintenon but coldly, begging the princess, however, to go to Versailles. There she passed buta short time, and received notice to leave the kingdom. With greatdifficulty she obtained an asylum at Rome, where she lived seven yearslonger, preserving all her health, strength, mind, and easy grace untilshe died, in 1722, at more than eighty-four years of age, in obscurityand sadness, notwithstanding her opulence, but avenged of her Spanishfoes, Cardinals della Giudice and Alberoni, whom she met again at Rome, disgraced and fugitive like herself. "I do not know where I may die, "she wrote to Madame de Maintenon, at that time in retirement at St. Cyr. Both had survived their power; the Princess des Ursins had not long sincewanted to secure for herself a dominion; Madame de Maintenon, morefar-sighted and more modest, had aspired to no more than repose in theconvent which she had founded and endowed. Discreet in her retirement aswell as in her life, she had not left to chance the selection of a placewhere she might die. 

[Illustration: Death of Madame de Maintenon. ----34]

CHAPTER L----LOUIS XIV. AND DEATH. 1711-1715. 

"One has no more luck at our age, " Louis XIV. Had said to his old friendMarshal Villars, returning from his most disastrous campaign. It was abitter reflection upon himself which had put these words into the king'smouth. After the most brilliant, the most continually and invariablytriumphant of reigns, he began to see Fortune slipping away from him, and the grievous consequences of his errors successively overwhelming thestate. "God is punishing me; I have richly deserved it, " he said toMarshal Villars, who was on the point of setting out for the battle ofDenain. The aged king, dispirited and beaten, could not set down to menhis misfortunes and his reverses; the hand of God Himself was raisedagainst his house. Death was knocking double knocks all round him. Thegrand-dauphin had for some days past been ill of small-pox. The king hadgone to be with him at Meudon, forbidding the court to come near thecastle. The small court of Monseigneur were huddled together in thelofts. The king was amused with delusive hopes; his chief physician, Fagon, would answer for the invalid. The king continued to hold hiscouncils as usual, and the deputation of market-women (_dames de laHalle_), come from Paris to have news of Monseigneur, went away, declaring that they would go and sing a Te Deum, as he was nearly well. "It is not time yet, my good women, " said Monseigneur, who had given thema reception. That very evening he was dead, without there having beentime to send for his confessor in ordinary. "The parish priest ofMeudon, who used to look in every evening before he went home, had foundall the doors open, the valets distracted, Fagon heaping remedy uponremedy without waiting for them to take effect. He entered the room, andhurrying to Monseigneur's bedside, took his hand and spoke to him of God. The poor prince was fully conscious, but almost speechless. He repeateddistinctly a few words, others inarticulately, smote his breast, pressedthe priest's hand, appeared to have the most excellent sentiments, andreceived absolution with an air of contrition and wistfulness. "[Memoires de St. Simon, ix. ] Meanwhile word had been sent to the king, who arrived quite distracted. The Princess of Conti, his daughter, whowas deeply attached to Monseigneur, repulsed him gently: "You must thinkonly of yourself now, Sir, " she said. The king let himself sink downupon a sofa, asking news of all that came out of the room, without anyone's daring to give him an answer. Madame de Maintenon, who had hurriedto the king, and was agitated without being affected, tried to get himaway; she did not succeed, however, until Monseigneur had breathed hislast. He passed along to his carriage between two rows of officers andvalets, all kneeling, and conjuring him to have pity upon them who hadlost all and were like to starve. 

[Illustration: The King leaving the Death-bed of Monseigneur----36]

The excitement and confusion at Versailles were tremendous. From themoment that small-pox was declared, the princes had not been admitted toMeudon. The Duchess of Burgundy alone had occasionally seen the king. All were living in confident expectation of a speedy convalescence; thenews of the death came upon them like a thunderclap. All the courtiersthronged together at once, the women half dressed, the men anxious andconcerned, some to conceal their extreme sorrow, others their joy, according as they were mixed up in the different cabals of the court. "It was all, however, nothing but a transparent veil, " says St. Simon, "which did not prevent good eyes from observing and discerning all thefeatures. The two princes and the two princesses, seated beside them, taking care of them, were most exposed to view. The Duke of Burgundywept, from feeling and in good faith, with an air of gentleness, tears ofnature, of piety, and of patience. The Duke of Berry, in quite as goodfaith, shed abundance, but tears, so to speak, of blood, so greatappeared to be their bitterness; he gave forth not sobs, but shrieks, howls. The Duchess of Berry (daughter of the Duke of Orleans) was besideherself. The bitterest despair was depicted on her face. She saw hersister-in-law, who was so hateful to her, all at once raised to thattitle, that rank of dauphiness, which were about to place so great adistance between them. Her frenzy of grief was not from affection, butfrom interest; she would wrench herself from it to sustain her husband, to embrace him, to console him, then she would become absorbed in herselfagain with a torrent of tears, which helped her to stifle her shrieks. The Duke of Orleans wept in his own corner, actually sobbing, a thingwhich, had I not seen it, I should never have believed, " adds St. Simon, who detested Monseigneur, and had as great a dread of his reigning as theDuke of Orleans had. "Madame, re-dressed in full dress, in the middle ofthe night, arrived regularly howling, not quite knowing why either one orthe other; inundating them all with her tears as she embraced them, andmaking the castle resound with a renewal of shrieks, when the king'scarriages were announced, on his return to Marly. " The Duchess ofBurgundy was awaiting him on the road. She stepped down and went to thecarriage window. "What are you about, Madame?" exclaimed Madame deMaintenon; "do not come near us, we are infectious. " The king did notembrace her, and she went back to the palace, but only to be at Marlynext morning before the king was awake. 

The king's tears were as short as they had been abundant. He lost a sonwho was fifty years old, the most submissive and most respectful creaturein the world, ever in awe of him and obedient to him, gentle andgood-natured, a proper man amid all his indolence and stupidity, braveand even brilliant at head of an army. In 1688, in front of Philipsburg, the soldiers had given him the name of "Louis the Bold. " He was full ofspirits and always ready, "revelling in the trenches, " says Vauban. TheDuke of Montausier, his boyhood's strict governor, had written to him, "Monseigneur, I do not make you my compliments on the capture ofPhilipsburg; you had a fine army, shells, cannon, and Vauban. I do notmake them to you either on your bravery; it is an hereditary virtue inyour house; but I congratulate you on being open-handed, humane, generous, and appreciative of the services of those who do well; that iswhat I make you my compliments upon. " "Did not I tell you so?" proudlyexclaimed the Chevalier de Grignan, formerly attached (as menin) to theperson of Monseigneur, on hearing his master's exploits lauded; "for mypart, I am not surprised. " Racine had exaggerated the virtues ofMonseigneur in the charming verses of the prologue of Esther:

 "Thou givest him a son, an ever ready aid, Apt or to woo or fight, obey or be obeyed; A son who, like his sire, drags victory in his train, Yet boasts but one desire, that father's heart to gain; A son, who to his will submits with loving air, Who brings upon his foes perpetual despair. As the swift spirit flies, stern Equity's envoy, So, when the king says, 'Go, ' down rusheth he in joy, With vengeful thunderbolt red ruin doth complete, Then tranquilly returns to lay it at his feet. "

In 1690 and in 1691 he had gained distinction as well as in 1688. "Thedauphin has begun as others would think it an honor to leave off, " thePrince of Orange had said, "and, for my part, I should consider that Ihad worthily capped anything great I may have done in war if, undersimilar circumstances, I had made so fine a march. " Whether it wereowing to indolence or court cabal, Monseigneur had no more commands;he had no taste for politics, and always sat in silence at the council, to which the king had formally admitted him at thirty years of age, "instructing him, " says the Marquis of Sourches, "with so much vigor andaffection, that Monseigneur could not help falling at his feet to testifyhis respect and gratitude. " Twice, at grave conjunctures, thegrand-dauphin allowed his voice to be heard; in 1685, to offer a timidopposition to the Edict of Nantes, and, in 1700, to urge very vigorouslythe acceptance of the King of Spain's will. "I should be enchanted, " hecried, as if with a prophetic instinct of his own destiny, "to be able tosay all my life, 'The king my father, and the king my SON. '" Heavy inbody as well as mind, living on terms of familiarity with a petty court, probably married to Mdlle. Choin, who had been for a long time installedin his establishment at Meudon, Monseigneur, often embarrassed and madeuncomfortable by the austere virtue of the Duke of Burgundy, and findingmore attraction in the Duke of Berry's frank geniality, had surrenderedhimself, without intending it, to the plots which were woven about him. "His eldest son behaved to him rather as a courtier than as a son, gliding over the coldness shown him with a respect and a gentlenesswhich, together, would have won over any father less a victim tointrigue. The Duchess of Burgundy, in spite of her address and herwinning grace, shared her husband's disfavor. " The Duchess of Berry hadcounted upon this to establish her sway in a reign which the king's greatage seemed to render imminent; already, it was said, the chief amusementat Monseigneur's was to examine engravings of the coronation ceremony, when death carried him off suddenly on the 14th of April, 1711, to theconsternation of the lower orders, who loved him because of hisreputation for geniality. The severity of the new dauphin caused somelittle dread. 

"Here is a prince who will succeed me before long, " said the king onpresenting his grandson to the assembly of the clergy; "by his virtue andpiety he will render the church still more flourishing, and the kingdommore happy. " That was the hope of all good men. Fenelon, in his exilein Cambrai, and the Dukes of Beauvilliers and Chevreuse, at court, beganto feel themselves all at once transported to the heights with the princewhom they had educated, and who had constantly remained faithful to them. The delicate foresight and prudent sagacity of Fenelon had a long whileago sought to prepare his pupil for the part which he was about to play. It was piety alone that had been able to triumph over the dangeroustendencies of a violent and impassioned temperament. Fenelon, who hadfelt this, saw also the danger of devoutness carried too far. "Religiondoes not consist in a scrupulous observance of petty formalities, " hewrote to the Duke of Burgundy; "it consists, for everybody, in thevirtues proper to one's condition. A great prince ought not to serveGod in the same way as a hermit or a simple individual. "

"The prince thinks too much and acts too little, " he said to the Duke ofChevreuse; "his most solid occupations are confined to vague applicationsof his mind and barren resolutions; he must see society, study it, mix init, without becoming a slave to it, learn to express himself forcibly, and acquire a gentle authority. If he do not feel the need of possessingfirmness and nerve, he will not make any real progress; it is time forhim to be a man. The life of the region in which he lives is a life ofeffeminacy, indolence, timidity, and amusement. He will never be so truea servant to the king and to Monseigneur as when he makes them see thatthey have in him a man matured, full of application, firm, impressed withtheir true interests, and fitted to aid them by the wisdom of hiscounsels and the vigor of his conduct. Let him be more and more littlein the hands of God, but let him become great in the eyes of men; it ishis duty to make virtue, combined with authority, loved, feared, andrespected. "

Court-perfidy dogged the Duke of Burgundy to the very head of the armyover which the king had set him; Fenelon, always correctly informed, hadoften warned him of it. The duke wrote to him, in 1708, on the occasionof his dissensions with VendOme: "It is true that I have experienced atrial within the last fortnight, and I am far from having taken it as Iought, allowing myself to give way to an oppression of the heart causedby the blackenings, the contradictions, and the pains of irresolution, and the fear of doing something untoward in a matter of extremeimportance to the State. As for what you say to me about my indecision, it is true that I myself reproach myself for it, and I pray God every dayto give me, together with wisdom and prudence, strength and courage tocarry out what I believe to be my duty. " He had no more commands, inspite of his entreaties to obtain, in 1709, permission to march againstthe enemy. "If money is short, I will go without any train, " he said;"I will live like a simple officer; I will eat, if need be, the bread ofa common soldier, and none will complain of lacking superfluities when Ihave scarcely necessaries. " It was at the very time when the Archbishopof Cambrai was urgent for peace to be made at any price. "The people nolonger live like human beings, " he said, in a memorial sent to the Dukeof Beauvilliers; "there is no counting any longer on their patience, theyare reduced to such outrageous trials. As they have nothing more tohope, they have nothing more to fear. The king has no right to riskFrance in order to save Spain; he received his kingdom from God, not thathe should expose it to invasion by the enemy, as if it were a thing withwhich he can do anything he pleases, but that he should rule it as afather, and transmit it as a precious heirloom to his posterity. " Hedemanded at the same time the convocation of the assembly of notables. 

It was this kingdom, harassed on all sides by its enemies, bleeding, exhausted, but stronger, nevertheless, and more bravely faithful than wasmade out by Fenelon, that the new dauphin found himself suddenly calledupon to govern by the death of Monseigneur, and by the unexpectedconfidence testified in him before long by the king. "The prince shouldtry more than ever to appear open, winning, accessible, and sociable, "wrote Fenelon; "he must undeceive the public about the scruples imputedto him; keep his strictness to himself, and not set the courtapprehending a severe reform of which society is not capable, and whichwould have to be introduced imperceptibly, even if it were possible. Hecannot be too careful to please the king, avoid giving him the slightestumbrage, make him feel a dependence founded on confidence and affection, relieve him in his work, and speak to him with a gentle and respectfulforce which will grow by little and little. He should say no more thancan be borne; it requires to have the heart prepared for the utteranceof painful truths which are not wont to be heard. For the rest, nopuerilities or pettinesses in the practice of devotion; government islearned better from studying men than from studying books. "

The young dauphin was wise enough to profit by these sage and ablecounsels. "Seconded to his heart's content by his adroit young wife, herself in complete possession of the king's private ear and of the heartof Madame de Maintenon, he redoubled his attentions to the latter, who, in her transport at finding a dauphin on whom she might rely securelyinstead of one who did not like her, put herself in his hands, and, bythat very act, put the king in his hands. The first fortnight madeperceptible to all at Marly this extraordinary change in the king, whowas so reserved towards his legitimate children, so very much the kingwith them. Breathing more freely after so great a step had been made, the dauphin showed a bold front to society, which he dreaded during thelifetime of Monseigneur, because, great as he was, he was often thevictim of its best received jests. The king having come round to him;the insolent cabal having been dispersed by the death of a father, almostan enemy, whose place he took; society in a state of respect, attention, alacrity; the most prominent personages with an air of slavishness; thegay and frivolous, no insignificant portion of a large court, at his feetthrough his wife, --it was observed that this timid, shy, self-concentrated prince, this precise (piece of) virtue, this (bit of)misplaced learning, this gawky man, a stranger in his own house, constrained in everything, --it was observed, I say, that he was showinghimself by degrees, unfolding himself little by little, presentinghimself to society in moderation, and that he was unembarrassed, majestic, gay, and agreeable in it. A style of conversation, easy butinstructive, and happily and aptly directed, charmed the sensiblecourtier and made the rest wonder. There was all at once an opening ofeyes, and ears, and hearts. There was a taste of the consolation, whichwas so necessary and so longed for, of seeing one's future master so wellfitted to be from his capacity and from the use that he showed he couldmake of it. "

The king had ordered ministers to go and do their work at the prince's. The latter conversed modestly and discreetly with the men he thoughtcapable of enlightening him; the Duke of St. Simon had this honor, whichhe owed to the friendship of the Duke of Beauvilliers, and of which heshowed himself sensible in his Memoires. Fenelon was still at Cambrai, "which all at once turned out to be the only road from all the differentparts of Flanders. The archbishop had such and so eager a court there, that for all his delight he was pained by it, from apprehension of thenoise it would make, and the bad effect he feared it might have on theking's mind. " He, however, kept writing to the dauphin, sending himplans of government prepared long before; some wise, bold, liberal, worthy of a mind that was broad and without prejudices; others chimericaland impossible of application. The prince examined them with care. "He had comprehended what it is to leave God for God's sake, and had setabout applying himself almost entirely to things which might make himacquainted with government, having a sort of foretaste already ofreigning, and being more and more the hope of the nation, which was atlast beginning to appreciate him. "

God had in former times given France a St. Louis. He did not deem herworthy of possessing such an ornament a second time. The comfort andhope which were just appearing in the midst of so many troubles vanishedsuddenly like lightning; the dauphiness fell ill on the 5th of February;she had a burning fever, and suffered from violent pains in the head; itwas believed to be scarlet-fever (rougeole), with whispers, at the sametime, of ugly symptoms; the malady went on increasing; the dauphin wasattacked in his turn; sacraments were mentioned; the princess, taken bysurprise, hesitated without daring to speak. Her Jesuit confessor, Father La Rue, himself proposed to go and fetch another priest. A_Recollet_ (Raptionist) was brought; when he arrived she was dying. Afew hours later she expired, at the age of twenty-six, on the 12th ofFebruary, 1712. "With her there was a total eclipse of joys, pleasures, amusements even, and every sort of grace; darkness covered the whole faceof the court; she was the soul of it all, she filled it all, she pervadedall the interior of it. " The king loved her as much as he was capable ofloving; she amused him and charmed him in the sombre moments of his life;he, like the dauphin, had always been ignorant of the giddiness of whichshe had been guilty; Madame de Maintenon, who knew of them, and who heldthem as a rod over her, was only concerned to keep them secret; all thecourt, with the exception of a few perfidious intriguers, made commoncause to serve her and please her. "Regularly ugly, pendent cheeks, forehead too prominent, a nose that said nothing; of eyes the mostspeaking and most beautiful in the world; a carriage of the head gallant, majestic, graceful, and a look the same; smile the most expressive, waistlong, rounded, slight, supple; the gait of a goddess on the clouds; heryouthful, vivacious, energetic gayety, carried all before it, and hernymph-like agility wafted her everywhere, like a whirlwind that fillsmany places at once, and gives to them movement and life. If the courtexisted after her it was but to languish away. " [Memoires de St. Simon, xi. ] There was only one blow more fatal for death to deal; and there wasnot long to wait for it. 

"I have prayed, and I will pray, " writes F6nelon. "God knows whether theprince is for one instant forgotten. I fancy I see him in the state inwhich St. Augustin depicts himself: 'My heart is obscured by grief. Allthat I see reflects for me but the image of death. All that was sweet tome, when I could share it with her whom I loved, becomes a torment to mesince I lost her. My eyes seek for her everywhere and find her nowhere. When she was alive, wherever I might be without her, everything said tome, You are going to see her. Nothing says so now. I find no solace butin my tears. I cannot bear the weight of my wounded and bleeding heart, and yet I know not where to rest it. I am wretched; for so it is whenthe heart is set on the love of things that pass away. '" "The days ofthis affliction were soon shortened, " says St. Simon; "from the firstmoment I saw him, I was scared at his fixed, haggard look, with asomething of ferocity, at the change in his countenance and the lividmarks I noticed upon it. He was waiting at Marly for the king to awake;they came to tell him he could go in; he turned without speaking a word, without replying to his gentlemen (_menins_) who pressed him to go; Iwent up to him, taking the liberty of giving him a gentle push; he gaveme a look, that pierced right to the heart, and went away. I neverlooked on him again. Please God in His mercy I may look on him foreverthere where his goodness, no doubt, has placed him!"

It was a desperate but a short struggle. Disease and grief werevictorious over the most sublime courage. "It was the spectacle of a manbeside himself, who was forcing himself to keep the surface smooth, andwho succumbed in the attempt. " The dauphin took to his bed on the 14thof February; he believed himself to be poisoned, and said, from thefirst, that he should never recover. His piety alone, through the mostprodigious efforts, still kept up; he spoke no more, save to God, continually lifting up his soul to him in fervent aspirations. "Whattender, but tranquil views! What lively motions towards thanksgiving forbeing preserved from the sceptre and the account that must be renderedthereof! What submission, and how complete! What ardent love of God!What a magnificent idea of infinite mercy! What pious and humble awe!What invincible patience! What sweetness! What constant kindnesstowards all that approached him! What pure charity which urged himforward to God! France at length succumbed beneath this lastchastisement; God gave her a glimpse of a prince whom she did notdeserve. Earth was not worthy of him; he was already ripe for a blessedeternity!"

"For some time past I have feared that a fatality hung over the dauphin, "Fenelon had written at the first news of his illness; "I have at thebottom of my heart a lurking apprehension that God is not yet appeasedtowards France. For a long while He has been striking, as the prophetsays, and His anger is not yet worn out. God has taken from us all ourhope for the Church and for the State. "

Fenelon and his friends had expected too much and hoped for too much;they relied upon the dauphin to accomplish a work above human strength;he might have checked the evil, retarded for a while the march of events, but France carried simultaneously in her womb germs of decay and hopes ofprogress, both as yet concealed and confused, but too potent and toointimately connected with the very sources of her history and herexistence for the hand of the most virtuous and most capable of princesto have the power of plucking them out or keeping them down. 

There was universal and sincere mourning in France and in Europe. Thedeath of the little Duke of Brittany, which took place a few days afterthat of his parents, completed the consternation into which the court wasthrown. The most sinister rumors circulated darkly; a base intriguecaused the Duke of Orleans to be accused; people called to mind his tastefor chemistry and even magic, his flagrant impiety, his scandalousdebauchery; beside himself with grief and anger, he demanded of the kingto be sent to the Bastille; the king refused curtly, coldly, not unmovedin his secret heart by the perfidious insinuations which made their wayeven to him, but too just and too sensible to entertain a hateful lie, which, nevertheless, lay heavy on the Duke of Orleans to the end of hisdays. 

[Illustration: Louis XIV. In Old Age----47]

Darkly, but to more effect, the same rumors were renewed before long. The Duke of Berry died at the age of twenty-seven on the 4th of May, 1714, of a disease which presented the same features as the scarlet fever(_rougeole vourpree_) to which his brother and sister-in-law hadsuccumbed. The king was old and sad; the state of his kingdom preyedupon his mind; he was surrounded by influences hostile to his nephew, whom he himself called "a vaunter of crimes. " A child who was not fiveyears old remained sole heir to the throne. Madame de Maintenon, as sadas the king, "naturally mistrustful, addicted to jealousies, susceptibilities, suspicions, aversions, spites, and woman's wiles "[_Lettres de Fenelon au duc de Chevreuse_], being, moreover, sincerelyattached to the king's natural children, was constantly active on theirbehalf. On the 19th of July, 1714, the king announced to the premierpresident and the attorney-general of the Parliament of Paris that it washis pleasure to grant to the Duke of Maine and to the Count of Toulouse, for themselves and their descendants, the rank of princes of the blood, in its full extent, and that he desired that the deeds should beenregistered in the Parliament. Soon after, still under the sameinfluence, he made a will which was kept a profound secret, and whichhe sent to be deposited in the strong-room (_greffe_) of the Parliament, committing the guardianship of the future king to the Duke of Maine, andplacing him, as well his brother, on the council of regency, with closerestrictions as to the Duke of Orleans, who would he naturally called tothe government of the kingdom during the minority. The will was darklytalked about; the effect of the elevation of bastards to the rank ofprinces of the blood had been terrible. "There was no longer any son ofFrance; the Spanish branch had renounced; the Duke of Orleans had beencarefully placed in such a position as not to dare say a word or show theleast dissatisfaction; his only son was a child; neither the Duke (ofBerry), his brothers, nor the Prince of Conti, were of an age or ofstanding, in the king's eyes, to make the least trouble in the worldabout it. The bombshell dropped all at once when nobody could haveexpected it, and everybody fell on his stomach as is done when a shelldrops; everybody was gloomy and almost wild; the king himself appeared asif exhausted by so great an effort of will and power. He had only justsigned his will, when he met, at Madame de Maintenon's, the Ex-Queen ofEngland. "I have made my will, Madame, " said he. "I have purchasedrepose; I know the impotence and uselessness of it; we can do all weplease as long as we are here; after we are gone, we can do less thanprivate persons; we have only to look at what became of my father's, andimmediately after his death too, and of those of so many other kings. I am quite aware of that; but, in spite of all that, it was desired; andso, Madame, you see it has been done; come of it what may, at any rate Ishall not be worried about it any more. " It was the old man yielding tothe entreaties and intrigues of his domestic circle; the judgment of theking remained steady and true, without illusions and without prejudices. 

Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so long and hadoccupied so much room in the world that it caused mistakes as to the veryage of the king. He was seventy-seven; he continued to work with hisministers; the order so long and so firmly established was, not disturbedby illness any more than it had been by the reverses and sorrows of late;meanwhile the appetite was diminishing, the thinness went on increasing, a sore on the leg appeared, the king suffered a great deal. On the 24thof August he dined in bed, surrounded as usual by his courtiers; he had adifficulty in swallowing; for the first time, publicity was burdensome tohim; he could not get on, and said to those who were there that he beggedthem to withdraw. Meanwhile the drums and hautboys still went on playingbeneath his window, and the twenty-four violins at his dinner. In theevening, he was so ill that he asked for the sacraments. There had beenwrung from him a codicil which made the will still worse. He, nevertheless, received the Duke of Orleans, to whom he commended theyoung king. On the 26th he called to his bedside all those of the courtwho had the entry. "Gentlemen, " he said to them, "I ask your pardon forthe bad example I have set you. I have to thank you much for the way inwhich you have served me, and for the attachment and fidelity you havealways shown me. I am very sorry not to have done for you what I shouldhave liked to do. The bad times are the cause of that. I request ofyou, on my great-grandson's behalf, the same attention and fidelity thatyou have shown me. It is a child who will possibly have many crosses tobear. Follow the instructions my nephew gives you; he is about to governthe kingdom, and I hope that he will do it well; I hope also that youwill all contribute to preserve unity. I feel that I am becomingunmanned, and that I am unmanning you also; I ask your pardon. Farewell, gentlemen; I feel sure that you will think of me sometimes. "

The princesses had entered the king's closet; they were weeping andmaking a noise. "You must not cry so, " said the king, who asked for themto bid them farewell. He sent for the little dauphin. His governess, the Duchess of Ventadour, brought him on to the bed. "My child, " saidthe king to him, "you are going to be a great king. Render to God thatwhich you owe to Him; recognize the obligations you have towards Him;cause Him to be honored by your subjects. Try to preserve peace withyour neighbors. I have been too fond of war; do not imitate me in that, any more than in the too great expenses I have incurred. Take counsel inall matters, and seek to discern which is the best in order to follow it. Try to relieve your people, which I have been so unfortunate as not tohave been able to do. " He kissed the child, and said, "Darling, I giveyou my blessing with all my heart. " He was taken away; the king askedfor him once more and kissed him again, lifting hands and eyes to Heavenin blessings upon him. Everybody wept. The king caught sight in a glassof two grooms of the chamber who were sobbing. "What are you cryingfor?" he said to them; "did you think that I was immortal?" He was leftalone with Madame de Maintenon. "I have always heard say that it wasdifficult to make up one's mind to die, " said he; "I do not find it sohard. " "Ah, Sir, " she replied, "it may be very much so, when there areearthly attachments, hatred in the heart, or restitutions to make!""Ah!" replied the king, "as for restitutions to make, I owe nobody anyindividually; as for those that I owe the kingdom, I have hope in themercy of God. "

[Illustration: The Death-bed of Louis XIV. ----50]

The Duke of Orleans came back again; the king had sent for him. "When Iam dead, " he said, "you will have the young king taken to Vincennes; theair there is good; he will remain there until all the ceremonies are overat Versailles, and the castle well cleaned afterwards; you will thenbring him back again. " He at the same time gave orders for going andfurnishing Vincennes, and directed a casket to be opened in which theplan of the castle was kept, because, as the court had not been there forfifty years, Cavoye, grand chamberlain of his household, had neverprepared apartments there. "When I was king . . . , " he said severaltimes. 

A quack had brought a remedy which would cure gangrene, he said. Thesore on the leg was hopeless, but they gave the king a dose of the elixirin a glass of Alicante. "To life and to death, " said he as he took theglass; "just as it shall please God. " The remedy appeared to act; theking recovered a little strength. The throng of courtiers, which, theday before, had been crowding to suffocation in the rooms of the Duke ofOrleans, withdrew at once. Louis XIV. Did not delude himself about thisapparent rally. "Prayers are offered in all the churches for yourMajesty's life, " said the parish priest of Versailles. "That is not thequestion, " said the king "it is my salvation that much needs prayingfor. "

Madame de Maintenon had hitherto remained in the back rooms, thoughconstantly in the king's chamber when he was alone. He said to her once, "What consoles me for leaving you, is that it will not be long before wemeet again. " She made no reply. "What will become of you?" he added;"you have nothing. " "Do not think of me, " said she; "I am nobody; thinkonly of God. " He said farewell to her; she still remained a little whilein his room, and went out when he was no longer conscious. She had givenaway here and there the few movables that belonged to her, and now tookthe road to St. Cyr. On the steps she met Marshal Villeroy. "Good by, marshal, " she said curtly, and covered up her face in her coifs. He! itwas who sent her news of the king to the last moment. The Duke ofOrleans, on becoming regent, went to see her, and took her the patent(_brevet_) for a pension of sixty thousand livres, "which herdisinterestedness had made necessary for her, " said the preamble. It waspaid her up to the last day of her life. History makes no furthermention of her name; she never left St. Cyr. Thither the czar Peter theGreat, when he visited Paris and France, went to see her; she wasconfined to her bed; he sat a little while beside her. "What is yourmalady?" he asked her through his interpreter. "A great age, " answeredMadame de Maintenon, smiling. He looked at her a moment longer insilence; then, closing the curtains, he went out abruptly. The memory hewould have called up had vanished. The woman on whom the great king had, for thirty years, heaped confidence and affection, was old, forgotten, dying; she expired at St. Cyr on the 15th of April, 1719, at the age ofeighty-three. 

She had left the king to die alone. He was in the agonies; the prayersin extremity were being repeated around him; the ceremonial recalled himto consciousness. He joined his voice with the voices of those present, repeating the prayers with them. Already the court was hurrying to theDuke of Orleans; some of the more confident had repaired to the Duke ofMaine's; the king's servants were left almost alone around his bed; thetones of the dying man were distinctly heard above the great number ofpriests. He several times repeated, _Nunc et in hora mortis_. Then hesaid, quite loud, "O, my God, come Thou to help me, haste Thee to succorme. " Those were his last words. He expired on Sunday, the 1st ofSeptember, 1715, at eight A. M. Next day, he would have been seventy-seven years of age, and he had reigned seventy-two of them. 

In spite of his faults and his numerous and culpable errors, Louis XIV. Had lived and died like a king. The slow and grievous agony of oldenFrance was about to begin. 

[Illustration: Versailles at Night----52]

CHAPTER LI. ----LOUIS XV. , THE REGENCY, AND CARDINAL DUBOIS. 1715-1723. 

At the very moment when the master's hand is missed from his work, the narrative makes a sudden bound out of the simple times of history. Under Henry IV. , under Richelieu, under Louis XIV. , events found quitenaturally their guiding hand and their centre; men as well ascircumstances formed a group around the head of the nation, whether kingor minister, to thence unfold themselves quite clearly before the eyes ofposterity. Starting from the reign of Louis XV. The nation has no longera head, history no longer a centre; at the same time with a master of thehigher order, great servants also fail the French monarchy; it all atonce collapses, betraying thus the exhaustion of Louis XIV. 's latteryears; decadence is no longer veiled by the remnants of the splendorwhich was still reflected from the great king and his great reign; theglory of olden France descends slowly to its grave. At the same time, and in a future as yet obscured, intellectual progress begins to dawn;new ideas of justice, of humanity, of generous equity towards the massesgerminate sparsely in certain minds; it is no longer Christianity alonethat inspires them, though the honor is reflected upon it in a generalway and as regards the principles with which it has silently permeatedmodern society, but they who contribute to spread them, refuse withindignation to acknowledge the source whence they have drawn them. Intellectual movement no longer appertains exclusively to the higherclasses, to the ecclesiastics, or to the members of the Parliaments;vaguely as yet, and retarded by apathy in the government as well as bydisorder in affairs, it propagates and extends itself imperceptiblypending that signal and terrible explosion of good and evil which is tocharacterize the close of the eighteenth century. Decadence and progressare going on confusedly in the minds as well as in the material conditionof the nation. They must be distinguished and traced without anypretence of separating them. 

There we have the reign of Louis XV. In its entirety. 

[Illustration: The Regent Orleans----54]

The regency of the Duke of Orleans and the ministry of Cardinal Duboisshowed certain traits of the general tendencies and to a certain extentfelt their influence; they formed, however, a distinct epoch, aboundingin original efforts and bold attempts, which remained without result, butwhich testified to the lively reaction in men's minds against the coursesand fundamental principles of the reign which had just ended. 

Louis XIV. Had made no mistake about the respect which his last wisheswere destined to meet with after his death. In spite of the most extremeprecautions, the secret of the will had transpired, giving occasion forsome days past to secret intrigues. Scarcely had the king breathed hislast, when the Duke of Orleans was urged to get the regency conferredupon him by the dukes and peers, simply making to Parliament anannouncement of what had been done. The Duke of Orleans was a betterjudge of the moral authority belonging to that important body; and it wasto the Palace of Justice that he repaired on the morning of September 2, 1715. The crowd there was immense; the young king alone was not there, in spite of his great-grandfather's express instructions. The day was adecisive one; the legitimatized princes were present, "the Duke of Mainebursting with joy, " says St. Simon; "a smiling, satisfied air overrippledthat of audacity, of confidence, which nevertheless peeped through, andthe politeness which seemed to struggle against it. He bowed right andleft, piercing every one with his looks. Towards the peers, theearnestness, it is not too much to say the respectfulness, the slowness, the profoundness of his bow was eloquent. His head remained lowered evenon recovering himself. " The Duke of Orleans had just begun to speak; hisvoice was not steady; he repeated the terms of which the king had madeuse, he said, for the purpose of confiding the dauphin to his care. "Toyou I commend him; serve him faithfully as you have served me, and laborto preserve to him his kingdom. I have made such dispositions as Ithought wisest; but one cannot foresee everything; if there is anythingthat does not seem good, it will of course be altered. "

The favor of the assembly was plainly with him, and the prince's accentsbecame more firm. "I shall never, " said he, "have any other purpose butto relieve the people, to reestablish good order in the finances, tomaintain peace at home and abroad, and to restore unity and tranquillityto the church; therein I shall be aided by the wise representations ofthis august assembly, and I hereby ask for them in anticipation. " TheParliament was completely won; the right of representation (orremonstrance) was promised them; the will of Louis XIV. Was as good asannulled; it was opened, it was read, and so were the two codicils. Allthe authority was intrusted to a council of regency of which the Duke ofOrleans was to be the head, but without preponderating voice and withoutpower to supersede any of the members, all designated in advance by LouisXIV. The person and the education of the young king, as well as thecommand of the household troops, were intrusted to the Duke of Maine. 

"It was listened to in dead silence, and with a sort of indignation, which expressed itself in all countenances, " says St. Simon. "The king, no doubt, did not comprehend the force of what he had been made to do, "said the Duke of Orleans; "he assured me in the last days of his lifethat I should find in his dispositions nothing that I was not sure to bepleased with, and he himself referred the ministers to me on business, with all the orders to be given. " He asked, therefore, to have hisregency declared such as it ought to be, "full and independent, with freeformation of the council of regency. " The Duke of Maine wished to say aword. "You shall speak in your turn, Sir, " said the Duke of Orleans in adry tone. The court immediately decided in his favor by acclamation, andeven without proceeding in the regular way to vote. There remained thecodicils, which annulled in fact the Regent's authority. A discussionbegan between the Duke of Orleans and the Duke of Maine; it was causingPhilip of Orleans to lose the advantage he had just won; his friendssucceeded in making him perceive this, and he put off the session untilafter dinner. When they returned to the Palace of Justice the codicilswere puffed away like the will by the breath of popular favor. The Dukeof Maine, despoiled of the command of the king's household, declaredthat, under such conditions, it was impossible for him to be answerablefor the king's person, and that he "demanded to be relieved of thatduty. " "Most willingly, Sir, " replied the Regent; "your services are nolonger required;" and he forthwith explained to the Parliament hisintention of governing affairs according to the plan which had been foundamong the papers of the Duke of Burgundy. "Those gentry know little ornothing of the French, and of the way to govern them, " had been theremark of Louis XIV. On reading the schemes of Fenelon, the Duke ofBeauvilliers, and St. Simon. The Parliament applauded the formation ofthe six councils of foreign affairs, of finance, of war, of the marine, of home or the interior, of conscience or ecclesiastical affairs; theRegent was intrusted with the free disposal of graces. "I want to befree for good, " said he, adroitly repeating a phrase from Telemaque, "Iconsent to have my hands tied for evil. "

The victory was complete. Not a shred remained of Louis XIV. 's will. The Duke of Maine, confounded and humiliated, retired to his Castle ofSceaux, there to endure the reproaches of his wife. The king's affectionand Madame de Maintenon's clever tactics had not sufficed to found hispower; the remaining vestiges of his greatness were themselves about tovanish before long in their turn. 

[Illustration: The Bed of Justice----57]

On the 12th of September, the little king held a bed of justice; hisgoverness, Madame de Ventadour, sat alone at the feet of the poor orphan, abandoned on the pinnacle of power. All the decisions of September 2were ratified in the child's name. Louis XIV. Had just descended to thetomb without pomp and without regret. The joy of the people broke outindecently as the funeral train passed by; the nation had forgotten theglory of the great king; it remembered only the evils which had for solong oppressed it during his reign. 

The new councils had already been constituted, when it was discoveredthat commerce had been forgotten; and to it was assigned a seventh body. "Three sorts of men, the choice of whom was dictated by propriety, weakness, and necessity, filled the lists: in the first place, greatlords, veterans in intrigue but novices in affairs, and less useful fromtheir influence than embarrassing from their pride and their pettinesses;next, the Regent's friends, the cream of the rows, possessed with thespirit of opposition and corruption, ignorant and clever, bold and lazy, and far better calculated to harass than to conduct a government; lastly, below them, were pitch-forked in, pell-mell, councillors of State, masters of requests, members of Parliament, well-informed and industriousgentlemen, fated henceforth to crawl about at the bottom of thecommittees, and, without the spur of glory or emulation, to repair theblunders which must be expected from the incapacity of the first and therecklessness of the second class amongst their colleagues. " [Lemontey, _Histoire de la Regence, _ t. I. P. 67. ] "It is necessary, " the youngking was made to say in the preamble to the ordinance which establishedthe councils, "that affairs should be regulated rather by unanimousconsent than by way of authority. "

How singular are the monstrosities of experience! At the head of thecouncil of finance, a place was found for the Duke of Noailles, active inmind and restless in character, without any fixed principles, an adroitand a shameless courtier, strict in all religious observances under LouisXIV. , and a notorious debauchee under the Regency, but intelligent, insolent, ambitious, hungering and thirsting to do good if he could, butevil if need were, and in order to arrive at his ends. His uncle, Cardinal Noailles, who had been but lately threatened by the court ofRome with the loss of his hat, and who had seen himself forbidden toapproach the dying king, was now president of the council of conscience. Marshal d'Huxelles, one of the negotiators who had managed the treaty ofUtrecht, was at the head of foreign affairs. The Regent had reserved tohimself one single department, the Academy of Sciences. "I quiteintend, " said he, gayly, "to ask the king, on his majority, to let mestill be Secretary of State of the Academy. "

The Regent's predilection, consolidating the work of Colbert, contributedto the development of scientific researches, for which the neatness andclearness of French thought rendered it thenceforth so singularly welladapted. 

The gates of the prison were meanwhile being thrown open to many a poorcreature; the Jansenists left the Bastille; others, who had been for along time past in confinement, were still ignorant of the grounds fortheir captivity, which was by this time forgotten by everybody. Awretched Italian, who had been arrested the very day of his arrival inParis, thirty-five years before, begged to remain in prison; he had nolonger any family, or relatives, or resources. For a while theProtestants thought they saw their advantage in the clemency with whichthe new reign appeared to be inaugurated, and began to meet again intheir assemblies; the Regent had some idea of doing them justice, re-establishing the Edict of Nantes, and re-opening to the exiles thedoors of their country, but his councillors dissuaded him; the morevirtuous, like St. Simon, from Catholic piety, the more depraved frompolicy and indifference. However, the lot of the Protestants remainedunder the Regency less hard than it had been under Louis XIV. , and thanit became under the Duke of Bourbon. 

The chancellor, Voysin, had just died. To this post the Regent summonedthe attorney-general, D'Aguesseau, beloved and esteemed of all, learned, eloquent, virtuous, but too exclusively a man of Parliament for thefunctions which had been confided to him. "He would have made a sublimepremier president, " said St. Simon, who did not like him. The magistratewas attending mass at St. Andre-des-Arts; he was not ignorant of thechancellor's death, when a valet came in great haste to inform him thatthe Regent wanted him at the Palais-Royal. D'Aguesseau piously heard outthe remainder of the mass before obeying the prince's orders. The casketcontaining the seals was already upon the table. The Duke of Orleanstook the attorney-general by the arm and, going out with him into thegallery thronged with courtiers, said, "Gentlemen, here is your new andmost worthy chancellor!" and he took him away with him to the Tuileries, to pay his respects to the little king. 

On returning home, still all in a whirl, D'Aguesseau went up to the roomof his brother, "M. De Valjouan, a sort of Epicurean (_voluptueux_)philosopher, with plenty of wit and learning, but altogether one of theoddest creatures. " He found him in his dressing-gown, smoking in frontof the fire. "Brother, " said he, as he entered, "I have come to tell youthat I am chancellor. " "Chancellor!" said the other, turning round; "andwhat have you done with the other one?" "He died suddenly to-night. ""O, very well, brother, I am very glad; I would rather it were you thanI;" and he resumed his pipe. Madame D'Aguesseau was better pleased. Herhusband has eulogized her handsomely. "A wife like mine, " he said, "is agood man's highest reward. "

The new system of government, as yet untried, and confided to men forthe most part little accustomed to affairs, had to put up with the mostformidable difficulties, and to struggle against the most painfulposition. The treasury was empty, and the country exhausted; the armywas not paid, and the most honorable men, such as the Duke of St. Simon, saw no other remedy for the evils of the state but a total bankruptcy, and the convocation of the States-general. Both expedients were equallyrepugnant to the Duke of Orleans. The Duke of Noailles had entered upona course of severe economy; the king's household was diminished, twenty-five thousand men were struck off the strength of the army, exemptionfrom talliage for six years was promised to all such discharged soldiersas should restore a deserted house, and should put into cultivation thefields lying waste. At the same time something was being taken off thecrushing weight of the taxes, and the state was assuming the charge ofrecovering them directly, without any regard for the real or supposedadvances of the receivers-general; their accounts were submitted to therevision of the brothers Paris, sons of an innkeeper in the DauphineseAlps, who had made fortunes by military contracts, and were all fourreputed to be very able in matters of finance. They were likewisecommissioned to revise the bills circulating in the name of the state, inother words, to suppress a great number without re-imbursement to theholder, a sort of bankruptcy in disguise, which did not help to raise thepublic credit. At the same time also a chamber of justice, institutedfor that purpose, was prosecuting the tax-farmers (_traitants_), as LouisXIV. Had done at the commencement of his reign, during the suit againstFouquet. All were obliged to account for their acquisitions and thestate of their fortunes; the notaries were compelled to bring their booksbefore the court. Several tax-farmers (_traitants_) killed themselves toescape the violence and severity of the procedure. The Parliament, anything but favorable to the speculators, but still less disposed tosuffer its judicial privileges to be encroached upon, found fault withthe degrees of the Chamber. The Regent's friends were eager to profit bythe reaction which was manifesting itself in the public mind; partly fromcompassion, partly from shameful cupidity, all the courtiers setthemselves to work to obtain grace for the prosecuted financiers. Thefinest ladies sold their protection with brazen faces; the Regent, whohad sworn to show no favor to anybody, yielded to the solicitations ofhis friends, to the great disgust of M. Rouille-Ducoudray, member of thecouncil of finance, who directed the operations of the Chamber of Justicewith the same stern frankness which had made him not long before say to abody of tax-farmers (_traitants_) who wanted to put at his disposal acertain number of shares in their enterprise, "And suppose I were to goshares with you, how could I have you hanged, in case you were rogues?"Nobody was really hanged, although torture and the penalty of death hadbeen set down in the list of punishments to which the guilty were liable;out of four thousand five hundred amenable cases, nearly three thousandhad been exempted from the tax. "The corruption is so wide-spread, " saysthe preamble to the edict of March, 1727, which suppressed the Chamber ofJustice, "that nearly all conditions have been infected by it in suchsort that the most righteous severities could not be employed to punishso great a number of culprits without causing a dangerous interruption tocommerce, and a kind of general shock in the system of the state. " Theresources derived from the punishment of the tax-farmers (_traitants_), as well as from the revision of the state's debts, thus remaining verymuch below expectation, the deficit went on continually increasing. Inorder to re-establish the finances, the Duke of Noailles demanded fifteenyears' impracticable economy, as chimerical as the increment of therevenues on which he calculated; and the Duke of Orleans finally sufferedhimself to bo led away by the brilliant prospect which was flashed beforehis eyes by the Scotsman, Law, who had now for more than two years beensettled in France. 

[Illustration: John Law----62]

Law, born at Edinburgh, in 1611, son of a goldsmith, had for a long timebeen scouring Europe, seeking in a clever and systematic course ofgambling a source of fortune for himself, and the first foundation of thegreat enterprises he was revolving in his singularly inventive and daringmind. Passionately devoted to the financial theories he had conceived, Law had expounded them to all the princes of Europe in succession. "Hesays that of all the persons to whom he has spoken about his system, hehas found but two who apprehended it, to wit, the King of Sicily and myson, " wrote Madame, the Regent's mother. Victor Amadeo, however, hadrejected Law's proposals. "I am not powerful enough to ruin myself, " hehad said. Law had not been more successful with Louis XIV. The Regenthad not the same repugnance for novelties of foreign origin; so soon ashe was in power, he authorized the Scot to found a circulating anddiscount bank (_banque de circulation et d'escompte_), which at once hadvery great success, and did real service. Encouraged by this first step, Law reiterated to the Regent that the credit of bankers and merchantsdecupled their capital; if the state became the universal banker, andcentralized all the values in circulation, the public fortune wouldnaturally be decupled. A radically false system, fated to plunge thestate, and consequently the whole nation, into the risks of speculationand trading, without the guarantee of that activity, zeal, and promptresolution which able men of business can import into their privateenterprises. The system was not as yet applied; the discreet routine ofthe French financiers was scared at such risky chances, the pride of thegreat lords sitting in the council was shocked at the idea of seeing thestate turning banker, perhaps even trader. St. Simon maintained thatwhat was well enough for a free state, could not take place under anabsolute government. Law went on, however; to his bank he had just addeda great company. The king ceded to him Louisiana, which was said to berich in gold and silver mines, superior to those of Mexico and Peru. People vaunted the fertility of the soil, the facility offered for tradeby the extensive and rapid stream of the Mississippi; it was by the nameof that river that the new company was called at first, though it soontook the title of _Compagnie d' Occident, _ when it had obtained theprivilege of trading in Senegal and in Guinea; it became the _Compagniedes Indes, _ on forming a fusion with the old enterprises which worked thetrade of the East. For the generality, and in the current phraseology, it remained the Mississippi; and that is the name it has left in history. New Orleans was beginning to arise at the mouth of that river. Law hadbought Belle-Isle-en-Mer and was constructing the port of Lorient. 

The Regent's councillors were scared and disquieted; the chancellorproclaimed himself loudly against the deception or illusion which made ofLouisiana a land of promise; he called to mind that Crozat had beenruined in searching for mines of the precious metals there. "The worstof him was his virtue, " said Duclos. The Regent made a last effort toconvert him, as well as the Duke of Noailles, to the projects of Law. It was at a small house in the faubourg St. Antoine, called La Roquette, belonging to the last named, that the four interlocutors discussed thenew system thoroughly. "With the use of very sensible language Law hadthe gift of explaining himself so clearly and intelligibly that he leftnothing to desire as concerned making himself comprehended. The Duke ofOrleans liked him and relished him. He regarded him and all he did aswork of his own creation. He liked, moreover, extraordinary andout-of-the-way methods, and he embraced them the more readily in that hesaw the resources which had become so necessary for the state and all theordinary operations of finance vanishing away. This liking of theRegent's wounded Noailles, as being adopted at his expense. He wanted tobe sole master in the matter of finance, and all the eloquence of Lawcould not succeed in convincing him. " The chancellor stood firm; theParliament, which ever remained identified in his mind with his country, was in the same way opposed to Law. The latter declared that theobstacles which arrested him at every step through the ill will of theCouncil and of the magistrates, were ruining all the fruits of hissystem. The representations addressed by the Parliament to the king, onthe 20th of January, touching a re-coinage of all moneys, which had beensuggested by Law, dealt the last blow at the chancellor's alreadytottering favor. On the morning of the 23d M. De La Vrilliere went tohim on behalf of the Regent and demanded the return of the seals. D'Aguesseau was a little affected and surprised. "Monseigneur, " he wroteto the Duke of Orleans, "you gave me the seals without any merit on mypart, you take them away without any demerit. " He had received orders towithdraw to his estate at Fresnes; the Regent found his mere presenceirksome. D'Aguesseau set out at once. "He had taken his elevation likea sage, " says St. Simon, "and it was as a sage too that he fell. " "Theimportant point, " wrote the disgraced magistrate to his son, "is to bewell with one's self. "

The Duke of Noailles had resigned his presidency of the council offinance; but, ever adroit, even in disgrace, he had managed to securehimself a place in the council of regency. The seals were intrusted toM. D'Argenson, for some years past chief of police at Paris. "With aforbidding face, which reminded one of the three judges of Hades, he madefun out of everything with excellence of wit, and he had established suchorder amongst that innumerable multitude of Paris, that there was nosingle inhabitant of whose conduct and habits he was not cognizant fromday to day, with exquisite discernment in bringing a heavy or light handto bear on every matter that presented itself, ever leaning towards thegentler side, with the art of making the most innocent tremble beforehim. " [St. Simon, t. Xv. P. 387. ] Courageous, bold, audacious infacing riots, and thereby master of the people, he was at the same timeendowed with prodigious activity. "He was seen commencing his audiencesat three in the morning, dictating to four secretaries at once on varioussubjects, and making his rounds at night whilst working in his carriageat a desk lighted with wax candles. For the rest, without any dread ofParliament, which had often attacked him, he was in his nature royal andfiscal; he cut knots, he was a foe to lengthiness, to useless forms orsuch as might be skipped, to neutral or wavering conditions. " [Lemontey, _Histoire de la Regence, _ t. I. P. 77. ] The Regent considered that hehad secured to himself an effective instrument of his views; acceptanceof the system had been the condition _sine qua non_ of M. D'Argenson'selevation. 

He, however, like his predecessors, attempted before long to hamper themarch of the audacious foreigner; but the die had been cast, and the Dukeof Orleans outstripped Law himself in the application of his theories. A company, formed secretly, and protected by the new keeper of the seals, had bought up the general farmings (_fermes generales_), that is to say, all the indirect taxes, for the sum of forty-eight million fifty-twothousand livres; the _Compagnie des Indes_ re-purchased them for fifty-two millions; the general receipts were likewise conceded to it, andLaw's bank was proclaimed a Royal Bank; the company's shares alreadyamounted to the supposed value of all the coin circulating in thekingdom, estimated at seven or eight millions. Law thought he might riskeverything in the intoxication which had seized all France, capital andprovince. He created some fifteen hundred millions of new shares, promising his shareholders a dividend of twelve per cent. From all partssilver and gold flowed into his hands; everywhere the paper of the Bankwas substituted for coin. The delirium had mastered all minds. Thestreet called Quincampoix, for a long time past devoted to the operationsof bankers, had become the usual meeting-place of the greatest lords aswell as of discreet burgesses. It had been found necessary to close thetwo ends of the street with gates, open from six A. M. To nine P. M. ;every house harbored business agents by the hundred; the smallest roomwas let for its weight in gold. The workmen who made the paper for thebank-notes could not keep up with the consumption. The most modestfortunes suddenly became colossal, lacqueys of yesterday weremillionaires to-morrow; extravagance followed the progress of thisoutburst of riches, and the price of provisions followed the progress ofextravagance. Enthusiasm was at its height in favor of the able authorof so many benefits. Law became a convert to Catholicism, and was madecomptroller-general; all the court was at his feet. "My son was lookingfor a duchess to escort my granddaughter to Genoa, " writes Madame, theRegent's mother. "'Send and choose one at Madame Law's, ' said I; 'youwill find them all sitting in her drawing-room. '" Law's triumph wascomplete; the hour of his fall was about to strike. 

At the pinnacle of his power and success the new comptroller-general fellinto no illusion as to the danger of the position. "He had been forcedto raise seven stories on foundations which he had laid for only three, "said a contemporary, as clear-sighted as impartial. Some largeshareholders were already beginning to quietly realize their profits. The warrants of the _Compagnie des Indes_ had been assimilated to thebank-notes; and the enormous quantity of paper tended to lower its value. First, there was a prohibition against making payments in silver aboveten francs, and in gold above three hundred. Soon afterwards money wasdislegalized as a tender, and orders were issued to take every kind tothe Bank on pain of confiscation, half to go to the informer. Informingbecame a horrible trade; a son denounced his father. The Regent openlyviolated law, and had this miscreant punished. The prince one day sawPresident Lambert de Vernon coming to visit him. "I am come, " said thelatter, "to denounce to your Royal Highness a man who has five hundredthousand livres in gold. " The Duke of Orleans drew back a step. "Ah, Mr. President, " he cried, "what low vocation have you taken to?""Monseigneur, " rejoined the president, "I am obeying the law; but yourRoyal Highness may be quite easy; it is myself whom I have come todenounce, in hopes of retaining at least a part of this sum, which Iprefer to all the bank-notes. " "My money is at the king's service, " wasthe proud remark of Nicolai, premier president of the Exchequer-Chamber, "but it belongs to nobody. " The great mass of the nation was of the sameopinion as the two presidents; forty-five millions only found their wayto the Bank; gold and silver were concealed everywhere. The crisis wasbecoming imminent; Law boldly announced that the value of the notes wasreduced by a half. The public outcry was so violent that the Regent wasobliged to withdraw the edict, as to which the council had not beenconsulted. "Since Law became comptroller-general, his head has beenturned, " said the prince. That same evening Law was arrested by themajor of the Swiss; it was believed to be all over with him, but theadmirable order in which were his books, kept by double entry after theItalian manner, as yet unknown in France, and the ingenious expedientshe indicated for restoring credit, gave his partisans a moment's freshconfidence. He ceased to be comptroller-general, but he remaineddirector of the Bank. The death-blow, however, had been dealt hissystem, for a panic terror had succeeded to the insensate enthusiasm ofthe early days. The Prince of Conti had set the example of getting backthe value of his notes; four wagons had been driven up to his house ladenwith money. It was suffocation at the doors of the Bank, changing smallnotes, the only ones now payable in specie. Three men were crushed todeath on one day in the crowd. It was found necessary to close theentrances to Quincampoix Street, in order to put a stop to the feverishtumult arising from desperate speculation. The multitude moved to thePlace Vendome; shops and booths were thrown up; there was a share-fair;this ditty was everywhere sung in the streets:--

[Illustration: La Rue Quincampoix---68]

 "On On Monday I bought share on share; On Tuesday I was a millionaire; On Wednesday took a grand abode; On Thursday in my carriage rode; On Friday drove to the Opera-ball; On Saturday came to the paupers' hall. "

To restore confidence, Law conceived the idea of giving the seals back toD'Aguesseau; and the Regent authorized him to set out for Fresnes. Inallusion to this step, so honorable for the magistrate who was the objectof it, Law afterwards wrote from Venice to the Regent, "In my labors Idesired to be useful to a great people, as the chancellor can bear mewitness. . . . At his return I offered him my shares, which were thenworth more than a hundred millions, to be distributed by him amongstthose who had need of them. " The chancellor came back, though hisinfluence could neither stop the evil, nor even assuage the growingdisagreement between the Duke of Orleans and the Parliament. None couldrestore the public sense of security, none could prevent the edifice fromcrumbling to pieces. With ruin came crimes. Count Horn, belonging tothe family of the celebrated Count Horn, who was beheaded under PhilipII. , in company with Count Lamoral d'Egmont, murdered at an inn a poorjobber whom he had inveigled thither on purpose to steal his pocket-book. In spite of all his powerful family's entreaties, Count Horn died on thewheel, together with one of his accomplices. It was represented to theRegent that the count's house had the honor of being connected with his. "Very, well, gentlemen, " said he, "then I will share the shame with you, "and he remained inflexible. 

The public wrath and indignation fastened henceforth upon Law, the authorand director of a system which had given rise to so many hopes, and hadbeen the cause of so many woes. His carriage was knocked to pieces inthe streets. President de Mesmes entered the Grand Chamber, singing withquite a solemn air, --

 "Sirs, sirs, great news! What is it? It's--They've smashed Law's carriage all to bits. "

The whole body jumped up, more regardful of their hatred than of theirdignity; and "Is Law torn in pieces?" was the cry. Law had taken refugeat the Palais Royal. One day he appeared at the theatre in the Regent'sbox; low murmurs recalled to the Regent's mind the necessity forprudence; in the end he got Law away secretly in a carriage lent him bythe Duke of Bourbon. 

Law had brought with him to France a considerable fortune; he hadscarcely enough to live upon when he retired to Venice, where he diedsome years later (1729), convinced to the last of the utility of hissystem, at the same time that he acknowledged the errors he had committedin its application. "I do not pretend that I did not make mistakes, " hewrote from his retreat; "I know I did, and that if I had to begin again Ishould do differently. I should go more slowly but more surely, and Ishould not expose the state and my own person to the dangers which mayattend the derangement of a general system. " "There was neither avaricenor rascality in what he did, " says St. Simon; "he was a gentle, kind, respectful man, whom excess of credit and of fortune had not spoilt, andwhose bearing, equipage, table, and furniture could not offend anybody. He bore with singular patience and evenness the obstructions that wereraised against his operations, until at the last, finding himself shortof means, and nevertheless seeking for them and wishing to present afront, he became crusty, gave way to temper, and his replies werefrequently ill-considered. He was a man of system, calculation, comparison, well informed and profound in that sort of thing, who was thedupe of his Mississippi, and in good faith believed in forming great andwealthy establishments in America. He reasoned Englishwise, and did notknow how opposed to those kinds of establishments are the levity of ournation and the inconveniences of a despotic government, which has afinger in everything, and under which what one minister does is alwaysdestroyed or changed by his successor. " The disasters caused by Law'ssystem have recoiled upon his memory. Forgotten are his honesty, hischarity, his interest in useful works; remembered is nothing but theimprudence of his chimerical hopes and the fatal result of hisenterprises, as deplorable in their effects upon the moral condition ofFrance, as upon her wealth and her credit. 

The Regent's rash infatuation for a system, as novel as it was seductive, had borne its fruits. The judgment which his mother had pronounced uponPhilip of Orleans was justified to the last. "The fairies, " said Madame, "were all invited to the birth of my son; and each endowed him with somehappy quality. But one wicked fairy, who had been forgotten, camelikewise, leaning upon her stick, and not being able to annul hersisters' gifts, declared that the prince should never know how to makeuse of them. "

Throughout the successive periods of intoxication and despair caused bythe necessary and logical development of Law's system, the Duke ofOrleans had dealt other blows and directed other affairs of importance. Easy-going, indolent, often absorbed by his pleasures, the Regent foundno great difficulty in putting up with the exaltation of thelegitimatized princes; it had been for him sufficient to wrest authorityfrom the Duke of Maine, he let him enjoy the privileges of a prince ofthe blood. "I kept silence during the king's lifetime, " he would say;"I will not be mean enough to break it now he is dead. " But the Duke ofBourbon, heir of the House of Conde, fierce in temper, violent in hishate, greedy of honors as well as of money, had just arrived at man'sestate, and was wroth at sight of the bastards' greatness. He drew afterhim the Count of Charolais his brother, and the Prince of Conti hiscousin; on the 22d of April, 1716, all three presented to the king arequest for the revocation of Louis XIV. 's edict declaring hislegitimatized sons princes of the blood, and capable of succeeding to thethrone. The Duchess of Maine, generally speaking very indifferent abouther husband, whom she treated haughtily, like a true daughter of theHouse of Conde, flew into a violent passion, this time, at her cousins'unexpected attack; she was for putting her own hand to the work ofdrawing up the memorial of her husband and of her brother-in-law, theCount of Toulouse. "The greater part of the nights was employed at it, "says Madame de Stael, at that time Mdlle. Do Launay, a person of muchwit, half lady's maid, half reader to the duchess. "The huge volumes, heaped up on her bed like mountains overwhelming her, caused her, " sheused to say, "to look, making due allowances, like Enceladus, buriedunder Mount AEtna. I was present at the work, and I also used to turnover the leaves of old chronicles and of ancient and modernjurisconsults, until excess of fatigue disposed the princess to takesome repose. "

[Illustration: The Duke of Maine----71]

All this toil ended in the following declaration on the part of thelegitimatized princes: "The affair, being one of state, cannot be decidedbut by a king, who is a major, or indeed by the States-general. " At thesame time, and still at the instigation of the Duchess of Maine, thirty-nine noblemen signed a petition, modestly addressad to "Our Lords of theParliament, " demanding, in their turn, that the affair should be referredto the states-general, who alone were competent, when it was a questionof the succession to the throne. 

The Regent saw the necessity of firmness. "It is a maxim, " he declared, "that the king is always a major as regards justice; that which was donewithout the states-general has no need of their intervention to beundone. " The decree of the council of regency, based on the sameprinciples, suppressed the right of succession to the crown, and cutshort all pretensions on the part of the legitimatized princes' issue tothe rank of princes of the blood; the rights thereto were maintained inthe case of the Duke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse, for their lives, by the bounty of the Regent, "which did not prevent the Duchess of Mainefrom uttering loud shrieks, like a maniac, " says St. Simon, "or theDuchess of Orleans from weeping night and day, and refusing for twomonths to see anybody. " Of the thirty-nine members of the nobility whohad signed the petition to Parliament, six were detained in prison for amonth, after which the Duke of Orleans pardoned them. "You know me, wellenough to be aware that I am only nasty when I consider myself positivelyobliged to be, " he said to them. The patrons, whose cause these noblemenhad lightly embraced, were not yet at the end of their humiliations. 

[Illustrations: The Duchess of Maine----72]

The Duke of Bourbon was not satisfied with their exclusion from thesuccession to the throne; he claimed the king's education, which belongedof right, he said, to the first prince of the blood, being a major. Inhis hatred, then, towards the legitimatized, he accepted with alacritythe Duke of St. Simon's proposal to simply reduce them to their rank byseniority in the peerage, with the proviso of afterwards restoring theprivileges of a prince of the blood in favor of the Count of Toulousealone, as a reward for his services in the navy. The blow thus dealtgratified all the passions of the House of Conde and the wrath of Law, as well as that of the keeper of the seals, D'Argenson, against theParliament, which for three months past had refused to enregister alledicts. On the 24th of August, 1718, at six in the morning, theParliament received orders to repair to the Tuileries, where the king wasto hold a bed of justice. , The Duke of Maine, who was returning from aparty, was notified, as colonel of the Swiss, to have his regiment underarms; at eight o'clock the council of regency was already assembled; theDuke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse arrived in peer's robes. TheRegent had flattered himself that they would not come to the bed ofjustice, and had not summoned them. He at once advanced towards theCount of Toulouse, and said out loud that he was surprised to see him inhis robes, and that he had not thought proper to notify him of the bed ofjustice, because he knew that, since the last edict, he did not likegoing to the Parliament. The Count of Toulouse replied that that wasquite true, but that, when it was a question of the welfare of the State, he put every other consideration aside. The Regent was disconcerted; hehesitated a moment, then, speaking low and very earnestly to the Count ofToulouse, he returned to St. Simon. "I have just told him all, " said he, "I couldn't help it; he is the best fellow in the world, and the one whotouches my heart the most. He was coming to me on behalf of his brother, who had a shrewd notion that there was something in the wind, and that hedid not stand quite well with me; he had begged him to ask me whether Iwished him to remain, or whether he would not do well to go away. Iconfess to you that I thought I did well to tell him that his brotherwould do just as well to go away, since he asked me the question; that, as for himself, he might safely remain, because he was to continue justas he is, without alteration; but that something might take place ratherdisagreeable to M. Du Maine. Whereupon, he asked me how he could remain, when there was to be an attack upon his brother, seeing that they werebut one, both in point of honor and as brothers. I do believe, therethey are just going out, " added the Regent, casting a glance towards thedoor, as the members of the council were beginning to take their places:"they will be prudent; the Count of Toulouse promised me so. " "But, ifthey were to do anything foolish, or were to leave Paris?" "They shallbe arrested, I give you my word, " replied the Duke of Orleans, in afirmer tone than usual. They had just read the decree reducing thelegitimatized to their degree in the peerage, and M. Le Duc had claimedthe superintendence of the king's education, when it was announced thatthe Parliament, in their scarlet robes, were arriving in the court of thepalace. Marshal de Villeroi alone dared to protest. "Here, then, " saidhe with a sigh, "are all the late king's dispositions upset; I cannot seeit without sorrow. M. Du Maine is very unfortunate. " "Sir, " rejoinedthe Regent, with animation, "M. Du Maine is my brother-in-law, but Iprefer an open to a hidden enemy. "

With the same air the Duke of Orleans passed to the bed of justice, "witha gentle but resolute majesty, which was quite new to him; eyesobservant, but bearing grave and easy; M. Le Duc staid, circumspect, surrounded by a sort of radiance that adorned his whole person, and underperceptible restraint; the keeper of the seals, in his chair, motionless, gazing askance with that witful fire which flashed from his eyes andwhich seemed to pierce all bosoms, in presence of that Parliament whichhad so often given him orders standing at its bar as chief of police, inpresence of that premier president, so superior to him, so haughty, soproud of his Duke of Maine, so mightily in hopes of the seals. " Afterhis speech, and the reading of the king's decree, the premier presidentwas for attempting a remonstrance; D'Argenson mounted the step, approached the young king, and then, without taking any opinion, said, ina very loud voice, "The king desires to be obeyed, and obeyed at once. "There was nothing further for it but to enregister the edict; all thedecrees of the Parliament were quashed. 

Some old servants of Louis XIV. , friends and confidants of the Duke ofMaine, alone appeared moved. The young king was laughing, and the crowdof spectators were amusing themselves with the scene, without anysensible interest in the court intrigues. The Duchess of Maine made herhusband pay for his humble behavior at the council; "she was, " says St. Simon, "at one time motionless with grief, at another boiling with rage, and her poor husband wept daily like a calf at the biting reproaches andstrange insults which he had incessantly to pocket in her fits of angeragainst him. "

In the excess of her indignation and wrath, the Duchess of Mainedetermined not to confine herself to reproaches. She had passed her lifein elegant entertainments, in sprightly and frivolous intellectualamusements; ever bent on diverting herself, she made up her mind to tastethe pleasure of vengeance, and set on foot a conspiracy, as frivolous asher diversions. The object, however, was nothing less than to overthrowthe Duke of Orleans, and to confer the regency on the King of Spain, Philip V. , with a council and a lieutenant, who was to be the Duke ofMaine. "When one has once acquired, no matter how, the rank of prince ofthe blood and the capability of succeeding to the throne, " said theduchess, "one must turn the state upside down, and set fire to the fourcorners of the kingdom, rather than let them be wrested from one. " Theschemes for attaining this great result were various and confused. Philip V. Had never admitted that his renunciation of the crown of Francewas seriously binding upon him; he had seen, by the precedent of the warof devolution, how a powerful sovereign may make sport of such acts; hisItalian minister, Alberoni, an able and crafty man, who had set the crownof Spain upon the head of Elizabeth Farnese, and had continued to ruleher, cautiously egged on his master into hostilities against France. They counted upon the Parliaments, taking example from that of Paris, onthe whole of Brittany, in revolt at the prolongation of the tithe-tax, onall the old court, accustomed to the yoke of the bastards and of Madamede Maintenon, on Languedoc, of which the Duke of Maine was the governor;they talked of carrying off the Duke of Orleans, and taking him to thecastle of Toledo; Alberoni promised the assistance of a Spanish army. The Duchess of Maine had fired the train, without the knowledge, shesaid, and probably against the will, too, of her husband, more indolentthan she in his perfidy. Some scatter-brains of great houses were mixedup in the affair; MM. De Richelieu, de Laval, and de Pompadour; there wassecret coming and going between the castle of Sceaux and the house of theSpanish ambassador, the Prince of Cellamare; M. De Malezieux, thesecretary and friend of the duchess, drew up a form of appeal from theFrench nobility to Philip V. , but nobody had signed it, or thought ofdoing so. They got pamphlets written by Abbe Brigault, whom the duchesshad sent to Spain; the mystery was profound, and all the conspiratorswere convinced of the importance of their manoeuvres; every day, however, the Regent was informed of them by his most influential negotiator withforeign countries, Abbe Dubois, his late tutor, and the most depraved ofall those who were about him. Able and vigilant as he was, he was notignorant of any single detail of the plot, and was only giving theconspirators time to compromise themselves. At last, just as a youngabbe, Porto Carrero, was starting for Spain, carrying important papers, he was arrested at Poitiers, and his papers were seized. Next day, December 7, 1718, the Prince of Cellamare's house was visited, and thestreets were lined with troops. Word was brought in all haste to theDuchess of Maine. She had company, and dared not stir. M. De Chatilloncame in; joking commenced. "He was a cold creature, who never thought oftalking, " says Madame de Stael in her memoirs. "All at once he said, 'Really there is some very amusing news: they have arrested and put inthe Bastille, for this affair of the Spanish ambassador, a certain AbbeBri . . . . Bri' he could not remember the name, and those who knewit had no inclination to help him. At last he finished, and added, 'Themost amusing part is, that he has told all, and so, you see, there aresome folks in a great fix. ' Thereupon he burst out laughing for thefirst time in his life. The Duchess of Maine, who had not the leastinclination thereto, said, 'Yes, that is very amusing. ' 'O! it is enoughto make you die of laughing, ' he resumed; 'fancy those folks who thoughttheir affair was quite a secret; here's one who tells more than he isasked, and names everybody by name!'" The agony was prolonged for somedays; jokes were beginning to be made about it at the Duchess of Maine's;she kept friends with her to pass the night in her room, waiting for herarrest to come. Madame de Stael was reading Machiavelli's conspiracies. "Make haste and take away that piece of evidence against us, " said Madamedu Maine, laughingly, "it would be one of the strongest. "

The arrest came, however; it was six A. M. , and everybody was asleep, whenthe king's men entered the Duke of Maine's house. The Regent had for along time delayed to act, as if he wanted to leave everybody time to getaway; but the conspirators were too scatter-brained to take the trouble. The duchess was removed to Dijon, within the government, and into thevery house of the Duke of Bourbon, her nephew, which was a very bitterpill for her. The Duke of Maine, who protested his innocence and hisignorance, was detained in the Castle of Dourlans in Picardy. Cellamarereceived his passports and quitted France. The less illustriousconspirators were all put in the Bastille; the majority did not remainthere long, and purchased their liberty by confessions, which the Duchessof Maine ended by confirming. "Do not leave Paris until you are driventhereto by force, " Alberoni had written to the Prince of Cellamare, "anddo not start before you have fired all the mines. " Cellamare started, and the mines did not burst after his withdrawal; conspiracy andconspirators were covered with ridicule; the natural clemency of theRegent had been useful; the part of the Duke and Duchess of Maine wasplayed out. 

The only serious result of Cellamare's conspiracy was to render imminenta rupture with Spain. From the first days of the regency the old enmityof Philip V. Towards the Duke of Orleans and the secret pretensions ofboth of them to the crown of France, in case of little Louis XV. 's death, rendered the relations between the two courts thorny and strained atbottom, though still perfectly smooth in appearance. It was from Englandthat Abbe Dubois urged the Regent to seek support. Dubois, born in thevery lowest position, and endowed with a soul worthy of his origin, was"a little, lean man, wire-drawn, with a light colored wig, the look of aweasel, a clever expression, " says St. Simon, who detested him; "allvices struggled within him for the mastery; they kept up a constanthubbub and strife together. Avarice, debauchery, ambition, were hisgods; perfidy, flattery, slavishness, his instruments; and completeunbelief his comfort. He excelled in low intrigues; the boldest lie wassecond nature to him, with an air of simplicity, straightforwardness, sincerity, and often bashfulness. " In spite of all these vices, and thedepraving influence he had exercised over the Duke of Orleans from hisearliest youth, Dubois was able, often far-sighted, and sometimes bold;he had a correct and tolerably practical mind. Madame, who was afraid ofhim, had said to her son on the day of his elevation to power, "I desireonly the welfare of the state and your own glory; I have but one requestto make for your honor's sake, and I demand your word for it, that is, never to employ that scoundrel of an Abbe Dubois, the greatest rascal inthe world, and one who would sacrifice the state and you to the slightestinterest. " The Regent promised; yet a few months later and Dubois wasChurch-councillor of State, and his growing influence with the princeplaced him, at first secretly, and before long openly, at the head offoreign affairs. 

[Illustration: Cardinal Dubois----78]

James Stuart, King James II. 's son, whom his friends called James III. And his enemies Chevalier St. George, had just unsuccessfully attempted adescent upon Scotland. The Jacobites had risen; they were crying aloudfor their prince, who remained concealed in Lorraine, when at last heresolved to set out and traverse France secretly. Agents, posted by theEnglish ambassador, Lord Stair, were within an ace of arresting him, perhaps of murdering him. Saved by the intelligence and devotion of thepost-mistress of Nonancourt, he embarked on the 26th of December atDunkerque, too late to bring even moral support to the men who werefighting and dying for him. Six weeks after landing at Peterhead, inScotland, he started back again without having struck a blow, withouthaving set eyes upon the enemy, leaving to King George I. The easy taskof avenging himself by sending to death upon the scaffold the noblestvictims. The Duke of Orleans had given him a little money, had known ofand had encouraged his passage through France, but had accorded him noeffectual aid; the wrath of both parties, nevertheless, fell on him. 

Inspired by Dubois, weary of the weakness and dastardly incapacity of thePretender, the Regent consented to make overtures to the King of England. The Spanish nation was favorable to France, but the king was hostile tothe Regent; the English loved neither France nor the Regent, but theirking had an interest in severing France from the Pretender forever. Dubois availed himself ably of his former relations with Lord Stanhope, heretofore commander of the English troops in Spain, for commencing asecret negotiation which soon extended to Holland, still closely knit toEngland. "The character of our Regent, " wrote Dubois on the 10th ofMarch, 1716, "leaves no ground for fearing lest he should pique himselfupon perpetuating the prejudices and the procedure of our late court, and, as you yourself remark, he has too much wit not to see his trueinterest. " Dubois was the bearer to the Hague of the Regent's proposals;King George was to cross over thither; the clever negotiator veiled histrip under the pretext of purchasing rare books; he was going, he said, to recover from the hands of the Jews Le Poussin's famous pictures of theSeven Sacraments, not long ago carried off from Paris. The order ofsuccession to the crowns of France and England, conformably to the peaceof Utrecht, was guaranteed in the scheme of treaty; that was the onlyimportant advantage to the Regent, who considered himself to be thusnailing the renunciation of Philip V. ; in other respects all theconcessions came from the side of France; her territory was forbiddenground to the Jacobites, and the Pretender, who had taken refuge atAvignon on papal soil, was to be called upon to cross the Alps. TheEnglish required the abandonment of the works upon the canal of Mardyck, intended to replace the harbor of Dunkerque the Hollanders claimedcommercial advantages. Dubois yielded on all the points, defending tothe last with fruitless tenacity the title of King of France, which theEnglish still disputed. The negotiations came to an end at length on the6th of January, 1717, and Dubois wrote in triumph to the Regent, "Isigned at midnight; so there are you quit of servitude (your own master), and here am I quit of fear. " The treaty of the triple alliance broughtthe negotiator before long a more solid advantage; he was appointedsecretary of state for foreign affairs; it was on this occasion that hewrote to Mr. Craggs, King George's minister, a letter worthy of hischaracter, and which contributed a great deal towards gaining credit forthe notion that he had sold himself to England. "If I were to followonly the impulse of my gratitude and were not restrained by respect, Ishould take the liberty of writing to H. B. Majesty to thank him for theplace with which my lord the Regent has gratified me, inasmuch as I oweit to nothing but to the desire he felt not to employ in affairs commonto France and England anybody who might not be agreeable to the King ofGreat Britain. "

At the moment when the signature was being put to the treaty of thetriple alliance, the sovereign of most distinction in Europe, owing tothe eccentric renown belonging to his personal merit, the czar Peter theGreat, had just made flattering advances to France. He had some timebefore wished to take a trip to Paris, but Louis XIV. Was old, melancholy, and vanquished, and had declined the czar's visit. TheRegent could not do the same thing, when, being at the Hague in 1717, Peter I. Repeated the expression of his desire. Marshal Cosse was sentto meet him, and the honors due to the king himself were everywhere paidto him on the road. A singular mixture of military and barbaricroughness with the natural grandeur of a conqueror and creator of anempire, the czar mightily excited the curiosity of the Parisians. "Sometimes, feeling bored by the confluence of spectators, " says Duclos, "but never disconcerted, he would dismiss them with a word, a gesture, orwould go away without ceremony, to stroll whither his fancy impelled him. He was a mighty tall man, very well made, rather lean, face rather roundin shape, a high forehead, fine eyebrows, complexion reddish and brown, fine black eyes, large, lively, piercing; well-opened; a glance majesticand gracious when he cared for it, otherwise stern and fierce, with a ticthat did not recur often, but that affected his eyes and his wholecountenance, and struck terror. It lasted an instant, with a glance wildand terrible, and immediately passed away. His whole air indicated hisintellect, his reflection, his grandeur, and did not lack a certaingrace. In all his visits he combined a majesty the loftiest, theproudest, the most delicate, the most sustained, at the same time theleast embarrassing when he had once established it, with a politenesswhich savored of it, always and in all cases; masterlike everywhere, butwith degrees according to persons. He had a sort of familiarity whichcame of frankness, but he was not exempt from a strong impress of thatbarbarism of his country which rendered all his ways prompt and sudden, and his wishes uncertain, without bearing to be contradicted in any. "Eating and drinking freely, getting drunk sometimes, rushing about thestreets in hired coach, or cab, or the carriage of people who came to seehim, of which he took possession unceremoniously, he testified towardsthe Regent a familiar good grace mingled with a certain superiority;at the play, to which they went together, the czar asked for beer; theRegent rose, took the goblet which was brought and handed it to Peter, who drank, and, without moving, put the glass back on the tray which theRegent held all the while, with a slight inclination of the head, which, however, surprised the public. At his first interview with the littleking, he took up the child in his arms, and kissed him over and overagain, "with an air of tenderness and politeness which was full ofnature, and nevertheless intermixed with a something of grandeur, equality of rank, and, slightly, superiority of age; for all that wasdistinctly perceptible. " We know how he went to see Madame de Maintenon. One of his first visits was to the church of the Sorbonne; when he caughtsight of Richelieu's monument, he ran up to it, embraced the statue, and, "Ah! great man, " said he, "if thou wert still alive, I would give theeone half of my kingdom to teach me to govern the other. "

[Illustration: Peter the Great and Little Louis XV----82]

The czar was for seeing everything, studying everything; everythinginterested him, save the court and its frivolities; he did not go tovisit the princesses of the blood, and confined himself to saluting themcoldly, whilst passing along a terrace; but he was present at a sittingof the Parliament and of the academies, he examined the organization ofall the public establishments, he visited the shops of the celebratedworkmen, he handled the coining-die whilst there was being struck in hishonor a medal bearing a Fame with these words: _Vires acquiret eundo_('Twill gather strength as it goes. ) He received a visit from the doctorsof the Sorbonne, who brought him a memorial touching the reunion of theGreek and Latin Churches. "I am a mere soldier, " said he, "but I willgladly have an examination made of the memorial you present to me. "Amidst all his chatting, studying, and information-hunting, Peter theGreat did not forget the political object of his trip. He wanted todetach France from Sweden, her heretofore faithful ally, still receivinga subsidy which the czar would fain have appropriated to himself. Together with his own alliance, he promised that of Poland and ofPrussia. "France has nothing to fear from the emperor, " he said; as forKing George, whom he detested, "if any rupture should take place betweenhim and the Regent, Russia would suffice to fill towards France the placeof England as well as of Sweden. "

Thanks to the ability of Dubois, the Regent felt himself infeoffed toEngland; he gave a cool reception to the overtures of the czar, whoproposed a treaty of alliance and commerce. Prussia had alreadyconcluded secretly with France; Poland was distracted by intestinestruggles; matters were confined to the establishment of amicablerelations; France thenceforth maintained an ambassador in Russia, and theczar accepted the Regent's mediation between Sweden and himself. "Francewill be ruined by luxury and daintiness, " said Peter the Great, at hisdeparture, more impressed with the danger run by the nation from a courtwhich was elegant even to effeminacy than by the irregularity of themorals, to which elsewhere he was personally accustomed. 

Dubois, however, went on negotiating, although he had displayed no sortof alacrity towards the czar; he was struggling everywhere throughoutEurope against the influence of a broader, bolder, more powerful mindthan his own, less adroit perhaps in intrigue, but equally destitute ofscruples as to the employment of means. Alberoni had restored thefinances, and reformed the administration of Spain; he was preparing anarmy and a fleet, meditating, he said, to bring peace to the world, andbeginning that great enterprise by manoeuvres which tended to nothingless than setting fire to the four corners of Europe, in the name of anenfeebled and heavy-going king, and of a queen ambitious, adroit, andunpopular, "both of whom he had put under lock and key, keeping the keyin his pocket, " says St. Simon. He dreamed of reviving the ascendency ofSpain in Italy, of overthrowing the Protestant king of England, whilstrestoring the Stuarts to the throne, and of raising himself to thehighest dignities in Church and State. He had already obtained from PopeClement XI. The cardinal's hat, disguising under pretext of war againstthe Turks the preparations he was making against Italy; he had formed analliance between Charles XII. And the czar, intending to sustain, bytheir united forces, the attempts of the Jacobites in England. His firstenterprise, at sea, made him master of Sardinia within a few days; theSpanish troops landed in Sicily. The emperor and Victor Amadeo were incommotion; the pope, overwhelmed with reproaches by those princes, wept, after his fashion, saying that he had damned himself by raising Alberonito the Roman purple; Dubois profited by the disquietude excited in Europeby the bellicose attitude of the Spanish minister to finally draw theemperor into the alliance between France and England. He was to renouncehis pretensions to Spain and the Indies, and give up Sardinia to Savoy, which was to surrender Sicily to him. The succession to the duchies ofParma and Tuscany was to be secured to the children of the Queen ofSpain. "Every difficulty would be removed if there were an appearance ofmore equality, " wrote the Regent to Dubois on the 24th of January, 1718. "I am quite aware that my personal interest does not suffer from thisinequality, and that it is a species of touchstone for discovering myfriends as well at home as abroad. But I am Regent of France, and Iought to so behave myself that none may be able to reproach me withhaving thought of nothing but myself. I also owe some consideration tothe Spaniards, whom I should completely disgust by making with theemperor an unequal arrangement, about which their glory and the honor oftheir monarchy would render them very sensitive. I should thereby drivethem to union with Alberoni, whereas, if a war were necessary to carryour point, we ought to be able to say what Count Grammont said to theking: "At the time when we served your Majesty against Cardinal Mazarin. Then the Spaniards themselves would help us. " In the result, France andEngland left Holland and Savoy free to accede to the treaty; but, ifSpain refused to do so voluntarily within a specified time, the alliesengaged to force her thereto by arms. 

The Hollanders hesitated; the Spanish ambassador at the Hague had a medalstruck representing the quadruple alliance as a coach on the point offalling, because it rested on only three wheels. Certain advantagessecured to their commerce at last decided the States-general. VictorAmadeo regretfully acceded to the treaty which robbed him of Sicily; hewas promised one of the Regent's daughters for his son. 

Alberoni refused persistently to accede to the great coalition broughtabout by Dubois. Lord Stanhope proposed to go over to Spain in order tobring him round. "If my lord comes as a lawgiver, " said the cardinal, "he may spare himself the journey. If he comes as a mediator I willreceive him; but in any case I warn him that, at the first attack uponour vessels by an English squadron, Spain has not an inch of ground onwhich I would answer for his person. " Lord Stanhope, nevertheless, setout for Spain, and had the good fortune to leave it in time, thoughwithout any diplomatic success. Admiral Byng, at the head of the Englishfleet, had destroyed the Spanish squadron before Messina; the troopswhich occupied Palermo found themselves blockaded without hope of relief, and the nascent navy of Spain was strangled at the birth. Alberoni, inhis fury, had the persons and goods seized of English residents settledin Spain, drove out the consuls, and orders were given at Madrid that notongue should wag about the affairs of Sicily. The hope of a suddensurprise in England, on behalf of the Jacobites, had been destroyed bythe death of the King of Sweden, Charles XII. , killed on the 12th ofDecember, 1718, at Freiderishalt, in Norway; the flotilla equipped byAlberoni for Chevalier St. George, had been dispersed and beaten by theelements; the Pretender henceforth was considered to cost Spain too dear;he had just been sent away from her territory at the moment when theconspiracy of Cellamare failed in France; in spite of the feverishactivity of his mind, and the frequently chimerical extent of hismachinations, Alberoni remained isolated in Europe, without ally andwithout support. 

The treaty of the quadruple alliance had at last come to be definitivelysigned; Marshal d'Huxelles, head of the council of foreign affairs, anenemy to Dubois, and displeased at not having been invited to take partin the negotiations, at first refused his signature. [_Memoires de St. Simon, _ t. Xix. P. 365. ] "At the first word the Regent spoke to him, hereceived nothing but bows, and the marshal went home to sulk; caresses, excuses, reasons, it was all of no use; Huxelles declared to the Marquisof Effiat, who had been despatched to him, that he would have his handcut off rather than sign. The Duke of Orleans grew impatient, and took aresolution very foreign to his usual weakness; he sent D'Antin to Marshald'Huxelles, bidding him to make choice of this: either to sign or losehis place, of which the Regent would immediately dispose in favor ofsomebody who would not be so intractable (_farouclae_) as he. O, mightypower of orvietan (_a counterpoison_)! This man so independent, thisgreat citizen, this courageous minister, had no sooner heard the threat, and felt that it would be carried into effect, than he bowed his headbeneath his huge hat, which he always had on, and signed right off, without a word. He even read the treaty to the council of regency in alow and trembling voice, and when the Regent asked his opinion, 'theopinion of the treaty, ' he answered, between his teeth, with a bow. "Some days later appeared, almost at the same time--the 17th of December, 1718, and the 9th of January, 1719--the manifestoes of England andFrance, proclaiming the resolution of making war upon Spain, whilstPhilip V. , by a declaration of December 25th, 1718, pronounced allrenunciations illusory, and proclaimed his right to the throne of Francein case of the death of Louis XV. At the same time he made an appeal toan assembly of the States-general against the tyranny of the Regent, "whowas making alliances, " he said, "with the enemies of the two crowns. "

For once, in a way, Alberoni indulged the feelings of the king hismaster, and, in spite of the good will felt by a part of the grandeestowards France, Spain was, on the whole, with him; he no longer felthimself to be threatened, as he had been a few months before, when theking's illness had made him tremble for his greatness, and perhaps forhis life. He kept the monarch shut up in his room, refusing entrance toeven the superior officers of the palace. [_Memoires de St. Simon, _t. Xv. ] "The Marquis of Villena, major-domo major, having presentedhimself there one afternoon, one of the valets inside half opened thedoor, and told him, with much embarrassment, that he was forbidden to lethim in. 'You are insolent, sir, ' replied the marquis; 'that cannot be. 'He pushed; the door against the valet and went in. The marquis, thoughcovered with glory, being very weak on his legs, thus advances with shortsteps, leaning on his little stick. The queen and the cardinal see him, and look at one another. The king was too ill to take notice ofanything, and his curtains were drawn. The cardinal, seeing the marquisapproach, went up to him, and represented to him that the king wished tobe alone, and begged him to go away. 'That is not true, ' said themarquis. 'I kept my eye upon you, and the king never said a word toyou. ' The cardinal, insisting, took him by the arm to make him go out;what with the heat of the moment, and what with the push, the marquis, being feeble, fell into an arm-chair which happened to be by. Wroth athis fall, he raises his stick and brings it down with all his might, hammer and tongs, about the cardinal's ears, calling him a little rascal, a little hound, who deserved nothing short of the stirrup-leathers. Whenhe did at last go out, the queen had looked on from her seat at thisadventure all through, without moving or saying a word, and so had thefew who were in the room, without daring to stir. The curious thing is, that the cardinal, mad as he was, but taken completely by surprise at theblows, did not defend himself, and thought of nothing but getting clear. The same evening the marquis was exiled to his estates, without everwanting to return from them, until the fall of Alberoni. " Alberoni hassometimes been compared to the great cardinals who had governed France. To say nothing of the terror with which Richelieu inspired the grandees, who detested him, the Prince of Coude would not have dared to touchCardinal Mazarin with the tip of his cane, even when the latter "kissedhis boots" in the courtyard of the castle at Havre. 

Alberoni had persuaded his master that the French were merely awaitingthe signal to rise in his favor; the most odious calumnies wereeverywhere circulating against the Regent; he did not generally show thathe was at all disturbed or offended by them; however, when the poem ofthe Philippics by La Grange appeared, he desired to see it; the Duke ofSt. Simon took it to him. "'Read it to me, ' said the Regent. 'That Iwill never do, Monseigneur, ' said I. He then took it and read it quitelow, standing up in the window of his little winter-closet, where wewere. All at once I saw him change countenance, and turn towards me, tears in his eyes, and very near fainting. 'All, ' said he to me, 'thisis too bad, this horrid thing is too much for me. ' He had lit upon thepassage where the scoundrel had represented the Duke of Orleans purposingto poison the king, and all ready to commit his crime. I have never seenman so transfixed, so deeply moved, so overwhelmed by a calumny soenormous and so continuous. I had all the pains in the world to bringhim round a little. " King Louis XV. , who had no love and scarcely anyremembrance, preserved all his life some affection for the Regent, andsincere gratitude for the care which the latter had lavished upon him. The Duke of Orleans had never desired the crown for himself, and theattentions full of tender respect which he had shown the little king hadmade upon the child an impression which was never effaced. 

The preparations for war with Spain meanwhile continued; the Prince ofConti was nominally at the head of the army, Marshal Berwick wasintrusted with the command. He accepted it, in spite of his oldconnections with Spain, the benefits which Philip V. Had heaped uponhim, and the presence of his eldest son, the Duke of Liria, in theSpanish ranks. There were others who attached more importance togratitude. Berwick thought very highly of lieutenant-general CountD'Asfeldt, and desired to have him in his army; the Duke of Orleans spoketo him about it. "Monseigneur, " answered D'Asfeldt, "I am a Frenchman, Iowe you everything, I have nothing to expect save from you, but, " takingthe Fleece in his hand and showing it, "what would you have me do withthis, which I hold, with the king's permission, from the King of Spain, if I were to serve against Spain, this being the greatest honor that Icould have received?" He phrased his repugnance so well, and softened itdown by so many expressions of attachment to the Duke of Orleans, that hewas excused from serving against Spain, and he contented himself withsuperintending at Bordeaux the service of the commissariat. The Frencharmy, however, crossed the frontier in the month of March, 1719. "TheRegent may send a French army whenever he pleases, " wrote Alberoni, onthe 21st November, 1718; "proclaim publicly that there will not be a shotfired, and that the king our master will have provisions ready to receivethem. " He had brought the king, the queen, and the prince of theAsturias into the camp; Philip V. Fully expected the desertion of theFrench army in a mass. Not a soul budged; some refugees made an attemptto tamper with certain officers of their acquaintance; their messengerwas hanged in the middle of Marshal Berwick's camp. Fontarabia, St. Sebastian, and the Castle of Urgel fell before long into the power of theFrench; another division burned, at the port of Los Pasages, six vesselswhich chanced to be on the stocks; an English squadron destroyed those atCentera and in the port of Vigo. Everywhere the depots were committed tothe flames: this cruel and destructive war against an enemy whose besttroops were fighting far away, and who was unable to offer more than afeeble resistance, gratified the passions and the interests of Englandrather than of France. "It was, of course, necessary, " said Berwick, "that the English government should be able to convince the nextParliament that nothing had been spared to diminish the navy of Spain. "During this time the English fleet and the emperor's troops were keepingup an attack in Sicily upon the Spanish troops, who made a heroicdefence, but were without resources or re-enforcements, and werediminishing, consequently, every day. The Marquis of Leyden no longerheld anything but Palermo and the region round AEtna. 

Alberoni had attempted to create a diversion by hurling into the midstof France the brand of civil war. Brittany, for a long time pastdiscontented with its governor, the Marquis of Montesquiou, and latelyworked upon by the agents of the Duchess of Maine, was ripe for revolt;a few noblemen took up arms, and called upon the peasants to enter theforest with them, that is, to take the field. Philip V. Had promised theassistance of a fleet, and had supplied some money. But the peasants didnot rise, the Spanish ships were slow to arrive, the enterprise attemptedagainst the Marquis of Montesquiou failed, the conspirators weresurrounded in the forest of Noe, near Rennes; a great number were madeprisoners and taken away to Nantes, where a special chamber inquired intothe case against them. Three noblemen and one priest perished on thescaffold. 

Insurrection, as well as desertion and political opposition, had been afailure; Philip V. Was beaten at home as well as in Sicily. The Regentsucceeded in introducing to the presence of the King of Spain an unknownagent, who managed to persuade the monarch that the cardinal was shirkinghis responsibility before Europe, asserting that the king and queen haddesired the war, and that he had confined himself to gratifying theirpassions. The Duke of Orleans said, at the same time, quite openly, thathe made war not against Philip V. Or against Spain, but against Alberonionly. Lord Stanhope declared, in the name of England, that no peace waspossible, unless its preliminary were the dismissal of the perniciousminister. The fall of Alberoni was almost as speedy as that which he hadbut lately contrived for his enemy the Princess des Ursins. On the 4thof December, 1719, he received orders to quit Madrid within eight daysand Spain under three weeks. He did not see the king or queen again, andretired first to Genoa, going by France, and then finally to Rome. Hetook with him an immense fortune. It was discovered, after hisdeparture, that he had placed amongst the number of his treasures, theauthentic will of Charles II. , securing the throne of Spain to Philip V. He was pursued, his luggage ransacked, and the precious documentrecovered. Alberoni had restored order in the internal administrationof Spain; he had cleared away many abuses; Italian as he was, he hadresuscitated Spanish ambition. "I requickened a corpse, " he used to say. His views were extensive and daring, but often chimerical; he had reducedto a nullity the sovereign whom he governed for so long, keeping him shutup far away from the world, in a solitude which he was himself almost theonly one to interrupt. "The queen has the devil in her, " he used to say;"if she finds a man of the sword who has some mental resources and is apretty good general, she will make a racket in France and in Europe. "The queen did not find a general; and on the 17th of February, 1720, peace was signed at the Hague between Spain and the powers in coalitionagainst her, to the common satisfaction of France and Spain, whom so manyties already united. The haughty Elizabeth Farnese looked no longer toanybody but the Duke of Orleans for the elevation of her children. 

So great success in negotiation, however servile had been his bearing, had little by little increased the influence of Dubois over his master. The Regent knew and despised him, but he submitted to his sway andyielded to his desires, sometimes to his fancies. Dubois had for a longwhile comprehended that the higher dignities of the church could alonebring him to the grandeur of which he was ambitious; yet everything abouthim seemed to keep them out of his reach, his scandalous life, hisperpetual intrigues, the baseness, not of his origin, but of hischaracter and conduct; nevertheless, the see of Cambrai having becomevacant by the death of Cardinal de la Tremoille, Dubois conceived thehope of obtaining it. "Impudent as he was, " says St. Simon, "great aswas the sway he had acquired over his master, he found himself very muchembarrassed, and masked his effrontery by ruse; he told the Duke ofOrleans that he had dreamed a funny dream, that he was Archbishop ofCambrai. The Regent, who saw what he was driving at, answered him in atone of contempt, 'Thou, Archbishop of Cambrai! thou hast no thought ofsuch a thing?' And the other persisting, he bade him think of all thescandal of his life. Dubois had gone too far to stop on so fine a road, and quoted to him precedents, of which there were, unfortunately, onlytoo many. The Duke of Orleans, less moved by such bad reasons than putto it how to resist the suit of a man whom he was no longer wont to daregainsay in anything, sought to get out of the affair. 'Why! who wouldconsecrate thee?' 'Ah! if that's all, ' replied Dubois, cheerfully, 'thething is done. I know well who will consecrate me; but is that all, oncemore?' 'Well! who?' asked the Regent. 'Your premier almoner; there heis, outside; he will ask nothing better. ' And he embraces the legs ofthe Duke of Orleans, --who remains stuck and caught without having thepower to refuse, --goes out, draws aside the Bishop of Nantes, tells himthat he himself has got Cambrai, begs him to consecrate him, --whopromises immediately, --comes in again, capers, returns thanks, singspraises, expresses wonder, seals the matter more and more surely byreckoning it done, and persuading the Regent that it is so, who neverdared say no. That is how Dubois made himself Archbishop of Cambrai. "

He was helped, it is said, by a strange patron. Destouches, charged'affaires in London, who was kept well informed by Dubois, went to seeGeorge I. , requesting him to write to the Regent, recommending to him thenegotiator of the treaties. The king burst out laughing. "How can youask a Protestant prince, " said he, "to mix himself up with the making ofan archbishop in France? The Regent will laugh at the idea, as I do, andwill do nothing of the sort. " "Pardon me, sir, " rejoined Destouches, "hewill laugh, but he will do it, first out of regard for your Majesty, andthen because he will think it a good joke. I beseech your Majesty to bepleased to sign the letter I have here already written. " King Georgesigned, and the adroit Dubois became Archbishop of Cambrai. He evensucceeded in being consecrated, not only by the Bishop of Nantes, butalso by Cardinal Rohan and by Massillon, one of the glories of the Frenchepiscopate, a timid man and a poor one, in despite of his piouseloquence. The Regent, as well as the whole court, was present at theceremony, to the great scandal of the people attached to religion. Dubois received all the orders on the same day; and, when he was jokedabout it, he brazen-facedly called to mind the precedent of St. Ambrose. Dubois henceforth cast his eyes upon the cardinal's hat, and hisnegotiations at Rome were as brisk as those of Alberoni had but latelybeen with the same purpose. 

Amidst so much defiance of decency and public morality, in the presenceof such profound abuse of sacred things, God did not, nevertheless, remain without testimony, and his omnipotent justice had spoken. On the21st of July, 1719, the Duchess of Berry, eldest daughter of the Regent, had died at the Palais-Royal, at barely twenty-four years of age; herhealth, her beauty, and her wit were not proof against the irregular lifeshe had led. Ere long a more terrible cry arose from one of the chiefcities of the kingdom. "The plague, " they said, "is at Marseilles, brought, none knows how, on board a ship from the East. " The terriblemalady had by this time been brooding for a month in the most populousquarters without anybody's daring to give it its real name. "The publicwelfare demands, " said Chancellor d'Aguesseau, "that the people should bepersuaded that the plague is not contagious, and that the ministry shouldbehave as if it were persuaded of the contrary. " Meanwhile emigrationwas commencing at Marseilles; the rich folks had all taken flight; themajority of the public functionaries, unfaithful to their duty, hadimitated them, when, on the 31st of July, 1720, the Parliament of Aix, scared at the contagion, drew round Marseilles a sanitary line, proclaiming the penalty of death against all who should dare to pass it;the mayor (_viguier_) and the four sheriffs were left alone, and withoutresources to confront a populace bewildered by fear, suffering, and, erelong, famine. Then shone forth that grandeur of the human soul, whichdisplays itself in the hour of terror, as if to testify of the divineimage still existing amidst the wreck of us. Whilst the Parliament wasflying from threatened Aix, and hurrying affrighted from town to town, accompanied or pursued in its route by the commandant of the province, all that while the Bishop of Marseilles, Monseigneur de Belzunce, thesheriffs Estelle and Moustier, and a simple officer of health, ChevalierRoze, sufficed in the depopulated town for all duties and all acts ofdevotion. 

The plague showed a preference for attacking robust men, young people, and women in the flower of their age; it disdained the old and the sick;there was none to care for the dying, none to bury the dead. The doctorsof Marseilles had fled, or dared not approach the dying withoutprecautions, which redoubled the terror. "The doctors ought to beabolished, " wrote Dubois to the Archbishop of Aix, "or ordered to showmore ability and less cowardice, for it is a great calamity. "

Some young doctors, arriving from Montpellier, raised the courage oftheir desponding brethren, and the sick no longer perished without help. Rallying round the bishop, the priests, assisted by the members of allthe religious orders, flew from bedside to bedside, and from grave tograve, without being able to suffice for the duties of their ministry. "Look at Belzunce, " writes M. Lemontey; "all he possessed, he has given;all who served him are dead; alone, in poverty, afoot, in the morning hepenetrates into the most horrible dens of misery, and in the evening, heis found again in the midst of places bespattered with the dying; hequenches their thirst, he comforts them as a friend, he exhorts them asan apostle, and on this field of death he gleans abandoned souls. Theexample of this prelate, who seems to be invulnerable, animates withcourageous emulation--not the clergy of lazy and emasculated dignitaries, for they fled at the first approach of danger, but--the parish-priests, the vicars and the religious orders; not one deserts his colors, not oneputs any bound to his fatigues save with his life. Thus perished twenty-six Recollects and eighteen Jesuits out of twenty-six. The Capucinssummoned their brethren from the other provinces, and the latter rushedto martyrdom with the alacrity of the ancient Christians; out of fifty-five the epidemic slew forty-three. The conduct of the priests of theOratory was, if possible, more magnanimous. The functions of the sacredministry were forbidden them by the bishop, a fanatical partisan of thebull Unigenitus; they refused to profit by their disqualification, andthey devoted themselves to the service of the sick with heroic humility;nearly all succumbed, and there were still tears in the city for theSuperior, a man of eminent piety. "

[Illustration: Belzunce amid the Plague-stricken----96]

During more than five months the heroic defenders of Marseilles struggledagainst the scourge. The bishop drew the populace on to follow in hissteps, in processions or in the churches, invoking the mercy of God inaid of a city which terror and peril seemed to have the effect ofplunging into the most awful corruption. Estelle, Moustier, andChevalier Roze, heading the efforts attempted in all directions toprotect the living and render the last offices to the dead, themselvesput their hands to the work, aided by galley-men who had been summonedfrom the hulks. Courage was enough to establish equality between allranks and all degrees of virtue. Monseigneur de Belzunce sat upon theseat of the tumbrel laden with corpses, driven by a convict stained withevery crime. 

Marseilles had lost a third of its inhabitants. Aix, Toulon, Arles, theCevennes, the Gevaudan were attacked by the contagion; fearful was thewant in the decimated towns long deprived of every resource. The Regenthad forwarded corn and money; the pope sent out three ships laden withprovisions; one of the vessels was wrecked, the two others were seized byBarbary pirates, who released them as soon as they knew theirdestination. The cargo was deposited on a desert island in sight ofToulon. Thither it was that boats, putting off from Marseilles, went tofetch the alms of the pope, more charitable than many priests, accompanying his gifts with all the spiritual consolations andindulgences of his holy office. The time had not come for Marseilles andthe towns of Provence to understand the terrible teaching of God. Scarcely had they escaped from the dreadful scourge which had laid themwaste, when they plunged into excesses of pleasure and debauchery, as ifto fly from the memories that haunted them. Scarcely was a thought givento those martyrs to devotion who had fallen during the epidemic; thosewho survived received no recompense; the Regent, alone, offeredMonseigneur de Belzunce the bishopric of Laon, the premier ecclesiasticalpeerage in the kingdom; the saintly bishop preferred to remain in themidst of the flock for which he had battled against despair and death. It was only in 1802 that the city of Marseilles at last raised a monumentto its bishop and its heroic magistrates. 

Dubois, meanwhile, was nearing the goal of all his efforts. In order toobtain the cardinal's hat, he had embraced the cause of the Court ofRome, and was pushing forward the registration by Parliament of the BullUnigenitus. The long opposition of the Duke of Noailles at last yieldedto the desire of restoring peace in the church. In his wake the majorityof the bishops and communities who had made appeal to the contemplatedcouncil, renounced, in their turn, the protests so often renewed withinthe last few years. The Parliament was divided, but exiled to Pontoise, as a punishment for its opposition to the system of Law; it found itselfthreatened with removal to Blois. Chancellor d'Aguesseau had vainlysought to interpose his authority; a magistrate of the Grand Chamber, Perelle by name, was protesting eloquently against any derogation fromthe principles of liberty of the Gallican Church and of the Parliaments. "Where did you find such maxims laid down?" asked the chancellor, angrily. "In the pleadings of the late Chancellor d'Aguesseau, " answeredthe councillor, icily. D'Aguesseau gave in his resignation to theRegent; the Parliament did not leave for Blois; after sitting some weeksat Pontoise, it enregistered the formal declaration of the Bull, and atlast returned to Paris on the, 20th of December, 1720. 

Dubois had reconciled France with the court of Rome; the latter owed himrecompense for so much labor. Clement XI. Had promised, but he could notmake up his mind to bring down so low the dignity of the Sacred College;he died without having conferred the hat upon Dubois. During theconclave intrigues recommenced, conducted this time by Cardinal Rohan. The Jesuit Lafitteau, who had become Bishop of Sisteron, and had for along while been the secret agent of Dubois at Rome, kept him acquaintedwith all the steps taken to wrest a promise from Cardinal Conti, who wasdestined, it was believed, to unite the majority of the suffrages. "Donot be surprised, " he adds, "to hear me say that I go by night to theconclave, for I have found out the secret of getting the key of it, and Iconstantly pass through five or six guard-posts, without their being ableto guess who I am. "

Cardinal Conti was old and feeble; all means were brought to bear uponhim. Dubois had for a long time past engaged the services of ChevalierSt. George; when the new pope was proclaimed, under the name of InnocentXIII. , he had signed a conditional promise in favor of Dubois. TheRegent, who had but lately pressed his favorite's desires upon ClementXI. , was not afraid to write to the new pontiff--

"MOST HOLY FATHER, "Your Holiness is informed of the favor which the late pope had grantedme on behalf of the Archbishop of Cambrai, of which his death aloneprevented the fulfilment. I hope that Your Holiness will let it be seen, on your accession to the throne of St. Peter, that services rendered tothe Church lose nothing by the death of the sovereign pontiffs, and thatyou will not think it unworthy of your earliest care to give me thispublic mark of the attention paid by the Holy See to the zeal which Iprofess for its interests. This kindness on the part of Your Holinesswill crown the wishes I formed for your exaltation, will fill up themeasure of the joy which it has caused me, will maintain our kindlyrelations to the advantage of the peace of the Church and the authorityof the Holy See, and will fortify the zeal of the Archbishop of Cambraiin the execution of my orders to the glory of the Pontificate and of YourHoliness. "

On the 16th of July, 1721, Dubois was at last elected Cardinal; it wasstated that his elevation had cost eight millions of livres. Thefrivolous curiosity of the court was concerned with the countenance thenew Eminence would make in his visits of ceremony, especially in that toMadame, his declared foe at all times. "He had nearly two months toprepare for it, " says St. Simon, and it must be admitted that he had madegood use of them. He got himself up for his part, and appeared beforeMadame with deep respect and embarassment. He prostrated himself, as sheadvanced to greet him, sat down in the middle of the circle, covered hishead for a moment with his red hat, which he removed immediately, andmade his compliments; he began with his own surprise at finding himselfin such a position in presence of Madame, spoke of the baseness of hisbirth and his first employments; employed them with much cleverness andin very choice terms to extol so much the more the kindness, courage, andpower of the Duke of Orleans, who from so low had raised him to where hefound himself; gave Madame some delicate incense; in fine, dissolved inthe most profound respect and gratitude, doing it so well that Madameherself could not help, when he was gone, praising his discourse and hiscountenance, at the same time adding that she was mad to see him where hewas. "

The bearing of the newly-elected was less modest at the council ofregency; he got himself accompanied thither by Cardinal Rohan; their rankgave the two ecclesiastics precedence. The Duke of Noailles, d'Aguesseau, and some other great lords refused to sit with Dubois. "This day, sir, will be famous in history, " said the Duke of Noailles tothe new cardinal; "it will not fail to be remarked therein that yourentrance into the council caused it to be deserted by the grandees of thekingdom. " Noailles was exiled, as well as d'Aguesseau. 

The great lords had made a decided failure in government. Since 1718, the different councils had been abolished; defended by Abbe St. Pierre, under the grotesque title of Polysynodie, they had earned for the candidpreacher of universal peace his exclusion from the French Academy, whichwas insisted upon by the remnants of the old court, whom he had mortallyoffended by styling Louis XIV. 's governmental system a viziership. TheRegent had heaped favors upon the presidents and members of the councils, but he had placed Dubois at the head of foreign affairs and Le Blanc overthe war department. "I do not inquire into the theory of councils, " saidthe able Dubois to the Regent by the mouth of his confidant Chavigny; "itwas, as you know, the object of worship to the shallow pates of the oldcourt. Humiliated by their nonentity at the end of the last reign, theybegot this system upon the reveries of M. De Cambrai. But I think ofyou, I think of your interests. The king will reach, his majority, thegrandees of the kingdom approach the monarque by virtue of their birth;if to this privilege they unite that of being then at the head ofaffairs, there is reason to fear that they may surpass you incomplaisance, in flattery, may represent you as a useless phantom, andestablish themselves upon the ruin of you. Suppress, then, thesecouncils, if you mean to continue indispensable, and haste to supersedethe great lords, who would become your rivals, by means of simplesecretaries of state, who, without standing or family, will perforceremain your creatures. "

The Duke of Antin, son of Madame de Montespan, one of the most adroitcourtiers of the old as well as of the new court, "honorless andpassionless" (_sans honneur et sans humeur_), according to the Regent'sown saying, took a severer view than Dubois of the arrangement to whichhe had contributed. "The councils are dissolved, " he wrote in hismemoirs; "the nobility will never recover from it--to my great regret, I must confess. The kings who hereafter reign will see that Louis XIV. , one of the greatest kings in the world, never would employ people of rankin any of his business; that the Regent, a most enlightened prince, hadbegun by putting them at the head of all affairs, and was obliged toremove them at the end of three years. What can they and must theyconclude therefrom? That people of this condition are not fitted forbusiness, and that they are good for nothing but to get killed in war. I hope I am wrong, but there is every appearance that the masters willthink like that, and there will not be wanting folks who will confirmthem in that opinion. " A harsh criticism on the French nobility, toolong absorbed by war or the court, living apart from the nation and fromaffairs, and thereby become incapable of governing, put down once for allby the iron hand of Richelieu, without ever having been able to resume atthe head of the country the rank and position which befitted them. 

The special councils were dissolved, the council of regency diminished;Dubois became premier minister in name--he had long been so in fact. 

He had just concluded an important matter, one which the Regent had muchat heart--the marriage of the king with the Infanta of Spain, and that ofMdlle. De Montpensier, daughter of the Duke of Orleans, with the Princeof the Asturias. The Duke of St. Simon was intrusted with the officialdemand. Philip V. Was rejoiced to see his daughter's elevation to thatthrone which he still regarded as the first in the world; he purchased itby the concession made to the Regent. 

The age of the Infanta was a serious obstacle; she was but three yearsold, the king was twelve. When the Duke of Orleans went in state toannounce to Louis XV. The negotiation which tarried for nothing furtherbut his consent, the young prince, taken by surprise, was tongue-tied, seemed to have his heart quite full, and his eyes grew moist. Hispreceptor, Fleury, Bishop of Frejus, who had just refused theArchbishopric of Rheims, seeing that he must make up his mind to pleasethe Regent or estrange him, supported what had just been said. "MarshalVilleroy, decided by the bishop's example, said to the king, 'Come, mydear master; the thing must be done with a good grace. ' The Regent, verymuch embarrassed, the duke, mighty taciturn, and Dubois, with an air ofcomposure, waited for the king to break a silence which lasted a quarterof an hour, whilst the bishop never ceased whispering to the king. Asthe silence continued, and the assembly of all the council, at which theking was about to appear, could not but augment his timidity, the bishopturned to the Regent, and said to him, 'His Majesty will go to thecouncil, but he wants a little time to prepare himself for it. 'Thereupon the Regent replied, that he was created to await theconvenience of the king, saluted him with an air of respect andaffection, went out and made signs to the rest to follow him. A quarterof an hour later the king entered the council, with his eyes still red, and replied, with a very short and rather low yes, to the Regent'squestion, whether he thought proper that the news of his marriage shouldbe imparted to the council. " "It was the assurance of peace with Spain, and the confirmation of the recent treaties; the Regent's enemies saw init the climax of the policy, by the choice of an infant, which retardedthe king's marriage. " [Memoires secrets de Dubois, t. Ii. P. 163. ]

Accusations of greater gravity had been recently renewed against the Dukeof Orleans. The king had been ill; for just a moment the danger hadappeared serious; the emotion in France was general, the cabal opposed tothe Regent went beyond mere anxiety. "The consternation everywhere wasgreat, " says St. Simon; "I had the privileges of entry, and so I wentinto the king's chamber. I found it very empty; the Duke of Orleansseated at the chimney-corner, very forlorn and very sad. I went up tohim for a moment, then I approached the king's bed. At that moment, Boulduc, one of his apothecaries, was giving him something to take. TheDuchess of la Ferte was at Boulduc's elbow, and, having turned round tosee who was coming, she saw me, and all at once said to me, betwixt loudand soft, 'He is poisoned, he is poisoned. ' 'Hold your tongue, do, ' saidI; 'that is awful!' She went on again, so much and so loud, that I wasafraid the king would hear her. Boulduc and I looked at one another, andI immediately withdrew from the bed and from that madwoman, with whom Iwas on no sort of terms. The illness was not a long one, and theconvalescence was speedy, which restored tranquillity and joy, and causedan outburst of Te Deums and rejoicings. On St. Louis' day, at theconcert held every year on that evening at the Tuileries, the crowd wasso dense that a pin would not have fallen to the ground in the garden. The windows of the Tuileries were decorated and crammed full, and all theroofs of the Carrousel filled with all that could hold on there, as wellas the square. Marshal Villeroy revelled in this concourse, which boredthe king, who kept hiding himself every moment in the corners; themarshal pulled him out by the arm and led him up to the windows. Everybody shouted 'Hurrah! for the king!' and the marshal, detaining theking, who would still have gone and hidden himself, said, 'Pray look, mydear master, at all this company, all this people; it is all yours, itall belongs to you; you are their master; pray give them a look or twojust to satisfy them!' A fine lesson for a governor, and one which hedid not tire of impressing upon him, so fearful was he lest he shouldforget it; accordingly he retained it very perfectly. "

[Illustration: The Boy King and his People----104]

The Duke of Beauvilliers and Fenelon taught the Duke of Burgundydifferently; the Duke of Montausier and Bossuet himself, in spite of themajestic errors of his political conceptions, had not forgotten in theeducation of the granddauphin the lesson of kings' duties towards theirpeoples. 

Already, over the very infancy of Louis XV. Was passing the breath ofdecay; little by little that people, as yet so attached to their youngsovereign, was about to lose all respect and submission towards itsmasters; a trait long characteristic of the French nation. 

The king's majority was approaching, the Regent's power seemed on thepoint of slipping from him; Marshal Villeroy, aged, witless, andtactless, irritated at the elevation of Dubois, always suspicious of theRegent's intentions towards the young king, burst out violently againstthe minister, and displayed towards the Regent an offensive distrust. "One morning, " says Duclos, "when the latter came to give an account tothe king of the nomination to certain benefices, he begged his Majesty tobe pleased to walk into his closet, where he had a word to say to him inprivate. The governor objected, saying that he knew the duties of hisplace, that the king could have no secrets from his governor, protestedthat he would not lose sight of him for an instant, and that he was boundto answer for his person. The Regent, then taking a tone of superiority, said to the marshal, 'You forget yourself, sir; you do not see the forceof your expressions; it is only the king's presence that restrains mefrom treating you as you deserve. ' Having so said, he made a profoundbow to the king and went out. The disconcerted marshal followed theRegent to the door, and would have entered upon a justification; all histalk all day long was a mixture of the Roman's haughtiness and thecourtier's meanness. " [_Memoires de St. Simon_. ]

"Next day, at noon, Marshal Villeroy repaired to the Duke of Orleans' toexcuse himself, fancying he might attempt an explanation as equal withequal. He crosses with his grand airs, in the midst of the whole court, the rooms which preceded the prince's closet; the crowd opens and makesway for him respectfully. He asks, in a loud tone, where the Duke ofOrleans is; the answer is that he is busy. 'I must see him, nevertheless, ' says he; 'announce me!' The moment he advances towardsthe door, the Marquis of La Fare, captain of the Regent's guards, showshimself between the door and the marshal, arrests him, and demands hissword. Le Blanc hands him the order from the king, and at the sameinstant Count d'Artagnan, commandant of the musketeers, blocks him on theopposite side to La Fare. The marshal shouts, remonstrates; he ispitched into a chair, shut up in it, and passed out by one of the windowswhich opens door-wise on to the garden; at the bottom of the steps of theorangery behold a carriage with six horses, surrounded by twentymusketeers. The marshal, furious, storms, threatens; he is carried intothe vehicle, the carriage starts, and in less than three hours themarshal is at Villeroi, eight or nine leagues from Versailles. " The kingwept a moment or two without saying a word; he was consoled by the returnof the Bishop of Frejus, with whom it was supposed to be all over, butwho was simply at Baville, at President Lamoignon's; his pupil was asmuch attached to him as he was capable of being; Fleury remained alonewith him, and Marshal Villeroy was escorted to Lyons, of which he wasgovernor. He received warning not to leave it, and was not even presentat the king's coronation, which took place at Rheims, on the 25th ofOctober, 1722. Amidst the royal pomp and festivities, a significantformality was for the first time neglected; that was, admitting into thenave of the church the people, burgesses and artisans, who were wont tojoin their voices to those of the clergy and nobility when, before theanointment of the king, demand was made in a loud voice for the consentof the assembly, representing the nation. Even in external ceremonies, the kingship was becoming every day more and more severed from nationalsentiment and national movement. 

The king's majority, declared on the 19th of February, 1723, had made nochange in the course of the government; the young prince had left Paris, and resumed possession of that Palace of Versailles, still full ofmementoes of the great king. The Regent, more and more absorbed by hispleasures, passed a great deal of time at Paris; Dubois had thegovernment to himself. 

His reign was not long at this unparalleled pinnacle of his greatness; hehad been summoned to preside at the assembly of the clergy, and had justbeen elected to the French Academy, where he was received by Fontenelle, when a sore, from which he had long suffered, reached all at once aserious crisis; an operation was indispensable, but he set himselfobstinately against it; the Duke of Orleans obliged him to submit to it, and it was his death-blow; the wretched cardinal expired, without havinghad time to receive the sacraments. 

The elevation and power of Dubois had the fatal effect of lowering Francein her own eyes; she had felt that she was governed by a man whom shedespised, and had a right to despise; this was a deep-seated and lastingevil; authority never recovered from the blow thus struck at its moralinfluence. Dubois, however, was more able and more farsighted in hisforeign policy than the majority of his predecessors and hiscontemporaries were; without definitively losing the alliance of Spain, re-attached to the interests of France by the double treaty of marriage, he had managed to form a firm connection with England, and to rally roundFrance the European coalition but lately in arms against her. Hemaintained and made peace ingloriously; he obtained it sometimes bymeannesses in bearing and modes of acting; he enriched himself by hisintrigues, abroad as well as at home; his policy none the less wassteadfastly French, even in his relations with the court of Rome, andin spite of his eager desire for the cardinal's hat. He died sadly, shamefully, without a friend and without regret, even on the part of theRegent, whom he had governed and kept in hand by active and adroitassiduity, by a hardihood and an effrontery to the influence of whichthat prince submitted, all the while despising it. Dubois had raised upagain, to place himself upon it, that throne of premier minister on whichnone had found a seat since Richelieu and Mazarin; the Duke of Orleanssucceeded him without fuss, without parade, without even appearing tohave any idea of the humiliation inflicted upon him by that valet, lyingin his coffin, whom he had raised to power, and whose place he was aboutto fill for a few days. 

[Illustration: Death of the Regent---107]

On the 2d of December, 1723, three months and a half after the death ofDubois, the Duke of Orleans succumbed in his turn. Struck down by asudden attack of apoplexy, whilst he was chatting with his favorite forthe time, the Duchess of Falarie, he expired without having recoveredconsciousness. Lethargized by the excesses of the table and debaucheryof all kinds, more and more incapable of application and work, the princedid not preserve sufficient energy to give up the sort of life which hadruined him. For a long while the physicians had been threatening himwith sudden death. "It is all I can desire, " said he. Naturally brave, intelligent, amiable, endowed with a charm of manner which recalled HenryIV. , kind and merciful like him, of a mind that was inquiring, fertile, capable of applying itself to details of affairs, Philip of Orleans wasdragged down by depravity of morals to the same in soul and mind; hisjudgment, naturally straightforward and correct, could still discernbetween good and evil, but he was incapable of energetically willing theone and firmly resisting the other; he had governed equitably, withoutviolence and without harshness, he had attempted new and daring courses, and he had managed to abandon them without any excesses or severities;like Dubois, he had inspired France with a contempt which unfortunatelydid not protect her from contagion. When Madame died, an inscription hadbeen put on the tomb of that honest, rude, and haughty German: "Here liesLazybones" (_Ci-git l'oisivete_). All the vices thus imputed to theRegent did not perish with him, when he succumbed at forty-nine years ofage under their fatal effects. "The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones;" the Regency was the signalfor an irregularity of morals which went on increasing, like a filthyriver, up to the end of the reign of Louis XV. ; the fatal seed had beengerminating for a long time past under the forced and frequentlyhypocritical decency of the old court; it burst out under the easy-goingregency of an indolent and indulgent prince, himself wholly given to thelicentiousness which he excused and authorized by his own example. Fromthe court the evil soon spread to the nation; religious faith stillstruggled within the soul, but it had for a long while been tossed aboutbetween contrary and violent opinions; it found itself disturbed, attacked, by the new and daring ideas which were beginning to dawn inpolitics as well as in philosophy. The break-up was already becomingmanifest, though nobody could account for it, though no fixed plan wasconceived in men's minds. People devoured the memoirs of Cardinal Retzand Madame de Motteville, which had just appeared; people formed fromthem their judgments upon the great persons and great events which theyhad seen and depicted. The University of Paris, under the direction ofRollin, was developing the intelligence and lively powers of burgessdom;and Montesquieu, as yet full young, was shooting his missiles in the_Lettres persanes_ at the men and the things of his country with analmost cynical freedom, which was, as it were, the alarum and prelude ofall the liberties which he scarcely dared to claim, but of which healready let a glimpse be seen. Evil and good were growing up inconfusion, like the tares and the wheat. For more than eighty years pastFrance has been gathering the harvest of ages; she has not yet separatedthe good grain from the rubbish which too often conceals it. 

CHAPTER LII. ----LOUIS XV. , THE MINISTRY OF CARDINAL FLEURY. , 1723-1748. 

[Illustration: Louis XV. ----110]

The riotous and frivolous splendor of the Regency had suffered eclipse;before their time, in all their vigor, through disgrace or by death, Law, Dubois, and the Regent, had suddenly disappeared from the stage of theworld. To these men, a striking group for different reasons, notwithstanding their faults and their vices, was about to succeed adiscreet but dull and limp government, the reign of an old man, and, moreover, a priest. The Bishop of Frejus, who had but lately been themodest preceptor of the king, and was quietly ambitious and greedy ofpower, but without regard to his personal interests, was about to becomeCardinal Fleury, and to govern France for twenty years; in 1723 he wasseventy years old. 

Whether from adroitness or prudence, Fleury did not all at once aspire toall-powerfulness. Assured in his heart of his sway over the as yetdormant will of his pupil, he suffered the establishment of the Duke ofBourbon's ministry, who was in a greater hurry to grasp the power he hadso long coveted. When the king received his cousin, head of the house ofConde, who had but lately taken the place of the Duke of Maine near hisperson, he sought in his preceptor's eyes the guidance he needed, andcontented himself with sanctioning by an inclination of the head theelevation of the duke, presented by Fleury. The new Duke of Orleans, asyet quite a youth, hovering between debauchery and devotion, obtained noportion of his father's heritage; he had taken away from him even theright of doing business with the king, a right secured to him by hisoffice of colonel-general. 

[Illustration: Cardinal Fleury--110]

The Bishop of Frejus had nursed his power more skilfully; he kept thelist of benefices, and he alone, it was said, knew how to unloosen theking's tongue; but he had not calculated upon the pernicious andall-powerful influence of the Marchioness of Prie, favorite "byappointment" (_attitree_) to the duke. Clever, adroit, depraved, sheaspired to govern, and chose for her minister Paris-Duverney, one of thefour Dauphinese brothers who had been engaged under the regency in thebusiness of the visa, and the enemies as well as rivals of the ScotsmanLaw. Whilst the king hunted, and Fleury exercised quietly the measure ofpower which as yet contented his desires, the duke, blinded by hispassion for Madame de Prie, slavishly submissive to her slightest wishes, lavished, according to his favorite's orders, honors and graces in whichshe managed to traffic, enriching herself brazen-facedly. Under LouisXIV. Madame de Maintenon alone, exalted to the rank of wife, had takenpart in state affairs; amidst the irregularity of his life the Regent hadnever accorded women any political influence, and the confusion of theorgie had never surprised from his lips a single important secret; Madamede Prie was the first to become possessed of a power destined tofrequently fall, after her, into hands as depraved as they were feeble. 

The strictness of the views and of the character of Paris-Duverneystrove, nevertheless, in the home department, against the insensatelavishness of the duke, and the venal irregularities of his favorite;imbued with the maxims of order and regularity formerly impressed byColbert upon the clerks of the treasury, and not yet completely effacedby a long interregnum, he labored zealously to cut down expenses anduseless posts, to resuscitate and regulate commerce; his ardor, systematic and wise as it was, hurried him sometimes into strangeviolence and improvidence; in order to restore to their proper figurevalues and goods which still felt the prodigious rise brought about bythe System, Paris-Duverney depreciated the coinage and put, a tariff onmerchandise as well as wages. The commotion amongst the people wasgreat; the workmen rioted, the tradesmen refused to accept the legalfigure for their goods; several men were killed in the streets, and someshops put the shutters up. The misery, which the administration hadmeant to relieve, went on increasing; begging was prohibited; refuges andworkshops were annexed to the poorhouses; attempts were made to collectthere all the old, infirm, and vagabond. The rigor of procedure, as well as the insufficiency of resources, caused the failure of thephilanthropic project. Lightly conceived, imprudently carried out, thenew law filled the refuges with an immense crowd, taken up in allquarters, in the villages, and on the high roads; the area of therelieving-houses became insufficient. "Bedded on straw, and fed on breadand water as they ought to be, " wrote the comptroller-general Dodun, "they will take up less room and be less expense. " Everywhere the poorwretches sought to fly; they were branded on the arm, like criminals. All this rigor was ineffectual; the useful object of Paris-Duverney'sdecrees was not attained. 

Other outrages, not to be justified by any public advantage, were beingat the same time committed against other poor creatures, for a long whileaccustomed to severities of all kinds. Without freedom, without right ofworship, without assemblies, the Protestants had, nevertheless, enjoyed asort of truce from their woes during the easy-going regency of the Dukeof Orleans. Amongst the number of his vices Dubois did not includehypocrisy; he had not persecuted the remnants of French Protestantism, enfeebled, dumb, but still living and breathing. The religiousenthusiasm of the Camisards had become little by little extinguished;their prophets and inspired ones, who were but lately the only ministersof the religion in the midst of a people forcibly deprived of itspastors, had given place to new servants of God, regularly consecrated toHis work and ready to brave for His sake all punishments. The Churchunder the Cross, as the Protestants of France then called themselves, wasreviving slowly, secretly, in the desert, but it was reviving. Thescattered members of the flocks, habituated for so many years past tocarefully conceal their faith in order to preserve it intact in theirhearts, were beginning to draw near to one another once more; disciplineand rule were once more entering within that church, which had beenbattered by so many storms, and the total destruction of which had beenloudly proclaimed. In its origin, this immense work, as yet silently andmodestly progressing, had been owing to one single man, Antony Court, born, in 1696, of a poor family, at Villeneuve-de-Berg in the Vivarais. He was still almost a child when he had perceived the awakening in hissoul of an ardent desire to rebuild the walls of holy Sion; withoutclassical education, nurtured only upon his reading of the Bible, guidedby strong common sense and intrepid courage, combined with a piety assincere as it was enlightened, he had summoned to him the preachers ofthe Uvennes, heirs of the enthusiastic Camisards. From the depths ofcaverns, rocks, and woods had come forth these rude ministers, fanaticsor visionaries as they may have been, eagerly devoted to their work andimbued with their pious illusions; Court had persuaded, touched, convinced them; some of the faithful had gathered around him, and, sincethe 11th of August, 1715, at the first of those synods in the desert, unknown to the great king whose life was ebbing away at Versailles, theProtestant church of France had been reconstituting itself upon bases assound as they were strong; the functions of the ancients were everywherere-established; women were forbidden to hold forth at assemblies; theHoly Scriptures were proclaimed as the only law of faith; pastoralordination was required of preachers and ministers of the religion;Corteis, a friend of Court's, went to Switzerland to receive from thepastors of Zurich the imposition of hands, which he transmittedafterwards to his brethren. Everywhere the new Evangelical ministry wasbeing recruited. "I seek them in all places, " said Court, "at theplough, or behind the counter, everywhere where I find the call formartyrdom. " Of the six devoted men who signed the statutes of the firstsynod, four were destined to a martyr's death. The restorer of FrenchProtestantism had made no mistake about the call then required for theholy ministry. The synods of the desert became every year more numerous;deputies from the North, from the West, from the Centre, began to jointhose of the South. Persecution continued, but it was local, more oftenprompted by the fanatical zeal of the superintendents than by thesovereign impulse of government; the pastors died without having tosorrow for the church, up-risen from its ruins, when a vague echo of thisrevival came striking upon the ears of the Duke and Madame de Prie, amidst the galas of Chantilly. Their silence and their exhaustion hadfor some time protected the Protestants; fanaticism and indifference madecommon cause once more to crush them at their reawakening. 

The storm had now been brewing for some years; the Bishop of Nantes, Lavergne de Tressan, grand almoner to the Regent, had attempted some timebefore to wrest from him a rigorous decree against the Protestants; theDuke of Orleans, as well as Dubois, had rejected his overtures. Scarcelyhad the duke (of Bourbon) come into power, when the prelate presented hisproject anew; indifferent and debauched, a holder of seventy-sixbenefices, M. De Tressan dreamed of the cardinal's hat, and aspired toobtain it from the Court of Rome at the cost of a persecution. Thegovernment was at that time drifting about, without compass or steersman, from the hands of Madame de Prie to those of Paris-Duverney. Littlecared they for the fate of the Reformers. "This castaway of theregency, " says M. Lemontey, "was adopted without memorial, withoutexamination, as an act of homage to the late king, and a simple executiveformula. The ministers of Louis XVI. Afterwards found the minute of thedeclaration of 1724, without any preliminary report, and simply bearingon the margin the date of the old edicts. " For aiming the thunderboltsagainst the Protestants, Tressan addressed himself to their most terribleexecutioner. Lamoignon de Baville was still alive; old and almost atdeath's door as he was, he devoted the last days of his life to drawingup for the superintendents some private instructions; an able and a cruelmonument of his past experience and his persistent animosity. He diedwith the pen still in his hand. 

The new edict turned into an act of homage to Louis XIV. The rigorsof Louis XV. "Of all the grand designs of our most honored lord andgreat-grandfather, there is none that we have more at heart to executethan that which he conceived, of entirely extinguishing heresy in hiskingdom. Arrived at majority, our first care has been to have before usthe edicts whereof execution has been delayed, especially in theprovinces afflicted with the contagion. We have observed that the chiefabuses which demand a speedy remedy relate to illicit assemblies, theeducation of children, the obligation of public functionaries to professthe Catholic religion, the penalties against the relapsed, and thecelebration of marriage, regarding which here are our intentions: Shallbe condemned: preachers to the penalty of death, their accomplices to thegalleys for life, and women to be shaved and imprisoned for life. Confiscation of property: parents who shall not have baptism administeredto their children within twenty-four hours, and see that they attendregularly the catechism and the schools, to fines and such sums as theymay amount to together; even to greater penalties. Midwives, physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, domestics, relatives, who shall not notify theparish priests of births or illnesses, to fines. Persons who shallexhort the sick, to the galleys or imprisonment for life, according tosex; confiscation of property. The sick who shall refuse the sacraments, if they recover, to banishment for life; if they die, to be dragged on ahurdle. Desert-marriages are illegal; the children born of them areincompetent to inherit. Minors whose parents are expatriated may marrywithout their authority; but parents whose children are on foreign soilshall not consent to their marriage, on pain of the galleys for the menand banishment for the women. Finally, of all fines and confiscations, half shall be employed in providing subsistence for the new converts. "

Just as the last edicts of Louis XIV. , the edict of 1724 rested upon anabsolute contradiction: the legislators no longer admitted the existenceof any reformers in the kingdom; and yet all the battery of the mostformidable punishments was directed against that Protestant church whichwas said to be defunct. The same contradiction was seen in the conductof the ecclesiastics: Protestants could not be admitted to any position, or even accomplish the ordinary duties of civil life, without externallyconforming to Catholicism; and, to so conform, there was required of themnot only an explicit abjuration, but even an anathema against theirdeceased parents. "It is necessary, " said Chancellor d'Aguesseau, "either that the church should relax her vigor by some modification, or, if she does not think she ought to do so, that she should ceaserequesting the king to employ his authority in reducing his subjects tothe impossible, by commanding them to fulfil a religious duty which thechurch does not permit them to perform. "

At this point is revealed a progress in ideas of humanity and justice:the edict of 1724 equalled in rigor the most severe proclamations ofLouis XIV. ; it placed the peace, and often the life, of Reformers at themercy not only of an enemy's denunciation, but of a priest's simpledeposition; it destroyed all the bonds of family, and substituted for thenatural duties a barbarous and depraving law; but general sentiment andpublic opinion were no longer in accord with the royal proclamations. The clergy had not solicited the edict, the work of an ambitious manbacked up by certain fanatics; they were at first embarrassed by it. When the old hatreds revived, and the dangerous intoxications of powerhad affected the souls of bishops and priests, the magistracy, who hadformerly been more severe towards the Reformers than even thesuperintendents of the provinces had been, pronounced on many points infavor of the persecuted; the judges were timid; the legislation, becomingmore and more oppressive, tied their hands; but the bias of their mindswas modified; it tended to extenuate, and not to aggravate, the effectsof the edict. The law was barbarous everywhere, the persecution becameso only at certain spots, owing to the zeal of the superintendents orbishops; as usual, the south of France was the first to undergo all therigors of it. Emigration had ceased there for a long time past; whilstthe Norman or Dauphinese Reformers, on the revival of persecution, stillsought refuge on foreign soil, whilst Sweden, wasted by the wars ofCharles XII. , invited the French Protestants into her midst, the peasantsof the Uvennes or of the Vivarais, passionately attached to the soil theycultivated, bowed their heads, with a groan, to the storm, took refuge intheir rocks and their caverns, leaving the cottages deserted and theharvests to be lost, returning to their houses and their fields as soonas the soldiery were gone, ever faithful to the proscribed assemblies inthe desert, and praying God for the king, to whose enemies they refusedto give ear. Alberoni, and after him England, had sought to detach thepersecuted Protestants from their allegiance; the court was troubled atthis; they had not forgotten the Huguenot regiments at the battle of theBoyne. From the depths of their hiding-places the pastors answered forthe fidelity of their flocks; the voice of the illustrious and learnedBasnage, for a long while a refugee in Holland, encouraged his brethrenin their heroic submission. As fast as the ministers died on thegallows, new servants of God came forward to replace them, brought up inthe seminary which Antony Court had founded at Lausanne, and managed tokeep up by means of alms from Protestant Europe. It was there that themost illustrious of the pastors of the desert, Paul Rabaut, alreadymarried and father of one child, went to seek the instruction necessaryfor the apostolic vocation which he was to exercise for so many years inthe midst of so many and such formidable perils. "On determining toexercise the ministry in this kingdom, " he wrote, in 1746, to thesuperintendent of Languedoc, Lenain d'Asfeldt, "I was not ignorant ofwhat I exposed myself to; so I regarded myself as a victim doomed todeath. I thought I was doing the greatest good of which I was capable indevoting myself to the condition of a pastor. Protestants, being deprivedof the free exercise of their own religion, not seeing their way totaking part in the exercises of the Roman religion, not being able to getthe books they would require for their instruction, consider, my lord, what--might be their condition if they were absolutely deprived ofpastors. They would be ignorant of their most essential duties, andwould fall either into fanaticism, the fruitful source of extravagancesand irregularities, or into indifference and contempt for all religion. "The firm moderation, the courageous and simple devotion, breathed by thisletter, were the distinctive traits of the career of Paul Rabaut, as wellas of Antony Court; throughout a persecution which lasted nearly fortyyears, with alternations of severity and clemency, the chiefs of FrenchProtestantism managed to control the often recurring desperation of theirflocks. On the occasion of a temporary rising on the borders of theGardon, Paul Rabaut wrote to the governor of Languedoc, "When I desiredto know whence this evil proceeded, it was reported to me that diverspersons, finding themselves liable to lose their goods and their liberty, or to have to do acts contrary to their conscience, in respect of theirmarriages or the baptism of their children, and knowing no way of gettingout of the kingdom and setting their conscience free, abandonedthemselves to despair, and attacked certain priests, because theyregarded them as the primal and principal cause of the vexations done tothem. Once more, I blame those people; but I thought it my duty toexplain to you the cause of their despair. If it be thought that myministry is necessary to calm the ruffled spirits, I shall comply withpleasure. Above all, if I might assure the Protestants of that districtthat they shall not be vexed in their conscience, I would pledge myselfto bind over the greater number to stop those who would make adisturbance, supposing that there should be any. " At a word from PaulRabaut calmness returned to the most ruffled spirits; sometimes hisaudience was composed of ten or twelve thousand of the faithful; hisvoice was so resonant and so distinct, that in the open air it wouldreach the most remote. He prayed with a fervor and an unction whichpenetrated all hearts, and disposed them to hear, with fruits following, the word of God. Simple, grave, penetrating rather than eloquent, hispreaching, like his life, bears the impress of his character. Asmoderate as fervent, as judicious as heroic in spirit, Paul Rabautpreached in the desert, at the peril of his life, sermons which he hadcomposed in a cavern. "During more than thirty years, " says one of hisbiographers, "he had no dwelling-place but grottoes, hovels, and cabins, whither men went to draw him like a ferocious beast. He lived a longwhile in a hiding-place, which one of his faithful guides had contrivedfor him under a heap of stones and blackberry bushes. It was discoveredby a shepherd; and such was the wretchedness of his condition, that, whenforced to abandon it, he regretted that asylum, more fitted for wildbeasts than for men. "

The hulks were still full of the audience of Paul Rabaut, and Protestantwomen were still languishing in the unwholesome dungeon of the Tower ofConstance, when the execution of the unhappy Calas, accused of havingkilled his son, and the generous indignation of Voltaire cast a momentarygleam of light within the sombre region of prisons and gibbets. For thefirst time, public opinion, at white heat, was brought to bear upon thedecision of the persecutors. Calas was dead, but the decree of theParliament of Toulouse which had sentenced him, was quashed by act of thecouncil: his memory was cleared, and the day of toleration for FrenchProtestants began to glimmer, pending the full dawn of justice andliberty. 

We have gone over in succession, and without break, the last cruelsufferings of the French Protestants; we now turn away our eyes with afeeling of relief mingled with respect and pride; we leave the free airof the desert to return to the rakes and effeminates of Louis XV. 'scourt. Great was the contrast between the government which persecutedwithout knowing why, and the victims who suffered for a faith incessantlyrevived in their souls by suffering. For two centuries the FrenchReformation had not experienced for a single day the formidable dangersof indifference and lukewarmness. 

The young king was growing up, still a stranger to affairs, solelyoccupied with the pleasures of the chase, handsome, elegant, with nobleand regular features, a cold and listless expression. In the month ofFebruary, 1725, he fell ill; for two days there was great danger. Theduke thought himself to be threatened with the elevation of the house ofOrleans to the throne. "I'll not be caught so again, " he mutteredbetween his teeth, when he came one night to inquire how the king was, "if he recovers, I'll have him married. " The king did recover, but theInfanta was only seven years old. Philip V. , who had for a short timeabdicated, retiring with the queen to a remote castle in the heart of theforests, had just remounted the throne after the death of his eldest son, Louis I. Small-pox had carried off the young monarch, who had reignedbut eight months. Elizabeth Farnese, aided by the pope's nuncio and somemonks who were devoted to her, had triumphed over her husband's religiousscruples and the superstitious counsels of his confessor; she was oncemore reigning over Spain, when she heard that the little Infanta-queen, whose betrothal to the King of France had but lately caused so much joy, was about to be sent away from the court of her royal spouse. "TheInfanta must be started off, and by coach too, to get it over sooner, "exclaimed Count Morville, who had been ordered by Madame de Prie to drawup a list of the marriageable princesses in Europe. Their numberamounted to ninety-nine; twenty-five Catholics, three Anglicans, thirteenCalvinists, fifty-five Lutherans, and three Greeks. The Infanta hadalready started for Madrid; the Regent's two daughters, the young widowof Louis I. And Mdlle. De Beaujolais, promised to Don Carlos, were ontheir way back to France; the advisers of Louis XV. Were still lookingout for a wife for him. Spain had been mortally offended, without theduke's having yet seen his way to forming a new alliance in place of thatwhich he had just broken off. Some attempts at arrangement with GeorgeI. Had failed; an English princess could not abjure Protestantism. Suchscruples did not stop Catherine I. , widow of Peter the Great, who hadtaken the power into her own hands to the detriment of the czar'sgrandson; she offered the duke her second daughter, the grand-duchessElizabeth, for King Louis XV. , with a promise of abjuration on the partof the princess, and of a treaty which should secure the support of allthe Muscovite forces in the interest of France. At the same time thesame negotiators proposed to the Duke of Bourbon himself the hand of MaryLeckzinska, daughter of Stanislaus, the dispossessed King of Poland, guaranteeing to him, on the death of King Augustus, the crown of thatkingdom. 

[Illustration: Mary Leczinska----121]

The proposals of Russia were rejected. "The Princess of Muscovy, " M. DeMorville had lately said, "is the daughter of a low-born mother, and hasbeen brought up amidst a still barbarous people. " Every great allianceappeared impossible; the duke and Madame de Prie were looking out for aqueen who would belong to them, and would secure them the king's heart. Their choice fell upon Mary Leckzinska, a good, gentle, simple creature, without wit or beauty, twenty-two years old, and living upon the alms ofFrance with her parents, exiles and refugees at an old commandery of theTemplars at Weissenburg. Before this King Stanislaus had conceived theidea of marrying his daughter to Count d'Estrees; the marriage had failedthrough the Regent's refusal to make the young lord a duke and peer. Thedistress of Stanislaus, his constant begging letters to the court ofFrance, were warrant for the modest submissiveness of the princess. "Madame de Prie has engaged a queen, as I might engage a valetto-morrow, " writes Marquis d'Argenson;--it is a pity. "

When the first overtures from the duke arrived at Weissenburg, KingStanislaus entered the room where his wife and daughter were at work, and, "Fall we on our knees, and thank God!" he said. "My dear father, "exclaimed the princess, "can you be recalled to the throne of Poland?""God has done us a more astounding grace, " replied Stanislaus: "you areQueen of France!"

"Never shall I forget the horror of the calamities we were enduring inFrance, when Queen Mary Leckzinska arrived, " says M. D'Argenson. "Acontinuance of rain had caused famine, and it was much aggravated by thebad government under the duke. That government, whatever may be said ofit, was even more hurtful through bad judgment than from interestedviews, which had not so much to do with it as was said. There were verycostly measures taken to import foreign corn; but that only augmented thealarm, and, consequently, the dearness. 

"Fancy the unparalleled misery of the country-places! It was just thetime when everybody was thinking of harvests and ingatherings of allsorts of things, which it had not been possible to get in for thecontinual rains; the poor farmer was watching for a dry moment to getthem in; meanwhile all the district was beaten with many a scourge. Thepeasants had been sent off to prepare the roads by which the queen was topass, and they were only the worse for it, insomuch that Her Majesty wasoften within a thought of drowning; they pulled her from her carriage bythe strong arm, as best they might. In several stopping-places she andher suite were swimming in water which spread everywhere, and that inspite of the unparalleled pains that had been taken by a tyrannicalministry. "

It was under such sad auspices that Mary Leckzinska arrived atVersailles. Fleury had made no objection to the marriage. Louis XV. Accepted it, just as he had allowed the breaking-off of his union withthe Infanta and that of France with Spain. For a while the duke hadhopes of reaping all the fruit of the unequal marriage he had justconcluded for the King of France. The queen was devoted to him; heenlisted her in an intrigue against Fleury. The king was engaged withhis old preceptor; the queen sent for him; he did not return. Fleurywaited a long while. The duke and Paris-Duverney had been found with thequeen; they had papers before them; the king had set to work with them. When he went back, at length, to his closet, Louis XV. Found the bishopno longer there; search was made for him; he was no longer in the palace. 

The king was sorry and put out; the Duke of Mortemart, who was hisgentleman of the bed-chamber, handed him a letter from Fleury. Thelatter had retired to Issy, to the countryhouse of the Sulpicians; hebade the king farewell, assuring him that he had for a long while beenresolved, according to the usage of his youth, to put some space betweenthe world and death. Louis began to shed tears; Mortemart proposed to goand fetch Fleury, and got the order given him to do so. The duke had towrite the letter of recall. Next morning the bishop was at Versailles, gentle and modest as ever, and exhibiting neither resentment norsurprise. Six months later, however, the king set out from Versailles togo and visit the Count and Countess of Toulouse at Rambouillet. The dukewas in attendance at his departure. "Do not make us wait supper, cousin, " said the young monarch, graciously. Scarcely had his equipagesdisappeared, when a letter was brought: the duke was ordered to quit thecourt and retire provisionally to Chantilly. Madame de Prie was exiledto her estates in Normandy, where she soon died of spite and anger. Thehead of the House of Conde came forth no more from the politicalobscurity which befitted his talents. At length Fleury remained solemaster. 

He took possession of it without fuss or any external manifestation;caring only for real authority, he advised Louis XV. Not to create anypremier minister, and to govern by himself, like his great-grandfather. The king took this advice, as every other, and left Fleury to govern. This was just what the bishop intended; a sleepy calm succeeded thecommotions which had been caused by the inconsistent and spasmodicgovernment of the duke; galas and silly expenses gave place to a wiseeconomy, the real and important blessing of Fleury's administration. Commerce and industry recovered confidence; business was developed; theincrease of the revenues justified a diminution of taxation; war, whichwas imminent at the moment of the duke's fall, seemed to be escaped; theBishop of Frejus became Cardinal Fleury; the court of Rome paid on thenail for the service rendered it by the new minister in freeing theclergy from the tax of the fiftieth (_impot du cinquantieme_). "Consecrated to God, and kept aloof from the commerce of men, " had beenFleury's expression, "the dues of the church are irrevocable, and cannotbe subject to any tax, whether of ratification or any other. " The clergyresponded to this pleasant exposition of principles by a gratuitous giftof five millions. Strife ceased in every quarter; France found herselfat rest, without lustre as well as without prospect. 

It was not, henceforth, at Versailles that the destinies of Europe werediscussed and decided. The dismissal of the Infanta had struck a deadlyblow at the frail edifice of the quadruple alliance, fruit of theintrigues and diplomatic ability of Cardinal Dubois. Philip V. AndElizabeth Farnese, deeply wounded by the affront put upon them, hadhasted to give the Infanta to the Prince of Brazil, heir to the throne ofPortugal, at the same time that the Prince of the Asturias espoused adaughter of John V. Under cover of this alliance, agreeable as it was toEngland, the faithful patron of Portugal, the King of Spain wasnegotiating elsewhere, with the Emperor Charles VI. , the most ancient andhitherto the most implacable of his enemies. This prince had no son, andwished to secure the succession to his eldest daughter, the Arch-duchessMaria Theresa. The Pragmatic-Sanction which declared this wish awaitedthe assent of Europe; that of Spain was of great value; she offered, besides, to open her ports to the Ostend Company, lately established bythe emperor to compete against the Dutch trade. 

The house of Austria divided the house of Bourbon, by opposing to oneanother the two branches of France and Spain; the treaty of Vienna wasconcluded on the 1st of May, 1725. The two sovereigns renounced allpretensions to each other's dominions respectively, and proclaimed, onboth sides, full amnesty for the respective partisans. The emperorrecognized the hereditary rights of Don Carlos to the duchies of Tuscany, Parma, and Piacenza; he, at the same time, promised his good offices withEngland to obtain restitution of Gibraltar and Mahon. In spite of thenegotiations already commenced with the Duke of Lorraine, hopes were evenheld out to the two sons of Elizabeth Farnese, Don Carlos and Don Philip, of obtaining the hands of the arch-duchesses, daughters of the emperor. 

When the official treaty was published and the secret articles began totranspire, Europe was in commotion at the new situation in which it wasplaced. George I. Repaired to his German dominions, in order to have acloser view of the emperor's movements. There the Count of Broglie soonjoined him, in the name of France. The King of Prussia, FrederickWilliam I. , the King of England's son-in-law, was summoned to Hanover. Passionate and fantastic, tyrannical, addicted to the coarsest excesses, the King of Prussia had, nevertheless, managed to form an excellent armyof sixty thousand men, at the same time amassing a military treasureamounting to twenty-eight millions; he joined, not without hesitation, the treaty of Hanover, concluded on the 3d of September, 1725, betweenFrance and England. The Hollanders, in spite of their desire to ruin theOstend Company, had not yet signed the convention; Frederick William wasdisturbed at their coming in. "Say, I declare against the emperor, " saidhe in a letter which he communicated on the 5th of December to theambassadors of France and England: "he will not fail to get theMuscovites and Poles to act against me. I ask whether their majestieswill then keep my rear open? England, completely surrounded by sea, andFrance, happening to be covered by strong places, consider themselvespretty safe, whilst the greater part of my dominions are exposed toanything it shall seem good to attempt. By this last treaty, then, Iengage in war for the benefit of Mr. Hollander and Co. , that they may beable to sell their tea, coffee, cheese, and crockery dearer; thosegentlemen will not do the least thing for me, and I am to do everythingfor them. Gentlemen, tell me, is it fair? If you deprive the emperor ofhis ships and ruin his Ostend trade, will he be a less emperor than he isat this moment? The pink of all (_le pot aux roses_) is to deprive theemperor of provinces, but which? And to whose share will they fall?Where are the troops? Where is the needful, wherewith to make war?Since it seems good to commence the dance, it must of course becommenced. After war comes peace. Shall I be forgotten? Shall I be thelast of all? Shall I have to sign perforce?" The coarse common sense ofthe Vandal soon prevailed over family alliances; Frederick William brokewith France and England in order to rally to the emperor's side. Russia, but lately so attentive to France, was making advances to Spain. "Theczar's envoy is the most taciturn Muscovite that ever came from Siberia, "wrote Marshal Tesse. "Goodman Don Miguel Guerra is the minister withwhom he treats, and the effect of eight or ten apoplexies is, that he hasto hold his head with his hands, else his mouth would infallibly twistround over his shoulder. During their audience they seat themselvesopposite one another in arm-chairs, and, after a quarter of an hour'ssilence, the Muscovite opens his mouth and says, 'Sir, I have orders fromthe emperor, my master, to assure the Catholic King that he loves himvery much. ' 'And I, ' replies Guerra, 'do assure you that the king mymaster loves your master the emperor very much. ' After this laconicconversation they stare at one another for a quarter of an hour withoutsaying anything, and the audience is over. "

The tradition handed down by Peter the Great forbade any alliance withEngland; M. De Campredon, French ambassador at Petersburg, was seeking todestroy this prejudice. One of the empress's ministers, Jokosinski, rushed abruptly from the conference; he was half drunk, and he ran to thechurch where the remains of the czar were lying. "O my dear master!" hecried before all the people, "rise from the tomb, and see how thy memoryis trampled under foot!" Antipathy towards England, nevertheless, keptCatherine I. Aloof from the Hanoverian league; she made alliance with theemperor. France was not long before she made overtures to Spain. PhilipV. Always found it painful to endure family dissensions; he becamereconciled with his nephew, and accepted the intervention of CardinalFleury in his disagreements with England. The alliance, signed atSeville on the 29th of November, 1729, secured to Spain, in return forcertain commercial advantages, the co-operation of England in Italy. TheDuke of Parma had just died; the Infante Don Carlos, supported by anEnglish fleet, took possession of his dominions. Elizabeth Farnese hadat last set foot in Italy. She no longer encountered there the able andambitious monarch whose diplomacy had for so long governed the affairs ofthe peninsula; Victor Amadeo had just abdicated. Scarcely a year hadpassed from the date of that resolution, when, suddenly, from fear, itwas said, of seeing his father resume power, the young king, CharlesEmmanuel, had him arrested in his castle of Pontarlier. "It will be afine subject for a tragedy, this that is just now happening to Victor, King of Sardinia, " writes M. D'Argenson. "What a catastrophe without adeath! A great king, who plagued Europe with his virtues and his vices, with his courage, his artifices, and his perfidies, who had formed roundhim a court of slaves, who had rendered his dominion formidable by hisindustry and his labors; indefatigable in his designs, unresting in everybranch of government, cherishing none but great projects, credited inevery matter with greater designs than he had yet been known to execute, --this king abdicates unexpectedly, and, almost immediately, here hefinds himself arrested by his son, whose benefactor he had been sorecently and so extraordinarily! This son is a young prince withoutmerit, without courage, and without capacity, gentle and under control. His ministers persuaded him to be ungrateful: he accomplishes the heightof crime, without having crime in his nature; and here is his father shutup like a bear in a prison, guarded at sight like a maniac, and separatedfrom the wife whom he had chosen for consolation in his retirement!"Public indignation, however, soon forced the hand of Charles Emmanuel'sminister. Victor Amadeo was released; his wife, detained in shamefulcaptivity, was restored to him; he died soon afterwards in that samecastle of Pontarlier, whence he had been carried off without a voicebeing raised in his favor by the princes who were bound to him by theclosest ties of blood. 

The efforts made in common by Fleury and Robert Walpole, prime ministerof the King of England, had for a long while been successful inmaintaining the general peace; the unforeseen death of Augustus ofSaxony, King of Poland, suddenly came to trouble it. It was, thenceforth, the unhappy fate of Poland to be a constant source ofcommotion and discord in Europe. The Elector of Saxony, son of AugustusH. , was supported by Austria and Russia; the national party in Polandinvited Stanislaus Leckzinski; he was elected at the Diet by sixtythousand men of family, and set out to take possession of the throne, reckoning upon the promises of his son-in-law, and on the military spiritwhich was reviving in France. The young men burned to win their spurs;the old generals of Louis XIV. Were tired of idleness. 

The ardor of Cardinal Fleury did not respond to that of the friends ofKing Stanislaus. Russia and Austria made an imposing display of force infavor of the Elector of Saxony; France sent, tardily, a body of fifteenhundred men; this ridiculous re-enforcement had not yet arrived whenStanislaus, obliged to withdraw from Warsaw, had already shut himself upin Dantzic. The Austrian general had invested the place. 

News of the bombardment of Dantzic greeted the little French corps asthey approached the fort of Wechselmunde. Their commander saw hisimpotence; instead of landing his troops, he made sail for Copenhagen. The French ambassador at that court, Count Plelo, was indignant to seehis countrymen's retreat, and, hastily collecting a hundred volunteers, he summoned to him the chiefs of the expeditionary corps. 

"How could you resolve upon not fighting, at any price?" he asked. "Itis easy to say, " rejoined one of the officers roughly, "when you're safein your closet. " "I shall not be there long!" exclaims the count, andpresses them to return with him to Dantzic. The officer in command ofthe detachment, M. De la Peyrouse Lamotte, yields to his entreaties. They set out both of them, persuaded at the same time of the uselessnessof their enterprise and of the necessity they were under, for the honorof France, to attempt it. Before embarking, Count Plelo wrote to M. DeChauvelin, the then keeper of the seals, "I am sure not to return; Icommend to you my wife and children. " Scarcely had the gallant littleband touched land beneath the fort of Wechselmunde, when they marched upto the Russian lines, opening a way through the pikes and muskets inhopes of joining the besieged, who at the same time effected a sally. Already the enemy began to recoil at sight of such audacity, when M. DePlelo fell mortally wounded; the enemy's battalions had hemmed in theFrench. 

[Illustration: Death of Plelo----130]

La Peyrouse succeeded, however, in effecting his retreat, and broughtaway his little band into the camp they had established under shelter ofthe fort. For a month the French kept up a rivalry in courage with thedefenders of Dantzic; when at last they capitulated, on the 23d of June, General Munich had conceived such esteem for their courage that begranted them leave to embark with arms and baggage. A few days laterKing Stanislaus escaped alone from Dantzic, which was at length obligedto surrender on the 7th of July, and sought refuge in the dominions ofthe King of Prussia. Some Polish lords went and joined him atKonigsberg. Partisan war continued still, but the arms and influence ofAustria and Russia had carried the day; the national party was beaten inPoland. The pope released the Polish gentry from the oath they had madenever to intrust the crown to a foreigner. Augustus III. , recognized bythe mass of the nation, became the docile tool of Russia, whilst inGermany and in Italy the Austrians found themselves attackedsimultaneously by France, Spain, and Sardinia. 

Marshal Berwick had taken the fort of Kehl in the month of December, 1733; he had forced the lines of the Austrians at Erlingen at thecommencement of the compaign of 1734, and he had just opened trenchesagainst Philipsburg, when he pushed forward imprudently in areconnoissance between the fires of the besiegers and besieged; a ballwounded him mortally, and he expired immediately, like Marshal Turenne;he was sixty-three. The Duke of Noailles, who at once received themarshal's baton, succeeded him in the command of the army by agreementwith Marshal d'Asfeldt. Philipsburg was taken after forty-eight days'open trenches, without Prince Eugene, all the while within hail, makingany attempt to relieve the town. He had not approved of the war. "Ofthree emperors that I have served, " he would say, "the first, Leopold, was my father; the Emperor Joseph was my brother; this one is my master. "Eugene was old and worn out; he preserved his ability, but his ardor wasgone. Marshal Noailles and D'Asfeldt did not agree; France did not reapher advantages. The campaign of 1735 hung fire in Germany. 

It was not more splendid in Italy, where the outset of the war had beenbrilliant. Presumptuous as ever, in spite of his eighty-two years, Villars had started for Italy, saying to Cardinal Fleury, "The king maydispose of Italy, I am going to conquer it for him. " And, indeed, withinthree months, nearly the whole of Milaness was reduced. Cremona andPizzighitone had surrendered; but already King Charles Emmanuel wasrelaxing his efforts with the prudent selfishness customary with hishouse. The Sardinian contingents did not arrive; the Austrians hadseized a passage over the Po; Villars, however, was preparing to forceit, when a large body of the enemy came down upon him. The King ofSardinia was urged to retire. "That is not the way to get out of this, "cried the marshal, and, sword in hand, he charged at the head of thebody-guard; Charles Emmanuel followed his example; the Austrians weredriven in. "Sir, " said Villars to the king, who was complimenting him, "these are the last sparks of my life; thus, at departing, I take myleave of it. "

Death, in fact, had already seized his prey; the aged marshal had nottime to return to France to yield up his last breath there; he wasexpiring at Turin, when he heard of Marshal Berwick's death beforePhilipsburg. "That fellow always was lucky, " said he. On the 17th ofJune, 1734, Villars died, in his turn, by a strange coincidence in thevery room in which he had been born when his father was French ambassadorat the court of the Duke of Savoy. 

Some days later Marshals Broglie and Coigny defeated the Austrians beforeParma; the general-in-chief, M. De Mercy, had been killed on the 19th ofSeptember; the Prince of Wurtemberg, in his turn, succumbed at the battleof Guastalla, and yet these successes on the part of the French producedno serious result. The Spaniards had become masters of the kingdom ofNaples and of nearly all Sicily; the Austrians had fallen back on theTyrol, keeping a garrison at Mantua only. The Duke of Noailles, then atthe head of the army, was preparing for the siege of the place, in orderto achieve that deliverance of Italy which was as early as then the dreamof France, but the King of Sardinia and the Queen of Spain were alreadydisputing for Mantua; the Sardinian troops withdrew, and it was in themidst of his forced inactivity that the Duke of Noailles heard of thearmistice signed in Germany. Cardinal Fleury, weary of the war which hehad entered upon with regret, disquieted too at the new complicationswhich he foresaw in Europe, had already commenced negotiations; thepreliminaries were signed at Vienna in the month of October, 1735. 

The conditions of the treaty astonished Europe. Cardinal Fleury hadrenounced the ambitious idea suggested to him by Chauvelin; he no longeraspired to impose upon the emperor the complete emancipation of Italy, but he made such disposition as he pleased of the states there, andreconstituted the territories according to his fancy. The kingdom ofNaples and the Two Sicilies were secured to Don Carlos, who renouncedTuscany and the duchies of Parma and Piacenza. These threeprincipalities were to form the appanage of Duke Francis of Lorraine, betrothed to the Archduchess Maria Theresa. There it was that France wasto find her share of the spoil; in exchange for the dominions formed forhim in Italy, Duke Francis ceded the duchies of Lorraine and Bar to KingStanislaus; the latter formally renounced the throne of Poland, at thesame time preserving the title of king, and resuming possession of hisproperty; after him, Lorraine and the Barrois were to be united to thecrown of France, as dower and heritage of that queen who had been butlately raised to the throne by a base intrigue, and who thus secured toher new country a province so often taken and retaken, an object of somany treaties and negotiations, and thenceforth so tenderly cherished byFrance. 

The negotiations had been protracted. England, stranger as she had beento the war, had taken part in the diplomatic proposals. The Queen ofSpain had wanted to keep the states in the north of Italy, as well asthose in the south. "Shall I not have a new heir given me by and by? "said the Duke of Tuscany, John Gaston de Medici, last and unworthy scionof that illustrious family, who was dying without posterity. "Which isthe third child that France and the empire mean to father upon me?"The King of Sardinia gained only Novara and Tortona, whilst the emperorrecovered Milaness. France renounced all her conquests in Germany; sheguaranteed the Pragmatic-Sanction. Russia evacuated Poland: peace seemedto be firmly established in Europe. Cardinal Fleury hasted toconsolidate it, by removing from power the ambitious and daringpolitician whose influence he dreaded. "Chauvelin had juggled the warfrom Fleury, " said the Prince of Prussia, afterwards the great Frederick;"Fleury in turn juggles peace and the ministry from him. "

"It must be admitted, " wrote M. D'Argenson, "that the situation ofCardinal Fleury and the keeper of the seals towards one another is asingular one just now. The cardinal, disinterested, sympathetic, withupright views, doing nothing save from excess of importunity, andmeasuring his compliance by the number, and not the weight, of the saidimportunities, --the minister, I say, considers himself bound to fill hisplace as long as he is in this world. It is only as his own creaturethat he has given so much advancement to the keeper of the seals, considering him wholly his, good, amiable, and of solid merit, withoutthe aid of any intrigue; and so his adjunction to the premier ministerhas made the keeper of the seals a butt for all the ministers. He hastaken upon himself all refusals, and left to the cardinal the honor ofall benefits and graces; he has, transported himself in imagination tothe time when he would be sole governor, and he would have had affairsset, in advance, upon the footing on which he calculated upon placingthem. It must be admitted, as regards that, that he has ideas too loftyand grand for the state; he would like to set Europe by the ears, as thegreat ministers did; he is accused of resembling M. De Louvois, to whomhe is related. Now the cardinal is of a character the very opposite tothat of this adjunct of his. M. Chauvelin has embarked him upon manygreat enterprises, upon that of the late war, amongst others; butscarcely is his Eminence embarked, by means of some passion that isworked upon, when the chill returns, and the desire of getting out of thebusiness becomes another passion with him. Altogether, I see no greatharm in the keeper of the seals being no longer minister, for I do notlike any but a homely (_bourgeoise_) policy, whereby one lives on goodterms with one's neighbors, and whereby one is merely their arbiter, forthe sake of working a good long while and continuously at the task ofperfecting the home affairs of the kingdom, and rendering Frenchmenhappy. "

M. D'Argenson made no mistake; the era of a great foreign policy hadpassed away for France. A king, who was frivolous and indifferent to hisbusiness as well as to his glory; a minister aged, economizing, andtimid; an ambitious few, with views more bold than discreet, --such werehenceforth the instruments at the disposal of France; the resources wereinsufficient for the internal government; the peace of Vienna and theannexation of Lorraine were the last important successes of externalpolicy. Chauvelin had the honor of connecting his name therewith beforedisappearing forever in his retreat at Grosbois, to expend his life invain regrets for lost power, and in vain attempts to recover it. 

Peace reigned in Europe, and Cardinal Fleury governed France withoutrival and without opposition. He had but lately, like Richelieu, towhom, however, he did not care to be compared, triumphed overparliamentary revolt. Jealous of their ancient, traditional rights, theParliament claimed to share with the government the care of watching overthe conduct of the clergy. It was on that ground that they had rejectedthe introduction of the Legend of, Gregory VII. , recently canonized atRome, and had sought to mix themselves up in the religious disputesexcited just then by the pretended miracles wrought at the tomb of DeaconParis, a pious and modest Jansenist, who had lately died in the odor ofsanctity in the parish of St. Medard. The cardinal had ordered thecemetery to be closed, in order to cut short the strange spectaclespresented by the convulsionists; and, to break down the opposition ofParliament, the king had ordered, at a bed of justice, the registrationof all the papal bulls succeeding the Unigenitus. In vain hadD'Aguesseau, reappointed to the chancellorship, exhorted the Parliamentto yield: he had fallen in public esteem. Abbe Pernelle, ecclesiasticalcouncillor, as distinguished for his talent as for his courage, proposeda solemn declaration, analogous, at bottom, to the maxims of the Gallicanchurch, which had been drawn up by Bossuet, in the assembly of the clergyof France. The decision of the Parliament was quashed by the council. An order from the king, forbidding discussion, was brought to the courtby Count Maurepas; its contents were divined, and Parliament refused toopen it. The king iterated his injunctions. "If his Majesty were at theLouvre, " cried Abbe Pernelle, "it would be the court's duty to go and lethim know how his orders are executed. " "Marly is not so very far!"shouted a young appeal-court councillor (_aux enquetes_) eagerly. "ToMarly! To Marly!" at once repeated the whole chamber. The oldcouncillors themselves murmured between their teeth, "To Marly!"Fourteen carriages conveyed to Marly fifty magistrates, headed by thepresidents. The king refused to receive them; in vain the premierpresident insisted upon it, to Cardinal Fleury; the monarch and hisParliament remained equally obstinate. "What a sad position!" exclaimedAbbe Pernelle, "not to be able to fulfil one's duties without fallinginto the crime of disobedience! We speak, and we are forbidden a word;we deliberate, and we are threatened. What remains for us, then, in thisdeplorable position, but to represent to the king the impossibility ofexisting under form of Parliament, without having permission to speak;the impossibility, by consequence, of continuing our functions?" AbbePernelle was carried off in the night, and confined in the abbey ofCorbigny, in Nivernais, of which he was titular head. Other councillorswere arrested; a hundred and fifty magistrates immediately gave in theirresignation. Rising in the middle of the assembly, they went out two andtwo, dressed in their long scarlet robes, and threaded the crowd insilence. There was a shout as they went, "There go true Romans, andfathers of their country!" "All those who saw this procession, " saysthe advocate Barbier, "declare that it was something august andoverpowering. " The government did not accept the resignations; thestruggle continued. A hundred and thirty-nine members received lettersunder the king's seal (_lettres de cachet_), exiling them to the fourquarters of France. The Grand Chamber had been spared; the oldcouncillors, alone remaining, enregistered purely and simply thedeclarations of the keeper of the seals. Once more the Parliament wassubdued; it had testified its complete political impotence. The ironhand of Richelieu, the perfect address of Mazarin, were no longernecessary to silence it; the prudent moderation, the reserved frigidity, of Cardinal Fleury had sufficed for the purpose. "The minister, victorious over the Parliament, had become the arbiter of Europe, " saidFrederick II. , in his _History of my Time_. The standard ofintelligences and of wills had everywhere sunk down to the level of thegovernment of France. Unhappily, the day was coming when the thrones ofEurope were about to be occupied by stronger and more expanded minds, whilst France was passing slowly from the hands of a more thanoctogenarian minister into those of a voluptuous monarch, governed by hiscourtiers and his favorites. Frederick II. , Maria Theresa, Lord Chatham, Catherine II. , were about to appear upon the scene; the French had noneto oppose them but Cardinal Fleury with one foot in the grave, and, afterhim, King Louis XV. And Madame de Pompadour. 

It was amidst this state of things that the death of the Emperor CharlesVI. , on the 20th of October, 1740, occurred, to throw Europe into a newferment of discord and war. Maria Theresa, the emperor's eldestdaughter, was twenty-three years old, beautiful, virtuous, and of a loftyand resolute character; her rights to the paternal heritage had beenguaranteed by all Europe. Europe, however, soon rose, almost in itsentirety, to oppose them. The Elector of Bavaria claimed the domains ofthe house of Austria, by virtue of a will of Ferdinand I. , father ofCharles V. The King of Poland urged the rights of his wife, daughter ofthe Emperor Joseph I. Spain put forth her claims to Hungary and Bohemia, appanage of the elder branch of the house of Austria. Sardinia desiredher share in Italy. Prussia had a new sovereign, who spoke but little, but was the first to act. 

Kept for a long while by his father in cruel captivity, always carefullyheld aloof from affairs, and, to pass the time, obliged to engage inliterature and science, Frederick II. Had ascended the throne in August, 1740, with the reputation of a mind cultivated, liberal, and accessibleto noble ideas. Voltaire, with whom he had become connected, hadtrumpeted his praises everywhere. The first act of the new king revealedqualities of which Voltaire had no conception. On the 23d of December, after leaving a masked ball, he started post-haste for the frontierof Silesia, where he had collected thirty thousand men. Withoutpreliminary notice, without declaration of war, he at once entered theAustrian territory, which was scantily defended by three thousand men anda few garrisons. Before the end of January, 1741, the Prussians weremasters of Silesia. "I am going, I fancy, to play your game, " Frederickhad said, as he set off, to the French ambassador: "if the aces come tome we will share. "

Meanwhile France, as well as the majority of the other nations, hadrecognized the young Queen of Hungary. She had been proclaimed at Viennaon the 7th of November, 1740; all her father's states had sworn allianceand homage to her. She had consented to take to the Hungarians the oldoath of King Andreas II. , which had been constantly refused by the houseof Hapsburg: "If I, or any of my successors, at any time whatsoever, would infringe your privileges, be it permitted you, by virtue of thispromise, you and your descendants, to defend yourselves, without beingliable to be treated as rebels. "

When Frederick II. , encamped in the midst of the conquered provinces, made a proposal to Maria Theresa to cede him Lower Silesia, to which hisancestors had always raised pretensions, assuring her, in return, of hisamity and support, the young queen, deeply offended, replied haughtilythat she defended her subjects, she did not sell them. At the same timean Austrian army was advancing against the King of Prussia; it wascommanded by Count Neipperg. The encounter took place at Molwitz, on thebanks of the Neiss. For one instant Frederick, carried along by hisrouted cavalry, thought the battle was lost, and his first step towardsglory an unlucky business. The infantry, formed by the aged Prince ofAnhalt, and commanded by Marshal Schwerin, late comrade of Charles XII. , restored the fortune of battle; the Austrians had retired in disorder. Europe gave the King of Prussia credit for this first success, dueespecially to the excellent organization of his father's troops. "Eachbattalion, " says Frederick, "was a walking battery, whose quickness inloading tripled their fire, which gave the Prussians the advantage ofthree to one. "

Meanwhile, in addition to the heritage of the house of Austria, thusattacked and encroached upon, there was the question of the Empire. Twoclaimants appeared: Duke Francis of Lorraine, Maria Theresa's husband, whom she had appointed regent of her dominions, and the Elector ofBavaria, grandson of Louis XIV. 's faithful ally, the only Catholicamongst the lay electors of the empire, who was only waiting for thesignal from France to act, in his turn, against the Queen of Hungary. 

Cardinal Fleury s intentions remained as yet vague and secret. Naturallyand stubbornly pacific as he was, he felt himself bound by theconfirmation of the Pragmatic-Sanction, lately renewed, at the time ofthe treaty of Vienna. The king affected indifference. "Whom are you formaking emperor, Souvre?" he asked one of his courtiers. "Faith, sir, "answered the marquis, "I trouble myself very little about it; but if yourMajesty pleased, you might tell us more about it than anybody. " "No, "said the king; "I shall have nothing to do with it; I shall look on fromMont-Pagnotte" (a post of observation out of cannon-shot). "Ah, sir, "replied Souvre, "your Majesty will be very cold there, and very illlodged. " " How so?" said the king. "Sir, " replied Souvre, because yourancestors never had any house built there. " "A very pretty answer, " addsthe advocate Barbier; "and as regards the question, nothing can be madeof it, because the king is mighty close. "

A powerful intrigue was urging the king to war. Cardinal Fleury, prudent, economizing, timid as he was, had taken a liking for a man ofadventurous, and sometimes chimerical spirit. "Count Belle-Isle, grandson of Fouquet, " says M. D'Argenson, "had more wit than judgment, and more fire than force; but he aimed very high. " He dreamed ofrevising the map of Europe, and of forming a zone of small states, destined to protect France against the designs of Austria. Louis XV. Pretended to nothing, demanded nothing for the price of his assistance;but France had been united from time immemorial to Bavaria: she was boundto raise the elector to the imperial throne. If it happened afterwards, in the dismemberment of the Austrian dominions, that the Low Countriesfell to the share of France, it was the natural sequel of past conquestsof Flanders, Lorraine, and the Three Bishoprics. Count Belle-Isle didnot disturb with his dreams the calm of the aged cardinal; he was modestin his military aspirations. The French navy was ruined, the king hadhardly twenty vessels to send to sea; that mattered little, as Englandand Holland took no part in the contest; Austria was not a maritimepower; Spain joined with France to support the elector. A body of fortythousand men was put under the orders of that prince, who received thetitle of lieutenant-general of the armies of the King of France. LouisXV. Acted only in the capacity of Bavaria's ally and auxiliary. Meanwhile Marshal Belle-Isle, the King's ambassador and plenipotentiaryin Germany, had just signed a treaty with Frederick II. , guaranteeing tothat monarch Lower Silesia. At the same time, a second French army, under the orders of Marshal Maillebois, entered Germany; Saxony andPoland came into the coalition. The King of England, George II. , faithful to the Pragmatic-Sanction, hurrying over to Hanover to raisetroops there, found himself threatened by Maillebois, and signed a treatyof neutrality. The elector had been proclaimed, at Lintz, Archduke ofAustria nowhere did the Franco-Bavarian army encounter any obstacle. TheKing of Prussia was occupying Moravia; Upper and Lower Austria had beenconquered without a blow, and by this time the forces of the enemy werethreatening Vienna. The success of the invasion was like a dream; butthe elector had not the wit to profit by the good fortune which wasoffered him. On the point of entering the capital abandoned by MariaTheresa, he fell back, and marched towards Bohemia; the gates ofPrague did not open like those of Passau or of Lintz; it had to bebesieged. The Grand-duke of Tuscany was advancing to the relief of thetown; it was determined to deliver the assault. 

Count Maurice of Saxony, natural son of the late King of Poland, the mostable and ere long the most illustrious of the generals in the service ofFrance, had opposed the retrograde movement towards Bohemia. In front ofPrague, he sent for Chevert, lieutenant-colonel of the regiment ofBeauce, of humble origin, but destined to rise by his courage and meritto the highest rank in the army; the two officers made a reconnoissance;the moment and the point of attack were chosen. At the approach of nighton the 25th of November, 1741, Chevert called up a grenadier. "Thouseest yonder sentry?" said he to the soldier. "Yes, colonel. " "He willshout to thee, 'Who goes there?'" "Yes, colonel. " "He will fire uponthee and miss thee. " "Yes, colonel. " "Thou'lt kill him, and I shall beat thy heels. " The grenadier salutes, and mounts up to the assault; thebody of the sentry had scarcely begun to roll over the rampart whenColonel Chevert followed the soldier; the eldest son of Marshal Brogliewas behind him. 

Fifty men had escaladed the wall before the alarm spread through thetown; a gate was soon burst to permit the entrance of Count Maurice witha body of cavalry. Next day the elector was crowned as King of Bohemia;on the 13th of January, 1742, he was proclaimed emperor, under the nameof Charles VII. 

A few weeks had sufficed to crown the success; less time sufficed to undoit. On flying from Vienna, Maria Theresa had sought refuge in Hungary;the assembly of the Estates held a meeting at Presburg; there sheappeared, dressed in mourning, holding in her arms her son, scarce sixmonths old. Already she had known how to attach the magnates to her bythe confidence she had shown them; she held out to them her child; "I amabandoned of my friends, " said she in Latin, a language still in use inHungary amongst the upper classes; "I am pursued by my enemies, attackedby my relatives; I have no hope but in your fidelity and courage; we--myson and I--look to you for our safety. "

The palatines scarcely gave the queen time to finish; already the sabreswere out of the sheaths and flashing above their heads. Count Bathyanywas the first to shout, "_Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa!" Thesame shout was repeated everywhere; Maria Theresa, restraining her tears, thanked her defenders with gesture and voice; she was expecting a secondchild before long. "I know not, " she wrote to her mother-in-law, theDuchess of Lorraine, "if I shall have a town left to be confined in. "

[Illustration: "Moriamur pro rege nostro. "----142]

Hungary rose, like one man, to protect her sovereign against the excessof her misfortunes; the same spirit spread before long through theAustrian provinces; bodies of irregulars, savage and cruel, formed atall points, attacking and massacring the French detachments theyencountered, --and giving to the war a character of ferocity whichdisplayed itself with special excess against Bavaria. Count Segur, besieged in Lintz, was obliged to capitulate on the 26th of January, andthe day after the Elector of Bavaria had received the imperial crown atFrankfurt, February 12, 1742--the Austrians, under the orders of GeneralKhevenhuller, obtained possession of Munich, which was given up topillage. Jokes then began to fly about in Paris at the expense of theemperor who had just been made after an interregnum of more than a year. "The thing in the world which it is perceived that one can most easily dowithout, " said Voltaire, "is an emperor. " "As Paris is always crammedwith a number of Austrians in heart who are charmed at the sad events, "writes the advocate Barbier, "they have put in the Bastille someindiscreet individuals who said in open cafe that the emperor was JohnLackland, and that a room would have to be fitted up for him atVincennes. In point of fact, he remains at Frankfurt, and it would bevery hard for him to go elsewhere in safety. "

Meanwhile England had renounced her neutrality; the general feeling ofthe nation prevailed over the prudent and farsighted ability of RobertWalpole; he succumbed, after his long ministry, full of honors andriches; the government had passed into warlike hands. The women ofsociety, headed by the Duchess of Marlborough, raised a subscription ofone hundred thousand pounds, which they offered unsuccessfully to thehaughty Maria Theresa. Parliament voted more effectual aid, and Englishdiplomacy adroitly detached the King of Sardinia from the allies whomsuccess appeared to be abandoning. The King of Prussia had just gainedat Czezlaw an important victory; next day, he was negotiating with theQueen of Hungary. On the 11th of June the treaty which abandoned Silesiato Frederick II. Was secretly concluded; when the signatures wereexchanged at Berlin in the following month, the withdrawal of Prussia waseverywhere known in Europe. "This is the method introduced and acceptedamongst the allies: to separate and do a better stroke of business bybeing the first to make terms, " writes M. D'Argenson on 30th June; "itused not to be so. The English were the first to separate from the greatalliance in 1711, and they derive great advantages from it; we followedthis terrible example in 1735, and got Lorraine by it; lastly, here isthe King of Prussia, but under much more odious circumstances, since heleaves us in a terrible scrape, our armies, in the middle of Germany, beaten and famine-stricken; the emperor, despoiled of his hereditarydominions and his estates likewise in danger. All is at the mercy of themaritime powers, who have pushed things to the extremity we see; and we, France, who were alone capable of resisting such a torrent at this date--here be we exhausted, and not in a condition to check these rogueries andthis power, even by uniting ourselves the most closely with Spain. Letbe, let us meddle no more; it is the greatest service we can render atthis date to our allies of Germany. "

Cardinal Fleury had not waited for confirmation of the King of Prussia'sdefection to seek likewise to negotiate; Marshal Belle-Isle had beenintrusted with this business, and, at the same time with a letteraddressed by the cardinal--to Field-Marshal Konigseck. The minister wasold, timid, displeased, disquieted at the war which he had been surprisedinto; he made his excuses to the Austrian negotiator and delivered hisplenipotentiary into his hands at the very outset. "Many people know, "said he, "how opposed I was to the resolutions we adopted, and that I wasin some sort compelled to agree to them. Your Excellency is too wellinformed of all that passes not to divine who it was who set everythingin motion for deciding the king to enter into a league which was socontrary to my inclinations and to my principles. "

For sole answer, Maria Theresa had the cardinal's letter published. AtUtrecht, after the unparalleled disasters which were overwhelming thekingdom, and in spite of the concessions they had been ordered to offer, the tone of Louis XIV. 's plenipotentiaries was more dignified and prouderthan that of the enfeebled old man who had so long governed France bydint of moderation, discretion, and patient inertness. The allies ofFrance were disquieted and her foes emboldened. Marshal Belle-Isle, shutup in Prague, and Marshal Broglie, encamped near the town, remainingisolated in a hostile country, hemmed in on all sides by a savage foe, maintaining order with difficulty within the fortress itself. 

"Marshal Broglie is encamped under the guns of Prague, " says Barbier'sjournal: "his camp is spoken of as a masterpiece. As there is reason tobe shy of the inhabitants, who are for the Queen of Hungary, a batteryhas been trained upon Prague, the garrison camps upon the ramparts, andMarshal Belle-Isle patrols every night. "

Marshal Maillebois was at Dusseldorf, commissioned to observe theHollanders and protect Westphalia; he received orders to join MarshalsBroglie and Belle-Isle. "It is the army of redemption for the captives, "was the saying at Paris. At the same time that the marshal was settingout for Prague, Cardinal Fleury sent him the following instructions:"Engage in no battle of which the issue may be doubtful. " All thedefiles of Bohemia were carefully guarded; Maillebois first retired onEgra, then he carried his arms into Bavaria, where Marshal Broglie cameto relieve him of his command. Marshal Belle-Isle remained with the solecharge of the defence of Prague; he was frequently harassed by theAustrians; his troops were exhausted with cold and privation. During thenight between the 16th and 17th of December, 1742, the marshal salliedfrom the town. "I stole a march of twenty-four hours good on PrinceLobkowitz, who was only five leagues from me, " wrote Belle-Isle, onaccomplishing his retreat; "I pierced his quarters, and I traversed tenleagues of plain, having to plod along with eleven thousand foot andthree thousand two hundred and fifty worn-out horses, M. De Lobkowitzhaving eight thousand good horses and twelve thousand infantry. I madesuch despatch that I arrived at the defiles before he could come up withme. I concealed from him the road I had resolved to take, for he hadordered the occupation of all the defiles and the destruction of all thebridges there are on the two main roads leading from Prague to Egra. Itook one which pierces between the two others, where I found no obstaclesbut those of nature, and, at last, I arrived on the tenth day, without acheck, though continually harassed by hussars in front, rear, and flank. "The hospitals at Egra were choke full of sick soldiers; twelve nightspassed on the snow without blankets or cloaks had cost the lives of manymen; a great number never recovered more than a lingering existence. Amongst them there was, in the king's regiment of infantry, a youngofficer, M. De Vauvenargues, who expired at thirty-two years of age, soonafter his return to his country, leaving amongst those who had known hima feeling that a great loss had been suffered by France and humanintellect. 

Chevert still occupied Prague, with six thousand sick or wounded; thePrince of Lorraine had invested the place and summoned it to surrender atdiscretion. "Tell your general;" replied Chevert to the Austrian sent toparley, "that, if he will not grant me the honors of war, I will fire thefour corners of Prague, and bury myself under its ruins. " He obtainedwhat he asked for, and went to rejoin Marshal Belle-Isle at Egra. Peoplecompared the retreat from Prague to the Retreat of the Ten Thousand; butthe truth came out for all the fictions of flattery and national pride. A hundred thousand Frenchmen had entered Germany at the outset of thewar; at the commencement of the year 1743, thirty-five thousand soldiers, mustered in Bavaria, were nearly all that remained to withstand theincreasing efforts of the Austrians. 

Marshal Belle-Isle was coldly received at Paris. "He is muchinconvenienced by a sciatica, " writes the advocate Barbier, "and cannotwalk but with the assistance of two men. He comes back with granddecorations: prince of the empire, knight of the Golden Fleece, blueriband, marshal of France, and duke. He is held accountable, however, for all the misfortunes that have happened to us; it was spread about atParis that he was disgraced and even exiled to his estate at Vernon, nearGisors. It is true, nevertheless, that he has several times donebusiness with the king, whether in M. Amelot's presence, on foreignaffairs, or M. D'Aguesseau's, on military; but this restless andambitious spirit is feared by the ministers. "

Almost at the very moment when the Austrians were occupying Prague andBohemia, Cardinal Fleury was expiring, at Versailles, at the age ofninety. Madame Marshal Noailles, mother of the present marshal, who isat least eighty-seven, but is all alive, runs about Paris and writes allday, sent to inquire after him. He sent answer to her, "that she wascleverer than he--she managed to live; as for him, he was ceasing toexist. In fact, it is the case of a candle going out, and being a longwhile about it. Many people are awaiting this result, and all the courtwill be starting at his very ghost, a week after he has been buried. "[_Journal de Barbier, _ t. Ii. P. 348. ]

Cardinal Fleury had lived too long: the trials of the last years of hislife had been beyond the bodily and mental strength of an old manelevated for the first time to power at an age when it is generally seenslipping from the hands of the most energetic. Naturally gentle, moderate, discreet, though stubborn and persevering in his views, he hadnot an idea of conceiving and practising a great policy. France wasindebted to him for a long period of mediocre and dull prosperity, whichwas preferable to the evils that had for so long oppressed her, but asfor which she was to cherish no remembrance and no gratitude, when newmisfortunes came bursting upon her. 

Both court and nation hurled the same reproach at Cardinal Fleury; healone prevented the king from governing, and turned his attention fromaffairs, partly from jealousy, and partly from the old habit acquired asa preceptor, who can never see a man in one who has been his pupil. Whenthe old man died at last, as M. D'Argenson cruelly puts it, France turnedher eyes towards Louis XV. "The cardinal is dead: hurrah! for the king!"was the cry amongst the people. The monarch himself felt as if he wereemancipated. "Gentlemen, here am I--premier minister!" said he to hismost intimate courtiers. "When MM. De Maurepas and Amelot went toannounce to him this death, it is said that he was at first overcome, andthat when he had recovered himself, he told them that hitherto he hadavailed himself of Cardinal Fleury's counsels; but he relied upon it thatthey would so act, that they would not need to place any one between themand him. If this answer is faithfully reported, " adds the advocateBarbier, "it is sufficiently in the high style to let it be understoodthat there will be no more any premier minister, or at any rate any bodyexercising the functions thereof. "

For some time previously, in view of the great age and rapid enfeeblementof Cardinal Fleury, Marshal Noailles, ever able and far-sighted, had beenpressing Louis XV. To take into his own hands the direction of hisaffairs. Having the command on the frontier of the Low Countries, he hadadopted the practice of writing directly to the king. "Until it mayplease your Majesty to let me know your intentions and your will, " saidthe marshal at the outset of his correspondence, "confining myself solelyto what relates to the frontier on which you have given me the command, Ishall speak with frankness and freedom about the object confided to mycare, and shall hold my peace as regards the rest. If you, Sir, desirethe silence to be broken, it is for you to order it. " For the first timeLouis XV. Seemed to awake from the midst of that life of intellectuallethargy and physical activity which he allowed to glide along, without athought, between the pleasures of the chase and the amusements inventedby his favorite; a remembrance of Louis XIV. Came across his mind, naturally acute and judicious as it was. "The late king, my great-grandfather, " he writes to Marshal Noailles on the 26th of November, 1743, "whom I desire to imitate as much as I can, recommended me, on hisdeath-bed, to take counsel in all things, and to seek out the best, so asalways to follow it. I shall be charmed, then, if you will give me some;thus do I open your mouth, as the pope does the cardinals, and I permityou to say to me what your zeal and your affection for me and my kingdomprompt you. " The first fruit of this correspondence was the entrance ofMarshal Noailles into the Council. 

[Illustration: Louis XV. And his Councillors----148]

"One day as he was, in the capacity of simple courtier, escorting theking, who was on his way to the Council, his Majesty said to him, "Marshal, come in; we are going to hold a council, " and pointed to aplace at his left, Cardinal Tencin being on his right. "This newminister does not please our secretaries of state. He is a troublesomeinspector set over them, who meddles in everything, though master ofnothing. " The renewal of active hostilities was about to deliver theministers from Marshal Noailles. 

The prudent hesitation and backwardness of Holland had at last yielded tothe pressure of England. The States-general had sent twenty thousand mento join the army which George II. Had just sent into Germany. It wasonly on the 15th of March, 1744, that Louis XV. Formally declared waragainst the King of England and Maria Theresa, no longer as an auxiliaryof the 'emperor, but in his own name and on behalf of France. CharlesVII. , a fugitive, driven from his hereditary dominions, which had beenevacuated by Marshal Broglie, had transported to Frankfurt his illfortune and his empty titles. France alone supported in Germany aquarrel the weight of which she had imprudently taken upon herself. 

The effort was too much for the resources; the king's counsellors feltthat it was; the battle of Dettingen, skilfully commenced on the 27th ofJune, 1743, by Marshal Noailles, and lost by the imprudence of hisnephew, the Duke of Gramont, had completely shaken the confidence of thearmies; the emperor had treated with the Austrians for an armistice;establishing the neutrality of his troops, as belonging to the empire. Noailles wrote to the king on the 8th of July, "It is necessary to upholdthis phantom, in order to restrain Germany, which would league againstus, and furnish the English with all the troops therein, the moment theemperor was abandoned. " It was necessary, at the same time, to look outelsewhere for more effectual support. The King of Prussia had beenresting for the last two years, a curious and an interested spectator ofthe contests which were bathing Europe in blood, and which answered hispurpose by enfeebling his rivals. He frankly and coolly flaunted hisselfishness. "In a previous war with France, " he says in his memoirs, "Iabandoned the French at Prague, because I gained Silesia by that step. If I had escorted them to Vienna, they would never have given me somuch. " In turn the successes of the Queen of Hungary were beginning todisquiet him; on the 5th of June, 1744, he signed a new treaty withFrance; for the first time Louis XV. Was about to quit Versailles andplace himself at the head of an army. "If my country is to be devoured, "said the king, with a levity far different from the solemn tone of LouisXIV. , "it will be very hard on me to see it swallowed without personallydoing my best to prevent it. "

He had, however, hesitated a long while before he started. There was ashortness of money. For all his having been head of the council offinance, Noailles had not been able to rid himself of ideas of arbitrarypower. "When the late king, your great-grandfather, considered anyoutlay necessary, " he wrote to Louis XV. , "the funds had to be found, because it was his will. The case in question is one in which yourMajesty ought to speak as master, and lay down the law to your ministers. Your comptroller-general ought, for the future, to be obliged to furnishthe needful funds without daring to ask the reasons for which they aredemanded of him, and still less to decide upon them. It was thus thatthe late king behaved towards M. Colbert and all who succeeded him inthat office; he would never have done anything great in the whole courseof his reign, if he had behaved otherwise. " It was the king's commonsense which replied to this counsel, "We are still paying all those debtsthat the late king incurred for extraordinary occasions, fifty millions ayear and more, which we must begin by paying off first of all. " Lateron, he adds, gayly, "As for me, I can do without any equipage, and, ifneedful, the shoulder of mutton of the lieutenants of infantry will doperfectly well for me. " "There is nothing talked off here but the doingsof the king, who is in extraordinary spirits, " writes the advocateBarbier; "he has visited the places near Valenciennes, the magazines, thehospitals; he has tasted the broth of the sick, and the soldiers' bread. The ambassador of Holland came, before his departure, to propose a trucein order to put us off yet longer. The king, when he was presented, merely said, 'I know what you are going to say to me, and what it is allabout. I will give you my answer in Flanders. ' This answer is a proudone, and fit for a king of France. "

[Illustration: Louis XV. And the Ambassador of Holland----151]

The hopes of the nation were aroused. "Have we, then, a king?" saidM. D'Argenson. Credit was given to the Duchess of Chateauroux, LouisXV. 's new favorite, for having excited this warlike ardor in the king. Ypres and Menin had already surrendered after a few days' open trenches;siege had just been laid to Furnes. Marshal Noailles had proposed tomove up the king's household troops in order to make an impression uponthe enemy. "If they must needs be marched up, " replied Louis XV. , "I donot wish to separate from my household: _verbum sap_. "

[Illustration: YPRES----151]

The news which arrived from the army of Italy was equally encouraging;the Prince of Conde, seconded by Chevert, had forced the passage of theAlps. "There will come some occasion when we shall do as well as theFrench have done, " wrote Count Campo-Santo, who, under Don Philip, commanded the Spanish detachment; "it is impossible to do better. "

Madame de Chateauroux had just arrived at Lille; there were alreadycomplaints in the army of the frequent absence of the king on his visitsto her, when alarming news came to cause forgetfulness of court intriguesand dissatisfaction; the Austrians had effected the passage of the Rhineby surprise near Philipsburg; Elsass was invaded. Marshal Coigny, whowas under orders to defend it, had been enticed in the direction ofWorms, by false moves on the part of Prince Charles of Lorraine, and hadfound great difficulty in recrossing the frontier. "Here we are on theeve of a great crisis, " writes Louis XV. On the 7th of July. It was atonce decided that the king must move on Elsass to defend his threatenedprovinces. The King of Prussia promised to enter Bohemia immediatelywith twenty thousand men, as the diversion was sure to be useful toFrance. Louis XV. Had already arrived at Metz, and Marshal Noaillespushed forward in order to unite all the corps. On the 8th of August theking awoke in pain, prostrated by a violent headache; a few days later, all France was in consternation; the king was said to have been givenover. 

"The king's danger was noised abroad throughout Paris in the middle ofthe night, " writes Voltaire [_Siecle de Louis XV. , _ p. 103]: "everybodygets up, runs about, in confusion, not knowing whither to go. Thechurches open at dead of night; nobody takes any more note of time, bed-time, or day-time, or meal-time. Paris was beside itself; all thehouses of officials were besieged by a continual crowd; knots collected, at all the cross-roads. The people cried, 'If he should die, it will befor having marched to our aid. ' People accosted one another, questionedone another in the churches, without being the least acquainted. Therewere many churches where the priest who pronounced the prayer for theking's health interrupted the intoning with his tears, and the peopleresponded with nothing but sobs and cries. The courier, who, on the19th, brought to Paris the news of his convalescence, was embraced andalmost stifled by the people; they kissed his horse, they escorted him intriumph. All the streets resounded with a shout of joy. 'The king iswell!' When the monarch was told of the unparalleled transports of joywhich had succeeded those of despair, he was affected to tears, and, raising himself up in a thrill of emotion which gave him strength, 'Ah!'he exclaimed, 'how sweet it is to be so loved! What have I done todeserve it?'"

What had he done, indeed! And what was he destined to do? France hadjust experienced the last gush of that monarchical passion and fidelitywhich had so long distinguished her, and which were at last used up andworn out through the faults of the princes as well as through theblindness and errors of the nation itself. 

Confronted with death, the king had once more felt the religious terrorswhich were constantly intermingled with the irregularity of his life;he had sent for the queen, and had dismissed the Duchess of Chateauroux. On recovering his health, he found himself threatened by new perils, aggravated by his illness and by the troubled state into which it hadthrown the public mind. After having ravaged and wasted Elsass, withoutMarshals Coigny and Noailles having been able to prevent it, PrinceCharles had, without being harassed, struck again into the road towardsBohemia, which was being threatened by the King of Prussia. "Thisprince, " wrote Marshal Belle-Isle on the 13th of September, "has writtena very strong letter to the king, complaining of the quiet way in whichPrince Charles was allowed to cross the Rhine; he attributes it all tohis Majesty's illness, and complains bitterly of Marshal Noailles. " And, on the 25th, to Count Clermont, "Here we are, decided at last; the kingis to start on Tuesday the 27th for Lundville, and on the 5th of Octoberwill be at Strasbourg. Nobody knows as yet any further than that, and itis a question whether he will go to Fribourg or not. The ministers areoff back to Paris. Marshal Noailles, who has sent for his equipagehither, asked whether he should attend his Majesty, who replied, 'As youplease, ' rather curtly. Your Highness cannot have a doubt about hisdoing so, after such a gracious permission. "

Louis XV. Went to the siege of Fribourg, which was a long and a difficultone. He returned to Paris on the 13th of November, to the great joy ofthe people. A few days later, Marshal Belle-Isle, whilst passing throughHanover in the character of negotiator, was arrested by order of GeorgeII. , and carried to England a prisoner of war, in defiance of the law ofnations and the protests of France. The moment was not propitious forobtaining the release of a marshal of France and an able general. TheEmperor Charles VII. , who but lately returned to his hereditarydominions, and recovered possession of his capital, after fifteen monthsof Austrian occupation, died suddenly on the 20th of January, 1745, atforty-seven years of age. The face of affairs changed all at once; thehonor of France was no longer concerned in the struggle; the Grand-dukeof Tuscany had no longer any competitor for the empire; the eldest son ofCharles VII. Was only seventeen; the Queen of Hungary was disposed forpeace. "The English ministry, which laid down the law for all, becauseit laid down the money, and which had in its pay, all at one time, theQueen of Hungary, the King of Poland, and the King of Sardinia, considered that there was everything to lose by a treaty with France, andeverything to gain by arms. War continued, because it had commenced. "[Voltaire, _Siecle de Louis XV_. ]

The King of France henceforth maintained it almost alone by himself. Theyoung Elector of Bavaria had already found himself driven out of Munich, and forced by his exhausted subjects to demand peace of Maria Theresa. The election to the empire was imminent; Maximilian-Joseph promised hisvotes to the Grand-duke of Tuscany; at that price he was re-establishedin his hereditary dominions. The King of Poland had rejected theadvances of France, who offered him the title of emperor, beneath whichCharles VII. Had succumbed. Marshal Saxe bore all the brunt of the war. A foreigner and a Protestant, for a long while under suspicion with LouisXV. , and blackened in character by the French generals, Maurice of Saxonyhad won authority as well as glory by the splendor of his bravery and ofhis military genius. Combining with quite a French vivacity thefar-sightedness and the perseverance of the races of the north, he hadbeen toiling for more than a year to bring about amongst his army aspirit of discipline, a powerful organization, a contempt for fatigue aswell as for danger. "At Dettingen the success of the allies was due totheir surprising order, for they were not seasoned to war, " he used tosay. Order did not as yet reign in the army of Marshal Saxe. In 1745, the situation was grave; the marshal was attacked with dropsy; his lifeappeared to be in danger. He nevertheless commanded his preparations tobe made for the campaign, and, when Voltaire, who was one of his friends, was astounded at it, "It is no question of living, but of setting out, "was his reply. 

[Illustration: Marshal Saxe 154]

The king was preparing to set out, like Marshal Saxe; he had just marriedthe dauphin to the eldest daughter of the King of Spain; the young princeaccompanied his father to the front before Tournai, which the French armywas besieging. On the 8th of May Louis XV. Visited the outskirts; anattack from the enemy was expected, the field of battle was knownbeforehand. The village of Fontenoy had already been occupied by MarshalNoailles, who had asked to serve as aide-de-camp to Marshal Saxe, to whomhe was attached by sincere friendship, and whom he had very muchcontributed to advance in the king's good graces. 

"Never did Louis XV. Show more gayety than on the eve of the fight, " saysVoltaire. "The conversation was of battles at which kings had beenpresent in person. The king said that since the battle of Poitiers noking of France had fought with his son beside him, that since St. Louisnone had gained any signal victory over the English, and that he hoped tobe the first. He was the first up on the day of action; he himself atfour o'clock awoke Count d'Argenson, minister of war, who on the instantsent to ask Marshal Saxe for his final orders. The marshal was found ina carriage of osier-work, which served him for a bed, and in which he hadhimself drawn about when his exhausted powers no longer allowed him tosit his horse. " The king and the dauphin had already taken up theirpositions of battle; the two villages of Fontenoy and Antoin, and thewood of Barri, were occupied by French troops. Two armies of fiftythousand men each were about to engage in the lists as at Dettingen. Austria had sent but eight thousand soldiers, under the orders of the oldand famous General Konigseck; the English and the Hollanders were aboutto bear all the burden and heat of the day. 

It was not five in the morning, and already there was a thunder ofcannon. The Hollanders attacked the village of Antoin, the English thatof Fontenoy. The two posts were covered by a redoubt which belched forthflames; the Hollanders refused to deliver the assault. An attack made bythe English on the wood of Barri had been repulsed. "Forward, my lord, right to your front, " said old Konigseck to the Duke of Cumberland, George II. 's son, who commanded the English; "the ravine in front ofFontenoy must be carried. " The English advanced; they formed a deep andserried column, preceded and supported by artillery. The Frenchbatteries mowed them down right and left, whole ranks fell dead; theywere at once filled up; the cannon which they dragged along by hand, pointed towards Fontenoy and the redoubts, replied to the Frenchartillery. An attempt of some officers of the French guards to carry offthe cannon of the English was unsuccessful. The two corps foundthemselves at last face to face. 

The English officers took off their hats; Count Chabannes and the Duke ofBiron, who had moved forward, returned their salute. "Gentlemen of theFrench guard, fire!" exclaimed Lord Charles Hay. "Fire yourselves, gentlemen of England, " immediately replied Count d'Auteroche; "we neverfire first. " [All fiction, it is said. ] The volley of the English laidlow the foremost ranks of the French guards. This regiment had beeneffeminated by a long residence in Paris and at Versailles; its colonel, the Duke of Gramont, had been killed in the morning, at the commencementof the action; it gave way, and the English cleared the ravine whichdefended Fontenoy. They advanced as if on parade; the majors[?sergeant-majors], small cane in hand, rested it lightly on thesoldiers' muskets to direct their fire. Several regiments successivelyopposed to the English column found themselves repulsed and forced tobeat a retreat; the English still advanced. 

Marshal Saxe, carried about everywhere in his osier-litter, saw thedanger with a calm eye; he sent the Marquis of Meuse to the king. "I begyour Majesty, " he told him to say, "to go back with the dauphin over thebridge of Calonne; I will do what I can to restore the battle. " "Ah! Iknow well enough that he will do what is necessary, " answered the king, "but I stay where I am. " Marshal Saxe mounted his horse. 

[Illustration: Battle of Fontenoy----157]

In its turn, the cavalry had been repulsed by the English; their fireswept away rank after rank of the regiment of Vaisseaux, which would notbe denied. "How is it that such troops are not victorious?" criedMarshal Saxe, who was moving about at a foot's pace in the middle of thefire, without his cuirass, which his weakness did not admit of hiswearing. He advanced towards Fontenoy; the batteries had just fallenshort of ball. The English column had ceased marching; arrested by thesuccessive efforts of the French regiments, it remained motionless, andseemed to receive no more orders, but it preserved a proud front, andappeared to be masters of the field of battle. Marshal Saxe waspreparing for the retreat of the army; he had relinquished his proposalfor that of the king, from the time that the English had come up andpressed him closely. "It was my advice, before the danger was so great, "he said; "now there is no falling back. "

A disorderly council was being held around Louis XV. With the finejudgment and sense which he often displayed when he took the trouble tohave an opinion on his affairs, the king had been wise enough toencourage his troops by his presence without in any way interfering withthe orders of Marshal Saxe. The Duke of Richelieu vented an opinion moreworthy of the name he bore than had been his wont in his life ofcourtiership and debauchery. "Throw forward the artillery against thecolumn, " he said, "and let the king's household, with all the disposableregiments, attack them at the same time; they must be fallen upon like somany foragers. "

The retreat of the Hollanders admitted of the movement; the smallfield-pieces, as yet dragged by hand, were pointed against the Englishcolumn. Marshal Saxe, with difficulty keeping his seat upon his horse, galloped hastily up to the Irish brigade, commanding all the troops hemet on the way to make no more false attacks, and to act in concert. Allthe forces of the French army burst simultaneously upon the English. TheIrish regiments in the service of France, nearly all composed of Jacobiteemigrants, fought with fury. Twice the brave enemy rallied, but theofficers fell on all sides, the ranks were everywhere broken; at lastthey retired, without disorder, without enfeeblement, preserving, even indefeat, the honor of a vigorous resistance. The battle was gained at themoment when the most clear-sighted had considered it lost. Marshal Saxehad still strength left to make his way to the king. "I have lived longenough, sir, " he said, "now that I have seen your Majesty victorious. You now know on what the fortune of battles depends. "

The victory of Fontenoy, like that of Denain, restored the courage andchanged the situation of France. When the King of Prussia heard of hisally's success, he exclaimed with a grin, "This is about as useful to usas a battle gained on the banks of the Scamander. " His selfishabsorption in his personal and direct interests obscured the judgment ofFrederick the Great. He, however, did justice to Marshal Saxe: "Therewas a discussion the other day as to what battle had reflected most honoron the general commanding, " he wrote, a long while after the battle ofFontenoy; "some suggested that of Almanza, others that of Turin; but Isuggested--and everybody finally agreed that it was undoubtedly that inwhich the general had been at death's door when it was delivered. "

The fortress of Tournai surrendered on the 22d of May; the citadelcapitulated on the 19th of June. Ghent, Bruges, Oudenarde, Dendermonde, Ostend, Nienport, yielded, one after another, to the French armies. Inthe month of February, 1746, Marshal Saxe terminated the campaign bytaking Brussels. By the 1st of the previous September Louis XV. Hadreturned in triumph to Paris. 

[Illustration: BRUSSELS----159]

Henceforth he remained alone confronting Germany, which was neutral, orhad rallied round the restored empire. On the 13th of September, theGrand-duke of Tuscany had been proclaimed emperor at Frankfurt, under thename of Francis I. The indomitable resolution of the queen his wife hadtriumphed. In spite of the checks she suffered in the Low Countries, Maria Theresa still withstood, at all points, the pacific advances of thebelligerents. 

On the 4th of June, the King of Prussia had gained a great victory atFreilberg. "I have honored the bill of exchange your Majesty drew on meat Fontenoy, " he wrote to Louis XV. A series of successful fights hadopened the road to Saxony. Frederick headed thither rapidly; on the 18thof December he occupied Dresden. 

This time, the King of Poland, Elector of Saxony, forced the hand of thenew empress: "The Austrians and the Saxons have just sent ministershither to negotiate for peace, " said a letter to France from the King ofPrussia; "so I have no course open but to sign. Would that I might befortunate enough to serve as the instrument of general pacification. After discharging my duty towards the state I govern, and towards myfamily, no object will be nearer to my heart than that of being able torender myself of service to your Majesty's interests. " Frederick theGreat returned to Berlin covered with glory, and definitively master ofSilesia. "Learn once for all, " he said at a later period, in hisinstructions to his successor, "that where a kingdom is concerned, youtake when you can, and that you are never wrong when you are not obligedto hand over. An insolent and a cynical maxim of brute force, whichconquerors have put in practice at all times, without daring to set it upas a principle. 

Whilst Berlin was in gala trim to celebrate the return of her monarch intriumph, Europe had her eyes fixed upon the unparalleled enterprise of ayoung man, winning, courageous, and frivolous as he was, attempting torecover by himself alone the throne of his fathers. For nearly threeyears past, Charles Edward Stuart, son of Chevalier St. George, had beenawaiting in France the fulfilment of the promises and hopes which hadbeen flashed before his eyes. Weary of hope deferred, he had conceivedthe idea of a bold stroke. "Why not attempt to cross in a vessel to thenorth of Scotland?" had been the question put to him by Cardinal Tencin, who had, some time before, owed his cardinal's hat to the dethroned Kingof Great Britain. "Your presence will be enough to get you a party andan army, and France will be obliged to give you aid. "

Charles Edward had followed this audacious counsel. Landing, in June, 1745, in the Highlands of Scotland, he had soon found the clans of themountaineers hurrying to join his standard. At the head of this wildarmy, he had in a few months gained over the whole of Scotland. On the20th of September he was proclaimed at Edinburgh Regent of England, France, Scotland, and Ireland, for his father, King James III. GeorgeII. Had left Hanover; the Duke of Cumberland, returning from Germany, took the command of the troops assembled to oppose the invader. Theirsuccess in the battle of Preston-Pans against General Cope had emboldenedthe Scots; at the end of December, 1745, Prince Charles Edward and hisarmy had advanced as far as Derby. 

It was the fate of the Stuarts, whether heroes or dastards, to see theirhopes blasted all at once, and to drag down in their fall their mostzealous and devoted partisans. The aid, so often promised by France andSpain, had dwindled down to the private expeditions of certain braveadventurers. The Duke of Richelieu, it was said, was to put himself attheir head. "As to the embarkation at Dunkerque, " writes the advocateBarbier, at the close of the year 1745, "there is great anxiety about it, for we are at the end of December, and it is not yet done, which givesevery one occasion to make up news according to his fancy. Thisuncertainty discourages the Frenchman, who gives out that our expeditionwill not take place, or, at any rate, will not succeed. " Charles Edwardhad already been forced to fall back upon Scotland. As in 1651, at thetime of the attempt of Charles II. , England remained quite cold in thepresence of the Scottish invasion. The Duke of Cumberland was closelypressing the army of the mountaineers. On the 23d of April, 1746, thefoes found themselves face to face at Culloden, in the environs ofInverness. Charles Edward was completely beaten, and the army of theHighlanders destroyed; the prince only escaped either death or captivityby the determined devotion of his partisans, whether distinguished orobscure; a hundred persons had risked their lives for him, when hefinally succeeded, on the 10th of October, in touching land, in Brittany, near St. Pol de Leon. His friends and his defenders were meanwhile dyingfor his cause on scaffold or gallows. 

The anger and severity displayed by the English government towards theJacobites were aggravated by the checks encountered upon the Continent bythe coalition. At the very moment when the Duke of Cumberland wasdefeating Charles Edward at Culloden, Antwerp was surrendering to LouisXV. In person: Mons, Namur, and Charleroi were not long before they fell. Prince Charles of Lorraine was advancing to the relief of the besiegedplaces; Marshal Saxe left open to him the passage of the Meuse. TheFrench camp seemed to be absorbed in pleasures; the most famous actorsfrom Paris were ordered to amuse the general and the soldiers. On the10th of October, in the evening, Madame Favart came forward on the stage. "To-morrow, " said she, "there will be no performance, on account of thebattle: the day after, we shall have the honor of giving you _Le Coq duVillage_. " At the same time the marshal sent the following order to thecolumns which were already forming on the road from St. Tron to Liege, near the village of Raucoux: "Whether the attacks succeed or not, thetroops will remain in the position in which night finds them, in order torecommence the assault upon the enemy. "

[Illustration: BRUSSELS----159]

The battle of October 11 left the battle-field in the hands of thevictors, the sole result of a bloody and obstinate engagement. MarshalSaxe went to rest himself at Paris; the people's enthusiasm rivalled andindorsed the favors shown to him by the king. At the opera, the wholehouse rose at the entrance of the valiant foreigner who had dedicated hislife to France; there was clapping of hands, and the actress who in theprologue took the character of Glory leaned over towards the marshal witha crown of laurel. "The marshal was surprised, and refused it withprofound bows. Glory insisted; and as the marshal was too far off in theboxes for her to hand it to him, the Duke of Biron took the crown fromGlory's hands and passed it under Marshal Saxe's left arm. This strikingaction called forth fresh acclamations, 'Hurrah! for Marshal Saxe!' andgreat clapping of hands. The king has given the marshal Chambord forlife, and has even ordered it to be furnished. Independently of allthese honors, it is said that the marshal is extremely rich and powerfuljust now, solely as the result of his safe-conducts, which, beingapplicable to a considerable extent of country, have been worth immensesums to him. " The second marriage of the dauphin--who had already lostthe Infanta--with the Princess of Saxony, daughter of the King of Poland, was about to raise, before long, the fortune and favor of Marshal Saxe tothe highest pitch: he was proclaimed marshal-general of the king'sarmies. 

So much luck and so much glory in the Low Countries covered, in the eyesof France and of Europe, the checks encountered by the king's armies inItaly. The campaign of 1745 had been very brilliant. Parma, Piacenza, Montferrat, nearly all Milaness, with the exception of a few fortresses, were in the hands of the Spanish and French forces. The King of Sardiniahad recourse to negotiation; he amused the Marquis of Argenson, at thattime Louis XV. 's foreign minister, a man of honest, expansive, butchimerical views. At the moment when the king and the marquis believedthemselves to be remodelling the map of Europe at their pleasure, theyheard that Charles Emmanuel had resumed the offensive. A French corpshad been surprised at Asti, on the 5th of March; thirty thousandAustrians marched down from the Tyrol, and the Spaniards evacuated Milan. A series of checks forced Marshal Maillebois to effect a retreat; theenemy's armies crossed the Var, and invaded French territory. MarshalBelle-Isle fell back to Puget, four leagues from Toulon. 

The Austrians had occupied Genoa, the faithful ally of France. Theirvengefulness and their severe exactions caused them to lose the fruits oftheir victory. The grandees were ruined by war-requisitions; thepopulace were beside themselves at the insolence of the conquerors;senators and artisans made common cause. An Austrian captain havingstruck a workman, the passengers in the streets threw themselves upon himand upon his comrades who came to his assistance; the insurrection spreadrapidly in all quarters of Genoa; there was a pillage of the weaponslying heaped in the palace of the Doges; the senators put themselves atthe head of the movement; the peasants in the country flew to arms. TheMarquis of Botta, the Austrian commandant, being attacked on all sides, and too weak to resist, sallied from the town with nine regiments. Theallies, disquieted and dismayed, threatened Provence, and laid siege toGenoa. Louis XV. Felt the necessity of not abandoning his ally; the Dukeof Boufflers and six thousand French shut themselves up in the place. "Show me the danger, " the general had said on entering the town; "it ismy duty to ascertain it; I shall make all my glory depend upon securingyou from it. " The resistance of Genoa was effectual; but it cost thelife of the Duke of Boufflers, who was wounded in an engagement, and diedthree days before the retreat of the Austrians, on the 6th of July, 1747. 

On the 19th of July, Common-Sense Belle-Isle (_Bon-Sens de Belle-Isle_), as the Chevalier was called at court, to distinguish him from his brotherthe marshal, nicknamed _Imagination, _ attacked, with a considerable bodyof troops, the Piedmontese intrenchments at the Assietta Pass, betweenthe fortresses of Exilles and Fenestrelles; at the same time, MarshalBelle-Isle was seeking a passage over the Stura Pass, and the Spanisharmy was attacking Piedmont by the way of the Apennines. The engagementat the heights of Assietta was obstinate; Chevalier Belle-Isle, woundedin both arms, threw himself bodily upon the palisades, to tear them downwith his teeth; he was killed, and the French sustained a terribledefeat;--five thousand men were left on the battle-field. The campaignof Italy was stopped. The King of Spain, Philip V. , enfeebled andexhausted almost in infancy, had died on the 9th of July, 1746. Thefidelity of his successor, Ferdinand VI. , married to a Portugueseprincess, appeared doubtful; he had placed at the head of his forces inItaly the Marquis of Las Minas, with orders to preserve to Spain her onlyarmy. "The Spanish soldiers are of no more use to us than if they wereso much cardboard, " said the French troops. Europe was tired of the war. England avenged herself for her reverses upon the Continent by hersuccesses at sea; the French navy, neglected systematically by CardinalFleury, did not even suffice for the protection of commerce. TheHollanders, who had for a long while been undecided, and had at lastengaged in the struggle against France without any declaration of war, bore, in 1747, the burden of the hostilities. Count Lowendahl, a friendof Marshal Saxe, and, like him, in the service of France, had taken Sluysand Sas-de-Gand; Bergen-op-Zoom was besieged; on the 1st of July, MarshalSaxe had gained, under the king's own eye, the battle of Lawfeldt. As in1672, the French invasion had been the signal for a political revolutionin Holland; the aristocratical burgessdom, which had resumed power, succumbed once more beneath the efforts of the popular party, directed bythe house of Nassau and supported by England. "The republic has need ofa chief against an ambitious and perfidious neighbor who sports with thefaith of treaties, " said a deputy of the States-general on the day of theproclamation of the stadtholderate, re-established in favor of WilliamIV. , grand-nephew of the great William III. , and son-in-law of the Kingof England, George II. Louis XV. Did not let himself be put out by thisoutburst. "The Hollanders are good folks, " he wrote to Marshal Noailles:"it is said, however, that they are going to declare war against us; theywill lose quite as much as we shall. "

Bergen-op-Zoom was taken and plundered on the 16th of September. CountLowendahl was made a marshal of France. "Peace is in Maestricht, Sir, "was Maurice of Saxony's constant remark to the king. On the 9th ofApril, 1748, the place was invested, before the thirty-five thousandRussians, promised to England by the Czarina Elizabeth, had found time tomake their appearance on the Rhine. A congress was already assembled atAix-la-Chapelle to treat for peace. The Hollanders, whom the Marquis ofArgenson before his disgrace used always to call "the ambassadors ofEngland, " took fright at the spectacle of Maestricht besieged; fromparleys they proceeded to the most vehement urgency; and England yielded. The preliminaries of peace were signed on the 30th of April; it was notlong before Austria and Spain gave in their adhesion. On the 18th ofOctober the definitive treaty was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle. Francegenerously restored all her conquests, without claiming other advantagesbeyond the assurance of the duchies of Parma and Piacenza to the InfanteDon Philip, son-in-law of Louis XV. England surrendered to France theIsland of Cape Breton and the colony of Louisbourg, the only territoryshe had preserved from her numerous expeditions against the Frenchcolonies and from the immense losses inflicted upon French commerce. The Great Frederic kept Silesia; the King of Sardinia the territoriesalready ceded by Austria. Only France had made great conquests; andonly she retained no increment of territory. She recognized thePragmatic-Sanction in favor of Austria and the Protestant succession infavor of George II. Prince Charles Edward, a refugee in France, refusedto quit the hospitable soil which had but lately offered so magnificentan asylum to the unfortunates of his house: he was, however, carried off, whilst at the Opera, forced into a carriage, and conveyed far from thefrontier. "As stupid as the peace!" was the bitter saying in the streetsof Paris. 

[Illustration: Arrest of Charles Edward----166]

The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had a graver defect than that offruitlessness; it was not and could not be durable. England was excited, ambitious of that complete empire of the sea which she had begun to buildup upon the ruins of the French navy and the decay of Holland, and greedyof distant conquests over colonies which the French could not manage todefend. In proportion as the old influence of Richelieu and of LouisXIV. Over European politics grew weaker and weaker, English influence, founded upon the growing power of a free country and a free government, went on increasing in strength. Without any other ally but Spain, herself wavering in her fidelity, the French remained exposed to theattempts of England, henceforth delivered from the phantom of theStuarts. "The peace concluded between England and France in 1748 was, asregards Europe, nothing but a truce, " says Lord Macaulay "it was not evena truce in other quarters of the globe. " The mutual rivalry and mistrustbetween the two nations began to show themselves everywhere, in the Eastas well as in the West, in India as well as in America. 

CHAPTER LIII. ----LOUIS XV. , FRANCE IN THE COLONIES. 1745-1763. 

France was already beginning to perceive her sudden abasement in Europe;the defaults of her generals as well as of her government sometimesstruck the king himself; he threw the blame of it on the barrenness ofhis times. "This age is not fruitful in great men, " he wrote to MarshalNoailles: "you know that we miss subjects for all objects, and you haveone before your eyes in the case of the army which certainly impresses memore than any other. " Thus spoke Louis XV. On the eve of the battle ofFontenoy Marshal Saxe was about to confer upon the French arms atransitory lustre; but the king, who loaded him with riches and honors, never forgot that he was not his born subject. "I allow that Count Saxeis the best officer to command that we have, " he would say; "but he is aHuguenot, he wants to be supreme, and he is always saying that, if he isthwarted, he will enter some other service. Is that zeal for France?I see, however, very few of ours who aim high like him. "

The king possessed at a distance, in the colonies of the Two Indies, asthe expression then was, faithful servants of France, passionatelyzealous for her glory, "aiming high, " ambitious or disinterested, ablepoliticians or heroic pioneers, all ready to sacrifice both property andlife for the honor and power of their country: it is time to show how LaBourdonnais, Dupleix, Bussy, Lally-Tollendal were treated in India; whatassistance, what guidance, what encouragement the Canadians and theirillustrious chiefs received from France, beginning with Champlain, oneof the founders of the colony, and ending with Montcalm, its latestdefender. It is a painful but a salutary spectacle to see to whatmeannesses a sovereign and a government may find themselves reducedthrough a weak complaisance towards the foreigner, in the feverish desireof putting an end to a war frivolously undertaken and feebly conducted. 

French power in India threw out more lustre, but was destined tospeedier, and perhaps more melancholy, extinction than in Canada. Single-handed in the East the chiefs maintained the struggle against theincapacity of the French government and the dexterous tenacity of theenemy; in America the population of French extraction upheld to thebitter end the name, the honor, and the flag of their country. "The fateof France, " says Voltaire, "has nearly always been that her enterprises, and even her successes, beyond her own frontiers should become fatal toher. " The defaults of the government and the jealous passions of thecolonists themselves, in the eighteenth century, seriously aggravated themilitary reverses which were to cost the French nearly all theircolonies. 

More than a hundred years previously, at the outset of Louis XIV. 'spersonal reign, and through the persevering efforts of Colbert marchingin the footsteps of Cardinal Richelieu, an India Company had been foundedfor the purpose of developing French commerce in those distant regions, which had always been shrouded in a mysterious halo of fancied wealth andgrandeur. Several times the Company had all but perished; it had revivedunder the vigorous impulse communicated by Law, and had not succumbed atthe collapse of his system. It gave no money to its shareholders, whoderived their benefits only from a partial concession of the tobacco. Revenues, granted by the king to the Company, but its directors lived alife of magnificence in the East, where they were authorized to trade ontheir own account. Abler and bolder than all his colleagues, JosephDupleix, member of a Gascon family and son of the comptroller-general ofHainault, had dreamed of other destinies than the management of acounting-house; he aspired to endow France with the empire of India. Placed at a very early age at the head of the French establishments atChandernuggur, he had improved the city and constructed a fleet, all thewhile acquiring for himself an immense fortune; he had just been sent toPondicherry as governor-general of the Company's agencies, when the warof succession to the empire broke out in 1742. For a long time pastDupleix and his wife, who was called in India Princess Jane, had beensilently forming a vast network of communications and correspondencewhich kept them acquainted with the innumerable intrigues of all thepetty native courts. Madame Dupleix, a Creole, brought up in India, understood all its dialects. Her husband had been the first to conceivethe idea of that policy which was destined before long to deliver Indiato the English, his imitators; mingling everywhere in the incessantrevolutions which were hatching all about him, he gave the support ofFrance at one time to one pretender and at another to another, relyingupon the discipline of the European troops and upon the force of his owngenius for securing the ascendency to his protege of the moment: thusincreasing little by little French influence and dominion throughout allthe Hindoo territory. Accustomed to dealing with the native princes, hehad partially adopted their ways of craft and violence; more concernedfor his object than about the means of obtaining it, he had themisfortune, at the outset of the contest, to clash with another who wasambitious for the glory of France, and as courageous but less able apolitician than he; their rivalry, their love of power, and theirinflexible attachment to their own ideas, under the direction of a feeblegovernment, thenceforth stamped upon the relations of the two greatEuropean nations in India a regrettable character of duplicity: all thesplendor and all the efforts of Dupleix's genius could never efface it. 

[Illustration: Dupleix----168]

Concord as yet reigned between Dupleix and the governor of Bourbon and ofIle de France, Bertrand Francis Mahe de La Bourdonnais, when, in themonth of September, 1746, the latter put in an appearance with a smallsquadron in front of Madras, already one of the principal Englishestablishments. Commodore Peyton, who was cruising in Indian waters, after having been twice beaten by La Bourdonnais, had removed to adistance with his flotilla; the town was but feebly fortified; theEnglish, who had for a while counted upon the protection of the Nabob ofthe Carnatic, did not receive the assistance they expected;, theysurrendered at the first shot, promising to pay a considerable sum forthe ransom of Madras, which the French were to retain as security untilthe debt was completely paid. La Bourdonnais had received from Francethis express order "You will not, keep any of the conquests you may makein India. " The chests containing the ransom of the place descendedslowly from the white town, which was occupied solely by Europeans and bythe English settlements, to the black town, inhabited by a mixedpopulation of natives and foreigners of various races, traders orartisans. Already the vessels of La Bourdonnais, laden with theseprecious spoils, had made sail for Pondicherry; the governor of Bourbonwas in a hurry to get back to his islands; autumn was coming on, tempestswere threatening his squadron, but Dupleix was still disputing the termsof the treaty concluded with the English for the rendition of Madras; hehad instructions, he said, to raze the city and place it thus dismantledin the hands of the Nabob of the Carnatic; the Hindoo prince had sethimself in motion to seize his prey; the English burst out into insultsand threats. La Bourdonnais, in a violent rage, on the point of findinghimself arrested by order of Dupleix, himself put in prison the governor-general's envoys; the conflict of authority was aggravated by thefeebleness and duplicity of the instructions from France. All at once afearful tempest destroyed a part of the squadron in front of Madras; LaBourdonnais, flinging himself into a boat, had great difficulty inrejoining his ships; he departed, leaving his rival master of Madras, andadroitly prolonging the negotiations, in order to ruin at least the blackcity, which alone was rich and prosperous, before giving over the placeto the Nabob. Months rolled by, and the French remained alone at Madras. 

[Illustration: La Bourdonnais----170]

A jealous love of power and absorption in political schemes had inducedDupleix to violate a promise lightly given by La Bourdonnais in the nameof France; he had arbitrarily quashed a capitulation of which he had notdiscussed the conditions. The report of this unhappy conflict, and thecolor put upon it by the representations of Dupleix, were about to ruinat Paris the rival whom he had vanquished in India. 

On arriving at Ile de France, amidst that colony which he had foundexhausted, ruined, and had endowed with hospitals, arsenals, quays, andfortifications, La Bourdonnais learned that a new governor was alreadyinstalled there. His dissensions with Dupleix had borne their fruits; hehad been accused of having exacted too paltry a ransom from Madras, andof having accepted enormous presents; the Company had appointed asuccessor in his place. Driven to desperation, anxious to go and defendhimself, La Bourdonnais set out for France with his wife and his fourchildren; a prosecution had already been commenced against him. He wascaptured at sea by an English ship, and taken a prisoner to England. The good faith of the conqueror of Madras was known in London; one of thedirectors of the English Company offered his fortune as security for M. De La Bourdonnais. Scarcely had he arrived in Paris when he was throwninto the Bastille, and for two years kept in solitary confinement. Whenhis innocence was at last acknowledged and his liberty restored to him, his health was destroyed, his fortune exhausted by the expenses of thetrial. La Bourdonnais died before long, employing the last remnants ofhis life and of his strength in pouring forth his anger against Dupleix, to whom he attributed all his woes. His indignation was excusable, andsome of his grievances were well grounded; but the germs of suspicionthus sown by the unfortunate prisoner released from the Bastille weredestined before long to consign to perdition not only his enemy, butalso, together with him, that French dominion in India to which M. De LaBourdonnais had dedicated his life. 

Meanwhile Dupleix grew greater and greater, every day more powerful andmore daring. The English had not forgotten the affair of Madras. On the30th of August, 1748, Admiral Boscawen went and laid siege toPondicherry; stopped at the outset by the fort of Ariocapang, of theexistence of which they were ignorant, the disembarked troops could notpush their trenches beyond an impassable morass which protected the town. The fire of the siege-artillery scarcely reached the ramparts; thesallies of the besieged intercepted the communications between the campand the squadron, which, on its side, was bombarding the walls ofPondicherry without any serious result. Dupleix himself commanded theFrench batteries; on the 6th of October he was wounded, and his placeon the ramparts was taken by Madame Dupleix, seconded by her futureson-in-law, M. De Bussy-Castelnau, Dupleix's military lieutenant, animated by the same zeal for the greatness of France. The fire of theEnglish redoubled; but there was laughter in Pondicherry, for the ballsdid not carry so far; and on the 20th of October, after forty days'siege, Admiral Boscawen put to sea again, driven far away from the coastsby the same tempests which, two years before, had compelled LaBourdonnais to quit Madras. Twice had Dupleix been served in his designsby the winds of autumn. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle came to put an endto open war between the Europeans; at the French establishments in theIndies the Te Deum was sung; Dupleix alone was gloomy, despite the ribandof St. Louis and the title of marquis, recently granted him by King LouisXV: he had been obliged to restore Madras to the English. 

War soon recommenced, in the name, and apparently to the profit, of theHindoo princes. France and England had made peace; the English andFrench Companies in India had not laid down arms. Their power, as wellas the importance of their establishments was as yet in equipoise. AtSurat both Companies had places of business; on the coast of Malabar theEnglish had Bombay, and the French Mahe; on the coast of Coromandel theformer held Madras and Fort St. George, the latter Pondicherry andKarikal. The principal factories, as well as the numerous littleestablishments which were dependencies of them, were defended by acertain number of European soldiers, and by Sepoys, native soldiers inthe pay of the Companies. 

These small armies were costly, and diminished to a considerable extentthe profits of trade. Dupleix espied the possibility of a neworganization which should secure to the French in India thepreponderance, and ere long the empire even, in the two peninsulas. Hepurposed to found manufactures, utilize native hand-labor, and developthe coasting trade, or Ind to Ind trade, as the expression then was; buthe set his pretensions still higher, and carried his views still further. He purposed to acquire for the Company, and, under its name, for France, territories and subjects furnishing revenues, and amply sufficing for theexpenses of the commercial establishments. The moment was propitious;the ancient empire of the Great Mogul, tottering to its base, wasdistracted by revolutions, all the chops and changes whereof wereattentively followed by Madame Dupleix; two contested successions openedup at once--those of the Viceroy or Soudhabar of the Deccan and of hisvassal, the Nabob of the Carnatic. The Great Mogul, nominal sovereign ofall the states of India, confined himself to selling to all thepretenders decrees of investiture, without taking any other part in thecontest. Dupleix, on the contrary, engaged in it ardently. He tooksides in the Deccan for Murzapha Jung, and in the Carnatic for TchundaSahib against their rivals supported by the English. Versed in all theresources of Hindoo policy, he had negotiated an alliance between his twoproteges; both marched against the Nabob of the Carnatic. He, though ahundred and seven years old, was at the head of his army, mounted on amagnificent elephant. He espied in the melley his enemy Tchunda Sahib, and would have darted upon him; but, whilst his slaves were urging on thehuge beast, the little French battalion sent by Dupleix to the aid of hisallies marched upon the nabob, a ball struck him to the heart, and hefell. The same evening, Murzapha Jung was proclaimed Soudhabar of theDeccan, and he granted the principality of the Carnatic to Tchunda Sahib, at the same time reserving to the French Company a vast territory. 

Some months rolled by, full of vicissitudes and sudden turns of fortune. Murzapha Jung, at first victorious, and then vanquished by his uncleNazir Jung, everywhere dragged at his heels as a hostage and a trophy ofhis triumph, had found himself delivered by an insurrection of thePatanian chiefs, Affghans by origin, settled in the south of India. Thehead of Nazir Jung had come rolling at his feet. For a while besieged inPondicherry, but still negotiating and everywhere mingling in intriguesand conspiracies, Dupleix was now triumphant with his ally; the Soudhabarof the Deccan made his entry in state upon French territory. Pondicherrywas in holiday trim to receive him. Dupleix, dressed in the magnificentcostume of, the Hindoo princes, had gone with his troops to meet him. Both entered the town in the same palanquin to the sound of nativecymbals and the military music of the. French. A throne awaited thesoudhabar, surrounded by the Affghan chiefs, who were already claimingthe reward of their services. The Hindoo prince needed the aid ofFrance; he knew it. He proclaimed Dupleix nabob of all the provinces tothe south of the River Krischna. Tcbunda Sahib, but lately his ally, became his vassal--"the vassal of France, " murmured Madame Dupleix, whenshe heard of this splendid recompense for so many public and privateservices. The ability and indomitable bravery of M. De Bussy soonextended the French conquests in the Deccan. Murzapha Jung had just beenassassinated at the head of his army; Bussy proclaimed and supported anew soudhabar, who was friendly to the French, and who ceded to them fiveprovinces, of which the large town of Masulipatam, already in Frenchhands, became the capital. A third of India was obedient to Dupleix; theGreat Mogul sent him a decree of investiture, and demanded of thePrincess Jane the hand of her youngest daughter, promised to M. De Bussy. Dupleix well know the frailty of human affairs, and the dark intrigues ofHindoo courts; he breathed freely, however, for he was on his guard, andthe dream of his life seemed to be accomplished. "The empire of Franceis founded, " he would say. 

[Illustration: Dupleix meeting the Soudhabar of the Deccan----174]

He reckoned without France, and without the incompetent or timid men whogoverned her. The successes of Dupleix scared King Louis XV. And hisfeeble ministers; they angered and discomfited England, which was as yettottering in India, and whose affairs there had for a long while been illmanaged, but which remained ever vigorous, active, animated by theindomitable ardor of a free people. At Versailles attempts were made tolessen the conquests of Dupleix, prudence was recommended to him, delaywas shown in sending him the troops he demanded. In India England had atlast found a man still young and unknown, but worthy of being opposed toDupleix. Clive, who had almost in boyhood entered the Company's offices, turned out, after the turbulence of his early years, a heaven-borngeneral; he was destined to continue Dupleix's work, when abandoned byFrance, and to found to the advantage of the English that Europeandominion in India which had been the Governor of Pondicherry's dream. The war still continued in the Carnatic: Mahomet Ali, Tchunda Sahib'srival, had for the last six months been besieged in Trichinopoli; theEnglish had several times, but in vain, attempted to effect the raisingof the siege; Clive, who had recently entered the Company's army, was forsaving the last refuge of Mahomet Ali by a bold diversion against Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic. To him was given the command of theexpedition he had suggested. In the month of September, 1751, he madehimself master of Arcot by a surprise. The Hindoo populations, left tothemselves, passed almost without resistance from one master to another. The Europeans did not signalize by the infliction of punishment the actof taking possession. Clive was before long attacked in Arcot by TchundaSahib, who was supported by a French detachment. He was not in aposition to hold the town; so he took refuge in the fort, and there, forfifty days, withstood all the efforts of his enemies. Provisions fellshort; every day the rations were becoming more insufficient; but Clivehad managed to implant in his soldiers' hearts the heroic resolutionwhich animated him. "Give the rice to the English, " said the sepoys; "wewill be content with the water in which it is boiled. " A body ofMahrattas, allies of the English, came to raise the siege. Clive pursuedthe French on their retreat, twice defeated Tchunda Sahib, and, at lasteffecting a junction with the Governor-General Lawrence, broke theinvestment of Trichinopoli, and released Mahomet Ali. Tchunda Sahib, inhis turn shut up in Tcheringham, was delivered over to his rival by aTanjore chieftain in whom he trusted; he was put to death; and the Frenchcommandant, a nephew of Law's, surrendered to the English. Two Frenchcorps had already been destroyed by Clive, who held the third armyprisoners. Bussy was carrying on war in the Deccan, with greatdifficulty making head against overt hostilities and secret intrigues. The report of Dupleix's reverses arrived in France in the month ofSeptember, 1752. 

[Illustration: Death of the Nabob of the Carnatic----174]

The dismay at Versailles was great, and prevailed over the astonishment. There had never been any confidence in Dupleix's projects, there had beenscarcely any belief in his conquests. The soft-hearted inertness ofministers and courtiers was almost as much disgusted at the successes asat the defeats of the bold adventurers who were attempting and riskingall for the aggrandizement and puissance of France in the East. Dupleixsecretly received notice to demand his recall. He replied by proposingto have M. De Bussy nominated in his place. "Never was so grand a fellowas this Bussy, " he wrote. The ministers and the Company cared little forthe grandeur of Bussy or of Dupleix; what they sought was a dastardlysecurity, incessantly troubled by the enterprises of the politician andthe soldier. The tone of England was more haughty than ever, inconsequence of Clive's successes. The recall of Dupleix was determinedupon. 

The Governor of Pondicherry had received no troops, but he had managed toreorganize an army, and had resumed the offensive in the Carnatic; Bussy, set free at last as to his movements in the Deccan, was preparing torejoin Dupleix. Clive was ill, and had just set out for England: fortunehad once more changed front. The open conferences held with Saunders, English Governor of Madras, failed in the month of January, 1754; Dupleixwished to preserve the advantages he had won; Saunders refused to listento that. The approach of a French squadron was signalled; the shipsappeared to be numerous. Dupleix was already rejoicing at the arrival ofunexpected aid, when, instead of an officer commanding the twelve hundredsoldiers from France, he saw the apparition of M. Godeheu, one of thedirectors of the Company, and but lately his friend and correspondent. "I come to supersede you, sir, " said the new arrival, without anycircumstance; "I have full powers from the Company to treat with theEnglish. " The cabinet of London had not been deceived as to theimportance of Dupleix in India; his recall had been made the absolutecondition of a cessation of hostilities. Louis XV. And his ministershad shown no opposition; the treaty was soon concluded, restoring thepossessions of the two Companies within the limits they had occupiedbefore the war of the Carnatic, with the exception of the district ofMasulipatam, which became accessible to the English. All the territoriesceded by the Hindoo princes to Dupleix reverted to their former masters;the two Companies interdicted one another from taking any part in theinterior policy of India, and at the same time forbade their agents toaccept from the Hindoo princes any charge, honor, or dignity; the mostperfect equality was re-established between the possessions and revenuesof the two great European nations, rivals in the East as well as inEurope; England gave up some petty forts, some towns of no importance, France ceded the empire of India. When Godeheu signed the treaty, Trichinopoli was at last on the point of giving in. Bussy was furious, and would have quitted the Deccan, which he still occupied, but Dupleixconstrained him to remain there; he himself embarked for France with hiswife and daughter, leaving in India, together with his life's workdestroyed in a few days by the poltroonery of his country's government, the fortune he had acquired during his great enterprises, entirely sunkas it was in the service of France; the revenues destined to cover hisadvances were seized by Godeheu. 

France seemed to comprehend what her ministers had not even an idea of;Dupleix's arrival in France was a veritable triumph. It was by this timeknown that the reverses which had caused so much talk had been halfrepaired. It was by this time guessed how infinite were the resources ofthat empire of India, so lightly and mean-spiritedly abandoned to theEnglish. "My wife and I dare not appear in the streets of Lorient, "wrote Dupleix, "because of the crowd of people wanting to see us andbless us;" the comptroller-general, Herault de Sechelles, as well as theking and Madame de Pompadour, then and for a long while the reigningfavorite, gave so favorable a reception to the hero of India thatDupleix, always an optimist, conceived fresh hopes. "I shall regain myproperty here, " he would say, "and India will recover in the hands ofBussy. "

He was mistaken about the justice as he had been about the discernmentand the boldness of the French government; not a promise wasaccomplished; not a hope was realized; after delay upon delay, excuseupon excuse, Dupleix saw his wife expire at the end of two years, wornout with suffering and driven to despair; like her, his daughter, affianced for a long time past to Bussy, succumbed beneath the weight ofsorrow; in vain did Dupleix tire out the ministers with his views and hisprojects for India; he saw even the action he was about to bring againstthe Company vetoed by order of the king. Persecuted by his creditors, overwhelmed with regret for the relatives and friends whom he hadinvolvedin his enterprises and in his ruin, he exclaimed a few monthsbefore his death, "I have sacrificed youth, fortune, life, in order toload with honor and riches those of my own nation in Asia. Unhappyfriends, too weakly credulous relatives, virtuous citizens, havededicated their property to promoting the success of my projects; theyare now in want. . . . I demand, like the humblest of creditors, thatwhich is my due; my services are all stuff, my demand is ridiculous, I amtreated like the vilest of men. The little I have left is seized, I havebeen obliged to get execution stayed to prevent my being dragged toprison!" Dupleix died at last on the 11th of November, 1763, the moststriking, without being the last or the most tragical, victim of thegreat French enterprises in India. 

Despite the treaty of peace, hostilities had never really ceased inIndia. Clive had returned from England; freed henceforth from theinfluence, the intrigues, and the indomitable energy of Dupleix, he hadsoon made himself master of the whole of Bengal, he had even driven theFrench from Chandernuggur; Bussy had been unable to check his successes;he avenged himself by wresting away from the English all their agencieson the coast of Orissa, and closing against them the road between theCoromandel coast and Bengal. 

Meanwhile the Seven Years' War had broken out; the whole of Europe hadjoined in the contest; the French navy, still feeble in spite of theefforts that had been made to restore it, underwent serious reverses onevery sea. Count Lally-Tollendal, descended from an Irish family whichtook refuge in France with James II. , went to Count d'Argenson, stillminister of war, with a proposition to go and humble in India thatEnglish power which had been imprudently left to grow up withouthinderance. M. De Lally had served with renown in the wars of Germany;he had seconded Prince Charles Edward in his brave and yet frivolousattempt upon England. The directors of the India Company went and askedM. D'Argenson to intrust to General Lally the king's troops promised forthe expedition. "You are wrong, " M. D'Argenson said to them; "I know M. De Lally; he is a friend of mine, but he is violent, passionate, inflexible as to discipline; he will not tolerate any disorder; you willbe setting fire to your warehouses, if you send him thither. " Thedirectors, however, insisted, and M. De Lally set out on the 2d of May, 1757, with four ships and a body of troops. Some young officersbelonging to the greatest houses of France served on his staff. 

M. De Lally's passage was a long one; the English re-enforcements hadpreceded, him by six weeks. On arriving in India, he found the arsenalsand the magazines empty; the establishment of Pondicherry alone confessedto fourteen millions of debt. Meanwhile the enemy was pressing at allpoints upon the French possessions. Lally marched to Gondelour(_Kaddaloue_), which he carried on the sixth day; he, shortly afterwards, invested Fort St. David, the most formidable of the English fortresses inIndia. The first assault was repulsed; the general had neither cannonnor beasts of burden to draw them. He hurried off to Pondicherry and hadthe natives harnessed to the artillery trains, taking pellmell such menas fell in his way, without regard for rank or caste, imprudentlywounding the prejudices most dear to the country he had come to govern. Fort St. David was taken and razed. Devicotah, after scarcely the ghostof a siege, opened its gates. Lally had been hardly a month in India, and he had already driven the English from the southern coast of theCoromandel. "All my policy is in these five words, but they are bindingas an oath--No English in the peninsula, " wrote the general. He had sentBussy orders to come and join him in order to attack Madras. 

The brilliant courage and heroic ardor of M. De Lally had triumphed overthe first obstacles; his recklessness, his severity, his passionatenesswere about to lose him the fruits of his victories. "The commission Ihold, " he wrote to the directors of the Company at Paris, "imports that Ishall be held in horror by all the people of the country. " By hispersonal defaults he aggravated his already critical position. Thesupineness of the French government had made fatal progress amongst itsservants; Count d'Ache, who commanded the fleet, had refused to secondthe attempt upon Madras; twice, whilst cruising in Indian waters, theFrench admiral had been beaten by the English; he took the course back toIle de France, where he reckoned upon wintering. Pondicherry wasthreatened, and Lally found himself in Tanjore, where he had hoped torecover a considerable sum due to the Company; on his road he hadattacked a pagoda, thinking he would find there a great deal of treasure, but the idols were hollow and of worthless material. The pagoda was inflames, the disconsolate Brahmins were still wandering round about theirtemple; the general took them for spies, and had them tied to thecannons' mouths. The danger of Pondicherry forced M. De Lally to raisethe siege of Tanjore; the English fell back on Madras. 

Disorder was at its height in the Company's affairs; the vast enterprisescommenced by Dupleix required success and conquests, but they had beenabandoned since his recall, not without having ingulfed, together withhis private fortune, a portion of the Company's resources. Lally wasangered at being every moment shackled for want of money; he attributedit not only to the ill will, but also to the dishonesty, of the localauthorities. He wrote, in 1758, to M. De Leyrit, Governor ofPondicherry, "Sir, this letter shall be an eternal secret between you andme, if you furnish me with the means of terminating my enterprise. Ileft you a hundred thousand livres of my own money to help you to meetthe expenditure it requires. I have not found so much as a hundred sousin your purse and in that of all your council; you have both of yourefused to let me employ your credit. I, however, consider you to beall of you under more obligation to the Company than I am, who haveunfortunately the honor of no further acquaintance with it than to theextent of having lost half my property by it in 1720. If you continue toleave me in want of everything and exposed to the necessity of presentinga front to the general discontent, not only shall I inform the king andthe Company of the fine zeal testified for their service by theiremployees here, but I shall take effectual measures for not being at themercy, during the short stay I desire to make in this country, of theparty spirit and personal motives by which I see that every memberappears to be actuated to the risk of the Company in general. "

In the midst of this distress, and in spite of this ebullition, M. DeLally led his troops up in front of Madras; he made himself master of theBlack Town. "The immense plunder taken by the troops, " says the journalof an officer who held a command under Count Lally, "had introducedabundance amongst them. Huge stores of strong liquors led to drunkennessand all the evils it generates. The situation must have been seen to bebelieved. The works, the guards in the trenches were all performed bydrunken men. The regiment of Lorraine alone was exempt from this plague, but the other corps surpassed one another. Hence scenes of the mostshameful kind and most destructive of subordination and discipline, thedetails of which confined within the limits of the most scrupuloustruthfulness would appear a monstrous exaggeration. " Lally in despairwrote to his friends in France, "Hell vomited me into this land ofiniquities, and I am waiting, like Jonah, for the whale that shallreceive me in its belly. "

The attack on the White Town and on Fort St. George was repulsed; and onthe 18th of February, 1759, Lally was obliged to raise the siege ofMadras. The discord which reigned in the army as well as amongst thecivil functionaries was nowhere more flagrant than between Lally andBussy. The latter could not console himself for having been forced toleave the Deccan in the feeble bands of the Marquis of Conflans. Anexpedition attempted against the fortress of Wandiwash, of which theEnglish had obtained possession, was followed by a serious defeat;Colonel Coote was master of Karikal. Little by little the French armyand French power in India found themselves cooped within the immediateterritory of Pondicherry. The English marched against this town. Lallyshut himself up there in the month of March, 1760. Bussy had been madeprisoner, and Coote had sent him to Europe. "At the head of the Frencharmy Bussy would be in a position by himself alone to prolong the war forten years, " said the Hindoos. On the 27th of November, the siege ofPondicherry was transformed into an investment. Lally had taken all theprecautions of a good general, but he had taken them with his usualharshness; he had driven from the city all the useless mouths; fourteenhundred Hindoos, old men, women, and children, wandered for a weekbetween the English camp and the ramparts of the town, dying of hungerand misery, without Lally's consenting to receive them back into theplace; the English at last allowed them to pass. The most severerequisitions had been ordered to be made on all the houses ofPondicherry, and the irritation was extreme; the heroic despair of M. DeLally was continually wringing from him imprudent expressions. "I wouldrather go and command a set of Caffres than remain in this Sodom, whichthe English fire, in default of Heaven's, must sooner or later destroy, "had for a long time past been a common expression of the general's, whosefate was henceforth bound up with that of Pondicherry. 

He held out for six weeks, in spite of famine, want of money, andever-increasing dissensions. A tempest had caused great havoc to theEnglish squadron which was out at sea; Lally was waiting and waiting forthe arrival of M. D'Ache with the fleet which had but lately soughtrefuge at Ile de France after a fresh reverse. From Paris, on the reportof an attack projected by the--English against Bourbon and Ile de France, ministers had given orders to M. D'Ache not to quit those waters. Lallyand Pondicherry waited in vain. 

It became necessary to surrender; the council of the Company called uponthe general to capitulate; Lally claimed the honors of war, but Cootewould have the town at discretion; the distress was extreme as well asthe irritation. Pondicherry was delivered up to the conquerors on the16th of January, 1761; the fortifications and magazines were razed;French power in India, long supported by the courage or ability of a fewmen, was foundering, never to rise again. "Nobody can have a higheropinion than I of M. De Lally, " wrote Colonel Coote; "he struggledagainst obstacles that I considered insurmountable, and triumphed overthem. There is not in India another man who could have so long kept anarmy standing without pay and without resources in any direction. ""A convincing proof of his merits, " said another English officer, "is hislong and vigorous resistance in a place in which he was universallydetested. "

[Illustration: Lally at Pondicherry----184]

Hatred bears bitterer fruits than is imagined even by those who provokeit. The animosity which M. De Lally had excited in India was everywherean obstacle to the defence; and it was destined to cost him his life andimperil his honor. Scarcely had he arrived in England, ill, exhausted bysufferings and fatigue, followed even in his captivity by the reproachesand anger of his comrades in misfortune, when be heard of the outbreak ofpublic opinion against him in France; he was accused of treason; and heobtained from the English cabinet permission to repair to Paris. "I bring hither my head and my innocence, " he wrote, on disembarking, tothe minister of war, and he went voluntarily to imprisonment in theBastille. There he remained nineteen months without being examined. When the trial commenced in December, 1764, the heads of accusationamounted to one hundred and sixty, the number of witnesses to nearly twohundred; the matter lasted a year and a half, conducted with violence onthe part of M. De Lally's numerous enemies, with inveteracy on the partof the Parliament, still at strife with the government, with courage andfirmness on the part of the accused. He claimed the jurisdiction of acourt-martial, but his demand was rejected; when he saw himselfconfronted with the dock, the general suddenly uncovered his whitenedhead and his breast covered with scars, exclaiming, "So this is thereward for fifty years' service!" On the 6th of May, 1766, his sentencewas at last pronounced. Lally was acquitted on the charges of hightreason and malversation; he was found "guilty of violence, abuse ofauthority, vexations and exactions, as well as of having betrayed theinterests of the king and of the Company. " When the sentence was beingread out to the condemned, "Cut it short, sir, " said the count to theclerk come to the conclusions. " At the words "betrayed the interests ofthe king, " Lally drew himself up to his full height, exclaiming, "Never, never!" He was expending his wrath in insults heaped upon his enemies, when, suddenly drawing from his pocket a pair of mathematical compasses, he struck it violently against his heart; the wound did not go deepenough; M. De Lally was destined to drink to the dregs the cup of man'sinjustice. 

On the 9th of May, at the close of the day, the valiant general whoseheroic resistance had astounded all India, mounted the scaffold on thePlace de Greve, nor was permission granted to the few friends whoremained faithful to him to accompany him to the place of execution;there was only the parish priest of St. Louis en l'Ile at his side; asapprehensions were felt of violence and insult on the part of thecondemned, he was gagged like the lowest criminal when he resolutelymounted the fatal ladder; he knelt without assistance, and calmly awaitedhis death-blow. "Everybody, " observed D'Alembert, expressing by thatcruel saying the violence of public feeling against the condemned, "everybody, except the hangman, has a right to kill Lally. " Voltaire'sjudgment, after the subsidence of passion and after the light thrown bysubsequent events upon the state of French affairs in India beforeLally's campaigns, is more just. "It was a murder committed with thesword of justice. " King Louis XV. And his government had lost India; therage and shame blindly excited amongst the nation by this disaster hadbeen visited upon the head of the unhappy general who had been lastvanquished in defending the remnants of French power. The English weremasters forever of India when the son of M. De Lally-Tollendal at lastobtained, in 1780, the rehabilitation of his father's memory. Publicopinion had not waited till then to decide the case between the condemnedand his accusers. 

Whilst the French power in India, after having for an instant had thedominion over nearly the whole peninsula, was dying out beneath theincapacity and feebleness of its government, at the moment when theheroic efforts of La Bourdonnais, Dupleix, and Lally were passing intothe domain of history, a people decimated by war and famine, exhausted bya twenty years' unequal struggle, was slowly expiring, preserving to thevery last its hopes and its patriotic devotion. In the West Indies thewhole Canadian people were still maintaining, for the honor of France, that flag which had just been allowed to slip from the desperate hands ofLally in the East. In this case, there were no enchanting prospects ofpower and riches easily acquired, of dominion over opulent princes andsubmissive slaves; nothing but a constant struggle against nature, stillmistress of the vast solitudes, against vigilant rivals and a courageousand cruel race of natives. The history of the French colonists in Canadashowed traits and presented characteristics rare in French annals; theardor of the French nature and the suavity of French manners seemed to becombined with the stronger virtues of the people of the north;everywhere, amongst the bold pioneers of civilization in the new world, the French marched in the first rank without ever permitting themselvesto be surpassed by the intrepidity or perseverance of the Anglo-Saxons, down to the day when, cooped up within the first confines of theirconquests, fighting for life and liberty, the Canadians defended foot tofoot the honor of their mother-country, which had for a long whileneglected them, and at last abandoned them, under the pressure of adisastrous war conducted by a government as incapable as it was corrupt. 

For a long time past the French had directed towards America their ardentspirit of enterprise; in the fifteenth century, on the morrow of thediscovery of the new world, when the indomitable genius and religiousfaith of Christopher Columbus had just opened a new path to inquiringminds and daring spirits, the Basques, the Bretons, and the Normans wereamongst the first to follow the road he had marked out; their light barksand their intrepid navigators were soon known among the fisheries ofNewfoundland and the Canadian coast. As early as 1506 a chart of the St. Lawrence was drawn by John-Denis, who came from Honfleur in Normandy. Before long the fishers began to approach the coasts, attracted by thefur-trade; they entered into relations with the native tribes, buying, very often for a mere song, the produce of their hunting, and, introducing to them, together with the first fruits of civilization, itscorruptions and its dangers. Before long the savages of America becameacquainted with the fire-water. 

Policy was not slow to second the bold enterprises of the navigators. France was at that time agitated by various earnest and mighty passions;for a moment the Reformation, personified by the austere virtues andgrand spirit of Coligny, had seemed to dispute the empire of the Catholicchurch. The forecasts of the admiral became more and more sombre everyday; he weighed the power and hatred of the Guises as well as of theirpartisans; in his anxiety for his countrymen and his religion hedetermined to secure for the persecuted Protestants a refuge, perhaps ahome, in the new world, after that defeat of which he already saw aglimmer. 

A first expedition had failed, after an attempt on the coasts of Brazil;in 1562, a new flotilla set out from Havre, commanded by John Ribaut ofDieppe. A landing was effected in a beautiful country, sparkling withflowers and verdure; the century-old trees, the vast forests, the unknownbirds, the game, which appeared at the entrance of the glades and stoodstill fearlessly at the unwonted apparition of man--this spectacle, familiar and at the same time new, presented by nature at thecommencement of May, caused great joy and profound gratitude amongst theFrench, who had come so far, through so many perils, to the borders ofFlorida; they knelt down piously to thank God; the savages, flockingtogether upon the shore, regarded them with astonishment mingled withrespect. Ribaut and his companions took possession of the country in thename of France, and immediately began to construct a fort, which theycalled Fort Charles, in honor of the young king, Charles IX. Detachmentsscoured the country, and carried to a distance the name of France: duringthree years, through a course of continual suffering and intestine strifemore dangerous than the hardships of nature and the ambushes of savages, the French maintained themselves in their new settlement, enlarged fromtime to time by new emigrants. Unhappily they had frequently beenrecruited from amongst men of no character, importing the contagion oftheir vices into the little colony which Coligny had intended to foundthe Reformed church in the new world. In 1565 a Spanish expeditionlanded in Florida. Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who commanded it, hadreceived from King Philip II. The title of _adelantado_ (governor) ofFlorida; he had pledged himself, in return, to conquer for Spain thisterritory impudently filched from the jurisdiction which His CatholicMajesty claimed over the whole of America. The struggle lasted but a fewdays, in spite of the despair and courage of the French colonists; agreat number were massacred, others crowded on to the little vesselsstill at their disposal, and carried to France the news of the disaster. Menendez took possession of the ruined forts, of the scarcely clearedfields strewn with the corpses of the unhappy colonists. "Are youCatholics or Lutherans?" he demanded of his prisoners, bound two and twobefore him. "We all belong to the Reformed faith, " replied John Ribaut;and he intoned in a loud voice a psalm: "Dust we are, and to dust weshall return; twenty years more or less upon this earth are of smallaccount;" and, turning towards the _adelantado, _ "Do thy will, " he said. All were put to death, "as I judged expedient for the service of God andof your Majesty, " wrote the Spanish commander to Philip II. , " and Iconsider it a great piece of luck that this John Ribaut hath died in thisplace, for the King of France might have done more with him and fivehundred ducats than with another man and five thousand, he having beenthe most able and experienced mariner of the day for knowing thenavigation of the coasts of India and Florida. " Above the heap ofcorpses, before committing them to the flames, Menendez placed thisinscription: "Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics. "

Three years later, on the same spot on which the _adelantado_ had heapedup the victims of his cruelty and his perfidy lay the bodies of theSpanish garrison. A Gascon gentleman, Dominic de Gourgues, had sworn toavenge the wrongs of France; he had sold his patrimony, borrowed money ofhis friends, and, trusting to his long experience in navigation, put tosea with three small vessels equipped at his expense. The Spaniards wereliving unsuspectingly, as the French colonists had lately done; they hadfounded their principal settlement at some distance from the firstlanding-place, and had named it St. Augustine. De Gourgues attackedunexpectedly the little fort of San-Mateo; a detachment surrounded in thewoods the Spaniards who had sought refuge there; all were killed ortaken; they were hanged on the same trees which had but lately served forthe execution of the French. "This I do not as to Spaniards, but as totraitors, thieves, and murderers, " was the inscription placed by DeGourgues above their heads. When he again put to sea, there remained notone stone upon another of the fort of San-Mateo. France was avenged. "All that we have done was done for the service of the king and for thehonor of the country, " exclaimed the bold Gascon as he re-boarded hisship. Florida, nevertheless, remained in the hands of Spain; the Frenchadventurers went carrying elsewhither their ardent hopes and theirindomitable courage. 

For a long while expeditious and attempts at French colonization had beendirected towards Canada. James Cartier, in 1535, had taken possession ofits coasts under the name of New France. M. De Roberval had takenthither colonists agricultural and mechanical; but the hard climate, famine, and disease had stifled the little colony in the bud; religiousand political disturbances in the mother-country were absorbing allthoughts; it was only in the reign of Henry IV. , when panting France, distracted by civil discord, began to repose, for the first time sincemore than a century, beneath a government just, able, and firm at thesame time, that zeal for distant enterprises at last attracted to NewFrance its real founder. Samuel de Champlain du Brouage, born in 1567, afaithful soldier of the king's so long as the war lasted, was unable toendure the indolence of peace. After long and perilous voyages, heenlisted in the company which M. De Monts, gentleman of the bed-chamberin ordinary to Henry IV. , had just formed for the trade in furs on thenorthern coast of America; appointed viceroy of Acadia, a new territory, of which the imaginary limits would extend in our times from Philadelphiato beyond Montreal, and furnished with a commercial monopoly, M. De Montsset sail on the 7th of April, 1604, taking with him, Calvinist though hewas, Catholic priests as well as Protestant pastors. "I have seen ourpriest and the minister come to a fight over questions of faith, " writesChamplain in his journal; "I can't say which showed the more courage, orstruck the harder, but I know that the minister sometimes complained toSieur de Monts of having been beaten. " This was the prelude to theconversion of the savages, which was soon to become the sole aim or thepious standard of all the attempts at colonization in New France. 

[Illustration: Champlain----190]

M. De Monts and his comrades had been for many years struggling againstthe natural difficulties of their enterprise, and against the ill-will orindifference which they encountered in the mother-country; religious zealwas reviving in France; the edict of Nantes had put a stop to violentstrife; missionary ardor animated the powerful society of Jesuitsespecially. At their instigation and under their direction a piouswoman, rich and of high rank, the Marchioness of Guercheville, profitedby the distress amongst the first founders of the French colony; shepurchased their rights, took possession of their territory, and, havinggot the king to cede to her the sovereignty of New France, from the St. Lawrence to Florida, she dedicated all her personal fortune to the holyenterprise of a mission amongst the Indians of America. Beside theadventurers, gentlemen or traders, attracted by the hope of gain or byzeal for discovery, there set out a large number of Jesuits, resolved towin a new empire for Jesus Christ. Champlain accompanied them. Afterlong and painful explorations in the forests and amongst the Indiantribes, after frequent voyages to France on the service of the colony, hebecame at last, in 1606, the first governor of the nascent town ofQuebec. 

Never was colony founded under more pious auspices; for some time pastthe Recollects had been zealously laboring for the conversion ofunbelievers; seconded by the Jesuits, who were before long to remain solemasters of the soil, they found themselves sufficiently powerful toforbid the Protestant sailors certain favorite exercises of theirworship: "At last it was agreed that they should not chant the psalms, "says Champlain, "but that they should assemble to make their prayers. " Ahand more powerful than that of Madame de Guercheville or of the Jesuitswas about to take the direction of the affairs of the colony as well asof France: Cardinal Richelieu had become premier minister. 

The blind gropings and intestine struggles of the rival possessors ofmonopolies were soon succeeded by united action. Richelieu favoredcommerce, and did not disdain to apply thereto the resources of his greatand fertile mind. In 1627 he put himself at the head of a company of ahundred associates, on which the king conferred the possession as well asthe government of New France, together with the commercial monopoly andfreedom from all taxes for fifteen years. The colonists were to beFrench and Catholics; Huguenots were excluded: they alone had till thenmanifested any tendency towards emigration; the attempts at colonizationin America were due to their efforts: less liberal in New France than hehad lately been in Europe, the cardinal thus enlisted in the service ofthe foreigner all the adventurous spirits and the bold explorers amongstthe French Protestants, at the very moment when the English Puritans, driven from their country by the narrow and meddlesome policy of JamesI. , were dropping anchor at the foot of Plymouth Rock. , and werefounding, in the name of religious liberty, a new Protestant England, therival ere long of that New France which was Catholic and absolutist. 

Champlain had died at Quebec on Christmas Day, 1635, after twenty-sevenyears' efforts and sufferings in the service of the nascent colony. Boldand enterprising, endowed with indomitable perseverance and rarepractical faculties, an explorer of distant forests, an intrepidnegotiator with the savage tribes, a wise and patient administrator, indulgent towards all, in spite of his ardent devotion, Samuel deChamplain had presented the rare intermixture of the heroic qualities ofpast times with the zeal for science and the practical talents of modernages; he was replaced in his government by a knight of Malta, M. DeMontmagny. Quebec had a seminary, a hospital, and a convent, before itpossessed a population. 

The foundation of Montreal was still more exclusively religious. Theaccounts of the Jesuits had inflamed pious souls with a noble emulation;a Montreal association was formed, under the direction of M. Olier, founder of St. Sulpice. The first expedition was placed under thecommand of a valiant gentleman, Paul de Maisonneuve, and of a certainMademoiselle Mance, belonging to the middle class of Nogent-le-Roi, whowas not yet a nun, but who was destined to become the foundress of thehospital-sisters of Ville-Marie, the name which the religious zeal of theexplorers intended for the new colony of Montreal. 

It was not without jealousy that the governor of Quebec and the agents ofthe hundred associates looked upon the enterprise of M. De Maisonneuve;an attempt was made to persuade him to remain in the settlement alreadyfounded. "I am not come here to deliberate, but to act, " answered he;"it is my duty, as well as an honor to me, to found a colony at Montreal, and I shall go, though every tree were an Iroquois!"

On the 16th of May, 1642, the new colonists had scarcely disembarked whenthey were mustered around Father Vimont, a Jesuit, clothed in hispontifical vestments. The priest, having first celebrated mass, turnedto those present. "You are only a grain of mustard-seed, " said he, "butyou will grow until your branches cover the whole earth. You are few innumber, but your work is that of God. His eye is upon you, and yourchildren will replenish the earth. " "You say that the enterprise ofMontreal is of a cost more suitable for a king than for a few privatepersons too feeble to sustain it, " wrote the associates of Montreal, in1643, in reply to their adversaries, "and you further allege the perilsof the navigation and the shipwrecks that may ruin it. You have made abetter hit than you supposed in saying that it is a king's work, for theKing of kings has a hand in it, He whom the winds and the sea obey. We, therefore, do not fear shipwrecks; He will not cause them save when it isgood for us, and when it is for His glory, which is our only aim. Ifthe, finger of God be not in the affair of Montreal, if it be a humaninvention, do not trouble yourselves about it; it will never endure; but, if God have willed it, who are you, that you should gainsay Him?"

The affair of Montreal stood, like that of Quebec; New France wasfounded, in spite of the sufferings of the early colonists, thanks totheir courage, their fervent enthusiasm, and the support afforded them bythe religious zeal of their friends in Europe. The Jesuit missionariesevery day extended their explorations, sharing with M. De La Salle theglory of the great discoveries of the West. Champlain had before thisdreamed of and sought for a passage across the continent, leading to theSouthern seas and permitting of commerce with India and Japan. La Salle, in his intrepid expeditions, discovered Ohio and Illinois, navigated thegreat lakes, crossed the Mississippi, which the Jesuits had been thefirst to reach, and pushed on as far as Texas. Constructing forts in themidst of the savage districts, taking possession of Louisiana in the nameof King Louis XIV. , abandoned by the majority of his comrades and losingthe most faithful of them by death, attacked by savages, betrayed by hisown men, thwarted in his projects by his enemies and his rivals, thisindefatigable explorer fell at last beneath the blows of a few mutineers, in 1687, just as he was trying to get back to New France; he left thefield open after him to the innumerable travellers of every nation andevery language who were one day to leave their mark on those measurelesstracts. Everywhere, in the western regions of the American continent, the footsteps of the French, either travellers or missionaries, precededthe boldest adventurers. It is the glory and the misfortune of France toalways lead the van in the march of civilization, without having the witto profit by the discoveries and the sagacious boldness of her children. On the unknown roads which she has opened to the human mind and to humanenterprise she has often left the fruits to be gathered by nations lessinventive and less able than she, but more persevering and less perturbedby a confusion of desires and an incessant renewal of hopes. 

The treaty of Utrecht had taken out of French hands the gates of Canada, Acadia, and Newfoundland. It was now in the neighborhood of New Francethat the power of England was rising, growing rapidly through thedevelopment of her colonies, usurping little by little the empire of theseas. Canada was prospering, however; during the long wars which thecondition of Europe had kept up in America, the Canadians had suppliedthe king's armies with their best soldiers. Returning to their homes, and resuming without an effort the peaceful habits which characterizedthem, they skilfully cultivated their fields, and saw their populationincreasing naturally, without any help from the mother-country. Thegovernors had succeeded in adroitly counterbalancing the influence of theEnglish over the Indian tribes. The Iroquois, but lately implacable foesof France, had accepted a position of neutrality. Agriculturaldevelopment secured to the country comparative prosperity, but money wasscarce, the instinct of the population was not in the direction ofcommerce; it was everywhere shackled by monopolies. The English wererich, free, and bold; for them the transmission and the exchange ofcommodities were easy. The commercial rivalry which set in between thetwo nations was fatal to the French; when the hour of the final strugglecame, the Canadians, though brave, resolute, passionately attached toFrance, and ready for any sacrifice, were few in number compared withtheir enemies. Scattered over a vast territory, they possessed but poorpecuniary resources, and could expect from the mother country onlyirregular assistance, subject to variations of gov ernment and fortune aswell as to the chances of maritime warfare and engagements at sea, alwaysperilous for the French ships, which were inferior in build and innumber, whatever might be the courage and skill of their commanders. The capture of Louisbourg and of the Island of Cape Breton by the Englishcolonists, in 1745, profoundly disquieted the Canadians. They pressedthe government to make an attempt upon Acadia. "The population hasremained French, " they said; "we are ready to fight for our relatives andfriends who have passed under the yoke of the foreigner. " The ministrysent the Duke of Anville with a considerable fleet; storms and diseasedestroyed vessels and crews before it had been possible to attack. Afresh squadron, commanded by the Marquis of La Jonquiere, encountered theEnglish off Cape Finisterre in Spain. Admiral Anson had seventeen ships, M. De La Jonquiere had but six; he, however, fought desperately. "Inever saw anybody behave better than the French commander, " wrote thecaptain of the English ship Windsor; "and, to tell the truth, all theofficers of that nation showed great courage; not one of them struckuntil it was absolutely impossible to manoeuvre. " The remnants of theFrench navy, neglected as it had been through the unreflecting economy ofCardinal Fleury, were almost completely destroyed, and England reckonedmore than two hundred and fifty ships of war. Neither the successes inthe Low Countries and in Germany nor the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle put aserious end to the maritime war; England used her strength to despoil theFrench forever of the colonies which she envied them. The frontiers ofCanada and Acadia had not been clearly defined by the treaties of peace. Distrust and disquiet reigned amongst the French colonists; the ardor ofconquest fired the English, who had for a long while coveted the valleyof the Ohio and its fertile territories. The covert hostility whichoften betrayed itself by acts of aggression was destined ere long to leadto open war. An important emigration began amongst the Acadians; theyhad hitherto claimed the title of neutrals, in spite of the annexation oftheir territory by England, in order to escape the test oath and toremain faithful to the Catholic faith; the priests and the French agentsurged them to do more; more than three thousand Acadians left theirfields and their cottages to settle on the French coasts, along the Bayof Fundy. Every effort of the French governors who succeeded one anotheronly too rapidly in Canada was directed towards maintaining the naturalor factitious barriers between the two territories. The savages, excitedand flattered by both sides, loudly proclaimed their independence andtheir primitive rights over the country which the Europeans weredisputing between themselves. "We have not ceded our lands to anybody, "they said; "and we have no mind to obey any king. " "Do you know what isthe difference between the King of France and the Englishman?" theIroquois was asked by Marquis Duquesne, the then governor of Canada. "Go and look at the forts which the king had set up, and you will seethat the land beneath his walls is still a hunting-ground, he havingchosen the spots frequented by you simply to serve your need. TheEnglishman, on the other hand, is no sooner in possession of land thanthe game is forced to quit, the woods are felled, the soil is uncovered, and you can scarcely find the wherewithal to shelter yourselves atnight. "

The governor of Canada was not mistaken. Where France established meremilitary posts, and as it were landmarks of her political dominion, theEnglish colonists, cultivators and traders, brought with them practicalcivilization, the natural and powerful enemy of savage life. Already warwas in preparation without regard to the claims of these humble allies, who were destined ere long to die out before might and the presence of asuperior race. The French commander in the valley of the Ohio, M. DeContrecoeur, was occupied with preparations for defence, when he learnedthat a considerable body of English troops were marching against himunder the orders of Colonel Washington. He immediately despatched M. DeJumonville with thirty men to summon the English to retire and toevacuate French territory. At break of day on the 18th of May, 1754, Washington's men surprised Jumonville's little encampment. The attackwas unexpected; it is not known whether the French envoy had time toconvey the summons with which he had been charged; he was killed, together with nine men of his troops. The irritation caused by thisevent precipitated the commencement of hostilities. A corps ofCanadians, re-enforced by a few savages, marched at once againstWashington; he was intrenched in the plain; he had to be attacked withartillery. The future hero of American independence was obliged tocapitulate; the English retired with such precipitation that theyabandoned even their flag. 

Negotiations were still going on between London and Versailles, andmeanwhile the governors of the English colonies had met together to forma sort of confederation against French power in the new world. They wereraising militia everywhere. On the 20th of January, 1755, GeneralBraddock with a corps of regulars landed at Williamsburg, in Virginia. Two months later, or not until the end of April, in fact, Admiral Duboisde la Motte quitted Brest with re-enforcements and munitions of war forCanada. After him and almost in his wake went Admiral Boscawen fromPlymouth, on the 27th of April, seeking to encounter him at sea. "Mostcertainly the English will not commence hostilities, " said the Englishcabinet to calm the anxieties of France. 

It was only off Newfoundland that Admiral Boscawen's squadron encounteredsome French vessels detached from the fleet in consequence of the badweather. "Captain Hocquart, who commanded the _Alcide, _" says theaccount of M. De Choiseul, "finding himself within hail of the_Dunkerque, _ had this question put in English: 'Are we at peace or war?'The English captain appearing not to understand, the question wasrepeated in French. 'Peace! peace!' shouted the English. Almost at thesame moment the _Dunkerque_ poured in a broadside, riddling the _Alcide_with balls. " The two French ships were taken; and a few days afterwards, three hundred merchant vessels, peaceably pursuing their course, wereseized by the English navy. The loss was immense, as well as thedisgrace. France at last decided upon declaring war, which had alreadybeen commenced in fact for more than two years. 

It was regretfully, and as if compelled by a remnant of national honor, that Louis XV. Had just adopted the resolution of defending his colonies;he had, and the nation had as well, the feeling that the French werehopelessly weak at sea. "What use to us will be hosts of troops andplenty of money, " wrote the advocate Barbier, "if we have only to fightthe English at sea? They will take all our ships one after another, theywill seize all our settlements in America, and will get all the trade. We must hope for some division amongst the English nation itself, for theking personally does not desire war. "

The English nation was not divided. The ministers and the Parliament, aswell as the American colonies, were for war. "There is no hope of reposefor our thirteen colonies, as long as the French are masters of Canada, "said Benjamin Franklin, on his arrival in London in 1754. He was alreadylaboring, without knowing it, at that great work of American independencewhich was to be his glory and that of his generation; the common effortsand the common interest of the thirteen American colonies in the waragainst France were the first step towards that great coalition whichfounded the United States of America. 

The union with the mother-country was as yet close and potent: at theinstigation of Mr. Fox, soon afterwards Lord Holland, and at the timePrime Minister of England, Parliament voted twenty-five millions for theAmerican war. The bounty given to the soldiers and marines who enlistedwas doubled by private subscription; fifteen thousand men were thusraised to invade the French colonies. 

Canada and Louisiana together did not number eighty thousand inhabitants, whilst the population of the English colonies already amounted to twelvehundred thousand souls; to the twenty-eight hundred regular troops sentfrom France, the Canadian militia added about four thousand men, lessexperienced but quite as determined as the most intrepid veterans of thecampaigns in Europe. During more than twenty years the courage anddevotion of the Canadians never faltered for a single day. 

Then began an unequal, but an obstinate struggle, of which the issue, easy to foresee, never cowed or appeased the actors in it. The abletactics of M. De Vaudreuil, governor of the colony, had forced theEnglish to scatter their forces and their attacks over an immenseterritory, far away from the most important settlements; the forts whichthey besieged were scarcely defended. "A large enclosure, with apalisade round it, in which there were but one officer and nineteensoldiers, " wrote the Marquis of Montcalm at a later period, "could not beconsidered as a fort adapted to sustain a siege. " In the first campaign, the settlements formed by the Acadian emigrants on the borders of the Bayof Fundy were completely destroyed: the French garrisons were obliged toevacuate their positions. 

This withdrawal left Acadia, or neutral land, at the mercy of theAnglo-Americans. Before Longfellow had immortalized, in the poem ofEvangeline, the peaceful habits and the misfortunes of the Acadians, Raynal had already pleaded their cause before history. "A simple and akindly people, " he said, "who had no liking for blood, agriculture wastheir occupation. 

They had been settled in the low grounds, forcing back, by dint of dikes, the sea and rivers wherewith those plains were covered. The drainedmarshes produced wheat, rye, oats, barley, and maize. Immense prairieswere alive with numerous flocks; as many as sixty thousand horned cattlewere counted there. The habitations, nearly all built of wood, were verycommodious, and furnished with the neatness sometimes found amongst ourEuropean farmers in the easiest circumstances. Their manners wereextremely simple; the little differences which might from time to timearise between the colonists were always amicably settled by the elders. It was a band of brothers, all equally ready to give or receive thatwhich they considered common to all men. "

War and its horrors broke in upon this peaceful idyl. 

The Acadians had constantly refused to take the oath to England; theywere declared guilty of having violated neutrality. For the most partthe accusation was unjust; but all were involved in the samecondemnation. 

On the 5th of September, 1755, four hundred and eighteen heads offamilies were summoned to meet in the church of Grand Pre. The sameorder had been given throughout all the towns of Acadia. The anxiousfarmers had all obeyed. Colonel Winslow, commanding the Massachusettsmilitia, repaired thither with great array. "It is a painful duty whichbrings me here, " he said. "I have orders to inform you that your lands, your houses, and your crops are confiscated to the profit of the crown;you can carry off your money and your linen on your deportation from theprovince. " The order was accompanied by no explanation; nor did it admitof any. All the heads of families were at once surrounded by thesoldiers. By tens, and under safe escort, they were permitted to visitonce more the fields which they had cultivated, the houses in which theyhad seen their children grow up. On the 10th they embarked, passing, ontheir way to the ships, between two rows of women and children in tears. The young people had shown a disposition to resist, demanding leave todepart with their families: the soldiers crossed their bayonets. Thevessels set sail for the English colonies, dispersing over the coast thepoor creatures they had torn away from all that was theirs. Manyperished of want while seeking from town to town their families, removedafter them from Acadia; the charity of the American colonists relievedtheir first wants. Some French Protestants, who had settled inPhiladelphia after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, welcomed themas brothers, notwithstanding the difference of their creed; for they knewall the heart-rending evils of exile. 

Much emotion was excited in France by the woes of the Acadians. In spiteof the declaration of war, Louis XV. Made a request to the Englishcabinet for permission to send vessels along the coasts of America, topick up those unfortunates. "Our navigation act is against it, " repliedMr. Grenville; "France cannot send ships amongst our colonies. " A fewAcadians, nevertheless, reached France; they settled in the outskirts ofBordeaux, where their descendants still form the population of twoprosperous communes. Others founded in Louisiana settlements which borethe name of Acadia. The crime was consummated: the religious, pacific, inoffensive population, which but lately occupied the neutral land, hadcompletely disappeared. The greedy colonists, who envied them theirfarms and pasturage, had taken possession of the spoil; Acadia wasforever in the power of the Anglo-Saxon race, which was at the samemoment invading the valley of the Ohio. 

General Braddock had mustered his troops at Wills Creek, in theneighborhood of the Alleghany Mountains. He meditated surprising FortDuquesne, erected but a short time previously by the French on the banksof the Ohio. The little army was advancing slowly across the mountainsand the forests; Braddock divided it into two corps, and placing himselfwith Colonel Washington, who was at that time serving on his staff at thehead of twelve hundred men, he pushed forward rapidly. "Never, " saidWashington afterwards, "did I see a finer sight than the departure of theEnglish troops on the 9th of July, 1755; all the men were in fulluniform, marching in slow time and in perfect order; the sun wasreflected from their glittering arms; the river rolled its waves along ontheir right, and on their left the vast forest threw over them its mightyshadows. Officers and soldiers were equally joyous and confident ofsuccess. "

Twice the attacking column had crossed the Monongahela by fording; it wasleaving the plain which extended to some distance from Fort Duquesne, toenter the wood-path, when the advance-guard was all at once brought up bya tremendous discharge of artillery; a second discharge came almostimmediately from the right. The English could not see their enemy; theywere confused, and fell back upon General Braddock and the main body ofthe detachment who were coming up to their aid. The disorder soon becameextreme. The regular troops, unaccustomed to this kind of warfare, refused to rally, in spite of the efforts of their general, who wouldhave had them manoeuvre as in the plains of Flanders; the Virginiamilitia alone, recurring to habits of forest warfare, had dispersed, butwithout flying, hiding themselves behind the trees, and replying to theFrench or Indian sharpshooters. 

[Illustration: Death of General Braddock----203]

Before long General Braddock received a mortal wound; his staff hadfallen almost to a man; Colonel Washington alone, reserved by God foranother destiny, still sought to rally his men. "I have been protectedby the almighty intervention of Providence beyond every humanprobability, " he wrote to his brother after the action. "I received fourballs in my clothes, and I had two horses killed under me; nevertheless Icame out of it safe and sound, whilst death was sweeping down my comradesaround me. " The small English corps was destroyed; the fugitivescommunicated their terror to the detachment of Colonel Dunbar, who wascoming to join them. All the troops disbanded, spiking the guns andburning the munitions and baggage; in their panic the soldiers asked noquestion save whether the enemy were pursuing them. "We have beenbeaten, shamefully beaten, " wrote Washington, "by a handful of Frenchwhose only idea was to hamper our march. A few moments before the actionwe thought our forces almost a match for all those of Canada; and yet, against every probability, we have been completely defeated and have losteverything. " The small French corps, which sallied from Fort Duquesneunder the orders of M. De Beaujeu, numbered only two hundred Canadiansand six hundred Indians. It was not until three years later, in 1758, that Fort Duquesne, laid in ruins by the defenders themselves, at lastfell into the hands of the English, who gave to it, in honor of the greatEnglish minister, the name of Pittsburg, which is borne to this day by aflourishing town. 

The courage of the Canadians and the able use they had the wits to makeof their savage allies still balanced the fortunes of the war; but thecontinuance of hostilities betrayed more and more every day theinferiority of the forces and the insufficiency of the resources of thecolony. "The colonists employed in the army, of which they form thegreater part, no longer till the lands they had formerly cleared, farfrom clearing new ones, " wrote the superintendent of Canada; "the leviesabout to be made will still further dispeople the country. What willbecome of the colony? There will be a deficiency of everything, especially of corn; up to the present the intention had been not to raisethe levies until the work of spring was over. That indulgence can nolonger be accorded, since the war will go on during the winter, and thearmies must be mustered as early as the month of April. Besides, theCanadians are decreasing fast; a great number have died of fatigue anddisease. There is no, relying, " added the superintendent, "on thesavages save so long as we have the superiority, and so long as all theirwants are supplied. " The government determined to send re-enforcementsto Canada under the orders of the Marquis of Montcalm. 

The new general had had thirty-five years' service, though he was not yetfifty; he had distinguished himself in Germany and in Italy. He wasbrave, amiable, clever; by turns indolent and bold; skilful in dealingwith the Indians, whom he inspired with feelings of great admiration;jealous of the Canadians, their officers and their governor, M. DeVaudreuil; convinced beforehand of the uselessness of all efforts and ofthe inevitable result of the struggle he maintained with indomitablecourage. More intelligent than his predecessor, General Dieskau, who, like Braddock, had fallen through the error of conducting the war in theEuropean fashion, he, nevertheless, had great difficulty in wrenchinghimself from the military traditions of his whole life. An expedition, in 1756, against Fort Oswego, on the right bank of Lake Ontario, wascompletely successful; General Webb had no time to relieve the garrison, which capitulated. Bands of Canadians and Indians laid wastePennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Montcalm wrote to the minister ofwar, Rouille, "It is the first time that, with three thousand men andless artillery, a siege has been maintained against eighteen hundred, whocould be readily relieved by two thousand, and who could oppose ourlanding, having the naval superiority on Lake Ontario. The success hasbeen beyond all expectation. The conduct I adopted on this occasion andthe arrangements I ordered are so contrary to the regular rules, that theboldness displayed in this enterprise must look like rashness in Europe. Therefore, I do beseech you, monseigneur, as the only favor I ask, toassure his Majesty that, if ever he should be pleased, as I hope, toemploy me in his own armies, I will behave differently. "

The same success everywhere attended the arms of the Marquis of Montcalm. In 1757 he made himself master of Fort William Henry, which commanded thelake of Saint-Sacrement; in 1758 he repulsed with less than four thousandmen the attack of General Abercrombie, at the head of sixteen thousandmen, on Carillon, and forced the latter to relinquish the shores of LakeChamplain. This was cutting the enemy off once more from the road toMontreal; but Louisbourg, protected in 1757 by the fleet of AdmiralDubois de la Motte, and now abandoned to its own resources, in vainsupported an unequal siege; the fortifications were in ruins, thegarrison was insufficient notwithstanding its courage and the heroism ofthe governor, M. De Drucourt. Seconded by his wife, who flitted aboutthe ramparts, cheering and tending the wounded, he energetically opposedthe landing of the English, and maintained himself for two months in analmost open place. When he was at last obliged to surrender, on the 26thof July, Louisbourg was nothing but a heap of ruins; all the inhabitantsof the islands of St. John and Cape Breton were transported by thevictors to France. 

Canada had by this time cost France dear; and she silently left it to itsmiserable fate. In vain did the governor, the general, the commissariatdemand incessantly re-enforcements, money, provisions; no help came fromFrance. "We keep on fighting, nevertheless, " wrote Montcalm to theminister of war, "and we will bury ourselves, if necessary, under theruins of the colony. " Famine, the natural result of neglecting the land, went on increasing: the Canadians, hunters and soldiers as they were, hadonly cleared and cultivated their fields in the strict ratio of theirdaily wants; there was a lack of hands; every man was under arms;destitution prevailed everywhere; the inhabitants of Quebec were reducedto siege-rations; the troops complained and threatened to mutiny; theenemy had renewed their efforts: in the campaign of 1758, the journals ofthe Anglo-American colonies put their land forces at sixty thousand men. "England has at the present moment more troops in motion on thiscontinent than Canada contains inhabitants, including old men, women, and children, " said a letter to Paris from M. Doreil, war commissioner. Mr. Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, who had lately, come to the head ofthe English government, resolved to strike the last blow at the Frenchpower in America. Three armies simultaneously invaded Canada; on the25th of June, 1759, a considerable fleet brought under the walls ofQuebec General Wolfe, a young and hopeful officer who had attractednotice at the siege of Louisbourg. "If General Montcalm succeeds againthis year in frustrating our hopes, " said Wolfe, "he may be considered anable man; either the colony has resources that nobody knows of, or ourgenerals are worse than usual. "

Quebec was not fortified; the loss of it involved that of all Canada; itwas determined to protect the place by an outlying camp; appeal was madeto the Indian tribes, lately zealous in the service of France, but nowdetached from it by ill fortune and diminution of the advantages offeredthem, and already for the most part won over by the English. TheCanadian colonists, exhausted by war and famine, rose in mass to defendtheir capital. The different encampments which surrounded Quebeccontained about thirteen thousand soldiers. "So strong a force had notbeen reckoned upon, " says an eye-witness, "because nobody had expected tohave so large a number of Canadians; but there prevailed so muchemulation among this people that there were seen coming into the camp oldmen of eighty and children of from twelve to thirteen, who would not hearof profiting by the exemption accorded to their age. " The poorcultivators, turned soldiers, brought to the camp their slenderresources; the enemy was already devastating the surrounding country. "It will take them half a century to repair the damage, " wrote anAmerican officer in his journal of the expedition on the St. Lawrence. The bombardment of Quebec was commencing at the same moment. 

For more than a month the town had stood the enemy's fire; all thebuildings were reduced to ruins, and the French had not yet budged fromtheir camp of Ange-Gardien. On the 31st of July, General Wolfe, withthree thousand men, came and attacked them in front by the RiverSt. Lawrence, and in flank by the River Montmorency. He was repulsed bythe firm bravery of the Canadians, whose French impetuosity seemed tohave become modified by contact with the rough climates of the north. Immovable in their trenches, they waited until the enemy was withinrange; and, when at length they fired, the skill of the practised huntersmade fearful havoc in the English ranks. Everywhere repulsed, GeneralWolfe in despair was obliged to retreat. He all but died of vexation, overwhelmed with the weight of his responsibility. "I have only a choiceof difficulties left, " he wrote to the English cabinet. Aid andencouragement did not fail him. 

The forts of Carillon on Lake Champlain and of Niagara on Lake Ontariowere both in the hands of the English. A portion of the Canadians hadleft the camp to try and gather in the meagre crops which had beencultivated by the women and children. In the night between the 12th and13th of September, General Wolfe made a sudden dash upon the banks of theSt. Lawrence; he landed at the creek of Foulon. The officers had repliedin French to the _Qui vive_ ( Who goes there?) of the sentinels, who hadsupposed that what they saw passing was a long-expected convoy ofprovisions; at daybreak the English army was ranged in order of battle onthe Plains of Abraham; by evening, the French were routed, the Marquis ofMontcalm was dying, and Quebec was lost. 

General Wolfe had not been granted time to enjoy his victory. Mortallywounded in a bayonet charge which he himself headed, he had been carriedto the rear. The surgeons who attended to him kept watching the battlefrom a distance. "They fly, " exclaimed one of them. "Who?" askedthe general, raising himself painfully. "The French!" was the answer. "Then I am content to die. " he murmured, and expired. 

[Illustration: Death of Wolfe----209]

Montcalm had fought like a soldier in spite of his wounds; when he fellhe still gave orders about the measures to be taken and the attempts tobe made. "All is not lost, " he kept repeating. He was buried in a holepierced by a cannonball in the middle of the church of the Ursulines; andthere he still rests. In 1827, when all bad feeling had subsided, LordDalhousie, the then English governor of Canada, ordered the erection atQuebec of an obelisk in marble bearing the names and busts of Wolfe andMontcalm, with this inscription: _Mortem virtus communem, famam historia, monumentum posteritas dedit_ [Valor, history, and posterity assignedfellowship in death, fame, and memorial]. 

In 1759, the news of the death of the two generals was accepted as a signof the coming of the end. Quebec capitulated on the 18th of September, notwithstanding the protests of the population. The government of Canadaremoved to Montreal. 

The joy in England was great, as was the consternation in France. Thegovernment had for a long while been aware of the state to which the armyand the brave Canadian people had been reduced, the nation knew nothingabout it; the repeated victories of the Marquis of Montcalm had causedillusion as to the gradual decay of resources. The English Parliamentresolved to send three armies to America, and the remains of GeneralWolfe were interred at Westminster with great ceremony. King Louis XV. And his ministers sent to Canada a handful of men and a vessel whichsuffered capture from the English; the governor's drafts were not paid atParis. The financial condition of France did not permit her to anylonger sustain the heroic devotion of her children. 

M. De Lally-Tollendal was still struggling single-handed in India, exposed to the hatred and the plots of his fellow-countrymen as well asof the Hindoos, at the very moment when the Canadians, united in the sameideas of effort and sacrifice, were trying their last chance in theservice of the distant mother-country, which was deserting them. Thecommand had passed from the hands of Montcalm into those of the generalwho was afterwards a marshal and Duke of Levis. He resolved, in thespring of 1760, to make an attempt to recover Quebec. 

"All Europe, " says Raynal, "supposed that the capture of the capital wasan end to the great quarrel in North America. Nobody supposed that ahandful of French who lacked everything, who seemed forbidden by fortuneitself to harbor any hope, would dare to dream of retarding inevitablefate. " On the 28th of April, the army of General de Levis, with greatdifficulty maintained during the winter, debouched before Quebec on thosePlains of Abraham but lately so fatal to Montcalm. 

General Murray at once sallied from the place in order to engage beforethe French should have had time to pull themselves together. It was along and obstinate struggle; the men fought hand to hand, withimpassioned ardor, without the cavalry or the savages taking any part inthe action; at nightfall General Murray had been obliged to re-enter thetown and close the gates. The French, exhausted but triumphant, returnedslowly from the pursuit; the unhappy fugitives fell into the hands of theIndians; General de Levis had great difficulty in putting a stop to thecarnage. In his turn he besieged Quebec. 

One single idea possessed the minds of both armies; what flag would becarried by the vessels which were expected every day in the St. Lawrence? "The circumstances were such on our side, " says the Englishwriter Knox, "that if the French fleet had been the first to enter theriver, the place would have fallen again into the hands of its formermasters. "

On the 9th of May, an English frigate entered the harbor. A weekafterwards, it was followed by two other vessels. The English raisedshouts of joy upon the ramparts, the cannon of the place saluted thearrivals. During the night between the 16th and 17th of May, the littleFrench army raised the siege of Quebec. On the 6th of September, theunited forces of Generals Murray, Amherst, and Haviland investedMontreal. 

A little wall and a ditch, intended to resist the attacks of Indians, afew pieces of cannon eaten up with rust, and three thousand five hundredtroops--such were the means of defending Montreal. The rural populationyielded at last to the good fortune of the English, who burned on theirmarsh the recalcitrant villages. Despair was in every heart; M. DeVaudreuil assembled during the night a council of war. It was determinedto capitulate in the name of the whole colony. The English generalsgranted all that was asked by the Canadian population; to its defendersthey refused the honors of war. M. De Levis retired to the Island ofSainte-Helene, resolved to hold out to the last extremity; it was only atthe governor's express command that he laid down arms. No more thanthree thousand soldiers returned to France. 

The capitulation of Montreal was signed on the 8th of September, 1760;on the 10th of February, 1763, the peace concluded between France, Spain, and England completed without hope of recovery the loss of all the Frenchpossessions in America; Louisiana had taken no part in the war; it wasnot conquered; France ceded it to Spain in exchange for Florida, whichwas abandoned to the English. Canada and all the islands of the St. Lawrence shared the same fate. Only the little islands of St. Pierre andMiquelon were preserved for the French fisheries. One single stipulationguaranteed to the Canadians the free exercise of the Catholic religion. The principal inhabitants of the colony went into exile on purpose toremain French. The weak hands of King Louis XV. And of his governmenthad let slip the fairest colonies of France, Canada and Louisiana had ceased to belong to her; yet attachment toFrance subsisted there a long while, and her influence left numeroustraces there. It is an honor and a source of strength to France that sheacts powerfully on men through the charm and suavity of her intercourse;they who have belonged to France can never forget her. 

The struggle was over. King Louis XV. Had lost his American colonies, the nascent empire of India, and the settlements of Senegal. Herecovered Guadaloupe and Martinique, but lately conquered by the English, Chandernuggur and the ruins of Pondicherry. The humiliation was deep andthe losses were irreparable. All the fruits of the courage, of theability, and of the passionate devotion of the French in India and inAmerica were falling into the hands of England. Her government hadcommitted many faults; but the strong action of a free people had alwaysmanaged to repair them. The day was coming when the haughty passions ofthe mother-country and the proud independence of her colonies wouldengage in that supreme struggle which has given to the world the UnitedStates of America. 

CHAPTER LIV. ----LOUIS XV. --THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR. --MINISTRY OF THE DUKE OFCHOISEUL. 1748-1774. 

It was not only in the colonies and on the seas that the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had seemed merely a truce destined to be soon broken;hostilities had never ceased in India or Canada; English vessels scouredthe world, capturing, in spite of treaties, French merchant-ships; inEurope and on the continent, all the sovereigns were silently preparingfor new efforts; only the government of King Louis XV. , intrenched behindits disinterestedness in the negotiations, and ignoring the fatalinfluences of weakness and vanity, believed itself henceforth beyond thereach of a fresh war. The nation, as oblivious as the government, butless careless than it, because they had borne the burden of the faultcommitted, were applying for the purpose of their material recovery thatpower of revival which, through a course of so many errors and reverses, has always saved France; in spite of the disorder in the finances and thecrushing weight of the imposts, she was working and growing rich;intellectual development was following the rise in material resources;the court was corrupt and inert, like the king, but a new life, dangerously free and bold, was beginning to course through men's mindsthe wise, reforming instincts, the grave reflections of the dyingMontesquieu no longer sufficed for them; Voltaire, who had but latelybeen still moderate and almost respectful, was about to commence with hisfriends of the _L'Encyclopedie_ that campaign against the Christian faithwhich was to pave the way for the materialism of our own days. "Neverwas Europe more happy than during the years which rolled by between 1750and 1758, " he has said in his _Tableau du Siecle de Louis XV. _ The evil, however, was hatching beneath the embers, and the last supports of theold French society were cracking up noiselessly. The Parliaments wereabout to disappear, the Catholic church was becoming separated more andmore widely every day from the people of whom it claimed to be the soleinstructress and directress. The natural heads of the nation, thepriests and the great lords, thought no longer and lived no longer as it. The public voice was raised simultaneously against the authority orinsensate prodigality of Madame de Pompadour, and against the refusal, ordered by the Archbishop of Paris, of the sacraments. "The public, thepublic!" wrote M. D'Argenson; "its animosity, its encouragements, itspasquinades, its insolence--that is what I fear above everything. " Thestate of the royal treasury and the measures to which recourse was had toenable the state to make both ends meet, aggravated the dissension anddisseminated discontent amongst all classes of society. Comptrollers-general came one after another, all armed with new expedients; MM. DeMachault, Moreau de Sechelles, de Moras, excited, successively, the wrathand the hatred of the people crushed by imposts in peace as well as war;the clergy refused to pay the twentieth, still claiming their right ofgiving only a free gift; the states-districts, Languedoc and Brittany atthe head, resisted, in the name of their ancient privileges, thecollection of taxes to which they had not consented; riots went onmultiplying; they even extended to Paris, where the government wasaccused of kidnapping children for transportation to the colonies. Thepeople rose, several police-agents were massacred; the king avoidedpassing through the capital on his way from Versailles to the camp atCompiegne; the path he took in the Bois de Boulogne received the name ofRevolt Road. "I have seen in my days, " says D'Argenson, "a decrease inthe respect and love of the people for the kingship. "

Decadence went on swiftly, and no wonder. At forty years of age LouisXV. , finding every pleasure pall, indifferent to or forgetful of businessfrom indolence and disgust, bored by everything and on every occasion, had come to depend solely on those who could still manage to amuse him. 

[Illustration: Madame de Pompadour----215]

Madame de Pompadour had accepted this ungrateful and sometimes shamefultask. Born in the ranks of the middle class, married young to a richfinancier, M. Lenormant d'Etioles, Mdlle. Poisson, created Marchionessof Pompadour, was careful to mix up more serious matters with the royalpleasures. The precarious lot of a favorite was not sufficient for herambition. Pretty, clever, ingenious in devising for the king newamusements and objects of interest, she played comedy before him in hersmall apartments and travelled with him from castle to castle; she thusobtained from his easy prodigality enormous sums to build pleasaunceswhich she amused herself by embellishing; Bellevue, Babiole, themarchioness' house at Paris, cost millions out of the exhausted treasury. Madame de Pompadour was fond of porcelain; she conceived the idea ofimitating in France the china-work of Saxony, and founded first atVincennes and then at Sevres the manufacture of porcelain, which the kingtook under his protection, requiring the courtiers to purchase theproceeds of it at high prices. Everybody was anxious to please thefavorite; her incessantly renewed caprices contributed to develop certainbranches of the trade in luxuries. The expenses of the royal householdwent on increasing daily; the magnificent prodigalities of King LouisXIV. Were surpassed by the fancies of Madame de Pompadour. Vigilant inattaching the courtiers to herself, she sowed broadcast, all around her, favors, pensions, profitable offices, endowing the gentlemen tofacilitate their marriage, turning a deaf ear to the complaints of thepeople as well as to the protests of the States or Parliaments. Thegreedy and frivolous crowd that thronged at her feet well deserved thesevere judgment pronounced by Montesquieu on courtiers and courts. "Ambition amidst indolence, baseness amidst pride, the desire to growrich without toil, aversion from truth, flattery, treason, perfidy, neglect of all engagements, contempt for the duties of a citizen, fear ofvirtue in the prince, hope in his weaknesses, and more than all that, theridicule constantly thrown upon virtue, form, I trow, the characteristicsof the greatest number of courtiers, distinctive in all places and at alltimes. " The majesty of Louis XIV. And the long lustre of his reign hadbeen potent enough to create illusions as to the dangers and thecorruptions of the court; the remnants of military glory were about tofade out round Louis XV. ; the court still swarmed with brave officers, ready to march to death at the head of the troops; the command of armieshenceforth depended on the favor of Madame the Marchioness of Pompadour. 

The day had come when the fortune of war was about to show itself fatalto France. Marshal Saxe had died at Chambord, still young and worn outby excesses rather than by fatigue; this foreigner, this Huguenot, as hewas called by Louis XV. , had been the last to maintain and continue thegrand tradition of French generals. War, however, was inevitable; fivemonths of public or private negotiation, carried on by the ambassadors orpersonal agents of the king, could not obtain from England any reparationfor her frequent violation of the law of nations; the maritime trade ofFrance was destroyed; the vessels of the royal navy were themselves nolonger safe at sea. On the 21st of December, 1755, the minister offoreign affairs, Rouille, notified to the English cabinet, "that His MostChristian Majesty, before giving way to the effects of his resentment, once more demanded from the King of England satisfaction for all theseizures made by the English navy, as well as restitution of all vessels, whether war-ships or merchant-ships, taken from the French, declaringthat he should regard any refusal that might be made as an authenticdeclaration of war. " England eluded the question of law, but refusedrestitution. On the 23d of January, an embargo was laid on all Englishvessels in French ports, and war was officially proclaimed. It hadexisted in fact for two years past. 

A striking incident signalized the commencement of hostilities. Rather aman of pleasure and a courtier than an able soldier, Marshal Richelieuhad, nevertheless, the good fortune to connect his name with the onlysuccessful event of the Seven Years' War that was destined to remainimpressed upon the mind of posterity. Under his orders, a body of twelvethousand men, on board of a squadron, commanded by M. De laGalissonniere, left Toulon on the 10th of April, 1756, at the moment whenEngland was excited by expectation of a coming descent upon her coasts. On the 17th, the French attacked the Island of Minorca, an importantpoint whence the English threatened Toulon, and commanded the westernbasin of the Mediterranean. Some few days later, the English troops, driven out of Ciudadela and Mahon, had taken refuge in Fort St. Philip, and the French cannon were battering the ramparts of the vast citadel. 

On the 10th of May an English fleet, commanded by Admiral Byng, appearedin the waters of Port Mahon; it at once attacked M. De la Galissonniere. The latter succeeded in preventing the English from approaching land. After an obstinate struggle, Admiral Byng, afraid of losing his fleet, fell back on Gibraltar. The garrison of Fort St. Philip waited in vainfor the return of the squadron; left to its own devices, it neverthelessheld out; the fortifications seemed to be impregnable; the siege-worksproceeded slowly; the soldiers were disgusted, and began to indulge toexcess in the wine of Spain. "No one who gets drunk shall have the honorof mounting the breach, " said Richelieu's general order. Before long heresolved to attempt the assault. 

[Illustration: Attack on Fort St. Philip----218]

Fort St. Philip towered up proudly on an enormous mass of rock; theFrench regiments flung themselves into the fosses, setting against theramparts ladders that were too short; the soldiers mounted upon oneanother's shoulders, digging their bayonets into the interstices betweenthe stones; the boldest were already at the top of the bastions. On the28th of June, at daybreak, three of the forts were in possession of theFrench; the same day the English commandant decided upon capitulation. The Duke of Fronsac, Marshal Richelieu's son, hurried to Versailles toannounce the good news. There was great joy at court and amongst theFrench nation; the French army and navy considered themselves avenged ofEngland's insults. In London Admiral Byng was brought to trial; he washeld responsible for the reverse, and was shot, notwithstanding theprotests of Voltaire and of Richelieu himself. At the same time theking's troops were occupying Corsica in the name of the city of Genoa, the time-honored ally of France. Mistress of half the Mediterranean, andsecure of the neutrality of Holland, France could have concentrated herefforts upon the sea, and have maintained a glorious struggle withEngland, on the sole condition of keeping peace on the Continent. Thepolicy was simple, and the national interest palpable; King Louis XV. And some of his ministers understood this; but they allowed themselves todrift into forgetfulness of it. 

For a long time past, under the influence of Count Kaunitz, a youngdiplomat equally bold and shrewd, "frivolous in his tastes and profoundin his views, " Maria Theresa was inclining to change the whole system ofher alliances in Europe; she had made advances to France. Count Kaunitzhad found means of pleasing Madame de Pompadour; the empress put thecrowning touch to the conquest by writing herself to the favorite, whomshe called "My cousin. " The Great Frederick, on the contrary, all thetime that he was seeking to renew with the king his former offensive anddefensive relations, could not manage to restrain the flow of his bitterirony. Louis XV. Had felt hurt, on his own account and on hisfavorite's; he still sought to hold the balance steady between the twogreat German sovereigns, but he was already beginning to lean towards theempress. A proposal was made to Maria Theresa for a treaty of guaranteebetween France, Austria, and Prussia; the existing war between Englandand France was excepted from the defensive pact; France reserved toherself the right of invading Hanover. The same conditions had beenoffered to the King of Prussia; he was not contented with them. WhilstMaria Theresa was insisting at Paris upon obtaining an offensive as wellas defensive alliance, Frederick II. Was signing with England anengagement not to permit the entrance into Germany of any foreign troops. "I only wish to preserve Germany from war, " wrote the King of Prussia toLouis XV. On the 1st of May, 1756, at Versailles, Louis XV. Replied tothe Anglo-Prussian treaty by his alliance with the Empress Maria Theresa. The house of Bourbon was holding out the hand to the house of Austria;the work of Henry IV. And of Richelieu, already weakened by aninconsistent and capricious policy, was completely crumbling to pieces, involving in its ruin the military fortunes of France. 

The prudent moderation of Abbe de Bernis, then in great favor with Madamede Pompadour, and managing the negotiations with Austria, had removedfrom the treaty of Versailles the most alarming clauses. The empress andthe King of France mutually guaranteed to one another their possessionsin Europe, "each of the contracting parties promising the other, in caseof need, the assistance of twenty-four thousand men. " Russia and Saxonywere soon enlisted in the same alliance; the King of Prussia'spleasantries, at one time coarse and at another biting, had offended theCzarina Elizabeth and the Elector of Saxony as well as Louis XV. AndMadame de Pompadour. The weakest of the allies was the first toexperience the miseries of that war so frivolously and gratuitouslyentered upon, from covetousness, rancor, or weakness, those fertilesources of the bitterest sorrows to humanity. 

"It is said that the King of Prussia's troops are on the march, " wrotethe Duke of Luynes in his journal (September 3, 1756); "it is not saidwhither. " Frederick II. Was indeed on the march with his usualpromptitude; a few days later, Saxony was invaded, Dresden occupied, andthe Elector-king of Poland invested in the camp of Pirna. General Braun, hurrying up with the Austrians to the Saxons' aid, was attacked byFrederick on the 1st of October, near Lowositz; without being decisive, the battle was, nevertheless, sufficient to hinder the allies fromeffecting their junction. The Saxons attempted to cut their way through;they were hemmed in and obliged to lay down their arms; the King ofPrussia established himself at Dresden, levying upon Saxony enormousmilitary contributions and otherwise treating it as a conquered country. The unlucky elector had taken refuge in Poland. 

The empress had not waited for this serious reverse to claim from Francethe promised aid. By this time it was understood how insufficient wouldbe a body of twenty-four thousand men for a distant and hazardous war. Recently called to the council by King Louis XV. , Marshal Belle-Isle, still full of daring in spite of his age, loudly declared that, "sincewar had come, it must be made on a large scale if it were to be made toany purpose, and speedily. " Some weeks later, preparations werecommenced for sending an army of a hundred thousand men to the LowerRhine. The king undertook, besides, to pay four thousand Bavarians andsix thousand Wurtemburgers, who were to serve in the Austrian army. Marshal d'Estrees, grandson of Louvois, was placed at the head of thearmy already formed. He was not one of the favorite's particularfriends. A Marshal d'Estrees, " she wrote to Count Clermont, "is one ofmy acquaintances in society; I have never been in a position to make himan intimate friend, but were he as much so as M. De Soubise, I should nottake upon myself to procure his appointment, for fear of having toreproach myself with the results. " Madame de Pompadour did not continueto be always so reserved, and M. De Soubise was destined before long tohave his turn. M. De Belle-Isle had insisted strongly on the choice ofMarshal d'Estrees; he was called "the Temporizer, " and was equally braveand prudent. "I am accustomed, " said the king, "to hear from him all hethinks. " The army was already on the march. 

Whilst hostilities were thus beginning throughout Europe, whilstnegotiations were still going on with Vienna touching the second treatyof Versailles, King Louis XV. , as he was descending the staircase of themarble court at Versailles on the 5th of January, 1757, received a stabin the side from a knife. Withdrawing full of blood the hand he hadclapped to his wound, the king exclaimed, "There is the man who woundedme, with his hat-on; arrest him, but let no harm be done him!" Theguards were already upon the murderer and were torturing him pending thelegal question. The king had been carried away, slightly wounded by adeep puncture from a penknife. In the soul of Louis XV. Apprehension hadsucceeded to the first instinctive and kingly impulse of courage; hefeared the weapon might be poisoned, and hastily sent for a confessor. The crowd of courtiers was already thronging to the dauphin's. To himthe king had at once given up the direction of affairs. 

[Illustration: Assassination of Louis XV. By Damiens----221]

Justice, meanwhile, had taken the wretched murderer in hand. RobertDamiens was a lackey out of place, a native of Artois, of weak mind, andsometimes appearing to be deranged. In his vague and frequentlyincoherent depositions, he appeared animated by a desire to avenge thewrongs of the Parliament; he burst out against the Archbishop of Paris, Christopher de Beaumont, a virtuous prelate of narrow mind and austerecharacter. "The Archbishop of Paris, " he said, "is the cause of all thistrouble through ordering refusal of the sacraments. " No investigationcould discover any conspiracy or accomplices; with less coolness andfanatical resolution than Ravaillac, Damiens, like the assassin of HenryIV. , was an isolated criminal, prompted to murder by the derangement ofhis own mind; he died, like Ravaillac, amidst fearful tortures which wereno longer in accord with public sentiment and caused more horror thanawe. France had ceased to tremble for the life of King Louis XV. 

For one instant the power of Madame de Pompadour had appeared to beshaken; the king, in his terror, would not see her; M. De Machault, butlately her protege, had even brought her orders to quit the palace. Together with the salutary terrors of death, Louis XV. 's repentance soondisappeared; the queen and the dauphin went back again to the modest andpious retirement in which they passed their life; the marchionessreturned in triumph to Versailles. MM. De Machault and D'Argenson wereexiled; the latter, who had always been hostile to the favorite, wasdismissed with extreme harshness. The king had himself written thesealed letter "Your services are no longer required. I command you tosend me your resignation of the secretaryship of state for war, and ofall that appertains to the posts connected therewith, and to retire toyour estate of Ormes. " Madame de Pompadour was avenged. 

The war, meanwhile, continued; the King of Prussia, who had at first wona splendid victory over the Austrians in front of Prague, had been beatenat Kolin, and forced to fall back on Saxony. Marshal d'Estrees, slowlyoccupying Westphalia, had got the Duke of Cumberland into a corner on theWeser. 

On the morning of July 23, 1757, the marshal summoned all hislieutenant-generals. "Gentlemen, " he said to them, "I do not assembleyou to-day to ask whether we should attack M. De Cumberland and investHameln. The honor of the king's arms, his wishes, his express orders, the interest of the common cause, all call for the strongest measures. Ionly seek, therefore, to profit by your lights, and to combine with yourassistance the means most proper for attacking with advantage. " A day ortwo after, July 26, the Duke of Cumberland, who had fallen back on thevillage of Hastenbeck, had his intrenchments forced; he succeeded inbeating a retreat without being pursued; an able movement of PrinceFerdinand of Brunswick, and a perhaps intentional mistake on the part ofM. De Maillebois had caused a momentary confusion in the French army. Marshal d'Estrees, however, was not destined to enjoy for long thepleasure of his victory. Even before he had given battle the Duke ofRichelieu had set out from Versailles to supersede him in his command. 

The conquest of Port Mahon had thrown around Richelieu a halo of glory;in Germany, he reaped the fruits of Marshal d'Estrees' successes; theElectorate of Hanover was entirely occupied; all the towns opened theirgates; Hesse Cassel, Brunswick, the duchies of Verden and of Bremen metwith the same fate. The marshal levied on all the conquered countriesheavy contributions, of which he pocketed a considerable portion. Hissoldiers called him "Father La Maraude. " The pavilion of Hanover atParis was built out of the spoils of Germany. Meanwhile, the Duke ofCumberland, who had taken refuge in the marshes at the mouth of the Elbe, under the protection of English vessels, was demanding to capitulate; hisoffers were lightly accepted. On the 8th of September, through theagency of Count Lynar, minister of the King of Denmark, the Duke ofCumberland and the marshal signed at the advanced posts of the Frencharmy the famous convention of Closter-Severn. The king's troops kept allthe conquered country; those of Hesse, Brunswick, and Saxe-Gotha returnedto their homes; the Hanoverians were to be cantoned in the neighborhoodof Stade. The marshal had not taken the precaution of disarming them. 

Incomplete as the convention was, it nevertheless excited great emotionin Europe. The Duke of Cumberland had lost the military reputationacquired at Fontenoy; the King of Prussia remained alone on theContinent, exposed to all the efforts of the allies; every day freshreverses came down upon him; the Russian army had invaded the Prussianprovinces and beaten Marshal Schwald near Memel; twenty-five thousandSwedes had just landed in Pomerania. Desertion prevailed amongst thetroops of Frederick, recruited as they often were from amongst thevanquished; it was in vain that the king, in his despair, shouted out onthe battle-field of Kolin, "D'ye expect to live forever, pray?" ManySaxon or Silesian soldiers secretly left the army. One day Frederickhimself kept his eye on a grenadier whom he had seen skulking to the rearof the camp. "Whither goest thou?" he cried. "Faith, sir, " was theanswer, "I am deserting; I'm getting tired of being always beaten. " "Stay once more, " replied the king, without showing the slightest anger;"I promise that, if we are beaten, we will both desert together. " In theensuing battle the grenadier got himself killed. 

For a moment, indeed, Frederick had conceived the idea of desertingsimultaneously from the field of battle and from life. "My dear sister, "he wrote to the Margravine of Baireuth, "there is no port or asylum forme any more save in the arms of death. " A letter in verse to the Marquisof Argens pointed clearly to the notion of suicide. A firmer purpose, before long, animated that soul, that strange mixture of heroism andcorruption. The King of Prussia wrote to Voltaire, --

 "Threatened with shipwreck though I be, I, facing storms that frown on me, Must king-like think, and live, and die. "

Fortune, moreover, seemed to be relaxing her severities. Under theinfluence of the hereditary grand-duke, a passionate admirer of FrederickII. , the Russians had omitted to profit by their victories; they were bythis time wintering in Poland, which was abandoned to all theirexactions. The Swedes had been repulsed in the Island of Rugen, MarshalRichelieu received from Versailles orders to remain at Halberstadt, andto send re-enforcements to the army of the Prince of Soubise; it was forthis latter that Madame de Pompadour was reserving the honor of crushingthe Great Frederick. More occupied in pillage than in vigorously pushingforward the war, the marshal tolerated a fatal license amongst histroops. "Brigandage is more prevalent in the hearts of the superiorofficers than in the conduct of the private soldier, who is full of goodwill to go and get shot, but not at all to submit to discipline. I'mafraid that they do not see at court the alarming state of things totheir full extent, " says a letter from Paris-Duverney to the Marquis ofCremille, "but I have heard so much of it, and perhaps seen so much sinceI have been within eyeshot of this army, that I cannot give a glance atthe future without being transfixed with grief and dread. I dare to saythat I am not scared more than another at sight of abuses and disorder, but it is time to apply to an evil which is at its height other remediesthan palliatives, which, for the most part, merely aggravate it andrender it incurable as long as war lasts. I have not seen and do not seehere anything but what overwhelms me, and I feel still more wretched forhaving been the witness of it. "

Whilst the plunder of Hanover was serving the purpose of feeding theinsensate extravagance of Richelieu and of the army, Frederick II. Hadentered Saxony, hurling back into Thuringia the troops of Soubise and ofthe Prince of Hildburghausen. By this time the allies had enduredseveral reverses; the boldness of the King of Prussia's movementsbewildered and disquieted officers as well as soldiers. "Might I askyour Highness what you think of his Prussian majesty's manoeuvring?"says a letter to Count Clermont, from an officer serving in the army ofGermany; "this prince, with eighteen or twenty thousand men at most, marches upon an army of fifty thousand men, forces it to recross a river, cuts off its rear guard, crosses this same river before its very eyes, offers battle, retires, encamps leisurely, and loses not a man. Whatcalculation, what audacity in this fashion of covering a country!" Onthe 3d of November the Prussian army was all in order of battle on theleft bank of the Saale, near Rosbach. 

Soubise hesitated to attack; being a man of honesty and sense, he tookinto account the disposition of his army, as well as the bad compositionof the allied forces, very superior in number to the French contingent. The command belonged to the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen, who had no doubtof success. Orders were given to turn the little Prussian army, so as tocut off its retreat. All at once, as the allied troops were effectingtheir movement to scale the heights, the King of Prussia, suddenlychanging front by one of those rapid evolutions to which he hadaccustomed his men, unexpectedly attacked the French in flank, withoutgiving them time to form in order of battle. The batteries placed on thehills were at the same time unmasked, and mowed down the infantry. TheGerman troops at once broke up. Soubise sought to restore the battle bycavalry charges, but he was crushed in his turn. The rout becamegeneral; the French did not rally till they reached Erfurt; they had lefteight thousand prisoners and three thousand dead on the field. 

The news of the defeat at Rosbach came bursting on France like a clap ofthunder; the wrath, which first of all blazed out against Soubise, atwhose expense all the rhymesters were busy, was reflected upon the kingand Madame de Pompadour. 

 "With lamp in hand, Soubise is heard to say 'Why, where the devil can my army be? I saw it hereabouts but yesterday: Has it been taken? has it strayed from me? I'm always losing-head and all, I know: But wait till daylight, twelve o'clock or so! What do I see? O, heavens, my heart's aglow: Prodigious luck ! Why, there it is, it is! Eh! _ventrebleu, _ what in the world is this? I must have been mistaken--it's the foe. '"

Frederick II. Had renovated affairs and spirits in Germany; the day afterRosbach, he led his troops into Silesia against Prince Charles ofLorraine, who had just beaten the Duke of Bevern; the King of Prussia'slieutenants were displeased and disquieted at such audacity. Heassembled a council of war, and then, when he had expounded his plans, "Farewell, gentlemen, " said be; "we shall soon have beaten the enemy, or we shall have looked on one another for the last time. " On the 3d ofDecember the Austrians were beaten at Lissa, as the French had been atRosbach, and Frederick II. Became the national hero of Germany; theProtestant powers, but lately engaged, to their sorrow, against him, madeup to the conqueror; admiration for him permeated even the French army. "At Paris, " wrote D'Alembert to Voltaire, "everybody's head is turnedabout the King of Prussia; five months ago he was trailed in the mire. "

"Cabinet-generals, " says Duclos, "greedy of money, inexperienced andpresumptuous; ignorant, jealous, or ill-disposed ministers; subalternslavish of their blood on the battle-field and crawling at court beforethe distributors of favors--such are the instruments we employed. Thesmall number of those who had not approved of the treaty of Versaillesdeclared loudly against it; after the campaign of 1757, those who hadregarded it as a masterpiece of policy, forgot or disavowed theireulogies, and the bulk of the public, who cannot be decided by anythingbut the event, looked upon it as the source of all our woes. " Thecounsels of Abbe de Bernis had for some time past been pacific; from acourt-abbe, elegant and glib, he had become, on the 25th of June, minister of foreign affairs. But Madame de Pompadour remained faithfulto the empress. In the month of January, 1758, Count Clermont wasappointed general-in-chief of the army of Germany. In disregard of theconvention of Closter-Severn, the Hanoverian troops had just taken thefield again under the orders of the Grand-Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick; hehad already recovered possession of the districts of Luneberg, Zell, apart of Brunswick and of Bremen. In England, Mr. Pitt, afterwards LordChatham, had again come into office; the King of Prussia could henceforthrely upon the firmest support from Great Britain. 

He had need of it. A fresh invasion of Russians, aided by the savagehordes of the Zaporoguian Cossacks, was devastating Prussia; thesanguinary battle of Zorndorf, forcing them to fall back on Poland, permitted Frederick to hurry into Saxony, which was attacked by theAustrians. General Daun surprised and defeated him at Hochkirch; inspite of his inflexible resolution, the King of Prussia was obliged toabandon Saxony. His ally and rival, Ferdinand of Brunswick, had justbeaten Count Clermont at Crevelt. 

The new commander-in-chief of the king's armies, prince of the blood, brother of the late Monsieur le Duc, abbot commendatory of St. Germain-des-Pres, "general of the Benedictines, ", as the soldiers said, hadbrought into Germany, together with the favor of Madame de Pompadour, upright intentions, a sincere desire to restore discipline, and somegreat illusions about himself. "I am very impatient, I do assure you, to be on the other side of the Rhine, " wrote Count Clermont to MarshalBelle-Isle; "all the country about here is infested by runaway soldiers, convalescents, camp-followers, all sorts of understrappers, who commitfearful crimes. Not a single officer does his duty; they are the firstto pillage; all the army ought to be put under escort and in detachments, and then there would have to be escorts for those escorts. I hang, Iimprison; but, as we march by cantonments and the regimental(particuliers) officers are the first to show a bad example, thepunishments are neither sufficiently known nor sufficiently seen. Everything smacks of indiscipline, of disgust at the king's service, and of asperity towards one's self. I see with pain that it will beindispensable to put in practice the most violent and the harshestmeasures. " The king's army, meanwhile, was continuing to fall back; ageneral outcry arose at Paris against the general's supineness. On the23d of June he was surprised by Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick in the strongposition of Crevelt, which he had occupied for two days past; thereserves did not advance in time, orders to retreat were given too soon, the battle was lost without disaster and without any rout; the generalwas lost as well as the battle. "It is certain, " says the Marquis ofVogel, in his narrative of the affair, "that Count Clermont was at tablein his headquarters of Weschelen at one o'clock, that he had lost thebattle before six, arrived at Reuss at half past ten, and went to bed atmidnight; that is doing a great deal in a short time. " The Count ofGisors, son of Marshal Belle-Isle, a young officer of the greatestpromise, had been killed at Crevelt; Count Clermont was superseded by theMarquis of Contades. The army murmured; they had no confidence in theirleaders. At Versailles, Abbe de Bernis, who had lately become acardinal, paid by his disgrace for the persistency he had shown inadvising peace. He was chatting with M. De Stahrenberg, the Austrianambassador, when he received a letter from the king, sending him off tohis abbey of St. Medard de Soissons. He continued the conversationwithout changing countenance, and then, breaking off the conversationjust as the ambassador was beginning to speak of business. "It is nolonger to me, sir, " he said, "that you must explain yourself on thesegreat topics; I have just received my dismissal from his Majesty. " Withthe same coolness he quitted the court and returned, pending his embassyto Rome, to those elegant intellectual pleasures which suited him betterthan the crushing weight of a ministry in disastrous times, under anindolent and vain-minded monarch, who was governed by a woman asheadstrong as she was frivolous and depraved. 

Madame de Pompadour had just procured for herself a support in herobstinate bellicosity. Cardinal Bernis was superseded in the ministry offoreign affairs by Count Stainville, who was created Duke of Choiseul. After the death of Marshal Belle-Isle he exchanged the office for that ofminister of war; with it he combined the ministry of the marine. Theforeign affairs were intrusted to the Duke of Praslin, his cousin. Thepower rested almost entirely in the hands of the Duke of Choiseul. Ofhigh birth, clever, bold, ambitious, he had but lately aspired to couplethe splendor of successes in the fashionable world with the seriouspreoccupations of politics; his marriage with Mdlle. Crozat, a wealthyheiress, amiable and very much smitten with him, had strengthened hisposition. Elevated to the ministry by Madame de Pompadour, and as yetpromoting her views, he nevertheless gave signs of an independent spiritand a proud character, capable of exercising authority firmly in thepresence and the teeth of all obstacles. France hoped to find once morein M. De Choiseul a great minister; nor were her hopes destined to becompletely deceived. 

A new and secret treaty had just riveted the alliance between France andAustria. M. De Choiseul was at the same time dreaming of attackingEngland in her own very home, thus dealing her the most formidable ofblows. The preparations were considerable. M. De Soubise was recalledfrom Germany to direct the army of invasion. He was to be seconded inhis command by the Duke of Aiguillon, to whom, rightly or wrongly, wasattributed the honor of having repulsed in the preceding year an attemptof the English at a descent upon the coasts of Brittany. The expeditionwas ready, there was nothing to wait for save the moment to go out ofport, but Admiral Hawke was cruising before Brest; it was only in themonth of November, 1759, that the marquis of Conflans, who commanded thefleet, could put to sea with twenty-one vessels. Finding himself at oncepursued by the English squadron, he sought shelter in the difficultchannels at the mouth of the Vilaine. The English dashed in after him. A partial engagement, which ensued, was unfavorable; and the commander ofthe French rear-guard, M. St. Andre du Verger, allowed himself to beknocked to pieces by the enemy's guns in order to cover the retreat. Theadmiral ran ashore in the Bay of Le Croisic and burned his own vessel;seven ships remained blockaded in the Vilaine. M. De Conflans' job, asthe sailors called it at the time, was equivalent to a battle lostwithout the chances and the honor of the struggle. The English navy wastriumphant on every sea, and even in French waters. 

The commencement of the campaign of 1759 had been brilliant in Germany;the Duke of Broglie had successfully repulsed the attack made byFerdinand of Brunswick on his positions at Bergen; the prince had beenobliged to retire. The two armies, united under M. De Contades, invadedHesse and moved upon the Weser; they were occupying Minden when DukeFerdinand threw himself upon them on the 1st of August. The action ofthe two French generals was badly combined, and the rout was complete. It was the moment of Canada's last efforts, and the echo of that gloriousdeath-rattle reached even to Versailles. The Duke of Choiseul had, onthe 19th of February, replied to a desperate appeal from Montcalm, "I am very sorry to have to send you word that you must not expect anyre-enforcements. To say nothing of their increasing the dearth ofprovisions of which you have had only too much experience hitherto, therewould be great fear of their being intercepted by the English on thepassage, and, as the king could never send you aid proportionate to theforces which the English are in a position to oppose to you, the effortsmade here to procure it for you would have no other effect than to rousethe ministry in London to make still more considerable ones in order topreserve the superiority it has acquired in that part of the continent. "The necessity for peace was, beginning to be admitted even, in Madame dePompadour's little cabinets. 

Maria Theresa, however, was in no hurry to enter into negotiations;her enemy seemed to be bending at last beneath the weight of the doubleAustrian and Russian attack. At one time Frederick had thought that hesaw all Germany rallying round him; now, beaten and cantoned in Saxony, with the Austrians in front of him, during the winter of 1760, he waseverywhere seeking alliances and finding himself everywhere rejected. "I have but two allies left, " he would say, "valor and perseverance. "Repeated victories, gained at the sword's point, by dint of boldness andin the extremity of peril, could not even protect Berlin. The capital ofPrussia found itself constrained to open its gates to the enemy, on thesole condition that the regiments of Cossacks should not pass the line ofenclosure. When the regular troops withdrew, the generals had not beenable to prevent the city from being pillaged. The heroic efforts of theKing of Prussia ended merely in preserving to him a foothold in Saxony. The Russians occupied Poland. 

Marshal Broglie, on becoming general-in-chief of the French army, hadsucceeded in holding his own in Hesse; he frequently made Hanoveranxious. To turn his attention elsewhither and in hopes of deciding theFrench to quit Germany, the hereditary Prince of Brunswick attempted adiversion on the Lower Rhine; he laid siege to Wesel, whilst the Englishwere preparing for a descent at Antwerp. Marshal Broglie detached M. DeCastries to protect the city. The French corps had just arrived; it wasbivouacking. On the night between the 15th and 16th of October, Chevalier d'Assas, captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was sent toreconnoitre. He had advanced some distance from his men, and happened tostumble upon a large force of the enemy. The Prince of Brunswick waspreparing to attack. All the muskets covered the young captain. "Stir, and thou'rt a dead man, " muttered threatening voices. Without replying, M. D'Assas collected all his strength and shouted, "Auvergne! Here arethe foe!" At the same instant he fell pierced by twenty balls. [Accounts differ; but this is the tradition of the Assas family. ] Theaction thus begun was a glorious one. The hereditary prince was obligedto abandon the siege of Wesel and to recross the Rhine. The Frenchdivisions maintained their positions. 

[Illustration: Death of Chevalier D'Assas----233]

The war went on as bloodily as monotonously and fruitlessly, but the faceof Europe had lately altered. The old King George II. , who died on the25th of September, 1760, had been succeeded on the throne of England byhis grandson, George III. , aged twenty-two, the first really nativesovereign who had been called to reign over England since the fall of theStuarts. George I. And George II. Were Germans, in their feelings andtheir manners as well as their language; the politic wisdom of theEnglish people had put up with them, but not without effort andill-humor; the accession of the young king was greeted with transport. Pitt still reigned over Parliament and over England, governing a freecountry sovereign-masterlike. His haughty prejudice against France stillruled all the decisions of the English government, but Lord Bute, theyoung monarch's adviser, was already whispering pacific counsels destinedere long to bear fruit. Pitt's dominion was tottering when the firstovertures of peace arrived in London. The Duke of Choiseul proposed acongress. He at the same time negotiated directly with England. WhilstPitt kept his answer waiting, an English squadron blockaded Belle-Isle, and the governor, M. De Sainte-Croix, left without relief, was forced tocapitulate after an heroic resistance. When the conditions demanded byEngland were at last transmitted to Versailles, the English flag wasfloating over the citadel of Belle-Isle, the mouth of the Loire and ofthe Vilaine was blockaded. The arrogant pretensions of Mr. Pitt stoppedat nothing short of preserving the conquests of England in bothhemispheres; he claimed, besides, the demolition of Dunkerque "as amemorial forever of the yoke imposed upon France. " Completely separatingthe interests of England from those of the German allies, he did not evenreply to the proposals of M. De Choiseul as to the evacuation of Hesseand Hanover. Mistress of the sea, England intended to enjoy alone thefruits of her victories. 

[Illustration: ANTWERP----233]

The parleys were prolonged, and M. De Choiseul seemed to be resigned tothe bitterest pill of concession, when a new actor came upon the scene ofnegotiation; France no longer stood isolated face to face with triumphantEngland. The younger branch of the house of Bourbon cast into the scalethe weight of its two crowns and the resources of its navy. 

The King of Spain, Ferdinand VI. , who died on the 10th of August, 1759, had not left any children. His brother, Charles III. , King of Naples, had succeeded him. He brought to the throne of Spain a more livelyintelligence than that of the deceased king, a great aversion forEngland, of which he had but lately had cause to complain, and thetraditional attachment of his race to the interests and the glory ofFrance. The Duke of Choiseul managed to take skilful advantage of thisdisposition. At the moment when Mr. Pitt was haughtily rejecting themodest ultimatum of the French minister, the treaty between France andSpain, known by the name of Family Pact, was signed at Paris (August 15, 1761). 

Never had closer alliance been concluded between the two courts, even atthe time when Louis XIV. Placed his grandson upon the throne of Spain. It was that intimate union between all the branches of the house ofBourbon which had but lately been the great king's conception, and whichhad cost him so many efforts and so much blood; for the first time it wasbecoming favorable to France; the noble and patriotic idea of M. DeChoiseul found an echo in the soul of the King of Spain; the French navy, ruined and humiliated, the French colonies, threatened and all but lost, found faithful support in the forces of Spain, recruited as they were. By a long peace. The King of the Two Sicilies and the Infante Duke ofParma entered into the offensive and defensive alliance, but it was notopen to any other power in Europe to be admitted to this family union, cemented by common interests more potent and more durable than thetransitory combinations of policy. In all the ports of Spain ships werepreparing to put to sea. Charles III. Had undertaken to declare waragainst the English if peace were not concluded before the 1st of May, 1762. France promised in that case to cede to him the Island of Minorca. 

All negotiations with England were broken off; on the 20th of September, Mr. Pitt recalled his ambassador; this was his last act of power andanimosity; he at the same time proposed to the council of George III. To include Spain forthwith in the hostilities. Lord Bute opposed this;he was supported by the young king as well as by the majority of theministers. Pitt at once sent in his resignation, which was accepted. Lord Bute and the Tories came into power. Though more moderate in theirintentions, they were as yet urged forward by popular violence, and darednot suddenly alter the line of conduct. The family pact had raised thehopes--always an easy task--of France, the national impulse inclinedtowards the amelioration of the navy; the estates of Languedoc were thefirst in the field, offering the king a ship of war; their example waseverywhere followed; sixteen ships, first-rates, were before long incourse of construction, a donation from the great political or financialbodies; there were, besides, private subscriptions amounting to thirteenmillions; the Duke of Choiseul sought out commanders even amongst themercantile marine, and everywhere showed himself favorable to blueofficers, as the appellation then was of those whose birth excluded themfrom the navy corps; the knowledge of the nobly born often left a greatdeal to be desired, whatever may have been their courage and devotion. This was a last generous effort on behalf of the shreds of France'sperishing colonies. The English government did not give it time to bearfruit; in the month of January, 1762, it declared war against Spain. Before the year had rolled by, Cuba was in the hands of the English, thePhilippines were ravaged and the galleons laden with Spanish goldcaptured by British ships. The unhappy fate of France had involved hergenerous ally. The campaign attempted against Portugal, always hand inhand with England, had not been attended with any result. Martinique hadshared the lot of Guadaloupe, lately conquered by the English after anheroic resistance. Canada and India had at last succumbed. War draggedits slow length along in Germany. The brief elevation of the young czar, Peter III. , a passionate admirer of the great Frederick, had deliveredthe King of Prussia from a dangerous enemy, and promised to give him anally equally trusty and potent. France was exhausted, Spain discontentedand angry; negotiations recommenced, on what disastrous conditions forthe French colonies in both hemispheres has already been remarked; inGermany the places and districts occupied by France were to be restored;Lord Bute, like his great rival, required the destruction of the port ofDunkerque. 

This was not enough for the persistent animosity of Pitt. Thepreliminaries of peace had been already signed at Fontainebleau on the 3dof November, 1762: when they were communicated to Parliament, the fallenminister, still the nation's idol and the real head of the people, hadhimself carried to the House of Commons. He was ill, suffering from aviolent attack of gout; two of his friends led him with difficulty to hisplace, and supported him during his long speech; being exhausted, he satdown towards the end, contrary to all the usages of the House, without, however, having once faltered in his attacks upon a peace too easilymade, of which it was due to him that England was able to dictate theconditions. "It is as a maritime power, " he exclaimed, "that France ischiefly if not exclusively formidable to us;" and the ardor of his spiritrestored to his enfeebled voice the dread tones which Parliament and thenation had been wont to hear "what we gain in this respect is doublyprecious from the loss that results to her. America, sir, was conqueredin Germany. Now you are leaving to France a possibility of restoring hernavy. "

The peace was signed, however, not without ill humor on the part ofEngland, but with a secret feeling of relief; the burdens which weighedupon the country had been increasing every year. In 1762, Lord Bute hadobtained from Parliament four hundred and fifty millions (eighteenmillion pounds) to keep up the war. "I wanted the peace to be a seriousand a durable one, " said the English minister in reply to Pitt's attacks;"if we had increased our demands, it would have been neither the one northe other. "

M. De Choiseul submitted in despair to the consequences of thelong-continued errors committed by the government of Louis XV. "Were Imaster, " said he, "we would be to the English what Spain was to theMoors; if this course were taken, England would be destroyed in thirtyyears from now. " The king was a better judge of his weakness and of thegeneral exhaustion. "The peace we have just made is neither a good onenor a glorious one; nobody sees that better than I, " he said in hisprivate correspondence; "but, under such unhappy circumstances, it couldnot be better, and I answer for it that if we had continued the war, weshould have made, a still worse one next year. " All the patrioticcourage and zeal of the Duke of Choiseul, all the tardy impulse springingfrom the nation's anxieties, could not suffice even to palliate theconsequences of so many years' ignorance, feebleness, and incapacity insuccession. 

Prussia and Austria henceforth were left to confront one another, theonly actors really interested in the original struggle, the last to quitthe battle-field on to which they had dragged their allies. By anunexpected turn of luck, Frederick II. Had for a moment seen Russiabecoming his ally; a fresh blow came to wrest from him this powerfulsupport. The Czarina Catherine II. , Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst and wifeof the Czar Peter III. , being on bad terms with her husband and in dreadof his wrath, had managed to take advantage of the young czar'simprudence in order to excite a mutiny amongst the soldiers; he had beendeposed, and died before long in prison. Catherine was proclaimed in hisplace. With her accession to the throne there commenced for Russia a newpolicy, equally bold and astute, having for its sole aim, unscrupulouslyand shamelessly pursued, the aggrandizement and consolidation of theimperial power; Russia became neutral in the strife between Prussia andAustria. The two sovereigns, left without allies and with theirdominions drained of men and money, agreed to a mutual exchange of theirconquests; the boundaries of their territories once more became as theyhad been before the Seven Years' War. Frederick calculated at more thaneight hundred thousand men the losses caused to the belligerents by thisobstinate and resultless struggle, the fruit of wicked ambition orculpable weaknesses on the part of governments. Thanks to theindomitable energy and the equally zealous and unscrupulous ability ofthe man who had directed her counsels during the greater part of the war, England alone came triumphant out of the strife. She had won Indiaforever; and, for some years at least, civilized America, almost in itsentirety, obeyed her laws. She had won what France had lost, not bysuperiority of arms, or even of generals, but by the natural and properforce of a free people, ably and liberally governed. 

The position of France abroad, at the end of the Seven Years' War, wasas painful as it was humiliating; her position at home was still moreserious, and the deep-lying source of all the reverses which had come tooverwhelm the French. Slowly lessened by the faults and misfortunes ofKing Louis XIV. 's later years, the kingly authority, which had fallen, under Louis XV. , into hands as feeble as they were corrupt, was ceasingto inspire the nation with the respect necessary for the working ofpersonal power: public opinion was no longer content to accuse thefavorite and the ministers; it was beginning to make the king responsiblefor the evils suffered and apprehended. People waited in vain for adecision of the crown to put a stop to the incessantly renewed strugglesbetween the Parliament and the clergy. Disquieted at one and the sametime by the philosophical tendencies which were beginning to spread inmen's minds, and by the comptroller-general Machault's projects forexacting payment of the imposts upon ecclesiastical revenues, theArchbishop of Paris, Christopher de Beaumont, and the Bishop of Mirepoix, Boyer, who was in charge of the benefice-list, conceived the idea ofstifling these dangerous symptoms by an imprudent recourse to thespiritual severities so much dreaded but lately by the people. Severaltimes over, the last sacraments were denied to the dying who had declinedto subscribe to the bull Unigenitus, a clumsy measure, which was sure toexcite public feeling and revive the pretensions of the Parliaments tothe surveillance, in the last resort, over the government of the church;Jansenism, fallen and persecuted, but still living in the depths ofsouls, numbered amongst the ranks of the magistracy, as well as in theUniversity of Paris, many secret partisans; several parish-priests hadwrits of personal seizure issued against them, and their goods wereconfiscated. Decrees succeeded decrees; in spite of the king's feebleopposition the struggle was extending and reaching to the whole ofFrance. On the 22d of February, 1753, the Parliament of Paris receivedorders to suspend all the proceedings they had commenced on the ground ofrefusals of the sacraments; the king did not consent even to receive therepresentations. By the unanimous vote of the hundred and fifty-eightmembers sitting on the Court, Parliament determined to give up allservice until the king should be pleased to listen. "We declare, " saidthe representation, "that our zeal is boundless, and that we feelsufficient courage to fall victims to our fidelity. The Court could notserve without being wanting to their duties and betraying their oaths. "

Indolent and indifferent as he was, King Louis XV. Acted as seldom and asslowly as he could; he did not like strife, and gladly saw thebelligerents exhausting against one another their strength and theirwrath; on principle, however, and from youthful tradition, he had neverfelt any liking for the Parliaments. "The long robes and the clergy arealways at daggers drawn, " he would say to Madame de Pompadour "they driveme distracted with their quarrels, but I detest the long robes by far themost. My clergy, at bottom, are attached to me and faithful to me; theothers would like to put me in tutelage. . . . They will end by ruiningthe state; they are a pack of republicans. . . . However, things willlast my time, at any rate. " Severe measures against the Parliament weredecided upon in council. Four magistrates were arrested and sent tofortresses; all the presidents, councillors of inquests and of requests, were exiled; the grand chamber, which alone was spared, refused toadminister justice. Being transferred to Pontoise, it persisted in itsrefusal. It was necessary to form a King's Chamber, installed at theLouvre; all the inferior jurisdictions refused to accept its decrees. After a year's strife, the Parliament returned in triumph to Paris in themonth of August, 1754; the clergy received orders not to require from thedying any theological adhesion. Next year, the Archbishop of Paris, whohad paid no attention to the prohibition, was exiled in his turn. 

Thus, by mutually weakening each other, the great powers and the greatinfluences in the state were wasting away; the reverses of the Frencharms, the loss of their colonies, and the humiliating peace of Parisaggravated the discontent. In default of good government the people areoften satisfied with glory. This consolation, to which the French nationhad but lately been accustomed, failed it all at once; mental irritation, for a long time silently brooding, cantoned in the writings ofphilosophers and in the quatrains of rhymesters, was beginning to spreadand show itself amongst the nation; it sought throughout the state anobject for its wrath; the powerful society of the Jesuits was the firstto bear all the brunt of it. 

A French Jesuit, Father Lavalette, had founded a commercial house atMartinique. Ruined by the war, he had become bankrupt to the extent ofthree millions; the order having refused to pay, it was condemned by theParliament to do so. The responsibility was declared to extend to allthe members of the Institute, and public opinion triumphed over thecondemnation with a " quasi-indecent " joy, says the advocate Barbier. Nor was it content with this legitimate satisfaction. One of the courtswhich had until lately been most devoted to the Society of Jesus had justset an example of severity. In 1759, the Jesuits had been driven fromPortugal by the Marquis of Pombal, King Joseph I. 's all-powerfulminister; their goods had been confiscated, and their principal, Malagrida, handed over to the Inquisition, had just been burned as aheretic (Sept. 20, 1761). 

The Portuguese Jesuits had been feebly defended by the grandees; theclergy were hostile to them. In France, their enemies showed themselvesbolder than their defenders. Proudly convinced of the justice of theircause, the Fathers had declined the jurisdiction of the grand council, to which they had a right, as all ecclesiastical bodies had, and they hadconsented to hand over to the Parliament the registers of theirconstitutions, up to that time carefully concealed from the eyes of theprofane. The skilful and clear-sighted hostility of the magistrates wasemployed upon the articles of this code, so stringently framed of yore byenthusiastic souls and powerful minds, forgetful or disdainful of thesacred rights of human liberty. All the services rendered by the Jesuitsto the cause of religion and civilization appeared effaced; forgottenwere their great missionary enterprises, their founders and theirmartyrs, in order to set forth simply their insatiable ambition, theirthirst after power, their easy compromises with evil passions condemnedby the Christian faith. The assaults of the philosophers had borne theirfruit in the public mind; the olden rancor of the Jansenistsimperceptibly promoted the severe inquiry openly conducted by themagistrates. Madame de Pompadour dreaded the influence of the Jesuits;religious fears might at any time be aroused again in the soul ofLouis XV. The dauphin, who had been constantly faithful to them, soughtin vain to plead their cause with the king. He had attacked the Duke ofChoiseul; the latter so far forgot himself, it is asserted, as to say tothe prince, "Sir, I may have the misfortune to be your subject, but Iwill never be your servant. " The minister had hitherto maintained aprudent reserve; he henceforth joined the favorite and the Parliamentagainst the Jesuits. 

On the 6th of August, 1761, the Parliament of Paris delivered a decreeordering the Jesuits to appear at the end of a year for the definitejudgment upon their constitutions; pending the judicial decision, alltheir colleges were closed. King Louis XV. Still hesitated, from naturalindolence and from remembrance of Cardinal Fleury's maxims. "TheJesuits, " the old minister would often say, "are bad masters, but you canmake them useful tools. " An ecclesiastical commission was convoked; withthe exception of the Bishop of Soissons, the prelates all showedthemselves favorable to the Jesuits and careless of the old Gallicanliberties. On their advice, the king sent a proposal to Rome for certainmodifications in the constitutions of the order. Father Ricci, generalof the Jesuits, answered haughtily, "Let them be as they are, or not be"(_Sint ut sunt, aut non sint_). Their enemies in France accepted thechallenge. On the 6th of August, 1762, a decree of the Parliament ofParis, soon confirmed by the majority of the sovereign courts, declaredthat there was danger (_abus_) in the bulls, briefs, and constitutions ofthe Society, pronounced its dissolution, forbade its members to wear thedress and to continue living in common under the sway of the general andother superiors. Orders were given to close all the Jesuit houses. Theprinciple of religious liberty, which had been so long ignored, and wasat last beginning to dawn on men's minds, was gaining its first seriousvictory by despoiling the Jesuits in their turn of that liberty for thelong-continued wrongs whereof they were called to account. A strange andstriking reaction in human affairs; the condemnation of the Jesuits wasthe precursory sign of the violence and injustice which were soon to becommitted in the name of the most sacred rights and liberties, longviolated with impunity by arbitrary power. 

Vaguely and without taking the trouble to go to the bottom of hisimpression, Louis XV. Felt that the Parliaments and the philosophers weredealing him a mortal blow whilst appearing to strike the Jesuits; hestood out a long while, leaving the quarrel to become embittered andpublic opinion to wax wroth at his indecision. "There is a hand to mouthadministration, " said an anonymous letter addressed to the king andMadame de Pompadour, "but there is no longer any hope of government. Atime will come when the people's eyes will be opened, and peradventurethat time is approaching. "

The persistency of the Duke of Choiseul carried the day at last; an edictof December, 1764, declared that "the Society no longer existed inFrance, that it would merely be permitted to those who composed it tolive privately in the king's dominions, under the spiritual authority ofthe local ordinaries, whilst conforming to the laws of the realm. " Fourthousand Jesuits found themselves affected by this decree; some leftFrance, others remained still in their families, assuming the seculardress. "It will be great fun to see Father Perusseau turned abbe, " saidLouis XV. As he signed the fatal edict. "The Parliaments fancy they areserving religion by this measure, " wrote D'Alembert to Voltaire, "butthey are serving reason without any notion of it; they are the, executioners on behalf of philosophy, whose orders they are executingwithout knowing it. " The destruction of the Jesuits served neitherreligion nor reason, for it was contrary to justice as well as toliberty; it was the wages and the bitter fruit of a long series of wrongsand iniquities committed but lately, in the name of religion, againstjustice and liberty. 

Three years later, in 1767, the King of Spain, Charles III. , lessmoderate than the government of Louis XV. , expelled with violence all themembers of the Society of Jesus from his territory, thus exciting theParliament of Paris to fresh severities against the French Jesuits, and, on the 20th of July, 1773, the court of Rome itself, yielding at last topressure from nearly all the sovereigns of Europe, solemnly pronouncedthe dissolution of the Order. "Recognizing that the members of thisSociety have not a little troubled the Christian commonwealth, and thatfor the welfare of Christendom it were better that the Order shoulddisappear. " The last houses still offering shelter to the Jesuits wereclosed; the general, Ricci, was imprisoned at the castle of St. Angelo, and the Society of Jesus, which had been so powerful for nearly threecenturies, took refuge in certain distant lands, seeking in oblivion andsilence fresh strength for the struggle which it was one day to renew. 

The Parliaments were triumphant, but their authority, which seemed neverto have risen so high or penetrated so far in the government of thestate, was already tottering to its base. Once more the strife was aboutto begin between the kingly power and the magistracy, whose last victorywas destined to scarcely precede its downfall. The financialembarrassments of the state were growing more serious every day; to thedebts left by the Seven Years' War were added the new wants developed bythe necessities of commerce and by the progress of civilization. TheBoard of Works, a useful institution founded by Louis XV. , was everywhereseeing to the construction of new roads, at the same time repairing theold ones; the forced labor for these operations fell almost exclusivelyon the peasantry. The Parliament of Normandy was one of the first toprotest against "the impositions of forced labor, and the levies of moneywhich took place in the district on pretext of repairs and maintenance ofroads, without legal authority. " "France is a land which devours itsinhabitants, " cried the Parliament of Paris. The Parliament of Paurefused to enregister the edicts; the Parliament of Brittany joined theEstates in protesting against the Duke of Aiguillon, the then governor, "the which hath made upon the liberties of the province one of thoseassaults which are not possible save when the crown believes itself to besecure of impunity. " The noblesse having yielded in the states, theParliament of Rennes gave in their resignation in a body. Five of itsmembers were arrested; at their head was the attorney-general, M. De laChalotais, author of a very remarkable paper against the Jesuits. It wasnecessary to form at St. Malo a King's Chamber to try the accused. M. DeCalonne, an ambitious young man, the declared foe of M. De la Chalotais, was appointed attorney-general on the commission. He pretended to havediscovered grave facts against the accused; he was suspected of havinginvented them. Public feeling was at its height; the magistrates loudlyproclaimed the theory of Classes, according to which all the Parliamentsof France, responsible one for another, formed in reality but one body, distributed by delegation throughout the principal towns of the realm. The king convoked a bed of justice, and, on the 2d of March, 1766, herepaired to the Parliament of Paris. "What has passed in my Parliamentsof Pau and of Rennes has nothing to do with my other Parliaments, " saidLouis XV. In a firm tone, to which the ears of the Parliament were nolonger accustomed. "I have behaved in respect of those two courts ascomported with my authority, and I am not bound to account to anybody. Iwill not permit the formation in my kingdom of an association which mightreduce to a confederacy of opposition the natural bond of identicalduties and common obligations, nor the introduction into the monarchy ofan imaginary body which could not but disturb its harmony. Themagistracy does not form a body or order separate from the three ordersof the kingdom; the magistrates are my officers. In my person aloneresides the sovereign power, of which the special characteristic is thespirit of counsel, justice, and reason; it is from me alone that mycourts have their existence and authority. It is to me alone that thelegislative power belongs, without dependence and without partition. Mypeople is but one with me, and the rights and interests of the nationwhereof men dare to make a body separate from the monarch are necessarilyunited with my own, and rest only in my hands. "

This haughty affirmation of absolute power, a faithful echo of CardinalRichelieu's grand doctrines, succeeded for a while in silencing therepresentations of the Parliaments; but it could not modify the course ofopinion, passionately excited in favor of M. De la Chalotais. On the24th of December, 1766, after having thrice changed the jurisdiction andthe judges, the king annulled the whole procedure by an act of hissupreme authority. "We shall have the satisfaction, " said the edict, "offinding nobody guilty, and nothing will remain for us but to take suchmeasures as shall appear best adapted to completely restore and maintaintranquillity in a province from which we have on so many occasions hadproofs of zeal for our service. " M. De la Chalotais and his comradeswere exiled to Saintes. They demanded a trial and a legal justification, which were refused. "It is enough for them to know that their honor isintact, " the king declared. A Parliament was imperfectly reconstructedat Rennes. "It is D'Aiguillon's bailiff-court, " was the contemptuoussaying in Brittany. The governor had to be changed. Under theadministration of the Duke of Duras, the agitation subsided in theprovince; the magistrates who had resigned resumed their seats; M. De laChalotais and his son, M. De Caradeuc, alone remained excluded by orderof the king. The restored Parliament immediately made a claim on theirbehalf, accompanying the request with a formal accusation against theDuke of Aiguillon. The states supported the Parliament. "What! sir, "said the remonstrance; "they are innocent, and yet you punish them! Itis a natural right that nobody should be' punished without a trial; wehave property in our honor, our lives, and our liberty, just as you haveproperty in your crown. We would spill our blood to preserve yourrights; but, on your side, preserve us ours. Sir, the province on itsknees before you asks you for justice. " A royal ordinance forbade anyproceedings against the Duke of Aiguillon, and enjoined silence on theparties. Parliament having persisted, and declaring that the accusationsagainst the Duke of Aiguillon attached (_entachaient_) his honor, LouisXV. , egged on by the chancellor, M. De Maupeou, an ambitious, bold, badman, repaired in person to the office, and had all the papers relating tothe procedure removed before his eyes. The strife was becoming violent;the Duke of Choiseul, still premier--minister but sadly shaken in theroyal favor, disapproved of the severities employed against themagistracy. All the blows dealt at the Parliaments recoiled upon him. 

King Louis XV. Had taken a fresh step in the shameful irregularity of hislife; on the 15th of April, 1764, Madame de Pompadour had died, at theage of forty-two, of heart disease. As frivolous as she was deeplydepraved and baseminded in her calculating easiness of virtue, she hadmore ambition than comported with her mental calibre or her force ofcharacter; she had taken it into her head to govern, by turns promotingand overthrowing the ministers, herself proffering advice to the king, sometimes to good purpose, but more often still with a levity as fatal asher obstinacy. Less clever, less ambitious, but more potent than Madamede Pompadour over the faded passions of a monarch aged before his time, the new favorite, Madame Dubarry, made the least scrupulous blush at thelowness of her origin and the irregularity of her life. It was, nevertheless, in her circle that the plot was formed against the Duke ofChoiseul. Bold, ambitious, restless, presumptuous sometimes in his viewsand his hopes, the minister had his heart too nearly in the right placeand too proper a spirit to submit to either the yoke of Madame Dubarry orthat of the shameless courtiers who made use of her influence. Chancellor Maupeou, the Duke of Aiguillou, and the new comptroller-general, Abbe Terray, a man of capacity, invention, and no scruple atall, at last succeeded in triumphing over the force of habit, the onlything that had any real effect upon the king's listless mind. Aftertwelve years' for a long while undisputed power, after having held in hishands the whole government of France and the peace of Europe, M. DeChoiseul received from the king on the 24th of December, 1770, a letterin these terms:--

"Cousin, the dissatisfaction caused me by your services forces me tobanish you to Chanteloup, whither you will repair within twenty-fourhours. I should have sent you much further off, but for the particularregard I have for Madame de Choiseul, in whose health I feel greatinterest. Take care your conduct does not force me to alter my mind. Whereupon I pray God, cousin, to have you in His holy and worthykeeping. "

The thunderbolt which came striking the Duke of Choiseul called forth afresh sign of the times. The fallen minister was surrounded in hisdisgrace with marks of esteem and affection on the part of the wholecourt. The princes themselves and the greatest lords felt it an honor topay him a visit at his castle of Chanteloup. He there displayed amagnificence which ended by swallowing up his wife's immense fortune, already much encroached upon during his term of power. Nothing was toomuch for the proud devotion and passionate affection of the Duchess ofChoiseul: she declined the personal favors which the king offered her, setting all her husband's friends the example of a fidelity which wasequally honorable to them and to him. Acute observers read a tale of thegrowing weakness of absolute power in the crowd which still flocked to aminister in disgrace; the Duke of Choiseul remained a power even during abanishment which was to last as long as his life. 

With M. De Choiseul disappeared the sturdiest prop of the Parliaments. In vain had the king ordered the magistrates to resume their functionsand administer justice. "There is nothing left for your Parliament, "replied the premier president, "but to perish with the laws, since thefate of the magistrates should go with that of the state. " MadameDubarry, on a hint from her able advisers, had caused to be placed in herapartments a fine portrait of Charles I. By Van Dyck. "France, " she wasalways reiterating to the king with vulgar familiarity, "France, thyParliament will cut off thy head too!"

[Illustration: "France, thy Parliament will cut off thy Head too!"--249]

A piece of ignorant confusion, due even more to analogy of name than tothe generous but vain efforts often attempted by the French magistracy infavor of sound doctrines of government. The Parliament of Paris fellsitting upon curule chairs, like the old senators of Rome during theinvasion of the Gauls; the political spirit, the collected and combativeardor, the indomitable resolution of the English Parliament, freelyelected representatives of a free people, were unknown to the Frenchmagistracy. Despite the courage and moral, elevation it had so oftenshown, its strength had been wasted in a constantly useless strife; ithad withstood Richelieu and Mazarin; already reduced to submission byCardinal Fleury, it was about to fall beneath the equally bold andskilful blows of Chancellor Maupeou. Notwithstanding the little naturalliking and the usual distrust he felt for Parliaments, the king stillhesitated. Madame Dubarry managed to inspire him with fears for hisperson; and he yielded. 

During the night between the 19th and 20th of January, 1771, musketeersknocked at the doors of all the magistrates; they were awakened in theking's name, at the same time being ordered to say whether they wouldconsent to resume their service. No equivocation possible! No marginfor those developments of their ideas which are so dear to parliamentaryminds! It was a matter of signing yes or no. Surprised in theirslumbers, but still firm in their resolution of resistance, the majorityof the magistrates signed no. They were immediately sent intobanishment; their offices were confiscated. Those members of theParliament from whom weakness or astonishment had surprised a yesretracted as soon as they were assembled, and underwent the same fate astheir colleagues. On the 23d of January, members delegated by the grandcouncil, charged with the provisional administration of justice, wereinstalled in the Palace by the chancellor himself. The registrar-in-chief, the ushers, the attorneys, declined or eluded the exercise oftheir functions; the advocates did not come forward to plead. The Courtof Aids, headed by Lamoignon de Malesherbes, protested against the attackmade on the great bodies of the state. "Ask the nation themselves, sir, "said the president, "to mark your displeasure with the Parliament ofParis, it is proposed to rob them--themselves--of the essential rights ofa free people. " The Court of Aids was suppressed like the Parliament;six superior councils, in the towns of Arras, Blois, Chalons-sur-Marne, Lyon, Clermont, and Poitiers parcelled out amongst them the immensejurisdiction of Paris; the members of the grand council, assisted bycertain magistrates of small esteem, definitively took the places of thebanished, to whom compensation was made for their offices. The kingappeared in person on the 13th of April, 1771, at the new Parliament;the chancellor read out the edicts. "You have just heard my intentions, "said Louis XV. ; "I desire that they may be conformed to. I order you tocommence your duties. I forbid any deliberation contrary to my wishesand any representations in favor of my former Parliament, for I shallnever change. "

One single prince of the blood, the Count of La Marche, son of the Princeof Conti, had been present at the bed of justice. All had protestedagainst the suppression of the Parliament. "It is one of the most usefulboons for monarchs and of those most precious to Frenchmen, " said theprotest of the princes, "to have bodies of citizens, perpetual andirremovable, avowed at all times by the kings and the nation, who, inwhatever form and under whatever denomination they may have existed, concentrate in themselves the general right of all subjects to invoke thelaw. " "Sir, by the law you are king, and you cannot reign but by it, "said the Parliament of Dijon's declaration, drawn up by one of themortarcap presidents (_presidents a mortier_), the gifted president DeBrosses. The princes were banished; the provincial Parliaments, mutilated like that of Paris or suppressed like that of Rouen, which wasreplaced by two superior councils, ceased to furnish a centre forcritical and legal opposition. Amidst the rapid decay of absolute power, the transformation and abasement of the Parliaments by Chancellor Maupeouwere a skilful and bold attempt to restore some sort of force and unityto the kingly authority. It was thus that certain legitimate claims hadbeen satisfied, the extent of jurisdictions had been curtailed, thesalability of offices had been put down, the expenses of justice had beenlessened. Voltaire had for a long time past been demanding thesereforms, and he was satisfied with them. "Have not the Parliaments oftenbeen persecuting and barbarous?" he wrote; "I wonder that the _Welches_[i. E. , Barbarians, as Voltaire playfully called the French] should takethe part of those insolent and intractable cits. " He added, however, "Nearly all the kingdom is in a boil and consternation; the ferment is asgreat in the provinces as in Paris itself. "

The ferment subsided without having reached the mass of the nation; themajority of the princes made it up with the court, the dispossessedmagistrates returned one after another to Paris, astonished and mortifiedto see justice administered without them and advocates pleading beforethe Maupeou Parliament. The chancellor had triumphed, and remainedmaster; all the old jurisdictions were broken up, public opinion wasalready forgetting them; it was occupied with a question more importantstill than the administration of justice. The ever-increasing disorderin the finances was no longer checked by the enregistering of edicts; thecomptroller-general, Abbe Terray, had recourse shamelessly to everyexpedient of a bold imagination to fill the royal treasury; it wasnecessary to satisfy the ruinous demands of Madame Dubarry and of thedepraved courtiers who thronged about her. Successive bad harvests andthe high price of bread still further aggravated the position. It wasknown that the king had a taste for private speculation; he was accusedof trading in grain and of buying up the stores required for feeding thepeople. The odious rumor of this famine pact, as the bitter saying was, soon spread amongst the mob. Before its fall, the Parliament of Rouenhad audaciously given expression to these dark accusations; it hadordered proceedings to be taken against the monopolists. A royalinjunction put a veto upon the prosecutions. "This prohibition from thecrown changes our doubts to certainty, " wrote the Parliament to the kinghimself; "when we said that the monopoly existed and was protected, Godforbid, sir, that we should have had your Majesty in our eye, butpossibly we had some of those to whom you distribute your authority. "Silence was imposed upon the Parliaments, but without producing anyserious effect upon public opinion, which attributed to the king theprincipal interest in a great private concern bound to keep up a certainparity in the price of grain. Contempt grew more and more profound; theking and Madame Dubarry by their shameful lives, Maupeou and Abbe Terrayby destroying the last bulwarks of the public liberties, were diggingwith their own hands the abyss in which the old French monarchy was aboutto be soon ingulfed. 

For a long while pious souls had formed great hopes of the dauphin;honest, scrupulous, sincerely virtuous, without the austerity andextensive views of the Duke of Burgundy, he had managed to live aloof, without intrigue and without open opposition, preserving towards the kingan attitude of often sorrowful respect, and all the while remaining thesupport of the clergy and their partisans in their attempts and theiraspirations. The Queen, Mary Leczinska, a timid and proudly modestwoman, resigned to her painful situation, lived in the closest intimacywith her son, and still more with her daughterin-law, Mary Josepha ofSaxony, though the daughter of that elector who had but lately beenelevated to the throne of Poland, and had vanquished King Stanislaus. The sweetness, the tact, the rare faculties of the dauphiness hadtriumphed over all obstacles. She had three sons. Much reliance wasplaced upon the influence she had managed to preserve with the king, andon the dominion she exercised over her husband's mind. In vain had thedauphin, distracted at the woes of France, over and over again solicitedfrom the king the honor of serving him at the head of the army; thejealous anxiety of Madame de Pompadour was at one with the coldindifference of Louis XV. As to leaving the heir to the throne in theshade. The prince felt it deeply, in spite of his pious resignation. "A dauphin, " he would say, "must needs appear a useless body, and a kingstrive to be everybody" (_un homme universel_). 

Whilst trying to beguile his tedium at the camp of Compiegne, thedauphin, it is said, overtaxed his strength, and died at the age ofthirty-six on the 20th of December, 1765, profoundly regretted by thebulk of the nation, who knew his virtues without troubling themselves, like the court and the philosophers, about the stiffness of his mannersand his complete devotion to the cause of the clergy. The new dauphin, who would one day be Louis XVI. , was still a child; the king had himbrought into his closet. "Poor France!" he said sadly, "a king offifty-five and a dauphin of eleven!" The dauphiness and Queen MaryLeczinska soon followed the dauphin to the tomb (1767-1768). The king, thus left alone and scared by the repeated deaths around him, appearedfor a while to be drawn closer to his daughters, for whom he alwaysretained some sort of affection, a mixture of weakness and habit. One ofthem, Madame Louise, who was deeply pious, left him to enter the conventof the Carmelites; he often went to see her, and granted her all thefavors she asked. But by this time Madame Dubarry had become all-powerful; to secure to her the honors of presentation at court, the kingpersonally solicited the ladies with whom he was intimate in order to getthem to support his favorite on this new stage; when the youthful MarieAntoinette, Archduchess of Austria, and daughter of Maria Theresa, whosemarriage the Duke of Choiseul had negotiated, arrived in France, in 1770, to espouse the dauphin, Madame Dubarry appeared alone with the royalfamily at the banquet given at La Muette on the occasion of the marriage. After each reaction of religious fright and transitory repentance, aftereach warning from God that snatched him for an instant from the depravityof his life, the king plunged more deeply than before into shame. MadameDubarry was to reign as much as Louis XV. 

Before his fall the Duke of Choiseul had made a last effort to reviveabroad that fortune of France which he saw sinking at home without hisbeing able to apply any effective remedy. He had vainly attempted togive colonies once more to France by founding in French Guianasettlements which had been unsuccessfully attempted by a RouenneseCompany as early as 1634. The enterprise was badly managed; the numerouscolonists, of very diverse origin and worth, were cast without resourcesupon a territory as unhealthy as fertile. No preparations had been madeto receive them; the majority died of disease and want; New Francehenceforth belonged to the English, and the great hopes which had beenraised of replacing it in Equinoctial France, as Guiana was named, soonvanished never to return. An attempt made about the same epoch at St. Lucie was attended with the same result. The great ardor and the rareaptitude for distant enterprises which had so often manifested themselvesin France from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century seemed to behenceforth extinguished. Only the colonies of the Antilles, which hadescaped from the misfortunes of war, and were by this time recovered fromtheir disasters, offered any encouragement to the patriotic efforts ofthe Duke of Choiseul. He had been more fortunate in Europe than in thecolonies: henceforth Corsica belonged to France. 

In spite of the French occupations, from 1708 to 1756, in spite of therefusals with which Cardinal Fleury had but lately met their appeals, theCorsicans, newly risen against the oppression of Genoa, had sent adeputation to Versailles to demand the recognition of their republic, offering to pay the tribute but lately paid annually to their tyrannicalprotectress. 

The hero of Corsican independence, Pascal Paoli, secretly supported byEngland, had succeeded for several years past not only in defending hiscountry's liberty, but also in governing and at the same time civilizingit. This patriotic soul and powerful mind, who had managed to profit bythe energetic passions of his compatriots whilst momentarily repressingtheir intestine quarrels, dreamed of an ideal constitution for hisisland; he sent to ask for one of J. J. Rousseau, who was still inSwitzerland, and whom he invited to Corsica. The philosophical chimerasof Paoli soon vanished before a piece of crushing news. The Genoese, weary of struggling unsuccessfully against the obstinate determination ofthe Corsicans, and unable to clear off the debts which they had butlately incurred to Louis XV. , had proposed to M. De Choiseul to cede toFrance their ancient rights over Corsica, as security for theirliabilities. A treaty, signed at Versailles on the 15th of May, 1768, authorized the king to perform all acts of sovereignty in the places andforts of Corsica; a separate article accorded to Genoa an indemnity oftwo millions. 

A cry arose in Corsica. Paoli resolved to defend the independence of hiscountry against France, as he had defended it against Genoa. For severalmonths now French garrisons had occupied the places still submitting toGenoa; when they would have extended themselves into the interior, Paolibarred their passage; he bravely attacked M. De Chauvelin, the king'slieutenant-general, who had just landed with a proclamation from LouisXV. To his new subjects. "The Corsican nation does not let itself bebought and sold like a flock of sheep sent to market, " said the protestof the republic's Supreme Council. Fresh troops from France had to beasked for; under the orders of Count Vaux they triumphed withoutdifficulty over the Corsican patriots. Mustering at the bridge of Golofor a last effort, they made a rampart of their dead; the wounded hadlain down amongst the corpses to give the survivors time to effect theirretreat. The town of Corte, the seat of republican government, capitulated before long. England had supplied Paoli with munitions andarms; he had hoped more from the promises of the government and thenational jealousy against France. "The ministry is too weak and thenation too wise to make war on account of Corsica, " said an illustriousjudge, Lord Mansfield. In vain did Burke exclaim, "Corsica, as aprovince of France, is for me an object of alarm!" The House of Commonsapproved of the government's conduct, and England contented herself withoffering to the vanquished Paoli a sympathetic hospitality; he leftCorsica on an English frigate, accompanied by most of his friends, and itis in Westminster Abbey that he lies, after the numerous vicissitudes ofhis life, which fluctuated throughout the revolutions of his native land, from England to France and from France to England, to the day whenCorsica, proud of having given a master to France and the Revolution, became definitively French with Napoleon. 

[Illustration: Defeat of the Corsicans at Golo----256]

Corsica was to be the last conquest of the old French monarchy. Great orlittle, magnificent or insignificant, from Richelieu to the Duke ofChoiseul, France had managed to preserve her territorial acquisitions; inAmerica and in Asia, Louis XV. Had shamefully lost Canada and the Indies;in Europe, the diplomacy of his ministers had given to the kingdomLorraine and Corsica. The day of insensate conquests ending in adiminution of territory had not yet come. In the great and iniquitousdismemberment which was coming, France was to have no share. 

Profound disquietude was beginning to agitate Europe: the King of Poland, Augustus III. , had died in 1763, leaving the unhappy country over whichhe had reigned a prey to internal anarchy ever increasing andsystematically fanned by the avidity or jealousy of the great powers, itsneighbors. "As it is to the interest of the two monarchs of Russia andPrussia that the Polish commonwealth should preserve its right to freeelection of a king, " said the secret treaty concluded in 1764 betweenFrederick II. And the Empress Catherine, "and that no family shouldpossess itself of the elective throne of that country, the twoundermentioned Majesties engage to prevent, by all means in their power, Poland from being despoiled of its right of election and transformed intoan hereditary kingdom; they mutually promise to oppose in concert, and, if necessary, by force of arms, all plans and designs which may tendthereto as soon as discovered. "

A second article secured to the dissidents, as Protestants and Greekswere called in Poland, the protection of the King of Prussia and of theempress, "who will make every effort to persuade, by strong and friendlyrepresentations, the king and the commonwealth of Poland to restore tothose persons the rights, privileges, and prerogatives they have acquiredthere, and which have been accorded them in the past, as well inecclesiastical as in civil matters, but have since been, for the mostpart, circumscribed or unjustly taken away. But, should it be impossibleto attain that end at once, the contracting parties will contentthemselves with seeing that, whilst waiting for more favorable times andcircumstances, the aforesaid persons are put beyond reach of the wrongsand oppression under which they are at present groaning. " In order toremain masters of Poland and to prevent it from escaping the dissolutionwith which it was threatened by its internal dissensions, Frederick andCatherine, who were secretly pursuing different and often contrarycourses, united to impose on the Diet a native prince. "I and my allythe Empress of Russia, " said the King of Prussia, "have agreed to promotethe selection of a Piast (Pole), which would be useful and at the sametime glorious for the nation. " In vain had Louis XV. By secret policysought for a long while to pave the way for the election of the Prince ofConti to the throne of Poland; the influence of Russia and of Prussiacarried the day. Prince Poniatowski, late favorite of the EmpressCatherine, was elected by the Polish Diet; in discouragement and sadness, four thousand nobles only had responded to the letters of convocation. The new king, Stanislaus Augustus, handsome, intelligent, amiable, cultivated, but feeble in character and fatally pledged to Russia, soughtto rally round him the different parties, and to establish at last, inthe midst of general confusion, a regular and a strong government. Hewas supported in this patriotic task by the influence, ever potent inPoland, of the Czartoriskis. The far-seeing vigilance of Frederick II. Did not give them time to act. "Poland must be left in her lethargy, " hehad said to the Russian ambassador Saldern. "It is of importance, " hewrote to Catherine, "that Her Majesty the empress, who knows perfectlywell her own interests and those of her friends and allies, should giveorders of the most precise kind to her ambassador at Warsaw, to opposeany novelty in the form of government, and, generally speaking, theestablishment of a permanent council, the preservation of the commissionsof war and of the treasury, the power of the king and the unlimitedconcession on the prince's part of ability to distribute officesaccording to his sole will. " The useful reforms being thus abandoned andthe king's feeble power radically shaken, religious discord came to fillup the cup of disorder, and to pave the way for the dismemberment, aswell as definitive ruin, of unhappy Poland. 

Subjected for a long time past to an increasing oppression, which wasencouraged by a fanatical and unenlightened clergy, the Polish dissidentshad conceived great hopes on the accession of Stanislaus Augustus; theyclaimed not only liberty of conscience and of worship, but also all thecivil and political rights of which they were deprived. "It is noquestion of establishing the free exercise of different religions inPoland, " wrote Frederick to Catherine; "it is necessary to reduce thequestion to its true issue, the demand of the dissident noblesse, andobtain for them the equality they demand, together with participation inall acts of sovereignty. " This was precisely what the clergy and theCatholic noblesse were resolved never to grant. In spite of support fromthe empress and the King of Prussia, the demand of the dissidents wasformally rejected by the Diet of 1766. At the Diet of 1767, CountRepnin, Catherine's ambassador and the real head of the government inPoland, had four of the most recalcitrant senators carried off and sentinto exile in Russia. The Diet, terrified, disorganized, immediatelypronounced in favor of the dissidents. By the modifications recentlyintroduced into the constitution of their country, the Polish nobles hadlost their liberum veto; unanimity of suffrages was no longer necessaryin the Diet; the foreign powers were able to insolently impose their willupon it; the privileges of the noblesse, as well as their traditionalfaith, were attacked at the very foundations; religious fanaticism andnational independence boiled up at the same time in every heart; thediscontent, secretly fanned by the agents of Frederick, burst out, soonerthan the skilful weavers of the plot could have desired, with sufficientintensity and violence to set fire to the four corners of Poland. By abold surprise the confederates gained possession of Cracow and of thefortress of Barr, in Podolia; there it was that they swore to die for thesacred cause of Catholic Poland. For more than a century, in the face ofmany misatkes and many misfortunes, the Poles have faithfully kept thatoath. 

The Bishop of Kaminck, Kraminski, had gone to Versailles to solicit thesupport of France. The Duke of Choiseul, at first far from zealous inthe cause of the Polish insurrection, had nevertheless sent a few troops, who were soon re-enforced. The Empress Catherine had responded to theviolence of the confederates of Barr by letting loose upon the Ukrainethe hordes of Zaporoguian Cossacks, speedily followed by regular troops. The Poles, often beaten, badly led by chieftains divided amongstthemselves, but ever ardent, ever skilful in seizing upon the smallestadvantages, were sustained by the pious exhortations of the clergy, whoregarded the war as a crusade; they were rejoiced to see a diversionpreparing in their favor by the Sultan's armaments. "I will raise theTurks against Russia the moment you think proper, " was the assurancegiven to the Duke of Choiseul by the Count of Vergennes, Frenchambassador at Constantinople, "but I warn you that they will be beaten. "Hostilities broke out on the 30th of October, 1768; a Turkish army setout to aid the Polish insurrection. Absorbed by their patrioticpassions, the Catholic confederates summoned the Mussulmans to theirassistance. Prince Galitzin, at the head of a Russian force veryinferior to the Ottoman invaders, succeeded in barring their passage; theTurks fell back, invariably beaten by the Russian generals. Catherine atthe same time summoned to liberty the oppressed and persecuted Greeks;she sent a squadron to support the rising which she had been fomentingfor some months past. After a few brilliant successes, her arms wereless fortunate at sea than on land. A French officer, of Hungarianorigin, Baron Tott, sent by the Duke of Choiseul to help the SublimePorte, had fortified the Straits of the Dardanelles; the Russians wererepulsed; they withdrew, leaving the Greeks to the vengeance of theiroppressors. The efforts which the Empress Catherine was making in Polandagainst the confederates of Barr had slackened her proceedings againstTurkey; she was nevertheless becoming triumphant on the borders of theVistula, as well as on the banks of the Danube, when the far-sighted andbold policy of Frederick II. Interfered in time to prevent Russia fromtaking possession of Poland as well as of the Ottoman empire. 

Secretly favoring the confederates of Barr whom he had but latelyencouraged in their uprising, and whom he had suffered to make purchasesof arms and ammunition in Prussia, Frederick II. Had sought in Austria anatural ally, interested like himself in stopping the advances of Russia. The Emperor, Maria Theresa's husband, had died in 1764; his son, JosephII. , who succeeded him, had conceived for the King of Prussia thespontaneous admiration of a young and ardent spirit for the mostillustrious man of his times. In 1769, a conference which took place atNeisse brought the two sovereigns together. "The emperor is a man eatenup with ambition, " wrote Frederick after the interview; "he is hatchingsome great design. At present, restrained as he is by his mother, heis beginning to chafe at the yoke he bears, and, as soon as he getselbow-room, he will commence with some 'startling stroke; it wasimpossible for me to discover whether his views were directed towards therepublic of Venice, towards Bavaria, towards Silesia, or towardsLorraine; but we may rely upon it that Europe will be all on fire themoment he is master. " A second interview, at Neustadt in 1770, clinchedthe relations already contracted at Neisse. Common danger broughttogether old enemies. "I am not going to have the Russians forneighbors, " the Empress Maria Theresa was always repeating. Thedevastating flood had to be directed, and at the same time stemmed. Thefeeble goodwill of France and the small body of troops commanded byDumouriez were still supporting the Polish insurrection, but the Duke ofChoiseul had just succumbed to intrigue at home. There was no longer anyforeign policy in France. It was without fear of intervention from herthat the German powers began to discuss between them the partition ofPoland. 

She was at the same time suffering disseverment at her own hands throughher intestine divisions and the mutual jealousy of her chiefs. In Warsawthe confederates had attempted to carry off King Stanislaus Augustus, whom they accused of betraying the cause of the fatherland; they haddeclared the throne vacant, and took upon themselves to found anhereditary monarchy. To this supreme honor every great lord aspired, every small army-corps acted individually and without concert with theneighboring leaders. Only a detachment of French, under the orders ofBrigadier Choisi, still defended the fort of Cracow; General Suwarrow, who was investing it, forced them to capitulate; they obtained all thehonors of war, but in vain was the Empress Catherine urged by D'Alembertand his friends the philosophers to restore their freedom to the gloriousvanquished; she replied to them with pleasantries. Ere long the fate ofPoland was about to be decided without the impotent efforts of France inher favor weighing for an instant in the balance. The politicalannihilation of Louis XV. In Europe had been completed by the dismissalof the Duke of Choiseul. 

The public conscience is lightened by lights which ability, even whentriumphant, can never altogether obscure. The Great Frederick and theEmpress Catherine have to answer before history for the crime of thepartition of Poland, which they made acceptable to the timorous jealousyof Maria Theresa and to the youthful ambition of her son. As prudent ashe was audacious, Frederick had been for a long time paving the way forthe dismemberment of the country he had seemed to protect. Negotiationsfor peace with the Turks became the pretext for war-indemnities. Poland, vanquished, divided, had to pay the whole of them. "I shall not enterupon the portion that Russia marks out for herself, " wrote Frederick toCount Solms, his ambassador at St. Petersburg. "I have expressly leftall that blank in order that she may settle it according to her interestsand her own good pleasure. When the negotiations for peace have advancedto a certain stage of consistency, it will no longer depend upon theAustrians to break them off if we declare our views unanimously as toPoland. She cannot rely any further upon France, which happens to be insuch a fearful state of exhaustion that it could not give any help toSpain, which was on the point of declaring war against England. If thatwar do not take place, it must be attributed simply to the smash in thefinances of France. I guarantee, then, to the Russians all that mayhappen to suit them; they will do as much for me; and, supposing that theAustrians should consider their share of Poland too paltry in comparisonwith ours, and it were desirable to satisfy them, one would only have tooffer them that strip of the Venetian dominions which cuts them off fromTrieste in order to keep them quiet; even if they were to turn nasty, Iwill answer for it with my head that our union with Russia, once clearlyestablished, will tide them over all that we desire. They have to dowith two powers, and they have not a single ally to give them ashoulder. "

Frederick said truly; his sound and powerful judgment took in theposition of Europe: France, exhausted by the lingering decay of hergovernment and in travail with new and confused elements which had as yetno strength but to shatter and destroy; Spain, lured on by France andthen abandoned by her; England, disturbed at home by parliamentaryagitation, favorably disposed to the court of Russia and for a long whileallied to Frederick; Sweden and Denmark, in the throes of serious events;there was nothing to oppose the iniquity projected and prepared for withso much art and ability. It was in vain that the King of Prussia soughtto turn into a joke the unscrupulous manoeuvres of his diplomacy when hewrote to D'Alembert in January, 1772, "I would rather undertake to putthe whole history of the Jews into madrigals than to cause to be of onemind three sovereigns amongst whom must be numbered two women. " Theundertaking was already accomplished. Three months later, the firstpartition of Poland had been settled between Russia, Prussia, andAustria, and on the 2d of September, 1772, the treaty was made known atWarsaw. The manifesto was short. "It is a general rule of policy, "Frederick had said, "that, in default of unanswerable arguments, it isbetter to express one's self laconically, and not go beating about thebush. " The care of drawing it up had been intrusted to Prince Kaunitz. "It was of importance, " said the document, "to establish the commonwealthof Poland on a solid basis whilst doing justice to the claims of thethree powers for services rendered against the insurrection. " The kingand the senate protested. The troops of the allies surrounded Warsaw, and the Diet, being convoked, ratified by a majority of two voices theconvention presented by the spoilers themselves. Catherine assigned toherself three thousand square leagues, and one million five hundredthousand souls, in Lithuania and Polish Livonia; Austria took possessionof two thousand five hundred square leagues, and more than two millionsouls, in Red Russia and the Polish palatinates on the left of theVistula; the instigator and plotter of the whole business had been themost modest of all; the treaty of partition brought Prussia only ninehundred square leagues and eight hundred and sixty thousand souls, but hefound himself master of Prussian Poland and of a henceforth compactterritory. England had opposed, in Russia, the cession of Dantzick tothe Great Frederick. "The ill-temper of France and England at thedismemberment of Poland calls for serious reflections, " wrote the King ofPrussia on the 5th of August, 1772: "these two courts are already movingheaven and earth to detach the court of Vienna from our system; but asthe three chief points whence their support should come are altogether toseek in France, and there is neither system, nor stability, nor moneythere, her projects will be given up with the same facility with whichthey were conceived and broached. They appear to me, moreover, like theprojects of the Duke of Aiguillon, ebullitions of French vivacity. "

France did not do anything, and could not do anything; the king's secretnegotiators, as well as the minister of foreign affairs, had been trickedby the allied powers. "Ah! if Choiseul had been here!" exclaimed KingLouis XV. , it is said, when he heard of the partition of Poland. TheDuke of Choiseul would no doubt have been more clear-sighted and betterinformed than the Duke of Aiguillon, but his policy could have done nogood. Frederick II. Knew that. "France plays so small a part inEurope, " he wrote to Count Solms, "that I merely tell you about theimpotent efforts of the French ministry's envy just to have a laugh atthem, and to let you see in what visions the consciousness of its ownweaknesses is capable of leading that court to indulge. " "O! where isPoland?" Madame Dubarry had said to Count Wicholorsky, King StanislausAugustus' charge d'affaires, who was trying to interest her in themisfortunes of his country. 

The partition of Poland was barely accomplished, the confederates ofBarr, overwhelmed by the Russian troops, were still arriving in France toseek refuge there, and already King Louis XV. , for a moment roused by theaudacious aggression of the German courts, had sunk back into theshameful lethargy of his life. When Madame Louise, the pious Carmeliteof St. Denis, succeeded in awakening in her father's soul a gleam ofreligious terror, the courtiers in charge of the royal pleasuresredoubled their efforts to distract the king from thoughts so perilousfor their own fortunes. Louis XV. , fluctuating between remorse anddepravity, ruled by Madame Dubarry, bound hand and foot to thetriumvirate of Chancellor Maupeou, Abbe Terray, and the Duke ofAiguillon, who were consuming between them in his name the last remnantsof absolute power, fell suddenly ill of small-pox. The princesses, hisdaughters, had never had that terrible disease, the scourge and terror ofall classes of society, yet they bravely shut themselves up with theking, lavishing their attentions upon him to the last gasp. Death, triumphant, had vanquished the favorite. Madame Dubarry was sent away assoon as the nature of the malady had declared itself. The king chargedhis grand almoner to ask pardon of the courtiers for the scandal he hadcaused them. "Kings owe no account of their conduct save to God only, "he had often repeated to comfort himself for the shame of his life. "Itis just He whom I fear, " said Maria Theresa, pursued by remorse for thepartition of Poland. 

Louis XV. Died on the 10th of May, 1774, in his sixty-fourth year, afterreigning fifty-nine years, despised by the people who had not so long agogiven him the name of Well-beloved, and whose attachment he had worn outby his cold indifference about affairs and the national interests as muchas by the irregularities of his life. With him died the old Frenchmonarchy, that proud power which had sometimes ruled Europe whilst alwaysholding a great position therein. Henceforth France was marching towardsthe unknown, tossed about as she was by divers movements, which weremostly hostile to the old state of things, blindly and confusedly as yet, but, under the direction of masters as inexperienced as they were daring, full of frequently noble though nearly always extravagant and recklesshopes, all founded on a thorough reconstruction of the bases of societyand of its ancient props. Far more even than the monarchy, at the closeof Louis XV. 's reign, did religion find itself attacked and threatened;the blows struck by the philosophers at fanaticism recoiled upon theChristian faith, transiently liable here below for human errors andfaults over which it is destined to triumph in eternity. 

CHAPTER LV. ----LOUIS XV. , THE PHILOSOPHERS. 

Nowhere and at no epoch had literature shone with so vivid a lustre asin the reign of Louis XIV. ; never has it been in a greater degree theoccupation and charm of mankind, never has it left nobler and rarermodels behind it for the admiration and imitation of the coming race;the writers of Louis XV. 's age, for all their brilliancy and all theirfertility, themselves felt their inferiority in respect of theirpredecessors. Voltaire confessed as much with a modesty which was by nomeans familiar to him. Inimitable in their genius, Corneille, Bossuet, Pascal, Moliere left their imprint upon the generation that came afterthem; it had judgment enough to set them by acclamation in the ranks ofthe classics; in their case, greatness displaced time. Voltaire tookRacine for model; La Mothe imagined that he could imitate La Fontaine. The illustrious company of great minds which surrounded the throne ofLouis XIV. , and had so much to do with the lasting splendor of his reign, had no reason to complain of ingratitude on the part of its successors;but, from the pedestal to which they raised it, it exercised no potentinfluence upon new thought and new passions. Enclosed in their glory asin a sanctuary, those noble spirits, discreet and orderly even in theiraudacities, might look forth on commotions and yearnings they had neverknown; they saw, with astonishment mingled with affright, theirsuccessors launching without fear or afterthought upon that boundlessworld of intellect, upon which the rules of conscience and thedifficulties of practical life do not come in anywhere to impose limits. They saw the field everywhere open to human thought, and they saw fallingdown on all sides the boundaries which they had considered sacred. Theysaw pioneers, as bold as they were thoughtless, marching through themists of a glorious hope towards an unknown future, attacking errors andabuses, all the while that they were digging up the groundwork of societyin order to lay new foundations, and they must have shuddered even intheir everlasting rest to see ideas taking the place of creeds, doubtsubstituted for belief, generous aspirations after liberty, justice, andhumanity mingled, amongst the masses, with low passions and deep-seatedrancor. They saw respect disappearing, the church as well as the kinglypower losing prestige every day, religious faith all darkened and dimmedin some corner of men's souls, and, amidst all this general instability, they asked themselves with awe, "What are the guiding-reins of thesociety which is about to be? What will be the props of the new fabric?The foundations are overturned; what will the good man do?"

[Illustration: Montesquieu----269]

Good men had themselves sometimes lent a hand to the work, beyond whatthey had intended or foreseen, perhaps; Montesquieu, despite the wisemoderation of his great and strong mind, had been the first to awakenthat yearning for novelty and reforms which had been silently brooding atthe bottom of men's hearts. Born in 1689 at the castle of La Brede, nearBordeaux, Montesquieu really belonged, in point of age, to the reign ofLouis XIV. , of which he bears the powerful imprint even amidst theboldness of his thoughts and expressions. Grandeur is the distinctivecharacteristic of Montesquieu's ideas, as it is of the seventeenthcentury altogether. He was already councillor in the Parliament ofBordeaux when Louis XIV. Died; next year (1716) he took possession of amortar-cap president's (_president d mortier_) office, which had beengiven up to him by one of his uncles. "On leaving college, " he says, "there were put into my hands some law-books; I examined the spirit ofthem. " Those profound researches, which were to last as long as hislife, were more suited to his tastes than jurisprudence properly socalled. "What has always given me rather a low opinion of myself, " hewould say, "is that there are very few positions in the commonwealth forwhich I should be really fit. As for my office of president, I have myheart in the right place, I comprehend sufficiently well the questions inthemselves; but as to the procedure I did not understand anything aboutit. I paid attention to it, nevertheless; but what disgusted me most wasto see fools with that very talent which, so to speak, shunned me. " Heresolved to deliver himself from the yoke which was intolerable to him, and resigned his office; but by this time the world knew his name, inspite of the care he had taken at first to conceal it. In 1721, when hestill had his seat on the fleurs-de-lis, he had published his _Lettrespersanes, _ an imaginary trip of two exiled Parsees, freely criticisingParis and France. The book appeared under the Regency, and bears theimprint of it in the licentiousness of the descriptions and the wittyirreverence of the criticisms. Sometimes, however, the future gravity ofMontesquieu's genius reveals itself amidst the shrewd or bitingjudgments. It is in the _Lettres persanes_ that he seeks to set up thenotion of justice above the idea of God himself. "Though there were noGod, " he says, "we should still be bound to love justice, that is to say, make every effort to be like that Being of whom we have so grand an idea, and who, if He existed, would of necessity be just. " Holy Scripture, before Montesquieu, had affirmed more simply and more powerfully theunchangeable idea of justice in every soul of man. "He who is judge ofall the earth, shall not He do right?. " Abraham had said wheninterceding with God for the righteous shut up in Sodom. 

The success of the _Lettres persanes_ was great; Montesquieu had saidwhat many people thought without daring to express it; the doubt whichwas nascent in his mind, and which he could only withstand by an effortof will, the excessive freedom of the tone and of the style scared theauthorities, however; when he wanted to get into the French Academy, inthe place of M. De Sacy, Cardinal Fleury opposed it formally. It wasonly on the 24th of January, 1728, that Montesquieu, recently elected, delivered his reception speech. He at once set out on some long travels;he went through Germany, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and endedby settling in England for two years. The sight of political liberty hadcharmed him. "Ambassadors know no more about England than a six months'infant, " he wrote in his journal; "when people see the devil to pay inthe periodical publications, they believe that there is going to be arevolution next day; but all that is required is to remember that inEngland as elsewhere, the people are dissatisfied with the ministers andwrite what is only thought elsewhere. England is the freest country inthe world; I do not except any republic. " He returned to France sosmitten with the parliamentary or moderate form of government, as hecalled it, that he seemed sometimes to forget the prudent maxim of the_Lettres persanes_. "It is true, " said the Parsee Usbeck, "that, inconsequence of a whimsicality (_bizarrerie_) which springs rather fromthe nature than from the mind of man, it is sometimes necessary to changecertain laws; but the case is rare, and, when it occurs, it should not betouched save with a trembling hand. "

On returning to his castle of La Brede after so many and such longtravels, Montesquieu resolved to restore his tone by intercourse with thepast. "I confess my liking for the ancients, " he used to say; "thisantiquity enchants me, and I am always ready to say with Pliny, 'You aregoing to Athens; revere the gods. '" It was not, however, on the Greeksthat he concentrated the working of his mind; in 1734, he published his_Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur et de la decadence desRomaine_. Montesquieu did not, as Bossuet did, seek to hit upon God'splan touching the destinies of mankind; he discovers in the virtues andvices of the Romans themselves the secret of their triumphs and of theirreverses. The contemplation of antiquity inspires him with languageoften worthy of Tacitus, curt, nervous, powerful in its grave simplicity. "It seemed, " he says, "that the Romans only conquered in order to give;but they remained so positively the masters that, when they made war onany prince, they crushed him, so to speak, with the weight of the wholeuniverse. "

Montesquieu thus performed the prelude to the great work of his life; hehad been working for twenty years at the _Esprit des lois, _ when hepublished it in 1748. "In the course of twenty years, " he says, "I sawmy work begin, grow, progress, and end. " He had placed as the motto tohis book this Latin phrase, which at first excited the curiosity ofreaders: _Prolem sine matre creatam_ (Offspring begotten without amother). "Young man, " said Montesquieu, by this time advanced in years, to M. Suard (afterwards perpetual secretary to the French Academy), "young man, when a notable book is written, genius is its father, andliberty its mother; that is why I wrote upon the title-page of my work, "Prolem sine matre creatam. "

It was liberty at the same time as justice that Montesquieu sought andclaimed in his profound researches into the laws which have from timeimmemorial governed mankind; that new instinctive idea of natural rights, those new yearnings which were beginning to dawn in all hearts, remainedas yet, for the most part, upon the surface of their minds and of theirlives; what was demanded at that time in France was liberty to speak andwrite rather than to act and govern. Montesquieu, on the contrary, wentto the bottom of things, and, despite the natural moderation of his mind, he propounded theories so perilous for absolute power that he dared nothave his book printed at Paris, and brought it out in Geneva; its successwas immense; before his death, Montesquieu saw twenty-one French editionspublished, and translations in all the languages of Europe. "Mankind hadlost its titledeeds, " says Voltaire; "Montesquieu recovered and restoredthem. "

The intense labor, the immense courses of reading, to which Montesquieuhad devoted himself, had exhausted his strength. "I am overcome withweariness, " he wrote in 1747; "I propose to rest myself for the remainderof my days. " "I have done, " he said to M. Suard; "I have burned all mypowder, all my candles have gone out. " "I had conceived the design ofgiving greater breadth and depth to certain parts of my _Esprit;_ I havebecome incapable of it; my reading has weakened my eyes, and it seems tome that what light I have left is but the dawn of the day when they willclose forever. "

Montesquieu was at Paris, ill and sad at heart, in spite of his habitualserenity; notwithstanding the scoffs he had admitted into his _Lettrespersanes, _ he had always preserved some respect for religion; heconsidered it a necessary item in the order of societies; in his soul andon his own private account he hoped and desired rather than believed. "Though the immortality of the soul were an error, " he had said, "Ishould be sorry not to believe it; I confess that I am not so humble asthe atheists. I know not what they think, but as for me I would nottruck the notion of my immortality for that of an ephemeral happiness. There is for me a charm in believing myself to be immortal like Godhimself. Independently of revealed ideas, metaphysical ideas give me, asregards my eternal happiness, strong hopes which I should not like togive up. " As he approached the tomb, his views of religion appeared tobecome clearer. "What a wonderful thing!" he would say, "the Christianreligion, which seems to have no object but felicity in the next world, yet forms our happiness in this. " He had never looked to life for anyvery keen delights; his spirits were as even as his mind was powerful. "Study has been for me the sovereign remedy against the disagreeables oflife, " he wrote, "never having had any sorrow that an hour's reading didnot dispel. I awake in the morning with a secret joy at beholding thelight; I gaze upon the light with a sort of enchantment, and all the restof the day I am content. I pass the night without awaking, and in theevening, when I go to bed, a sort of entrancement prevents me from givingway to reflections. "

Montesquieu died as he had lived, without retracting any of his ideas orof his writings. The priest of his parish brought him the sacraments, and, "Sir, " said he, "you know how great God is!" "Yes, " replied thedying man, "and how little men are!" He expired almost immediately onthe 10th of February, 1755, at the age of sixty-six. He died at thebeginning of the reign of the philosophers, whose way he had preparedbefore them without having ever belonged to their number. Diderot alonefollowed his bier. Fontenelle, nearly a hundred years old, was soon tofollow him to the tomb. 

[Illustration: Fontenelle----274]

Born at Rouen in February, 1657, and nephew of Corneille on the mother'sside, Fontenelle had not received from nature any of the unequal andsublime endowments which have fixed the dramatic crown forever upon theforehead of Corneille; but he had inherited the wit, and indeed thebrilliant wit (_bel esprit_), which the great tragedian hid beneath thesplendors of his genius. He began with those writings, superfine(_precieux_), dainty, tricked out in the fashion of the court and thedrawing-room, which suggested La Bruyere's piquant portrait. 

"Ascanius is a statuary, Hegio a metal-founder, AEschines a fuller, andCydias a brilliant wit. That is his trade; he has a sign, a workshop, articles made to order, and apprentices who work under him. Prose, verse, what d'ye lack? He is equally successful in both. Give him anorder for letters of consolation, or on an absence; he will undertakethem. Take them ready made, if you like, and enter his shop; there is achoice assortment. He has a friend whose only duty on earth is to puffhim for a long while in certain society, and then present him at theirhouses as a rare bird and a man of exquisite conversation, and thereupon, just as the musical man sings and the player on the lute touches his lutebefore the persons to whom he has been puffed, Cydias, after coughing, pulling up his wristband, extending his hand and opening his fingers, gravely spouts his quintessentiated ideas and his sophisticatedarguments. "

Fontenelle was not destined to stop here in his intellectualdevelopments; when, at forty years of age, he became perpetual secretaryto the Academy of Sciences, he had already written his book on the_Pluralite des Mondes, _ the first attempt at that popularization ofscience which has spread so since then. "I believe more and more, " hesaid, "that there is a certain genius which has never yet been out of ourEurope, or, at least, has not gone far out of it. " This genius, clear, correct, precise, the genius of method and analysis, the genius ofDescartes, which was at a later period that of Buffon and of Cuvier, wasadmirably expounded and developed by Fontenelle for the use of theignorant. He wrote for society, and not for scholars, of whose laborsand discoveries he gave an account to society. His extracts from thelabors of the Academy of Science and his eulogies of the Academicians aremodels of lucidness under an ingenious and subtle form, rendered simpleand strong by dint of wit. "There is only truth that persuades, " he usedto say, "and even without requiring to appear with all its proofs. Itmakes its way so naturally into the mind, that, when it is heard for thefirst time, it seems as if one were merely remembering. "

Equitable and moderate in mind, prudent and cold in temperament, Fontenelle passed his life in discussion without ever stumbling intodisputes. "I am no theologian, or philosopher, or man of anydenomination, of any sort whatever; consequently I am not at all bound tobe right, and I can with honor confess that I was mistaken, whenever I ammade to see it. " "How did you manage to keep so many friends withoutmaking one enemy?" he was asked in his old age. "By means of twomaxims, " he answered: "Everything is possible; everybody may be right"(_tout le monde a raison_). The friends of Fontenelle were moderate likehimself; impressed with his fine qualities, they pardoned his lack ofwarmth in his affections. "He never laughed, " says Madame Geoffrin, hismost intimate friend. "I said to him one day, 'Did you ever laugh, M. DeFontenelle?' 'No, ' he answered; 'I never went ha! ha! ha!' That was hisidea of laughing; he just smiled at smart things, but he was a strangerto any strong feeling. He had never shed tears, he had never been in arage, he had never run, and, as he never did anything from sentiment, hedid not catch impressions from others. He had never interrupted anybody, he listened to the end without losing anything; he was in no hurry tospeak, and, if you had been accusing against him, he would have listenedall day without saying a syllable. "

The very courage and trustiness of Fontenelle bore this stamp of discreetmoderation. When Abbe St. Pierre was excluded from the French Academyunder Louis XV. For having dared to criticise the government of LouisXIV. , one single ball in the urn protested against the unjust pressureexercised by Cardinal Fleury upon the society. They all asked oneanother who the rebel was; each defended himself against having votedagainst the minister's order; Fontenelle alone kept silent; wheneverybody had exculpated himself, "It must be myself, then, " saidFontenelle half aloud. 

So much cool serenity and so much taste for noble intellectual worksprolonged the existence of Fontenelle beyond the ordinary limits; he wasninety-nine and not yet weary of life. "If I might but reach thestrawberry-season once more!" he had said. He died at Paris on the 9thof January, 1759; with him disappeared what remained of the spirit andtraditions of Louis XIV. 's reign. Montesquieu and Fontenelle were thelast links which united the seventeenth century to the new era. In adegree as different as the scope of their minds, they both felt respectfor the past, to which they were bound by numerous ties, and the boldnessof their thoughts was frequently tempered by prudence. Though naturallymoderate and prudent, Voltaire was about to be hurried along by the ardorof strife, by the weaknesses of his character, by his vanity and hisambition, far beyond his first intentions and his natural instincts. Theflood of free-thinking had spared Montesquieu and Fontenelle; it wasabout to carry away Voltaire almost as far as Diderot. 

[Illustration: Voltaire----277]

Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire was born at Paris on the 21st ofNovember, 1694. "My dear father, " said a letter from a relative to hisfamily in Poitou, "our cousins have another son, born three days ago;Madame Arouet will give me some of the christening sugar-plums for you. She has been very ill, but it is hoped that she is going on better; theinfant is not much to look at, having suffered from a fall which hismother had. " M. Arouet, the father, of a good middle-class family, hadbeen a notary at the Chatelet, and in 1701 became paymaster of fees(_payeur d'epices_) to the court of exchequer, an honorable and alucrative post, which added to the easy circumstances of the family. Madame Arouet was dead when her youngest son was sent to the college ofLouis-le-Grand, which at that time belonged to the Jesuits. As early asthen little Arouet, who was weak and in delicate health, but withal of avery lively intelligence, displayed a freedom of thought and a tendencyof irreverence which already disquieted and angered his masters. FatherLejay jumped from his chair and took the boy by the collar, exclaiming, "Wretch, thou wilt one of these days raise the standard of Deism inFrance!" Father Pallou, his confessor, accustomed to read the heart, said, as he shook his head, "This, child is devoured with a thirst forcelebrity. "

Even at school and among the Jesuits, that passion for getting talkedabout, which was one of the weaknesses of Voltaire's character, as wellas one of the sources of his influence, was already to a certain extentgratified. The boy was so ready in making verses, that his mastersthemselves found amusement in practising upon his youthful talent. Little Arouet's snuff box had been confiscated because he had passed italong from hand to, hand in class; when he asked for it back from FatherPoree, who was always indulgent towards him, the rector required anapplication in verse. A quarter of an hour later the boy returned withhis treasure in his possession, having paid its ransom thus:

 "Adieu, adieu, poor snuff-box mine; Adieu; we ne'er shall meet again: Nor pains, nor tears, nor prayers divine Will win thee back; my efforts are in vain! Adieu, adieu, poor box of mine; Adieu, my sweet crowns'-worth of bane; Could I with money buy thee back once more, The treasury of Plutus I would drain. But ah! not he the god I must implore; To have thee back, I need Apollo's vein. . . 'Twixt thee and me how hard a barrier-line, To ask for verse! Ah! this is all my strain! Adieu, adieu, poor box of mine; Adieu; we ne'er shall meet again!"

Arouet was still a child when a friend of his family took him to seeMdlle. Ninon de l'Enclos, as celebrated for her wit as for theirregularity of her life. "Abbe Chateauneuf took me to see her in myvery tender youth, " says Voltaire; "I had done some verses, which wereworth nothing, but which seemed very good for my age. She was theneighty-five. She was pleased to put me down in her will; she left me twothousand francs to buy books; her death followed close upon my visit andher will. "

Young Arouet was finishing brilliantly his last year of rhetoric, whenJohn Baptist Rousseau, already famous, saw him at the distribution ofprizes at the college. "Later on, " wrote Rousseau, in the thick of hisquarrels with Voltaire, "some ladies of my acquaintance had taken me tosee a tragedy at the Jesuits in August, 1710; at the distribution ofprizes which usually took place after those representations, I observedthat the same scholar was called up twice. I asked Father Tarteron, whodid the honors of the room in which we were, who the young man was thatwas so distinguished amongst his comrades. He told me that it was alittle lad who had a surprising turn for poetry, and proposed tointroduce him to me; to which I consented. He went to fetch him to me, and I saw him returning a moment afterwards with a young scholar whoappeared to me to be about sixteen or seventeen, with an ill-favoredcountenance, but with a bright and lively expression, and who came andshook hands with me with very good grace. "

Scarcely had Francois Arouet left college when he was called upon tochoose a career. "I do not care for any but that of a literary man, "exclaimed the young fellow. "That, " said his father, "is the conditionof a man who means to be useless to society, to be a charge to hisfamily, and to die of starvation. " The study of the law, to which he wasobliged to devote himself, completely disgusted the poet, already courtedby a few great lords who were amused at his satirical vein; he led anindolent and disorderly life, which drove his father distracted; thelatter wanted to get him a place. "Tell my father, " was the young man'sreply to the relative commissioned to make the proposal, "that I do notcare for a position which can be bought; I shall find a way of gettingmyself one that costs nothing. " "Having but little property when I beganlife, " he wrote to M. D'Argenson, his sometime fellow-pupil, "I had theinsolence to think that I should have got a place as well as another, if it were to be obtained by hard work and good will. I threw myselfinto the ranks of the fine arts, which always carry with them a certainair of vilification, seeing that they do not make a man king's counsellorin his councils. You may become a master of requests with money; but youcan't make a poem with money, and I made one. "

This independent behavior and the poem on the _Construction du Choeur deNotre-Dame de Paris, _ the subject submitted for competition by the FrenchAcademy, did not prevent young Arouet from being sent by his father toHolland in the train of the Marquis of Chateauneuf, then Frenchambassador to the States General; he committed so many follies that onhis return to France, M. Arouet forced him to enter a solicitor's office. It was there that the poet acquired that knowledge of business which wasuseful to him during the whole course of his long life; he, however, didnot remain there long: a satire upon the French Academy which had refusedhim the prize for poetry, and, later on, some verses as biting as theywere disrespectful against the Duke of Orleans, twice obliged theirauthor to quit Paris. Sent into banishment at Sully-sur-Loire, he therefound partisans and admirers; the merry life that was led at theChevalier Sully's mitigated the hardships of absence from Paris. "Don'tyou go publishing abroad, I beg, " wrote Arouet, nevertheless, to one ofhis friends, "the happiness of which I tell you in confidence: for theymight perhaps leave me here long enough for me to become unhappy; I knowmy own capacity; I am not made to live long in the same place. "

A beautiful letter addressed to the Regent and disavowing all thesatirical writings which had been attributed to him, brought Arouet backto Paris at the commencement of the year 1717; he had been enjoying itfor barely a few months when a new satire, entitled _J'ai vu_ (I haveseen), and bitterly criticising the late reign, engaged the attention ofsociety, and displeased the Regent afresh. Arouet defended himself withjust cause and with all his might against the charge of having writtenit. The Duke of Orleans one day met him in the garden of thePalais-Royal. "Monsieur Arouet, " said he, "I bet that I will make yousee a thing you have never seen. " "What, pray, monseigneur?" "TheBastille. " "Ah! monseigneur, I will consider it seen. " Two days later, young Arouet was shut up in the Bastille. 

 I needs must go; I jog along in style, With close-shut carriage, to the royal pile Built in our fathers' days, hard by St. Paul, By Charles the Fifth. 0 brethren, good men all, In no such quarters may your lot be cast! Up to my room I find my way at last A certain rascal with a smirking face Exalts the beauties of my new retreat, So comfortable, so compact, so neat. Says he, "While Phoebus runs his daily race, He never casts one ray within this place. Look at the walls, some ten feet thick or so; You'll find it all the cooler here, you know. " Then, bidding me admire the way they close The triple doors and triple locks on those, With gratings, bolts and bars on every side, "It's all for your security, " he cried. At stroke of noon some skilly is brought in; Such fare is not so delicate as thin. I am not tempted by this splendid food, But what they tell me is, "'Twill do you good So eat in peace; no one will hurry you. " Here in this doleful den I make ado, Bastilled, imprisoned, cabined, cribbed, confined, Nor sleeping, drinking, eating-to my mind; Betrayed by every one, my mistress too! O Marc Rene! [M. D'Argenson] whom Censor Cato's ghost Might well have chosen for his vacant post, O Marc Rene! through whom 'tis brought about That so much people murmur here below, To your kind word my durance vile I owe; May the good God some fine day pay you out!

Young Arouet passed eleven months in the Bastille; he there wrote thefirst part of the poem called _La Henriade, _ under the title of _LaLigue;_ when he at last obtained his release in April, 1718, he at thesame time received orders to reside at Chatenay, where his father had acountry house. It was on coming out of the Bastille that the poet took, from a small family-estate, that name of Voltaire which he was to renderso famous. "I have been too unfortunate under my former name, " he wroteto Mdlle. Du Noy er; "I mean to see whether this will suit me better. "

The players were at that time rehearsing the tragedy of _OEdipe, _ whichwas played on the 18th of November, 1718, with great success. The daringflights of philosophy introduced by the poet into this profoundly andterribly religious subject excited the enthusiasm of the roues; Voltairewas well received by the Regent, who granted him an honorarium. "Monseigneur, " said Voltaire, "I should consider it very kind if hisMajesty would be pleased to provide henceforth for my board, but Ibeseech your Highness to provide no more for my lodging. " Voltaire'sacts of imprudence were destined more than once to force him into leavingParis; he all his life preserved such a horror of prison, that it madehim commit more than one platitude. "I have a mortal aversion forprison, " he wrote in 1734; once more, however, he was to be an inmate ofthe Bastille. 

Launched upon the most brilliant society, everywhere courted andflattered, Voltaire was constantly at work, displaying the marvelloussuppleness of his mind by shifting from the tragedies of _Artemise_ and_Marianne, _ which failed, to the comedy of _L'Indiscret, _ to numerouscharming epistles, and lastly to the poem of _La Henriade, _ which he wenton carefully revising, reading fragments of it as he changed his quartersfrom castle to castle. One day, however, some criticisms to which he wasnot accustomed angered him so much, that he threw into the fire themanuscript he held in his hand. "It is only worth burning, then, " heexclaimed in a rage. President Henault dashed at the papers. "I ran upand drew it out of the flames, saying that I had done more than they whodid not burn the AEneid as Virgil had recommended; I had drawn out of thefire _La Henriade, _ which Voltaire was going to burn with his own hands. 

[Illustration: The Rescue of "La Henriade. "----283]

If I liked, I might ennoble this action by calling to mind that pictureof Raphael's at the Vatican which represents Augustus preventing Virgilfrom burning the AEneid; but I am not Augustus, and Raphael is no more. "Wholly indulgent and indifferent as might be the government of the Regentand of Dubois, it was a little scared at the liberties taken by Voltairewith the Catholic church. He was required to make excisions in order toget permission to print the poem; the author was here, there, andeverywhere, in a great flutter and preoccupied with his literary, financial, and fashionable affairs. In receipt of a pension from thequeen, and received as a visitor at La Source, near Orleans, by LordBolingbroke in his exile, every day becoming more brilliant and morecourted, he was augmenting his fortune by profitable speculations, andappeared on the point of finding himself well off, when an incident, which betrayed the remnant still remaining of barbarous manners, occurredto envenom for a long while the poet's existence. He had a quarrel atthe Opera with Chevalier Rohan-Chabot, a court libertine, of littlerepute; the scene took place in the presence of Mdlle. AdrienneLecouvreur; the great actress fainted they were separated. Two daysafterwards, when Voltaire was dining at the Duke of Sully's, a servantcame to tell him that he was wanted at the door of the hotel; the poetwent out without any suspicion, though he had already been the victim ofseveral ambuscades. A coach was standing in the street, and he wasrequested to get in; at that instant two men, throwing themselves uponhim and holding him back by his clothes, showered upon him a hailstorm ofblows with their sticks. The Chevalier de Rohan, prudently ensconcedin a second vehicle, and superintending the--execution of his cowardlyvengeance, shouted to his servants, "Don't hit him on the head; somethinggood may come out of it. " When Voltaire at last succeeded in escapingfrom these miscreants to take refuge in Sully's house, he was half dead. 

Blows with a stick were not at that time an unheard-of procedure insocial relations. "Whatever would become of us if poets had noshoulders!" was the brutal remark of the Bishop of Blois, M. DeCaumartin. But the customs of society did not admit a poet to the honorof obtaining satisfaction from whoever insulted him. The great lords, friends of Voltaire, who had accustomed him to attention and flattery, abandoned him pitilessly in his quarrel with Chevalier de Rohan. "Thoseblows were well gotten and ill given, " said the Prince of Conti. Thatwas all the satisfaction Voltaire obtained. "The poor victim showshimself as much as possible at court, in the city, " says the Marais news, "but nobody pities him, and those whom he considered his friends haveturned their backs upon him. "

Voltaire was not of an heroic nature, but excess of rage and indignationhad given him courage; he had scarcely ever had a sword in his hand; herushed to the fencers' and practised from morning till night, in order tobe in a position to demand satisfaction. So much ardor disquietedChevalier de Rohan and his family; his uncle, the cardinal, tookprecautions. The lieutenant of police wrote to the officer of the watch, "Sir, his Highness is informed that Chevalier de Rohan is going awayto-day, and, as he might have some fresh affair with Sieur de Voltaire, or the latter might do something rash, his desire is for you to see thatnothing comes of it. "

Voltaire anticipated the intentions of the lieutenant of police hesucceeded in sending a challenge to Chevalier de Rohan; the latteraccepted it for the next day; he even chose his ground: but before thehour fixed, Voltaire was arrested and taken to the Bastille; he remainedthere a month. Public opinion was beginning to pity him. MarshalVillars writes in his memoirs, --

"The chevalier was very much inconvenienced by a fall which did not admitof his handling a sword. He took the course of having a caningadministered in broad day to Voltaire, who, instead of adopting legalproceedings, thought vengeance by arms more noble. It is asserted thathe sought it diligently, but too indiscreetly. Cardinal Rohan asked M. Le Duc to have him put in the Bastille: orders to that effect were givenand executed, and the poor poet, after being beaten, was imprisoned intothe bargain. The public, whose inclination is to blame everybody andeverything, justly considered, in this case, that everybody was in thewrong; Voltaire, for having offended Chevalier de Rohan; the latter, forhaving dared to commit a crime worthy of death in causing a citizen to bebeaten; the government, for not having punished a notorious misdeed, andfor having put the beatee in the Bastille to tranquillize the beater. "

Voltaire left the Bastille on the 3d of May, 1726, and was accompanied byan exon to Calais, having asked as a favor to be sent to England; butscarcely had he set foot on English territory, scarcely had he felthimself free, when the recurring sense of outraged honor made him takethe road back to France. "I confess to you, my dear Theriot, " he wroteto one of his friends, "that I made a little trip to Paris a short timeago. As I did not call upon you, you will easily conclude that I did notcall upon anybody. I was in search of one man only, whom his dastardlyinstinct kept concealed from me, as if he guessed that I was on histrack. At last the fear of being discovered made me depart moreprecipitately than I had come. That is the fact, my dear Theriot. Thereis every appearance of my never seeing you again. I have but two thingsto do with my life: to hazard it with honor, as soon as I can, and to endit in the obscurity of a retreat which suits my way of thinking, mymisfortunes, and the knowledge I have of men. "

Voltaire passed three years in England, engaged in learning English andfinishing _La Henriade, _ which he published by subscription in 1727. Touched by the favor shown by English society to the author and the poem, he dedicated to the Queen of England his new work, which was entirelyconsecrated to the glory of France; three successive editions weredisposed of in less than three weeks. Lord Bolingbroke, having returnedto England and been restored to favor, did potent service to his oldfriend, who lived in the midst of that literary society in which Pope andSwift held sway, without, however, relaxing his reserve with its impressof melancholy. "I live the life of a Bosicrucian, " he wrote to hisfriends, "always on the move and always in hiding. " When, in the monthof March, 1729, Voltaire at last obtained permission to revisit France, he had worked much without bringing out anything. The riches he had thusamassed appeared ere long: before the end of the year 1731 he put_Brutus_ on the stage, and began his publication of the _Histoire deCharles XII. ;_ he was at the same time giving the finishing touch to_Eriphyle_ and _La Mort de Caesar_. _Zaire, _ written in a few weeks, wasplayed for the first time on the 13th of August, 1732; he had dedicatedit to Mr. Falkner, an English merchant who had overwhelmed him withattentions during his exile. "My satisfaction grows as I write to tellyou of it, " he writes to his friend Cideville in the fulness of joy:"never was a piece so well played as _Zaire_ at the fourth appearance. I very much wished you had been there; you would have seen that thepublic does not hate your friend. I appeared in a box, and the whole pitclapped their hands at me. I blushed, I hid myself; but I should be ahumbug if I did not confess to you that I was sensibly affected. It ispleasant not to be dishonored in one's own country. "

Voltaire had just inaugurated the great national tragedy of his country, as he had likewise given it the only national epopee attempted in Francesince the _Chansons de Geste;_ by one of those equally sudden andimprudent reactions to which he was always subject, it was not longbefore he himself damaged his own success by the publication of his_Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais_. 

The light and mocking tone of these letters, the constant comparisonbetween the two peoples, with many a gibe at the English, but alwaysturning to their advantage, the preference given to the philosophicalsystem of Newton over that of Descartes, lastly the attacks upon religionconcealed beneath the cloak of banter--all this was more than enough toruffle the tranquillity of Cardinal Fleury. The book was brought beforeParliament; Voltaire was disquieted. "There is but one letter about Mr. Locke, " he wrote to M. De Cideville; "the only philosophical matter Ihave treated of in it is the little trifle of the immortality of thesoul, but the thing is of too much consequence to be treated seriously. It had to be mangled so as not to come into direct conflict with ourlords the theologians, gentry who so clearly see the spirituality of thesoul that, if they could, they would consign to the flames the bodies ofthose who have a doubt about it. " The theologians confined themselves toburning the book; the decree of Parliament delivered on the 10th of June, 1734, ordered at the same time the arrest of the author; the booksellerwas already in the Bastille. Voltaire was in the country, attending theDuke of Richelieu's second marriage; hearing of the danger thatthreatened him, he took fright and ran for refuge to Bale. He soon leftit to return to the castle of Cirey, to the Marchioness du Chatelet's, awoman as learned as she was impassioned, devoted to literature, physics, and mathematics, and tenderly attached to Voltaire, whom she enticedalong with her into the paths of science. For fifteen years Madame duChatelet and Cirey ruled supreme over the poet's life. There began acourse of metaphysics, tales, tragedies; _Alzire, Merope, Mahomet, _ werecomposed at Cirey and played with ever increasing success. Pope BenedictXIV. Had accepted the dedication of Mahomet, which Voltaire hadaddressed to him in order to cover the freedoms of his piece. Every nowand then, terrified in consequence of some bit of anti-religiousrashness, he took flight, going into hiding at one time to the court ofLorraine beneath the wing of King Stanislaus, at another time in Holland, at a palace belonging to the King of Prussia, the Great Frederick. Madame du Chatelet, as unbelieving as he at bottom, but more reserved inexpression, often scolded him for his imprudence. "He requires everymoment to be saved from himself, " she would say. "I employ more policyin managing him than the whole Vatican employs to keep all Christendom inits fetters. " On the appearance of danger, Voltaire ate his wordswithout scruple; his irreligious writings were usually launched undercover of the anonymous. At every step, however, he was advancing fartherand farther into the lists, and at the very moment when he wrote toFather La Tour, "If ever anybody has printed in my name a single pagewhich could scandalize even the parish beadle, I am ready to tear it upbefore his eyes, " all Europe regarded him as the leader of the open orsecret attacks which were beginning to burst not only upon the Catholicchurch, but upon the fundamental verities common to all Christians. 

Madame du Chatelet died on the 4th of September, 1749, at Luneville, where she then happened to be with Voltaire. Their intimacy hadexperienced many storms, yet the blow was a cruel one for the poet; inlosing Madame de Chatelet he was losing the centre and the guidance ofhis life. For a while he spoke of burying himself with Dom Calmet in theabbey of Senones; then he would be off to England; he ended by returningto Paris, summoning to his side a widowed niece, Madame Denis, a woman ofcoarse wit and full of devotion to him, who was fond of the drama andplayed her uncle's pieces on the little theatre which he had fittedup in his rooms. At that time Oreste was being played at the_Comedie-Francaise;_ its success did not answer the author'sexpectations. "All that could possibly give a handle to criticism, " saysMarmontel, who was present, "was groaned at or turned into ridicule. Theplay was interrupted by it every instant. Voltaire came in, and, just asthe pit were turning into ridicule a stroke of pathos, he jumped up, andshouted, 'O, you barbarians; that is Sophocles!' _Rome Sauvee_ was playedon the stage of Sceaux, at the Duchess of Maine's; Voltaire himself tookthe part of Cicero. Lekain, as yet quite a youth, and making his firstappearance under the auspices of Voltaire, said of this representation, 'I do not think it possible to hear anything more pathetic and real thanM. De Voltaire; it was, in fact, Cicero himself thundering at the bar. '"

Despite the lustre of that fame which was attested by the frequentattacks of his enemies as much as by the admiration of his friends, Voltaire was displeased with his sojourn at Paris, and weary of the courtand the men of letters. The king had always exhibited towards him acoldness which the poet's adulation had not been able to overcome; he hadoffended Madame de Pompadour, who had but lately been well disposedtowards him; the religious circle, ranged around the queen and thedauphin, was of course hostile to him. "The place of historiographer tothe king was but an empty title, " he says himself; "I wanted to make it areality by working at the history of the war of 1741; but, in spite of mywork, Moncrif had admittance to his Majesty, and I had not. "

In tracing the tragic episodes of the war, Voltaire, set as his mind wason the royal favor, had wanted in the first place to pay homage to thefriends he had lost. It was in the "eulogium of the officers who fell inthe campaign of 1741" that he touchingly called attention to the memoryof Vauvenargues. He, born at Aix on the 6th of August, 1715, died of hiswounds, at Paris, in 1747. Poor and proud, resigning himself with a sighto idleness and obscurity, the young officer had written merely torelieve his mind. His friends had constrained him to publish a littlebook, one only, the _Introduction de la connaissance de l'esprit humain, suivie de reflexions et de maximes_. Its success justified theiraffectionate hopes; delicate minds took keen delight in the first essaysof Vauvenargues. Hesitating between religion and philosophy, with apalpable leaning towards the latter, ill and yet bravely bearing thedisappointments and sufferings of his life, Vauvenargues was alreadyexpiring at thirty years of age, when Provence was invaded by the enemy. The humiliation of his country and the peril of his native provinceroused him from his tranquil melancholy. "All Provence is in arms, " hewrote to his friend Fauris de St. Vincent, "and here am I quite quietlyin my chimney-corner; the bad state of my eyes and of my health is notsufficient excuse for me, and I ought to be where all the gentlemen ofthe province are. Send me word then, I beg, immediately whether there isstill any employment to be had in our newly raised, levies, and whether Ishould be sure to be employed if I were to go to Provence. " Before hisfriend's answer had reached Vauvenargues, the Austrians and thePiedmontese had been forced to evacuate Provence; the dying man remainedin his chimney-corner, where he soon expired, leaving amongst the public, and still more amongst those who had known him personally, the impressionof great promise sadly extinguished. "It was his fate, " says hisfaithful biographer, M. Gilbert, "to be always opening his wings and tobe unable to take flight. "

Voltaire, quite on the contrary, was about to take a fresh flight. Afterseveral rebuffs and long opposition on the part of the eighteenecclesiastics who at that time had seats in the French Academy, he hadbeen elected to it in 1746. In 1750, he offered himself at one and thesame time for the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Inscriptions;he failed in both candidatures. This mishap filled the cup of hisill-humor. For a long time past Frederick II. Had been offering the poetfavors which he had long refused. The disgust he experienced at Paristhrough his insatiable vanity made him determine upon seeking anotherarena; after having accepted a pension and a place from the King ofPrussia, Voltaire set out for Berlin. 

But lately allied to France, to which he was ere long to deal such heavyblows, Frederick II. Was French by inclination, in literature and inphilosophy; he was a bad German scholar; he always wrote and spoke inFrench, and his court was the resort of the cultivated French wits toobold in their views to live in peace at Paris. Maupertuis, La Mettrie, and the Marquis of Argens had preceded Voltaire to Berlin. He wasreceived there with enthusiasm and as sovereign of the little court ofphilosophers. "A hundred and fifty thousand victorious soldiers, " hewrote in a letter to Paris, "no attorneys, opera, plays, philosophy, poetry, a hero who is a philosopher and a poet, grandeur and graces, grenadiers and muses, trumpets and violins, Plato's symposium, societyand freedom! Who would believe it? It is all true, however!" Voltairefound his duties as chamberlain very light. "It is Caesar, it is MarcusAurelius, it is Julian, it is sometimes Abbe Chaulieu, with whom I sup;there is the charm of retirement, there is the freedom of the country, with all those little delights of life which a lord of a castle who is aking can procure for his very obedient humble servants and guests. Myown duties are to do nothing. I enjoy my leisure. I give an hour a dayto the King of Prussia to touch up a bit his works in prose and verse; Iam his grammarian, not his chamberlain. The rest of the day is my own, and the evening ends with a pleasant supper. . . . Never in any placein the world was there more freedom of speech touching the superstitionsof men, and never were they treated with more banter and contempt. Godis respected, but all they who have cajoled men in His name are treatedunsparingly. "

The coarseness of the Germans and the mocking infidelity of the Frenchvied with each other in license. Sometimes Voltaire felt that thingswere carried rather far. "Here be we, three or four foreigners, likemonks in an abbey, " he wrote; "please God the father abbot may contenthimself with making fun of us. "

Literary or philosophical questions already gave rise sometimes todisagreements. "I am at present correcting the second edition which theKing of Prussia is going to publish of the history of his country, " wroteVoltaire; "fancy! in order to appear more impartial, he falls tooth andnail on his grandfather. I have lightened the blows as much as I could. I rather like this grandfather, because he displayed magnificence, andhas left some fine monuments. I had great trouble about softening downthe terms in which the grandson reproaches his ancestor for his vanity inhaving got himself made a king; it is a vanity from which his descendantsderive pretty solid advantages, and the title is not at all adisagreeable one. At last I said to him, 'It is your grandfather, it isnot mine; do what you please with him, ' and I confined myself to weedingthe expressions. "

Whilst Voltaire was defending the Great Elector against his successor, a certain coldness was beginning to slide into his relations withMaupertuis, president of the Academy founded by the king at Berlin. "Maupertuis has not easygoing springs, " the poet wrote to his niece; "hetakes my dimensions sternly with his quadrant. It is said that a littleenvy enters into his calculations. " Already Voltaire's touchy vanity wasshying at the rivals he encountered in the king's favor. "So it isknown, then, by this time at Paris, my dear child, " he writes to hisniece, "that we have played the Mort de Cesar at Potsdam, that PrinceHenry is a good actor, has no accent, and is very amiable, and that thisis the place for pleasure? All that is true . . . But . . . Theking's supper-parties are delightful; at them people talk reason, wit, science; freedom prevails thereat; he is the soul of it all; no illtemper, no clouds, at any rate no storms; my life is free and welloccupied . . . But . . . Opera, plays, carousals, suppers at Sans-Souci, military manoeuvres, concerts, studies, readings . . But . . The city of Berlin, grand, better laid out than Paris; palaces, play-houses, affable parish priests, charming princesses, maids of honorbeautiful and well made; the mansion of Madame de Tyrconnel always full, and sometimes too much so . . . But . . . But. . . . My dearchild, the weather is beginning to settle down into a fine frost. "

The "frost" not only affected Voltaire's relations with his brethren inphilosophy, it reached even to the king himself. A far from creditablelawsuit with a Jew completed Frederick's irritation. He forbade the poetto appear in his presence before the affair was over. "Brother Voltaireis doing penance here, " wrote the latter to the Margravine of Baireuth, the King of Prussia's amiable sister he has a beast of a lawsuit with aJew, and, according to the law of the Old Testament, there will besomething more to pay for having been robbed. . . . " Frederick, on hisside, writes to his sister, "You ask me what the lawsuit is in whichVoltaire is involved with a Jew. It is a case of a rogue wanting tocheat a thief. It is intolerable that a man of Voltaire's intellectshould make so unworthy an abuse of it. The affair is in the hands ofjustice; and, in a few days, we shall know from the sentence which is thegreater rogue of the two. Voltaire lost his temper, flew in the Jew'sface, and, in fact, behaved like a madman. I am waiting for this affairto be over to put his head under the pump or reprimand him severely (_luilaver la tete_), and see whether, at the age of fifty-six, one cannotmake him, if not reasonable, at any rate less of a rogue. "

Voltaire settled matters with the Jew, at the same time asking the king'spardon for what he called his giddiness. "This great poet is alwaysastride of Parnassus and Rue Quincampoix, " said the Marquis of Argenson. Frederick had written him on the 24th of February, 1751, a severe letter, the prelude and precursor of the storms which were to break off beforelong the intimacy between the king and the philosopher. "I was very gladto receive you, " said the king; "I esteemed your wit, your talents, youracquirements, and I was bound to suppose that a man of your age, tired ofwrangling with authors and exposing himself to tempests, was cominghither to take refuge as in a quiet harbor; but you at the very first, ina rather singular fashion, required of me that I should not engageFrerron to write me news. D'Arnauld did you some injuries; a generousman would have pardoned them; a vindictive man persecutes those towardswhom he feels hatred. In fine, though D'Arnauld had done nothing so faras I was concerned, on your account he had to leave. You went to theRussian minister's to speak to him about matters you had no business tomeddle with, and it was supposed that I had given you instructions; youmeddled in Madame de Bentinck's affairs, which was certainly not in yourprovince. Then you have the most ridiculous squabble in the world withthat Jew. You created a fearful uproar all through the city. The matterof the Saxon bills is so well known in Saxony that grave complaints havebeen made to me about them. For my part, I kept peace in my householduntil your arrival, and I warn you that, if you are fond of intrigue andcabal, you have come to the wrong place. I like quiet and peaceablefolks who do not introduce into their behavior the violent passions oftragedy; in case you can make up your mind to live as a philosopher, Ishall be very glad to see you; but, if you give way to the impetuosity ofyour feelings and quarrel with everybody, you will do me no pleasure bycoming hither and you may just as well remain at Berlin. "

Voltaire was not proud; he readily heaped apology upon apology; but hewas irritable and vain; his ill-humor against Maupertuis came out in apamphlet, as bitter as it was witty, entitled _La Diatribe du DocteurAkakia;_ copies were circulating in Berlin; the satire was alreadyprinted anonymously, when the Great Frederick suddenly entered the lists. He wrote to Voltaire, "Your effrontery astounds me after that which youhave just done, and which is as clear as daylight. Do not suppose thatyou will make black appear white; when one does not see, it is becauseone does not want to see everything; but, if you carry matters toextremity, I will have everything printed, and it will then be seen thatif your works deserve that statues should be raised to you, your conductdeserves handcuffs. "

Voltaire, affrighted, still protesting his innocence, at last gave up thewhole edition of the diatribe, which was burned before his eyes in theking's own closet. According to the poet's wily habit, some copy orother had doubtless escaped the flames. Before long _Le Docteur Akakia_appeared at Berlin, arriving modestly from Dresden by post; people foughtfor the pamphlet, and everybody laughed; the satire was spread over allEurope. In vain did Frederick have it burned on the Place d'Armes by thehands of the common hangman; he could not assuage the despair ofMaupertuis. "To speak to you frankly, " the king at last wrote to thedisconsolate president, "it seems to me that you take too much to heart, both for an invalid and a philosopher, an affair which you ought todespise. How prevent a man from writing, and how prevent him fromdenying all the impertinences he has uttered? I made investigations tofind out whether any fresh satires had been sold at Berlin, but I heardof none; as for what is sold in Paris, you are quite aware that I havenot charge of the police of that city, and that I am not master of it. Voltaire treats you more gently than I am treated by the gazetteers ofCologne and Lubeck, and yet I don't trouble myself about it. "

Voltaire could no longer live at Potsdam or at Sans-Souci; even Berlinseemed dangerous: in a fit of that incurable perturbation which formedthe basis of his character and made him commit so many errors, he had nolonger any wish but to leave Prussia, only he wanted to go withoutembroiling himself with the king. "I sent the Solomon of the North, " hewrites to Madame Denis on the 13th of January, 1753, "for his present, the cap and bells he gave me, with which you reproached me so much. Iwrote him a very respectful letter, for I asked him for leave to go. What do you think he did? He sent me his great factotum Federshoff, whobrought me back my toys; he wrote me a letter saying that he would ratherhave me to live with than Maupertuis. What is quite certain is, that Iwould rather not live with either one or the other. "

Frederick was vexed with Voltaire; he nevertheless found it difficult togive up the dazzling charm of his conversation. Voltaire was hurt anddisquieted; he wanted to get away--the king, however, exercised a strongattraction over him. But in spite of mutual coquetting, making up, andprotesting, the hour of separation was at hand; the poet was underpressure from his friends in France; in Berlin he had never completelyneglected Paris. He had just published his _Siecle de Louis XIV. ;_ heflattered himself with the hope that he might again appear at court, though the king had disposed of his place as historiographer in favor ofDuclos. Frederick at last yielded; he was on the parade, Voltaireappeared there. "Ah! Monsieur Voltaire, " said the king, "so you reallyintend to go away?" "Sir, urgent private affairs, and especially myhealth, leave me no alternative. " "Monsieur, I wish you a pleasantjourney. " Voltaire jumped into his carriage, and hurried to Leipsic; hethought himself free forever from the exactions and tyrannies of the Kingof Prussia. 

The poet, according to his custom, had tarried on the way. He had passedmore than a month at Gotha, being overwhelmed with attentions by theduke, and by the duchess, for whom he wrote the dry chronicle entitled_Les Annales de L'Empire_. He arrived at Frankfort on the 31st of Mayonly: the king's orders had arrived before him. 

"Here is how this fine adventure came to pass, " says Voltaire. "Therewas at Frankfort one Freytag, who had been banished from Dresden, and hadbecome an agent for the King of Prussia. . . . He notified me onbehalf of his Majesty that I was not to leave Frankfort till I hadrestored the valuable effects I was carrying away from his Majesty. 'Alack! sir, I am carrying away nothing from that country, if you please, not even the smallest regret. What, pray, are those jewels of theBrandenburg crown that you require?' 'It be, sir, ' replied Freytag, 'the work of poesy of the king, my gracious master. ' 'O! I will givehim back his prose and verse with all my heart, ' replied I, 'though, after all, I have more than one right to the work. He made me a presentof a beautiful copy printed at his expense. Unfortunately this copy isat Leipsic with my other luggage. ' Then Freytag proposed to me to remainat Frankfort until the treasure which was at Leipsic should have arrived;and he signed an order for it. "

The volume which Frederick claimed, and which he considered it of so muchimportance to preserve from Voltaire's indiscretions, contained amongstother things a burlesque and licentious poem, entitled the Palladium, wherein the king scoffed at everything and everybody in terms which hedid not care to make public. He knew the reckless malignity of the poetwho was leaving him, and he had a right to be suspicious of it; butnothing can excuse the severity of his express orders, and still less thebrutality of his agents. The package had arrived; Voltaire, agitated, anxious, and ill, wanted to get away as soon as possible, accompanied byMadame Denis, who had just joined him. Freytag had no orders, andrefused to let him go; the prisoner loses his head, he makes up his mindto escape at any price, he slips from the hotel, he thinks he is free, but the police of Frankfort was well managed. "The moment I was off, Iwas arrested, I, my secretary and my people; my niece is arrested; foursoldiers drag her through the mud to a cheese-monger's named Smith, whohad some title or other of privy councillor to the King of Prussia; myniece had a passport from the King of France, and, what is more, she hadnever corrected the King of Prussia's verses. They huddled us all into asort of hostelry, at the door of which were posted a dozen soldiers; wewere for twelve days prisoners of war, and we had to pay a hundred andforty crowns a day. "

[Illustration: Arrest of Voltaire----298]

The wrath and disquietude of Voltaire no longer knew any bounds; MadameDenis was ill, or feigned to be; she wrote letter upon letter toVoltaire's friends at the court of Prussia; she wrote to the kinghimself. The strife which had begun between the poet and the maladroitagents of the Great Frederick was becoming serious. "We would haverisked our lives rather than let him get away, " said Freytag; "and if I, holding a council of war with myself, had not found him at the barrier, but in the open country, and he had refused to jog back, I don't knowthat I shouldn't have lodged a bullet in his head. To such a degree hadI at heart the letters and writings of the king. "

Freytag's zeal received a cruel rebuff: orders arrived to let the poetgo. "I gave you no orders like that, " wrote Frederick, "you should nevermake more noise than a thing deserves. I wanted Voltaire to give up toyou the key, the cross, and the volume of poems I had intrusted to him;, as soon as all that was given up to you I can't see what earthly reasoncould have induced you to make this uproar. " At last, on the 6th ofJuly, "all this affair of Ostrogoths and Vandals being over, " Voltaireleft Frankfort precipitately. His niece had taken the road to Paris, whence she soon wrote to him, "There is nobody in France, I say nobodywithout exception, who has not condemned this violence mingled with somuch that is ridiculous and cruel; it makes a deeper impression than youwould believe. Everybody says that you could not do otherwise than youare doing, in resolving to meet with philosophy things sounphilosophical. We shall do very well to hold our tongues; the publicspeaks quite enough. " Voltaire held his tongue, according to his idea ofholding his tongue, drawing, in his poem of _La Loi naturelle, _ dedicatedat first to the margravine of Baireuth and afterwards to the Duchess ofSaxe-Gotha, a portrait of Frederick which was truthful and at the sametime bitter:

 "Of incongruities a monstrous pile, Calling men brothers, crushing them the while; With air humane, a misanthropic brute; Ofttimes impulsive, sometimes over-'cute; Weak 'midst his choler, modest in his pride; Yearning for virtue, lust personified; Statesman and author, of the slippery crew; My patron, pupil, persecutor too. "

Voltaire's intimacy with the Great Frederick was destroyed it had for awhile done honor to both of them; it had ended by betraying thepettinesses and the meannesses natural to the king as well as to thepoet. Frederick did not remain without anxiety on the score ofVoltaire's rancor; Voltaire dreaded nasty diplomatic proceedings on thepart of the king; he had been threatened with as much by Lord Keith, Milord Marechal, as he was called on the Continent from the hereditarytitle he had lost in his own country through his attachment to the causeof the Stuarts:--

"Let us see in what countries M. De Voltaire has not had some squabble ormade himself many enemies, " said a letter to Madame Denis from the greatScotch lord, when he had entered Frederick's service: "every countrywhere the Inquisition prevails must be mistrusted by him; he would puthis foot in it sooner or later. The Mussulmans must be as little pleasedwith his Mahomet as good Christians were. He is too old to go to Chinaand turn mandarin; in a word, if he is wise, there is no place but Francefor him. He has friends there, and you will have him with you for therest of his days; do not let him shut himself out from the pleasure ofreturning thither, for you are quite aware that, if he were to indulge inspeech and epigrams offensive to the king my master, a word which thelatter might order me to speak to the court of France would suffice toprevent M. De Voltaire from returning, and he would be sorry for it whenit was too late. "

Voltaire was already in France, but he dared not venture to Paris. Mutilated, clumsy, or treacherous issues of the _Abrege de l'HistoireUniverselle_ had already stirred the bile of the clergy; there were to beseen in circulation copies of _La Pucelle, _ a disgusting poem which theauthor had been keeping back and bringing out alternately for severalyears past. Voltaire fled from Colmar, where the Jesuits held sway, toLyons, where he found Marshal Richelieu, but lately his protector andalways his friend, who was repairing to his government of Languedoc. Cardinal Tencin refused to receive the poet, who regarded this suddenseverity as a sign of the feelings of the court towards him. "The kingtold Madame de Pompadour that he did not want me to go to Paris; I am ofhis Majesty's opinion, I don't want to go to Paris, " wrote Voltaire tothe Marquis of Paulmy. He took fright and sought refuge in Switzerland, where he soon settled on the Lake of Geneva, pending his purchase of theestate of Ferney in the district of Gex and that of Tourney in Burgundy. He was henceforth fixed, free to pass from France to Switzerland and fromSwitzerland to France. "I lean my left on Mount Jura, " he used to say, "my right on the Alps, and I have the beautiful Lake of Geneva in frontof my camp, a beautiful castle on the borders of France, the hermitage ofDelices in the territory of Geneva, a good house at Lausanne; crawlingthus from one burrow to another, I escape from kings. Philosophersshould always have two or three holes under ground against the houndsthat run them down. "

The perturbation of Voltaire's soul and mind was never stilled; theanxious and undignified perturbation of his outer life at last subsided;he left off trembling, and, in the comparative security which he thoughthe possessed, he gave scope to all his free-thinking, which had butlately been often cloaked according to circumstances. He had taken thecommunion at Colmar, to soften down the Jesuits; he had conformed to therules of the convent of Senones, when he took refuge with Dom Calmet; atDelices he worked at the _Encyclopcedia, _ which was then being commencedby D'Alembert and Diderot, taking upon himself in preference thereligious articles, and not sparing the creed of his neighbors, thepastors of Geneva, any more than that of the Catholic church. "I assureyou that my friends and I will lead them a fine dance; they shall drinkthe cup to the very lees, " wrote Voltaire to D'Alembert. In the greatcampaign against Christianity undertaken by the philosophers, Voltaire, so long, a wavering ally, will henceforth fight in the foremost ranks; itis he who shouts to Diderot, "Squelch the thing (_Ecrasez l'infame_)!"The masks are off, and the fight is barefaced; the encyclopaedists marchout to the conquest of the world in the name of reason, humanity, andfree-thinking; even when he has ceased to work at the Encyclopaedia, Voltaire marches with them. 

The _Essai sur l'Histoire generale et les Moeurs_ was one of the firstbroadsides of this new anti-religious crusade. "Voltaire will neverwrite a good history, " Montesquieu used to say: "he is like the monks, who do not write for the subject of which they treat, but for the gloryof their order: Voltaire writes for his convent. " The same intentionbetrayed itself in every sort of work that issued at that time from thehermitage of Delices, the poem on _Le Tremblement de Terre de Lisbonne, _the drama of _Socrate, _ the satire of the _Pauvre Diable, _ the sad storyof _Candide, _ led the way to a series of publications every day more andmore violent against the Christian faith. The tragedy of _L' Orphelin dela Chine_ and that of _Tancrede, _ the quarrels with Freron, with Lefrancde Pompignan, and lastly with Jean Jacques Rousseau, did not satiate thedevouring activity of the Patriarch, as he was called by the knot ofphilosophers. Definitively installed at Ferney, Voltaire took tobuilding, planting, farming. He established round his castle a smallindustrial colony, for whose produce he strove to get a marketeverywhere. "Our design, " he used to say, "is to ruin the trade ofGeneva in a pious spirit. " Ferney, moreover, held grand and numerouslyattended receptions; Madame Denis played her uncle's pieces on a stagewhich the latter had ordered to be built, and which caused as muchdisquietude to the austere Genevese as to Jean Jacques Rousseau. It wason account of Voltaire's theatrical representations that Rousseau wrotehis _Lettre centre les Spectacles_. "I love you not, sir, " wroteRousseau to Voltaire: "you have done me such wrongs as were calculated totouch me most deeply. You have ruined Geneva in requital of the asylumyou have found there. " Geneva was about to banish Rousseau before long, and Voltaire had his own share of responsibility in this act of severityso opposed to his general and avowed principles. Voltaire was angry withRousseau, whom he accused of having betrayed the cause of philosophy; hewas, as usual, hurried away by the passion of the moment, when he wrote, speaking of the exile, "I give you my word that if this blackguard(_polisson_) of a Jean Jacques should dream of coming (to Geneva), hewould run great risk of mounting a ladder which would not be that ofFortune. " At the very same time Rousseau was saying, "What have I doneto bring upon myself the persecution of M. De Voltaire? And what worsehave I to fear from him? Would M. De Buffon have me soften this tigerthirsting for my blood? He knows very well that nothing ever appeases orsoftens the fury of tigers; if I were to crawl upon the ground beforeVoltaire, he would triumph thereat, no doubt, but he would rend me nonethe less. Basenesses would dishonor me, but would not save me. Sir, Ican suffer, I hope to learn how to die, and he who knows how to do thathas never need to be a dastard. "

Rousseau was high-flown and tragic; Voltaire was cruel in hiscontemptuous levity; but the contrast between the two philosophers waseven greater in the depths of them than on. The surface. Rousseau tookhis own words seriously, even when he was mad, and his conduct was sureto belie them before long. He was the precursor of an impassioned andserious age, going to extremes in idea and placing deeds after words. In spite of occasional reticence dictated by sound sense, Voltaire hadabandoned himself entirely in his old age to that school of philosophy, young, ardent, full of hope and illusions, which would fain pull downeverything before it knew what it could set up, and the actions of whichwere not always in accordance with principles. "The men were inferior totheir ideas. " President De Brosses was justified in writing to Voltaire, "I only wish you had in your heart a half-quarter of the morality andphilosophy contained in your works. " Deprived of the counterpoise ofpolitical liberty, the emancipation of thought in the reign of Louis XV. Had become at one and the same time a danger and a source of profoundillusions; people thought that they did what they said, and that theymeant what they wrote, but the time of actions and consequences had notyet come; Voltaire applauded the severities against Rousseau, and stillhe was quite ready to offer him an asylum at Ferney; he wrote toD'Alembert, "I am engaged in sending a priest to the galleys, " at thevery moment when he was bringing eternal honor to his name by thegenerous zeal which led him to protect the memory and the family of theunfortunate people named Calas. 

The glorious and bloody annals of the French Reformation had passedthrough various phases; liberty, always precarious, even under Henry IV. , and whilst the Edict of Nantes was in force, and legally destroyed by itsrevocation, had been succeeded by periods of assuagement and comparativerepose; in the latter part of Louis XV. 's reign, about 1760, freshseverities had come to overwhelm the Protestants. Modestly going abouttheir business, silent and timid, as inviolably attached to the king asto their hereditary creed, several of them had undergone capitalpunishment. John Calas, accused of murdering his son, had been broken onthe wheel at Toulouse; the reformers had been accustomed to these sombredramas, but the spirit of the times had marched onward; ideas of justice, humanity, and liberty, sown broadcast by the philosophers, more imbuedthan they were themselves aware of with the holy influences ofChristianity, had slowly and secretly acted upon men's minds; executionswhich had been so frequent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuriescaused trouble and dismay in the eighteenth: in vain did the fanaticalpassions of the populace of Toulouse find an echo in the magistracy ofthat city: it was no longer considered a matter of course thatProtestants should be guilty of every crime, and that those who wereaccused should not be at liberty to clear themselves. The philosophershad at first hesitated. Voltaire wrote to Cardinal Bernis, "Might Iventure to entreat your eminence to be kind enough to tell me what I amto think about the frightful case of this Calas, broken on the wheel atToulouse, on a charge of having hanged his own son? The fact is, theymaintain here that he is quite innocent, and that he called God towitness it. . . . This case touches me to the heart; it saddens mypleasures, it taints them. Either the Parliament of Toulouse or theProtestants must be regarded with eyes of horror. " Being soon convincedthat the Parliament deserved all his indignation, Voltaire did not grudgetime, efforts, or influence in order to be of service to the unfortunateremnant of the Calas family. "I ought to look upon myself as in somesort a witness, " he writes: "several months ago Peter Calas, who isaccused of having assisted his father and mother in a murder, was in myneighborhood with another of his brothers. I have wavered a long whileas to the innocence of this family; I could not believe that any judgeswould have condemned to a fearful death an innocent father of a family. There is nothing I have not done to enlighten myself as to the truth. Idare to say that I am as sure of the innocence of this family as I am ofmy own existence. "

For three years, with a constancy which he often managed to concealbeneath an appearance of levity, Voltaire prosecuted the work of clearingthe Calas. "It is Voltaire who is writing on behalf of this unfortunatefamily, " said Diderot to Mdlle. Voland: "O, my friend, what a noble workfor genius! This man must needs have soul and sensibility; injusticemust revolt him; he must feel the attraction of virtue. Why, what arethe Calas to him? What can awaken his interest in them? What reason hashe to suspend the labors he loves in order to take up their defence?"From the borders of the Lake of Geneva, from his solitude at Genthod, Charles Bonnet, far from favorable generally to Voltaire, writes toHaller, "Voltaire has done a work on tolerance which is said to be good;he will not publish it until after the affair of the unfortunate Calashas been decided by the king's council. Voltaire's zeal for theseunfortunates might cover a multitude of sins; that zeal does not relax, and, if they obtain satisfaction, it will be principally to hischampionship that they will owe it. He receives much commendation forthis business, and he deserves it fully. "

The sentence of the council cleared the accused and the memory of JohnCalas, ordering that their names should be erased and effaced from theregisters, and the judgment transcribed upon the margin of thecharge-sheet. The king at the same time granted Madame Calas and herchildren a gratuity of thirty-six thousand livres, a tacit and inadequatecompensation for the expenses and losses caused them by the fanaticalinjustice of the Parliament of Toulouse. Madame Calas asked no more. "To prosecute the judges and the ringleaders, " said a letter to Voltairefrom the generous advocate of the Calas, Elias de Beaumont, "requires thepermission of the council, and there is great reason to fear that thesepetty plebeian kings appear powerful enough to cause the permission, through a weakness honored by the name of policy, to be refused. "

Voltaire, however, was triumphant. "You were at Paris, " he writes toM. De Cideville, "when the last act of the tragedy finished so happily. The piece is according to the rules; it is, to my thinking, the finestfifth act there is on the stage. " Henceforth he finds himselftransformed into the defender of the oppressed. The Protestant Chaumont, at the galleys, owed to him his liberation; he rushed to Ferney to thankVoltaire. The pastor, who had to introduce him, thus described theinterview to Paul Rabaut: "I told him that I had brought him a littlefellow who had come to throw himself at his feet to thank him for having, by his intercession, delivered him from the galleys; that it was Chaumontwhom I had left in his antechamber, and whom I begged him to permit me tobring in. At the name of Chaumont M. De Voltaire showed a transport ofjoy, and rang at once to have him brought in. Never did any scene appearto me more amusing and refreshing. 'What, ' said he, 'my poor, little, good fellow, they sent you to the galleys! What did they mean to do withyou? What a conscience they must have to put in fetters and chain to theoar a man who had committed no crime beyond praying to God in badFrench!' He turned several times to me, denouncing persecution. Hesummoned into his room some persons who were staying with him, that theymight share the joy he felt at seeing poor little Chaumont, who, thoughperfectly well attired for his condition, was quite astonished to findhimself so well received. There was nobody, down to an ex-Jesuit, FatherAdam, who did not come forward to congratulate him. "

Innate love of justice and horror of fanaticism had inspired Voltairewith his zeal on behalf of persecuted Protestants; a more personalfeeling, a more profound sympathy, caused his grief and his dread whenChevalier de la Barre, accused of having mutilated a crucifix, wascondemned, in 1766, to capital punishment; the scepticism of theeighteenth century had sudden and terrible reactions towards fanaticalviolence, as a protest and a pitiable struggle against the doubt whichwas invading it on all sides; the chevalier was executed; he was nottwenty years old. He was an infidel and a libertine, like the majorityof the young men of his day and of his age; the crime he expiated socruelly was attributed to reading bad books, which had corrupted him. "I am told, " writes Voltaire to D'Alembert, "that they said at theirexamination that they had been led on to the act of madness theycommitted by the works of the _Encyclopaedists_. I can scarcely believeit; these madmen don't read; and certainly no philosopher would havecounselled profanation. The matter is important; try to get to thebottom of so odious and dangerous a report. " And, at another time, toAbbe Morellet, "You know that Councillor Pasquier said in full Parliamentthat the young men of Abbeville who were put to death had imbibed theirimpiety in the school and the works of the modern philosophers. . . . They were mentioned by name; it is a formal denunciation. . . . Wisemen, under such terrible circumstances, should keep quiet and wait. "

Whilst keeping quiet, Voltaire soon grew frightened; he fancied himselfarrested even on the foreign soil on which he had sought refuge. "Myheart is withered, " he exclaims, "I am prostrated, I am tempted to go anddie in some land where men are less unjust. " He wrote to the GreatFrederick, with whom he had resumed active correspondence, asking him foran asylum in the town of Cleves, where he might find refuge together withthe persecuted philosophers. His imagination was going wild. "I went tohim, " says the celebrated physician, Tronchin, an old friend of his;"after I had pointed out to him the absurdity of his fearing that, for amere piece of imprudence, France would come and seize an old man onforeign soil to shut him up in the Bastille, I ended by expressing myastonishment that a head like his should be deranged to the extent I sawit was. Covering his eyes with his clinched hands and bursting intotears, 'Yes, yes, my friend, I am mad!' was all he answered. A few daysafterwards, when reflection had driven away fear, he would have defiedall the powers of malevolence. "

Voltaire did not find his brethren in philosophy so frightened anddisquieted by ecclesiastical persecution as to fly to Cleves, far fromthe "home of society, " as he had himself called Paris. In vain he wroteto Diderot, "A man like you cannot look save with horror upon the countryin which you have the misfortune to live; you really ought to come awayinto a country where you would have entire liberty not only to expresswhat you pleased, but to preach openly against superstitions asdisgraceful as they are sanguinary. You would not be solitary there; youwould have companions and disciples; you might establish a chair there, the chair of truth. Your library might go by water, and there would notbe four leagues' journey by land. In fine, you would leave slavery forfreedom. "

All these inducements having failed of effect, Voltaire gave up thefoundation of a colony at Cleves, to devote all his energy to that atFerney. There he exercised signorial rights with an active and restlessguardianship which left him no illusions and but little sympathy inrespect of that people whose sacred rights he had so often proclaimed. "The people will always be sottish and barbarous, " he wrote to M. Bordes;"they are oxen needing a yoke, a goad, and a bit of hay. " That was thesum and substance of what he thought; he was a stern judge of the Frenchcharacter, the genuine and deep-lying resources of which he soundedimperfectly, but the infinite varieties of which he recognized. "Ialways find it difficult to conceive, " he wrote to M. De Constant, "howso agreeable a nation can at the same time be so ferocious, how it can soeasily pass from the opera to the St. Bartholomew, be at one time made upof dancing apes and at another of howling bears, be so ingenious and soidiotic both together, at one time so brave and at another so dastardly. "Voltaire fancied himself at a comedy still; the hour of tragedy was athand. He and his friends were day by day weakening the foundations ofthe edifice; for eighty years past the greatest minds and the noblestsouls have been toiling to restore it on new and strong bases; the workis not finished, revolution is still agitating the depths of Frenchsociety, which has not yet recovered the only proper foundation-stonesfor greatness and order amongst a free people. 

Henceforth Voltaire reigned peacefully over his little empire at Ferney, courted from afar by all the sovereigns of Europe who made any professionof philosophy. "I have a sequence of four kings" (_brelan de roiquatrieme_), he would say with a laugh when he counted his letters fromroyal personages. The Empress of Russia, Catherine II. , had dethroned, in his mind, the Great Frederick. Voltaire had not lived in herdominions and at her court; he had no grievance against her; his vanitywas flattered by the eagerness and the magnificent attentions of theSemiramis of the North, as he called her. He even forgave her the mostodious features of resemblance to the Assyrian princess. "I am herknight in the sight and in the teeth of everybody, " he wrote to Madame duDeffand; "I am quite aware that people bring up against her a few trifleson the score of her husband; but these are family matters with which I donot meddle, and besides it is not a bad thing to have a fault to repair. It is an inducement to make great efforts in order to force the public toesteem and admiration, and certainly her knave of a husband would neverhave done any one of the great things my Catherine does every day. " Theportrait of the empress, worked in embroidery by herself, hung inVoltaire's bedroom. In vain had he but lately said to Pastor Bertrand, "My dear philosopher, I have, thank God, cut all connection with kings;"instinct and natural inclination were constantly re-asserting themselves. Banished from the court of Versailles by the disfavor of Louis XV. , heturned in despite towards the foreign sovereigns who courted him. "Europe is enough for me, " he writes; "I do not trouble myself much aboutthe Paris clique, seeing that that clique is frequently guided by envy, cabal, bad taste, and a thousand petty interests which are always opposedto the public interest. "

Voltaire, however, returned to that Paris in which he was born, in whichhe had lived but little since his early days, to which he belonged by themerits as well as the defects of his mind, and in which he was destinedto die. In spite of his protests about his being a rustic and arepublican, he had never allowed himself to slacken the ties which unitedhim to his Parisian friends; the letters of the patriarch of Ferneycirculated amongst the philosophical fraternity; they were repeated inthe correspondence of Grimm and Diderot with foreign princes; from hissplendid retreat at Ferney he cheered and excited the literary zeal andoften the anti-religious ardor of the _Encyclopaedists_. He had, however, ceased all working connection with that great work since it hadbeen suspended and afterwards resumed at the orders and with thepermission of government. The more and more avowed materialistictheories revolted his shrewd and sensible mind; without caring to go tothe bottom of his thought and contemplate its consequences, he clung tothe notion of Providence as to a waif in the great shipwreck of positivecreeds; he could not imagine

 "This clock without a Maker could exist. "

It is his common sense, and not the religious yearnings of his soul, thatmakes him write in the poem of La Loi naturelle, --

 O God, whom men ignore, whom everything reveals, Hear Thou the latest words of him who now appeals; 'Tis searching out Thy law that hath bewildered me; My heart may go astray, but it is full of Thee. 

When he was old and suffering, he said to Madame Necker, in one of thosefits of melancholy to which he was subject, "The thinking faculty is lostjust like the eating, drinking, and digesting faculties. The marionettesof Providence, in fact, are not made to last so long as It. " In hisdying hour Voltaire was seen showing more concern for terrestrialscandals than for the terrors of conscience, crying aloud for a priest, and, with his mouth full of the blood he spat, still repeating in a halfwhisper, "I don't want to be thrown into the kennel. " A sad confessionof the insufficiency of his convictions and of the inveterate levity ofhis thoughts; he was afraid of the judgment of man without dreading thejudgment of God. Thus was revealed the real depth of an infidelity ofwhich Voltaire himself perhaps had not calculated the extent and thefatal influences. 

Voltaire was destined to die at Paris; there he found the last joys ofhis life and there he shed the last rays of his glory. For the twenty-seven years during which he had been away from it he had worked much, written much, done much. Whilst almost invariably disavowing his works, he had furnished philosophy with pointed and poisoned weapons againstreligion; he had devoted to humanity much time and strength; one of thelast delights he had tasted was the news of the decree which cleared thememory of M. De Lally; he had received into his house, educated and founda husband for the grand-niece of the great Corneille; he had applied theinexhaustible resources of his mind at one time to good and at another toevil, with almost equal ardor; he was old, he was ill, yet this sameardor still possessed him when he arrived at Paris on the 10th ofFebruary, 1778. The excitement caused by his return was extraordinary. "This new prodigy has stopped all other interest for some time, " writesGrimm; it has put an end to rumors of war, intrigues in civil life, squabbles at court. Encyclopeadic pride appeared diminished by half, theSorbonne shook all over, the Parliament kept silence; all the literaryworld is moved, all Paris is ready to fly to the idol's feet. " So muchattention and so much glory had been too much for the old man. Voltairewas dying; in his fright he had sent for a priest and had confessed; whenhe rose from his bed by a last effort of the marvellous elasticity, inherent in his body and his mind, he resumed for a while the course ofhis triumphs. "M. De Voltaire has appeared for the first time at theAcademy and at the play; he found all the doors, all the approaches tothe Academy besieged by a multitude which only opened slowly to let him, pass and then rushed in immediately upon his footsteps with repeatedplaudits and acclamations. The Academy came out into the first room tomeet him, an honor it had never yet paid to any of its members, not evento the foreign princes who had deigned to be present at its meetings. The homage he received at the Academy was merely the prelude to thatwhich awaited him at the National theatre. As soon as his carriagewas seen at a distance, there arose a universal shout of joy. All thecurb-stones, all the barriers, all the windows were crammed withspectators, and, scarcely was the carriage stopped, when people werealready on the imperial and even on the wheels to get a nearer view ofthe divinity. Scarcely had he entered the house when Sieur Brizard cameup with a crown of laurels, which Madame de Villette placed upon thegreat man's head, but which he immediately took off, though the publicurged him to keep it on by clapping of hands and by cheers whichresounded from all corners of the house with such a din as never washeard. 

"All the women stood up. I saw at one time that part of the pit whichwas under the boxes going down on their knees, in despair of getting asight any other way. The whole house was darkened with the dust raisedby the ebb and flow of the excited multitude. It was not withoutdifficulty that the players managed at last to begin the piece. It was_Irene, _ which was given for the sixth time. Never had this tragedy beenbetter played, never less listened to, never more applauded. Theillustrious old man rose to thank the public, and, the moment afterwards, there appeared on a pedestal in the middle of the stage a bust of thisgreat man, and the actresses, garlands and crowns in hand, covered itwith laurels; M. De Voltaire seemed to be sinking beneath the burden ofage and of the homage with which he had just been overwhelmed. Heappeared deeply affected, his eyes still sparkled amidst the pallor ofhis face, but it seemed as if he breathed no longer save with theconsciousness of his glory. The people shouted, 'Lights! lights! thateverybody may see him!' The coachman was entreated to go at a walk, andthus he was accompanied by cheering and the crowd as far as Pont Royal. "

Thus is described in the words of an eye-witness the last triumph of anexistence that had been one of ceaseless agitation, owing to Voltairehimself far more than to the national circumstances and events of thetime at which he lived. His anxious vanity and the inexhaustiblemovement of his mind had kept him constantly fluctuating betweenalternations of intoxication and despair; he had the good fortune to dieat the very pinnacle of success and renown, the only immortality he couldcomprehend or desire, at the outset of a new and hopeful reign; he didnot see, he had never apprehended the terrible catastrophe to which hehad been thoughtlessly contributing for sixty years. A rare piece ofgood fortune and one which might be considered too great, if the limitsof eternal justice rested upon earth and were to be measured by ourcompass. 

Voltaire's incessant activity bore many fruits which survived him; hecontributed powerfully to the triumph of those notions of humanity, justice, and freedom, which, superior to his own ideal, did honor to theeighteenth century; he became the model of a style, clear, neat, brilliant, the natural exponent of his own mind, far more than of the asyet confused hopes and aspirations of his age; he defended the rights ofcommon sense, and sometimes withstood the anti-religious passion of hisfriends, but he blasted both minds and souls with his sceptical gibes;his bitter and at the same time temperate banter disturbed conscienceswhich would have been revolted by the materialistic doctrines of theEncyclopaedists; the circle of infidelity widened under his hands; hisdisciples were able to go beyond him on the fatal path he had opened tothem. Voltaire has remained the true representative of the mocking andstone-flinging phase of free-thinking, knowing nothing of the deepyearnings any more than of the supreme wretchlessness of the human soul, which it kept imprisoned within the narrow limits of earth and time. Atthe outcome from the bloody slough of the French Revolution and from thechaos it caused in men's souls, it was the infidelity of Voltaire whichremained at the bottom of the scepticism and moral disorder of the Franceof our day. The demon which torments her is even more Voltairian thanmaterialistic. 

Other influences, more sincere and at the same time more dangerous, weresimultaneously undermining men's minds. The group of Encyclopaedists, less prudent and less temperate than Voltaire, flaunted openly the flagof revolt. At the head marched Diderot, the most daring of all, the mostgenuinely affected by his own ardor, without perhaps being the most sureof his ground in his negations. His was an original and exuberantnature, expansively open to all new impressions. "In my country, " hesays, "we pass within twenty-four hours from cold to hot, from calm tostorm, and this changeability of climate extends to the persons. Thus, from earliest infancy, they are wont to shift with every wind. The headof a Langrois stands on his shoulders like a weathercock on the top of achurch-steeple; it is never steady at one point, and, if it comes roundagain to that which it had left, it is not to stop there. As for me, Iam of my country; only residence of the capital and constant applicationhave corrected me a little. "

[Illustration: Diderot----314]

Narrow circumstances had their share in the versatility of Diderot'sgenius as well as in the variety of his labors. Son of a cutler atLangres, a strict and virtuous man, Denys Diderot, born in 1715, had atfirst been intended by his father for the church. He was educated atHarcourt College, and he entered an attorney's office. The young manworked incessantly, but not a law-book did he open. "What do you mean tobe, pray?" the lawyer asked him one day; "do you think of being anattorney?" "No. " "A barrister?" "No. " "A doctor?" "No more than therest. " "What then?" "Nothing at all. I like study, I am very happy, very contented, I ask no more. " Diderot's father stopped the allowancehe had been making his son, trusting thus to force him to choose aprofession. But the young man gave lessons for a livelihood. 

"I know a pretty good number of things, " he wrote towards the end of hislife, "but there is scarcely a man who doesn't know his own thing betterthan I do. This mediocrity in every sort is the consequence ofinsatiable curiosity and of means so small, that they never permitted meto devote myself to one single branch of human knowledge. I have beenforced all my life to follow pursuits for which I was not adapted, and toleave on one side those for which I had a call from inclination. " Beforehe was thirty years old, and without any resource but his lessons and thework of every sort he did for third parties, Diderot married; he had notasked the consent of his parents, but this did not prevent him fromsaddling them before long with his wife and child. "She startedyesterday, " he writes quite simply to his father, "she will be with youin three days; you can say anything you like to her, and when you aretired of her, you can send her back. " Diderot intended to be free at anyprice, and he threw off, one after another, the fetters he had forged forhimself, not without remorse, however, and not without acknowledging thathe was thus wanting to all natural duties. "What can you expect, " hewould exclaim, "of a man who has neglected wife and daughter, got intodebt, given up being husband and father?"

Diderot never neglected his friends; amidst his pecuniary embarrassments, when he was reduced to coin his brain for a livelihood, his labor and hismarvellous facility were always at the service of all. It was to satisfythe requirements of a dangerous fair friend that he wrote his _Penseesphilosophiques, ) the sad tale of the _Bijoux indiscrets_ and the _Lettresur les Aveugles, _ those early attacks upon religious faith which senthim to pass a few months in prison at the Castle of Vincennes. It was tooblige Grimm that he for the first time gave his mind to painting, andwrote his _Salons, _ intended to amuse and instruct the foreign princes. "A pleasure which is only for myself affects me but slightly and lastsbut a short time, " he used to say; "it is for self and friends that Iread, reflect, write, meditate, hear, look, feel. In their absence, mydevotion towards them refers everything to them. I am always thinking oftheir happiness. Does a beautiful line strike me, they shall know it. Have I stumbled upon a beautiful trait, I make up my mind to communicateit to them. Have I before my eyes some enchanting scene; unconsciously, I meditate an account of it for them. To them I have dedicated the useof all my senses and of all my faculties, and that perhaps is the reasonwhy everything is exaggerated, everything is embellished a little in myimagination and in my talk; and they sometimes reproach me with this, theingrates!"

It was, further, in conjunction with his friends and in community ofideas that Diderot undertook the immense labor of the _Encyclopaedia_. Having, in the first instance, received a commission from a publisher totranslate the English collection of [Ephraim] Chambers, Diderot wasimpressed with a desire to unite in one and the same collection all theefforts and all the talents of his epoch, so as to render joint homage tothe rapid progress of science. Won over by his enthusiasm, D'Alembertconsented to share the task; and he wrote the beautiful exposition in theintroduction. Voltaire sent his articles from Delices. The Jesuits hadproposed to take upon themselves a certain number of questions, but theirco-operation was declined: it was a monument to philosophy that theEncyclopaedists aspired to raise; the clergy were in commotion at seeingthe hostile army, till then uncertain and unbanded, rally organized anddisciplined around this vast enterprise. An early veto, soon, however, taken off, compelled the philosophers to a certain moderation; Voltaireceased writing for the _Encyclopaedia;_ it was not sufficientlyfree-going for him. "You admit articles worthy of the Trevoux journal, "he said to D'Alembert. New severities on the part of the Parliament andthe grand council dealt a blow to the philosophers before long: theeditors' privilege was revoked. Orders were given to seize Diderot'spapers. Lamoignon de Malesherbes, who was at that time director of thepress, and favorable to freedom without ever having abused it in thoughtor action, sent him secret warning. Diderot ran home in consternation. "What's to be done?" he cried; "how move all my manuscripts in twenty-four hours? I haven't time even to make a selection. And, above all, where find people who would and can take charge of them safely?" "Sendthem all to me, " replied M. De Malesherbes; "nobody will come thither tolook for them. "

Feeble governments are ill served even by their worthiest servants; theseverities ordered against the _Encyclopaedia_ did not stop itspublication; D'Alembert, however, weary of the struggle, had ceased totake part in the editorship. Naturally cool and moderate, when it wasnothing to do with Mdlle. De Lespinasse, the great affection of his life, the illustrious geometer was content with a little. "Twelve hundredlivres a year are enough for me, " he wrote to the Great Frederick who waspressing him to settle in his dominions. "I will not go and reap thesuccession to Maupertuis during his lifetime. I am overlooked bygovernment, just as so many others by Providence; persecuted as much asanybody can be, if some day I have to fly my country, I will simply askFrederick's permission to go and die in his dominions, free and poor. "

[Illustration: Alembert----317]

Frederick II. Gave D'Alembert a pension; it had but lately been LouisXIV. Who thus lavished kindnesses on foreign scholars: he made an offerto the Encyclopaedists to go and finish their vast undertaking at Berlin. Catherine II. Made the same offers, asking D'Alembert, besides, to takecharge of the education of her son. "I know your honesty too well, " shewrote, "to attribute your refusals to vanity; I know that the cause ismerely love of repose in order to cultivate literature and friendship. But what is to prevent your coming with all your friends? I promise youand them too all the comforts and every facility that may depend upon me;and perchance you will find more freedom and repose than you have athome. You do not yield to the entreaties of the King of Prussia, and tothe gratitude you owe him, it is true, but then he has no son. I confessthat I have my son's education so much at heart, and that you are sonecessary to me, that perhaps I press you too much. Pardon myindiscretion for the reason's sake, and rest assured that it is esteemwhich has made me so selfish. "

D'Alembert declined the education of the hereditary Grand Duke, just ashe had declined the presidency of the Academy at Berlin; an infidel andalmost a materialist by the geometer's rule, who knows no power but thelaws of mathematics, he did not carry into anti-religious strife thebitterness of Voltaire, or the violence of Diderot. "Squelch the thing!you are always repeating to me, " he said to Voltaire on the 4th of May, 1762. "Ah! my good friend, let it go to rack and ruin of itself, it ishurrying thereto faster than you suppose. " More and more absorbed bypure science, which he never neglected save for the French Academy, whoseperpetual secretary he had become, D'Alembert left to Diderot alone thecare of continuing the _Encyclopaedia_. When he died, in 1783, atfifty-six years of age, the work had been finished nearly twenty years. In spite of the bad faith of publishers, who mutilated articles to renderthem acceptable, in spite of the condemnation of the clergy and theseverities of the council, the last volumes of the _Encyclopaedia_ hadappeared in 1765. 

This immense work, unequal and confused as it was, a medley of variousand often ill-assorted elements, undertaken for and directed to the fixedend of an aggressive emancipation of thought, had not sufficed to absorbthe energy and powers of Diderot. "I am awaiting with impatience thereflections of _Pantophile Diderot on Tancrede, _" wrote Voltaire:"everything is within the sphere of activity of his genius: he passesfrom the heights of metaphysics to the weaver's trade, and thence hecomes to the stage. "

The stage, indeed, occupied largely the attention of Diderot, who soughtto introduce reforms, the fruit of his own thought as well as ofimitation of the Germans, which he had not perhaps sufficientlyconsidered. For the classic tragedies, the heritage of which Voltairereceived from the hands of Racine, Diderot aspired to substitute thenatural drama. His two attempts in that style, _Le Pere de Famille_ and_Le Fils natural, _ had but little success in France, and contributed todevelop in Germany the school already founded by Lessing. An excess offalse sensibility and an inflation of expression had caused certain trueideas to fall flat on the French stage. 

"You have the inverse of dramatic talent, " said Abbe Arnauld to Diderot;"the proper thing is to transform one's self into all the characters, andyou transform all the characters into yourself. " The criticism didDiderot wrong: he had more wits than his characters, and he was worthmore at bottom than those whom he described. Carried away by therichness as well as the unruliness of his mind, destitute as he was ofdefinite and fixed principles, he recognized no other moral law than thenatural impulse of the soul. "There is no virtue or vice, " he used tosay, "but innate goodness or badness. " Certain religious cravings, nevertheless, sometimes: asserted themselves in his conscience: he had. A glimmering perception of the necessity for a higher rule and law. "O God, I know not whether Thou art, " he wrote in his _Interpretation dela Nature, _ but I will think as if Thou didst see into my soul, I willact as if I were in Thy presence. "

A strange illusion on the part of the philosopher about the power ofideas as well as about the profundity of evil in the human heart!Diderot fancied he could regulate his life by a perchance, and he wasconstantly hurried away by the torrent of his passion into a violence ofthought and language foreign to his natural benevolence. It was aroundhis name that the philosophic strife had waxed most fierce: the activecampaign undertaken by his friends to open to him the doors of the FrenchAcademy remained unsuccessful. "He has too many enemies, " said Louis XV. "his election shall not be sanctioned. " Diderot did not offer himself;he set out for St. Petersburg; the Empress Catherine had loaded him withkindnesses. Hearing of the poverty of the philosopher who was trying tosell his library to obtain a dower for his daughter, she bought thebooks, leaving the enjoyment of them to Diderot, whom she appointed herlibrarian, and, to secure his maintenance in advance, she had a sum offifty thousand livres remitted to him. "So here I am obliged, inconscience, to live fifty years, " said Diderot. 

[Illustration: Diderot and Catherine II----321]

He passed some months in Russia, admitted several hours a day to thecloset of the empress, chatting with a frankness and a freedom whichsometimes went to the extent of license. Catherine II. Was not alarmed. "Go on, " she would say; amongst men anything is allowable. " When thephilosopher went away, he shed hot tears, and "so did she, almost, " hedeclares. He refused to go to Berlin; absolute power appeared to himmore arbitrary and less indulgent in the hands of Frederick than withCatherine. "It is said that at Petersburg Diderot is considered atiresome reasoner, " wrote the King of Prussia to D' Alembert in January, 1774; "he is incessantly harping on the same things. All I know is thatI couldn't stand the reading of his, books, intrepid reader as I am;there is a self-sufficient tone and an arrogance in them which revolts mysense of freedom. " The same sense of freedom which the king claimed forhimself whilst refusing it to the philosopher, the philosopher, in histurn, refused to Christians not less intolerant than he. The eighteenthcentury did not practise on its own account that respect for consciencewhich it, nevertheless, powerfully and to its glory promoted. 

Diderot died on the 29th of July, 1784, still poor, an invalid for sometime past, surrounded to the end by his friends, who rendered back to himthat sincere and devoted affection which he made the pride of his life. Hearing of his sufferings from Grimm, the Empress Catherine had hired afurnished apartment for him; he had just installed himself in it when heexpired; without having retracted any one of his works, nearly allpublished under the veil of the anonymous, he was, nevertheless, almostreconciled with the church, and was interred quietly in the chapel of theVirgin at St. Roch. The charm of his character had often caused peopleto forget his violence, which he himself no longer remembered the nextday. "I should like to know this hot-headed metaphysician, " was theremark made to Buffon by President De Brosses, who happened to be then atParis; and he afterwards added, "He is a nice fellow, very pleasant, very amiable, a great philosopher, a mighty arguer, but a maker of perpetual digressions. Yesterday he madequite five and twenty between nine o'clock and one, during which time heremained in my room. O, how much more lucid is Buffon than all thosegentry!"

The magistrate's mind understood and appreciated the great naturalist'sgenius. Diderot felt in his own fashion the charm of nature, but, as wassaid by Chevalier Chastellux, "his ideas got drunk and set to workchasing one another. " The ideas of Buffon, on the other hand, came outin the majestic order of a system under powerful organization, andinformed as it were with the very secrets of the Creator. "The generalhistory of the world, " he says, "ought to precede the special history ofits productions; and the details of singular facts touching the life andhabits of animals, or touching the culture and vegetation of plants, belong perhaps less to natural history than do the general results of theobservations which have been made on the different materials whichcompose the terrestrial globe, on the elevations, the depressions, andthe unevennesses of its form, on the movement of the seas, on thetrending of mountains, on the position of quarries, on the rapidity andeffects of the currents of the sea--this is nature on the grand scale. "

M. Fleurens truly said, " Bufon aggrandizes every subject he touches. "Born at Montbard in Burgundy on the 7th of September, 1707, Buffonbelonged to a family of wealth and consideration in his province. In hisyouth he travelled over Europe with his friend the Duke of Kingston; onreturning home, he applied himself at first to mathematics, withsufficient success to be appointed at twenty-six years of age, in 1733, adjunct in the mechanical class at the Academy of Sciences. In 1739, hereceived the superintendence of the _Jardin du Roi, _ not long sinceenlarged and endowed by Richelieu, and lovingly looked after by thescholar Dufay, who had just died, himself designating Buffon as hissuccessor. He had shifted from mechanics to botany, "not, " he said, "that he was very fond of that science, which he had learned andforgotten three times, " but he was aspiring just then to the _Jardin duRoi;_ his genius was yet seeking its proper direction. "There are somethings for me, " he wrote to President De Brosses, "but there are someagainst, and especially my age; however, if people would but reflect, they would see that the superintendence of the _Jardin du Roi_ requiresan active young man, who can stand the sun, who is conversant with plantsand knows the way to make them multiply, who is a bit of a connoisseur inall the sorts used in demonstration there, and above all who understandsbuildings, in such sort that, in my own heart, it appears to me that Ishould be exactly made for them: but I have not as yet any great hope. "

[Illustration: Buffon 323]

In Buffon's hands the _Jardin du Roi_ was transformed; in proportion ashis mind developed, the requirements of the study appeared to him greaterand greater; he satisfied them fearlessly, getting together collectionsat his own expense, opening new galleries, constructing hot-houses, beingconstantly seconded by the good-will of Louis XV. , who never shrank fromexpenses demanded by Buffon's projects. The great naturalist died ateighty years of age, without having completed his work; but he hadimprinted upon it that indisputable stamp of greatness which was thedistinctive feature of his genius. The _Jardin du Roi, _ which became the_Jardin des Plantes, _ has remained unique in Europe. 

Fully engaged as he was in those useful labors, from the age of thirty, Buffon gave up living at Paris for the greater part of the year. He hadbought the ruins of the castle of Montbard, the ancient residence of theDukes of Burgundy, overlooking his native town. He had built a housethere which soon became dear to him, and which he scarcely ever left foreight months in the year. There it was, in a pavilion which overhung thegarden planted in terraces, and from which he had a view of the richplains of La Brenne, that the great naturalist, carefully dressed by fiveo'clock in the morning, meditated the vast plan of his works as he walkedfrom end to end and side to side. "I passed delightful hours there, " heused to say. When he summoned his secretary, the work of composition wascompleted. "M. De Buffon gives reasons for the preference he shows as toevery word in his discourses, without excluding from the discussion eventhe smallest particles, the most insignificant conjunctions, " says MadameNecker; "he never forgot that he had written 'the style is the man. 'The language could not be allowed to derogate from the majesty of thesubject. 'I made it a rule, ' he used to say, 'to always fix upon thenoblest expressions. '"

It was in this dignified and studious retirement that Buffon quietlypassed his long life. "I dedicated, " he says, " twelve, nay, fourteen, hours to study; it was my whole pleasure. In truth, I devoted myself toit far more than I troubled myself about fame; fame comes afterwards, ifit may, and it nearly always does. "

Buffon did not lack fame; on the appearance of the first three volumes ofhis "Histoire naturelle, " published in 1749, the breadth of his views, the beauty of his language, and the strength of his mind excited generalcuriosity and admiration. The Sorbonne was in a flutter at certain boldpropositions; Buffon, without being disconcerted, took pains to avoidcondemnation. "I took the liberty, " he says in a letter to M. Leblant, "of writing to the Duke of Nivernais (then ambassador at Rome), who hasreplied to me in the most polite and most obliging way in the world; Ihope, therefore, that my book will not be put in the Index, and, intruth, I have done all I could not to deserve it and to avoid theologicalsquabbles, which I fear far more than I do the criticisms of physicistsand geometricians. " "Out of a hundred and twenty assembled doctors, " headds before long, "I had a hundred and fifteen, and their resolution evencontains eulogies which I did not expect. " Despite certain boldnesseswhich had caused anxiety, the Sorbonne had reason to compliment the greatnaturalist. The unity of the human race as well as its superior dignitywere already vindicated in these first efforts of Buffon's genius, andhis mind never lost sight of this great verity. "In the human species, "he says, "the influence of climate shows itself only by slight varieties, because this species is one, and is very distinctly separated from allother species; man, white in Europe, black in Africa, yellow in Asia, andred in America, is only the same man tinged with the hue of climate; ashe is made to reign over the earth, as the whole globe is his domain, itseems as if his nature were ready prepared for all situations; beneaththe fires of the south, amidst the frosts of the north, he lives, hemultiplies, he is found to be so spread about everywhere from timeimmemorial that he appears to affect no climate in particular. . . . Whatever resemblance there may be between the Hottentot and the monkey, the interval which separates them is immense, since internally he isgarnished with mind and externally with speech. "

Buffon continued his work, adroitly availing himself of the talent andresearches of the numerous co-operators whom he had managed to gatherabout him, directing them all with indefatigable vigilance in theirlabors and their observations. "Genius is but a greater aptitude forperseverance, " he used to say, himself justifying his definition by theassiduity of his studies. "I had come to the sixteenth volume of my workon natural history, " he writes with bitter regret, "when a serious andlong illness interrupted for nearly two years the course of my labors. This shortening of my life, already far advanced, caused one in my works. I might, in the two years I have lost, have produced two or three volumesof the history of birds, without abandoning for that my plan of a historyof minerals, on which I have been engaged for several years. "

In 1753 Buffon had been nominated a member of the French Academy. He hadbegged his friends to vote for his compatriot, Piron, author of thecelebrated comedy _Metromanie, _ at that time an old man and still poor. "I can wait, " said Buffon. "Two days before that fixed for theelection, " writes Grimm, "the king sent for President Montesquieu, towhose lot it had fallen to be director of the Academy on that occasion, and told him that, understanding that the Academy had cast their eyesupon M. Piron, and knowing that he was the author of several licentiousworks, he desired the Academy to choose some one else to fill the vacantplace. His Majesty at the same time told him that he would not have anymember belonging to the order of advocates. "

Buffon was elected, and on the 25th of August, 1754, St. Louis' day, hewas formally received by the Academy; Grimm describes the session. "M. De Buffon did not confine himself to reminding us that ChancellorSeguier was a great man, that Cardinal Richelieu was a very great man, that Kings Louis XIV. And Louis XV. Were very great men too, that theArchbishop of Sens (whom he succeeds) was also a great man, and finallythat all the forty were great men; this celebrated man, disdaining thestale and heavy eulogies which are generally the substance of this sortof speech, thought proper to treat of a subject worthy of his pen andworthy of the Academy. He gave us his ideas on style, and it was said, in consequence, that the Academy had engaged a writing-master. "

"Well-written works are the only ones which will go down to posterity, "said Buffon in his speech; "quantity of knowledge, singularity of facts, even novelty in discoveries, are not certain guaranties of immortality;knowledge, facts, discoveries, are easily abstracted and transferred. Those things are outside the man; the style is the man himself; thestyle, then, cannot be abstracted, or transferred, or tampered with; ifit be elevated, noble, sublime, the author will be equally admired at alltimes, for it is only truth that is durable and even eternal. "

Never did the great scholar who has been called "the painter of nature"relax his zeal for painstaking as a writer. "I am every day learning towrite, " he would still say at seventy years of age. 

To the _Theorie de la Terre, _ the _Idees generales sur les Animaux, _ andthe _Histoire de l'Homme, _ already published when Buffon was elected bythe French Academy, succeeded the twelve volumes of the _Histoire desQuadrupedes, _ a masterpiece of luminous classifications and incomparabledescriptions; eight volumes on _Oiseaux_ appeared subsequently, a shorttime before the _Histoire des Mineraux;_ lastly, a few years before hisdeath, Buffon gave to the world the _Epoques de la Nature_. "As in civilhistory one consults titles, hunts up medals, deciphers antiqueinscriptions to determine the epochs of revolutions amongst mankind, andto fix the date of events in the moral world, so, in natural history, wemust ransack the archives of the universe, drag from the entrails of theearth the olden monuments, gather together their ruins and collect into abody of proofs all the indications of physical changes that can guide usback to the different ages of nature. It is the only way of fixingcertain points in the immensity of space, and of placing a certain numberof memorial-stones on the endless road of time. "

"This is what I perceive with my mind's eye, " Buffon would say, "thusforming a chain which, from the summit of Time's ladder, descends rightdown to us. " "This man, " exclaimed Hume, with an admiration whichsurprised him out of his scepticism, "this man gives to things which nohuman eye has seen a probability almost equal to evidence. "

Some of Buffon's theories have been disputed by his successors' science;as D'Alembert said of Descartes: "If he was mistaken about the laws ofmotion, he was the first to divine that there must be some. " Buffondivined the epochs of nature, and by the intuition of his genius, absolutely unshackled by any religious prejudice, he involuntarilyreverted to the account given in Genesis. "We are persuaded, " he says, "independently of the authority of the sacred books, that man was createdlast, and that he only came to wield the sceptre of the earth when thatearth was found worthy of his sway. "

It has often been repeated, on the strength of some expressions let fallby Buffon amongst intimates, that the panorama of nature had shut outfrom his eyes the omnipotent God, creator and preserver of the physicalworld as well as of the moral law. Wrong has been done the greatnaturalist; he had answered beforehand these incorrect opinions as to hisfundamental ideas. "Nature is not a being, " he said; "for that beingwould be God;" and he adds, "Nature is the system of the laws establishedby the Creator. " The supreme notion of Providence appears to his eyes inall its grandeur, when he writes, "The verities of nature were destinedto appear only in course of time, and the Supreme Being kept them toHimself as the surest means of recalling man to Him when his faith, declining in the lapse of ages, should become weak; when, remote from hisorigin, he might begin to forget it; when, in fine, having become toofamiliar with the spectacle of nature, he would no longer be moved by it, and would come to ignore the Author. It was necessary to confirm fromtime to time, and even to enlarge, the idea of God in the mind and heartof man. Now every new discovery produces this grand effect, every newstep that we make in nature brings us nearer to the Creator. A newverity is a species of miracle; its effect is the same, and it onlydiffers from the real miracle in that the latter is a startling strokewhich God strikes instantaneously and rarely, instead of making use ofman to discover and exhibit the marvels which He has hidden in the wombof Nature, and in that, as these marvels are operating every instant, asthey are open at all times and for all time to his contemplation, God isconstantly recalling him to Himself, not only by the spectacle of themoment, but, further, by the successive development of His works. "

Buffon was still working at eighty years of age; he had undertaken adissertation on style, a development of his reception speech at theFrench Academy. Great sorrows had crossed his life. Married late to ayoung wife whom he loved, he lost her early; she left him a son, broughtup under his wing, and the object of his constant solicitude. Just atthe time of sending him to school, he wrote to Madame Daubenton, wife ofhis able and learned co-operator: "I expect Buffonet on Sunday. I havearranged all his little matters he will have a private room, with acloset for his man-servant; I have got him a tutor in the school-houseitself, and a little companion of his own age. I do not think that hewill be at all unhappy. " And, at a later date, when he is expecting thisson who has reached man's estate, and has been travelling in Europe: "Myson has just arrived; the empress and the grand-duke have treated himvery well, and we shall have some fine minerals, the collection of whichis being at this moment completed. I confess that anxiety about hisreturn has taken away my sleep and the power of thinking. "

When the young Count de Buffon, an officer in the artillery, and at firstwarmly favorable to the noble professions of the French Revolution, had, like his peers, to mount the scaffold of the Terror, he damned with oneword the judges who profaned in his person his father's glory. "Citizens, " he exclaimed from the fatal car, "my name is Buffon. " Withless respect for the rights of genius than was shown by the Algerianpirates who let pass, without opening them, the chests directed to thegreat naturalist, the executioner of the Committee of public safety cutoff his son's head. 

This last drop of bitterness, and the cruel spectacle of social disorder, Buffon had been spared; he had died at the _Jardin du Roi_ on the 14th ofApril, 1788, preserving at eighty years of age, and even in thefeebleness of ill health, all the powers of his intelligence and the calmserenity of 'his soul. His last lines dictated to his son were addressedto Madame Necker, who had been for a long time past on the most intimateterms with him. Faithful in death to the instincts of order andregularity which had always controlled his mind even in his boldestflight, he requested that all the ceremonies of religion should befulfilled around his body. His son had it removed to Montbard, where itlies between his father and his wife. 

Buffon had lived long, he had accomplished in peace his great work, hehad reaped the fruits of it. On the eve of the terrible shocks whereofno presage disturbed his spirit, "directed for fifty years towards thegreat objects of nature, " the illustrious scholar had been permitted tosee his statue placed during his lifetime in the _Jardin du Roi_. Onsending to the Empress Catherine his bust which she had asked him for, he wrote to his son who had charge of it: "I forgot to remark to you, whilst talking of bust and effigy, that, by the king's order, they haveput at the bottom of my statue the following inscription: _Majestatinaturae par ingenium_ (Genius to match the majesty of nature). It is notfrom pride that I send you this, but perhaps Her Majesty will have it putat the bottom of the bust. "

"How many great men do you reckon?" Buffon was asked one day. "Five, "answered he at once: " Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montesquieu, and myself. "

This self-appreciation, fostered by the homage of his contemporaries, which showed itself in Buffon undisguisedly with an air of ingenuoussatisfaction, had poisoned a life already extinguished ten years beforeamidst the bitterest agonies. Taking up arms against a society in whichhe had not found his proper place, Jean Jacques Rousseau had attacked thepresent as well as the past, the Encyclopaedists as well as the oldsocial organization. It was from the first his distinctive trait tovoluntarily create a desert around him. The eighteenth century was inits nature easily seduced; liberal, generous, and open to allurements, itdelighted in intellectual contentions, even the most dangerous and themost daring; it welcomed with alacrity all those who thus contributed toits pleasures. The charming drawing-rooms of Madame Geoffrin, of Madamedu Deffand, of Madlle. Lespinasse, belonged of right to philosophy. "Being men of the world as well as of letters, the philosophers of theeighteenth century had passed their lives in the pleasantest and mostbrilliant regions of that society which was so much attacked by them. It had welcomed them, made them famous; they had mingled in all thepleasures of its elegant and agreeable existence; they shared in all itstastes, its manners, all the refinements, all the susceptibilities of acivilization at the same time old and rejuvenated, aristocratic andliterary; they were of that old regimen which was demolished by theirhands. The philosophical circle was everywhere, amongst the people ofthe court, of the church, of the long robe, of finance; haughty here, complaisant there, at one time indoctrinating, at another amusing itshosts, but everywhere young, active, confident, recruiting and battlingeverywhere, penetrating and fascinating the whole of society " [M. Guizot, Madame la comtesse de Rumford]. Rousseau never took his place inthis circle; in this society he marched in front like a pioneer of newtimes, attacking tentatively all that he encountered on his way. "Nobodywas ever at one and the same time more factious and more dictatorial, " isthe clever dictum of M. Saint Marc Girardin. 

Rousseau was not a Frenchman: French society always felt that, inconsequence of certain impressions of his early youth which were never tobe effaced. Born at Geneva on the 28th of June, 1712, in a family of thelower middle class, and brought up in the first instance by anintelligent and a pious mother, he was placed, like Voltaire and Diderot, in an attorney's office. Dismissed with disgrace "as good for nothingbut to ply the file, " the young man was bound apprentice to an engraver, "a clownish and violent fellow, " says Rousseau, "who succeeded veryshortly in dulling all the brightness of my boyhood, brutalizing mylively and loving character, and reducing me in spirit, as I was infortune, to my real position of an apprentice. "

Rousseau was barely sixteen when he began that roving existence which isso attractive to young people, so hateful in ripe age, and which lastedas long as his life. Flying from his master whose brutality he dreaded, and taking refuge at Oharmettes in Savoy with a woman whom he at firstloved passionately, only to leave her subsequently with disgust, he hadreached the age of one and twenty, and had already gone through manyadventures when he set out, heart-sore and depraved, to seek at Paris ameans of subsistence. He had invented a new system of musical notation;the Academy of Sciences, which had lent him a favorable ear, did notconsider the discovery useful. Some persons had taken an interest inhim, but Rousseau could never keep his friends; and he had many, zealousand devoted. He was sent to Venice as secretary to the French ambassadorM. De Montaigu. He soon quarrelled with the ambassador and returned toParis. He found his way into the house of Madame Dupin, wife of a richfarmer-general (of taxes). He was considered clever; he wrote littleplays, which he set to music. Enthusiastically welcomed by the friendsof Madame Dupin, he contributed to their amusements. "We began with the_Engagement temeraire, _" says Madame d'Epinay in her Memoires: "it is anew play by M. Rousseau, a friend of M. De Francueil's, who introducedhim to us. The author played a part in his piece. Though it is only asociety play, it was a great success. I doubt, however, whether it wouldbe successful at the theatre, but it is the work of a clever man and noordinary man. I do not quite know, though, whether it is what I saw ofthe author or of the piece that made me think so. He is complimentarywithout being polite, or at least without having the air of it. He seemsto be ignorant of the usages of society, but it is easy to see that hehas infinite wit. He has a brown complexion, and eyes full of fire lightup his face. When he has been speaking and you watch him, you think himgood-looking; but when you recall him to memory, it is always as a plainman. He is said to be in bad health; it is probably that which gives himfrom time to time a wild look. "

It was amid this brilliant intimacy, humiliating and pleasant at the sametime, that Rousseau published his _Discours sur les Sciences et lesArts_. It has been disputed whether the inspiration was such as heclaimed for this production, the first great work which he had everundertaken and which was to determine the direction of his thoughts. "I was going to see Diderot at Vincennes, " he says, "and, as I walked, Iwas turning over the leaves of the _Mercure de France, _ when I stumbledupon this question proposed by the Academy of Dijon: Whether the advanceof sciences and arts has contributed to the corruption or purification ofmorals. All at once I felt my mind dazzled by a thousand lights, crowdsof ideas presented themselves at once with a force and a confusion whichthrew me into indescribable bewilderment; I felt my head seized with agiddiness like intoxication, a violent palpitation came over me, my bosombegan to heave. Unable to breathe any longer as I walked, I flung myselfdown under one of the trees in the avenue, and there spent half an hourin such agitation that, on rising up, I found all the front of mywaistcoat wet with tears without my having had an idea that I had shedany. " Whether it were by natural intuition or the advice of Diderot, Jean Jacques had found his weapons; poor and obscure as he was, heattacked openly the brilliant and corrupt society which had welcomed himfor its amusement. Spiritualistic at heart and nurtured upon HolyScripture in his pious childhood, he felt a sincere repugnance for theelegant or cynical materialism which was every day more and more creepingover the eighteenth century. "Sciences and arts have corrupted theworld, " he said, and he put forward, as proof of it, the falsity of thesocial code, the immorality of private life, the frivolity of thedrawing-rooms into which he had been admitted. "Suspicions, heart-burnings, apprehensions, coldness, reserve, hatred, treason, lurkincessantly beneath that uniform and perfidious veil of politeness, underthat so much vaunted urbanity which we owe to the enlightenment of ourage. "

Rousseau had launched his paradox; the frivolous and polite society whichhe attacked was amused at it without being troubled by it: it was a newfield of battle opened for brilliant jousts of wit; he had his partisansand his admirers. In the discussion which ensued, Jean Jacques showedhimself more sensible and moderate than he had been in the firstexposition of his idea; he had wanted to strike, to astonish he soonmodified the violence of his assertions. "Let us guard againstconcluding that we must now burn all libraries and pull down theuniversities and academies, " he wrote to King Stanislaus: "we should onlyplunge Europe once more into barbarism, and morals would gain nothing byit. The vices would remain with us, and we should have ignorancebesides. In vain would you aspire to destroy the sources of the evil;in vain would you remove the elements of vanity, indolence, and luxury;in vain would you even bring men back to that primal equality, thepreserver of innocence and the source of all virtue: their hearts oncespoiled will be so forever. There is no remedy now save some greatrevolution, almost as much to be feared as the evil which it might cure, and one which it were blamable to desire and impossible to forecast. Letus, then, leave the sciences and arts to assuage, in some degree, theferocity of the men they have corrupted. . . . The enlightenment of thewicked is at any rate less to be feared than his brutal stupidity. "

Rousseau here showed the characteristic which invariably distinguishedhim from the philosophers, and which ended by establishing deep enmitybetween them and him. The eighteenth century espied certain evils, certain sores in the social and political condition, believed in a cure, and blindly relied on the power of its own theories. Rousseau, moreearnest, often more sincere, made a better diagnosis of the complaint; hedescribed its horrible character and the dangerousness of it, he saw noremedy and he pointed none out. Profound and grievous impotence, whoseutmost hope is an impossible recurrence to the primitive state ofsavagery! "In the private opinion of our adversaries, " says M. Roy deCollard eloquently, "it was a thoughtless thing, on the great day ofcreation, to let man loose, a free and intelligent agent, into the midstof the universe; thence the mischief and the mistake. A higher wisdomcomes forward to repair the error of Providence, to restrain Histhoughtless liberality, and to render to prudently mutilated mankind theservice of elevating it to the happy innocence of the brute. "

Before Rousseau, and better than he, Christianity had recognized andproclaimed the evil; but it had at the same time announced to the world aremedy and a Saviour. 

Henceforth Rousseau had chosen his own road: giving up the drawing-roomsand the habits of that elegant society for which he was not born and theadmiration of which had developed his pride, he made up his mind to liveindependent, copying music to get his bread, now and then smitten withthe women of the world who sought him out in his retirement, --in lovewith Madame d'Epinay and Madame d'Houdetot, anon returning to the coarseservant-wench whom he had but lately made his wife, and whose children hehad put in the foundling-hospital. Music at that time absorbed allminds. Rousseau brought out a little opera entitled _Le Devin devillage_ (The Village Wizard), which had a great success. It was playedat Fontainebleau before the king. "I was there that day, " writesRousseau, "in the same untidy array which was usual with me; a great dealof beard and wig rather badly trimmed. Taking this want of decency foran act of courage, I entered in this state the very room into which wouldcome, a short time afterwards, the king, the queen, the royal family, andall the court. . . . When the lights were lit, seeing myself in this. Array in the midst of people all extensively got up, I began to be ill atease; I asked myself if I were in my proper place, if I were properlydressed, and, after a few moments' disquietude, I answered yes, with anintrepidity which arose perhaps more from the impossibility of gettingout of it than from the force of my arguments. After this littledialogue, I plucked up so much, that I should have been quite intrepid ifthere had been any need of it. But, whether it were the effect of themaster's presence or natural kindness of heart, I observed nothing butwhat was obliging and civil in the curiosity of which I was the object. I was steeled against all their gibes, but their caressing air, which Ihad not expected, overcame me so completely, that I trembled like a childwhen things began. I heard all about me a whispering of women who seemedto me as beautiful as angels, and who said to one another below theirbreath, 'This is charming, this is enchanting: there is not a note thatdoes not appeal to the heart. ' The, pleasure of causing emotion in somany lovable persons moved me myself to tears. "

The emotions of the eighteenth century were vivid and easily roused;fastening upon everything without any earnest purpose, and without anygreat sense of responsibility, it grew as hot over a musical dispute asover the gravest questions of morality or philosophy. Grimm had attackedFrench music, Rousseau supported his thesis by a _Lettre sur la Musique_. It was the moment of the great quarrel between the Parliament and theclergy. "When my letter appeared, there was no more excitement saveagainst me, " says Rousseau; "it was such that the nation has neverrecovered from it. When people read that this pamphlet probablyprevented a revolution in the state, they will fancy they must bedreaming. " And Grimm adds in his correspondence: "The Italian actors whohave been playing for the last ten months on the stage of the Opera deParis and who are called here bouffons, have so absorbed the attention ofParis that the Parliament, in spite of all its measures and proceedingswhich should have earned it celebrity, could not but fall into completeoblivion. A wit has said that the arrival of Manelli saved us from acivil war; and Jean Jacques Rousseau of Geneva, whom his friends havedubbed the citizen of citizens (_le citoyen par excellence_), thateloquent and bilious foe of the sciences, has just set fire to the fourcorners of Paris with a _Lettre sur la Musique, _ in which he proves thatit is impossible to set French words to music. . . . What is not easyto believe, and is none the less true for all that, is that M. Rousseauwas afraid of being banished for this pamphlet. It would have been oddto see Rousseau banished for having spoken ill of French music, afterhaving with impunity dealt with the most delicate political matter. "

Rousseau had just printed his _Discours sur l'Inegalite des conditions, _a new and violent picture of the corruptions of human society. "Inequality being almost nil in a state of nature, " he says, "it derivesits force and increment from the development of our faculties and fromthe progress of the human mind . . . According to the poet it is goldand silver, but according to the philosopher it is iron and corn whichhave civilized men and ruined the human race. "

The singularity of his paradox had worn off; Rousseau no longerastounded, he shocked the good sense as well as the aspirations, superficial or generous, of the eighteenth century. The _Discours surl'Inegalite des conditions_ was not a success. "I have received, sir, your new book against the human race, " wrote Voltaire; "I thank you forit. You will please men to whom you tell truths about them, and you willnot make them any better. Never was so much good wit expended in thedesire to make beasts of us; one feels disposed to walk on all fours whenone reads your work. However, as it is more than sixty years since Ilost the knack, I unfortunately find it impossible to recover it, and Ileave that natural gait to those who are better fitted for it than you orI. No more can I embark upon a visit to the savages of Canada, first, because the illnesses to which I am subject render a European doctornecessary to me; secondly, because war has been introduced into thatcountry, and because the examples of our nations have rendered thesavages almost as wicked as ourselves. I shall confine myself to being apeaceable savage in the solitude I have selected hard by your owncountry, where you ought to be. "

Rousseau had, indeed, thought of returning and settling at Geneva. In1754, during a trip he made thither, he renounced the Catholic faithwhich he had embraced at sixteen under the influence of Madame de Warens, without any more conviction than he carried with him in his freshabjuration. "Ashamed, " says he, "at being excluded from my rights ofcitizenship by the profession of a cult other than that of my fathers, Iresolved to resume the latter openly. I considered that the Gospel wasthe same for all Christians, and that, as the fundamental difference ofdogma arose from meddling with explanations of what could not beunderstood, it appertained in every country to the sovereigns alone tofix both the cult and the unintelligible dogma, and that, consequently, it was the duty of the citizen to accept the dogma and follow the cultprescribed by law. " Strange eccentricity of the human mind! Theshackles of civilization are oppressive to Rousseau, and yet he wouldimpose the yoke of the state upon consciences. The natural man does notreflect, and does not discuss his religion; whilst seeking to recover theobliterated ideal of nature, the philosopher halts on the road at theprinciples of Louis XIV. Touching religious liberties. 

[Illustration: Rousseau and Madame D'Epinay----338]

Madame d'Epinay had offered Rousseau a retreat in her little house, theHermitage. There it was that he began the tale of _La Nouvelle Heloise, _which was finished at Marshal de Montmorency's, when the susceptible andcranky temper of the philosopher had justified the malevolent predictionsof Grimm. The latter had but lately said to Madame d'Epinay "I see inRousseau nothing but pride concealed everywhere about him; you will dohim a very sorry service in giving him a home at the Hermitage, but youwill do yourself a still more sorry one. Solitude will complete theblackening of his imagination; he will fancy all his friends unjust, ungrateful, and you first of all, if you once refuse to be at his beckand call; he will accuse you of having bothered him to live under yourroof and of having prevented him from yielding to the wishes of hiscountry. I already see the germ of these accusations in the turn of theletters you have shown me. "

Rousseau quarrelled with Madame d'Epinay, and shortly afterwards with allthe philosophical circle: Grimm, Helvetius, D'Holbach, Diderot; hisquarrels with the last were already of old date, they had made somenoise. "Good God!" said the Duke of Castries in astonishment, "whereverI go I hear of nothing but this Rousseau and this Diderot! Did anybodyever? Fellows who are nobody, fellows who have no house, who lodge on athird floor! Positively, one can't stand that sort of thing!" Therupture was at last complete, it extended to Grimm as well as to Diderot. "Nobody can put himself in my place, " wrote Rousseau, "and nobody willsee that I am a being apart, who has not the character, the maxims, theresources of the rest of them, and who must not be judged by theirrules. "

Rousseau was right; he was a being apart; and the philosophers could notforgive him for his independence. His merits as well as his defectsannoyed them equally: his "Lettre contre les Spectacles" had exasperatedVoltaire, the stage at Deuces as in danger. "It is against that JeanJacques of yours that I am most enraged, " he writes in his correspondencewith D'Alembert: "he has written several letters against the scandal todeacons of the Church of Geneva, to my ironmonger, to my cobbler. Thisarch-maniac, who might have been something if he had left himself in yourhands, has some notion of standing aloof: he writes against theatricalsafter having done a bad play; he writes against France which is a motherto him; he picks up four or five rotten old hoops off Diogenes' tub andgets inside them to bay; he cuts his friends; he writes to me myself themost impertinent letter that ever fanatic scrawled. He writes to me inso many words, 'You have corrupted Geneva in requital of the asylum shegave you;' as if I cared to soften the manners of Geneva, as if I wantedan asylum, as if I had taken any in that city of Socinian preachers, asif I were under any obligation to that city!"

More moderate and more equitable than Voltaire, D'Alembert felt thedanger of discord amongst the philosophical party. In vain he wrote tothe irritated poet: "I come to Jean Jacques, not Jean Jacques Lefranc dePompignan, who thinks he is somebody, but to Jean Jacques Rousseau, whothinks be is a cynic, and who is only inconsistent and ridiculous. Igrant that he has written you an impertinent letter; I grant that you andyour friends have reason to complain of that; in spite of all this, however, I do not approve of your declaring openly against him, as youare doing, and, thereanent, I need only quote to you your own words:'What will become of the little flock, if it is divided and scattered?'We do not find that Plato, or Aristotle, or Sophocles, or Euripides, wrote against Diogenes, although Diogenes said something insulting tothem all. Jean Jacques is a sick man with a good deal of wit, and onewho only has wit when he has fever; he must neither be cured nor have hisfeelings hurt. " Voltaire replied with haughty temper to these wisecounsels, and the philosophers remained forever embroiled with Rousseau. 

Isolated henceforth by the good as well as by the evil tendencies of hisnature, Jean Jacques stood alone against the philosophical circle whichhe had dropped, as well as against the Protestant or Catholic clergywhose creeds he often offended. He had just published _Le ContratSocial, _ "The Gospel, "; says M. Saint-Marc Girardin, "of the theory as tothe sovereignty of the state representing the sovereignty of the people. "The governing powers of the time had some presentiment of its danger;they had vaguely comprehended what weapons might be sought therein byrevolutionary instincts and interests; their anxiety and their anger asyet brooded silently; the director of publications (_de la librairie_), M. De Malesherbes, was one of the friends and almost one of the disciplesof Rousseau whom he shielded; he himself corrected the proofs of the_Emile_ which Rousseau had just finished. The book had barely begun toappear, when, on the 8th of June, 1762, Rousseau was awakened by amessage from la Marchale de Luxembourg: the Parliament had ordered_Emile_ to be burned, and its author arrested. Rousseau took flight, reckoning upon finding refuge at Geneva. The influence of the Frenchgovernment pursued him thither; the Grand Council condemned _Emile_. One single copy had arrived at Geneva it was this which was burned by thehand of the common hangman, nine days after the, burning at Paris in thePlace de Greve. "The Contrat Social has received its whipping on theback of Emile, " was the saying at Geneva. "At the instigation of M. DeVoltaire they have avenged upon me the cause of God, " Jean Jacquesdeclared. 

Rousseau rashly put his name to his book; Voltaire was more prudent. One day, having been imprisoned for some verses which were not his, hehad taken the resolution to impudently repudiate the paternity of his ownworks. "You must never publish anything under your own name, " he wroteto Helvetius; "La Pucelle was none of my doing, of course. Master Jolyde Fleury will make a fine thing of his requisition; I shall tell himthat he is a calumniator, that La Pucelle is his own doing, which hewants to put down to me out of spite. "

Geneva refused asylum to the proscribed philosopher; he was warned ofhostile intentions on the part of the magnific signiors of Berne. Neuchatel and the King of Prussia's protection alone were left; thitherhe went for refuge. Received with open arms by the governor, my lordMarshal (Keith), he wrote thence to the premier syndic Favre a letterabdicating his rights of burghership and citizenship in the town ofGeneva. "I have neglected nothing, " he said, "to gain the love of mycompatriots; nobody could have had worse success. I desire to indulgethem even in their hate; the last sacrifice remaining for me to make isthat of a name which was dear to me. "

Some excitement, nevertheless, prevailed at Geneva; Rousseau hadpartisans there. The success of _Emile_ had been immense at Paris, andwas destined to exerciso a serious influence upon the education of awhole generation. It is good, " wrote Voltaire, "that the brethren shouldknow that yesterday six hundred persons came, for the third time, toprotest on behalf of Jean Jacques against the Council of Geneva, whichhad dared to condemn the Vicaire savoyard. " The Genevese magistratesthought it worth while to defend their acts; the _Lettres ecrites de laCampagne, _ published to that end, were the work of the attorney-generalRobert Tronchin. Rousseau replied to them in the _Lettres de laMontagne, _ with a glowing eloquence having a spice of irony. He hurledhis missiles at Voltaire, whom, with weakly exaggeration, he accused ofbeing the author of all his misfortunes. "Those gentlemen of the GrandCouncil, " he said, "see M. De Voltaire so often, how is it that he didnot inspire them with a little of that tolerance which he is incessantlypreaching, and of which he sometimes has need? If they had consulted hima little on this matter, it appears to me that he might have addressedthem pretty nearly thus: 'Gentlemen, it is not the arguers who do harm;philosophy can gang its ain gait without risk;' the people either do nothear it at all or let it babble on, and pay it back all the disdain itfeels for them. I do not argue myself, but others argue, and what harmcomes of it? We have arranged that my great influence in the court andmy pretended omnipotence should serve you as a pretext for allowing afree, peaceful course to the sportive jests of my advanced years; that isa good thing, but do not, for all that, burn graver writings, for thatwould be too shocking. I have so often preached tolerance! It must notbe always required of others and never displayed towards them. This poorcreature believes in God, let us pass over that; he will not make a sect. He is a bore; all arguers are. If all bores of books were to be burned, the whole country would have to be made into one great fireplace. Come, come, let us leave those to argue who leave us to joke; let us burnneither people nor books and remain at peace, that is my advice. That, in my opinion, is what might have been said, only in better style, by M. Voltaire, and it would not have been, as it seems to me, the worst advicehe could have given. "

My lord Marshal had left Neuchatel; Rousseau no longer felt safe there;he made up his mind to settle in the Island of St. Pierre, in the middleof the Lake of Bienne. Before long an order from the Bernese senateobliged, him to quit it "within four and twenty hours, and with aprohibition against ever returning, under the heaviest penalties. "Rousseau went through Paris and took refuge in England, whither he wasinvited by the friendliness of the historian Hume. There it was that hebegan writing his _Confessions_. 

Already the reason of the unhappy philosopher, clouded as it hadsometimes been by the violence of his emotions, was beginning to beshaken at the foundations; he believed himself to be the victim of animmense conspiracy, at the head of which was his friend Hume. The latterflew into a rage; he wrote to Baron d'Holbach: "My dear Baron, Rousseauis a scoundrel. " Rousseau was by this time mad. 

He returned to France. The Prince of Conti, faithful to hisphilosophical affections, quartered him at the castle of Trye, nearGisors. Thence he returned to Paris, still persecuted, he said, byinvisible enemies. Retiring, finally, to the pavilion of Ermenonville, which had been offered to him by M. De Girardin, he died there at the ageof sixty-six, sinking even more beneath imaginary woes than under thereal sorrows and bitter deceptions of his life. The disproportionbetween his intellect and his character, between the boundless pride andthe impassioned weakness of his spirit, had little by little estrangedhis friends and worn out the admiration of his contemporaries. By hiswritings Rousseau acted more powerfully upon posterity than upon his owntimes: his personality had ceased to do his genius injustice. 

He belonged moreover and by anticipation to a new era; from the restlessworking of his mind, as well as from his moral and political tendencies, he was no longer of the eighteenth century properly speaking, though themajority of the philosophers outlived him; his work was not their work, their world was never his. He had attempted a noble reaction, but onewhich was fundamentally and in reality impossible. The impress of hisearly education had never been thoroughly effaced: he believed in God, hehad been nurtured upon the Gospel in childhood, he admired the moralityand the life of Jesus Christ; but he stopped at the boundaries ofadoration and submission. "The spirit of Jean Jacques Rousseau inhabitsthe moral world, but not that other which is above, " M. Joubert has saidin his _Pensees_. The weapons were insufficient and the champion was toofeeble for the contest; the spirit of the moral world was vanquished as aforegone conclusion. Against the systematic infidelity which was moreand more creeping over the eighteenth century, the Christian faith alone, with all its forces, could fight and triumph. But the Christian faithwas obscured and enfeebled, it clung to the vessel's rigging instead ofdefending its powerful hull; the flood was rising meanwhile, and thedikes were breaking one after, another. The religious belief of theSavoyard vicar, imperfect and inconsistent, such as it is set forth in_Emile, _ and that sincere love of nature which was recovered by Rousseauin his solitude, remained powerless to guide the soul and regulate life. 

"What the eighteenth century lacked [M. Guizot, _Melanges biographiques_(Madame la Comtesse de Rumford)], "what there was of superficiality inits ideas and of decay in its morals, of senselessness in its pretensionsand of futility in its creative power, has been strikingly revealed to usby experience; we have learned it to our cost. We know, we feel the evilbequeathed to us by that memorable epoch. It preached doubt, egotism, materialism. It laid for some time an impure and blasting hand uponnoble and beautiful phases of human life. But if the eighteenth centuryhad done only that, if such had been merely its chief characteristic, canany one suppose that it would have carried in its wake so many and suchimportant matters, that it would have so moved the world? It was farsuperior to all its sceptics, to all its cynics. What do I say?Superior? Nay, it was essentially opposed to them and continually gavethem the lie. Despite the weakness of its morals, the frivolity of itsforms, the mere dry bones of such and such of its doctrines, despite itscritical and destructive tendency, it was an ardent and a sincerecentury, a century of faith and disinterestedness. It had faith in thetruth, for it claimed the right thereof to reign in this world. It hadfaith in humanity, for it recognized the right thereof to perfect itselfand would have had that right exercised without obstruction. It erred, it lost itself amid this twofold confidence; it attempted what was farbeyond its right and power; it misjudged the moral nature of man and theconditions of the social state. Its ideas as well as its workscontracted the blemish of its views. But, granted so much, the originalidea, dominant in the eighteenth century, the belief that man, truth, andsociety are made for one another, worthy of one another, and called uponto form a union, this correct and salutary belief rises up and overtopsall its history. That belief it was the first to proclaim and would fainhave realized. Hence its power and its popularity over the whole face ofthe earth. Hence also, to descend from great things to small, and fromthe destiny of man to that of the drawing-room, hence the seductivenessof that epoch and the charm it scattered over social, life. Never beforewere seen all the conditions, all the classes that form the flower of agreat people, however diverse they might have been in their history andstill were in their interests, thus forgetting their past, theirpersonality, in order to draw near to one another, to unite in acommunion of the sweetest manners, and solely occupied in pleasing oneanother, in rejoicing and hoping together during fifty years which wereto end in the most terrible conflicts between them. "

At the death of King Louis XV. , in 1774, the easy-mannered joyance, thepeaceful and brilliant charm of fashionable and philosophical societywere reaching their end: the time of stern realities was approaching withlong strides. 

CHAPTER LVI. ----LOUIS XVI. --MINISTRY OF M. TURGOT. 1774-1776. 

[Illustration: Louis XVI. ----347]

Louis XV. Was dead; France breathed once more; she was weary of theweakness as well as of the irregularities of the king who had untaughther her respect for him, and she turned with joyous hope towards hissuccessor, barely twenty years of age, but already loved and impatientlyawaited by his people. "He must be called Louis le Desire, " was thesaying in the streets before the death-rattle of Louis XV. Had summonedhis grandson to the throne. The feeling of dread which had seized theyoung king was more prophetic than the nation's joy. At the news thatLouis XV. Had just heaved his last sigh in the arms of his piousdaughters, Louis XVI. And Maria Antoinette both flung themselves on theirknees, exclaiming, "O God, protect us, direct us, we are too young. "

The monarch's youth did not scare the country, itself everywhere animatedand excited by a breath of youth. There were congratulations on escapingfrom the well-known troubles of a regency; the king's ingenuousinexperience, moreover, opened a vast field for the most contradictoryhopes. The philosophers counted upon taking possession of the mind of agood young sovereign, who was said to have his heart set upon hispeople's happiness; the clergy and the Jesuits themselves expectedeverything from the young prince's pious education; the old parliaments, mutilated, crushed down, began to raise up their heads again, while theeconomists were already preparing their most daring projects. Likeliterature, the arts had got the start, in the new path, of thepoliticians and the magistrates. M. Turgot and M. De Malesherbes hadnot yet laid their enterprising hands upon the old fabric of Frenchadministration, and already painting, sculpture, architecture, and musichad shaken off the shackles of the past. The conventional graces ofVanloo, of Watteau, of Boucher, of Fragonard, had given place to aseverer school. Greuze was putting upon canvas the characters and ideasof Diderot's _Drame naturel;_ but Vien, in France, was seconding theefforts of Winkelman and of Raphael Mengs in Italy; he led his pupilsback to the study of ancient art; he had trained Regnault, Vincent, Menageot, and lastly Louis David, destined to become the chief of themodern school; Julien, Houdon, the last of the Coustous, were followingthe same road in sculpture Soufflot, an old man by this time, wassuperintending the completion of the church of St. Genevieve, dedicatedby Louis XV. To the commemoration of his recovery at Metz, and destined, from the majestic simplicity of its lines, to the doubtful honor ofbecoming the Pantheon of the revolution; Servandoni had died a short timesince, leaving to the church of St. Sulpice the care of preserving hismemory; everywhere were rising charming mansions imitated from thepalaces of Rome. The painters, the sculptors, and the architects ofFrance were sufficient for her glory; only Gretry and Monsigny upheld thehonor of that French music which was attacked by Grimm and by JeanJacques Rousseau; but it was at Paris that the great quarrel went onbetween the Italians and the Germans; Piccini and Gluck divided society, wherein their rivalry excited violent passions. Everywhere and on, allquestions, intellectual movement was becoming animated with fresh ardor;France was marching towards the region of storms, in the blindness of herconfidence and _joyante;_ the atmosphere seemed purer since MadameDubarry had been sent to a convent by one of the first orders of youngLouis XVI. 

Already, however, far-seeing spirits were disquieted; scarcely had hemounted the throne, when the king summoned to his side, as his minister, M. De Maurepas, but lately banished by Louis XV. , in 1749, on a charge ofhaving tolerated, if not himself written, songs disrespectful towardsMadame de Pompadour. "The first day, " said the disgraced minister, "Iwas nettled; the second, I was comforted. "

M. De Maurepas, grandson of Chancellor Pontchartrain, had been providedfor, at fourteen years of age, by Louis XIV. With the reversion of theministry of marine, which had been held by his father, and had led afrivolous and pleasant life; through good fortune and evil fortune heclung to the court; when he was recalled thither, at the age of sixty-three, on the suggestion of Madame Adelaide, the queen's aunt, and of thedukes of Aiguillon and La Vrilliere, both of them ministers and relationsof his, he made up his mind that he would never leave it again. Onarriving at Versailles, he used the expression, "premier minister. ""Not at all, " said the king abruptly. "O, very well, " replied M. DeMaurepas, "then to teach your Majesty to do without one. " Nobody, however, did any business with Louis XVI. Without his being present, and his address was sufficient to keep at a distance or diminish theinfluence of the princesses as well as of the queen. Marie Antoinettehad insisted upon the recall of M. De Choiseul, who had arranged hermarriage and who had remained faithful to the Austrian alliance. Theking had refused angrily. The sinister accusations which had but latelybeen current as to the causes of the dauphin's death had never beenforgotten by his son. 

An able man, in spite of his incurable levity, M. De Maurepas soonsacrificed the Duke of Aiguillon to the queen's resentment; the peopleattached to the old court accused her of despising etiquette; it was saidthat she had laughed when she received the respectful condolence of ageddames looking like beguines in their coifs; already there circulatedamongst the public bitter ditties, such as, My little queen, not twenty-one, Maltreat the folks, as you've begun, And o'er the border you shall run. . . . 

The Duke of Aiguillon, always hostile to the Choiseuls and the House ofAustria, had lent his countenance to the murmurs; Marie Antoinette wasannoyed, and, in her turn, fostered the distrust felt by the peopletowards the late ministers of Louis XV. In the place of the Duke ofAiguillon, who had the ministry of war and that of foreign affairs bothtogether, the Count of Muy and the Count of Vergennes were called topower. Some weeks later, the obscure minister of marine, M. De Boynes, made way for the superintendent of the district (generalite) of Limoges, M. Turgot. 

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, born at Paris on the 10th of May, 1727, wasalready known and everywhere esteemed, when M. De Maurepas, at theinstance, it is said, of his wife whom he consulted on all occasions, summoned him to the ministry. He belonged to an ancient and importantfamily by whom he had been intended for the Church. When a pupil atLouis-le-Grand college, he spent his allowance so quickly that hisparents became alarmed; they learned before long that the young manshared all he received amongst out-of-college pupils too poor to buybooks. 

This noble concern for the wants of others, as well as his rare giftsof intellect, had gained young Turgot devoted friends. He was alreadyleaning towards philosophy, and he announced to his fellow-pupils hisintention of giving up his ecclesiastical status; he was a prior ofSorbonne; the majority disapproved of it. "Thou'rt but a younger son ofa Norman family, " they said, "and, consequently, poor. Thou'rt certainto get excellent abbotries and to be a bishop early. Then thou'lt beable to realize thy fine dreams of administration and to become astatesman at thy leisure, whilst doing all manner of good in thy diocese. It depends on thyself alone to make thyself useful to thy country, toacquire a high reputation, perhaps to carve thy way to the ministry; ifthou enter the magistracy, as thou desirest, thou breakest the plankwhich is under thy feet, thou'lt be confined to hearing causes, andthou'lt waste thy genius, which is fitted for the most important publicaffairs. " "I am very fond of you, " my dear friends, " replied M. Turgot, "but I don't quite understand what you are made of. As for me, it wouldbe impossible for me to devote myself to wearing a mask all my life. " Hebecame councillor-substitute to the attorney-general, and before longcouncillor in the Parliament, on the 30th of December, 1752. Master ofrequests in 1753, he consented to sit in the King's Chamber, when theParliament suspended the administration of justice. "The Court, " hesaid, "is exceeding its powers. " A sense of equity thus enlisted him inthe service of absolute government. He dreaded, moreover, the corporatespirit, which he considered narrow and intolerant. "When you say, We, "he would often repeat, "do not be surprised that the public shouldanswer, You. "

Intimately connected with the most esteemed magistrates and economists, such as MM. Trudaine, Quesnay, and Gournay, at the same time that he waswriting in the _Encyclopaedia, _ and constantly occupied in useful work, Turgot was not yet five and thirty when he was appointed superintendentof the district of Limoges. There, the rare faculties of his mind andhis sincere love of good found their natural field; the country was poor, crushed under imposts, badly intersected by roads badly kept, inhabitedby an ignorant populace, violently hostile to the recruitment of themilitia. He encouraged agriculture, distributed the talliages moreequitably, amended the old roads and constructed new ones, abolishedforced labor (_corvees_), provided for the wants of the poor and wretchedduring the dearth of 1770 and 1771, and declined, successively, thesuperintendentship of Rouen, of Lyons, and of Bordeaux, in order that hemight be able to complete the useful tasks he had begun at Limoges. Itwas in that district, which had become dear to him, that he was soughtout by the kindly remembrance of Abbe de Wry, his boyhood's friend, whowas intimate with Madame de Maurepas. Scarcely had he been installed inthe department of marine and begun to conceive vast plans, when the lateministers of Louis XV. Succumbed at last beneath the popular hatred; inthe place of Abbe Terray, M. Turgot became comptroller-general. 

The old parliamentarians were triumphant; at the same time as AbbeTerray, Chancellor Maupeou was disgraced, and the judicial system he hadfounded fell with him. Unpopular from the first, the Maupeou Parliamenthad remained in the nation's eyes the image of absolute power corruptedand corrupting. The suit between Beaumarchais and Councillor Goezman hadcontributed to decry it, thanks to the uproar the able pamphleteer hadmanaged to cause; the families of the former magistrates were powerful, numerous, esteemed, and they put pressure upon public opinion; M. DeMaurepas determined to retract the last absolutist attempt of Louis XV. 'sreign; his first care was to send and demand of Chancellor Maupeou thesurrender of the seals. "I know what you have come to tell me, " said thelatter to the Duke of La Vrilliere, who was usually charged with thispainful mission, "but I am and shall continue to be chancellor ofFrance, " and he kept his seat whilst addressing the minister, inaccordance with his official privilege. He handed to the duke thecasket of seals, which the latter was to take straight to M. DeMiromesnil. "I had gained the king a great cause, " said Maupeou; "he ispleased to reopen a question which was decided; as to that he is master. "Imperturbable and haughty as ever, he retired to his estate at Thuit, near the Andelys, where he drew up a justificatory memorandum of hisministry, which he had put into the king's hands, without ever attemptingto enter the court or Paris again; he died in the country, at the outsetof the revolutionary storms, on the 29th of July, 1792, just as he hadmade the State a patriotic present of 800, 000 livres. At the moment whenthe populace were burning him in effigy in the streets of Paris togetherwith Abbe Terray, when he saw the recall of the parliamentarians, and thework of his whole life destroyed, he repeated with his usual coolness:"If the king is pleased to lose his kingdom--well, he is master. "

Abbe Terray had been less proud, and was more harshly treated. It was invain that he sought to dazzle the young king with ably preparedmemorials. "I can do no more, " he said, "to add to the receipts, which Ihave increased by sixty millions; I can do no more to keep down the. Debts, which I have reduced by twenty millions. . . . It is for you, Sir, to relieve your people by reducing the expenses. This work, whichis worthy of your kind heart, was reserved for you. " Abbe Terray had torefund nearly 900, 000 livres to the public treasury. Being recognized bythe mob as he was passing over the Seine in a ferry-boat, he had somedifficulty in escaping from the hands of those who would have hurled himinto the river. 

The contrast was great between the crafty and unscrupulous ability of thedisgraced comptroller-general and the complete disinterestedness, largeviews, and noble desire of good which animated his successor. After hisfirst interview with the king, at Compiegne, M. Turgot wrote to LouisXVI. :--"Your Majesty has been graciously pleased to permit me to placebefore your eyes the engagement you took upon yourself, to support me inthe execution of plans of economy which are at all times, and now morethan ever, indispensable. I confine myself for the moment, Sir, toreminding you of these three expressions: 1. No bankruptcies; 2. Noaugmentation of imposts; 3. No loans. No bankruptcy, either avowed ormasked by forced reductions. No augmentation of imposts the reason forthat lies in the condition of your people, and still more in yourMajesty's own heart. No loans; because every loan always diminishes thedisposable revenue: it necessitates, at the end of a certain time, eitherbankruptcy or augmentation of imposts. . . . Your Majesty will notforget that, when I accepted the office of comptroller-general, Iperceived all the preciousness of the confidence with which you honor me;. . . But, at the same time I perceived all the danger to which I wasexposing myself. I foresaw that I should have to fight single-handedagainst abuses of every sort, against the efforts of such as gain bythose abuses, against the host of the prejudiced who oppose every reform, and who, in the hands of interested persons, are so powerful a means ofperpetuating disorder. I shall be feared, shall be even hated by thegreater part of the court, by all that solicit favors. . . . Thispeople to whom I shall have sacrificed myself is so easy to deceive, thatI shall perhaps incur its hatred through the very measures I shall taketo defend it against harassment. I shall be calumniated, and perhapswith sufficient plausibility to rob me of your Majesty's confidence. . . . You will remember that it is on the strength of your promisesthat I undertake a burden perhaps beyond my strength; that it is to youpersonally, to the honest man, to the just and good man, rather than tothe king, that I commit myself. "

It is to the honor of Louis XVI. That the virtuous men who served him, often with sorrow and without hoping anything from their efforts, alwayspreserved their confidence in his intentions. "It is quite encouraging, "wrote M. Turgot to one of his friends, "to have to serve a king who isreally an honest and a well-meaning man. " The burden of the necessaryreforms was beyond the strength of the minister as well as of thesovereign; the violence of opposing currents was soon about to paralyzetheir genuine efforts and their generous hopes. 

M. Turgot set to work at once. Whilst governing his district of Limoges, he had matured numerous plans and shaped extensive theories. He belongedto his times and to the school of the philosophers as regarded hiscontempt for tradition and history; it was to natural rights alone, tothe innate and primitive requirements of mankind, that he traced back hisprinciples and referred as the basis for all his attempts. "The rightsof associated men are not founded upon their history but upon theirnature, " says the _Memoire au Roi sur les Municipalites, _ drawn up underthe eye of Turgot. By this time he desired no more to reform old France;he wanted a new France. "Before ten years are over, " he would say, "thenation will not be recognizable, thanks to enlightenment. This chaoswill have assumed a distinct form. Your Majesty will have quite a newpeople, and the first of peoples. " A profound error, which was that ofthe whole Revolution, and the consequences of which would have beenimmediately fatal; if the powerful instinct of conservatism and ofnatural respect for the past had not maintained between the regimen whichwas crumbling away and the new fabric connections more powerful and morenumerous than their friends as well as their enemies were aware of. 

Two fundamental principles regulated the financial system of M. Turgot, economy in expenditure and freedom in trade; everywhere he ferreted outabuses, abolishing useless offices and payments, exacting from the entireadministration that strict probity of which he set the example. LouisXVI. Supported him conscientiously at that time in all his reforms; thepublic made fun of it. "The king, " it was said, "when he considershimself an abuse, will be one no longer. " At the same time, a decree ofSeptember 13, 1774, re-established at home that freedom of trade in grainwhich had been suspended by Abbe Terray, and the edict of April, 1776, founded freedom of trade in wine. "It is by trade alone, and by freetrade, that the inequality of harvests can be corrected, " said theminister in the preamble of his decree. "I have just read M. Turgot'smasterpiece, " wrote Voltaire to D'Alembert "it seems to reveal to us newheavens and a new earth. " It was on account of his financial innovationsthat the comptroller-general particularly dreaded the return of the oldParliament, with which he saw himself threatened every day. "I fearopposition from the Parliament, " he said to the king. "Fear nothing, "replied the king warmly, "I will stand by you;" and, passing over theobjections of the best politician amongst his ministers, he yielded to M. De Maurepas, who yielded to public opinion. On the 12th of November, 1774, the old Parliament was formally restored. 

The king appeared at the bed of justice; the princes, the dukes, and thepeers were present; the magistrates were introduced. "The king mygrandfather, " said Louis XVI. , "compelled by your resistance to hisrepeated orders, did what the maintenance of his authority and theobligation of rendering justice to his people required of his wisdom. Today I recall you to functions which you never ought to have given up. Appreciate all the value of my bounties, and do not forget them. " At thesame time the keeper of the seals read out an edict which subjected therestored Parliament to the same jurisdiction which had controlled theMaupeou Parliament. The latter had been sent to Versailles to form agrand council there. 

Stern words are but a sorry cloak for feeble actions: the restoredmagistrates grumbled at the narrow limits imposed upon their authority;the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Chartres, the Prince of Conti supportedtheir complaints; it was in vain that the king for some time met themwith refusals; threats soon gave place to concessions; and theparliaments everywhere reconstituted, enfeebled in the eyes of publicopinion, but more than ever obstinate and Fronde-like, found themselvesfree to harass, without doing any good, the march of an administrationbecoming every day more difficult. "Your Parliament may makebarricades, " Lord Chesterfield had remarked contemptuously toMontesquieu, "it will never raise barriers. "

M. Turgot, meanwhile, was continuing his labors, preparing a project forequitable redistribution of the talliage and his grand system of agraduated scale (_hierarchie_) of municipal assemblies, commencing withthe parish, to culminate in a general meeting of delegates from eachprovince; he threatened, in the course of his reforms, the privileges ofthe noblesse and of the clergy, and gave his mind anxiously to theinstruction of the people, whose condition and welfare he wanted tosimultaneously elevate and augment; already there was a buzz of murmursagainst him, confined as yet to the courtiers, when the dearness of breadand the distress which ensued till the spring of 1775 furnished hisadversaries with a convenient pretext. Up to that time the attacks hadbeen cautious and purely theoretical. M. Necker, an able banker fromGeneva, for a long while settled in Paris, hand and glove with thephilosophers, and keeping up, moreover, a great establishment, hadbrought to the comptroller-general a work which he had just finished onthe trade in grain; on many points he did not share M. Turgot's opinions. "Be kind enough to ascertain for yourself, " said the banker to theminister, "whether the book can be published without inconvenience to thegovernment. " M. Turgot was proud and sometimes rude. "Publish, sir, publish, " said he, without offering his hand to take the manuscript; "thepublic shall decide. " M. Necker, out of pique, published his book; ithad an immense sale; other pamphlets, more violent and less solid, hadalready appeared; at the same moment a riot, which seemed to have beenplanned and to be under certain guidance, broke out in several parts ofFrance. Drunken men shouted about the public thoroughfares, "Bread!cheap bread!"

Burgundy had always been restless and easily excited. It was at Dijonthat the insurrection began; on the 20th of April, the peasantry movedupon the town and smashed the furniture of a councillor in the MaupeouParliament, who was accused of monopoly; they were already overflowingthe streets; exasperated by the cruel answer of the governor, M. De laTour du Pin: "You want something to eat? Go and graze; the grass is justcoming up. " The burgesses trembled in their houses; the bishop threwhimself in the madmen's way and succeeded in calming them with hisexhortations. The disturbance had spread to Pontoise; there the riotbroke out on the 1st of May, the market was pillaged; and the 2d, atVersailles, a mob collected under the balcony of the castle. Everywhereruffians of sinister appearance mingled with the mob, exciting itspassions and urging it to acts of violence: the same men, such as areonly seen in troublous days, were at the same time scouring Brie, Soissonnais, Vexin, and Upper Normandy; already barns had been burned andwheat thrown into the river; sacks of flour were ripped to pieces beforethe king's eyes, at Versailles. In his excitement and dismay he promisedthe mob that the bread-rate should for the future be fixed at two sous;the rioters rushed to Paris. 

M. Turgot had been confined to his bed for some months by an attack ofgout; the Paris bakers' shops had already been pillaged; the rioters hadentered simultaneously by several gates, badly guarded; only one bakery, the owner of which had taken the precaution of putting over the door anotice with shop to let on it, had escaped the madmen. Thecomptroller-general had himself put into his carriage and driven toVersailles: at his advice the king withdrew his rash concession; thecurrent price of bread was maintained. "No firing upon them, " Louis XVI. Insisted. The lieutenant of police, Lenoir, had shown weakness andinefficiency; Marshal Biron was intrusted with the repression of theriot. He occupied all the main thoroughfares and cross-roads; sentrieswere placed at the bakers' doors; those who had hidden themselves werecompelled to bake. The _octroi_ dues on grain were at the same timesuspended at all the markets; wheat was already going down; when theParisians went out of doors to see the riot, they couldn't find any. "Well done, general in command of the flour (_general des farina_), " saidthe tremblers, admiring the military arrangements of Marshal Biron. 

The Parliament had caused to be placarded a decree against streetassemblies, at the same time requesting the king to lower the price ofbread. The result was deplorable; the severe resolution, of the councilwas placarded beside the proclamation of the Parliament; the magistrateswere summoned to Versailles. The prosecution of offenders was forbiddenthem; it was intrusted to the provost's department. "The proceedings ofthe brigands appear to be combined, " said the keeper of the seals; "theirapproach is announced; public rumors indicate the day, the hour, theplaces at which they are to commit their outrages. It would seem as ifthere were a plan formed to lay waste the country-places, interceptnavigation, prevent the carriage of wheat on the high-roads, in order tostarve out the large towns, and especially the city of Paris. " The kingat the same time forbade any "remonstrance. " I rely, " said he ondismissing the court, "upon your placing no obstacle or hinderance in theway of the measures I have taken, in order that no similar event mayoccur during the period of my reign. "

The troubles were everywhere subsiding, the merchants were recoveringtheir spirits. M. Turgot had at once sent fifty thousand francs to atrader whom the rioters had robbed of a boat full of wheat which they hadflung into the river; two of the insurgents were at the same time hangedat Paris on a gallows forty feet high; and a notice was sent to theparish priests, which they were to read from the pulpit in order toenlighten the people as to the folly of such outbreaks and as to theconditions of the trade in grain. "My people, when they know the authorsof the trouble, will regard them with horror, " said the royal circular. The authors of the trouble have remained unknown; to his last day M. Turgot believed in the existence of a plot concocted by the Prince ofConti, with the design of overthrowing him. 

Severities were hateful to the king; he had misjudged his own character, when, at the outset of his reign, he had desired the appellation of Louisle Severe. "Have we nothing to reproach ourselves with in thesemeasures?" he was incessantly asking M. Turgot, who was as conscientiousbut more resolute than his master. An amnesty preceded the coronation, which was to take place at Rheims on the 11th of June, 1775. 

A grave question presented itself as regarded the king's oath: should heswear, as the majority of his predecessors had sworn, to exterminateheretics? M. Turgot had aroused Louis XVI. 's scruples upon this subject. "Tolerance ought to appear expedient in point of policy for even aninfidel prince, " he said; "but it ought to be regarded as a sacred dutyfor a religious prince. " His opinion had been warmly supported by M. DeMalesherbes, premier president of the Court of Aids. The king in hisperplexity consulted M. De Maurepas. "M. Turgot is right, " said theminister, "but he is too bold. What he proposes could hardly beattempted by a prince who came to the throne at a ripe age and intranquil times. That is not your position. The fanatics are more to bedreaded than the heretics. The latter are accustomed to their presentcondition. It will always be easy for you not to employ persecution. Those old formulas, of which nobody takes any notice, are no longerconsidered to be binding. " The king yielded; he made no change in theform of the oath, and confined himself to stammering out a few incoherentwords. At the coronation of Louis XV. The people, heretofore admittedfreely to the cathedral, had been excluded; at the coronation of LouisXVI. The officiator, who was the coadjutor of Rheims, omitted the usualformula addressed to the whole assembly, "Will you have this king foryour king?" This insolent neglect was soon to be replied to by thesinister echo of the sovereignty of the people. The clergy, scared by M. Turgot's liberal tendencies, reiterated their appeals to the king againstthe liberties tacitly accorded to Protestants. "Finish, " they said toLouis XVI. , "the work which Louis the Great began, and which Louis theWell-beloved continued. " The king answered with vague assurances;already MM. Turgot and de Malesherbes were entertaining him with aproject which conceded to Protestants the civil status. 

M. De Malesherhes, indeed, had been for some months past seconding hisfriend in the weighty task which the latter had undertaken. Born atParis on the 6th of December, 1721, son of the chancellor William deLamoignon, and for the last twenty-three years premier president in theCourt of Aids, Malesherbes had invariably fought on behalf of honestright and sound liberty; popularity had followed him in exile; it hadincreased continually since the accession of Louis XVI. , who lost no timein recalling him; he had just presented to the king a remarkablememorandum touching the reform of the fiscal regimen, when M. Turgotproposed to the king to call him to the ministry in the place of the Dukeof La Vrilliere. M. De Maurepas made no objection. "He will be the linkof the ministry, " he said, "because he has the eloquence of tongue and ofheart. " "Rest assured, " wrote Mdlle. De Lespinasse, "that what is wellwill be done and will be done well. Never, no never, were two moreenlightened, more disinterested, more virtuous men more powerfully knittogether in a greater and a higher cause. " The first care of M. De. Malesherbes was to protest against the sealed letters (_lettres decachet_--summary arrest), the application whereof he was for putting inthe hands of a special tribunal; he visited the Bastille, releasing theprisoners confined on simple suspicion. He had already dared to advisethe king to a convocation of the states-general. "In France, " he hadwritten to Louis XVI. , "the nation has always had a deep sense of itsright and its liberty. Our maxims have been more than once recognized byour kings; they have even gloried in being the sovereigns of a freepeople. Meanwhile, the articles of this liberty have never been reducedto writing, and the real power, the power of arms, which, under a feudalgovernment, was in the hands of the grandees, has been completely centredin the kingly power. . . . We ought not to hide from you, Sir, thatthe way which would be most simple, most natural, and most in conformitywith the constitution of this monarchy, would be to hear the nationitself in full assembly, and nobody should have the poltroonery to useany other language to you; nobody should leave you in ignorance that theunanimous wish of the nation is to obtain states-general or at the leaststates-provincial. . . . Deign to consider, Sir, that on the day yougrant this precious liberty to your people it may be said that a treatyhas been concluded between king and nation against ministers andmagistrates: against the ministers, if there be any perverted enough towish to conceal from you the truth; against the magistrates, if thereever be any ambitious enough to pretend to have the exclusive right oftelling you it. "

Almost the whole ministry was in the hands of reformers; a sincere desireto do good impelled the king towards those who promised him the happinessof his people. Marshal Muy had succumbed to a painful operation. "Sir, "he had said to Louis XVI. , before placing himself in the surgeon's hands, "in a fortnight I shall be at your Majesty's feet or with your augustfather. " He had succumbed. M. Turgot spoke to M. De Maurepas of theDuke of St. Germain. "Propose him to the king, " said the minister, adding his favorite phrase "one can but try. "

In the case of government, trials are often a dangerous thing. M. De St. Germain, born in the Jura in 1707, and entered first of all amongst theJesuits, had afterwards devoted himself to the career of arms: he hadserved the Elector Palatine, Maria Theresa, and the Elector of Bavaria;enrolled finally by Marshal Saxe, he had distinguished himself under hisorders; as lieutenant-general during the Seven Years' War, he had broughtup his divisionn at Rosbach more quickly than his colleagues had theirs, he had fled less far than the others before the enemy; but his characterwas difficult, suspicious, exacting; he was always seeing everywhereplots concocted to ruin him. "I am persecuted to the death, " he wouldsay. He entered the service of Denmark: returning to France and inpoverty, he lived in Alsace on the retired list; it was there that theking's summons came to find him out. In his solitude M. De St. Germainhad conceived a thousand projects of reform; he wanted to apply them allat once. He made no sort of case of the picked corps and suppressed themajority of them, thus irritating, likewise, all the privileged. "M. DeSt. Germain, " wrote Frederick II. To Voltaire, "had great and noble plansvery advantageous for your Welches; but everybody thwarted him, becausethe reforms he proposed would have entailed a strictness which wasrepugnant to them on ten thousand sluggards, well frogged, well laced. "The enthusiasm which had been excited by the new minister of war haddisappeared from amongst the officers; he lost the hearts of the soldiersby wanting to establish in the army the corporal punishments in useamongst the German armies in which he had served. The feeling was sostrong, that the attempt was abandoned. "In the matter of sabres, " saida grenadier, "I like only the edge. " Violent and weak both together, inspite of his real merit and his genuine worth, often giving up wiseresolutions out of sheer embarrassment, he nearly always failed in whathe undertook; the outcries against the reformers were increased thereby;the faults of M. De St. Germain were put down to M. Turgot. 

It was against the latter indeed, that the courtiers' anger and M. DeMaurepas' growing jealousy were directed. "Once upon a time there wasin France, " said a, pamphlet, entitled _Le Songe de M. De Maurepas, _attributed to Monsieur, the king's brother, --"there was in France acertain man, clumsy, crass, heavy, born with more of rudeness than ofcharacter, more of obstinacy than of firmness, of impetuosity than oftact, a charlatan in administration as well as in virtue, made to bringthe one into disrepute and the other into disgust, in other respects shyfrom self-conceit, timid from pride, as unfamiliar with men, whom he hadnever known, as with public affairs, which he had always seen askew; hisname was Turgot. He was one of those half-thinking brains which adoptall visions, all manias of a gigantic sort. He was believed to be deep, he was really shallow; night and day he was raving of philosophy, liberty, equality, net product. " "He is too much (trop fort) for me, " M. De Maurepas would often say. "A man must be possessed (or inspired--_enrage_), " wrote Malesherbes, "to force, at one and the same time, thehand of the king, of M. De Maurepas, of the whole court and of theParliament. "

Perhaps the task was above human strength; it was certainly beyond thatof M. Turgot. Ever occupied with the public weal, he turned his mind toevery subject, issuing a multiplicity of decrees, sometimes with ratherchimerical hopes. He had proposed to the king six edicts; two wereextremely important; the first abolished jurorships (_jurandes_) andmasterships (_maitrises_) among the workmen. "The king, " said thepreamble, "wishes to secure to all his subjects, and especially to thehumblest, to those who have no property but their labor and theirindustry, the full and entire enjoyment of their rights, and to reform, consequently, the institutions which strike at those rights, and which, in spite of their antiquity, have failed to be legalized by time, opinion, and even the acts of authority. " The second substituted forforced labor on roads and highways an impost to which all proprietorswere equally liable. 

This was the first step towards equal redistribution of taxes; great wasthe explosion of disquietude and wrath on the part of the privileged; itshowed itself first in the council, by the mouth of M. De Miromesnil;Turgot sprang up with animation. "The keeper of the seals, " he said, "seems to adopt the principle that, by the constitution of the state, thenoblesse ought to be exempt from all taxation. This idea will appear aparadox to the majority of the nation. The commoners (_roturiers_) arecertainly the greatest number, and we are no longer in the days whentheir voices did not count. " The king listened to the discussion insilence. "Come, " he exclaimed abruptly, "I see that there are only M. Turgot and I here who love the people, " and he signed the edicts. 

The Parliament, like the noblesse, had taken up the cudgels; they maderepresentation after representation. "The populace of France, " said thecourt boldly, "is liable to talliage and forced labor at will, and thatis a part of the constitution which the king cannot change. " Louis XVI. Summoned the Parliament to Versailles, and had the edicts enregistered ata bed of justice. "It is a bed of beneficence!" exclaimed Voltaire, apassionate admirer of Turgot. 

The comptroller-general was triumphant; but his victory was but theprelude to his fall. Too many enemies were leagued against him, irritated both by the noblest qualities of his character, and at the sametime by the natural defects of his manners. Possessed of love "for abeautiful ideal, of a rage for perfection, " M. Turgot had wanted toattempt everything, undertake everything, reform everything at one blow. He fought single-handed. M. De Malesherbes, firm as a rock at the headof the Court of Aids, supported as he was by the traditions and corporatefeeling of the magistracy, had shown weakness as a minister. "I couldoffer the king only uprightness and good-heartedness, " he said himself, "two qualities insufficient to make a minister, even a mediocre one. "The courtiers, in fact, called him "good-heart" (_bonhomme_). "M. DeMalesherbes has doubts about everything, " wrote Madame du Deffand; "M. Turgot has doubts about nothing. " M. De Maurepas having, of set purpose, got up rather a serious quarrel with him, Malesherbes sent in hisresignation to the king; the latter pressed him to withdraw it: theminister remained inflexible. "You are better off than I, " said LouisXVI. At last, "you can abdicate. "

For a long while the king had remained faithful to M. Turgot. "Peoplemay say what they like, " he would repeat, with sincere conviction, "buthe is an honest man!" Infamous means were employed, it is said, with theking; he was shown forged letters, purporting to come from M. Turgot, intercepted at the post and containing opinions calculated to wound hisMajesty himself. To pacify the jealousy of M. De Maurepas, Turgot hadgiven up his privilege of working alone with the king. Left to theadroit manoeuvres of his old minister, Louis XVI. Fell away by degreesfrom the troublesome reformer against whom were leagued all those whowere about him. The queen had small liking for M. Turgot, whose stricteconomy had cut down the expenses of her household; contrary to theirusual practice, her most trusted servants abetted the animosity of M. DeMaurepas. "I confess that I am not sorry for these departures, " wroteMarie Antoinette to her mother, after the fall of M. Turgot, "but I havehad nothing to do with them. " "Sir, " M. Turgot had written to LouisXVI. , "monarchs governed by courtiers have but to choose between the fateof Charles I. And that of Charles XI. " The coolness went on increasingbetween the king and his minister. On the 12th of May, 1776, thecomptroller-general entered the king's closet; he had come to speak tohim about a new project for an edict; the exposition of reasons was, asusual, a choice morsel of political philosophy. "Another commentary!"said the king with temper. He listened, however. When thecomptroller-general had finished, "Is that all?" asked the king. "Yes, Sir. " "So much the better, " and he showed the minister out. A few hourslater, M. Turgot received his dismissal. 

[Illustration: Turgot's Dismissal----367]

He was at his desk, drawing up an important decree; he laid down his pen, saying quietly, "My successor will finish;" and when M. De Maurepashypocritically expressed his regret, "I retire, " said M. Turgot, "withouthaving to reproach myself with feebleness, or falseness, ordissimulation. " He wrote to the king: "I have done, Sir, what I believedto be my duty in setting before you, with unreserved and unexampledfrankness, the difficulty of the position in which I stood and what Ithought of your own. If I had not done so, I should have consideredmyself to have behaved culpably towards you. You, no doubt, have come toa different conclusion, since you have withdrawn your confidence from me;but, even if I were mistaken, you cannot, Sir, but do justice to thefeeling by which I was guided. All I desire, Sir, is that you may alwaysbe able to believe that I was short-sighted, and that I pointed out toyou merely fanciful dangers. I hope that time may not justify me, andthat your reign may be as happy and as tranquil, for yourself and yourpeople, as they flattered themselves it would be, in accordance with yourprinciples of justice and beneficence. "

Useless wishes, belied in advance by the previsions of M. Turgot himself. He had espied the danger and sounded some of the chasms just yawningbeneath the feet of the nation as well as of the king; he committed thenoble error of believing in the instant and supreme influence of justiceand reason. "Sir, " said he to Louis XVI. , "you ought to govern, likeGod, by general laws. " Had he been longer in power, M. Turgot wouldstill have failed in his designs. The life of one man was too short, andthe hand of one man too weak to modify the course of events, fruit slowlyripened during so many centuries. It was to the honor of M. Turgot thathe discerned the mischief and would fain have applied the proper remedy. He was often mistaken about the means, oftener still about the strengthhe had at disposal. He had the good fortune to die early, still sad andanxious about the fate of his country, without having been a witness ofthe catastrophes he had foreseen and of the sufferings as well aswreckage through which France must pass before touching at the haven hewould fain have opened to her. 

The joy of the courtiers was great, at Versailles, when the news arrivedof M. Turgot's fall; the public regretted it but little: the inflexibleseverity of his principles which he never veiled by grace of manners, a certain disquietude occasioned by the chimerical views which wereattributed to him, had alienated many people from him. His real friendswere in consternation. "I was but lately rejoicing, " said Abbe Very, "atthe idea that the work was going on of coolly repairing a fine edificewhich time had damaged. Henceforth, the most that will be done will beto see after repairing a few of its cracks. I no longer indulge in hopesof its restoration; I cannot but apprehend its downfall sooner or later. ""O, what news I hear!" writes Voltaire to D'Alembert; "France would havebeen too fortunate. What will become of us? I am quite upset. I seenothing but death for me to look forward to, now that M. Turgot is out ofoffice. It is a thunderbolt fallen upon my brain and upon my heart. "

A few months later M. De St. Germain retired in his turn, not to Alsaceagain, but to the Arsenal with forty thousand livres for pension. Thefirst, the great attempt at reform had failed. "M. De Malesherbes lackedwill to remain in power, " said Abbe Wry, "M. Turgot conciliatoriness(_conciliabilite_), and M. De Maurepas soul enough to follow his lights. ""M. De Malesherbes, " wrote Condorcet, "has, either from inclination orfrom default of mental rectitude, a bias towards eccentric andparadoxical ideas; he discovers in his mind numberless arguments for andagainst, but never discovers a single one to decide him. In his privatecapacity he had employed his eloquence in proving to the king and theministers that the good of the nation was the one thing needful to bethought of; when he became minister, he employed it in proving that thisgood was impossible. " "I understand two things in the matter of war, "said M. De St. Germain just before he became minister, "to obey and tocommand; but, if it comes to advising, I don't know anything about it. "He was, indeed, a bad adviser; and with the best intentions he had noidea either how to command or how to make himself obeyed. M. Turgot hadcorrectly estimated the disorder of affairs, when he wrote to the king onthe 30th of April, a fortnight before his disgrace: "Sir, the parliamentsare already in better heart, more audacious, more implicated in thecabals of the court than they were in 1770, after twenty years ofenterprise and success. Minds are a thousand times more excited upon allsorts of matters, and your ministry is almost as divided and as feeble asthat of your predecessor. Consider, Sir, that, in the course of nature, you have fifty years to reign, and reflect what progress may be made by adisorder which, in twenty years, has reached the pitch at which we seeit. "

Turgot and Malesherbes had fallen; they had vainly attempted to make thesoundest as well as the most moderate principles of pure philosophytriumphant in the government; at home a new attempt, bolder and at thesame time more practical, was soon about to resuscitate for a while thehopes of liberal minds; abroad and in a new world there was already acommencement of events which were about to bring to France a revival ofglory and to shed on the reign of Louis XVI. A moment's legitimate andbrilliant lustre. 

CHAPTER LVII. ----LOUIS XVI. --FRANCE ABROAD. --UNITED STATES' WAR OFINDEPENDENCE. 1775-1783. 

"Two things, great and difficult as they may be, are a man's duty and mayestablish his fame. To support misfortune and be sturdily resigned toit; to believe in the good and trust in it perseveringly. [M. Guizot, _Washington_]. 

"There is a sight as fine and not less salutary than that of a virtuousman at grips with adversity; it is the sight of a virtuous man at thehead of a good cause and securing its triumph. 

"If ever cause were just and had a right to success, it was that of theEnglish colonies which rose in insurrection to become the United Statesof America. Opposition, in their case, preceded insurrection. 

"Their opposition was founded on historic right and on facts, on rationalright and on ideas. 

"It is to the honor of England that she had deposited in the cradle ofher colonies the germ of their liberty; almost all, at their foundation, received charters which conferred upon the colonists the franchises ofthe mother-country. 

"At the same time with legal rights, the colonists had creeds. It wasnot only as Englishmen, but as Christians, that they wanted to be free, and they had their faith even more at heart than their charters. Theirrights would not have disappeared, even had they lacked their charters. By the mere impulse of their souls, with the assistance of divine grace, they would have derived them from a sublimer source and one inaccessibleto human power, for they cherished feelings that soared beyond even theinstitutions of which they showed themselves to be so jealous. 

"Such, in the English colonies, was the happy condition of man and ofsociety, when England, by an arrogant piece of aggression, attempted todispose, without their consent, of their fortunes and their destiny. "

The uneasiness in the relations between the mother-country and thecolonies was of old date; and the danger which England ran of seeing hergreat settlements beyond the sea separating from her had for some timepast struck the more clear-sighted. "Colonies are like fruits whichremain on the tree only until they are ripe, " said M. Turgot in 1750;"when they have become self-sufficing, they do as Carthage did, asAmerica will one day do. " It was in the war between England and Francefor the possession of Canada that the Americans made the first trial oftheir strength. 

Alliance was concluded between the different colonies; Virginia marchedin tune with Massachusetts; the pride of a new power, young and alreadyvictorious, animated the troops which marched to the conquest of Canada. "If we manage to remove from Canada these turbulent Gauls, " exclaimedJohn Adams, "our territory, in a century, will be more populous thanEngland herself. Then all Europe will be powerless to subjugate us. ""I am astounded, " said the Duke of Choiseul to the English negotiator whoarrived at Paris in 1761, "I am astounded that your great Pitt shouldattach so much importance to the acquisition of Canada, a territory tooscantily peopled to ever become dangerous for you, and one which, in ourhands, would serve to keep your colonies in a state of dependence fromwhich they will not fail to free themselves the moment Canada is ceded toyou. " A pamphlet attributed to Burke proposed to leave Canada to Francewith the avowed aim of maintaining on the border of the Americanprovinces an object of anxiety and an everthreatening enemy. 

America protested its loyalty and rejected with indignation all idea ofseparation. "It is said that the development of the strength of thecolonies may render them more dangerous and bring them to declare theirindependence, " wrote Franklin in 1760; "such fears are chimerical. Somany causes are against their union, that I do not hesitate to declare itnot only improbable but impossible; I say impossible--without the mostprovoking tyranny and oppression. As long as the government is mild andjust, as long as there is security for civil and religious interests, theAmericans will be respectful and submissive subjects. The waves onlyrise when the wind blows. "

In England, many distinguished minds doubted whether the government ofthe mother-country would manage to preserve the discretion and moderationclaimed by Franklin. "Notwithstanding all you say of your loyalty, youAmericans, " observed Lord Camden to Franklin himself, "I know that someday you will shake off the ties which unite you to us, and you will raisethe standard of independence. " "No such idea exists or will enter intothe heads of the Americans, " answered Franklin, "unless you maltreat themquite scandalously. " "That is true, " rejoined the other, "and it isexactly one of the causes which I foresee, and which will bring on theevent. "

The Seven Years' War was ended, shamefully and sadly for France; M. DeChoiseul, who had concluded peace with regret and a bitter pang, wasardently pursuing every means of taking his revenge. To fomentdisturbances between England and her colonies appeared to him anefficacious and a natural way of gratifying his feelings. "There isgreat difficulty in governing States in the days in which we live, " hewrote to M. Durand, at that time French minister in London; "stillgreater difficulty in governing those of America; and the difficultyapproaches impossibility as regards those of Asia. I am very muchastonished that England, which is but a very small spot in Europe, shouldhold dominion over more than a third of America, and that her dominionshould have no other object but that of trade. . . . As long as thevast American possessions contribute no subsidies for the support of themother-country, private persons in England will still grow rich for sometime on the trade with America, but the State will be undone for want ofmeans to keep together a too extended power; if, on the contrary, Englandproposes to establish imposts in her American domains, when they are moreextensive and perhaps more populous than the mother-country, when theyhave fishing, woods, navigation, corn, iron, they will easily partasunder from her, without any fear of chastisement, for England could notundertake a war against them to chastise them. " He encouraged his agentsto keep him informed as to the state of feeling in America, welcoming andstudying all projects, even the most fantastic, that might be hostile toEngland. 

When M. De Choiseul was thus writing to M. Durand, the English governmenthad already justified the fears of its wisest and most sagacious friends. On the 7th of March, 1765, after a short and unimportant debate, Parliament, on the motion of Mr. George Grenville, then first lord of thetreasury, had extended to the American colonies the stamp-tax everywherein force in England. The proposal had been brought forward in thepreceding year, but the protests of the colonists had for some timeretarded its discussion. "The Americans are an ungrateful people, " saidTownshend; "they are children settled in life by our care and nurtured byour indulgence. " Pitt was absent. Colonel Barre rose: "Settled by yourcare!" he exclaimed; "nay, it was your oppression which drove them toAmerica; to escape from your tyranny, they exposed themselves in thedesert to all the ills that human nature can endure! Nurtured by yourindulgence! Nay, they have grown by reason of your indifference; and donot forget that these people, loyal as they are, are as jealous as theywere at the first of their liberties, and remain animated by the samespirit that caused the exile of their ancestors. " This was the onlyprotest. "Nobody voted on the other side in the House of Lords, " saidGeorge Grenville at a later period. 

In America the effect was terrible and the dismay profound. The VirginiaHouse was in session; nobody dared to speak against a measure whichstruck at all the privileges of the colonies and went to the hearts ofthe loyal gentlemen still passionately attached to the mother-country. A young barrister, Patrick Henry, hardly known hitherto, rose at last, and in an unsteady voice said, "I propose to the vote of the Assembly thefollowing resolutions: 'Only the general Assembly of this colony has theright and power to impose taxes on the inhabitants of this colony; everyattempt to invest with this power any person or body whatever other thanthe said general Assembly has a manifest tendency to destroy at one andthe same time British and American liberties. '" Then becoming more andmore animated and rising to eloquence by sheer force of passion: "Tarquinand Caesar, " he exclaimed, "had each their Brutus; Charles I. Had hisCromwell, and George III. . . . " "Treason! treason!" was shouted onall sides . . . "will doubtless profit by their example, " continuedPatrick Henry proudly, without allowing himself to be moved by the wrathof the government's friends. His resolutions were voted by 20 to 19. 

The excitement in America was communicated to England; it served thepolitical purposes and passions of Mr. Pitt; he boldly proposed in theHouse of Commons the repeal of the stamp-tax. "The colonists, " he said, "are subjects of this realm, having, like yourselves, a title to thespecial privileges of Englishmen; they are bound by the English laws, and, in the same measure as yourselves, have a right to the liberties ofthis country. The Americans are the sons and not the bastards ofEngland. . . . When in this House we grant subsidies to his Majesty, we dispose of that which is our own; but the Americans are notrepresented here: when we impose a tax upon them, what is it we do? We, the Commons of England, give what to his Majesty! Our own personalproperty? No; we give away the property of the Commons of America. There is absurdity in the very terms. "

The bill was repealed, and agitation was calmed for a while in America. But ere long, Mr. Pitt resumed office under the title of Lord Chatham, and with office he adopted other views as to the taxes to be imposed;in vain he sought to disguise them under the form of custom-house duties;the taxes on tea, glass, paper, excited in America the same indignationas the stamp-tax. Resistance was everywhere organized. 

"Between 1767 and 1771 patriotic leagues were everywhere formed againstthe consumption of English merchandise and the exportation of Americanproduce; all exchange ceased between the mother-country and the colonies. To extinguish the source of England's riches in America, and to force herto open her eyes to her madness, the colonists shrank from no privationand no sacrifice: luxury had vanished, rich and poor welcomed ruin ratherthan give up their political rights" [M. Cornelis de Witt, _Histoire deWashington_]. "I expect nothing more from petitions to the king, " saidWashington, already one of the most steadfast champions of Americanliberties, "and I would oppose them if they were calculated to suspendthe execution of the pact of non-importation. As sure as I live, thereis no relief to be expected for us but from the straits of Great Britain. I believe, or at least I hope, that there is enough public virtue stillremaining among us to make us deny ourselves everything but the barenecessaries of life in order to obtain justice. This we have a right todo, and no power on earth can force us to a change of conduct short ofbeing reduced to the most abject slavery. . . . " He added, in aspirit of strict justice: "As to the pact of non-exportation, that isanother thing; I confess that I have doubts of its being legitimate. Weowe considerable sums to Great Britain; we can only pay them with ourproduce. To have a right to accuse others of injustice, we must be justourselves; and how can we be so if we refuse to pay our debts to GreatBritain? That is what I cannot make out. "

The opposition was as yet within the law, and the national effort was asorderly as it was impassioned. "There is agitation, there are meetings, there is mutual encouragement to the struggle, the provinces concertopposition together, the wrath against Great Britain grows and the abyssbegins to yawn; but such are the habits of order among this people, that, in the midst of this immense ferment among the nation, it is scarcelypossible to pick out even a few acts of violence here and there; up tothe day when the uprising becomes general, the government of George III. Can scarcely find, even in the great centres of opposition, such asBoston, any specious pretexts for its own violence" [M. Cornelis de Witt, _Histoire de Washington_]. The declaration of independence was by thistime becoming inevitable when Washington and Jefferson were still writingin this strain:

Washington to Capt. Mackenzie. 

"You are taught to believe that the people of Massachusetts are a peopleof rebels in revolt for independence, and what not. Permit me to tellyou, my good friend, that you are mistaken, grossly mistaken. . . . I can testify, as a fact, that independence is neither the wish nor theinterest of this colony or of any other on the continent, separately orcollectively. But at the same time you may rely upon it that none ofthem will ever submit to the loss of those privileges, of those preciousrights which are essential to the happiness of every free State, andwithout which liberty, property, life itself, are devoid of anysecurity. "

Jefferson to Mr. Randolph. 

"Believe me, my dear sir, there is not in the whole British empire a manwho cherishes more cordially than I do the union with Great Britain. But, by the God who made me, I would cease to live rather than acceptthat union on the terms proposed by Parliament. We lack neither motivesnor power to declare and maintain our separation. It is the will alonethat we lack, and that is growing little by little under the hand of ourking. "

It was indeed growing. Lord Chatham had been but a short time in office;Lord North, on becoming prime minister, zealously promoted the desires ofGeorge III. In Parliament and throughout the country. The opposition, headed by Lord Chatham, protested in the name of the eternal principlesof justice and liberty against the measures adopted towards the colonies. "Liberty, " said Lord Chatham, "is pledged to liberty; they areindissolubly allied in this great cause, it is the alliance between Godand nature, immutable, eternal, as the light in the firmament of heaven!Have a care; foreign war is suspended over your heads by a thin andfragile thread; Spain and France are watching over your conduct, waitingfor the fruit of your blunders; they keep their eyes fixed on America, and are more concerned with the dispositions of your colonies than withtheir own affairs, whatever they may be. I repeat to you, my lords, ifministers persist in their fatal counsels, I do not say that they mayalienate the affections of its subjects, but I affirm that they willdestroy the greatness of the crown; I do not say that the king will bebetrayed, I affirm that the country will be ruined!"

Franklin was present at this scene. Sent to England by hisfellow-countrymen to support their petitions by his persuasive anddexterous eloquence, he watched with intelligent interest the dispositionof the Continent towards his country. "All Europe seems to be on ourside, " he wrote; "but Europe has its own reasons: it considers itselfthreatened by the power of England, and it would like to see her dividedagainst herself. Our prudence will retard for a long time yet, I hope, the satisfaction which our enemies expect from our dissensions. . . . Prudence, patience, discretion; when the catastrophe arrives, it must beclear to all mankind that the fault is not on our side. "

[Illustration: Destruction of the Tea----378]

The catastrophe was becoming imminent. Already a riot at Boston had ledto throwing into the sea a cargo of tea which had arrived on board twoEnglish vessels, and which the governor had refused to send away at onceas the populace desired; already, on the summons of the VirginiaConvention, a general Congress of all the provinces had met atPhiladelphia; at the head of the legal resistance as well as of the laterrebellion in arms marched the Puritans of New England and the sons of theCavaliers settled in Virginia; the opposition, tumultuous and popular inthe North, parliamentary and political in the South, was everywhereanimated by the same spirit and the same zeal. "I do not pretend toindicate precisely what line must be drawn between Great Britain and thecolonies, " wrote Washington to one of his friends, "but it is mostdecidedly my opinion that one must be drawn, and our rights definitivelysecured. " He had but lately said: "Nobody ought to hesitate a moment toemploy arms in defence of interests so precious, so sacred, but armsought to be our last resource. "

The day had come when this was the only resource henceforth remaining tothe Americans. Stubborn and irritated, George III. And his governmentheaped vexatious measures one upon another, feeling sure of crushing downthe resistance of the colonists by the ruin of their commerce as well asof their liberties. "We must fight, " exclaimed Patrick Henry at theVirginia Convention, "I repeat it, we must fight; an appeal to arms andto the God of Hosts, that is all we have left. " Armed resistance wasalready being organized, in the teeth of many obstacles andnotwithstanding active or tacit opposition on the part of a considerableportion of the people. 

It was time to act. On the 18th of April, 1775, at night, a picked bodyof the English garrison of Boston left the town by order of General Gage, governor of Massachusetts. The soldiers were as yet in ignorance oftheir destination, but the American patriots had divined it. Thegovernor had ordered the gates to be closed; some of the inhabitants, however, having found means of escaping, had spread the alarm in thecountry; already men were repairing in silence to posts assigned inanticipation. When the king's troops, on approaching Lexington, expectedto lay hands upon two of the principal movers, Samuel Adams and JohnHancock, they came into collision, in the night, with a corps of militiablocking the way. The Americans taking no notice of the order given themto retire, the English troops, at the instigation of their officers, fired; a few men fell; war was begun between England and America. Thatvery evening, Colonel Smith, whilst proceeding to seize the ammunitiondepot at Concord, found himself successively attacked by detachmentshastily formed in all the villages; he fell back in disorder beneath theguns of Boston. 

Some few days later the town was besieged by an American army, and theCongress, meeting at Philadelphia, appointed Washington "to be general-in-chief of all the forces of the united colonies, of all that had beenor should be levied, and of all others that should voluntarily offertheir services or join the said army to defend American liberty and torepulse every attack directed against it. "

George Washington was born on the 22d of February, 1732, on the banks of the Potomac, at Bridge's Creek, in the county ofWestmoreland in Virginia. He belonged to a family of consideration amongthe planters of Virginia, descended from that race of country gentlemenwho had but lately effected the revolution in England. He lost hisfather early, and was brought up by a distinguished, firm, and judiciousmother, for whom he always preserved equal affection and respect. Intended for the life of a surveyor of the still uncleared lands ofWestern America, he had led, from his youth up, a life of freedom andhardship; at nineteen, during the Canadian war, he had taken his place inthe militia of his country, and we have seen how he fought with credit atthe side of General Braddock. On returning home at the end of the warand settling at Mount Vernon, which had been bequeathed to him by hiseldest brother, he had become a great agriculturist and great hunter, esteemed by all, loved by those who knew him, actively engaged in his ownbusiness as well as that of his colony, and already an object ofconfidence as well as hope to his fellow-citizens. In 1774, on the eveof the great struggle, Patrick Henry, on leaving the first Congressformed to prepare for it, replied to those who asked which was theforemost man in the Congress: "If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rutledge ofSouth Carolina is the greatest orator; but, if you speak of solidknowledge of things and of sound judgment, Colonel Washington isindisputably the greatest man in the Assembly. " "Capable of rising tothe highest destinies, he could have ignored himself without a struggle, and found in the culture of his lands satisfaction for those powerfulfaculties which were to suffice for the command of armies and for thefoundation of a government. But when the occasion offered, when the needcame, without any effort on his own part, without surprise on the part ofothers, the sagacious planter turned out a great man; he had in asuperior degree the two qualities which in active life render men capableof great things: he could believe firmly in his own ideas, and actresolutely upon them, without fearing to take the responsibility. " [M. Guizot, _Washington_]. 

He was, however, deeply moved and troubled at the commencement of acontest of which he foresaw the difficulties and the trials, withoutfathoming their full extent, and it was not without a struggle that heaccepted the power confided to him by Congress. "Believe me, my dearPatsy, " he wrote to his wife, "I have done all I could to screen myselffrom this high mark of honor, not only because it cost me much toseparate myself from you and from my family, but also because I felt thatthis task was beyond my strength. " When the new general arrived beforeBoston to take command of the confused and undisciplined masses whichwere hurrying up to the American camp, he heard that an engagement hadtaken place on the 16th of June on the heights of Bunker's Hill, whichcommanded the town; the Americans who had seized the positions haddefended them so bravely that the English had lost nearly a thousand menbefore they carried the batteries. A few months later, after unheard ofefforts on the general's part to constitute and train his army, he hadtaken possession of all the environs of the place, and General Howe, whohad superseded General Gage, evacuated Boston (March 17, 1776). 

Every step was leading to the declaration of independence. "If everybodywere of my opinion, " wrote Washington in the month of February, 1776, "the English ministers would learn in few words what we want to arriveat. I should set forth simply, and without periphrasis, our grievancesand our resolution to have justice. I should tell them that we have longand ardently desired an honorable reconciliation, and that it has beenrefused. I should add that we have conducted ourselves as faithfulsubjects, that the feeling of liberty is too strong in our hearts to letus ever submit to slavery, and that we are quite determined to burstevery bond with an unjust and unnatural government, if our enslavementalone will satisfy a tyrant and his diabolical ministry. And I shouldtell them all this not in covert terms, but in language as plain as thelight of the sun at full noon. "

Many people still hesitated, from timidity, from foreseeing thesufferings which war would inevitably entail on America, from hereditary, faithful attachment to the mother-country. "Gentlemen, " had but latelybeen observed by Mr. Dickinson, deputy from Pennsylvania, at the readingof the scheme of a solemn declaration justifying the taking up of arms, "there is but one word in this paper of which I disapprove--Congress. ""And as for me, Mr. President, " said Mr. Harrison, rising, "there is butone word in this paper of which I approve--Congress. "

Deeds had become bolder than words. "We have hitherto made war byhalves, " wrote John Adams to General Gates; "you will see in to-morrow'spapers that for the future we shall probably venture to make it by three-quarters. The continental navy, the provincial navies, have beenauthorized to cruise against English property throughout the whole extentof the ocean. Learn, for your governance, that this is not Independence. Far from it! If one of the next couriers should bring you word ofunlimited freedom of commerce with all nations, take good care not tocall that Independence. Nothing of the sort! Independence is a spectreof such awful mien that the mere sight of it might make a delicate personfaint. "

Independence was not yet declared, and already, at the end of theirproclamations, instead of the time-honored formula, 'God save the king!'the Virginians had adopted the proudly significant phrase, 'God save theliberties of America!'

The great day came, however, when the Congress resolved to give its truename to the war which the colonies had been for more than a yearmaintaining against the mothercountry. After a discussion which lastedthree days, the scheme drawn up by Jefferson, for the declaration ofIndependence, was adopted by a large majority. The solemn proclamationof it was determined upon on the 4th of July, and that day has remainedthe national festival of the United States of America. John Adams madeno mistake when, in the transport of his patriotic joy, he wrote to hiswife: "I am inclined to believe that this day will be celebrated bygenerations to come as the great anniversary of the nation. It should bekept as the day of deliverance by solemn thanksgivings to the Almighty. It should be kept with pomp, to the sound of cannon and of bells, withgames, with bonfires and illuminations from one end of the continent tothe other, for ever. You will think me carried away by my enthusiasm;but no, I take into account, perfectly, the pains, the blood, thetreasure we shall have to expend to maintain this declaration, to upholdand defend these States; but through all these shadows I perceive rays ofravishing light and joy, I feel that the end is worth all the means andfar more, and that posterity will rejoice over this event with songs oftriumph, even though we should have cause to repent of it, which will notbe, I trust in God. "

The declaration of American Independence was solemn and grave; it beganwith an appeal to those natural rights which the eighteenth century hadeverywhere learned to claim. "We hold as self-evident all these truths, "said the Congress of united colonies: "All men are created equal, theyare endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among thoserights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Governments areestablished amongst men to guarantee those rights, and their just poweremanates from the consent of the governed. "

To this declaration of the inalienable right of people to choose theirown government for the greatest security and greatest happiness of thegoverned, succeeded an enumeration of the grievances which made itforever impossible for the American colonists to render obedience to theking of Great Britain; the list was long and overwhelming; it ended withthis declaration: "Wherefore we, the representatives of the United Statesof America, met together in general Congress, calling the Supreme Judgeof the universe to witness the uprightness of our intentions, do solemnlypublish and declare in the name of the good people of these colonies, that the United colonies are and have a right to be free and independentStates, that they are released from all allegiance to the crown of GreatBritain, and that every political tie between them and Great Britain isand ought to be entirely dissolved. . . . Full of firm confidence inthe protection of Divine Providence, we pledge, mutually, to themaintenance of this declaration our lives, our fortunes, and our mostsacred possession, our honor. "

The die was cast, and retreat cut off for the timid and the malcontent;through a course of alternate successes and reverses Washington had keptup hostilities during the rough campaign of 1776. Many a time he hadthought the game lost, and he had found himself under the necessity ofabandoning posts he had mastered to fall back upon Philadelphia. "Whatwill you do if Philadelphia is taken?" he was asked. "We will retirebeyond the Susquehanna, and then, if necessary, beyond the Alleghanies, "answered the general without hesitation. Unwavering in his patrioticfaith and resolution, he relied upon the savage resources and the vastwildernesses of his native country to wear out at last the patience andcourage of the English generals. At the end of the campaign, Washington, suddenly resuming the offensive, had beaten the king's troops at Trentonand at Princeton one after the other. This brilliant action had restoredthe affairs of the Americans, and was a preparatory step to the formationof a new army. On the 30th of December, 1776, Washington was invested byCongress with the full powers of a dictator. 

Europe, meanwhile, was following with increasing interest thevicissitudes of a struggle which at a distance had from the firstappeared to the most experienced an unequal one. "Let us not anticipateevents, but content ourselves with learning them when they occur, " said aletter, in 1775, to M. De Guines, ambassador in London, from Louis XVI. 'sminister for foreign affairs, M. De Vergennes: "I prefer to follow, as aquiet observer; the course of events rather than try to produce them. "He had but lately said with prophetic anxiety: "Far from seeking toprofit by the embarrassment in which England finds herself on account ofaffairs in America, we should rather desire to extricate her. The spiritof revolt, in whatever spot it breaks out, is always of dangerousprecedent; it is with moral as with physical diseases, both may becomecontagious. This consideration should induce us to take care that thespirit of independence, which is causing so terrible an explosion inNorth America, have no power to communicate itself to points interestingto us in this hemisphere. "

For a moment French diplomatists had been seriously disconcerted;remembrance of the surprise in 1755, when England had commencedhostilities without declaring war, still troubled men's minds. Count deGuines wrote to M. De Vergennes "Lord Rochford confided to me yesterdaythat numbers of persons on both sides were perfectly convinced that theway to put a stop to this war in America was to declare it againstFrance, and that he saw with pain that opinion gaining ground. I assureyou, sir, that all which is said for is very extraordinary and far fromencouraging. The partisans of this plan argue that fear of a war, disastrous for England, which might end by putting France once more inpossession of Canada, would be the most certain bugbear for America, where the propinquity of our religion and our government is excessivelyapprehended; they say, in fact, that the Americans, forced by a war togive up their project of liberty and to decide between us and them, wouldcertainly give them the preference. "

The question of Canada was always, indeed, an anxious one for theAmerican colonists; Washington had detached in that direction a body oftroops which had been repulsed with loss. M. De Vergennes had determinedto keep in the United States a semi-official agent, M. De Bonvouloir, commissioned to furnish the ministry with information as to the state ofaffairs. On sending Count de Guines the necessary instructions, theminister wrote on the 7th of August, 1775: "One of the most essentialobjects is to reassure the Americans on the score of the dread which theyare no doubt taught to feel of us. Canada is the point of jealousy forthem; they must be made to understand that we have no thought at allabout it, and that, so far from grudging them the liberty andindependence they are laboring to secure, we admire, on the contrary, thegrandeur and nobleness of their efforts, and that, having no interest ininjuring them, we should see with pleasure such a happy conjunction ofcircumstances as would set them at liberty to frequent our ports; thefacilities they would find for their commerce would soon prove to themall the esteem we feel for them. "

Independence was not yet proclaimed, and already the committee charged byCongress "to correspond with friends in England, Ireland, and other partsof the world, " had made inquiry of the French government, by roundaboutways, as to what were its intentions regarding the American colonies, andwas soliciting the aid of France. On the 3d of March, 1776, an agent ofthe committee, Mr. Silas Deane, started for France; he had orders to putthe same question point blank at Versailles and at Paris. 

The ministry was divided on the subject of American affairs; M. Turgotinclined towards neutrality. "Let us leave the insurgents, " he said, "at full liberty to make their purchases in our ports, and to providethemselves by the way of trade with the munitions, and even the money, of which they have need. A refusal to sell to them would be a departurefrom neutrality. But it would be a departure likewise to furnish thenwith secret aid in money, and this step, which it would be difficult toconceal, would excite just complaints on the part of the English. "

This was, however, the conduct adopted on the advice of M. De Vergennes;he had been powerfully supported by the arguments presented in amemorandum drawn up by M. De Rayneval, senior clerk in the foreignoffice; he was himself urged and incited by the most intelligent, themost restless, and the most passionate amongst the partisans of theAmerican rebellion--Beaumarchais. 

Peter Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, born at Paris on the 24th ofJanuary, 1732, son of a clockmaker, had already acquired a certaincelebrity by his lawsuit against Councillor Goezman before the parliamentof Paris. Accused of having defamed the wife of a judge, after havingfruitlessly attempted to seduce her, Beaumarchais succeeded, by dint ofcourage, talent, and wit, in holding his own against the whole magistracyleagued against him. He boldly appealed to public opinion. "I am acitizen, " he said; "that is to say, I am not a courtier, or an abbe, or anobleman, or a financier, or a favorite, nor anything connected with whatis called influence (_puissance_) nowadays. I am a citizen; that is tosay, something quite new, unknown, unheard of in France. I am a citizen;that is to say, what you ought to have been for the last two hundredyears, what you will be, perhaps, in twenty!" All the spirit of theFrench Revolution was here, in those most legitimate and at the same timemost daring aspirations of his. 

French citizen as he proclaimed himself to be, Beaumarchais was quitesmitten with the American citizens; he had for a long while been pleadingtheir cause, sure, he said, of its ultimate triumph. On the 10th ofJanuary, 1776, three weeks before the declaration of independence, M. DeVergennes secretly remitted a million to M. De Beaumarchais; two monthslater the same sum was intrusted to him in the name of the King of Spain. Beaumarchais alone was to appear in the affair and to supply theinsurgent Americans with arms and ammunition. "You will found, " he hadbeen told, "a great commercial house, and you will try to draw into itthe money of private individuals; the first outlay being now provided, weshall have no further hand in it, the affair would compromise thegovernment too much in the eyes of the English. " It was under the styleand title of Rodrigo Hortalez and Co. That the first instalment ofsupplies, to the extent of more than three millions, was forwarded to theAmericans; and, notwithstanding the hesitation of the ministry and therage of the English, other instalments soon followed. Beaumarchais washenceforth personally interested in the enterprise; he had commenced itfrom zeal for the American cause, and from that yearning for activity andinitiative which characterized him even in old age. "I should never havesucceeded in fulfilling my mission here without the indefatigable, intelligent, and generous efforts of M. De Beaumarchais, " wrote SilasDeane to the secret committee of Congress: "the United States are moreindebted to him, on every account, than to any other person on this sideof the ocean. "

Negotiations were proceeding at Paris; Franklin had joined Silas Deanethere. His great scientific reputation, the diplomatic renown he had wonin England, his able and prudent devotion to the cause of his country, had paved the way for the new negotiator's popularity in France: it wasimmense. Born at Boston on the 17th of January, 1706, a printer beforehe came out as a great physicist, Franklin was seventy years old when hearrived in Paris. His sprightly good-nature, the bold subtilty of hismind cloaked beneath external simplicity, his moderation in religion andthe breadth of his philosophical tolerance, won the world of fashion aswell as the great public, and were a great help to the success of hisdiplomatic negotiations. Quartered at Passy, at Madame Helvetius', hehad frequent interviews with the ministers under a veil of secrecy andprecaution which was, before long, skilfully and discreetly removed; fromroundabout aid accorded to the Americans, at Beaumarchais' solicitations, on pretext of commercial business, the French Government had come toremitting money straight to the agents of the United States; everythingtended to recognition of the independence of the colonies. In England, people were irritated and disturbed; Lord Chatham exclaimed with theusual exaggeration of his powerful and impassioned genius "YesterdayEngland could still stand against the world, today there is none so pooras to do her reverence. I borrow the poet's words, my lords, but whathis verse expresses is no fiction. France has insulted you, she hasencouraged and supported America, and, be America right or wrong, thedignity of this nation requires that we should thrust aside with contemptthe officious intervention of France; ministers and ambassadors fromthose whom we call rebels and enemies are received at Paris, there theytreat of the mutual interests of France and America, their countrymen areaided, provided with military resources, and our ministers suffer it, they do not protest! Is this maintaining the honor of a great kingdom, of that England which but lately gave laws to the House of Bourbon?"

The hereditary sentiments of Louis XVI. And his monarchical principles, as well as the prudent moderation of M. Turgot, retarded at Paris thenegotiations which caused so much illhumor among the English; M. DeVergennes still preserved, in all diplomatic relations, an apparentneutrality. "It is my line (_metier_), you see, to be a royalist, " theEmperor Joseph II. Had said during a visit he had just paid to Paris, when he was pressed to declare in favor of the American insurgents. Atthe bottom of his heart the King of France was of the same opinion; hehad refused the permission to serve in America which he had been askedfor by many gentlemen: some had set off without waiting for it; the mostimportant, as well as the most illustrious of them all, the Marquis of LaFayette, was not twenty years old when he slipped away from Paris, leaving behind his young wife close to her confinement, to go and embarkupon a vessel which he had bought, and which, laden with arms, awaitedhim in a Spanish port; arrested by order of the court, he evaded thevigilance of his guards; in, the month of July, 1777, he disembarked inAmerica. 

Washington did not like France; he did not share the hopes which some ofhis fellow-countrymen founded upon her aid; he made no case of the youngvolunteers who came to enroll themselves among the defenders ofindependence, and whom Congress loaded with favors. "No bond butinterest attaches these men to America, " he would say; "and, as forFrance, she only lets us get our munitions from her, because of thebenefit her commerce derives from it. " Prudent, reserved, and proud, Washington looked for America's salvation to only America herself;neither had he foreseen nor did he understand that enthusiasm, asgenerous as it is unreflecting, which easily takes possession of theFrench nation, and of which the United States were just then the object. M. De La Fayette was the first who managed to win the general's affectionand esteem. A great yearning for excitement and renown, a great zeal fornew ideas and a certain political perspicacity, had impelled M. De LaFayette to America; he showed himself courageous, devoted, more judiciousand more able than had been expected from his youth and character. Washington came to love him as a son. 

It was with the title of major-general that M. De La Fayette made hisfirst campaign; Congress had passed a decree conferring upon him thisgrade, rather an excess of honor in Washington's opinion; the latter wasat that time covering Philadelphia, the point aimed at by the operationsof General Howe. Beaten at Brandywine and at Germantown, the Americanswere obliged to abandon the town to the enemy and fall back on ValleyForge, where the general pitched his camp for wintering. The English hadbeen beaten on the frontiers of Canada by General Gates; GeneralBurgoyne, invested on all sides by the insurgents, had found himselfforced to capitulate at Saratoga. The humiliation and wrath of thepublic in England were great, but the resolution of the politicians wasbeginning to waver; on the 10th of February, 1778, Lord North hadpresented two bills whereby England was to renounce the right of levyingtaxes in the American colonies, and was to recognize the legal existenceof Congress. Three commissioners were to be sent to America to treat forconditions of peace. After a hot discussion, the two bills had beenvoted. 

This was a small matter in view of the growing anxiety and the politicalmanoeuvrings of parties. On the 7th of April, 1778, the Duke of Richmondproposed in the House of Lords the recall of all the forces, land andsea, which were fighting in America. He relied upon the support of LordChatham, who was now at death's door, but who had always expressedhimself forcibly against the conduct of the government towards thecolonists. The great orator entered the House, supported by two of hisfriends, pale, wasted, swathed in flannel beneath his embroidered robe. He with difficulty dragged himself to his place. The peers, overcome atthe sight of this supreme effort, waited in silence. Lord Chatham rose, leaning on his crutch and still supported by his friends. He raised onehand to heaven. "I thank God, " he said, "that I have been enabled tocome hither to-day to fulfil a duty and say what has been weighing soheavily on my heart. I have already one foot in the grave; I shall soondescend into it; I have left my bed to sustain my country's cause in thisHouse, perhaps for the last time. I think myself happy, my lords, thatthe grave has not yet closed over me, and that I am still alive to raisemy voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy!My lords, his Majesty succeeded to an empire as vast in extent as proudin reputation. Shall we tarnish its lustre by a shameful abandonment ofits rights and of its fairest possessions? Shall this great kingdom, which survived in its entirety the descents of the Danes, the incursionsof the Scots, the conquest of the Normans, which stood firm against thethreatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, now fall before the House ofBourbon? Surely, my lords, we are not what we once were! . . . InGod's name, if it be absolutely necessary to choose between peace andwar, if peace cannot be preserved with honor, why not declare war withouthesitation? . . . My lords, anything is better than despair; let usat least make an effort, and, if we must fail, let us fail like men!"

He dropped back into his seat, exhausted, gasping. Soon he strove torise and reply to the Duke of Richmond, but his strength was traitor tohis courage, he fainted; a few days later he was dead (May 11th, 1778);the resolution' of the Duke of Richmond had been rejected. 

When this news arrived in America, Washington was seriously uneasy. He had to keep up an incessant struggle against the delays and thejealousies of Congress; it was by dint of unheard-of efforts and ofunwavering perseverance that he succeeded in obtaining the necessarysupplies for his army. "To see men without clothes to cover theirnakedness, " he exclaimed, "without blankets to lie upon, without victualsand often without shoes (for you might follow their track by the bloodthat trickled from their feet), advancing through ice and snow, andtaking up their winter-quarters, at Christmas, less than a day's marchfrom the enemy, in a place where they have not to shelter them eitherhouses or huts but such as they have thrown up themselves, --to see thesemen doing all this without a murmur, is an exhibition of patience andobedience such as the world has rarely seen. "

As a set-off against the impassioned devotion of the patriots, Washingtonknew that the loyalists were still numerous and powerful; the burden ofwar was beginning to press heavily upon the whole country, he feared someact of weakness. "Let us accept nothing short of Independence, " he wroteat once to his friends: "we can never forget the outrages to which GreatBritain has made us--submit; a peace on any other conditions would be asource of perpetual disputes. If Great Britain, urged on by her love fortyranny, were to seek once more to bend our necks beneath her iron yoke, --and she would do so, you may be sure, for her pride and her ambitionare indomitable, --what nation would believe any more in our professionsof faith and would lend us its support? It is to be feared, however, that the proposals of England will produce a great effect in thiscountry. Men are naturally friends of peace, and there is more than onesymptom to lead me to believe that the American people are generallyweary of war. If it be so, nothing can be more politic than to inspirethe country with confidence by putting the army on an imposing footing, and by showing greater energy in our negotiations with European powers. I think that by now France must have recognized our independence, andthat she will immediately declare war against Great Britain, when shesees that we have made serious proposals of alliance to her. But if, influenced by a false policy, or by an exaggerated opinion of our power, she were to hesitate, we should either have to send able negotiators atonce, or give fresh instructions to our charges d'affaires to obtain adefinitive answer from her. "

It is the property of great men, even when they share the prejudices oftheir time and of their country, to know how to get free from them, andhow to rise superior to their natural habits of thought. It has beensaid that, as a matter of taste, Washington did not like France and hadno confidence in her, but his great and strong common sense hadenlightened him as to the conditions of the contest he had entered upon. He knew it was a desperate one, he foresaw that it would be a long one;better than anybody he knew the weaknesses as well as the merits of theinstruments which he had at disposal; he had learned to desire thealliance and the aid of France. She did not belie his hopes: at the verymoment when Congress was refusing to enter into negotiations with GreatBritain as long as a single English soldier remained on American soil, rejoicings and thanksgivings were everywhere throughout the thirteencolonies greeting the news of the recognition by France of theIndependence of the United States; the treaties of alliance, a triumph ofdiplomatic ability on the part of Franklin, had been signed at Paris onthe 6th of February, 1778. 

"Assure the English government of the king's pacific intentions, " M. DeVergennes had written to the Marquis of Noailles, then French ambassadorin England. George III. Replied to these mocking assurances by recallinghis ambassador. 

"Anticipate your enemies, " Franklin had said to the ministers of LouisXVI. ;" act towards them as they did to you in 1755: let your ships put tosea before any declaration of war, it will be time to speak when a Frenchsquadron bars the passage of Admiral Howe who has ventured to ascend theDelaware. " The king's natural straightforwardness and timidity wereequally opposed to this bold project; he hesitated a long while; whenCount d'Estaing at last, on the 13th of April, went out of Toulon harborto sail for America with his squadron, it was too late, the English wereon their guard. 

When the French admiral arrived in America, hostilities had commencedbetween France and England, without declaration of war, by the naturalpressure of circumstances and the state of feeling in the two countries. England fired the first shot on the 17th of June, 1778. The frigate LaBelle Poule, commanded by M. Chaudeau de la Clochetterie, was cruising inthe Channel; she was surprised by the squadron of Admiral Keppel, issuingfrom Portsmouth; the Frenchman saw the danger in time, he crowded sail;but an English frigate, the Arethusa, had dashed forward in pursuit. LaClochetterie waited for her and refused to make the visit demanded by theEnglish captain: a cannon-shot was the reply to this refusal. La BellePoule delivered her whole broadside. When the Arethusa rejoined LordKeppel's squadron, she was dismasted and had lost many men. A suddencalm had prevented two English vessels from taking part in, theengagement. La Clochetterie went on and landed a few leagues from Brest. The fight had cost the lives of forty of his crew, fifty-seven had beenwounded. He was made postcaptain (_capitaine de vaisseau_). The gloryof this small affair appeared to be of good augury; the conscience ofLouis XVI. Was soothed; he at last yielded to the passionate feelingwhich was hurrying the nation into war, partly from sympathy towards theAmericans, partly from hatred and rancor towards England. The treaty of1763 still lay heavy on the military honor of France. 

From the day when the Duke of Choiseul had been forced to sign thathumiliating peace, he had never relaxed in his efforts to improve theFrench navy. In the course of ministerial alternations, frequentlyunfortunate for the work in hand, it had nevertheless been continued byhis successors. A numerous fleet was preparing at Brest; it left theport on the 3d of July, under the orders of Count d'Orvilliers. Itnumbered thirty-two men-of-war and some frigates. Admiral Keppel cameto the encounter with thirty ships, mostly superior in strength to theFrench vessels. The engagement took place on the 27th, at thirtyleagues' distance from Wessant and about the same from the SorlinguesIslands. The splendid order of the French astounded the enemy, who hadnot forgotten the deplorable _Journee de M. De Conflans_. The sky wasmurky, and the manoeuvres were interfered with from the difficulty ofmaking out the signals. Lord Keppel could not succeed in breaking theenemy's line; Count d'Orvilliers failed in a like attempt. The Englishadmiral extinguished his fires and returned to Plymouth harbor, withoutbeing forced to do so from any serious reverse; Count d'Orvilliers fellback upon Brest under the same conditions. The English regarded thisretreat as a humiliation to which they were unaccustomed Lord Keppel hadto appear before a court-martial. In France, after the first burst ofenthusiasm, fault was found with the inactivity of the Duke of Chartres, who commanded the rear-guard of the fleet, under the direction of M. DeLa Motte-Piquet; the prince was before long obliged to leave the navy, hebecame colonel-general of the hussars. A fresh sally on the part of thefleet did not suffice to protect the merchant-navy, the losses of whichwere considerable. The English vessels everywhere held the seas. 

Count d'Estaing had at last arrived at the mouth of the Delaware on the9th of July, 1778; Admiral Howe had not awaited him, he had sailed forthe anchorage of Sandy Hook. The heavy French ships could not cross thebar; Philadelphia had been evacuated by the English as soon as theapproach of Count d'Estaing was signalled. "It is not General Howe whohas taken Philadelphia, " said Franklin; "it is Philadelphia that hastaken General Howe. " The English commander had foreseen the danger; onfalling back upon New York he had been hotly pursued by Washington, whohad, at Monmouth, gained a serious advantage over him. The victory ofthe Americans would have been complete but for the jealous disobedienceof General Lee. Washington pitched his camp thirty miles from New York. "After two years' marching and counter-marching, " he wrote, "aftervicissitudes so strange that never perhaps did any other war exhibit thelike since the beginning of the world, what a subject of satisfaction andastonishment for us to see the two armies back again at the point fromwhich they started, and the assailants reduced in self-defence to haverecourse to the shovel and the axe!"

The combined expedition of D'Estaing and General Sullivan against thelittle English corps which occupied Rhode Island had just failed; thefleet of Admiral Howe had suddenly appeared at the entrance of the roads, the French squadron had gone out to meet it, an unexpected tempestseparated the combatants; Count d'Estaing, more concerned for the fate ofhis vessels than with the clamors of the Americans, set sail for Bostonto repair damages. The campaign was lost; cries of treason were alreadyheard. A riot was the welcome which awaited the French admiral atBoston. All Washington's personal efforts, seconded by the Marquis of LaFayette, were scarcely sufficient to restore harmony. The English hadjust made a descent upon the coasts of Georgia, and taken possession ofSavannah. They threatened Carolina, and even Virginia. 

Scarcely were the French ships in trim to put to sea when Count d'Estaingmade sail for the Antilles. Zealous and brave, but headstrong andpassionate, like M. De Lally-Tollendal, under whom he had served inIndia, the admiral could ill brook reverses, and ardently sought for anoccasion to repair them. The English had taken St. Pierre and Miquelon. M. De Bouille, governor of Iles-du-Vent, had almost at the same time madehimself master of La Dominique. Four thousand English had just landed atSt. Lucie; M. D'Estaing, recently arrived at Martinique, headed thitherimmediately with his squadron, without success, however: it was duringthe absence of the English admiral, Byron, that the French seamensucceeded in taking possession first of St. Vincent, and soon afterwardsof Grenada. The fort of this latter island was carried after a brilliantassault. The admiral had divided his men into three bodies; he commandedthe first, the second marched under the orders of Viscount de Noailles, and Arthur Dillon, at the head of the Irish in the service of France, ledthe third. The cannon on the ramparts were soon directed against theEnglish, who thought to arrive in time to relieve Grenada. 

Count d'Estaing went out of port to meet the English admiral; as he wassailing towards the enemy, the admiral made out, under French colors, asplendid ship of war, _Le Fier-Rodrigue, _ which belonged to Beaumarchais, and was convoying ten merchant-men. "Seeing the wide berth kept by thisfine ship, which was going proudly before the wind, " says the sprightlyand sagacious biographer of Beaumarchais, M. De Lomdnie, "Admirald'Estaing signalled to her to bear down; learning that she belonged tohis majesty Caron de Beaumarchais, he felt that it would be a pity not totake advantage of it, and, seeing the exigency of the case, he appointedher her place of battle without asking her proprietor's permission, leaving to the mercy of the waves and of the English the unhappymerchant-ships which the man-of-war was convoying. _Le Fier-Rodrique_resigned herself bravely to her fate, took a glorious part in the battleoff Grenada, contributed in forcing Admiral Byron to retreat, but had hercaptain killed, and was riddled with bullets. " Admiral d'Estaing wrotethe same evening to Beaumarchais; his letter reached the scholar-merchantthrough the medium of the minister of marine. To the latter Beaumarchaisat once replied: "Sir, I have to thank you for having forwarded to me theletter from Count d'Estaing. It is very noble in him at the moment ofhis triumph to have thought how very agreeable it would be to me to havea word in his handwriting. I take the liberty of sending you a copy ofhis short letter, by which I feel honored as the good Frenchman I am, andat which I rejoice as a devoted adherent of my country against that proudEngland. The brave Montault appears to have thought that he could notbetter prove to me how worthy be was of the post with which he washonored than by getting killed; whatever may be the result as regards myown affairs, my poor friend Montault has died on the bed of honor, and Ifeel a sort of childish joy in being certain that those English who havecut me up so much in their papers for the last four years will readtherein that one of my ships has helped to take from them the mostfertile of their possessions. And as for the enemies of M. D'Estaing andespecially of yourself, sir, I see them biting their nails, and my heartleaps for joy!"

The joy of Beaumarchais, as well as that of France, was a littleexcessive, and smacked of unfamiliarity with the pleasure of victory. M. D'Estaing had just been recalled to France; before he left, he wouldfain have rendered to the Americans a service pressingly demanded of him. General Lincoln was about to besiege Savannah; the English general, SirHenry Clinton, a more able man than his predecessor, had managed toprofit by the internal disputes of the Union, he had rallied around himthe loyalists in Georgia and the Carolinas, civil war prevailed therewith all its horrors; D'Estaing bore down with his squadron for Savannah. Lincoln was already on the coast ready to facilitate his landing; theFrench admiral was under pressure of the orders from Paris, he had notime for a regular siege. The trenches had already been opened twentydays, and the bombardment, terrible as it was for the American town, hadnot yet damaged the works of the English. On the 9th of October, D'Estaing determined to deliver the assault. Americans and French viedwith each other in courage. For a moment the flag of the Union floatedupon the ramparts, some grenadiers made their way into the place, theadmiral was wounded; meanwhile, the losses were great, and perseverancewas evidently useless. The assault was repulsed. Count D'Estaing stillremained nine days before the place, in hopes of finding a favorableopportunity; he was obliged to make sail for France, and the fleetwithdrew, leaving Savannah in the hands of the English. The onlyadvantage from the admiral's expedition was the deliverance of RhodeIsland, abandoned by General Clinton, who, fearing an attack from theFrench, recalled the garrison to New York. Washington had lately madehimself master of the fort at Stony Point, which had up to that timeenabled the English to command the navigation of the Hudson. 

In England the commotion was great: France and America in arms againsther had just been joined by Spain. A government essentially monarchical, faithful to ancient traditions, the Spaniards had for a long whileresisted the entreaties of M. De Vergennes, who availed himself of thestipulations of the Family pact. Charles III. Felt no sort of sympathyfor a nascent republic; he feared the contagion of the example it showedto the Spanish colonies; he hesitated to plunge into the expenses of awar. His hereditary hatred against England prevailed at last over thedictates of prudence. He was promised, moreover, the assistance ofFrance to reconquer Gibraltar and Minorca. The King of Spain consentedto take part in the war, without however recognizing the independence ofthe United States, or entering into alliance with them. 

The situation of England was becoming serious, she believed herself to bethreatened with a terrible invasion. As in the days of the Great Armada, "orders were given to all functionaries, civil and military, in case of adescent of the enemy, to see to the transportation into the interior andinto a place of safety of all horses, cattle, and flocks that mighthappen to be on the coasts. " "Sixty-six allied ships of the lineploughed the Channel, fifty thousand men, mustered in Normandy, werepreparing to burst upon the southern counties. A simple Americancorsair, Paul Jones, ravaged with impunity the coasts of Scotland. Thepowers of the North, united with Russia and Holland, threatened tomaintain, with arms in hand, the rights of neutrals, ignored by theEnglish admiralty courts. Ireland awaited only the signal to revolt;religious quarrels were distracting Scotland and England; the authorityof Lord North's cabinet was shaken in Parliament as well as throughoutthe country; the passions of the mob held sway in London, and among thesights that might have been witnessed was that of this great city givenup for nearly a week to the populace, without anything that could stayits excesses save its own lassitude and its own feeling of shame " [M. Cornelis de Witt, _Histoire de Washington_]. 

So many and such imposing preparations were destined to produce butlittle fruit. The two fleets, the French and the Spanish, had effectedtheir junction off Corunna, under the orders of Count d'Orvilliers; theyslowly entered the Channel on the 31st of August, near the Sorlingues(Scilly) Islands; they sighted the English fleet, with a strength of onlythirty, seven vessels. Count de Guichen, who commanded the vanguard, wasalready manoeuvring to cut off the enemy's retreat; Admiral Hardy had thespeed of him, and sought refuge in Plymouth Sound. Some engagementswhich took place between frigates were of little importance, but gloriousfor both sides. On the 6th of October, the _Surveillante, _ commanded byChevalier du Couedic, had a tussle with the _Quebec;_ the broadsides wereincessant, a hail of lead fell upon both ships, the majority of theofficers of the _Surveillante_ were killed or wounded. Du Couedic hadbeen struck twice on the head. A fresh wound took him in the stomach;streaming with blood, he remained at his post and directed the fight. The three masts of the _Surveillante_ had just fallen, knocked to piecesby balls, the whole rigging of the _Quebec_ at the same moment came downwith a run. The two ships could no longer manoeuvre, the decimated crewswere preparing to board, when a thick smoke shot up all at once from thebetween-decks of the _Quebec;_ the fire spread with unheard of rapidity;the _Surveillante, _ already hooked on to her enemy's side, was on thepoint of becoming, like her, a prey to the flames, but her commander, gasping as he was and scarcely alive, got her loose by a miracle ofability. The _Quebec_ had hardly blown up when the crew of the_Surveillante_ set to work picking up the glorious wreck of theiradversaries; a few prisoners were brought into Brest on the victoriousvessel, which was so blackened by the smoke and damaged by the fight thattugs had to be sent to her assistance. A few months afterwards DuCouedic died of his wounds, carrying to the grave the supreme honor ofhaving been the only one to render his name illustrious in the greatdisplay of the maritime forces of France and Spain. Count d'Orvilliersmade no attempt; the inhabitants upon the English coasts ceased totremble; sickness committed ravages amongst the crews. After a hundredand four days' useless cruising in the Channel, the huge fleet returnedsorrowfully to Brest; Admiral d'Orvilliers had lost his son in a partialengagement; he left the navy and retired ere long to a convent. Count deGuichen sailed for the Antilles with a portion of the French fleet, andmaintained with glory the honor of his flag in a series of frequentlysuccessful affairs against Admiral Rodney. At the beginning of the war, the latter, a great scapegrace and overwhelmed with debt, happened to beat Paris, detained by the state of his finances. "If I were free, " saidhe one day in the presence of Marshal Biron, "I would soon destroy allthe Spanish and French fleets. " The marshal at once paid his debts. "Go, sir, " said he, with a flourish of generosity to which the eighteenthcentury was a little prone, "the French have no desire to gain advantagesover their enemies save by their bravery. " Rodney's first exploit was torevictual Gibraltar, which the Spanish and French armaments had investedby land and sea. 

Everywhere the strength of the belligerents was being exhausted withoutsubstantial result and without honor; for more than four years nowAmerica had been keeping up the war, and her Southern provinces had beeneverywhere laid waste by the enemy; in spite of the heroism which wasdisplayed by the patriots, and of which the women themselves set theexample, General Lincoln had just been forced to capitulate atCharleston. Washington, still encamped before New York, saw his armydecimated by hunger and cold, deprived of all resources, and reduced tosubsist at the expense of the people in the neighborhood. All eyes wereturned towards France; the Marquis of La Fayette had succeeded inobtaining from the king and the French ministry the formation of anauxiliary corps; the troops were already on their way under the orders ofCount de Rochambeau. 

Misfortune and disappointments are great destroyers of some barriers, prudent tact can overthrow others. Washington and the American armywould but lately have seen with suspicion the arrival of foreignauxiliaries; in 1780, transports of joy greeted the news of theirapproach. M. De La Fayette, moreover, had been careful to spare theAmerican general all painful friction. Count de Rochambeau and theFrench officers were placed under the orders of Washington, and theauxiliary corps entirely at his disposal. The delicate generosity andthe disinterestedness of the French government had sometimes had theeffect of making it neglect the national interests in its relations withthe revolted colonies; but it had derived therefrom a spirit of conductinvariably calculated to triumph over the prejudices as well as thejealous pride of the Americans. 

"The history of the War of Independence is a history of hopes deceived, "said Washington. He had conceived the idea of making himself master ofNew York with the aid of the French. The transport of the troops hadbeen badly calculated; Rochambeau brought to Rhode Island only the firstdivision of his army, about five thousand men; and Count de Guichen, whose squadron had been relied upon, had just been recalled to France. Washington was condemned to inaction. "Our position is not sufficientlybrilliant, " he wrote to M. De La Fayette, "to justify our puttingpressure upon Count de Rochambeau; I shall continue our arrangements, however, in the hope of more fortunate circumstances. " The American armywas slow in getting organized, obliged as it had been to fightincessantly and make head against constantly recurring difficulties; itwas getting organized, however; the example of the French, the disciplinewhich prevailed in the auxiliary corps, the good understandingthenceforth established among the officers, helped Washington in hisdifficult task. From the first the superiority of the general wasadmitted by the French as well as by the Americans; naturally, and by themere fact of the gifts he had received from God, Washington was alwaysand everywhere chief of the men placed within his range and under hisinfluence. 

This natural ascendency, which usually triumphed over the base jealousiesand criminal manoeuvres into which the rivals of General Washington hadsometimes allowed themselves to be drawn, had completely failed in thecase of one of his most brilliant lieutenants; in spite of his inveterateand well-known vices, Benedict Arnold had covered himself with glory bydaring deeds and striking bravery exhibited in a score of fights, fromthe day when, putting himself at the head of the first bands raised inMassachusetts, he had won the grade of general during his expedition toCanada. Accused of malversation, and lately condemned by a court-martialto be reprimanded by the general-in-chief, Arnold, through an excess ofconfidence on Washington's part, still held the command of the importantfort of West Point: he abused the trust. Washington, on returning froman interview with Count de Rochambeau, went out of his way to visit thegarrison of West Point: the commandant was absent. Surprised anddispleased, the general was impatiently waiting for his return, when hisaide-de-camp and faithful friend, Colonel Hamilton, brought him importantdespatches. Washington's face remained impassible; but throughout thegarrison and among the general's staff there had already spread a whisperof Arnold's treachery: he had promised, it was said, to deliver WestPoint to the enemy. An English officer, acting as a spy, had actuallybeen arrested within the American lines. 

It was true; and General Arnold, turning traitor to his country fromjealousy, vengeance, and the shameful necessities entailed by adisorderly life, had sought refuge at New York with Sir Henry Clinton. Major Andre was in the hands of the Americans. Young, honorable, brave, endowed with talents, and of elegant and cultivated tastes, the Englishofficer, brought up with a view to a different career, but driven intothe army from a disappointment in love, had accepted the dangerousmission of bearing to the perfidious commandant of West Point the Englishgeneral's latest instructions. Sir Henry Clinton had recommended him notto quit his uniform; but, yielding to the insinuating Arnold, the unhappyyoung man had put on a disguise; he had been made prisoner. Recognizedand treated as a spy, he was to die on the gallows. It was the ignominyalone of this punishment which perturbed his spirit. "Sir, " he wrote toWashington, "sustained against fear of death by the reflection that nounworthy action has sullied a life devoted to honor, I feel confidentthat in this my extremity, your Excellency will not be deaf to a prayerthe granting of which will soothe my last moments. Out of sympathy for asoldier, your Excellency will, I am sure, consent to adapt the form of mypunishment to the feelings of a man of honor. Permit me to hope that, ifmy character have inspired you with any respect, if I am in your eyessacrificed to policy and not to vengeance, I shall have proof that thosesentiments prevail in your heart by learning that I am not to die on thegallows. "

With a harshness of which there is no other example in his life, and ofwhich he appeared to always preserve a painful recollection, Washingtonremained deaf to his prisoner's noble appeal: Major Andre underwent thefate of a spy. "You are a witness that I die like a man of honor, " hesaid to an American officer whose duty it was to see the orders carriedout. The general did him justice. "Andre, " he said, "paid his penaltywith the spirit to be expected from a man of such merit and so brave anofficer. As to Arnold, he has no heart. . . . Everybody is surprisedto see that he is not yet swinging on a gibbet. " The passionateendeavors of the Americans to inflict upon the traitor the chastisementhe deserved remained without effect. Constantly engaged, as an Englishgeneral, in the war, with all the violence bred of uneasy hate, Arnoldmanaged to escape the just vengeance of his countrymen; he died twentyyears later, in the English possessions, rich and despised. "What wouldyou have done if you had succeeded in catching me?" he asked an Americanprisoner one day. "We would have severed from your body the leg that hadbeen wounded in the service of the country, and would have hanged therest on a gibbet, " answered the militiaman quietly. 

The excitement caused by the treachery of Arnold had not yetsubsided, when a fresh cup of bitterness was put to the lips ofthe general-in-chief, and disturbed the hopes he had placed on thereorganization of his army. Successive revolts among the troops ofPennsylvania, which threatened to spread to those of New Jersey, hadconvinced him that America had come to the end of her sacrifices. "Thecountry's own powers are exhausted, " he wrote to Colonel Lawrence in aletter intended to be communicated to Louis XVI. ; "single-handed wecannot restore public credit and supply the funds necessary forcontinuing the war. The patience of the army is at an end, the peopleare discontented; without money, we shall make but a feeble effort, andprobably the last. "

The insufficiency of the military results obtained by land and sea, incomparison with the expenses and the exhibition of force, and theslowness and bad management of the operations, had been attributed, inFrance as well as in America, to the incapacity of the ministers of warand marine, the Prince of Montbarrey and M. De Sartines. The financeshad up to that time sufficed for the enormous charges which weighed uponthe treasury; credit for the fact was most justly given to the consummateability and inexhaustible resources of M. Necker, who was, first of all, made director of the treasury on October 22, 1776, and thendirector-general of finance on June 29, 1777, By his advice, backed bythe favor of the queen, the two ministers were superseded by M. De Segurand the Marquis of Castries. A new and more energetic impulse beforelong restored the hopes of the Americans. On the 21st of March, 1780, a fleet left under the orders of Count de Grasse; after its arrival atMartinique, on the 28th of April, in spite of Admiral Hood's attempts toblock his passage, Count de Grasse took from the English the Island ofTobago, on the 1st of June; on the 3d of September, he brought Washingtona reinforcement of three thousand five hundred men, and twelve hundredthousand livres in specie. In a few months King Louis XVI. Had lent tothe United States or procured for them on his security sums exceedingsixteen million livres. It was to Washington personally that the Frenchgovernment confided its troops as well as its subsidies. "The king'ssoldiers are to be placed exclusively under the orders of thegeneral-in-chief, " M. Girard, the French minister in America, had said, on the arrival of the auxiliary corps. 

After so many and such painful efforts, the day of triumph was at lastdawning upon General Washington and his country. Alternations of successand reverse had signalized the commencement of the campaign of 1781. Lord Cornwallis, who commanded the English armies in the South, wasoccupying Virginia with a considerable force, when Washington, who hadmanaged to conceal his designs from Sir Henry Clinton, shut up in NewYork, crossed Philadelphia on the 4th of September, and advanced byforced marches against the enemy. The latter had been for some time pastharassed by the little army of M. De La Fayette. The fleet of Admiral deGrasse cut off the retreat of the English. Lord Cornwallis threw himselfinto Yorktown; on the 30th of September the place was invested. 

It was but slightly and badly fortified; the English troops were fatiguedby a hard campaign; the besiegers were animated by a zeal furtherstimulated by emulation; French and Americans vied with one another inardor. Batteries sprang up rapidly, the soldiers refused to take anyrest, the trenches were opened by the 6th of October. On the 10th, thecannon began to batter the town; on the 14th an American column, commanded by M. De La Fayette, Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Lawrence, attacked one of the redoubts which protected the approaches to the town, whilst the French dashed forward on their side to attack the secondredoubt, under the orders of Baron de Viomenil, Viscount de Noailles, andMarquis de St. Simon, who, ill as he was, had insisted on being carriedat the head of his regiment. The flag of the Union floated above bothworks at almost the same instant; when the attacking columns joined againon the other side of the outwork they had attacked, the French had madefive hundred prisoners. All defence became impossible. Lord Cornwallisin vain attempted to escape; he was reduced, on the 17th of October, tosigning a capitulation more humiliating than that of Saratoga: eightthousand men laid down their arms, the vessels which happened to be lyingat Yorktown and Gloucester were given up to the victors. Lord Cornwalliswas ill of grief and fatigue. General O'Hara, who took his place, tendered his sword to Count de Rochambeau; the latter stepped back, and, pointing to General Washington, said aloud, "I am only an auxiliary. " Inreceiving the English general's sword, Washington was receiving thepledge of his country's independence. 

England felt this. "Lord North received the news of the capitulationlike a bullet in his breast, " said Lord George Germaine, secretary ofstate for the colonies; he threw up his arms without being able to uttera word beyond 'My God, all's lost!'" To this growing conviction on thepart of his ministers, as well as of the nation, George III. Opposed anunwavering persistency. "None of the members of my cabinet, " he wroteimmediately, "will suppose, I am quite sure, that this event can in anyway modify the principles which have guided me hitherto and which willcontinue to regulate my conduct during the rest of this struggle. "

Whilst the United States were celebrating their victory withthanksgivings and public festivities, their allies were triumphing at allthe different points, simultaneously, at which hostilities had beenentered upon. Becoming embroiled with Holland, where the republicanparty had prevailed against the stadtholder, who was devoted to them, theEnglish had waged war upon the Dutch colonies. Admiral Rodney had takenSt. Eustache, the centre of an immense trade; he had pillaged thewarehouses and laden his vessels with an enormous mass of merchandise;the convoy which was conveying a part of the spoil to England wascaptured by Admiral La Motte-Piquet; M. Bouille surprised the Englishgarrison remaining at St. Eustache and recovered possession of theisland, which was restored to the Dutch. They had just maintainedgloriously, at Dogger Bank, their old maritime renown. "Officers andmen all fought like lions, " said Admiral Zouttman. The firing had notcommenced until the two fleets were within pistol-shot. The ships onboth sides were dismasted, scarcely in a condition to keep afloat; theglory and the losses were equal; but the English admiral, Hyde Parker, was irritated and displeased. George III. Went to see him on board hisvessel. "I wish your Majesty younger seamen and better ships, " said theold sailor, and he insisted on resigning. This was the only actionfought by the Dutch during the war; they left to Admiral de Kersaint thejob of recovering from the English their colonies of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice, on the coasts of Guiana. 

A small Franco-Spanish army was at the same time besieging Minorca. The fleet was considerable, the English were ill-prepared; they were soonobliged to shut themselves up in Fort St. Philip. The ramparts were assolid, the position was as impregnable, as in the time of MarshalRichelieu. The admirals were tardy in bringing up the fleet; theirirresolution caused the failure of operations that had been ill-combined;the squadrons entered port again. The Duke of Crillon, who commanded thebesieging force, weary of investing the fortress, made a proposal to thecommandant to give the place up to him: the offers were magnificent, butColonel Murray answered indignantly: "Sir, when the king his masterordered your brave ancestor to assassinate the Duke of Guise, he repliedto Henry III. , Honor forbids! You ought to have made the same answer tothe king of Spain when he ordered you to assassinate the honor of a manas well born as the Duke of Guise or yourself. I desire to have nocommunication with you but by way of arms. " And he kept up the defenceof his fortress, continually battered by the besiegers' cannonballs. Assault succeeded assault: the Duke of Crillon himself escaladed theramparts to capture the English flag which floated on the top of a tower:he was slightly wounded. "How long have generals done grenadiers' work?"said the officers to one another. The general heard them. "I wanted tomake my Spaniards thorough French, " he said, "that nobody might anylonger perceive that there are two nationalities here. " Murray at lastcapitulated on the 4th of February, 1782: the fortress contained but ahandful of soldiers exhausted with fatigue and privation. 

Great was the joy at Madrid as well as in France, and deep the dismay inLondon: the ministry of Lord North could not stand against this lastblow. So many efforts and so many sacrifices ending in so many disasterswere irritating and wearing out the nation. "Great God!" exclaimedBurke, "is it still a time to talk to us of the rights we are upholdingin this war! Oh! excellent rights! Precious they should be, for theyhave cost us dear. Oh! precious rights, which have cost Great Britainthirteen provinces, four islands, a hundred thousand men, and more thanten millions sterling! Oh! wonderful rights, which have cost GreatBritain her empire upon the ocean and that boasted superiority which madeall nations bend before her! Oh! inestimable rights, which have takenfrom us our rank amongst the nations, our importance abroad and ourhappiness at home, which have destroyed our commerce and ourmanufactures, which have reduced us from the most flourishing empire inthe world to a kingdom circumscribed and grandeur-less! Precious rights, which will, no doubt, cost us all that we have left!" The debate wasgrowing more and more bitter. Lord North entered the House with hisusual serenity. "This discussion is a loss of valuable time to theHouse, " said he: "His Majesty has just accepted the resignation of hisministers. " The Whigs came into power; Lord Rockingham, the Duke ofRichmond, Mr. Fox; the era of concessions was at hand. An unsuccessfulbattle delivered against Hood and Rodney by Admiral de Grasse restoredfor a while the pride of the English. A good sailor, brave and for along time successful in war, Count de Grasse had many a time beenout-manoeuvred by the English. He had suffered himself to be enticedaway from St. Christopher, which he was besieging, and which the Marquisof Bouille took a few days later; embarrassed by two damaged vessels, he would not abandon them to the English, and retarded his movements toprotect them. The English fleet was superior to the French in vesselsand weight of metal; the fight lasted ten hours; the French squadron wasbroken, disorder ensued in the manoeuvres; the captains got killed oneafter another, nailing their colors to the mast or letting their vesselssink rather than strike; the flag-ship, the Ville de Paris, was attackedby seven of the enemy's ships at once, her consorts could not get at her;Count de Grasse, maddened with grief and rage, saw all his crew fallingaround him. "The admiral is six foot every day, " said the sailors, "on afighting day he is six foot one. " So much courage and desperation couldnot save the fleet, the count was forced to strike; his ship had receivedsuch damage that it sank before its arrival in England; the admiral wasreceived in London with great honors against which his vanity was notproof, to the loss of his personal dignity and his reputation in Europe. A national subscription in France reinforced the fleet with new vessels:a squadron, commanded by M. De Suffren, had just carried into the EastIndies the French flag, which had so long been humiliated, and which hisvictorious hands were destined to hoist aloft again for a moment. 

As early as 1778, even before the maritime war had burst out in Europe, France had lost all that remained of her possessions on the Coromandelcoast. Pondicherry, scarcely risen from its ruins, was besieged by theEnglish, and had capitulated on the 17th of October, after an heroicresistance of forty days' open trenches. Since that day a Mussulman, Hyder Ali, conqueror of the Carnatic, had struggled alone in Indiaagainst the power of England: it was around him that a group had beenformed by the old soldiers of Bussy and by the French who had escapedfrom the disaster of Pondicherry. It was with their aid that the ablerobber-chief, the crafty politician, had defended and consolidated theempire he had founded against that foreign dominion which threatened theindependence of his country. He had just suffered a series of reverses, and he was on the point of being forced to evacuate the Carnatic and takerefuge in his kingdom of Mysore, when he heard, in the month of July, 1782, of the arrival of a French fleet commanded by M. De Suffren. HyderAli had already been many times disappointed. The preceding year Admirald'Orves had appeared on the Coromandel coast with a squadron; the Sultanhad sent to meet him, urging him to land and attack Madras, leftdefenceless; the admiral refused to risk a single vessel or land a singleman, and he returned without striking a blow to Ile-de-France. Everindomitable and enterprising, Hyder Ali hoped better things of thenew-comers; he was not deceived. 

Born at St. Cannat in Provence, on the 13th of July, 1726, of an old anda notable family amongst the noblesse of his province, Peter Andrew deSuffren, admitted before he was seventeen into the marine guards, hadprocured his reception into the order of Malta; he had alreadydistinguished himself in many engagements, when M. De Castries gave himthe command of the squadron commissioned to convey to the Cape of GoodHope a French garrison promised to the Dutch, whose colony wasthreatened. The English had seized Negapatam and Trincomalee; they hopedto follow up this conquest by the capture of Batavia and Ceylon. Suffrenhad accomplished his mission, not without a brush with the Englishsquadron commanded by Commodore Johnston. Leaving the Cape free fromattack, he had joined, off Ile-de-France, Admiral d'Orves, who was illand at death's door. The vessels of the commander (of the Maltese order)were in a bad state, the crews were weak, the provisions were deficient;the inexhaustible zeal and the energetic ardor of the chief sufficed toanimate both non-combatants and combatants. When he put to sea on the7th of December, Count d'Orves still commanded the squadron; on the 9thof February he expired out at sea, having handed over his command to M. De Suffren. All feebleness and all hesitation disappeared from thatmoment in the management of the expedition. When the nabob sent a Frenchofficer in his service to compliment M. De Suffren and proffer alliance, the commander interrupted the envoy: "We will begin, " said he, "bysettling the conditions of this alliance;" and not a soldier set foot onland before the independent position of the French force, the number ofits auxiliaries, and the payment for its services had been settled by atreaty. 

Hyder Ali consented to everything. M. De Suffren set sail to go insearch of the English. 

[Illustration: Suffren----413]

He sought them for three months without any decisive result; it was onlyon the 4th of July in the morning, at the moment when Hyder Ali was toattack Negapatam, that a serious engagement began between the hostilefleets. The two squadrons had already suffered severely; a change ofwind had caused disorder in the lines: the English had several vesselsdismantled; one single French vessel, the _Severe, _ had received seriousdamage; her captain, with cowardly want of spirit, ordered the flag to behauled down. His lieutenants protested; the volunteers to whom he hadappealed refused to execute his orders. By this time the report wasspreading among the batteries that the captain, was giving the order tocease firing; the sailors were as indignant as the officers: a cry arose, "The flag is down!" A complaisant subaltern had at last obeyed thecaptain's repeated orders. The officers jumped upon the quarter-deck. "You are master of your flag, " fiercely cried an officer of the blue, Lieutenant Dien, "but we are masters as to fighting, and the ship shallnot surrender!" By this time a boat from the English ship, the _Sultan, _had put off to board the Severe, which was supposed to have struck, whena fearful broadside from all the ship's port-holes struck the _Sultan, _which found herself obliged to sheer off. Night came; without waitingfor the admiral's orders, the English went and cast anchor underNegapatam. 

M. De Suffren supposed that hostilities would be resumed; but, when theEnglish did not appear, he at last prepared to set sail for Gondelour torefit his vessels, when a small boat of the enemy's hove in sight: itbore a flag of truce. Admiral Hughes claimed the _Severe, _ which had foran instant hauled down her flag. M. De Suffren had not heard anythingabout her captain's poltroonery; the flag had been immediately replaced;he answered that none of the French vessels had surrendered. "However, "he added with a smile, "as this vessel belongs to Sir Edward Hughes, beghim from me to come for it himself. " Suffren arrived without hinderanceat Gondelour (_Kaddalore_). 

Scarcely was he there, when Hyder Ali expressed a desire to see him, andset out for that purpose without waiting for his answer. On the 26th ofJuly, M. De Suffren landed with certain officers of his squadron; anescort of cavalry was in waiting to conduct him to the camp of the nabob, who came out to meet him. "Heretofore I thought myself a great man and agreat general, " said Hyder Ali to the admiral; "but now I know that youalone are a great man. " Suffren informed the nabob that M. De Bussy-Castelnau, but lately the faithful lieutenant of Dupleix and thecontinuer of his victories, had just been sent to India with the title ofcommander-in-chief; he was already at Ile de France, and was bringingsome troops. "Provided that you remain with us, all will go well, " saidthe nabob, detaching from his turban an aigrette of diamonds which heplaced on M. De Suffren's hat. The nabob's tent was reached; Suffren wasfat, he had great difficulty in sitting upon the carpets; Hyder Aliperceived this and ordered cushions to be brought. "Sit as you please, "said he to the commander, "etiquette was not made for such as you. " Nextday, under the nabob's tent, all the courses of the banquet offered to M. De Suffren were prepared in European style. The admiral proposed thatHyder Ali should go to the coast and see all the fleet dressed, but, "Iput myself out to see you only, " said the nabob, "I will not go anyfarther. " The two great warriors were never to meet again. 

The French vessels were ready; the commander had more than once put hisown hand to the work in order to encourage the workmen's zeal. Carpentry-wood was wanted; he had ransacked Gondelour (_Kaddalore_) forit, sometimes pulling down a house to get hold of a beam that suited him. His officers urged him to go to Bourbon or Ile-de-France for thenecessary supplies and for a good port to shelter his damaged ships. "Until I have conquered one in India, I will have no port but the sea, "answered Suffren. He had re-taken Trincomalee before the English couldcome to its defence. The battle began. As had already happened morethan once, a part of the French force showed weakness in the thick of theaction either from cowardice or treason; a cabal had formed against thecommander; he was fighting single-handed against five or six assailants:the main-mast and the flag of the _Heros, _ which he was on, fell beneaththe enemy's cannon-balls. Suffren, standing on the quarter-deck, shoutedbeside himself "Flags! Set white flags all round the Heros!" Thevessel, all bristling with flags, replied so valiantly to the Englishattacks, that the rest of the squadron had time to re-form around it; theEnglish went and anchored before Madras. 

Bussy had arrived, but aged, a victim to gout, quite a stranger amidthose Indian intrigues with which he had but lately been so wellacquainted. Hyder Ali had just died on the 7th of December, 1782, leaving to his son Tippoo Sahib affairs embroiled and allies enfeebled. At this news the Mahrattas, in revolt against England, hastened to makepeace; and Tippoo Sahib, who had just seized Tanjore, was obliged toabandon his conquest and go to the protection of Malabar. Ten thousandmen only remained in the Carnatic to back the little corps of French. Bussy allowed himself to be driven to bay by General Stuart beneath thewalls of Gondelour; he had even been forced to shut himself up in thetown. M. De Suffren went to his release. The action was hotlycontested; when the victor landed, M. De Bussy was awaiting him on theshore. "Here is our savior, " said the general to his troops, and thesoldiers taking up in their arms M. De Suffren, who had been latelypromoted by the grand master of the order of Malta to the rank of grand-cross (_bailli_), carried him in triumph into the town. "He pressedM. De Bussy every day to attack us, " says Sir Thomas Munro, "offering toland the greater part of his crews and to lead them himself to deliverthe assault upon our camp. " Bussy had, in fact, resumed the offensive, and was preparing to make fresh sallies, when it was known at Calcuttathat the preliminaries of peace had been signed at Paris on the 9th ofFebruary. The English immediately proposed an armistice. The_Surveillante_ shortly afterwards brought the same news, with orders forSuffren to return to France. India was definitively given up to theEnglish, who restored to the French Pondicherry, Chandernuggur, Mahe, andKarikal, the last strips remaining of that French dominion which had fora while been triumphant throughout the peninsula. The feebleness and thevices of Louis XV. 's government weighed heavily upon the government ofLouis XVI. In India as well as in France, and at Paris itself. 

It is to the honor of mankind and their consolation under great reversesthat political checks and the inutility of their efforts do not obscurethe glory of great men. M. De Suffren had just arrived at Paris, he wasin low spirits; M. De Castries took him to Versailles. There was anumerous and brilliant court. On entering the guards' hall, "Gentlemen, "said the minister to the officers on duty, "this is M. De Suffren. "Everybody rose, and the body-guards, forming an escort for the admiral, accompanied him to the king's chamber. His career was over; the last ofthe great sailors of the old regimen died on the 8th of December, 1788. 

Whilst Hyder Ali and M. De Suffren were still disputing India withEngland, that power had just gained in Europe an important advantage inthe eyes of public opinion as well as in respect of her supremacy at sea. 

For close upon three years past a Spanish army had been investing by landthe town and fortress of Gibraltar; a strong squadron was cruising out ofcannon-shot of the place, incessantly engaged in barring the passageagainst the English vessels. Twice already, in 1780 by Admiral Rodney, and in 1781 by Admiral Darby, the vigilance of the cruisers had beeneluded and reinforcements of troops, provisions, and ammunition had beenthrown into Gibraltar. In 1782 the town had been half destroyed by anincessantly renewed bombardment, the fortifications had not been touched. Every morning, when he awoke, Charles III. Would ask anxiously, "Have wegot Gibraltar?" and when "No" was answered, "We soon shall, " the monarchwould rejoin imperturbably. The capture of Fort Philip had confirmed himin his hopes; he considered his object gained, when the Duke of Crillonwith a corps of French troops came and joined the besiegers; the Count ofArtois, brother to the king, as well as the Duke of Bourbon, had comewith him. The camp of St. Roch was the scene of continual festivities, sometimes interrupted by the sallies of the besieged. The fights did notinterfere with mutual good offices: in his proud distress, General Eliotstill kept up an interchange of refreshments with the French princes andthe Duke of Crillon; the Count of Artois had handed over to the Englishgarrison the letters and correspondence which had been captured on theenemy's ships, and which he had found addressed to them on his waythrough Madrid. 

Preparations were being made for a grand assault. A French engineer, Chevalier d'Arcon, had invented some enormous floating batteries, fire-proof, as he believed; a hundred and fifty pieces of cannon were tobatter the place all at once, near enough to facilitate the assault. Onthe 13th of September, at 9 A. M. , the Spaniards opened fire: all theartillery in the fort replied at once; the surrounding mountains repeatedthe cannonade; the whole army covered the shore awaiting with anxiety theresult of the enterprise. Already the fortifications seemed to bebeginning to totter; the batteries had been firing for five hours; all atonce the Prince of Nassau, who commanded a detachment, thought heperceived flames mastering his heavy vessel; the fire spread rapidly; oneafter another, the floating batteries found themselves disarmed. "Atseven o'clock we had lost all hope, " said an Italian officer who hadtaken part in the assault; "we fired no more, and our signals of distressremained unnoticed. The red-hot shot of the besieged rained down uponus; the crews were threatened from every point. " Timidly and by weakdetachments, the boats of the two fleets crept up under cover of thebatteries in hopes of saving some of the poor creatures that were like toperish; the flames which burst out on board the doomed ships served toguide the fire of the English as surely as in broad daylight. At thehead of a small squadron of gunboats Captain Curtis barred the passage ofthe salvors; the conflagration became general, only the discharges fromthe fort replied to the hissing of the flames and to the Spaniard's criesof despair. The fire at last slackened; the English gunboats changedtheir part; at the peril of their lives the brave seamen on board of themapproached the burning ships, trying to save the unfortunate crews; fourhundred men owed their preservation to those efforts. A month after thisdisastrous affair, Lord Howe, favored by the accidents of wind andweather, revictualled for the third time, and almost without anyfighting, the fortress and the town under the very eyes of the alliedfleets. Gibraltar remained impregnable. 

Peace was at hand, however: all the belligerents were tired of thestrife; the Marquis of Rockingham was dead; his ministry, after beingbroken up, had re-formed with less lustre under the leadership of LordShelburne. William Pitt, Lord Chatham's second son, at that timetwenty-two years of age, had a seat in the cabinet. Already negotiationsfor a general peace had begun at Paris; but Washington, who eagerlydesired the end of the war, did not yet feel any confidence. "The oldinfatuation, the political duplicity and perfidy of England, render me, Iconfess, very suspicious, very doubtful, " he wrote; "and her positionseems to me to be perfectly summed up in the laconic saying of Dr. Franklin 'They are incapable of continuing the war and too proud to makepeace. ' The pacific overtures made to the different belligerent nationshave probably no other design than to detach some one of them from thecoalition. At any rate, whatever be the enemy's intentions, ourwatchfulness and our efforts, so far from languishing, should become morevigorous than ever. Too much trust and confidence would ruineverything. "

America was the first to make peace, without however detaching herselfofficially from the coalition which had been formed to maintain herquarrel and from which she had derived so many advantages. On the 30thof November, 1782, in disregard of the treaties but lately concludedbetween France and the revolted colonies, the American negotiators signedwith stealthy precipitation the preliminary articles of a special peace, "thus abandoning France to the dangers of being isolated in negotiationsor in arms. " The votes of Congress, as well as the attitude ofWashington, did not justify this disloyal and ungrateful eagerness. "The articles of the treaty between Great Britain and America, " wrote thegeneral to Chevalier de La Luzerne, French minister at Philadelphia, "areso far from conclusive as regards a general pacification, that we mustpreserve a hostile attitude and remain ready for any contingency, for waras well as peace. "

On the 5th of December, at the opening of Parliament, George III. Announced in the speech from the throne that he had offered to recognizethe independence of the American colonies. "In thus admitting theirseparation from the crown of this kingdom, I have sacrificed all mydesires to the wishes and opinion of my people, " said the king. "I humbly pray Almighty God, that Great Britain may not feel the evilswhich may flow from so important a dismemberment of its empire, and thatAmerica may be a stranger to the calamities which have before now provedto the mother-country that monarchy is inseparable from the benefits ofconstitutional liberty. Religion, language, interests, affections maystill form a bond of union between the two countries, and I will spare nopains or attention to promote it. " "I was the last man in England toconsent to the Independence of America, " said the king to John Adams, whowas the first to represent the new republic at the Court of St. James; "Iwill be the last in the world to sanction any violation of it. " Honestand sincere in his concessions as he had been in his persistentobstinacy, the king supported his ministers against the violent attacksmade upon them in Parliament. The preliminaries of general peace hadbeen signed at Paris on the 20th of January, 1783. 

To the exchange of conquests between France and England was added thecession to France of the island of Tobago and of the Senegal River withits dependencies. The territory of Pondicherry and Karikal received someaugmentation. For the first time for more than a hundred years theEnglish renounced the humiliating conditions so often demanded on thesubject of the harbor of Dunkerque. Spain saw herself confirmed in herconquest of the Floridas and of the island of Minorca. Holland recoveredall her possessions, except Negapatam. 

Peace was made, a glorious and a sweet one for the United States, which, according to Washington's expression, "saw opening before them a careerthat might lead them to become a great people, equally happy andrespected. " Despite all the mistakes of the people and the defects everyday more apparent in the form of its government, this noble and healthyambition has always been present to the minds of the American nation asthe ultimate aim of their hopes and their endeavors. More than eightyyears after the war of independence, the indomitable energy of thefathers reappeared in the children, worthy of being called a great peopleeven when the agonies of a civil war without example denied to them thehappiness which had a while ago been hoped for by the glorious founder oftheir liberties as well as of their Constitution. 

France came out exhausted from the struggle, but relieved in her own eyesas well as those of Europe from the humiliation inflicted upon her by thedisastrous Seven Years' War and by the treaty of 1763. She sawtriumphant the cause she had upheld and her enemies sorrow-stricken atthe dismemberment they had suffered. It was a triumph for her arms andfor the generous impulse which had prompted her to support a legitimatebut for a long while doubtful enterprise. A fresh element, however, hadcome to add itself to the germs of disturbance, already so fruitful, which were hatching within her. She had promoted the foundation of aRepublic based upon principles of absolute right; the government hadgiven way to the ardent sympathy of the nation for a people emancipatedfrom a long yoke by its deliberate will and its indomitable energy. France felt her heart still palpitating from the efforts she hadwitnessed and shared on behalf of American freedom; the unreflectinghopes of a blind emulation were already agitating many a mind. "In allstates, " said Washington, "there are inflammable materials which a singlespark may kindle. " In 1783, on the morrow of the American war, theinflammable materials everywhere accumulated in France were alreadyproviding means for that immense conflagration in the midst of which thecountry well-nigh perished. 

CHAPTER LVIII. ----LOUIS XVI. --FRANCE AT HOME. --MINISTRY OF M. NECKER. 1776-1781. 

We have followed the course of good and bad fortune; we have exhibitedFrance engaged abroad in a policy at the same time bold and generous, proceeding from rancor as well as from the sympathetic enthusiasm of thenation; we have seen the war, at first feebly waged, soon extending overevery sea and into the most distant colonies of the belligerents, thoughthe European continent was not attacked at any point save the barren rockof Gibraltar; we have seen the just cause of the United States triumphantand freedom established in the New World: it is time to inquire what newshocks had been undergone by France whilst she was supporting far awaythe quarrel of the revolted colonies, and what new burdens had come to beadded to the load of difficulties and deceptions which she had seemed toforget whilst she was fighting England at so many different points. Itwas not without great efforts that France had acquired the generous fameof securing to her allies blessings which she did not herself yet possessto their full extent; great hopes, and powers fresh and young had beenexhausted in the struggle: at the close of the American war M. Necker wasplayed out politically as well as M. Turgot. 

It was not to supersede the great minister who had fallen that theGenevese banker had been called to office. M. De Maurepas was stillpowerful, still up and doing; he loved power, in spite of his real levityand his apparent neglectfulness. M. Turgot had often galled him, hadsometimes forced his hand; M. De Clugny, who took the place of thecomptroller-general, had no passion for reform, and cared for nothing butleading, at the treasury's expense, a magnificently scandalous life;M. De Malesherbes had been succeeded in the king's household by MarquisAmelot. "At any rate, " said M. De Maurepas, "nobody will accuse me ofhaving picked him out for his wits. "

Profoundly shocked at the irreligious tendencies of the philosophers, thecourt was, nevertheless, aweary of the theoricians and of their essays inreform; it welcomed the new ministers with delight; without fuss, and asif by a natural recurrence to ancient usage, the edict relative to forcedlabor was suspended, the anxieties of the noblesse and of the clergysubsided; the peasantry knew nothing yet of M. Turgot's fall, but theysoon found out that the evils from which they had imagined they weredelivered continued to press upon them with all their weight. For theironly consolation Clugny opened to them the fatal and disgraceful chancesof the lottery, which became a royal institution. To avoid theremonstrances of Parliament, the comptroller-general established the newenterprise by a simple decree of the council. "The entries beingvoluntary, the lottery is no tax and can dispense with enregistration, "it was said. It was only seventy-five years later, in 1841, under thegovernment of King Louis Philippe and the ministry of M. Humann, that thelottery was abolished, and this scandalous source of revenue forbidden tothe treasury. 

So much moral weakness and political changeableness, so much poltrooneryor indulgence towards evil and blind passions disquieted serious minds, and profoundly shook the public credit. The Dutch refused to carry outthe loan for sixty millions which they had negotiated with M. Turgot; thediscount-fund (_caisse d'escompte_) founded by him brought in very slowlybut a moderate portion of the assets required to feed it; the king alonewas ignorant of the prodigalities and irregularities of his minister. M. De Maurepas began to be uneasy at the public discontent, he thought ofsuperseding the comptroller-general: the latter had been ill for sometime, on the 22d of October he died. By the advice of M. De Maurepas, the king sent for M. Necker. 

James Necker was born at Geneva in 1732. Engaging in business withoutany personal taste for it and by his father's wish, he had beensuccessful in his enterprises; at forty he was a rich man, and hisbanking-house enjoyed great credit when he retired from business, in1772, in order to devote himself to occupations more in accordance withhis natural inclinations. He was ambitious and disinterested. The greatoperations in which he had been concerned had made his name known. Hehad propped up the _Compagnie des Indes_ nearly falling to pieces, andhis financial resources had often ministered to the necessities of theState. "We entreat your assistance in the day of need, " wrote AbbeTerray when he was comptroller-general; "deign to come to our assistancewith a sum which is absolutely necessary. " On ceasing to be a banker, Necker soon gave indications of the direction in which his thoughtsturned; he wrote an indifferent Bloge de Colbert, crowned by the FrenchAcademy, in 1773. He believed that he was destined to wear the mantle ofLouis XIV. 's great minister. 

Society and public opinion exercised an ever increasing influence in theeighteenth century; M. Necker managed to turn it to account. He hadmarried, in 1764, Mdlle. Suzanne Curchod, a Swiss pastor's daughter, pretty, well informed, and passionately devoted to her husband, hissuccesses and his fame. The respectable talents, the liberality, thelarge scale of living of M. And Madame Necker attracted round them theliterary and philosophical circle; the religious principles, thesomewhat stiff propriety of Madame Necker maintained in her drawing-rooman intelligent and becoming gravity which was in strong contrast withthe licentious and irreligious frivolity of the conversations customaryamong the philosophers as well as the courtiers. Madame Necker paidcontinuous and laborious attention to the duties of society. She wasnot a Frenchwoman, and she was uncomfortably conscious of it. "When Icame to this country, " she wrote to one of her fair friends, "I thoughtthat literature was the key to everything, that a man cultivated hismind with books only, and was great by knowledge only. " Undeceived bythe very fact of her admiration for her husband, who had not foundleisure to give himself up to his natural taste for literature, and whoremained rather unfamiliar with it, she made it her whole desire to beof good service to him in the society in which she had been called uponto live with him. "I hadn't a word to say in society, " she writes; "Ididn't even know its language. Obliged, as a woman, to captivatepeople's minds, I was ignorant how many shades there are of self-love, and I offended it when I thought I was flattering it. Always strikingwrong notes and never hitting it off, I saw that my old ideas wouldnever accord with those I was obliged to acquire; so I have hid mylittle capital away, never to see it again, and set about working for myliving and getting together a little stock, if I can. " Wit andknowledge thus painfully achieved are usually devoid of grace and charm. Madame du Deffand made this a reproach against M. Necker as well as hiswife "He wants one quality, that which is most conducive toagreeability, a certain readiness which, as it were, provides wits forthose with whom one talks; he doesn't help to bring out what one thinks, and one is more stupid with him than one is all alone or with otherfolks. " People of talent, nevertheless, thronged about M. And MadameNecker. Diderot often went to see them; Galiani, Raynal, Abbe Morellet, M. Suard, quite young yet, were frequenters of the house; Condorcet didnot set foot in it, passionately enlisted as he was amongst thedisciples of M. Turgot, who were hostile to his successor; Bernardin deSt. Pierre never went thither again from the day when the reading of_Paul and Virginia_ had sent the company to sleep. "At first everybodylistens in silence, " says M. Aime Martin; "by degrees attention flags, people whisper, people yawn, nobody listens any more; M. De Buffon looksat his watch and asks for his carriage; the nearest to the door slipsout, Thomas falls asleep, M. Necker smiles to see the ladies crying, andthe ladies ashamed of their tears dare not acknowledge that they havebeen interested. "

[Illustration: The Reading of "Paul and Virginia. "----427]

The persistent admiration of the general public, and fifty imitationsof _Paul and Virginia_ published in a single year, were soon to avengeBernardin de St. Pierre for the disdainful yawns of the philosophers. It is pretty certain that Madame Necker's daughter, little Germaine, if she were present at the reading, did not fall asleep as M. Thomas did, and that she was not ashamed of her tears. 

Next to M. Buffon, to whom Madame had vowed a sort of cult, and who wasstill writing to this faithful friend when he was near his last gasp, M. Thomas had more right than anybody to fall asleep at her house if hethought fit. Marmontel alone shared with him the really intimatefriendship of M. And Madame Necker; the former had given up tragedies andmoral tales; a pupil of Voltaire, without the splendor and inexhaustiblevigor of his master, he was less prone to license, and his feelings weremore serious; he was at that time correcting his _Elements deLitterature, _ but lately published in the _Encyclopaedie, _ and commencingthe _Memoires d'un pere, pour servir d l'instruction de ses enfants_. Thomas was editing his _Eloges, _ sometimes full of eloquence, oftensubtle and delicate, always long, unexceptionable, and wearisome. Hisnoble character had won him the sincere esteem and affection of MadameNecker. She, laboriously anxious about the duties politeness requiresfrom the mistress of a house, went so far as to write down in her tablets"To recompliment M. Thomas more strongly on the song of France in hispoem of Pierre le Grand. " She paid him more precious homage when shewrote to him: "We were united in our youth in every honorable way; let usbe more than ever united now when ripe age, which diminishes the vivacityof impressions, augments the force of habit, and let us be more than evernecessary to one another when we live no longer save in the past and inthe future, for, as regards myself, I, in anticipation, lay no store bythe approbation of the circles which will surround us in our old age, andI desire nothing among posterity but a tomb to which I may precede M. Necker, and on which you will write the epitaph. Such resting-place willbe dearer to me than that among the poplars which cover the ashes ofRousseau. "

It was desirable to show what sort of society, cultivated and virtuous, lively and serious, all in one, the new minister whom Louis XVI. Had justcalled to his side had managed to get about him. Though friendly withthe philosophers, he did not belong to them, and his wife's pietyfrequently irked them. "The conversation was a little constrainedthrough the strictness of Madame Necker, " says Abbe Morellet; "manysubjects could not be touched upon in her presence, and she wasparticularly hurt by freedom in religious opinions. " Practicalacquaintance with business had put M. Necker on his guard against thechimerical theories of the economists. Rousseau had exercised moreinfluence over his mind; the philosopher's wrath against civilizationseemed to have spread to the banker, when the latter wrote in his _Traitesur le commerce des grains, _ "One would say that a small number of men, after dividing the land between them, had made laws of union and securityagainst the multitude, just as they would have made for themselvesshelters in the woods against the wild beasts. What concern of ours areyour laws of property? the most numerous class of citizens might say: wepossess nothing. Your laws of right and wrong? We have nothing todefend. Your laws of liberty? If we do not work to-morrow, we shalldie. "

Public opinion was favorable to M. Necker, his promotion was wellreceived; it presented, however, great difficulties: he had been abanker, and hitherto the comptrollers-general had all belonged to theclass of magistrates or superintendents; he was a Protestant, and, assuch, could not hold any office. The clergy were in commotion; theytried certain remonstrances. "We will give him up to you, " said M. DeMaurepas, "if you undertake to pay the debts of the state. " Theopposition of the church, however, closed to the new minister animportant opening; at first director of the treasury, thendirector-general of finance, M. Necker never received the title ofcomptroller-general, and was not admitted to the council. From theoutset, with a disinterestedness not devoid of ostentation, he haddeclined the salary attached to his functions. The courtiers looked atone another in astonishment. It is easy to see that he is a foreigner, a republican, and a Protestant, " people said. M. De Maurepas laughed. "M. Necker, " he declared, "is a maker of gold; he has introduced thephilosopher's stone into the kingdom. "

This was for a long while the feeling throughout France. "Nobankruptcies, no new imposts, no loans, " M. Turgot had said, and hadlooked to economy alone for the resources necessary to restore thefinances. Bolder and less scrupulous, M. Necker, who had no idea ofhaving recourse to either bankruptcy or imposts, made unreserved use ofthe system of loans. During the five years that his ministry lasted, thesuccessive loans he contracted amounted to nearly five hundred millionlivres. There was no security given to insure its repayment to thelenders. The mere confidence felt in the minister's ability and honestyhad caused the money to flow into the treasury. 

M. Necker did not stop there: a foreigner by birth, he felt no respectfor the great tradition of French administration; practised in thehandling of funds, he had conceived as to the internal government of thefinances theories opposed to the old system; the superintendentsestablished a while ago by Richelieu had become powerful in the centraladministration as well as in the provinces, and the comptroller-generalwas in the habit of accounting with them; they nearly all belonged to oldand notable families; some of them had attracted the public regard andesteem. The new minister suppressed several offices and diminished theimportance of some others; he had taken away from M. Trudaine, administrator of gabels and heavy revenues (_grosses fermes_), the rightof doing business with the king; M. Trudaine sent in his resignation; hewas much respected, and this reform was not approved of. "M. Necker, "people said, "wants to be assisted by none but removable slaves. " At thesame time the treasurers-general, numbering forty-eight, were reduced toa dozen, and the twenty-seven treasurers of marine and war to two; thefarmings-general (of taxes) were renewed with an advantage to thetreasury of fifteen millions. The posts at court likewise underwentreform; the courtiers saw at one blow the improper sources of theirrevenues in the financial administration cut off, and obsolete andridiculous appointments, to which numerous pensions, were attached, reduced. "Acquisitions of posts, projects of marriage or education, unforeseen losses, abortive hopes, all such matters had become anoccasion for having recourse to the sovereign's munificence, " writes M. Necker. "One would have said that the royal treasury was bound to do allthe wheedling, all the smoothing-down, all the reparation; and as themethod of pensions, though pushed to the uttermost (the king was at thattime disbursing in that way some twenty-eight millions of livres), couldnot satisfy all claims or sufficiently gratify shameful cupidity, otherdevices had been hit upon, and would have gone on being hit upon, everyday; interests in the collection of taxes, in the customs, in armysupplies, in the stores, in many pay-offices, in markets of every kind, and even in the furnishing of hospitals, all was fair game, all wasworthy of the attention of persons often, from their position, the mostabove any business of the kind. "

The discontent of the great financiers and that of the courtiers wasbecoming every day more noisy, without as yet shaking the credit ofM. Necker. "M. Necker wants to govern the kingdom of France like hislittle republic of Geneva, " people said: "he is making a desert round theking; each loan is the recompense for something destroyed. " "Just so, "answered M. De Maurepas: "he gives us millions, provided that we allowhim to suppress certain offices. " "And if he were to ask permission tohave the superintendents' heads cut off?" "Perhaps we should give ithim, " said the veteran minister, laughing. "Find us the philosopher'sstone, as he has done, and I promise you that his Majesty will have youinto the ministry that very day. "

M. Necker did not indulge in illusions, he owed to the embarrassments ofthe government and to the new burdens created by the American war acomplaisance which his bold attempts would not have met with under othercircumstances. "Nobody will ever know, " he himself said, "thesteadfastness I found necessary; I still recall that long and darkstaircase of M. De Maurepas' which I mounted in fear and sadness, uncertain of succeeding with him as to some new idea which I had in mymind, and which aimed most frequently at obtaining an increase of revenueby some just but severe operation. I still recall that upstairs closet, beneath the roof of Versailles, but over the rooms, and, from itssmallness and its situation, seeming to be really a superfine extract andabstract of all vanities and ambitions; it was there that reform andeconomy had to be discussed with a minister grown old in the pomps andusages of the court. I remember all the delicate management I had toemploy to succeed, after many a rebuff. At last I would obttin someindulgences for the commonwealth. I obtained them, I could easily see, as recompense for the resources I had found during the war. I met withmore courage in dealing with the king. Young and virtuous, he could andwould hear all. The queen, too, lent me a favorable ear, but, all aroundtheir Majesties, in court and city, to how much enmity and hatred did Inot expose myself? There were all kinds of influence and power which Ihad to oppose with firmness; there were all sorts of interested factionswith which I had to fight in this perpetual struggle. "

"Alas!" Madame Necker would say, "my heart and my regrets are everyearning for a world in which beneficence should be the first of virtues. What reflections do I not make on our own particular case! I thought tosee a golden age under so pure an administration; I see only an age ofiron. All resolves itself into doing as little harm as possible. " 0 thegrievous bitterness of past illusions! Madame Necker consoled herselffor the enmity of the court and for the impotence of that beneficencewhich had been her dream by undertaking on her own account a difficultreform, that of the hospitals of Paris, scenes, as yet, of an almostsavage disorderliness. The sight of sick, dead, and dying huddledtogether in the same bed had excited the horror and the pity of MadameNecker. She opened a little hospital, supported at her expense and underher own direction, which still bears the name of Necker Hospital, andwhich served as a model for the reforms attempted in the great publicestablishments. M. Necker could not deny himself the pleasure ofrendering homage to his wife's efforts in a report to the king; theridicule thrown upon this honest but injudicious gush of conjugal prideproved the truth of what Madame Necker herself said. "I did not know thelanguage of this country. What was called frankness in Switzerlandbecame egotism at Paris. "

[Illustration: Necker Hospital----432]

The active charity of Madame Necker had won her the esteem of theArchbishop of Paris, Christopher de Beaumont, a virtuous, fanaticalpriest; he had gained a great lawsuit against the city of Paris, whichhad to pay him a sum of three hundred thousand livres. "It is our wish, "said the archbishop, "that M. Necker should dispose of these funds to thegreatest advantage for the state, trusting to his zeal, his love of good, and his wisdom, for the most useful employment of the said funds, anddesiring further that no account be required of him, as to suchemployment, by any person whatsoever. " The prelate's three hundredthousand livres were devoted to the internal repairs of the Hotel-Dieu. "How is it, " people asked, "that the archbishop thinks so highly of M. Necker, and even dines with him?" "0!" answered the wicked wags, "it isbecause M. Necker is not a Jansenist, he is only a Protestant. "

Notwithstanding this unusual tolerance on the part of Christopher deBeaumont, his Protestantism often placed M. Necker in an awkwardposition. "The title of liberator of your Protestant brethren would be aflattering one for you, " said one of the pamphlets of the day, "and itwould be yours forever, if you could manage to obtain for them a civilexistence, to procure for them the privileges of a citizen, liberty andtolerance. You are sure of a diminution in the power of the clergy. Your vigorous edict regarding hospitals will pave the way for the ruin oftheir credit and their wealth; you have opened the trenches against them, the great blow has been struck. All else will not fail to succumb; youwill put all the credit of the state and all the money of France in thehands of Protestant bankers, Genevese, English, and Dutch. Contempt willbe the lot of the clergy, your brethren will be held in consideration. These points of view are full of genius, you will bring great address tobear upon them. " M. Necker was at the same time accused of beingfavorable to England. "M. Necker is our best and our last friend on theContinent, " Burke had said in the House of Commons. Knowing better thananybody the burdens which the war imposed upon the state, and which healone had managed to find the means of supporting, M. Necker desiredpeace. It was for Catholics and philosophers that the honor was reservedof restoring to Protestants the first right of citizens, recognition oftheir marriages and a civil status for their children. The court, theparliaments, and the financiers were leagued against M. Necker. "Who, pray, is this adventurer, " cried the fiery Epremesnil, "who is thischarlatan who dares to mete out the patriotism of the French magistracy, who dares to suppose them lukewarm in their attachments and to denouncethem to a young king?" The assessment of the twentieths (tax) had raisedgreat storms; the mass of citizens were taxed rigorously, but theprivileged had preserved the right of themselves making a declaration oftheir possessions; a decree of the council ordered verification of theincome from properties. The Parliaments burst out into remonstrances. "Every owner of property has the right to grant subsidies by himself orby his representatives, " said the Parliament of Paris; "if he do notexercise this right as a member of a national body, it must be revertedto indirectly, otherwise he is no longer master of his own, he is nolonger undisturbed owner. " Confidence in personal declarations, then, isthe only indemnity for the right, which the nation has not exercised buthas not lost, of itself granting and assessing the twentieths. A boldprinciple, even in a free state, and one on which the income-tax rests inEngland, but an untenable principle, without absolute equality on thepart of all citizens and a common right to have their consent asked tothe imposts laid upon them. 

M. Necker did not belong to the court; he had never lived there, he didnot set foot therein when he became minister. A while ago Colbert andLouvois had founded families and taken rank among the great lords whowere jealous of their power and their wealth. Under Louis XVI. , thecourt itself was divided, and one of the queen's particular friends, Baron do Besenval, said, without mincing the matter, in his Memoires: "Igrant that the depredations of the great lords who are at the head of theking's household are enormous, revolting. . . . Necker has on hisside the depreciation into which the great lords have fallen; it is suchthat they are certainly not to be dreaded, and that their opinion doesnot deserve to be taken into consideration in any political speculation. "

M. Necker had a regard for public opinion, indeed he attached greatimportance to it, but he took its influence to be more extensive and itsauthority to rest on a broader bottom than the court or the parliamentswould allow. "The social spirit, the love of regard and of praise, " saidhe, "have raised up in France a tribunal at which all men who draw itseyes upon them are obliged to appear: there public opinion, as from theheight of a throne, decrees prizes and crowns, makes and unmakesreputations. A support is wanted against the vacillations of ministers, and this important support is only to be expected from progress in theenlightenment and resisting power of public opinion. Virtues are morethan ever in want of a stage, and it becomes essential that publicopinion should rouse the actors; it must be supported, then, thisopinion, it must be enlightened, it must be summoned to the aid of ideaswhich concern the happiness of men. "

M. Necker thought the moment had come for giving public opinion thesummons of which he recognized the necessity he felt himself shaken atcourt, weakened in the regard of M. De Maurepas, who was still puissantin spite of his great age, and jealous of him as he had been of M. Turgot; he had made up his mind, he said, to let the nation know how itsaffairs had been managed, and in the early days of the year 1781 hepublished his _Compte rendu au roi_. 

It was a bold innovation; hitherto the administration of the finances hadbeen carefully concealed from the eyes of the public as the greatestsecret in the affairs of state; for the first time the nation was calledupon to take cognizance of the position of the public estate, and, consequently, pass judgment upon its administration. "The principalcause of the financial prosperity of England, in the very midst of war, said the minister, "is to be found in the confidence with which theEnglish regard their administration and the source of the government'scredit. " The annual publication of a financial report was, M. Neckerthought, likely to inspire the same confidence in France. It was payinga great compliment to public opinion to attribute to it the power derivedfrom free institutions and to expect from satisfied curiosity the seriousresults of a control as active as it was minute. 

The Report to the king was, moreover, not of a nature to stand theinvestigation of a parliamentary committee. In publishing it M. Neckerhad a double end in view. He wanted, by an able exposition of thecondition of the treasury, to steady the public credit which wasbeginning to totter, to bring in fresh subscribers for the loans whichwere so necessary to support the charges of the war; he wanted at thesame time to call to mind the benefits and successes of his ownadministration, to restore the courage of his friends and reduce hisenemies to silence. With this complication of intentions, he had drawnup a report on the ordinary state of expenditure and receipts, designedlyomitting the immense sacrifices demanded by the land and sea armaments aswell as the advances made to the United States. He thus arrived, by aprocess rather ingenious than honest, at the establishment of a budgetshowing a surplus of ten million livres. The maliciousness of M. DeMaurepas found a field for its exercise in the calculations which he hadofficially overhauled in council. The Report was in a cover of bluemarbled paper. Have you read the _Conte bleu_ (a lying story)?" heasked everybody who went to see him; and, when he was told of the greateffect which M. Necker's work was producing on the public: "I know, Iknow, " said the veteran minister, shrugging his shoulders, "we havefallen from Turgomancy into Necromancy. "

M. Necker had boldly defied the malevolence of his enemies. "I havenever, " said he, "offered sacrifice to influence or power. I havedisdained to indulge vanity. I have renounced the sweetest of privatepleasures, that of serving my friends or winning the gratitude of thosewho are about me. If anybody owes to my mere favor a place, a post, letus have the name. " He enumerated all the services he had rendered to theking, to the state, to the nation, with that somewhat pompoussatisfaction which was afterwards discernible in his Memoires. There itwas that he wrote: "Perhaps he who contributed, by his energies, to keepoff new imposts during five such expensive years; he who was able todevote to all useful works the funds which had been employed upon them inthe most tranquil times; he who gratified the king's heart by providinghim with the means of distributing among his provinces the same aids asduring the war, and even greater; he who, at the same time, proffered tothe monarch's amiable impatience the resources necessary in order tocommence, in the midst of war, the improvement of the prisons and thehospitals; he who indulged his generous inclinations by inspiring himwith the desire of extinguishing the remnants of serfage; he who, rendering homage to the monarch's character, seconded his dispositiontowards order and economy; he who pleaded for the establishment ofpaternal administrations in which the simplest dwellers in thecountry-places might have some share; he who, by manifold cares, bymanifold details, caused the prince's name to be blest even in the hovelsof the poor, --perhaps such a servant has some right to dare, withoutblushing, to point out, as one of the first rules of administration, loveand care for the people. "

"On the whole, " says M. Droz, with much justice, in his excellent_Histoire du regne de Louis XVI. , _ "the Report was a very ingenious work, which appeared to prove a great deal and proved nothing. " M. Necker, however, had made no mistake about the effect which might be produced bythis confidence, apparently so bold, as to the condition of affairs in asingle year, 1781, the loans amounted to two hundred and thirty-sixmillions, thus exceeding in a few months the figures reached in the fourprevious years. A chorus of praises arose even in England, reflectedfrom the minister on to his sovereign. "It is in economy, " said Mr. Burke, "that Louis XVI. Has found resources sufficient to keep up thewar. In the first two years of this war, he imposed no burden on hispeople. The third year has arrived, there has as yet been no question ofany impost, indeed I believe that those which are a matter of course intime of war have not yet been put on. I apprehend that in the long runit will no doubt be necessary for France to have recourse to imposts, butthese three years saved will scatter their beneficent influence over awhole century. The French people feel the blessing of having a masterand minister devoted to economy; economy has induced this monarch totrench upon his own splendor rather than upon his people's subsistence. He has found in the suppression of a great number of places a resourcefor continuing the war without increasing his expenses. He has strippedhimself of the magnificence and pomp of royalty, but he has manned anavy; he has reduced the number of persons in his private service, but hehas increased that of his vessels. Louis XVI. , like a patriotic king, has shown sufficient firmness to protect M. Necker, a foreigner, withoutsupport or connection at court, who owes his elevation to nothing but hisown merit and the discernment of the sovereign who had sagacity enough todiscover him, and to his wisdom which can appreciate him. It is a nobleexample to follow: if we would conquer France, it is on this ground andwith her own weapons that we must fight her: economy and reforms. "

It was those reforms, for which the English orator gave credit toM. Necker and Louis XVI. , that rendered the minister's fall more imminentevery day. He had driven into coalition against him the powerfulinfluences of the courtiers, of the old families whose hereditarydestination was office in the administration, and of the parliamenteverywhere irritated and anxious. He had lessened the fortunes andposition of the two former classes, and his measures tended to strip themagistracy of the authority whereof they were so jealous. "Whencircumstances require it, " M. Necker had said in the Report, "theaugmentation of imposts is in the hands of the king, for it is the powerto order them which constitutes sovereign greatness;" and, in a secretMemoire which saw publicity by perfidious means: "The imposts are attheir height, and minds are more than ever turned towards administrativesubjects. The result is a restless and confused criticism which addsconstant fuel to the desire felt by the parliaments to have a hand in thematter. This feeling on their part becomes more and more manifest, andthey set to work, like all those bodies that wish to acquire power, byspeaking in the name of the people, calling themselves defenders of thenation's rights; there can be no doubt but that, though they are strongneither in knowledge nor in pure love for the well-being of the state, they will put themselves forward on all occasions as long as they believethat they are supported by public opinion. It is necessary, therefore, either to take this support away from them, or to prepare for repeatedcontests which will disturb the tranquillity of your Majesty's reign, andwill lead successively either to a degradation of authority or to extrememeasures of which one cannot exactly estimate the consequences. "

In order to apply a remedy to the evils he demonstrated as well as tothose which he foresaw, M. Necker had borrowed some shreds from the greatsystem of local assemblies devised by M. Turgot; he had proposed to theking and already organized in Berry the formation of provincialassemblies, recruited in every district (_generalite_) from among thethree orders of the noblesse, the clergy, and the third estate. A partof the members were to be chosen by the king; these were commissioned toelect their colleagues, and the assembly was afterwards to fill up itsown vacancies as they occurred. The provincial administration was thusconfided almost entirely to the assemblies. That of Berry had alreadyabolished forced labor, and collected two hundred thousand livres byvoluntary contribution for objects of public utility. The assembly ofHaute-Guyenne was in course of formation. The districts (_generalites_)of Grenoble, Montauban, and Moulins claimed the same privilege. Theparliaments were wroth to see this assault upon their power. Louis XVI. Had hesitated a long while before authorizing the attempt. "Thepresidents-born, the councillors, the members of the states-districts(_pays d'etats_), do not add to the happiness of Frenchmen in thedistricts which are under their administration, " wrote the king in hismarginal notes to M. Necker's scheme. "Most certainly Brittany, with itsstates, is not happier than Normandy which happens to be without them. The most just and most natural among the powers of the parliaments isthat of hanging robbers of the finances. In the event of provincialadministrations, it must not be taken away. It concerns and appertainsto the repose of my people to preserve privileges. "

The instinct of absolute power and the traditions of the kingshipstruggled in the narrow mind and honest heart of Louis XVI. Against thesincere desire to ameliorate the position of his people and against avague impression of new requirements. It was to the former of thesemotives that M. De Vergennes appealed in his Note to the king on theeffect of the Report. "Your Majesty, " he said, "is enjoying thetranquillity which you owe to the long experience of your ancestors, andto the painful labors of the great ministers who succeeded inestablishing subordination and general respect in France. There is nolonger in France clergy, or noblesse, or third estate; the distinction isfactitious, merely representative and without real meaning; the monarchspeaks, all else are people, and all else obey. 

"M. Necker does not appear content with this happy state of things. Ourinevitable evils and the abuses flowing from such a position are in hiseyes monstrosities; a foreigner, a republican, and a Protestant, insteadof being struck with the majestic totality of this harmony, he sees onlythe discordants, and he makes out of them a totality which he desires tohave the pleasure and the distinction of reforming in order to obtain forhimself the fame of a Solon or a Lycurgus. 

"Your Majesty, Sir, told me to open my heart to you: a contest has begunbetween the regimen of France and the regimen of M. Necker. If his ideasshould triumph over those which have been consecrated by long experience, after the precedent of Law, of Mazarin, and of the Lorraine princes, M. Necker, with his Genevese and Protestant plans, is quite prepared toset up in France a system in the finance, or a league in the state, or a'Fronde' against the established administration. He has conducted theking's affairs in a manner so contrary to that of his predecessors thathe is at this moment suspected by the clergy, hateful to the grandees ofthe state, hounded to the death by the heads of finance (_la hautefinance_), dishonored amongst the magistracy. His Report, on the whole, is a mere appeal to the people, the pernicious consequences whereof tothis monarchy cannot as yet be felt or foreseen. M. Necker, it is true, has won golden opinions from the philosophy and the innovators of thesedays, but your Majesty has long ago appraised the character of suchsupport. In his Report M. Necker lays it down that advantage has beentaken of the veil drawn over the state of the finances in order toobtain, amidst the general confusion, a credit which the state would nototherwise be entitled to. It is a new position, and a remarkable one inour history is that of M. Necker teaching the party he calls publicopinion that under a good king, under a monarch beloved of the people, the minister of finance has become the sole hope, the sole security, byhis moral qualities, of the lenders and experts who watch the government. It will be long before your Majesty will close up the wound inflictedupon the dignity of the throne by the hand of the very person in theofficial position to preserve it and make it respected by the people. "

The adroit malevolence of M. De Vergennes had managed to involve in oneand the same condemnation the bold innovations of M. Necker and thefaults he had committed from a self-conceit which was sensitive andfrequently hurt. He, had not mentioned M. De Maurepas in his longexposition of public administration, and it was upon the virtue of thefinance-minister that he had rested all the fabric of public confidence. The contest was every day becoming fiercer and the parties warmer. Theuseful reforms, the generous concern for the woes and the wants of thepeople, the initiative of which belonged to M. Necker, but which the kingalways regarded with favor, were by turns exclusively attributed to theminister and to Louis XVI. In the pamphlets published every day. MadameNecker became anxious and heartbroken at the vexation which such attackscaused her husband. "The slightest cloud upon his character was thegreatest suffering the affairs of life could cause him, " writes Madame deStael; "the worldly aim of all his actions, the land-breeze which spedhis bark, was love of reputation. " Madame Necker took it into her headto write, without her husband's knowledge, to M. De Maurepas to complainof the libels spread about against M. Necker, and ask him to take thenecessary measures against these anonymous publications this wasappealing to the very man who secretly encouraged them. . Although MadameNecker had plenty of wits, she, bred in the mountains of Switzerland, hadno conception of such an idiosyncrasy as that of M. De Maurepas, a manwho saw in an outspoken expression of feeling only an opportunity ofdiscovering the vulnerable point. As soon as he knew M. Necker'ssusceptibility he flattered himself that, by irritating it, he woulddrive him to give in his resignation. " [_onsiderations sur la Revolutionfrangaise, _t. I. P. 105. ]

M. Necker had gained a victory over M. De Maurepas when he succeeded ingetting M. De Sartines and the Prince of Montbarrey superseded by MM. DeCastries and de Segur. Late lieutenant of police, with no knowledge ofadministration, M. De Sartines, by turns rash and hesitating, had failedin the difficult department of the ministry of marine during a distantwar waged on every sea; to him were attributed the unsatisfatory resultsobtained by the great armaments of France; he was engaged in the intrigueagainst M. Necker. The latter relied upon the influence of the queen, who supported MM. De Castries and de Segur, both friends of hers. M. DeSartines was disgraced; he dragged down with him in his fall the Princeof Montbarrey, the heretofore indifferent lieutenant of M. De Saint-Germain. M. De Maurepas was growing feeble, the friends of M. Neckerdeclared that he drivelled, and the latter already aspired to the agedminister's place. As a first step, the director-general of financeboldly demanded to be henceforth admitted to the council. 

Louis XVI. Hesitated, perplexed and buffeted between contrary influencesand desires. He was grateful to M. Necker for the courageoussuppressions he had accomplished, and for the useful reforms whereof thehonor was to remain inseparable from his name; it was at M. Necker'sadvice that he had abolished mortmain in his dominions. A remnant offeudal serfdom still deprived certain of the rural classes, subject tothe tenement law, of the right to marry or bequeath what they possessedto their children without permission of their lord. If they left theland which made them liable to this tyranny, their heritage reverted ofright to the proprietor of the fief. Perfectly admitting the iniquity ofthe practice, Louis XVI. Did not want to strike a blow at the principleof property; he confined himself to giving a precedent which theParliament enregistered with this reservation: "Without there beinganything in the present edict which can in any way interfere with therights of lords. " A considerable number of noblemen imitated thesovereign; many held out, amongst others the chapter of St. Claude; theenfranchisement of the serfs of the Jura, in whose favor Voltaire had butlately pleaded, would have cost the chapter twenty-five thousand livres ayear; the monks demanded an indemnification from government. The bodyserfs, who were in all places persecuted by the signiorial rights, andwho could not make wills even on free soil, found themselves everywhereenfranchised from this harsh law. Louis XVI. Abolished the _droit desuite_ (henchman-law), as well as the use of the preparatory question orpreliminary torture applied to defendants. The regimen of prisons was atthe same time ameliorated, the dark dungeons of old times restored todaylight the wretches who were still confined in them. 

So many useful and beneficent measures, in harmony with the king's honestand generous desires, but opposed to the prejudices still potent in manyminds and against the interests of many people, kept up about M. Necker, for all the esteem and confidence of the general public, powerfulhatreds, ably served: his admission to the council was decidedly refused. "You may be admitted, " said M. De Maurepas with his, usual malice, "ifyou please to abjure the errors of Calvin. " M. Necker did not deign toreply. "You who, being quite certain that I would not consent, proposedto me a change of religion in order to smooth away the obstacles you putin my path, " says M. Necker in his Memoires, "what would you not havethought me worthy of after such baseness? It was rather in respect ofthe vast finance-administration that this scruple should have beenraised. Up to the moment when it was intrusted to me, it was uncertainwhether I was worth an exception to the general rules. What newobligation could be imposed upon him who held the post before promising?"

"If I was passionately attached to the place I occupied, " says M: Neckeragain, "it is on grounds for which I have no reason to blush. Iconsidered that the administrator of finance, who is responsible on hishonor for ways and means, ought, for the welfare of the state and for hisown reputation, to be invited, especially after several years' ministry, to the deliberations touching peace and war, and I looked upon it as veryimportant that he should be able to join his reflections to those of theking's other servants: A place in the council may, as a general rule, bea matter in which self-love is interested; but I am going to say a proudthing: when one has cherished another passion, when one has sought praiseand glory, when one has followed after those triumphs which belong toone's self alone, one regards rather coolly such functions as are sharedwith others. "

"Your Majesty saw that M. Necker, in his dangerous proposal, was stickingto his place with a tenacity which lacks neither reason nor method, " saidM. De Vergennes in a secret Note addressed to the king; "he aspires tonew favors, calculated from their nature to scare and rouse that longarray of enemies by whom his religion, his birth, his wife, the epochsand improvements of their fortune, are, at every moment of hisadministration, exposed to the laughter or the scrutiny of the public. Your Majesty finds yourself once more in the position in which you werewith respect to M. Turgot, when you thought proper to accelerate hisretirement; the same dangers and the same inconveniences arise from thenature of their analogous systems. "

It was paying M. Necker a great compliment to set his financial talentson a par with the grand views, noble schemes, and absolutedisinterestedness of M. Turgot. Nevertheless, when the latter fell, public opinion had become, if not hostile, at any rate indifferent tohim; it still remained faithful to M. Necker. Withdrawing hispretensions to admission into the council, the director-general offinance was very urgent to obtain other marks of the royal confidence, necessary, he said, to keep up the authority of his administration. M. De Maurepas had no longer the pretext of religion, but he hit uponothers which wounded M. Necker deeply; the latter wrote to the king on asmall sheet of common paper, without heading or separate line, and as ifhe were suddenly resuming all the forms of republicanism: "Theconversation I have had with M. De Maurepas permits me to no longer deferplacing my resignation in the king's hands. I feel my heart quitelacerated by it, and I dare to hope that his Majesty will deign to. Preserve some remembrance of five years' successful but painful toil, andespecially of the boundless zeal with which I devoted myself to hisservice. " [May 19, 1783. ]

M. Necker had been treated less harshly than M. Turgot. The kingaccepted his resignation without having provoked it. The queen made someefforts to retain him, but M. Necker remained inflexible. "Reserved ashe was, " says his daughter, "he had a proud disposition, a sensitivespirit; he was a man of energy in his whole style of sentiments. " Thefallen minister retired to his country-house at St. Ouen. 

He was accompanied thither by the respect and regret of the public, andthe most touching proofs of their esteem. "You would have said, to seethe universal astonishment, that never was news so unexpected as that ofM. Necker's resignation, " writes Grimm in his _Correspondancelitteraire;_ "consternation was depicted on every face; those who feltotherwise were in a very small minority; they would have blushed to showit. The walks, the cafes, all the public thoroughfares were full ofpeople, but an extraordinary silence prevailed. People looked at oneanother, and mournfully wrung one another's hands, as if in the presence, I would say, of a public calamity, were it not that these first momentsof distress resembled rather the grief of a disconsolate family which hasjust lost the object and the mainstay of its hopes. The same eveningthey gave, at the Comedie-Francaise, a performance of the _Partie deChasse de Henri IV_. I have often seen at the play in Paris allusions topassing events caught up with great cleverness, but I never saw any whichwere so with such palpable and general an interest. Every piece ofapplause, when there was anything concerning Sully, seemed, so to speak, to bear a special character, a shade appropriate to the sentiment theaudience felt; it was by turns that of sorrow and sadness, of gratitudeand respect; the applause often came so as to interrupt the actor themoment it was foreseen that the sequel of a speech might be applicable tothe public feeling towards M. Necker. The players have been to maketheir excuses to the lieutenant of police, they established theirinnocence by proving that the piece had been on the list for a week. They have been forgiven, and it was thought enough to take thisopportunity of warning the journalists not to speak of M. Necker for thefuture-well or ill. "

M. Necker derived some balm from these manifestations of public feeling, but the love of power, the ambition that prompted the work he hadundertaken, the bitterness of hopes deceived still possessed his soul. When he entered his study at St. Ouen, and saw on his desk the memorandaof his schemes, his plans for reforming the gabel, for suppressingcustom-houses, for extending provincial assemblies, he threw himself backin his arm-chair, and, dropping the papers he held in his hand, burstinto tears. Like him, M. Turgot had wept when he heard of there-establishment of forced labor and jurands. 

"I quitted office, " says M. Necker, "leaving funds secured for a wholeyear; I quitted it when there were in the royal treasury more ready moneyand more realizable effects than had ever been there within the memory ofman, and at a moment when the public confidence, completely restored, hadrisen to the highest pitch. 

"Under other circumstances I should have been more appreciated; but it iswhen one can be rejected and when one is no longer essentially necessarythat one is permitted to fall back upon one's own reflections. Now thereis a contemptible feeling which may be easily found lurking in therecesses of the human heart, that of preferring for one's retirement themoment at which one might enjoy the embarrassment of one's successor. Ishould have been forever ashamed of such conduct; I chose that which wasalone becoming for him who, having clung to his place from honorablemotives, cannot, on quitting it, sever himself for one instant from thecommonwealth. "

M. Necker fell with the fixed intention and firm hope of soon regainingpower. He had not calculated either the strength or inveteracy of hisenemies, or the changeableness of that public opinion on which he relied. Before the distresses of the state forced Louis XVI. To recall a ministerwhom he had deeply wounded, the evils which the latter had sought topalliate would have increased with frightful rapidity, and the remedywould have slipped definitively out of hands too feeble for the immenseburden they were still ambitious to bear. 

CHAPTER LIX. ----LOUIS XVI. --M. DE CALONNE AND THE ASSEMBLY OF NOTABLES. 1781-1787. 

We leave behind us the great and serious attempts at reform. The vastprojects of M. Turgot, seriously meant and founded on reason, for alltheir somewhat imaginative range, had become, in M. Necker's hands, financial expedients or necessary remedies, honorably applied to the mostsalient evils; the future, however, occupied the mind of the ministerjust fallen; he did not content himself with the facile gratifications ofa temporary and disputed power, he had wanted to reform, he had hoped tofound; his successors did not raise so high their real desires and hopes. M. Turgot had believed in the eternal potency of abstract laws; he hadrelied upon justice and reason to stop the kingdom and the nation on thebrink of the abyss; M. Necker had nursed the illusion that his courageand his intelligence, his probity and his reputation would suffice forall needs and exorcise all dangers; both of them had found themselvesthwarted in their projects, deceived in their hopes, and finallyabandoned by a monarch as weak and undecided as he was honest and good. M. De Turgot had lately died (March 20, 1781), in bitter sorrow andanxiety; M. Necker was waiting, in his retirement at St. Ouen, for publicopinion, bringing its weight to bear upon the king's will, to recall himto office. M. De Maurepas was laughing in that little closet atVersailles which he hardly quitted any more: "The man impossible toreplace is still unborn, " he would say to those who were alarmed at M. Necker's resignation. M. Joly de Fleury, councillor of state, wassummoned to the finance-department; but so strong was the current ofpopular opinion that he did not take up his quarters in the residence ofthe comptroller-general, and considered himself bound to pay M. Necker avisit at St. Ouen. 

Before experience had been long enough to demonstrate the error committedby M. De Maurepas in depriving the king of M. Necker's able and honestservices, the veteran minister was dead (November 21, 1784). In theteeth of all inclinations opposed to his influence, he had managed to thelast to preserve his sway over the mind of Louis XVI. : prudent, moderate, imperturbable in the evenness of his easy and at the same time sarcastictemper, he had let slide, so far as he was concerned, the reformers andtheir projects, the foreign war, the wrath of the parliaments, theremonstrances of the clergy, without troubling himself at any shock, without ever persisting to obstinacy in any course, ready to modify hispolicy according to circumstances and the quarter from which the windblew, always master, at bottom, in the successive cabinets, andpreserving over all the ministers, whoever they might be, an ascendencymore real than it appeared. The king regretted him sincerely. "Ah!"said he, "I shall no more hear, every morning, my friend over my head. "The influence of M. De Maurepas had often been fatal; he had remained, however, like a pilot still holding with feeble hand the rudder he hadhandled for so long. After him, all direction and all predominance ofmind disappeared from the conduct of the government. "The loss is morethan we can afford, " said clear-sighted folks already. 

For a moment, and almost without consideration, the king was tempted toexpand his wings and take the government into his own hands; he had aliking for and confidence in M. De Vergennes; but the latter, a man ofcapacity in the affairs of his own department and much esteemed inEurope, was timid, devoid of ambition and always disposed to shiftresponsibility into the hands of absolute power. Notwithstanding somebolder attempts, the death of M. De Maurepas did not seriously augmenthis authority. The financial difficulties went on getting worse; onprinciple and from habit, the new comptroller-general, like M. DeVergennes, was favorable to the traditional maxims and practices of theold French administration; he was, however, dragged into the system ofloans by the necessities of the state, as well as by the ideas impressedupon men's minds by M. Necker. To loans succeeded imposts; the dues andtaxes were increased uniformly, without regard for privileges and theburdens of different provinces; the Parliament of Paris, in the body ofwhich the comptroller-general counted many relatives and friends, hadenregistered the new edicts without difficulty; the Parliament ofBesangon protested, and its resistance went so far as to place thecomptroller-general on his defence. "All that is done in my name is doneby my orders, " replied Louis XVI. To the deputation from Franche-Comte. The deputation required nothing less than the convocation of theStates-general. On all sides the nation was clamoring after this ancientremedy for their woes; the most clear-sighted had hardly a glimmering ofthe transformation which had taken place in ideas as well as manners;none had guessed what, in the reign of Louis XVI. , those States-generalwould be which had remained dumb since the regency of Mary de Medici. 

Still more vehement and more proud than the Parliamentarians, the statesof Brittany, cited to elect the deputies indicated by the governor, hadrefused any subsidy. "Obey, " said the king to the deputies; "my ordershave nothing in them contrary to the privileges which my predecessorswere graciously pleased to grant to my province of Brittany. " Scarcelyhad the Bretons returned to the states, when M. Amelot, who had charge ofthe affairs of Brittany, received a letter which he did not dare to placebefore the king's eyes. "Sir, " said the states of Brittany, "we arealarmed and troubled when we see our franchises and our liberties, conditions essential to the contract which gives you Brittany, regardedas mere privileges, founded upon a special concession. We cannot hidefrom you, Sir, the direful consequences of expressions so opposed to theconstant principles of our national code. You are the father of yourpeople, and exercise no sway but that of the laws; they rule by you andyou by them. The conditions which secure to you our allegiance form apart of the positive laws of your realm. " Contrary to all receivedusages during the session of the states, the royal troops marched intoRennes; the noblesse refused to deliberate, so long as the assembly hadnot recovered its independence. The governor applied to the petty nobleswho preponderated in their order; ignorant and poor as they were, theyallowed themselves to be bought, their votes carried the day, and thesubsidies were at last voted, notwithstanding the opposition on the partof the most weighty of the noblesse; a hundred of them persistently staidaway. 

Internal quarrels in the cabinet rendered the comptroller-general'ssituation daily more precarious; he gave in his resignation. The kingsent for M. D'Ormesson, councillor of state, of a virtue and integritywhich were traditional in his family, but without experience of affairsand without any great natural capacity. He was, besides, very young, andhe excused himself from accepting such a post on the score of his age andhis feeble lights. "I am only thirty-one, Sir, " he said. "I am youngerthan you, " replied the king, "and my post is more difficult than yours. "A few months later, the honest magistrate, overwhelmed by a task beyondhis strength, had made up his mind to resign; he did not want to have anyhand in the growing disorder of the finances; the king's brothers keptpressing him to pay their debts; Louis XVI. Himself, without any warningto the comptroller-general, had just purchased Rambouillet from the Dukeof Penthievre, giving a bond of fourteen millions; but Madame d'Ormessonhad taken a liking to grandeur; she begged her husband hard to remain, and he did. It was not long before the embarrassments of the treasuryupset his judgment: the tax-farming contract, so ably concluded by M. Necker, was all at once quashed; a _regie_ was established; the Discount-fund (_Caisse d'Escompte+) had lent the treasury six millions: the secretof this loan was betrayed, and the holders of bills presented themselvesin a mass demanding liquidation; a decree of the council forbade paymentin coin over a hundred livres, and gave the bills a forced currency. Thepanic became general; the king found himself obliged to dismiss M. D'Ormesson, who was persecuted for a long while by the witticisms of thecourt. His incapacity had brought his virtue into ridicule. 

Marshal de Castries addressed to the king a private note. "I esteem M. D'Ormesson's probity, " said the minister of marine frankly, "but if thefinancial affairs should fall into such discredit that your Majesty findsyourself forced at last to make a change, I dare entreat you to think ofthe valuable man who is now left unemployed; I do beg you to reflectthat, without Colbert, Louis XIV. Would never perhaps have been calledLouis le Grand; that the wish of the nation, to be taken into account bya good king, is secretly demanding, Sir, that the enlightened, economical, and incorruptible man whom Providence has given to yourMajesty, should be recalled to his late functions. The errors of yourother ministers, Sir, are nearly always reparable, and their places areeasily filled. But the choice of him to whom is committed the happinessof twenty-four millions of souls and the duty of making your authoritycherished is of frightful importance. With M. Necker, Sir, even inpeace, the imposts would be accepted, whatever they might be, without amurmur. The conviction would be that inevitable necessity had laid downthe laws for them, and that a wise use of them would justify them, . . . Whereas, if your Majesty puts to hazard an administration on which allthe rest depend, it is to be feared that the difficulties will bemultiplied with the selections you will be obliged to have recourse to;you will find one day destroy what another set up, and at last there willarrive one when no way will be seen of serving the state but by failingto keep all your Majesty's engagements, and thereby putting an end to allthe confidence which the commencement of your reign inspired. "

The honest zeal of Marshal de Castries for the welfare of the state hadinspired him with prophetic views; but royal weakness exhibits sometimesunexpected doggedness. "As regards M. Necker, " answered Louis XVI. , "Iwill tell you frankly that after the manner in which I treated him andthat in which he left me, I couldn't think of employing him at all. "After some court-intrigues which brought forward names that were not ingood odor, that of Foulon, late superintendent of the forces, and of theArchbishop of Toulouse, Lomenie de Brienne, the king sent for M. DeCalonne, superintendent of Lille, and intrusted him with the post ofcomptroller-general. 

It was court-influence that carried the day, and, in the court, that ofthe queen, prompted by her favorite, Madame de Polignac. Tenderlyattached to his wife, who had at last given him a son, Louis XVI. , delivered from the predominant influence of M. De Maurepas, was yielding, almost unconsciously, to a new power. Marie Antoinette, who had longheld aloof from politics, henceforth changed her part; at the instigationof the friends whom she honored with a perhaps excessive intimacy, shebegan to take an important share in affairs, a share which was oftenexaggerated by public opinion, more and more hard upon her every day. 

Received on her arrival in France with some mistrust, of which she hadmanaged to get the better amongst the public, having been loved andadmired as long as she was dauphiness, the young queen, after her longperiod of constraint in the royal family, had soon profited by herfreedom; she had a horror of etiquette, to which the court of Austria hadnot made her accustomed; she gladly escaped from the grand palaces ofLouis XIV. , where the traditions of his reign seemed still to exercise asecret influence, in order to seek at her little manor-house of Trianonnew amusements and rustic pleasures, innocent and simple, and attendedwith no other inconvenience but the air of cliquedom and almost ofmystery in which the queen's guests enveloped themselves. Public rumorsoon reached the ears of Maria Theresa. She, tenderly concerned for herdaughter's happiness and conduct, wrote to her on this subject:--

"I am always sure of success if you take anything in hand, the good Godhaving endowed you with such a face and so many charms besides, added toyour goodness, that hearts are yours if you try and exert yourself, but Icannot conceal from you, nevertheless, my apprehension: it reaches mefrom every quarter and only too often, that you have diminished yourattentions and politenesses in the matter of saying something agreeableand becoming to everybody, and of making distinctions between persons. It is even asserted that you are beginning to indulge in ridicule, bursting out laughing in people's faces; this might do you infinite harmand very properly, and even raise doubts as to the goodness of yourheart; in order to amuse five or six young ladies or gentlemen, you mightlose all else. This defect, my dear child, is no light one in aprincess; it leads to imitation, in order to pay their court, on the partof all the courtiers, folks ordinarily with nothing to do and the leastestimable in the state, and it keeps away honest folks who do not likebeing turned into ridicule or exposed to the necessity of having theirfeelings hurt, and in the end you are left with none but bad company, which by degrees leads to all manner of vices. . . . Likings carriedtoo far are baseness or weakness; one must learn to play one's partproperly if one wishes to be esteemed; you can do it if you will butrestrain yourself a little and follow the advice given you; if you areheedless, I foresee great troubles for you, nothing but squabbles andpetty cabals which will render your days miserable. I wish to preventthis and to conjure you to take the advice of a mother who knows theworld, who idolizes her children, and whose only desire is to pass hersorrowful days in being of service to them. "

Wise counsels of the most illustrious of mothers uselessly lavished uponher daughters! Already the Queen of Naples was beginning to betray thefatal tendencies of her character; whilst, in France, frivolouspleasures, unreflecting friendships, and petty court-intrigues were dayby day undermining the position of Marie Antoinette. "I am much affectedat the situation of my daughter, " wrote Maria Theresa, in 1776, to AbbeVermond, whom she had herself not long ago placed with the dauphiness, then quite a child, and whose influence was often pernicious: "she ishurrying at a great pace to her ruin, surrounded as she is by baseflatterers who urge her on for their own interests. "

Almost at the same moment she was writing to the queen "I am very pleasedto learn that you had nothing to do with the change that has been made inthe cases of MM. Turgot and Malesherbes, who, however, have a greatreputation among the public and whose only fault, in my opinion, is thatthey attempted too much at once. You say that you are not sorry; youmust have your own good reasons, but the public, for some time past, hasnot spoken so well of you, and attributes to you point blank pettypractices which would not be seemly in your place. The king loving you, his ministers must needs respect you; by asking nothing that is not rightand proper, you make yourself respected and loved at the same time. Ifear nothing in your case (as you are so young) but too much dissipation. You never did like reading, or any sort of application: this has oftencaused me anxieties. I was so pleased to see you devoted to music; thatis why I have often plagued you with questions about your reading. Formore than a year past there has no longer been any question of reading orof music; I hear of nothing but horse-racing, hunting too, and alwayswithout the king and with a number of young people not over-select, whichdisquiets me a great deal, loving you as I do so tenderly. I must say, all these pleasures in which the king takes no part, are not proper. Youwill tell me, 'he knows, he approves of them. ' I will tell you, he is agood soul, and therefore you ought to be circumspect and combine youramusements with his; in the long run you can only be happy through suchtender and sincere union and affection. "

[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE 456]

The misfortune and cruel pangs of their joint lives were alone destinedto establish between Marie Antoinette and her husband that union and thatintimacy which their wise mother would have liked to create in the daysof tranquillity. Affectionate and kind, sincerely devoted to his wife, Louis XVI. Was abrupt and awkward; his occupations and his tastes wereopposed to all the elegant or frivolous instincts of the young queen. He liked books and solid books; his cabinet was hung with geographicalcharts which he studied with care; he had likewise a passion formechanical works, and would shut himself up for hours together in aworkshop in company with a blacksmith named Gamin. "The king used tohide from the queen and the court to forge and file with me, " this manwould remark in after days: "to carry about his anvil and mine, withoutanybody's knowing anything about it required a thousand stratagems whichit would take no end of time to tell of. " You will allow that I shouldmake a sorry figure at a forge, " writes the queen to her brother JosephII. ; "I should not be Vulcan, and the part of Venus might displease theking more than those tastes of mine of which he does not disapprove. "

Louis XVI. Did not disapprove, but without approving. As he was weak indealing with his ministers, from kindliness and habit, so he was towardsthe queen with much better reason. Whilst she was scampering to theOpera ball, and laughing at going thither in a hackney coach one day whenher carriage had met with an accident, the king went to bed every eveningat the same hour, and the talk of the public began to mix up the name ofMarie Antoinette with stories of adventure. In the hard winter of 1775, whilst the court amused themselves by going about in elegantly got-upsledges, the king sent presents of wood to the poor. "There are mysledges, sirs, " said he as he pointed out to the gentlemen in attendancethe heavy wagons laden with logs. The queen more gladly took part in thecharities than in the smithy. She distributed alms bountifully; in amoment of gratitude the inhabitants of Rue St. Honore had erected in herhonor a snow pyramid bearing these verses:

 Fair queen, whose goodness is thy chiefest grace, With our good king, here occupy thy place; Though this frail monument be ice or snow, Our warm hearts are not so. 

[Illustration: "There are my Sledges, Sirs. "----458]

Bursts of kindness and sympathy, sincere as they may be, do not sufficeto win the respect and affection of a people. The reign of Louis XV. Had used up the remnants of traditional veneration, the new right of thepublic to criticise sovereigns was being exercised malignantly upon theyouthful thoughtlessnesses of Marie Antoinette. 

In the home circle of the royal family, the queen had not found anyintimate; the king's aunts had never taken to her; the crafty ability ofthe Count of Provence and the giddiness of the Count of Artois seemed inthe prudent eye of Maria Theresa to be equally dangerous; MadameElizabeth, the heroic and pious companion of the evil days, was still amere child; already the Duke of Chartres, irreligious and debauched, displayed towards the queen, who kept him at a distance, symptoms of abitter rancor which was destined to bear fruit. Marie Antoinette, accustomed to a numerous family, affectionately united, sought friendswho could "love her for herself, " as she used to say: an illusive hope, in one of her rank, for which she was destined to pay dearly. She formedan attachment to the young Princess of Lamballe, daughter-in-law of theDuke of Penthievre, a widow at twenty years of age, affectionate andgentle, for whom she revived the post of lady-superintendent, abolishedby Mary Leczinska. The court was in commotion, and the public murmured;the queen paid no heed, absorbed as she was in the new delights offriendship; the intimacy, in which there was scarcely any inequality, with the Princess of Lamballe, was soon followed by a more perilousaffection. The Countess Jules de Polignac, who was generally detainedin the country by the narrowness of her means, appeared at court on theoccasion of a festival; the queen was pleased with her, made her remain, and loaded her, her and her family, not only with favors, but withunbounded and excessive familiarity. Finding the court circles aconstraint and an annoyance, Marie Antoinette became accustomed to seekin the drawing-room of Madame de Polignac amusements and a freedom whichled before long to sinister gossip. Those who were admitted to thisroyal intimacy were not always prudent or discreet, they abused theconfidence as well as the generous kindness of the queen; their ambitionand their cupidity were equally concerned in urging Marie Antoinette totake in the government a part for which she was not naturally inclined. M. De Calonne was intimate with Madame de Polignac; she, created aduchess and appointed governess to the children of France (the royalchildren), was all-powerful with her friend the queen; she dwelt uponthe talents of M. De Calonne, the extent and fertility of his resources;M. De Vergennes was won over, and the office of comptroller-general, which had but lately been still discharged with lustre by M. Turgot andM. Necker, fell on the 30th of October, 1784, into the hands of M. DeCalonne. 

Born in 1734 at Douai, Charles Alexander de Calonne belonged to a familyof magistrates of repute and influence in their province; he commencedhis hereditary career by the perfidious manoeuvres which contributed tothe ruin of M. De la Chalotais. Discredited from the very first by adishonorable action, he had invariably managed to get his vicesforgotten, thanks to the charms of a brilliant and fertile wit. Prodigaland irregular as superintendent of Lille, he imported into thecomptroller-generalship habits and ideas opposed to all the principles ofLouis XVI. "The peace would have given hope a new run, " says M. Neckerin his Memoires, "if the king had not confided the important functions ofadministering the finances to a man more worthy of being the hero ofcourtiers than the minister of a king. The reputation of M. De Calonnewas a contrast to the morality of Louis XVI. , and I know not by whatargumentation, by what ascendency such a prince was induced to give aplace in his council to a magistrate who was certainly found agreeable inthe most elegant society of Paris, but whose levity and principles weredreaded by the whole of France. Money was lavished, largesses weremultiplied, there was no declining to be good-natured or complaisant, economy was made the object of ridicule, it was daringly asserted thatimmensity of expenditure, animating circulation, was the true principleof credit. "

M. De Calonne had just been sworn in at the Court of Aids, pompouslyattended by a great number of magistrates and financiers; he was for thefirst time transacting business with the king. "Sir, " said he, "thecomptrollers-general have many means of paying their debts: I have atthis moment two hundred and twenty thousand livres' worth payable ondemand; I thought it right to tell your Majesty, and leave everything toyour goodness. " Louis XVI. , astounded at such language, stared a momentat his minister, and then, without any answer, walked up to a desk. "There are your two hundred and twenty thousand livres, " he said at last, handing M. De Calonne a packet of shares in the Water Company. Thecomptroller-general pocketed the shares, and found elsewhere theresources necessary for paying his debts. "If my own affairs had notbeen in such a bad state, I should not have undertaken those of France, "said Calonne gayly to M. De Machault, at that time advanced in age andstill the centre of public esteem. The king, it was said, had but latelythought of sending for him as minister in the room of M. De Maurepas, he had been dissuaded by the advice of his aunts; the latecomptroller-general listened gravely to his frivolous successor; thelatter told the story of his conversation with the king. "I hadcertainly done nothing to deserve a confidence so extraordinary, "said M. De Machault to his friends. He set out again for his estateat Arnonville, more anxious than ever about the future. 

If the first steps of M. De Calonne dismayed men of foresight and ofexperience in affairs, the public was charmed with them, no less than thecourtiers. The _bail des fermes_ was re-established, the _Caissed'escompte_ had resumed payment, the stockholders (_rentiers_) receivedtheir quarters' arrears, the loan whereby the comptroller-general met allexpenses had reached eleven per cent. "A man who wants to borrow, " M. DeCalonne would say, "must appear rich, and to appear rich he must dazzleby his expenditure. Act we thus in the public administration. Economyis good for nothing, it warns those who have money, not to lend it to anindebted treasury, and it causes decay among the arts which prodigalityvivifies. " New works, on a gigantic scale, were undertaken everywhere. "Money abounds in the kingdom, " the comptroller-general would remark tothe king; "the people never had more openings for work; lavishnessrejoices their eyes, because it sets their hands going. Continue thesesplendid undertakings, which are an ornament to Paris, Bordeaux, Lyons, Nantes, Marseilles, and Nimes, and which are almost entirely paid for bythose flourishing cities. Look to your ports, fortify Havre, and createa Cherbourg, braving the jealousy of the English. None of those measureswhich reveal and do not relieve the straits of the treasury! The people, whom declaiming jurisconsults so vehemently but vainly incite to speakevil of lavishness, would be grieved if they saw any interruption in theexpenditure which a silly parsimony calls superfluous. "

The comptroller-general's practice tallied with his theories; thecourtiers had recovered the golden age; it was scarcely necessary tosolicit the royal favor. "When I saw everybody holding out hands, I heldout my hat, " said a prince. The offices abolished by M. Turgot and M. Necker were re-established, the abuses which they had removed came back, the acceptances (_acquits de comptant_) rose in 1785 to more than ahundred and thirty-six millions of livres. The debts of the king'sbrothers were paid; advantageous exchanges of royal lands were effectedto their profit; the queen bought St. Cloud, which belonged to the Dukeof Orleans; all the great lords who were ruined, all the courtiers whowere embarrassed, resumed the pleasant habit of counting upon the royaltreasury to relieve their wants. The polite alacrity of thecomptroller-general had subdued the most rebellious; he obtained forBrittany the right of freely electing its deputies; the states-hall atRennes, which had but lately resounded with curses upon him, was nowrepeating a new cry of "Hurrah for Calonne!" A vote of the assemblydoubled the gratuitous gift which the province ordinarily offered theking. "If it is possible, it is done, " the comptroller would say toapplicants; "if it is impossible, it will get done. "

The captivation was general, the blindness seemed to be so likewise;a feverish impulse carried people away into all newfangled ways, seriousor frivolous. Mesmer brought from Germany his mysterious revelations inrespect of problems as yet unsolved by science, and pretended to cure alldiseases around the magnetic battery; the adventurer Cagliostro, embellished with the title of count, and lavishing gold by handfuls, bewitched court and city, and induced Councillor d'Epremesnil to say, "The friendship of M. De Cagliostro does me honor. " At the same timesplendid works in the most diverse directions maintained at the topmostplace in the world that scientific genius of France which the great mindsof the seventeenth century had revealed to Europe. "Special mensometimes testify great disdain as regards the interest which men of theworld may take in their labors, and, certainly, if it were merely aquestion of appraising their scientific merit, they would be perfectlyright. But the esteem, the inclination of the public for science, andthe frequent lively expression of that sentiment, are of high importanceto it, and play a great part in its history. The times for thatsympathy, somewhat ostentatious and frivolous as it may be, have alwaysbeen, as regards sciences, times of impulse and progress, and, regardingthings in their totality, natural history and chemistry profited by thesocial existence of M. De Buffon and of M. Lavoisier as much as by theirdiscoveries" [M. Guizot, _Melanges biographiques, _ Madame de Rumford]. 

[Illustration: Lavoisier----465]

It was this movement in the public mind, ignorant but sympathetic, which, on the eve of the Revolution, supported, without understanding them, theefforts of the great scholars whose peaceful conquests survived theupheaval of society. Farmer-general (of taxes) before he became achemist, Lavoisier sought to apply the discoveries of science to commonand practical wants. "Devoted to the public instruction, I will seek toenlighten the people, " he said to the king who proposed office to him. The people were to send him to the scaffold. The ladies of fashioncrowded to the brilliant lectures of Fourcroy. 

The princes of pure science, M. De Lagrange, M. De Laplace, M. Monge, didnot disdain to wrench themselves from their learned calculations in orderto second the useful labors of Lavoisier. Bold voyagers were scouringthe world, pioneers of those enterprises of discovery which had appearedfor a while abandoned during the seventeenth century. M. De Bougainvillehad just completed the round of the world, and the English captain, Cook, during the war which covered all seas with hostile ships, had beenprotected by generous sympathy. On the 19th of March, 1779, M. DeSartines, at that' time minister of marine, wrote by the king's order, atthe suggestion of M. Turgot: "Captain Cook, who left Plymouth in themonth of July, 1776, on board the frigate Discovery, to make explorationson the coasts, islands, and seas of Japan and California, must be on thepoint of returning to Europe. As such enterprises are for the generaladvantage of all nations, it is the king's will that Captain Cook betreated as the commander of a neutral and allied power, and that allnavigators who meet this celebrated sailor do inform him of his Majesty'sorders regarding him. "

Captain Cook was dead, massacred by the savages, but the ardor which hadanimated him was not extinct; on the 10th of August, 1785, a Frenchsailor, M. De La Peyrouse, left Brest with two frigates for the purposeof completing the discoveries of the English explorer. The king had beenpleased to himself draw up his instructions, bearing the impress of anaffectionate and over-strained humanity. "His Majesty would regard it asone of the happiest successes of the expedition, " said the instructions, "if it were terminated without having cost the life of a single man. " LaPeyrouse and his shipmates never came back. Louis XVI. Was oftensaddened by it. "I see what it is quite well, " the poor king wouldrepeat, "I am not lucky. "

M. De La Peyrouse had scarcely commenced the preparations for his fatalvoyage, when, on the 5th of June, 1783, the States of the Vivarais, assembled in the little town of Annonay, were invited by MM. DeMontgolfier, proprietors of a large paper-manufactory, to be witnessesof an experiment in physics. The crowd thronged the thoroughfare. Anenormous bag, formed of a light canvas lined with paper, began to swellslowly before the curious eyes of the public; all at once the cords whichheld it were cut, and the first balloon rose majestically into the air. Successive improvements made in the Montgolfiers' original inventionpermitted bold physicists ere long to risk themselves in a vesselattached to the air-machine. There sailed across the Channel a balloonbearing a Frenchman, M. Blanchard, and an Englishman, Dr. Jefferies; thelatter lost his flag. Blanchard had set the French flag floating overthe shores of England; public enthusiasm welcomed him on his return. Thequeen was playing cards at Versailles. "What I win this game shall go toBlanchard, " she said. The same feat, attempted a few days later by aprofessor of physics, M. Pilatre de Rozier, was destined to cost him hislife. 

So many scientific explorations, so many new discoveries of nature'ssecrets were seconded and celebrated by an analogous movement inliterature. Rousseau had led the way to impassioned admiration of thebeauties of nature; Bernardin de St. Pierre had just published his_Etudes de la Nature;_ he had in the press his _Paul et Virginie;_ AbbeDelille was reading his _Jardin, _ and M. De St. Lambert his _Saisons_. In their different phases and according to their special instincts, allminds, scholarly or political, literary or philosophical, were tending tothe same end, and pursuing the same attempt. It was nature which menwanted to discover or recover: scientific laws and natural rights dividedmen's souls between them. Buffon was still alive, and the great sailorswere every day enriching with their discoveries the _Jardin du Roi;_ thephysicists and the chemists, in the wake of Lavoisier, were giving toscience a language intelligible to common folks; the jurisconsults wereattempting to reform the rigors of criminal legislation at the same timewith the abuses they had entailed, and Beaumarchais was bringing on theboards his _Manage de Figaro_. 

The piece had been finished and accepted at the Theatre Francais sincethe end of 1781, but the police-censors had refused permission to bringit out. Beaumarchais gave readings of it; the court itself was amused tosee itself attacked, caricatured, turned into ridicule; the friends ofMadame de Polignac reckoned among the most ardent admirers of the _Managede Figaro_. The king desired to become acquainted with the piece. Hehad it read by Madame de Campan, lady of the chamber to the queen, andvery much in her confidence. The taste and the principles of Louis XVI. Were equally shocked. "Perpetually Italian concetti!" he exclaimed. When the reading was over: "It is detestable, " said the king; "it shallnever be played; the Bastille would have to be destroyed to make theproduction of this play anything but a dangerous inconsistency. Thisfellow jeers at all that should be respected in a government. "

Louis XVI. Had correctly criticised the tendencies as well as the effectsof a production sparkling with wit, biting, insolent, licentious; but hehad relied too much upon his persistency in his opinions and his personalresolves. Beaumarchais was more headstrong than the king; the readingscontinued. The hereditary grand-duke of Russia, afterwards Paul I. , happening to be at Paris in 1782, under the name of Count North, nobetter diversion could be thought of for him than a reading of the_Manage de Figaro_. Grimm undertook to obtain Beaumarchais' consent. "As, " says Madame de Oberkirsch, who was present at the reading, --as themangy (_chafouin_) looks of M. De la Harpe had disappointed me, so thefine face, open, clever, somewhat bold, perhaps, of M. De Beaumarchaisbewitched me. I was found fault with for it. I was told he was agood-for-naught. I do not deny it, it is possible; but he has prodigiouswit, courage enough for anything, a strong will which nothing can stop, and these are great qualities. "

Beaumarchais took advantage of the success of the reading to boldly askthe keeper of the seals for permission to play the piece; he wassupported by public curiosity, and by the unreflecting enthusiasm of acourt anxious to amuse itself; the game appeared to have been won, theday for its representation, at the _Menus-Plaisirs Theatre, _ was fixed, an interdiction on the part of the king only excited the ill-humor andintensified the desires of the public. "This prohibition appeared to bean attack upon liberty in general, " says Madame Campan. "Thedisappointment of all hopes excited discontent to such a degree, that thewords oppression and tyranny were never uttered, in the days precedingthe fall of the throne, with more passion and vehemence. " Two monthslater, the whole court was present at the representation of the _Mariagede Figaro, _ given at the house of M. De Vandreuil, an intimate friend ofthe Duchess of Polignac, on his stage at Gennevilliers. "You will seethat Beaumarchais will have more influence than the keeper of the seals, "Louis XVI. Had said, himself foreseeing his own defeat. The _Mariage deFigaro_ was played at the Theatre Francais on the 27th of April, 1784. 

"The picture of this representation is in all the collections of theperiod, " says M. De Lomenie. "It is one of the best known reminiscencesof the eighteenth century; all Paris hurrying early in the morning to thedoors of the Theatre Francais, the greatest ladies dining in theactresses' dressing-room in order to secure places. " "The blue ribands, "says Bachaumont, "huddled up in the crowd, and elbowing Savoyards; theguard dispersed, the doors burst, the iron gratings broken beneath theefforts of the assailants. " "Three persons stifled, " says La Harpe, "onemore than for Scudery; and on the stage, after the rising of the curtain, the finest collection of talent that had probably ever had possession ofthe _Theatre Francais, _ all employed to do honor to a comedyscintillating with wit, irresistibly lively and audacious, which, ifit shocks and scares a few of the boxes, enchants, rouses, and fires anelectrified pit. " A hundred representations succeeding the firstuninterruptedly, and the public still eager to applaud, such was thetwofold result of the audacities of the piece and the timid hesitationsof its censors. The _Mariage de Figgaro_ bore a sub-title, _la FolleJournee_. "There is something madder than my piece, " said Beaumarchais, "and that is its success. " Figaro ridiculed everything with a dangerouslypungent vigor; the days were coming when the pleasantry was to changeinto insults. Already public opinion was becoming hostile to the queen:she was accused of having remained devoted to the interests of her Germanfamily; the people were beginning to call her the Austrian. During theAmerican war, M. De Vergennes had managed to prevail upon the king toremain neutral in the difficulties that arose in 1778 between Austria andPrussia on the subject of the succession to the elector palatine; theyoung queen had not wanted or had not been able to influence the behaviorof France, as her mother had conjured her to do. "My dear lady--daughter, " wrote Maria Theresa, "Mercy is charged to inform you of mycruel position, as sovereign and as mother. Wishing to save my dominionsfrom the most cruel devastation, I must, cost what it may, seek to wrestmyself from this war, and, as a mother, I have three sons who are notonly running the greatest danger, but are sure to succumb to the terriblefatigues, not being accustomed to that sort of life. By making peace atthis juncture, I not only incur the blame of great pusillanimity, but Irender the king of Prussia still greater, and the remedy must be prompt. I declare to you, my head whirls and my heart has for a long time beenentirely numb. " France had refused to engage in the war, but she hadcontributed to the peace of Teschen, signed on the 13th of May, 1779. Onthe 29th of November, 1780, Maria Theresa died at the age of sixty-three, weary of life and of that glory to which she "was fain to march by allroads, " said the Great Frederick, who added: "It was thus that a womanexecuted designs worthy of a great man. "

In 1784, Joseph II. Reigned alone. Less prudent and less sensible thanhis illustrious mother, restless, daring, nourishing useful or fancifulprojects, bred of humanity or disdain, severe and affectionate at thesame time towards his sister the queen of France, whose extravagance hefound fault with during the trip he made to Paris in 1777, he was nowpressing her to act on his behalf in the fresh embarrassments which hisrestless ambition had just excited in Europe. The mediation of KingLouis XVI. Between the emperor and the Dutch, as to the navigation of theScheldt, had just terminated the incident pacifically: the king hadconcluded a treaty of defensive alliance with Holland. The minister ofwar, M. De Segur, communicated to the queen the note he had drawn up onthis important question. "I regret, " he said to Marie Antoinette, "to beobliged to give the king advice opposed to the desire of the emperor. ""I am the emperor's sister, and I do not forget it, " answered the queen;"but I remember above all that I am queen of France and mother of thedauphin. " Louis XVI. Had undertaken to pay part of the indemnity imposedupon Joseph II. ; this created discontent in France. "Let the emperor payfor his own follies, " people said; and the ill-humor of the public openlyand unjustly accused the queen. 

This direful malevolence on the part of public opinion, springing from afew acts of imprudence and fomented by a long series of calumnies, wasabout to burst forth on the occasion of a scandalous and grievousoccurrence. On the 15th of August, 1785, at Mass-time, Cardinal Rohan, grand almoner of France, already in full pontificals, was arrested in thepalace of Versailles and taken to the Bastille. The king had sent forhim into his cabinet. "Cardinal, " said Louis XVI. Abruptly, "you boughtsome diamonds of Bcehmer?" "Yes, Sir. " "What have you done with them?""I thought they had been sent to the queen. " "Who gave you thecommission?" (The cardinal began to be uneasy. ) "A lady, the Countess dela Motte Valois, . . . She gave me a letter from the queen; I thoughtI was obliging her Majesty. . . . "The queen interrupted. She hadnever forgiven M. De Rohan for some malevolent letters written about herwhen she was dauphiness. On the accession of Louis XVI. This interceptedcorrespondence had cost the prince his embassy to Vienna. "How, sir, "said the queen, "could you think, you to whom I have never spoken foreight years, that I should choose you for conducting this negotiation, and by the medium of such a woman?" "I was mistaken, I see; the desire Ifelt to please your Majesty misled me, and he drew from his pocket thepretended letter from the queen to Madame de la Motte. The king took it, and, casting his eye over the signature: "How could a prince of yourhouse and my grand almoner suppose that the queen would sign MarieAntoinette de France? Queens sign their names quite short. It is noteven the queen's writing. And what is the meaning of all these doingswith jewellers, and these notes shown to bankers?"

[Illustration: Cardinal Rohan's Discomfiture----470]

The cardinal could scarcely stand; he leaned against the table. "Sir, "he stammered, "I am too much overcome to be able to reply. " "Walk intothis room, cardinal, " rejoined the king kindly; "write what you have tosay to me. " The written explanations of M. De Rohan were no clearer thanhis words; an officer of the body-guard took him off to the Bastille; hehad, just time to order his grand-vicar to burn all his papers. 

The correspondence as well as the life of M. De Rohan was not worthy of aprince of the church: the vices and the credulity of the cardinal hadgiven him over, bound hand and foot, to an intriguing woman as adroit asshe was daring. Descended from a bastard of Henry II. 's, brought up bycharity and married to a ruined nobleman, Madame de la Motte Valois hadbewitched, duped, and robbed Cardinal Rohan. Accustomed to an insensateprodigality, asserting everywhere that a man of gallantry could not liveon twelve hundred thousand livres a year, he had considered it verynatural that the queen should have a fancy for possessing a diamondnecklace worth sixteen hundred thousand livres. The jewellers had, in fact, offered this jewelry to Marie Antoinette; it was during theAmerican war. "That is the price of two frigates, " the king had said. "We want ships and not diamonds, " said the queen, and dismissed herjeweller. A few months afterwards he told anybody who would listen thathe had sold the famous collar in Constantinople for the favorite sultana. "This was a real pleasure to the queen, " says Madame Campan; "she, however, expressed some astonishment that a necklace made for theadornment of Frenchwomen should be worn in the seraglio, and, thereupon, she talked to me a long while about the total change which took place inthe tastes and desires of women in the period between twenty and thirtyyears of age. She told me that when she was ten years younger she loveddiamonds madly, but that she had no longer any taste for anything butprivate society, the country, the work and the attentions required by theeducation of her children. From that moment until the fatal crisis therewas nothing more said about the necklace. "

The crisis would naturally come from the want of money felt by thejewellers. Madame de la Motte had paid them some instalments on accountof the stones, which her husband had sold in England: they grew impatientand applied to the queen. For a long while she did not understand theirapplications: when the complaints of the purveyors at last made herapprehend an intrigue, she sent for Abbe de Vermond and Baron deBreteuil, minister of the king's household both detested the cardinal, both fanned the queen's wrath; she decided at last to tell the kingeverything. "I saw the queen after the departure of the baron and theabbe, " says Madame Campan; "she made me tremble at her indignation. " Thecardinal renounced the privileges of his rank and condition; he boldlyaccepted the jurisdiction of the Parliament. 

The trial revealed a gross intrigue, a disgraceful comedy, a prince ofthe church and a merchant equally befooled by a shameless woman, with theaid of the adventurer Cagliostro, and the name, the favors, and even thepersonality of the queen impudently dragged in. The public feeling wasat its height, constantly over-excited by the rumors circulated duringthe sessions of the court. Opinion was hostile to the queen. "It wasfor her and by her orders that the necklace was bought, " people said. The houses of Conde and Rohan were not afraid to take sides with thecardinal: these illustrious personages were to be seen, dressed inmourning, waiting for the magistrates on their way, in order to canvassthem on their relative's behalf. On the 31st of May, 1786, the courtcondemned Madame de la Motte to be whipped, branded, and imprisoned; theypurely and simply acquitted Cardinal Rohan. In its long and continualtussle with the crown, the Parliament had at last found the day of itsrevenge: political passions and the vagaries of public opinion hadblinded the magistrates. 

"As soon as I knew the cardinal's sentence, I went to the queen, " saysMadame Campan. "She heard my voice in the room leading to her closet;she called to me. I found her very sad. She said to me in a brokenvoice: 'Condole with me; the intriguer who wanted to ruin me, or procuremoney by using my name and forging my signature, has just been fullyacquitted. But, ' she added vehemently, 'as a Frenchwoman, accept mycondolence. A people is very unfortunate to have for its supremetribunal a lot of men who consult nothing but their passions, and of whomsome are capable of bribery and others of an audacity which they havealways displayed towards authority, and of which they have just given astriking example against those who are clothed therewith. ' The kingentered at this moment. 'You find the queen in great affliction, ' hesaid to me: 'she has great reason to be. But what then! They would notsee in this business anything save a prince of the church and the princeof Rohan, whereas it is only the case of a man in want of money and amere dodge for raising the wind, wherein the cardinal has been swindledin his turn. Nothing can be easier to understand, and it needs noAlexander to cut this Gordian knot. '"

Guilty in the king's eyes, a dupe according to the judgment of history, Cardinal Rohan was exiled to his abbey of Chaise-Dieu, less to be pitiedthan the unhappy queen abruptly wrenched from the sweet dreams of aromantic friendship and confidence, as well as from the nascent joys ofmaternal happiness, to find herself henceforth confronting a deludedpeople and an ever increasing hostility which was destined to unjustlypersecute her even to the block. 

M. De Calonne had taken little part in the excitement which the trialof Cardinal Rohan caused in court and city he was absorbed by theincessantly recurring difficulties presented by the condition of thetreasury; speculation had extended to all classes of society; loanssucceeded loans, everywhere there were formed financial companies, without any resources to speak of, speculating on credit. Parliamentbegan to be alarmed, and enregistered no more credits save withrepugnance. Just as he was setting out on a trip to Normandy, whichafforded him one of the last happy days of his life and as it were adying flicker of his past popularity, the king scratched out on theregisters of the Parliament the restrictions introduced by the court intothe new loan of eighty millions presented by M. De Calonne. "I wish itto be known that I am satisfied with my comptroller-general, " said LouisXVI. With that easy confidence which he did not always place wisely. When he returned from Cherbourg, at the end of June, 1786, M. De Calonnehad at last arrived at the extremity of his financial expedients. He sethis views and his ideas higher. Speculation was succeeded by policy. 

"Sir, " said the note handed to the king by the comptroller-general, "Iwill not go back to the fearful position in which the finances were whenyour Majesty deigned to intrust them to me. It is impossible to recallwithout a shudder that there was at that time neither money nor credit, that the pressing debts were immense, the revenues exhausted inanticipation, the resources annihilated, the public securities valueless, the coinage impoverished and without circulation, the discount-fundbankrupt, the general tax-exchequer (_ferme general_) on the point offailing to meet its bills, and the royal treasury reduced to two bags of1200 livres. I am far from claiming credit for the success of theoperations which, owing to the continuous support given by your Majesty, promptly established abundance of coin, punctuality in the payments, public confidence proved by the rise in all securities and by the highestdegree of credit, abroad as well as at home: what I must forcibly callyour Majesty's attention to is the importance of the present moment, theterrible embarrassment concealed beneath the appearance of the happiesttranquillity, the necessity of soon taking some measure for deciding thelot of the state. It must be confessed, Sir, that France at this momentis only kept up by a species of artifice; if the illusion which standsfor reality were destroyed, if the confidence at present inseparable fromthe working staff were to fail, what would become of us with a deficit ofa hundred millions every year? Without a doubt no time must be lost infilling up a void so enormous; and that can be done only by greatmeasures. The plan I have formed appears to me the one that can solve sodifficult a problem. Solely occupied with this great object, whichdemands enormous labor, and for the accomplishment of which I wouldwillingly sacrifice my existence, I only beg your Majesty to accord tome, until I have carried it out, so much support and appearance of favoras I need to give me strength to attain it. It will perhaps be an affairof six months or a year at most. After that your Majesty may do as youplease with me; I shall have followed the promptings of the heartiestzeal for your service, I shall be able to say, --

 'Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domino. '"

This mysterious plan, which was to produce results as desirable as rare, and which M. De Calonne had hit upon to strengthen his shaky position, was the same which, in 1628, had occurred to Cardinal Richelieu, when hewanted to cover his responsibility in regard to the court of Rome. Inview of the stress at the treasury, of growing discontent, of vanishedillusions, the comptroller-general meditated convoking the Assembly ofNotables, the feeble resource of the old French kingship before the daysof pure monarchy, an expedient more insufficient and more dangerous thanthe most far-seeing divined after the lessons of the philosophers and thecontinuous abasement of the kingly Majesty. 

The convocation of the Notables was the means upon which M. De Calonnerelied; the object was the sanctioning of a financial system new inpractice but old in theory. When the comptroller-general proposed to theking to abolish privileges, and assess the impost equally, renouncing thetwentieths, diminishing the gabel, suppressing custom-houses in theinterior and establishing provincial assemblies, Louis XVI. Recognized anecho of his illustrious ministers. "This is sheer Necker!" he exclaimed. "In the condition in which things are, Sir, it is the best that can bedone, " replied M. De Calonne. He had explained his reasons to the kingin an intelligent and able note. 

"Such a plan, " said the comptroller-general, after having unfolded hisprojects, "demands undoubtedly the most solemn examination and the mostauthentic sanction. It must be presented in the form most calculated. To place it beyond reach of any retardation and to acquire for itunassailable strength by uniting all the suffrages of the nation. Now, there is nothing but an assembly of notables that can fulfil this aim. It is the only means of preventing all parliamentary resistance, imposingsilence on the clergy, and so clinching public opinion that no specialinterest dare raise a voice against the overwhelming evidence of thegeneral interest. Assemblies of notables were held in 1558, in 1583, in1596, in 1617, and in 1626; none was convoked for objects so important asthose in question now, and never were circumstances' more favorable tosuccess; as the situation requires strong measures, so it permits of theemployment of strong means. "

The king hesitated, from instinctive repugnance and the traditions ofabsolutism, at anything that resembled an appeal to the people. He waswon, however, by the precedent of Henry IV. And by the frank honesty ofthe project. The secret was strictly kept. The general peace wasthreatened afresh by the restless ambition of Joseph II. And by theconstant encroachments of the Empress Catherine. The Great Frederick wasnow dead. After being for a long while the selfish disturber of Europe, he had ended by becoming its moderator, and his powerful influence washabitually exerted on behalf of peace. The future was veiled and chargedwith clouds. M. De Vergennes, still possessing Louis XVI. 's confidence, regarded with dread the bold reforms proposed by M. De Calonne; he hadyielded to the comptroller-general's representations, but he made allhaste to secure for France some support in Europe; he concluded withEngland the treaty of commerce promised at the moment of signing thepeace. There was a lively debate upon it in the English Parliament. Mr. Fox, then in opposition, violently attacked the provisions of the treaty;Mr. Pitt, quite young as yet, but already established in that foremostrank among orators and statesmen which he was to occupy to his last hour, maintained the great principles of European policy. "It is a very falsemaxim, " said he, "to assert that France and England are not to cease tobe hostile because they have been so heretofore. My mind revolts at somonstrous a principle, which is an outrage upon the constitution ofsocieties as well as upon the two nations. Situated as we are in respectof France, it is expedient, it is a matter of urgency for the welfare ofthe two countries, to terminate this constant enmity which has beenfalsely said to be the basis of the true sentiments felt by the twonations towards each other. This treaty tends to augment the means ofmaking war and to retard its coming. "

Generous and sound maxims, only too often destined to be strikinglybelied by human passions! When he supported in the House of Commons, in1786, an alliance with monarchical France, Mr. Pitt did not foresee theterrible struggle he--would one day maintain, in the name of England andof Europe, against revolutionary, anarchical, or absolutist France. 

The treaty had just been signed (September 26, 1786). M. De Vergenneswas not long to survive his latest work: he died on the 13th of February, 1787, just before the opening of the Assembly of Notables, as if he wouldfain escape the struggle and the crisis he dreaded. Capable andfar-sighted in his foreign policy, ever conciliatory and sometimesdaring, M. De Vergennes, timid and weak as he was in home affairs, wasnevertheless esteemed: he had often served as a connect ing link betweenthe different elements of the government. The king gave his place toM. De Montmorin, an honest but insignificant man, without influence inFrance as well as in Europe. 

On the 29th of December, 1786, at the close of the despatch-council, theking at last broke the silence he had so long kept even as regarded thequeen herself. "Gentlemen, " he said, "I shall convoke for the 29th ofJanuary an assembly composed of persons of different conditions and thebest qualified in the state, in order to communicate to them my views forthe relief of my people, the ordering of the finances, and thereformation of several abuses. " Louis XVI. 's hesitations haddisappeared: he was full of hope. "I have not slept a wink all night, "he wrote on the morning of the 30th of December to M. De Calonne, "but itwas for joy. "

The sentiments of the public were very diverse: the court was inconsternation. "What penalty would King Louis XIV. Have inflicted upona minister who spoke of convoking an assembly of notables?" asked oldMarshal Richelieu, ever witty, frivolous, and corrupt. "The king sendsin his resignation, " said the young Viscount de Segur. At Pariscuriosity was the prevalent feeling; but the jokes were bitter. "Thecomptroller-general has raised a new troop of comedians; the firstperformance will take place on Monday the 20th instant, " said a shamplay-bill: "they will give us the principal piece _False Confidences, _followed by _Forced Consent_ and an allegorical ballot, composed by M. DeCalonne, entitled _The Tub of the Danaids_. "

The convocation of the notables was better received in the provinces: itwas the first time for a hundred and sixty years that the nation had beencalled upon to take a part, even nominally, in the government of itsaffairs; it already began to feel powerful and proud. A note had beensent to the _Journal de Paris_ to announce the convocation of theAssembly. "The nation, " it said, "will see with transport that the kingdeigns to draw near to her. " The day of excessive humiliation was nomore, even in forms; M. De Calonne modified the expression thus: "Thenation will see with transport that the king draws near to her. "

Indisposition on the part of the comptroller-general had retarded thepreparatory labors; the session opened on the 22d of February, 1787. The Assembly numbered one hundred and forty-four members, all nominatedby the king: to wit, seven princes of the blood; fourteen archbishops andbishops; thirty-six dukes and peers, marshals of France and noblemen;twelve councillors of state and masters of requests; thirty-eightmagistrates of sovereign courts; twelve deputies of states-districts, theonly ones allowed to present to the king memorials of grievances; andtwenty-five municipal officers of the large towns. In this Assembly, intended to sanction the abolition of privileges, a few municipalofficers alone represented the third estate and the classes intended toprofit by the abolition. The old Marquis of Mirabeau said facetiously:"This Calonne assembles a troop of Guillots, which he calls the nation, to present them with the cow by the horns, and say to them, 'Gentlemen, we take all the milk and what not, we devour all the meat and what not, and we are going to try and get that what not out of the rich, whosemoney has no connection with the poor, and we give you notice that therich means you. Now, give us your opinion as to the manner ofproceeding. '"

The king's speech was short and unimportant. Though honestly impressedwith reminiscences of Henry IV. , he could not manage, like him, to say tothe notables he had just convoked, "I have had you assemble to take yourcounsels, to trust in them, to follow them, in short, to place myselfunder tutelage in your hands, --a feeling which is scarcely natural tokings, graybeards, and conquerors; but the violent love I bear mysubjects, the extreme desire I have to add the title of liberator andrestorer of this realm to that of king, make me find everything easy andhonorable. " M. De Calonne had reserved to himself the duty of explainingthe great projects he had suggested to the king. "Gentle men, " said hein his exordium, "the orders I am under at present do me the more honorin that the views of which the king has charged me to set before you thesum and the motives have been entirely adopted by him personally. " HenryIV. Might have said to the notables assembled by his successor, as he hadsaid regarding his predecessors: "You were summoned hither not long agoto approve of the king's wishes. "

The state was prosperous, at any rate in appearance; thecomptroller-general assumed the credit for it. "The economy of aminister of finance, " he said, "may exist under two forms so differentthat one might say they were two sorts of economy: one, which strikes theeye by its external strictness, which proclaims itself by startling andharshly uttered refusals, which flaunts its severity in the smallestmatters in order to discourage the throng of applicants. It has animposing appearance which really proves nothing, but which does a greatdeal as regards opinion; it has the double advantage of keepingimportunate cupidity at arm's length and of quieting anxious ignorance. The other, which considers duty rather than force of character, can domore, whilst showing less strictness and reserve, as regards whatever isof any importance; it affects no austerity as regards that which is ofnone; it lets the talk be of what it grants, and does not talk about whatit saves. Because it is seen to be accessible to requests, people willnot believe that it refuses the majority of them; because it has not theuseful and vulgar character of inflexibility, people refuse it that ofwise discretion, and often, whilst by assiduous application to all thedetails of an immense department, it preserves the finances from the mostfatal abuses and the most ruinously unskilful handling, it seems tocalumniate itself by an easy-going appearance which the desire to injuretransforms very soon into lavishness. "

So much easy grace and adroitness succeeding the austere stiffness of M. Necker had been powerless to relieve the disorder of the finances; it wasgreat and of ancient date. "A deficit has been existing in France forcenturies, " the comptroller-general asserted. It at last touched thefigure of a hundred millions a year. "What is left for filling up sofrightful a void and for reaching the desired level?" exclaimed M. DeCalonne: "abuses! Yes, gentlemen, it is in abuses themselves that thereis to be found a mine of wealth which the state has a right to reclaimand which must serve to restore order. Abuses have for their defendersinterests, influence, fortune, and some antiquated prejudices which timeseems to have respected. But of what force is such a vain confederationagainst the public welfare and the necessity of the state? Let othersrecall this maxim of our monarchy: 'As willeth the king, so willeth thelaw;' his Majesty's maxim is: 'As willeth the happiness of the people, sowilleth the king. '"

Audaciously certain of the success of his project, M. De Calonne had nottaken the trouble to disguise the vast consequences of it; he had notthought any the more about pre-securing a majority in the assembly. Themembers were divided into seven committees presided over by the princes;each committee disposed of one single vote; the comptroller-general hadnot taken exception to the selections designated by his adversaries. "I have made it a point of conscience, " he said, "to give suitablenominations according to the morality, and talent, and importance ofindividuals. " He had burned his ships, and without a care for thedefective composition of the assembly, he set forth, one after the other, projects calculated to alarm the privileged orders. "More will be paid, "he said in the preamble printed at the head of his notes and circulatedin profusion over the whole of France, "undoubtedly more will be paid, but by whom? . . . By those only who do not pay enough; they will paywhat they ought, according to a just proportionment, and nobody will beaggrieved. Privileges will be sacrificed! Yes! Justice wills it, necessity requires it! Would it be better to surcharge thenon-privileged, the people?"

The struggle was about to begin, with all the ardor of personal interest;the principle of provincial assemblies had been favorably received by thenotables; the committees (_bureaux_) had even granted to the third estatea representation therein equal to that of the two upper orders, oncondition that the presidents of the delegates should be chosen from thenobility or the clergy. The recognition of a civil status forProtestants did not seem likely to encounter any difficulty. For morethan twenty years past the parliaments, especially the parliament ofToulouse, had established the ruling of the inadmissibility of any onewho disputed the legitimacy of children issue of Protestant marriages. In 1778, the parliament of Paris had deliberated as to presenting to theking a resolution in favor of authentic verification of non-Catholicmarriages, births, and deaths; after a long interval, on, the 2d ofFebruary, 1787, this resolution had been formally, promulgated. 

It was M. De Lafayette who had the honor of supporting in the assembly ofnotables the royal project announced by M. De Calonne and advised by theParliament. In the ministry, MM. De Castries and De Breteuil hadsupported the equitable measure so long demanded by Protestants. M. DeRulhieres had drawn up for the king a note, entitled: _Historic Evidencesas to the Causes of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, _ and M. DeMalesherbes had himself presented to Louis XVI. A scheme for a law. "Itis absolutely necessary, " said he, "that I should render the Protestantssome kind offices; my great-uncle De Baville did them so much injury!"The Assembly of notables appealed to the king's benevolence on behalf of"that considerable portion of his subjects which groans under a regimenof proscription equally opposed to the general interests of religion, togood morals, to population, to national industry, and to all theprinciples of morality and policy. " "In the splendid reign of LouisXIV. , " M. De Calonne had said, "the state was impoverished by victories, and the kingdom dispeopled through intolerance. " "Are assemblies of non-Catholics dangerous?" asked M. Turgot. "Yes, as long as they areforbidden; no, when they are authorized. "

The preliminary discussions had been calm, the great question was comingon; in theory, the notables were forced to admit the principle of equalassessment of the impost; in practice, they were, for the most part, resolved to restrict its application. They carried the war into theenemy's camp, and asked to examine the financial accounts. The king gavenotice to the committees that his desire was to have the deliberationsdirected not to the basis of the question but to the form of collectionof taxes. The Archbishop of Narbonne (Dillon) raised his voice againstthe king's exclusive right to decide upon imposts. "Your Royal Highnesswill allow me to tell you, " was the reply made to the Count of Artois, president of his committee, by an attorney-general of the parliament ofAix, M. De Castillon, "that there exists no authority which can pass aterritorial impost such as that proposed, nor this assembly, august as itmay be, nor the parliaments, nor the several states, nor the kinghimself; the States-general alone would have that power. "

Thus was proposed, in the very midst of the Assembly intended to keep itout, that great question of the convocation of the States-general whichhad been so long uppermost in all minds. "It is the States-general youdemand!" said the Count of Artois to M. De La Fayette. "Yes, my lord, "replied the latter, "and something better still if possible!" Thecomptroller-general continued to elude inquiry into the state of thetreasury. M. Necker, offended by the statements of his successor, whoquestioned the truthfulness of the Report, addressed explanatory notes tothe several committees of the Assembly. He had already, in 1784, published an important work in explanation and support of his financialsystem; the success of the book had been immense; in spite of theprohibition issued, at first, against the sale, but soon tacitlywithdrawn, the three volumes had sold, it was said, to the extent ofeighty thousand copies. In 1787, the late director-general asked leaveto appear before the Assembly of notables to refute the statements of M. De Calonne; permission was refused. "I am satisfied with your services, "the king sent word to him, "and I command you to keep silence. "A pamphlet, without any title, was however sent to the notables. "Iserved the king for five years, " said M. Necker, "with a zeal which knewno limits the duties I had taken upon myself were the only object of mysolicitude. The interests of the state had become my passion andoccupied all my faculties of heart and mind. Forced to retire through acombination of singular circumstances, I devoted my powers to thecomposition of a laborious work, the utility of which appears, to me tohave been recognized. I heard it said that a portion of those ideasabout administration which had been so dear to me formed the basis of theprojects which were to be submitted to the Assembly of notables. Irendered homage to the beneficent views of his Majesty. Content with thecontributions I had offered to the common weal, I was living happily andin peace, when all at once I found myself attacked or rather assailed inthe most unjust and the strangest manner. M. De Calonne, finding itadvisable to trace to a very remote period the causes of the presentcondition of the finances, was not afraid, in pursuance of this end, to have recourse to means with which he will, probably, sooner or laterreproach himself; he declared in a speech, now circulated throughoutEurope, that the Report to his Majesty, in 1781, was so extraordinarilyerroneous, that, instead of the surplus published in that Report, therewas, at that very time, an enormous deficit. "

At the moment when M. Necker was publishing, as regarded the statementsof M. De Calonne, an able rectification which did not go to the bottomof things any more than the Report had previously gone, thecomptroller-general was succumbing beneath his enemies' attacks and hisown errors. Justly irritated at the perfidious manoeuvres practisedagainst him by the keeper of the seals in secretly heading at theAssembly of notables the opposition of the magistracy, Calonne haddemanded and obtained from the king the recall of M. Miromesnil. He wasimmediately superseded by M. De Lamoignon, president of the parliament ofParis and a relative of M. De Malesherbes. The comptroller-general hadthe imprudence to push his demands further; he required the dismissal ofM. De Breteuil. "I consent, " said Louis XVI. After some hesitation; "butleave me time to forewarn the queen, she is much attached to M. DeBreteuil. " When the king quitted Marie Antoinette, the situation hadchanged face; the disgrace of M. De Calonne was resolved upon. 

The queen had represented the dissatisfaction and opposition of thenotables, which "proceeded solely, " she said, "from the mistrust inspiredby the comptroller-general;" she had dwelt upon the merits and resourcesof the Archbishop of Toulouse. "I don't like priests who haven't thevirtues of their cloth, " Louis XVI. Had answered dryly. He called to theministry M. Fourqueux, councillor of state, an old man, highly esteemed, but incapable of sustaining the crushing weight of affairs. The kinghimself presented M. De Calonne's last projects to the Assembly ofnotables; the rumor ran that the comptroller-general was about tore-enter the cabinet. Louis XVI. Was informed of the illicit manoeuvreswhich M. De Calonne had authorized in operations on 'Change: he exiledhim to his estate in Berry, and a few days afterwards to Lorraine. M. Necker had just published without permission his reply to the attacksof M. De Calonne the king was put out at it. "The eye of the publicannoys those who manage affairs with carelessness, " M. Necker had butlately said in his work on financial administration, "but those who areanimated by a different spirit would be glad to multiply lights fromevery quarter. " "I do not want to turn my kingdom into a republicscreeching over state affairs as the city of Geneva is, and as happenedduring the administration of M. Necker, " said Louis XVI. He, banishedhis late minister to a distance of twenty leagues from Paris. MadameNecker was ill, and the execution of the king's order was delayed for afew days. 

Meanwhile the notables were in possession of the financial accounts, but the satisfaction caused them by the disgrace of M. De Calonne was ofshort duration; they were awaiting a new comptroller-general, calculatedto enlighten them as to the position of affairs. M. De Montmorin and M. De Lamoignon were urgent for the recall of M. Necker. The king's illfeeling against his late minister still continued. "As long as M. Neckerexists, " said M. De Montmorin, "it is impossible that there should be anyother minister of finance, because the public will always be annoyed tosee that post occupied by any but by him. " "I did not know M. Neckerpersonally, " adds M. De Montmorin in his notes left to Marmontel; "I hadnothing but doubts to oppose to what the king told me about hischaracter, his haughtiness, and his domineering spirit. " Louis XVI. Yielded, however. "Well!" he said, snappishly, "if it must be, recallhim. " M. De Breteuil was present. "Your Majesty, " said he, "has butjust banished M. Necker he has scarcely arrived at Montargis; to recallhim now would have a deplorable effect. " He once more mentioned the nameof Leonie de Brienne, and the king again yielded. Ambitious, intriguing, debauched, unbelieving, the new minister, like his predecessor, wasagreeable, brilliant, capable even, and accustomed in his diocese toimportant affairs. He was received without disfavor by public opinion. The notables and the chief of the council of finance undertook in concertthe disentanglement of the accounts submitted to them. 

In this labyrinth of contradictory figures and statements, the deficitalone came out clearly. M. De Brienne promised important economies, theAssembly voted a loan: they were not willing to accept the responsibilityof the important reforms demanded by the king. The speeches were longand vague, the objections endless. All the schemes of imposts werecensured one after the other. "We leave it to the king's wisdom, " saidthe notables at last; "he shall himself decide what taxes will offer theleast inconveniences, if the requirements of the state make it necessaryto impose new sacrifices upon the people. " "The notables have seen withdismay the depth of the evil caused by an administration whereof yourparliament had more than once foreseen the consequence, " said the premierpresident of the parliament of Paris. "The different plans proposed toyour Majesty deserve careful deliberation. The most respectful silenceis at this moment our only course. "

The notables had themselves recognized their own impotence and given intheir resignation. A formal closing session took place on the 25th ofMay, 1787. The keeper of the seals, enumerating the results of thelabors of the Assembly, enregistered the royal promises as accomplishedfacts: "All will be set right without any shock, without any ruin offortunes, without any alteration in the principles of government, withoutany of those breaches of faith which should never be so much as mentionedin the presence of the monarch of France. 

"The resolved or projected reform of various abuses, and the permanentgood for which the way is being paved by new laws concerted with you, gentlemen, are about to co-operate successfully for the present relief ofthe people. 

"Forced labor is proscribed, the gabel (or salt-tax) is revised(_juyee_), the obstacles which hamper home trade are destroyed, andagriculture, encouraged by the free exportation of grain, will become dayby day more flourishing. 

"The king has solemnly promised that disorder shall not appear again inhis finances, and his Majesty is about to take the most effectivemeasures for fulfilling this sacred engagement, of which you are thedepositaries. 

"The administration of the state will approach nearer and nearer to thegovernment and vigilance of a private family, and a more equitableassessment, which personal interest will incessantly watch over, willlighten the burden of impositions. "

Only the provincial administrations were constituted; the hopes which hadbeen conceived of the Assembly of notables remained more vague thanbefore its convocation: it had failed, like all the attempts at reformmade in succession by Louis XVI. 's advisers, whether earnest orfrivolous, whether proved patriots or ambitious intriguers. It had, however, revealed to the whole country the deplorable disorder of thefinances; it had taught the third estate and even the populace how deepwas the repugnance among the privileged classes towards reforms whichtouched their interests. Whilst spreading, as a letter written toAmerica by M. De La Fayette put it, "the salutary habit of thinking aboutpublic affairs, " it had at the same time betrayed the impotence of thegovernment, and the feebleness of its means of action. It was a stride, and an immense stride, towards the Revolution. 

CHAPTER LX. ----LOUIS XVI. --CONVOCATION OF THE STATES-GENERAL. 1787-1789. 

Thirteen years had rolled by since King Louis XV. Had descended to adishonored grave, and on the mighty current which was bearing Francetowards reform, whilst dragging her into the Revolution, King Louis XVI. , honest and sincere, was still blindly seeking to clutch the helm whichwas slipping from his feeble hands. Every day his efforts were becomingweaker and more inconsistent, every day the pilot placed at the tillerwas less and less deserving of public confidence. From M. Turgot to M. Necker, from Calonne to Lomenie de Brienne, the fall had been rapid anddeep. Amongst the two parties which unequally divided the nation, between those who defended the past in its entirety, its abuses as wellas its grandeurs, and those who were marching on bewildered towards areform of which they did not foresee the scope, the struggle underwentcertain moments of stoppage and of abrupt reaction towards the old stateof things. In 1781, the day after M. Necker's fall, an ordinance of theminister of war, published against the will of that minister himself, hadrestored to the verified and qualified noblesse (who could show fourquarterings) the exclusive privilege of military grades. Without anyordinance, the same regulation had been applied to the clergy. In 1787, the Assembly of notables and its opposition to the king's projectspresented by M. De Calonne were the last triumph of the enthusiasticpartisans of the past. The privileged classes had still too muchinfluence to be attacked with success by M. De Calonne, who appeared tobe in himself an assemblage of all the abuses whereof he desired to bethe reformer. A plan so vast, however ably conceived, was sure to go topieces in the hands of a man who did not enjoy public esteem andconfidence; but the triumph of the notables in their own cause was afresh warning to the people that they would have to defend theirs withmore vigor. " [_Memoires de Malouet, _ t. I. P. 253]. We have seen howmonarchy, in concert with the nation, fought feudality, to reignthenceforth as sovereign mistress over the great lords and over thenation; we have seen how it slowly fell in public respect and veneration, and how it attempted unsuccessfully to respond to the confused wishes ofa people that did not yet know its own desires or its own strength; weshall henceforth see it, panting and without sure guidance, painfullystriving to govern and then to live. "I saw, " says M. Malouet in his_Memoires, _ "under the ministry of the archbishop (of Toulouse, andafterwards of Sens), all the _avant-couriers_ of a revolution in thegovernment. Three parties were already pronounced: the first wanted totake to itself all the influence of which it despoiled the king, whilstwithstanding the pretensions of the third estate; the second proclaimedopen war against the two upper orders, and already laid down the bases ofa democratic government; the third, which was at that time the mostnumerous, although it was that of the wisest men, dreaded the ebullienceof the other two, wanted compromises, reforms, and not revolution. " Bytheir conflicts the two extreme parties were to stifle for a while theparty of the wise men, the true exponent of the national aspirations andhopes, which was destined, through a course of cruel vicissitudes andlong trials, to yet save and govern the country. 

The Assembly of notables had abdicated; contenting itself with a negativetriumph, it had left to the royal wisdom and responsibility the burden ofdecisions which Louis XVI. Had hoped to get sanctioned by an old andrespected authority. The public were expecting to see all the edicts, successively presented to the notables as integral portions of a vastsystem, forthwith assume force of law by simultaneous registration ofParliament. The feebleness and inconsistency of governors often stultifythe most sensible foresight. M. De Brienne had come into office as asupport to the king's desires and intentions, for the purpose ofobtaining from the notables what was refused through their aversion forM. De Calonne; as soon as he was free of the notables as well as of M. DeCalonne, he hesitated, drew back, waited, leaving time for a freshopposition to form and take its measures. "He had nothing but bad movesto make, " says M. Mignet. Three edicts touching the trade in grain, forced labor, and the provincial assemblies, were first sent up to theParliament and enregistered without any difficulty; the two edictstouching the stamp-tax and equal assessment of the impost were to meetwith more hinderance; the latter at any rate united the sympathies of allthe partisans of genuine reforms; the edict touching the stamp-tax was byitself and first submitted for the approval of the magistrates: theyrejected it, asking, like the notables, for a communication as to thestate of finance. "It is not states of finance we want, " exclaimed acouncillor, Sabatier de Cabre, "it is States-general. " This bold sallybecame a theme for deliberation in the Parliament. "The nationrepresented by the States-general, " the court declared, "is aloneentitled to grant the king subsidies of which the need is clearlydemonstrated. " At the same time the Parliament demanded the impeachmentof M. De Calonne; he took fright and sought refuge in England. The mobrose in Paris, imputing to the court the prodigalities with which theParliament reproached the late comptroller-general. Sad symptom of thefatal progress of public opinion! The cries heretofore raised againstthe queen under the name of Austrian were now uttered against MadameDeficit, pending the time when the fearful title of Madame Veto wouldgive place in its turn to the sad name of the woman Capet given to thevictim of October 16, 1793. 

The king summoned the Parliament to Versailles, and on the 6th of August, 1787, the edicts touching the stamp-tax and territorial subvention wereenregistered in bed of justice. The Parliament had protested in advanceagainst this act of royal authority, which it called "a phantom ofdeliberation. " On the 13th of August, the court declared "theregistration of the edicts null and without effect, incompetent toauthorize the collection of imposts, opposed to all principles;" thisresolution was sent to all the seneschalties and bailiwicks in thedistrict. It was in the name of the privilege of the two upper ordersthat the Parliament of Paris contested the royal edicts and made appealto the supreme jurisdiction of the States-general; the people did not seeit, they took out the horses of M. D'Espremesnil, whose fiery eloquencehad won over a great number of his colleagues, and he was carried intriumph. On the 15th of August the Parliament was sent away to Troyes. 

Banishment far away from the capital, from the ferment of spirits, andfrom the noisy centre of their admirers, had more than once brought downthe pride of the members of Parliament; they were now sustained by thesympathy ardently manifested by nearly all the sovereign courts. "Incessantly repeated stretches of authority, " said the Parliament ofBesanccon, "forced registrations, banishments, constraint and severityinstead of justice, are astounding in an enlightened age, wound a nationthat idolizes its kings, but is free and proud, freeze the heart andmight break the ties which unite sovereign to subjects and subjects tosovereign. " The Parliament of Paris declared that it needed no authorityfor its sittings, considering that it rendered justice wherever ithappened to be assembled. "The monarchy would be transfigured into adespotic form, " said the decree, "if ministers could dispose of personsby sealed letters (_lettres de cachet_), property by beds of justice, criminal matters by change of venue (_evocation_) or cassation, andsuspend the course of justice by special banishments or arbitraryremovals. "

Negotiations were going on, however; the government agreed to withdrawthe new imposts which it had declared to be indispensable; theParliament, which had declared itself incompetent as to the establishmentof taxes, prorogued for two years the second twentieth. "We left Pariswith glory upon us, we shall return with mud, " protested M. D'Espremesnilin vain; more moderate, but not less resolute, Duport, Robert de St. Vincent, and Freteau sought to sustain by their speeches the waveringresolution of their colleagues. The Parliament was recalled to Paris onthe 19th of September, 1787. 

The state of Europe inclined men's minds to reciprocal concessions; adisquieting good understanding appeared to be growing up between Russiaand Austria. The Emperor Joseph II. Had just paid a visit to the Crimeawith the czarina. "I fancy I am still dreaming, " wrote the Prince ofLigne, who had the honor of being in the trip, "when in a carriage withsix places, which is a real triumphal car adorned with ciphers inprecious stones, I find myself seated between two persons on whoseshoulders the heat often sets me dozing, and I hear, as I wake up, one ofmy comrades say to the other 'I have thirty' millions of subjects, theysay, counting males only. ' 'And I twenty-two, ' replies the other, 'allincluded. ' 'I require, ' adds the former, 'an army of at least sixhundred thousand men between Kamtchatka and Riga. ' 'With half that, 'replies the other, 'I have just what I require. ' God knows how we settleall the states and great personages. 'Rather than sign the separation ofthirteen provinces, like my brother George, ' says Catherine II. Sweetly, 'I would have put a bullet through my head. ' 'And rather than give in myresignation like my brother and brother-in-law, by convoking andassembling the nation to talk over abuses, I don't know what I wouldn'thave done, ' says Joseph II. " Before the two allies could carry out theirdesigns against Turkey, that ancient power, enfeebled as it was, hadtaken the offensive at the instigation of England; the King of Sweden, on his side, invaded Russia; war burst out in all directions. Thetraditional influence of France remained powerless in the East tomaintain peace; the long weakness of the government was everywherebearing fruit. 

Nowhere was this grievous impotence more painfully striking than inHolland. Supported by England, whose slavish instrument he had been forso long, the stadtholder William V. Was struggling, with the help of themob, against the patriotic, independent, and proud patricians. For thelast sixty years the position of Holland had been constantly declining inEurope. "She is afraid of everything, " said Count de Broglie in 1773;"she puts up with everything, grumbles at everything, and secures herselfagainst nothing. " "Holland might pay all the armies of Europe, " peoplesaid in 1787, "she couldn't manage to hold her own against any one ofthem. " The civil war imminent in her midst and fomented by England hadaroused the solicitude of M. De Calonne; he had prepared the resourcesnecessary for forming a camp near Givet; his successor diverted the fundsto another object. When the Prussians entered Dutch territory, beingsummoned to the stadtholder's aid by his wife, sister of the young KingFrederick William II. , the French government afforded no assistance toits ally; it confined itself to offering an asylum to the Dutch patriots, long encouraged by its diplomatists, and now vanquished in their owncountry, which was henceforth under the yoke of England. "France hasfallen, I doubt whether she will get up again, " said the Emperor JosephII. "We have been caught napping, " wrote M. De La Fayette to Washington;"the King of Prussia has been ill advised, the Dutch are ruined, andEngland finds herself the only power which has gained in the bargain. "

The echo of humiliations abroad came to swell the dull murmur of publicdiscontent. Disturbance was arising everywhere. "From stagnant chaosFrance has passed to tumultuous chaos, " wrote Mirabeau, already aninfluential publicist, despite the irregularity of his morals and thesmall esteem excited by his life; "there may, there should come acreation out of it. " The Parliament had soon resumed its defiantattitude; like M. De La Fayette at the Assembly of notables, it demandedthe convocation of the States-general at a fixed epoch, in 1792; it wasthe date fixed by M. De Brienne in a vast financial scheme which he hadboldly proposed for registration by the court. By means of a series ofloans which were to reach the enormous total of four hundred and twentymillions, the States-general, assembled on the conclusion of this vastoperation, and relieved from all pecuniary embarrassment, would be ableto concentrate their thoughts on the important interests of the future. At the same time with the loan-edict, Brienne presented to the Parliamentthe law-scheme, for so long a time under discussion, on behalf ofProtestants. 

The king had repaired in person to the palace in royal session; thekeeper of the seals, Lamoignon, expounded the necessity of the edicts. "To the monarch alone, " he repeated, "belongs the legislative power, without dependence and without partition. " This was throwing down thegauntlet to the whole assembly as well as to public opinion. AbbeSabatier and Councillor Freteau had already spoken, when Robert de St. Vincent rose, an old Jansenist and an old member of Parliament, accustomed to express his thoughts roughly. "Who, without dismay, canhear loans still talked of?" he exclaimed "and for what sum? four hundredand twenty millions! A plan is being formed for five years? But, sinceyour Majesty's reign began, have the same views ever directed theadministration of finance for five years in succession? Can you beignorant, sir (here he addressed himself to the comptroller-general), that each minister, as he steps into his place, rejects the system of hispredecessor in order to substitute that which he has devised? Withinonly eight months, you are the fourth minister of finance, and yet youare forming a plan which cannot be accomplished in less than five years!The remedy, sir, for the wounds of the state has been pointed out by yourParliament: it is the convocation of the Statesgeneral. Theirconvocation, to be salutary, must be prompt. Your ministers would liketo avoid this assembly whose surveillance they dread. Their hope isvain. Before two years are over, the necessities of the state will forceyou to convoke the States-general. "

M. D'Espremesnil was overcome; less violent than usual, he had, appealedto the king's heart; for a moment Louis XVI. Appeared to be moved, and sowas the assembly with him; the edicts were about to be enregistereddespite the efforts of the opposition; already the premier president wascollecting the votes; the keeper of the seals would not, at this gravemoment, renounce any kingly prerogative. "When the king is at theParliament, there is no deliberation; his will makes law, " said the legalrule and the custom of the magistracy. Lamoignon went up to the throne;he said a few words in a low voice. "Mr. Keeper of the seals, have theedicts enregistered, " said Louis XVI. The minister immediately repeatedthe formula used at beds of justice. A murmur ran through the assembly;the Duke of Orleans rose; he had recently become the head of his housethrough his father's death, and found himself more than ever involved inintrigues hostile to the court. "Sir, " said he in a broken voice, "thisregistration appears to me illegal. . . . It should be distinctlystated that the registration is done by the express command of yourMajesty. " The king was as much moved as the prince. "It is all the sameto me, " he replied. "You are master, of course. " "Yes, --it is legal, because I so will. " The edict relative to non-Catholics was read, andLouis XVI. Withdrew. 

There was violent commotion in the assembly; the protest of the Duke ofOrleans was drawn up in a more explicit form. "The difference between abed of justice and a royal session is, that one exhibits the frankness ofdespotism and the other its duplicity, " cried d'Espremesnil. Notwithstanding the efforts of M. De Malesherbes and the Duke ofNivernais, the Parliament inscribed on the registers that it was not tobe understood to take any part in the transcription here ordered ofgradual and progressive loans for the years 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, and1792. In reply, the Duke of Orleans was banished to Villers-Cotterets, whilst Councillors Freteau and Sabatier were arrested and taken to astate-prison. 

By the scandalousness of his life, as well as by his obstructivebuildings in the Palais-Royal, the Duke of Orleans had lost favor withthe public; his protest and his banishment restored him at once to hispopularity. The Parliament piled remonstrance upon remonstrance, everyday more and more haughty in form as well as in substance. Dipping intothe archives in search of antiquated laws, the magistrates appealed tothe liberties of olden France, mingling therewith the novel principles ofthe modern philosophy. "Several pretty well-known facts, " they said, "prove that the nation, more enlightened as to its true interests, evenin the least elevated classes, is disposed to accept from the hands ofyour Majesty the greatest blessing a king can bestow upon his subjects--liberty. It is this blessing, Sir, which your Parliament come to askyou to restore, in the name of a generous and faithful people. It is nolonger a prince of your blood, it is no longer two magistrates whom yourParliament ask you to restore in the name of the laws and of reason, butthree Frenchmen, three men. "

To peremptory demands were added perfidious insinuations. 

"Such ways, Sir, " said one of these remonstrances, "have no place in yourheart, such samples of proceeding are not the principles of your Majesty, they come from another source. " For the first time the queen was thusheld up to public odium by the Parliament which had dealt her a fatalblow by acquitting Cardinal Rohan; she was often present at the king'sconferences with his ministers, reluctantly and by the advice of M. DeBrienne, for and in whom Louis XVI. Never felt any liking or confidence. "There is no more happiness for me since they have made me an intriguer, "she said sadly to Madame Campan. And when the latter objected: "Yes, "replied the queen, "it is the proper word: every woman who meddles inmatters above her lights and beyond the limits of her duty, is nothingbut an intriguer; you will remember, however, that I do not spare myself, and that it is with regret I give myself such a title. The other day, as I was crossing the Bull's Eye (_Eil de Boeuf_), to go to a privatecommittee at the king's, I heard one of the chapel-band say out loud, 'A queen who does her duty remains in her rooms at her needlework. 'I said to myself: 'Thou'rt quite right, wretch; but thou know'st not myposition; I yield to necessity and my evil destiny. '" A true daughter ofMaria Theresa in her imprisonment and on the scaffold, Marie Antoinettehad neither the indomitable perseverance nor the simple grandeur inpolitical views which had restored the imperial throne in the case of herillustrious mother. She weakened beneath a burden too heavy for a mindso long accustomed to the facile pleasures of youth. "The queencertainly has wits and firmness which might suffice for great things, "wrote her friend, the Count of La Marck, to M. De Mercy Argenteau, hermother's faithful agent in France; "but it must be confessed that, whether in business or in mere conversation, she does not always exhibitthat degree of attention and that persistence which are indispensable forgetting at the bottom of what one ought to know, in order to preventerrors and to insure success. "

The same want of purpose and persistence of which the Count of La Marckcomplained was strikingly apparent everywhere and in all matters; theDuke of Orleans was soon tired of banishment; he wrote to the queen, whoobtained his recall. The ministers were making mysterious preparationsfor a grand stroke. The Parliament, still agitated and anxious, had atlast enregistered the edict relating to non-Catholics. Public opinion, like the government, supported it eagerly; the principles of tolerancewhich had prompted it were henceforth accepted by all; certain bishopsand certain bigots were still trying to hinder this first step towards alegal status for a long while refused to Protestants. M. D'Espremesnil, an earnest disciple of the _philosophe inconnu, _ the mystic St. Martin, just as he had been the dupe of Mesmer and of Cagliostro, was almostsingle-handed in the Parliament in his opposition to the registration ofthe edict. Extending his hand towards the crucifix, he exclaimed withviolence: "Would you crucify him a second time?" The court was a betterjudge of Christian principles, and Protestants were permitted to be born, to marry, and to die on French territory. The edict did not as yetconcede to them any other right. 

The contest extended as it grew hotter; everywhere the parliaments tookup the quarrel of the court of Paris; the formation of the provincialassemblies furnished new centres of opposition; the petty noblesse madealliance with the magistracy; the antagonism of principles became everyday more evident; after the five months elapsed since the royal session, the Parliament was still protesting against the violence done to it. "I had no need to take or count the votes, " said the king's reply; "beingpresent at the deliberation, I judged for myself without taking anyaccount of plurality. If plurality in my courts were to force my will, the monarchy would be nothing but an aristocracy of magistrates. " "No, sir, no aristocracy in France, but no despotism either, " replied themembers of parliament. 

The indiscretion of a printer made M. D'Espremesnil acquainted withthe great designs which were in preparation; at his instigation theParliament issued a declaration as to the reciprocal rights and dutiesof the monarch and the nation. "France, " said the resolution, "is amonarchy hereditary from male to male, governed by the king following thelaws; it has for fundamental laws the nation's right to freely grantsubsidies by means of the States-general convoked and composed accordingto regulation, the customs and capitulations of the provinces, theirremovability of the magistrates, the right of the courts to enregisteredicts, and that of each citizen to be judged only by his natural judges, without liability ever to be arrested arbitrarily. " "The magistratesmust cease to exist before the nation ceases to be free, " said a secondprotest. 

Bold and defiant in its grotesque mixture of the ancient principles ofthe magistracy with the novel theories of philosophy, the resolution ofthe Parliament was quashed by the king. Orders were given to arrestM. D'Espremesnil and a young councillor, Goislard de Montsabert, who hadproposed an inquiry into the conduct of the comptrollers commissioned tocollect the second twentieth. The police of the Parliament was perfectand vigilant; the two magistrates were warned and took refuge in thePalace of Justice; all the chambers were assembled and the peersconvoked. Ten or a dozen appeared, notwithstanding the king's expressprohibition. 

The Parliament had placed the two threatened members "under theprotection of the king and of the law;" the premier president, at thehead of a deputation, had set out for Versailles to demand immunity forthe accused; the court was in session awaiting his return. 

The mob thronged the precincts of the Palace, some persons had evenpenetrated into the grand chamber; no deliberations went on. Towardsmidnight, several companies of the French guards entered the hall of thePas-Perdus; all the exits were guarded. The court was in commotion, theyoung councillors demanded that the deliberations should go on publicly. "Gentlemen, " said President de Gourgues, "would you derogate from theancient forms?" The spectators withdrew. The Marquis d'Agoult, aide-major of the French guards, demanded admission; he had orders fromthe king. The ushers opened the doors; at sight of the magistrates inscarlet robes, motionless upon their seats, the officer was for a momentabashed; he cast his eye from bench to bench, his voice faltered when heread the order signed by the king to arrest "MM. D'Espremesnil and DeMontsabert, in the grand chamber or elsewhere. " "The court will proceedto deliberate thereon, sir, " replied the president. "Your forms are todeliberate, " hotly replied M. D'Agoult, who had recovered himself; "Iknow nothing of those forms, the king's orders must be executed withoutdelay; point out to me those whom I have to arrest. " Silence reignedthroughout the hall; not a word, not a gesture indicated the accused. Only the dukes and peers made merry aloud over the nobleman charged withso disagreeable a mission: he repeated his demand: "We are alld'Espremesnil and Montsabert, " exclaimed the magistrates. M. D'Agoultleft the room. 

He soon returned, accompanied by an exon of the short robe, namedLarchier. "Show me whom I have to arrest, " was the officer's order. The exon looked all round the room; he knew every one of the magistrates;the accused were sitting right in front of him. "I do not seeMM. D'Espremesnil and Montsabert anywhere, " he at last said, tremulously. M. D'Agoult's threats could not get any other answer out of him. 

The officer had gone to ask for fresh orders; the deputation sent toVersailles had returned, without having been received by Louis XVI. , ofwhom an audience had not been requested. The court wanted to send someof the king's people at once to notify a fresh request; the troopsguarded all the doors, nobody could leave the Palace. 

"Gentlemen, " said d'Espr4mesnil at last, "it would be contrary to ourhonor as well as to the dignity of the Parliament to prolong this sceneany further; and, besides, we cannot be the ruin of Larchier; letM. D'Agoult be shown in again. " The officer was recalled, themagistrates were seated and covered. "Sir, " said M. D'Espremesnil, "I am one of those you are in search of. The law forbids me to obeyorders irregularly obtained (_surpris_) of the sovereign, and it is tobe faithful to him that I have not mentioned who I am until this moment. I call upon you to state whether, in case I should not go with youvoluntarily, you have orders to drag me from this building. " "Certainly, sir. " D'Agoult was already striding towards the door to order in histroops. "Enough, " said M. D'Espremesnil; "I yield to force;" and, turning to his colleagues, "Gentlemen, " he said, "to you I protestagainst the violence of which I am the object; forget me and thinkhenceforth of nothing but the common weal; I commend to you my family;whatever may be my fate, I shall never cease to glory in professing tothe last hour the principles which do honor to this court. " He made adeep obeisance, and followed the major, going out by the secretstaircases in order to avoid the crowd whose shouts could be heard evenwithin the palace buildings. Goislard de Montsabert followed hiscolleague's example: he was confined at Pierre-Encise; M. D'Espremesnilhad been taken to the Isle of St. Marguerite. 

Useless and ill-judged violence, which excited the passions of the publicwithout intimidating opponents! The day after the scene of May 6th, atthe moment when the whole magistracy of France was growing hot over thethrilling account of the arrest of the two councillors, the Parliament ofParis was sent for to Versailles (May 8, 1788). 

[Illustration: Arrest of the Members----502]

The magistrates knew beforehand what fate awaited them. The king uttereda few severe words. After a pompous preamble, the keeper of the sealsread out six fresh edicts intended to ruin forever the power of thesovereign courts. 

Forty-seven great baillie-courts, as a necessary intermediary between theparliaments and the inferior tribunals, were henceforth charged with allcivil cases not involving sums of more than twenty thousand livres, aswell as all criminal cases of the third order (estate). Therepresentations of the provincial assembly of Dauphiny severelycriticised the impropriety of this measure. "The ministers, " they said, "have not been afraid to flout the third estate, whose life, honor, andproperty no longer appear to be objects worthy of the sovereign courts, for which are reserved only the causes of the rich and the crimes of theprivileged. " The number of members of the Parliament of Paris wasreduced to sixty-nine. The registration of edicts, the only realpolitical power left in the hands of the magistrates, was transferred toa plenary court, an old title without stability and without tradition, composed, under the king's presidency, of the great functionaries ofstate, assisted by a small number of councillors. The absolute power wasthus preparing a rampart against encroachments of authority on the partof the sovereign courts; it had fortified itself beforehand against thepretensions of the States-general, "which cannot pretend to be anythingbut a more extended council on behalf of the sovereign, the latter stillremaining supreme arbiter of their representations and their grievances. "

Certain useful ameliorations in the criminal legislation, amongst otherstotal abolition of torture, completed the sum of edicts. A decree of thecouncil declared all the parliarnents prorogued until the formation ofthe great bailliecourts. The plenary court was to assemble forthwith atVersailles. It only sat once; in presence of the opposition amongst themajority of the men summoned to compose it, the ministers, unforeseeingand fickle even with all their ability and their boldness, foundthemselves obliged to adjourn the sittings indefinitely. All the membersof the Parliament of Paris had bound themselves by a solemn oath not totake a place in any other assembly. "In case of dispersal of themagistracy, " said the resolution entered upon the registers of the court, "the Parliament places the present act as a deposit in the hands of theking, of his august family, of the peers of the realm, of the States-general, and of each of the orders, united or separate, representing thenation. "

At sight of this limitation, less absolute and less cleverly calculated, of the attempts made by Chancellor Maupeou, after seventeen years' rapidmarching towards a state of things so novel and unheard of, the commotionwas great in Paris; the disturbance, however, did not reach to themasses, and the disorder in the streets was owing less to the Parisianpopulace than to mendicants, rascals of sinister mien, flocking in, noneknew why, from the four points of the compass. The provinces were moreseriously disturbed. All the sovereign courts rose up with one accord;the Parliament of Rouen declared "traitors to the king, to the nation, tothe province, perjured and branded with infamy, all officers and judges"who should proceed in virtue of the ordinances of May 8. "The authorityof the king is unlimited for doing good to his subjects, " said one of thepresidents, "but everybody should put limits to it when it turns towardsoppression. " It was the very commandant of the royal troops whom themagistrates thus reproached with their passive obedience. 

Normandy confined herself to declarations and speeches; other provinceswent beyond those bounds: Brittany claimed performance "of the marriagecontract between Louis XII. And the Duchess Anne. " Notwithstanding theking's prohibition, the Parliament met at Rennes. A detachment ofsoldiers having been ordered to disperse the magistrates, a band ofgentlemen, supported by an armed mob, went to protect the deliberationsof the court. Fifteen officers fought duels with fifteen gentlemen. Thecourt issued a decree of arrest against the holders of the king'scommission. The youth of Nantes hurried to the aid of the youth ofRennes. The intermediary commission of the states ordered the bishops tohave the prayers said which were customary in times of public calamity, and a hundred and thirty gentlemen carried to the governor a declarationsigned by the noblesse of almost the whole province. "We, members of thenoblesse of Brittany, do declare infamous those who may accept any place, whether in the new administration of justice or in the administration ofthe states, which is not recognized by the laws and constitutions of theprovince. " A dozen of them set off for Versailles to go and denounce theministers to Louis XVI. Being put in the Bastille, eighteen of theirfriends went to demand then back; they were followed by fifty others. The officers of the Bassigny regiment had taken sides with theopposition, and discussed the orders sent to them. Among the great lordsof the province, attached to the king's own person, MM. De La Tremoille, de Rieux, and de Guichen left the court to join their protests to thoseof their friends; the superintendent, Bertrand de Molleville, was hanged-in effigy and had to fly. 

In Bearn, the peasantry had descended from the mountains; hereditaryproprietors of their little holdings, they joined the noblesse to marchout and meet the Duke of Guiche, sent by the king to restore order. Already the commandant of the province had been obliged to authorize themeeting of the Parliament. The Bearnese bore in front of their ranks thecradle of Henry IV. , carefully preserved in the Castle of Pau. "We areno rebels, " they said: "we claim our contract and fidelity to the oathsof a king whom we love. The Bearnese is free-born, he will not die aslave. Let the king have all from us in love and not by force; our bloodis his and our country's. Let none come to take our lives when we aredefending our liberty. "

Legal in Normandy, violent in Brittany, tumultuous in Bearn, theparliamentary protests took a politic and methodical form in Dauphiny. An insurrection amongst the populace of Grenoble, soon supported by thevillagers from the mountains, had at first flown to arms at the sound ofthe tocsin. The members of the Parliament, on the point of leaving thecity, had been detained by force, and their carriages had been smashed. The troops offered little resistance; an entry was effected into thehouse of the governor, the Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, and, with an axeabove his head, the insurgents threatened to hang him to the chandelierin his drawing-room if he did not convoke the Parliament. Raggedruffians ran to the magistrates, and compelled them to meet in thesessions-hall. The members of Parliament succeeded with great difficultyin pacifying the mob. As soon as they found themselves free, theyhastened away into exile. Other hands had taken up their quarrel. Acertain number of members of the three orders met at the town hall, and, on their private authority, convoked for the 21st of July the specialstates of Dauphiny, suppressed a while before by Cardinal Richelieu. 

The Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre had been superseded by old Marshal Vaux, rough and ready. He had at his disposal twenty thousand men. Scarcelyhad he arrived at Grenoble, when he wrote to Versailles. "It is toolate, " he said. The prerogatives of royal authority were maintained, however. The marshal granted a meeting of the states-provincial, but herequired permission to be asked of him. He forbade the assembly to beheld at Grenoble. It was in the Castle of Vizille, a former residenceof the dauphins, that the three orders of Dauphiny met, closely unitedtogether in wise and patriotic accord. The Archbishop of Vienne, Lefrancde Pompignan, brother of the poet, lately the inveterate foe of Voltaire, an ardently and sincerely pious man, led his clergy along the mostliberal path; the noblesse of the sword, mingled with the noblesse of therobe, voted blindly all the resolutions of the third estate; these weresuggested by the real head of the assembly, M. Mounier, judge-royal ofGrenoble, a friend of M. Necker's, an enlightened, loyal, honorable man, destined ere long to make his name known over the whole of France by hiscourageous resistance to the outbursts of the National Assembly. Unanimously the three orders presented to the king their claims to theolden liberties of the province; they loudly declared, however, that theywere prepared for all sacrifices and aspired to nothing but the commonrights of all Frenchmen. The double representation of the third in theestates of Dauphiny was voted without contest, as well as equalassessment of the impost intended to replace forced labor. Throughoutthe whole province the most perfect order had succeeded the firstmanifestations of popular irritation. 

It was now more than a year since Brienne had become chief minister. MM. De Segur and de Castries had retired, refusing to serve under a manwhom they did not esteem. Alone, shut up in his closet, the archbishoplistened without emotion to the low murmur of legal protests, the noisytumult of insurrections. "I have foreseen all, even civil war. The kingshall be obeyed, the king knows how to make himself obeyed, " he keptrepeating in the assured tones of an oracle. Resolved not to share theresponsibility of the reverse he foresaw, Baron de Breteuil sent in hisresignation. 

Meanwhile the treasury was found to be empty; Brienne appealed to theclergy, hoping to obtain from ecclesiastical wealth one of thosegratuitous gifts which had often come in aid of the State's necessities. The Church herself was feeling the influence of the times. Withoutrelaxing in her pretensions to the maintenance of privileges, theecclesiastical assembly thought itself bound to plead the cause of thatmagistracy which it had so, often fought. "Our silence, " said theremonstrances, "would be a crime, of which the nation and posterity wouldnever absolve us. Your Majesty has just effected at the bed of justiceof May 8, a great movement as regards things and persons. Such ought tobe a consequence rather than a preliminary of the States-general; thewill of a prince which has not been enlightened by his courts may beregarded as a momentary will. Your Majesty has issued an edict carryingthe restoration of the plenary court, but that court has recalled anancient reign without recalling ancient ideas. Even if it had been oncethe supreme tribunal of our kings, it now presents no longer thatnumerous assemblage of prelates, barons, and lieges united together. Thenation sees nothing in it but a court-tribunal whose complaisance itwould be afraid of, and whose movements and intrigues it would dread intimes of minority and regency. . . . Our functions are sacred, when, from the height of the altars, we pray heaven to send down blessings onkings and on their subjects; they are still so, when, after teachingpeople their duties, we represent their rights and make solicitations onbehalf of the afflicted, on behalf of the absent despoiled of theirposition and their liberty. The clergy of France, Sir, stretch forth toyou their suppliant hands; it is so beautiful to see might and puissanceyielding to prayer! The glory of your Majesty is not in being King ofFrance, but in being King of the French, and the heart of your subjectsin the fairest of your domains. " The assembly of the clergy granted tothe treasury only a poor gift of eighteen hundred thousand livres. 

All the resources were exhausted, disgraceful tricks had despoiled thehospitals and the poor; credit was used up, the payments of the Statewere backward; the discount-bank (_caisse d'escompte_) was authorized torefuse to give coin. To divert the public mind from this painfulsituation, Brienne proposed to the king to yield to the requests of themembers of Parliament, of the clergy, and of the noblesse themselves. A decree of August 8, 1788, announced that the States-general would beconvoked May 1, 1789: the re-establishment of the plenary court wassuspended to that date. Concessions wrested from the weakness andirresolution of governments do not strengthen their failing powers. Brienne had exhausted his boldness as well as his basenesses; hesuccumbed beneath the outcry of public wrath and mistrust. He offeredthe comptroller-generalship to M. Necker, who refused. "He told XVI. "Mercy, " is the expression in Brienne's own account, "that under aminister who, like me, had lost the favor of the public, he could not doany good. " A court-intrigue at last decided the minister's fall. TheCount of Artois, egged on by Madame de Polignac, made urgent entreatiesto the queen; she was attached to Brienne; she, however, resigned herselfto giving him up, but with so many favors and such an exhibition ofkindness towards all his family, that the public did not feel at allgrateful to Marie Antoinette. Already Brienne had exchanged thearchbishopric of Toulouse for that of Sens, a much richer one. "Thequeen offered me the hat and anything I might desire, " writes theprelate, "telling me that she parted from me with regret, weeping atbeing obliged to do so, and permitting me to kiss her (_l'embrasser_) intoken of her sorrow and her interest. " "After having made the mistake ofbringing him into the ministry, " says Madame Campan [_Memoires, _ t. I. P. 33], "the queen unfortunately made an equally grave one in supportinghim at the time of a disgrace brought upon him by the despair of thewhole nation. She considered it only consistent with her dignity to givehim, at his departure, ostensible proofs of her esteem, and, her verysensibility misleading her, she sent him her portrait adorned withprecious stones and the patent of lady of the palace for his niece, Madame de Courcy, saying that it was necessary to indemnify a ministersacrificed by the trickery of courts and the factious spirit of thenation. I have since seen the queen shed bitter tears over the errorsshe committed at this period. "

On the 25th of August, 1788, the king sent for M. Necker. 

A burst of public joy greeted the fall of the detested minister andthe return of the popular minister. There were illuminations in theprovinces as well as at Paris, at the Bastille as well as the houses ofmembers of Parliament; but joy intermingled with hate is a brutal and adangerous one: the crowd thronged every evening on the Pont-Neuf, forcingcarriages as well as foot passengers to halt in front of Henry IV. 'sstatue. "Hurrah for Henry IV. ! To the devil with Lamoignon andBrienne!" howled the people, requiring all passers to repeat the samecry. It was remarked that the Duke of Orleans took pleasure in crossingover the Pont-Neuf to come in for the cheers of the populace. "He wasmore crafty than ambitious, more depraved than naturally wicked, " says M. Malouet: "resentment towards the court had hurried him into intrigue; hewanted to become formidable to the queen. His personal aim was vengeancerather than ambition, that of his petty council was to effect an upheavalin order to set the prince at the head of affairs as lieutenant-generaland share the profits. "

The tumult in the streets went on increasing; the keeper of the seals, Lamoignon, had tried to remain in power. M. Necker, supported by thequeen, demanded his dismissal. His departure, like that of Brienne, hadto be bought; he was promised an embassy for his son; he claimed a sum offour hundred thousand livres; the treasury was exhausted, and there wasno finding more than half. The greedy keeper of the seals was succeededby Barentin, premier-president of the Court of Aids. Two dummies, onedressed in a _simarre_ (gown) and the other in pontifical vestments, wereburned on the Pont-Neuf: the soldiers, having been ordered to dispersethe crowds, some persons were wounded and others killed; the mob had feltsure that they would not be fired upon, whatever disorder they showed;the wrath and indignation were great; there were threats of setting fireto the houses of MM. De Brienne and de Lamoignon; the quarters of thecommandant of the watch were surrounded. The number of folks of noavocation, of mendicants and of vagabonds, was increasing every day inParis. 

Meanwhile the Parliament had gained its point, the great baillie-courtswere abolished; the same difficulty had been found in constituting themas in forming the plenary court; all the magistrates of the inferiortribunals refused to sit in them; the Breton deputies were let out of theBastille; everywhere the sovereign courts were recalled. The return ofthe exiles to Paris was the occasion for a veritable triumph and thepretext for new disorders among the populace. It was the Parliament'sfirst duty to see to the extraordinary police (_haute police_) in itsdistrict; it performed the duty badly and weakly. The populace hadapplauded its return and had supported its cause during its exile; thefirst resolution of the court was directed against the excesses committedby the military in repressing the disorders. When it came to trying themen seized with arms in their hands and the incendiaries who hadthreatened private houses, all had their cases dismissed; by way ofexample, one was detained a few days in prison. Having often been servedin its enterprises by the passions of the mob, the Parliament had notforeseen the day when those same outbursts would sweep it away like chaffbefore the wind with all that regimen of tradition and respect to whichit still clung even in its most audacious acts of daring. 

For an instant the return of M. Necker to power had the effect ofrestoring some hope to the most far-sighted. On his coming into office, the treasury was empty, there was no scraping together as much as fivethousand livres. The need was pressing, the harvests were bad; thecredit and the able resources of the great financier sufficed for all;the funds went up thirty percent. In one day, certain capitalists madeadvances, the chamber of the notaries of Paris paid six millions into thetreasury, M. Necker lent two millions out of his private fortune. Economy had already found its way into the royal household; Louis XVI. Had faithfully kept his promises; despite the wrath of courtiers, he hadreduced his establishment. The Duke of Coigny, premier equerry, hadfound his office abolished. "We were truly grieved, Coigny and I, " saidthe king, kindly, "but I believe he would have beaten me had I let him. ""It is fearful to live in a country where one is not sure of possessingto-morrow what one had the day before, " said the great lords who weredispossessed; "it's a sort of thing seen only in Turkey. " Othersacrifices and more cruel lessons in the instability of human affairswere already in preparation for the French noblesse. 

The great financial talents of M. Necker, his probity, his courage, hadcaused illusions as to his political talents; useful in his day and inhis degree, the new minister was no longer equal to the task. Thedistresses of the treasury had powerfully contributed to bring about, todevelop the political crisis; the public cry for the States-general hadarisen in a great degree from the deficit; but henceforth financialresources did not suffice to conjure away the danger; the discount-bankhad resumed payment, the state honored its engagements, the phantom ofbankruptcy disappeared from before the frightened eyes of stockholders;nevertheless the agitation did not subside, minds were full of higher andmore tenacious concernments. Every gaze was turned towards the States-general. Scarcely was M. Necker in power, when a royal proclamation, sent to the Parliament returning to Paris, announced the convocation ofthe Assembly for the month of January, 1789. 

The States-general themselves had become a topic of the most livelydiscussion. Amid the embarrassment of his government, and in order tothrow a sop to the activity of the opposition, Brienne had declared hisdoubts and his deficiency of enlightenment as to the form to be given tothe deliberations of that ancient assembly, always convoked at the mostcritical junctures of the national history, and abandoned for onehundred and seventy-five years past. "The researches ordered by theking, " said a decree of the council, "have not brought to light anypositive information as to the number and quality of the electors andthose eligible, any more than as to the form of the elections: the kingwill always try to be as close as possible to the old usages; and, whenthey are unknown, his Majesty will not supply the hiatus till afterconsulting the wish of his subjects, in order that the most entireconfidence may hedge a truly national assembly. Consequently the kingrequests all the municipalities and all the tribunals to make researchesin their archives; he likewise invites all scholars and well-informedpersons, and especially those who are members of the Academy ofInscriptions and Literature, to study the question and give theiropinion. " In the wake of this appeal a flood of tracts and pamphlets hadinundated Paris and the provinces: some devoted to the defence of ancientusages; the most part intended to prove that the Constitution of theolden monarchy of France contained in principle all the politicalliberties which were but asking permission to soar; some, finally, bolderand the most applauded of all, like that of Count d'Entraigues, _Note onthe States-General, their Rights and the Manner of Convoking them;_ andthat of Abbe Sieyes, _What is the Third Estate?_ Count d'Entraigues'pamphlet began thus: "It was doubtless in order to give the most heroicvirtues a home worthy of them that heaven willed the existence ofrepublics, and, perhaps to punish the ambition of men, it permitted greatempires, kings, and masters to arise. " Sieyes' pamphlet had already soldto the extent of thirty thousand copies; the development of his ideas wasan audacious commentary upon his modest title. "What is the thirdestate?" said that able revolutionist. "Nothing. What ought it to be?Everything?" It was hoisting the flag against the two upper orders. "The deputies of the clergy and of the noblesse have nothing in commonwith national representation, " he said, "and no alliance is possiblebetween the three orders in the States-general. "

It may be permissible to quote here a page or, so from the second volumeof this history. "At the moment when France was electing the constituentassembly, a man, whose mind was more powerful than accurate, Abbe Sieyes, could say, 'What is the third estate? Everything. What has it beenhitherto in the body politic? Nothing. What does it demand? To besomething. ' There were in these words three grave errors. In the courseof the regimen anterior to 1789, so far was the third estate from beingnothing that it had every day become greater and stronger. What wasdemanded for it in 1789 by M. Sieyes and his friends was not that itshould become something, but that it should be everything. It was todesire what was beyond its right and its might; the Revolution, which wasits victory, itself proved this. Whatever may have been the weaknessesand the faults of its adversaries, the third estate had to struggleterribly to vanquish them, and the struggle was so violent and soobstinate that the third estate was shattered to pieces in it and paidright dearly for its triumph. It first of all found despotism instead ofliberty; and when the liberty returned, the third estate found itselfface to face with a twofold hostility: that of its adversaries of the oldregimen and that of absolute democracy, which, in its turn, claimed to beeverything. Excessive pretension entails unmanageable opposition, andexcites unbridled ambition. What there was in the words of Abbe Sieyes, in 1789, was not the truth as it is in history; it was a lying programmeof revolution. Taking the history of France in its totality and in allits phases, the third estate has been the most active and most decisiveelement in French civilization. If we follow it in its relations withthe general government of the country, we see it first of all alliedduring six centuries with the kingship, struggling pauselessly againstthe feudal aristocracy, and giving the prevalence in place of that to acentral and unique power, pure monarchy to wit, closely approximating, though with certain often-repeated but vain reservations, to absolutemonarchy. But, so soon as it has gained this victory and accomplishedthis revolution, the third estate pursues another: it attacks this uniquepower which it had contributed so much to establish, and it undertakesthe task of changing pure monarchy into constitutional monarchy. Underwhatever aspect we consider it in its two great and so very differententerprises, whether we study the progressive formation of French societyitself or that of its government, the third estate is the most powerfuland the most persistent of the forces which have had influence overFrench civilization. Not only is this fact novel, but it has for Francequite a special interest; for, to make use of an expression which is muchabused in our day, it is a fact eminently French, essentially national. Nowhere has burgessdom had a destiny so vast, so fertile as that whichhas fallen to it in France. There have been commons all over Europe, inItaly, in Spain, in Germany, in England, as well as in France. Not onlyhave there been commons everywhere, but the commons in France are notthose which, _qua_ commons, under that name and in the middle ages, haveplayed the greatest part and held the highest place in history. TheItalian commons begot glorious republics. The German commons became freetowns, sovereign towns, which have their own special history, andexercised throughout the general history of Germany a great deal ofinfluence. The commons of England allied themselves with a portion ofthe English feudal aristocracy, formed with it the preponderating housein the British government, and thus played, full early, a powerful partin the history of their country. The French commons, under that name andin their season of special activity, were certainly far from rising tothat importance in politics and that rank in history. And yet it is inFrance that the people of the commons, the burgessdom, became mostcompletely, most powerfully developed, and ended by acquiring, in thegeneral social body, the most decided preponderance. There have beencommons throughout the whole of Europe; there has been in truth no thirdestate victorious save in France; it is in the French Revolution of 1789, assuredly the greatest, that the French third estate reached itsultimatum, and France is the only country where, in an excess ofburgesspride, a man of great mind could say: 'What is the third estate?Every thing. '"

So much excitement in men's minds, and so much commotion amongst themasses, reasonably disquieted prudent folks. In spite of its naturalfrivolity, the court was at bottom sad and anxious. The time had passedfor the sweet life at the manor-house of Trianon, for rustic amusementsand the charity of youth and romance. Marie Antoinette felt it deeplyand bitterly; in the preceding year, at the moment when M. De Calonne wasdisputing with the Assembly of notables, she wrote to the Duchess ofPolignac who had gone to take the waters in England: "Where you are youcan at least enjoy the pleasure of not hearing affairs talked about. Though in the country of upper and lower houses, of oppositions andmotions, you can shut your ears and let the talk glide; but here there isa deafening noise, notwithstanding all I can do; those words oppositionand motion are as firmly established here as in the Parliament ofEngland, with this difference, that, when you go over to the oppositionin London, you commence by relinquishing the king's graces, whereas heremany oppose all the wise and beneficent views of the most virtuous ofmasters and keep his benefits all the same; that perhaps is more clever, but it is not so noble. The time of illusions is over, and we are havingsome cruel experiences. Happily all the means are still in the king'shands, and he will arrest all the mischief which the imprudent want tomake. " The queen preserved some confidence: she only half perceived theabyss beginning to yawn beneath her feet, she had not yet criticised theweakness and insufficiency of the king her husband; she did not as yetwrite: "The personage over me is not fit, and as for me, whatever may besaid and come what may, I am never anything but secondary, and, in spiteof the confidence reposed by the first, he often makes me feel it. " Shewas troubled, nevertheless, and others more sagacious were more so thanshe. "When I arrived at Paris, where I had not been for more than threeyears, " says M. Malouet, for a long while the king's commissioner in thecolonies, and latterly superintendent of Toulon, "observing the heat ofpolitical discussions as well as of the pamphlets in circulation, M. D'Entraigues' work and Abbe Sieyes', the troubles in Brittany andthose in Dauphiny, my illusions vanished; I was seized with all theterrors confided to me by Abbe Raynal on my way to Marseilles. I foundM. Necker beginning to be afraid, but still flattering himself that hewould have means of continuing, directing, and bringing everythingright. " The Parliament was still more affrighted than M. Malouet and M. Necker. Summoned, on the 28th of September, to enregister the king'sproclamation relative to the convocation of the States-general, it addedthis clause: "According to the forms observed in 1614. " It was a replyin the negative on the part of the magistracy to all the new aspirationsto the vote by polling (_vote par tete_) as well as to the doubling ofthe third already gained in principle amongst the provincial assemblies;the popularity of the Parliament at once vanished. M. D'Espremesnil, hardly returned from the Isles of St. Marguerite, and all puffed up withhis glory, found himself abandoned by those who had been loudest invaunting his patriotic zeal. An old councillor had but lately said tohim, when he was calling for the States-general with all his might, "Providence will punish your fatal counsels by granting your wishes. "After the triumph of his return to Paris, amidst the desert which wasforming around the Parliament, "the martyr, the hero of liberty, " as hisenthusiastic admirers had been wont to call him, had to realize thatinstability of human affairs and that fragility of popularity to which hehad shut his eyes even in his prison, when Mirabeau, ever biting andcynical, wrote to one of his friends

"Neighborhood will doubtless procure you a visit from that immenseD'Espremesnil, the sage commentator upon Mesmer, who, from the Isles ofSt. Marguerite even unto this place, has made everybody laugh at theostentation with which he shook his fetters to make them clank. "

The troubles amongst the populace had subsided, but agitation amongst thethoughtful went on increasing, and the embarrassments of M. Neckerincreased with the agitation amongst the thoughtful. Naturally astranger to politics properly so called, constantly engaged as he was infinance or administration, the minister's constitutional ideas wereborrowed from England; he himself saw how inapplicable they were to thesituation of France. "I was never called upon, " he says in his_Memoirs, _ "to examine closely into what I could make, at the time of myreturn to office, of my profound and particular esteem for the governmentof England, for, if at a very early period my reflections and myconversation could not but show symptoms of the opinions I held, at avery early period, also, I perceived how averse the king was fromanything that might resemble the political practices and institutions ofEngland. " "M. Necker, " says M. Malouet, "showed rare sagacity in espyingin the greatest detail and on the furthest horizon the defects, theinconveniences of every measure, and it was this faculty of extending hisobservations to infinity which made him so often undecided. " What withthese doubts existing in his own mind, and what with the antagonisticefforts of parties as well as individual wills, the minister conceivedthe hope of releasing himself from the crushing burden of his personalresponsibility; he convoked for the second time the Assembly of notables. 

Impotent as it was in 1787, this assembly was sure to be and was evenmore so in 1788. Mirabeau had said with audacious intuition: "It is nolonger a question of what has been, but of what has to be. " The notablesclung to the past like shipwrecked mariners who find themselves invadedby raging waters. Meeting on the 6th of November at Versailles, theyopposed in mass the doubling of the third (estate); the committeepresided over by Monsieur, the king's brother, alone voted for the doublerepresentation, and that by a majority of only one-voice. The Assemblylikewise refused to take into account the population of thecircumscriptions (outlying districts) in fixing the number of itsrepresentatives; the seneschalty of Poitiers, which numbered sevenhundred thousand inhabitants, was not to have more deputies than thebailiwick of Dourdan, which had but eight thousand. The liberality onwhich the notables plumed themselves as regarded the qualificationsrequired in respect of the electors and the eligible was at bottom asinterested as it was injudicious. The fact of domicile and payment oftaxes did not secure to the electors the guaranty given by property; thevote granted to all nobles whether enfeoffed or not, and to all membersof the clergy for the elections of their orders, was intended to increasethe weight of those elected by the number of suffrages; the high noblesseand the bishops reckoned wrongly upon the influence they would be able toexercise over their inferiors. Already, on many points, the petty noblesand the parish priests were engaged and were to be still more deeplyengaged on the popular side. 

At the very moment when the public were making merry over the Assembly ofnotables, and were getting irritated at the delay caused by their uselessdiscussions in the convocation of the States-general, the Parliament, inone of those sudden fits of reaction with which they were sometimesseized from their love of popularity, issued a decree explanatory oftheir decision on the 24th of September. "The real intentions of thecourt, " said the decree, "have been distorted in spite of theirplainness. The number of deputies of each order is not determined by anylaw, by any invariable usage, and it depends upon the king's wisdom toadjudge what reason, liberty, justice, and the general wish mayindicate. " The Parliament followed up this strange retractation with aseries of wise and far-sighted requests touching the totality of thepublic administration. Its part was henceforth finished, wisdom in wordscould not efface the effect of imprudent or weak acts; when the decreewas presented to the king, he gave the deputation a cold reception. "Ihave no answer to make to the prayers of the Parliament, " he replied; "itis with the States-general that I shall examine into the interests of mypeople. "

Whilst all the constituted bodies of the third estate, municipalities, corporations, commissions of provincial assemblies, were overwhelming theking with their addresses in favor of the people's rights, the Prince ofConti, whose character always bore him into reaction against the currentof public opinion, had put himself at the head of the opposition of thecourtiers. Already, at one of the committees of the Assembly ofnotables, he had addressed Monsieur, the most favorable of all theprinces to the liberal movement. "The very existence of the monarchy isthreatened, " he said, "its annihilation is desired, and we are close uponthat fatal moment. It is impossible that the king should not at lastopen his eyes, and that the princes his brothers should not co-operatewith him; be pleased, therefore, to represent to the king how importantit is for the stability of his throne, for the laws, and for good order, that the new systems be forever put away, and that the constitution andancient forms be maintained in their integrity. " Louis XVI. Having shownsome ill-humor at the Prince of Conti's remarks, the latter sent him aletter signed by all the princes of the royal family except Monsieur andthe Duke of Orleans. The perils with which the state was threatened wereevident and even greater than the prince's letter made out; the remediesthey indicated were as insufficient in substance as they werecontemptuous in form. "Let the third estate, " they said, cease to attackthe rights of the two upper orders, rights which, not less ancient thanthe monarchy, ought to be as unalterable as the constitution; but let itconfine itself to asking for diminution of the imposts with which it maybe surcharged; then the two upper orders might, in the generosity oftheir feelings, give up prerogatives which have pecuniary interests fortheir object. " . . . Whilst demanding on the part of the third estatethis modest attitude, the princes let fall threatening expressions, theuse of which had been a lost practice to the royal house since the daysof the Fronde. "In a kingdom in which for so long a time there have beenno civil dissensions, the word schism cannot be uttered without regret, "they said; "such an event, however, would have to be expected if therights of the two upper orders suffered any alteration, and whatconfidence would not be felt in the mind of the people in protests whichtended to release them from payment of imposts agreed upon in thestates?"

Thirty dukes and peers had beforehand proposed to the king therenunciation of all their pecuniary privileges, assuring him that thewhole French noblesse would follow the example if they were consulted. Passions were too violently excited, and the disorder of ideas was toogeneral to admit of the proper sense being given to this generous andfruitless proceeding. The third estate looked upon it as a manoeuvreagainst double representation; the mass of the two orders protestedagainst the forced liberality which it was attempted to thrust upon them. People made merry over the signataries. "Have you read the letter of thedupes and peers?" they said. 

The Assembly of notables had broken up on the 12th of December; theconvocation of the States-general was at hand, and the government of KingLouis XVI. Still fluctuated undecidedly between the various parties whichwere so violently disputing together over public opinion left to itself. The dismay of wise men went on increasing, they were already conscious ofthe fruitlessness of their attempts to direct those popular passions ofwhich they had, but lately been reckoning, upon availing themselves inorder to attain an end as laudable as it was moderate. One of the mostvirtuous as well as the most enlightened and the most courageous, M. Malouet, has related in his _Memoires_ the conversations he held atthis very juncture with the ministers, M. Necker and M. De Montmorinespecially. It is worth while to give the complete summary, as sensibleas it is firm, a truthful echo of the thoughts in the minds of the creamof the men who had ardently desired reforms, and who attempted in vain torein up the revolution in that fatal course which was to cost the livesof many amongst them, and the happiness and peace of nearly all. 

"It is the first Assembly of notables, " said M. Malouet, "which hasapprised the nation that the government was henceforth subordinated topublic opinion. 

"This is a false and dangerous position, if it is not strong enough toenlighten that opinion, direct it, and restrain it. 

"The wish of France has summoned the States-general, there was no way butto obey it. The doubling of the third (estate) is likewise proclaimed inan irresistible manner, but as yet there is nothing but your own mistakesto imperil the kingly authority. 

"Your shiftings, your weaknesses, your inconsistencies no longer leaveyou the resource of absolute power. From the moment that, exhibitingyour embarrassments, you are obliged to invoke the counsels and aid ofthe nation, you can no longer walk without it; from its strength you mustrecruit your own; but your wisdom must control its strength; if you leaveit bridleless and guideless, you will be crushed by it. 

"You must not wait, then, for the States-general to make demands upon youor issue orders to you; you must hasten to offer all that sound minds candesire, within reasonable limits, whether of authority or of nationalrights. 

"Everything ought to be foreseen and calculated in the king's councilbefore the opening of the States-general. You ought to determine whatcan be given up without danger in ancient usages, forms, maxims, institutions, obsolete or full of abuses. All that the public experienceand reason denounce to you as proscribed, take heed that you do notdefend; but do not be so imprudent as to commit to the risks of atumultuous deliberation the fundamental basis and the essential springsof the kingly authority. Commence by liberally granting the requirementsand wishes of the public, and prepare yourselves to defend, even byforce, all that violent, factious, and extravagant systems would assail. In the state of uncertainty, embarrassment, and denudation in which youhave placed yourselves, you have no strength, I can feel, I can see. Getout, then, of this state; put fresh energy into your concessions, intoyour plans; in a word, take up a decided attitude, for you have it not. 

"The revolution which is at this instant being effected, and which we mayregard as accomplished, is the elevation of the commons to an influenceequal to that of the two other orders. Another revolution must followthat, and it is for you to carry it out: that is the destruction ofprivileges fraught with abuse and onerous to the people. When I say thatit is for you to carry it out, I mean that you must take your measures insuch wise as to prevent anything from being done without you, andotherwise than by your direction. 

"Thus, then, you should have a fixed plan of concessions, of reforms, which, instead of upsetting everything, will consolidate the basis oflegitimate authority. This plan should become, by your influence, thetext of all the bailiwick memorials. God forbid that I should propose toyou to bribe, to seduce, to obtain influence by iniquitous means over theelections! You need, on the contrary, the most honest, the mostenlightened, the most energetic men. Such are those who must be broughtto the front, and on whom the choice should be made to fall. "

Admirable counsels on the part of the most honest and most far-sighted ofminds; difficult, however, if not impossible, to be put into practice byfeeble ministers, themselves still undecided on the very brink of theabyss, having to face the repugnance and the passions of the twoprivileged orders on which it was a question of imposing painfulsacrifices, however legitimate and indispensable they might be. 

M. Malouet and those who thought with him, more in number than anybodycould tell, demanded instructions as to the elections in the bailiwicks. "Can you have allowed this great crisis to come on without anypreparations for defence, without any combination?" they said to theministers. "You have, through the police, the superintendents, theking's proctors in the tribunals, means of knowing men and choosing them, or, at any rate, of directing choice; these means, have you employedthem?"

M. Necker could not give his instructions; he had not yet made up hismind on the question which was engaging everybody's thoughts; hehesitated to advise the king to consent to the doubling of the third. "He had a timid pride which was based on his means, on his celebrity, andwhich made him incessantly afraid of compromising himself with publicopinion, which he could no longer manage to control when he found himselfopposed by it, " said Malouet. Marmontel, who knew the minister well, added, "That solitary mind, abstracted, self-concentrated, naturallyenthusiastic, had little communication with men in general, and few menwere tempted to have communication with him; he knew them only byglimpses too isolated or too vague, and hence his illusions as to thecharacter of the people at whose mercy he was placing the state and theking. "

M. Necker's illusions as to himself never disappeared; he had a vaguepresentiment of the weakening of his influence over public opinion, andhe was pained thereat. He resolved at last to follow it. "It is a greatmistake, " he wrote at a later period in his _Memoires, _ "to pretend tostruggle, with only antiquated notions on your side, against all thevigor of the principles of natural justice, when that justice renews itsimpulse and finds itself seconded by the natural desire of a nation. Thegreat test of ability in affairs is to obtain the merit of the sacrificebefore the moment when that same sacrifice will appear a matter ofnecessity. "

The favorable moment, which M. Necker still thought of seizing, hadalready slipped by him. The royal resolution proclaimed under thisstrange title, _Result of the King's Council held on the 27th ofDecember, 1788, _ caused neither great astonishment nor livelysatisfaction amongst the public. M. Necker was believed to be morefavorable to the doubling of the third (estate) than he really was; theking was known to be weak and resigned to following the counsels of theminister who had been thrust upon him. "The cause of the third estate, "said the Report to the king, "will always have public opinion for it; thewishes of the third estate, when unanimous, when in conformity with theprinciples of equity, will always be only another name for the wishes ofthe nation; the judgment of Europe will encourage it. I will say, then, upon my soul and conscience, and as a faithful servant of his Majesty, I do decidedly think that he may and ought to call to the States-generala number of deputies of the third estate equal to that of the deputies ofthe two other orders together, not in order to force on decisions by poll(_deliberation par tete_), as appears to be feared, but in order tosatisfy the general wishes of the commons of his kingdom. " "The king, "said the edict, "having heard the report made in his council by theminister of finance relative to the approaching convocation of theStates-general, his Majesty has adopted its principles and views, and hasordained what follows: 1. That the deputies shall be at least onethousand in number; 2. That the number shall be formed, as nearly aspossible, in the, compound ratio of the population and taxes of eachbailiwick; 3. That the number of deputies of the third estate shall beequal to that of the two other orders together, and that this proportionshall be established by the letters of convocation. " The die was cast, the victory remained with the third (estate), legitimate in principle, and still possible perhaps to be directed and regulated, but dangerousand already menacing. "It is not resistance from the two upper ordersthat I fear, " said M. Malouet to the ministers, "it is the excess of thecommons; you have done too much, or let too much be done to prevent nowthe propositions I submitted to you from being realized; the point is notto go any further, for beyond lies anarchy. But if, in the very decidedand very impetuous course taken by public opinion, the king shouldhesitate and the clergy and noblesse resist, woe to us, for all is lost!Do you expect the least appearance of order and reason in a gathering oftwelve hundred legislators, drawn from all classes, without any practicein discussion and meditation over the important subjects they are aboutto handle, carried away by party spirit, by the impetuous force of somany diverging interests and opinions? If you do not begin by givingthem fixed ideas, by hedging them, through their constituents, withinstructions and impediments which they cannot break through, look outfor all sorts of vagaries, for irremediable disorders. "

In his sad forecast of the confusion which threatened the new Assembly, M. Malouet counted too much upon the authority of mandates and upon theinfluence of the constituents; he was destined to look on, impotent anddespairing, at that great outburst of popular passions which splitasunder all ties and broke through all engagements as so many uselessimpediments. "When the Assembly, in the first paroxysms of its delirium, dared to annul its oaths and declared itself freed from the yoke of theinstructions which we received from our constituents, the king had aright--what do I say? he was bound to send us back to our bailiwicks, "says M. Malouet. The States-general were convoked for the 27th of April, 1789, and not a soul had yet received instructions from the government. "Those that we did at last receive were as honest as they wereinsufficient. They told us in substance to get adopted, if we could, theproposal to present candidates for the departments, and to admit into thelist of candidates none but men whose morality, means, and fairreputation were established, to prevent wrangles, schism between theorders, and to carry, as far as in us lay, the most moderate notions asregarded reforms and innovations. It was no longer the king speaking, itwas the consulting counsel for the crown, asking advice of everybody, andappearing to say to everybody: 'What's to be done? What can I do? Howmuch do they want to lop from my authority? How much of it will theyleave me?" [_Memoires de M. Malouet, _ t. I. P. 249. ] It was a tacitabdication of the kingship at the juncture when its traditionalauthority, if not its very existence, was brought to book. 

The party of honest men, still very numerous and recruited amongst allclasses of society, went confidently to the general elections andpreparatory assemblies which had to precede them. "Hardly conscious werethey of the dark clouds which had gathered around us; the clouds shroudeda tempest which was not slow to burst. " [Ibidem, p. 260. ]

The whole of France was fever-stricken. The agitation was contradictoryand confused, a medley of confidence and fear, joy and rage, everywhereviolent and contagious. This time again Dauphiny showed an example ofpolitic and wise behavior. The special states of the province had met onthe 1st of December, 1788, authorized by the government, according to anew system proposed by the delegates of the three orders. Certainmembers of the noblesse and of the clergy had alone protested against themode of election. Mounier constantly directed the decisions of the third(estate); he restrained and enlightened young Barnave, advocate in thecourt, who, for lack of his counsels, was destined to frequently goastray hereafter. The deliberations were invariably grave, courteous;a majority, as decided as it was tolerant, carried the day on all thevotes. "When I reflect upon all we gained in Dauphiny by the sole forceof justice and reason, " wrote Mounier afterwards, in his exile, "I seehow I came to believe that Frenchmen deserve to be free. " M. Mounierpublished a work on the convocation of the States-general demanding theformation of two chambers. That was likewise the proposition of M. De LaLuzerne, Bishop of Langres, an enlightened, a zealous, and a far-sightedprelate. "This plan had probably no approbation but mine, " says M. Malouet. The opposition and the objections were diverse andcontradictory, but they were general. Constitutional notions were as yetnovel and full of confusion in all minds. The most sagacious and mostprudent were groping their way towards a future enveloped in mist. 

The useful example of Dauphiny had no imitators. Bourbonness andHainault had accepted the system proposed by M. Necker for the formationof preparatory assemblies. Normandy, faithful to its spirit ofconservative independence, claimed its ancient privileges and refused thegranted liberties. In Burgundy the noblesse declared that they wouldgive up their pecuniary privileges, but that, on all other points, theywould defend to the last gasp the ancient usages of the province. Theclergy and noblesse of Languedoc held pretty much the same language. InFranche-Comte, where the states-provincial had not sat since Louis XIV. 'sconquest, the strife was so hot on the subject of the administrativeregimen, that the ministry declared the assembly dissolved, and referredthe decision to the States-general. The Parliament of Besanconprotested, declaring that the constitution of the province could not bemodified save by the nationality of Franche-Comte, and that deputies tothe States-general could not be elected save by the estates of thecountry assembled according to the olden rule. This pretension of themagistrates excluded the people from the elections; they rose and drovethe court from the sessions-hall. 

Everywhere the preparatory assemblies were disturbed, they weretumultuous in many spots; in Provence, as well as in Brittany, theybecame violent. In his province, Mirabeau was the cause or pretext forthe troubles. Born at Bignon, near Nemours, on the 9th of March, 1749, well known already for his talent as a writer and orator as well as forthe startling irregularities of his life, he was passionately desirous ofbeing elected to the States-general. "I don't think I shall be uselessthere, " he wrote to his friend Cerruti. Nowhere, however, was hischaracter worse than in Provence: there people had witnessed hisdissensions with his father as well as with his wife. Public contempt, a just punishment for his vices, caused his admission into the states-provincial to be unjustly opposed. The assembly was composed exclusivelyof nobles in possession of fiefs, of ecclesiastical dignitaries, and of asmall number of municipal officers. It claimed to elect the deputies tothe States-general according to the ancient usages. Mirabeau's commonsense, as well as his great and puissant genius, revolted against theabsurd theories of the privileged: he overwhelmed them with his terribleeloquence, whilst adjuring them to renounce their abuseful and obsoleterights; he scared them by his forceful and striking hideousness. "Generous friends of peace, " said he, addressing the two upper orders, "I hereby appeal to your honor! Nobles of Provence, the eyes of Europeare upon you, weigh well your answer! Ye men of God, have a care; Godhears you! But, if you keep silence, or if you intrench yourselves inthe vague utterances of a piqued self-love, allow me to add a word. Inall ages, in all countries, aristocrats have persecuted the friends ofthe people, and if, by I know not what combination of chances, there havearisen one in their own midst, he it is whom they have struck above all, thirsting as they were to inspire terror by their choice of a victim. Thus perished the last of the Gracchi, by the hand of the patricians;but, wounded to the death, he flung dust towards heaven, calling towitness the gods of vengeance, and from that dust sprang Marius, Mariusless great for having exterminated the Cimbri than for having struck downat Rome the aristocracy of the noblesse. "

Mirabeau was shut out from the states-provincial and soon adopted eagerlyby the third estate. Elected at Marseilles as well as at Aix for theStates-general, he quieted in these two cities successively riotsoccasioned by the dearness of bread. The people, in their enthusiasm, thronged upon him, accepting his will without a murmur when he restoredto their proper figure provisions lowered in price through the terror ofthe authorities. The petty noblesse and the lower provincial clergy hadeverywhere taken the side of the third estate. Mirabeau was triumphant. "I have been, am, and shall be to the last, " he exclaimed, "the man forpublic liberty, the man for the constitution. Woe to the privilegedorders, if that means better be the man of the people than the man of thenobles, for privileges will come to an end, but the people is eternal!"

Brittany possessed neither a Mounier nor a Mirabeau; the noblessethere were numerous, bellicose, and haughty, the burgessdom rich andindependent. Discord was manifested at the commencement of thestates-provincial assembled at Rennes in the latter part of December, 1788. The governor wanted to suspend the sessions, the two upper orderspersisted in meeting; there was fighting in the streets. The young menflocked in from the neighboring towns; the states-room was blockaded. For three days the members who had assembled there endured a siege; whenthey cut their way through, sword in hand, several persons were killedthe enthusiasm spread to the environs. At Angers, the women published aresolution declaring that "the mothers, sisters, wives, and sweetheartsof the young citizens of Angers would join them if they had to march tothe aid of Brittany, and would perish rather than desert thenationality. " When election time arrived, and notwithstanding theconcessions which had been made to them by the government, the Bretonnobles refused to proceed to the nominations of their order if the choiceof deputies were not intrusted to the states-provincial; they persistedin staying away, thus weakening by thirty voices their party in theStates-general. 

The great days were at hand. The whole of France was absorbed in thedrawing up of the memorials (_cahiers_) demanded by the government fromeach order, in each bailiwick. The weather was severe, the harvest hadbeen bad, the suffering was extreme. "Famine and fear of insurrectionoverthrew M. Necker, the means of providing against them absorbed all hisdays and nights and the greater part of the money he had at hisdisposal. " Agitators availed themselves ably of the misery as a means ofexciting popular passion. The alms-giving was enormous, charity and feartogether opened both hearts and purses. The gifts of the Duke of Orleansto the poor of Paris appeared to many people suspicious; but theArchbishop of Paris, M. De Juigne, without any other motive but hispastoral devotion, distributed all he possessed, and got into debt fourhundred thousand livres, in order to relieve his flock. The doors of thefinest houses were opened to wretches dying of cold; anybody might go inand get warmed in the vast halls. The regulations for the elections hadjust been published (24th of January, 1789). The number of deputies wasset at twelve hundred. The electoral conditions varied according toorder and dignity, as well as according to the extent of the bailiwicks;in accordance with the opinion of the Assembly of notables, the simplefact of nationality and of inscription upon the register of taxesconstituted electoral rights. No rating (_cens_) was required. 

The preparatory labors had been conducted without combination, theelections could not be simultaneous; no powerful and dominant minddirected that bewildered mass of ignorant electors, exercising for thefirst time, under such critical circumstances, a right of which they didnot know the extent and did not foresee the purport. "The people hasmore need to be governed and subjected to a protective authority than ithas fitness to govern, " M. Malouet had said in his speech to the assemblyof the three orders in the bailiwick of Riom. The day, however, wascoming when the conviction was to be forced upon this people, so impotentand incompetent in the opinion of its most trusty friends, that thesovereign authority rested in its hands, without direction and withoutcontrol. 

"The elective assembly of Riom was not the most stormy, " says M. Malouet, who, like M. Mounier at Grenoble, had been elected by acclamation head ofthe deputies of his own order at Riom, "but it was sufficiently so toverify all my conjectures and cause me to truly regret that I had come toit and had obtained the deputyship. I was on the point of giving in myresignation, when I found some petty burgesses, lawyers, advocateswithout any information about public affairs, quoting the _Contratsocial, _ declaiming vehemently against tyranny, abuses, and proposing aconstitution apiece. I pictured to myself all the disastrousconsequences which might be produced upon a larger stage by suchoutrageousness, and I arrived at Paris very dissatisfied with myself, with my fellow-citizens, and with the ministers who were hurrying us intothis abyss. "

The king had received all the memorials; on some few points the threeorders had commingled their wishes in one single memorial. M. Malouethad failed to get this done in Auvergne. "The clergy insist upon puttingtheology into their memorials, " he wrote to M. De Montmorin, on the 24thof March, 1789, "and the noblesse compensations for pecuniary sacrifice. I have exhausted my lungs and have no hope that we shall succeedcompletely on all points, but the differences of opinion between thenoblesse and the third estate are not embarrassing. There is rather morepigheadedness amongst the clergy as to their debt, which they decline topay, and as to some points of discipline which, after all, are matters ofindifference to us; we shall have, all told, three memorials of which theessential articles are pretty similar to those of the third estate. Weshall end as we began, peaceably. "

"The memorials of 1789, " says M. De Tocqueville [_L'ancien regime et laRevolution, _ p. 211], "will remain as it were the will and testament ofthe old French social system, the last expression of its desires, theauthentic manifesto of its latest wishes. In its totality and on manypoints it likewise contained in the germ the principles of new France. Iread attentively the memorials drawn up by the three orders beforemeeting in 1789, --I say the three orders, those of the noblesse andclergy as well as those of the third estate, --and when I come to puttogether all these several wishes, I perceive with a sort of terror thatwhat is demanded is the simultaneous and systematic abolition of all thelaws and all the usages having currency in the country, and I see at aglance that there is about to be enacted one of the most vast and mostdangerous revolutions ever seen in the world. Those who will to-morrowbe its victims have no idea of it, they believe that the total and suddentransformation of so complicated and so old a social system can takeeffect without any shock by the help of reason and its power, alone. Poor souls! They have forgotten even that maxim which their fathersexpressed four hundred years before in the simple and forcible languageof those times: 'By quest of too great franchise and liberties, gettethone into too great serfage. '"

However terrible and radical it may have been in its principles and itsresults, the French Revolution did not destroy the past and its usages, it did not break with tradition so completely as was demanded, in 1789, by the memorials of the three orders, those of the noblesse and theclergy, as well as those of the third estate. 

One institution, however, was nowhere attacked or discussed. It is nottrue, " says M. Malouet, "that we were sent to constitute the kingship, but undoubtedly to regulate the exercise of powers conformably with ourinstructions. Was not the kingship constituted in law and in fact? Werewe not charged to respect it, to maintain it on all its bases?" Lessthan a year after the Revolution had begun, Mirabeau wrote privately tothe king: "Compare the new state of things with the old regimen, thereis the source of consolations and hopes. A portion of the acts of theNational Assembly, and the most considerable too, is clearly favorable tomonarchical government. Is it nothing, pray, to be without Parliaments, without states-districts, without bodies of clergy, of privileged, ofnoblesse? The idea of forming but one single class of citizens wouldhave delighted Richelieu. This even surface facilitates the exercise ofpower. Many years of absolute government could not have done so much asthis single year of revolution for the kingly authority. "

Genius has lights which cannot be obscured by either mental bias orirregularities of life. Rejected by the noblesse, dreaded by the thirdestate, even when it was under his influence, Mirabeau constantly soughtalliance between the kingship and liberty. "What is most true and nobodycan believe, " he wrote to the Duke of Lauzun on the 24th of December, 1788, "is that, in the National Assembly, I shall be a most zealousmonarchist, because I feel most deeply how much need we have to slayministerial despotism and resuscitate the kingly authority. " The States-general were scarcely assembled when the fiery orator went to call uponM. Malouet. The latter was already supposed to be hostile to therevolution. "Sir, " said Mirabean, "I come to you because of yourreputation; and your opinions, which are nearer my own than you suppose, determine this step on my part. You are, I know, one of liberty'sdiscreet friends, and so am I; you are scared by the tempests gathering, and I no less; there are amongst us more than one hot head, more than onedangerous man; in the two upper orders all that have brains have notcommon sense, and amongst the fools I know several capable of settingfire to the magazine. The question, then, is to know whether themonarchy and the monarch will survive the storm which is a-brewing, orwhether the faults committed and those which will not fail to be stillcommitted will ingulf us all. "

M. Malouet listened, not clearly seeing the speaker's drift. Mirabeauresumed: "What I have to add is very simple I know that you are a friendof M. Necker's and of M. De Montmorin's, who form pretty nearly all theking's council; I don't like either of them, and I don't suppose thatthey have much liking for me. But it matters little whether we like oneanother, if we can come to an understanding. I desire, then, to knowtheir intentions. I apply to you to get me a conference. They would bevery culpable or very narrow-minded, the king himself would beinexcusable, if he aspired to reduce the States-general to the samelimits and the same results as all the others have had. That will notdo, they must have a plan of adhesion or opposition to certainprinciples. If that plan is reasonable under the monarchical system, Ipledge myself to support it and employ all my means, all my influence, toprevent that invasion of the democracy which is coming upon us. "

This was M. Malouet's advice, incessantly repeated to the ministers formonths past; he reported to them what Mirabeau had said; both had a badopinion of the man and some experience of his want of scruple. "M. Necker looked at the ceiling after his fashion; he was persuaded thatMirabeau had not and could not have any influence. " He was in want ofmoney, it was said. M. Necker at last consented to the interview. Malouet was not present as he should have been. Deprived of thissensible and well-disposed intermediary, the Genevese stiffness and theProvencal ardor were not likely to hit it off. Mirabeau entered. Theysaluted one another silently and remained for a moment looking at oneanother. "Sir, " said Mirabeau, "M. De Malouet has assured me that youunderstood and approved of the grounds for the explanation I desire tohave with you. " "Sir, " replied M. Necker, "M. Malouet has told me thatyou had proposals to make to me; what are they?" Mirabeau, hurt at thecold, interrogative tone of the minister and the sense he attached to theword proposals, jumps up in a rage and says: "My proposal is to wish yougood day. " Then, running all the way and fuming all the while, Mirabeauarrives at the sessions-hall. "He crossed, all scarlet with rage, overto my side, " says M. Malouet, and, as he put his leg over one of ourbenches, he said to me, 'Your man is a fool, he shall hear of me. '"

When the expiring kingship recalled Mirabeau to its aid, it was too latefor him and for it. He had already struck fatal blows at the cause whichhe should have served, and already death was threatening himself with itsfinishing stroke. "He was on the point of rendering great services tothe state, " said Malouet: "shall I tell you how? By confessing to youhis faults and pointing out your own, by preserving to you all that waspure in the Revolution and by energetically pointing out to you all itsexcesses and the danger of those excesses, by making the peopleaffrighted at their blindness and the factions at their intrigues. Hedied ere this great work was accomplished; he had hardly given an inklingof it. "

Timidity and maladdress do not retard perils by ignoring them. The dayof meeting of the States-general was at hand. Almost everywhere theelections had been quiet and the electors less numerous than had beenanticipated. We know what indifference and lassitude may attach to theexercise of rights which would not be willingly renounced; ignorance andinexperience kept away from the primary assemblies many working-men andpeasants; the middle class alone proceeded in mass to the elections. Theirregular slowness of the preparatory operations had retarded theconvocations; for three months, the agitation attendant upon successiveassemblies kept France in suspense. Paris was still voting on the 28thof April, 1789, the mob thronged the streets; all at once the rumor ranthat an attack was being made on the house of an ornamental paper-makerin the faubourg St. Antoine, named Reveillon. Starting as a simplejourneyman, this man had honestly made his fortune; he was kind to thosewho worked in his shops: he was accused, nevertheless, amongst thepopulace, of having declared that a journeyman could live on fifteen sousa day. The day before, threats had been levelled at him; he had askedfor protection from the police, thirty men had been sent to him. Themadmen who were swarming against his house and stores soon got the betterof so weak a guard, everything was destroyed; the rioters rushed to thearchbishop's, there was voting going on there; they expected to findReveillon there, whom they wanted to murder. They were repulsed by thebattalions of the French and Swiss guards. More than two hundred werekilled. Money was found in their pockets. The Parliament suspended itsprosecutions against the ringleaders of so many crimes. The government, impotent and disarmed, as timid in presence of this riot as in presenceof opposing parties, at last came before the States-general, but blownabout by the contrary winds of excited passions, without any guide andwithout fixed resolves, without any firm and compact nucleus in the midstof a new and unknown Assembly, without confidence in the troops, who werelooked upon, however, as a possible and last resort. 

The States-general were presented to the king on the 2d of May, 1789. Itseemed as if the two upper orders, by a prophetic instinct of their ruin, wanted, for the last time, to make a parade of their privileges. Introduced without delay to the king, they left, in front of the palace, the deputies of the third estate to wait in the rain. The latter weregetting angry and already beginning to clamor, when the gates were openedto them. In the magnificent procession on the 4th, when the three ordersaccompanied the king to the church of St. Louis at Versailles, the lacedcoats and decorations of the nobles, the superb vestments of theprelates, easily eclipsed the modest cassocks of the country priests aswell as the sombre costume imposed by ceremonial upon the deputies of thethird estate; the Bishop of Nancy, M. De la Fare, maintained thetraditional distinctions even in the sermon he delivered before the king. "Sir, " said he, "accept the homage of the clergy, the respects of thenoblesse, and the most humble supplications of the third estate. " Theuntimely applause which greeted the bishop's words were excited by thepicture he drew of the misery in the country-places exhausted by therapacity of the fiscal agents. At this striking solemnity, set off withall the pomp of the past, animated with all the hopes of the future, theeyes of the public sought out, amidst the sombre mass of deputies of thethird (estate), those whom their deeds, good or evil, had already madecelebrated: Malouet, Mounier, Mirabeau, the last greeted with a murmurwhich was for a long while yet to accompany his name. "When the summonsby name per bailiwick took place, " writes an eye-witness, "there werecheers for certain deputies who were known, but at the name of Mirabeauthere was a noise of a very different sort. He had wanted to speak ontwo or three occasions, but a general murmur had prevented him frommaking himself heard. I could easily see how grieved he was, and Iobserved some tears of vexation standing in his bloodshot eyes "[_Souvenirs de Dumont, _ p. 47]. 

Three great questions were already propounded before the Assembly enteredinto session; those of verification of powers, of deliberation by thethree orders in common, and of vote by poll. The wise men had desiredthat the king should himself see to the verification of the powers of thedeputies, and that they should come to the Assembly confirmed in theirmandates. People likewise expected to find, in the speech from thethrone or in the minister's report, an expression of the royal opinionson the two other points in dispute. In a letter drawn up by M. Mounierand addressed to the king, the estates of Dauphiny had referred, the yearbefore, to the ancient custom of the States-general. "Before the Statesheld at Orleans in 1569, " said this document, "the orders deliberatedmost frequently together, and, when they broke up, they afterwards met toconcert their deliberations; they usually chose only one president, onlyone speaker for all the orders, generally amongst the members of theclergy. The States of Orleans had the imprudence not to follow the formspreviously observed, and the orders broke up. The clergy in vain invitedthem to have but one common memorial and to choose one single speaker, but they were careful to protest that this innovation would not interferewith the unity and integrity of the body of the States. The clergy'sspeaker said in his address that the three estates, as heretofore, hadbut one mouth, one heart, and one spirit. In spite of these protests, the fatal example set by the States of Orleans was followed by those ofBlois and those of 1614. Should it be again imitated, we fear that theStates-general will be powerless to do anything for the happiness of thekingdom and the glory of the throne, and that Europe will hear withsurprise that the French know neither how to bear servitude nor how todeserve freedom. "

An honest but useless appeal to the memories of the far past! Times werechanged; whereas the municipal officers representing the third estateused to find themselves powerless in presence of the upper orderscombined, the third (estate); now equal to the privileged by extension ofits representation, counted numerous adherents amongst the clergy, amongst the country parsons, and even in the ranks of the noblesse. Deliberation in common and vote by poll delivered the two upper ordersinto its hands; this was easily forgotten by the partisans of a reunionwhich was desirable and even necessary, but which could not be forcedupon the clergy or noblesse, and which they could only effect with a viewto the public good and in the wise hope of preserving their influence bygiving up their power. All that preparatory labor characteristic of thefree, prudent and bold, frank and discreet government, had been neglectedby the feebleness or inexperience of the ministers. "This poorgovernment was at grips with all kinds of perils, and the man who hadshown his superiority under other difficult circumstances flinchedbeneath the weight of these. His talents were distempered, his lightsdanced about, he was, sustained only by the rectitude of his intentionsand by vanity born of his hopes, for he had ever in reserve thatperspective of confidence and esteem with which he believed the thirdestate to be impressed towards him; but the promoters of the revolution, those who wanted it complete and subversive of the old government, thosemen who were so small a matter at the outset, either in weight or innumber, had too much interest in annihilating M. Necker not to representas pieces of perfidy his hesitations, his tenderness towards the twoupper orders, and his air of restraint towards the commons" [_Memoires deMalouet, _ t. I. P. 236]. 

It was in this state of feeble indecision as regarded the greatquestions, and with this minuteness of detail in secondary matters, thatM. Necker presented himself on the 5th of May before the three orders atthe opening of the session in the palace of Versailles by King Louis XVI. The royal procession had been saluted by the crowd with repeated andorganized shouts of "Hurrah for the Duke of Orleans!" which had disturbedand agitated the queen. "The king, " says Marmontel, "appeared withsimple dignity, without pride, without timidity, wearing on his featuresthe impress of the goodness which he had in his heart, a little affectedby the spectacle and by the feelings with which the deputies of afaithful nation ought to inspire in its king. " His speech was short, dignified, affectionate, and without political purport. With more ofpomp and detail, the minister confined himself within the same limits. "Aid his Majesty, " said he, "to establish the prosperity of the kingdomon solid bases, seek for them, point them out to your sovereign, and youwill find on his part the most generous assistance. " The mode of actioncorresponded with this insufficient language. Crushed beneath the burdenof past defaults and errors, the government tendered its abdication, inadvance, into the hands of that mightily bewildered Assembly it had justconvoked. The king had left the verification of powers to the States-general themselves. M. Necker confined himself to pointing out thepossibility of common action between the three orders, recommending thedeputies to examine those questions discreetly. "The king is anxiousabout your first deliberations, " said the minister, throwing away athaphazard upon leaders as yet unknown the direction of those discussionswhich he with good reason dreaded. "Never did political assembly combineso great a number of remarkable men, " says M. Malouet, "without therebeing a single one whose superiority was decided and could command therespect of the others. Such abundance of stars rendered this assemblyunmanageable, as they will always be in France when there is no manconspicuous in authority and in force of character to seize the helm ofaffairs or to have the direction spontaneously surrendered to him. Fancy, then, the state of a meeting of impassioned men, without rule orbridle, equally dangerous from their bad and their good qualities, because they nearly all lacked experience and a just appreciation of thegravity of the circumstances under which they were placed; insomuch thatthe good could do no good, and the bad, from levity, from violence, didnearly always more harm than they intended. "

It was amidst such a chaos of passions, wills, and desires, legitimate orculpable, patriotic or selfish, that there was, first of all, propoundedthe question of verification of powers. Prompt and peremptory on thepart of the noblesse, hesitating and cautions on the part of the clergy, the opposition of the two upper orders to any common action irritated thethird estate; its appeals had ended in nothing but conferences brokenoff, then resumed at the king's desire, and evidently and painfully to nopurpose. "By an inconceivable oversight on the part of M. Necker in thelocal apportionment of the building appointed for the assembly of theStates-general, there was the throne-room or room of the three orders, aroom for the noblesse, one for the clergy, and none for the commons, whoremained, quite naturally, established in the states-room, the largest, the most ornate, and all fitted up with tribunes for the spectators whotook possession of the public boxes (_loges communes_) in the room. Whenit was perceived that this crowd of strangers and their plaudits onlyexcited the audacity of the more violent speakers, all the consequencesof this installation were felt. Would anybody believe, " continues M. Malouet, "that M. Necker had an idea of inventing a ground-slip, afalling-in of the cellars of the Menus, and of throwing down during thenight the carpentry of the grand room, in order to remove and install thethree orders separately? It was to me myself that he spoke of it, and Ihad great difficulty in dissuading him from the notion, by pointing outto him all the danger of it. " The want of foresight and the nervoushesitation of the ministers had placed the third estate in a novel and astrong situation. Installed officially in the statesroom, it seemed tobe at once master of the position, waiting for the two upper orders tocome to it. Mirabeau saw this with that rapid insight into effects andconsequences which constitutes, to a considerable extent, the orator'sgenius. The third estate had taken possession, none could henceforthdispute with it its privileges, and it was the defence of a right thathad been won which was to inspire the fiery orator with his mightyaudacity, when on the 23d of June, towards evening, after the miserableaffair of the royal session, the Marquis of Dreux-Breze came back intothe room to beg the deputies of the third estate to withdraw. The king'sorder was express, but already certain nobles and a large number ofecclesiastics had joined the deputies of the commons; their definitivevictory on the 27th of June, and the fusion of the three orders, wereforeshadowed; Mirabeau rose at the entrance of the grand-master of theceremonies. "Go, " he shouted, "and tell those who send you, that we arehere by the will of the people, and that we shall not budge save at thepoint of the bayonet. " This was the beginning of revolutionary violence. 

On the 12th of June the battle began; the calling over of the bailiwickstook place in the states-room. The third estate sat alone. At eachprovince, each chief place, each roll (_proces-verbal_), the secretariesrepeated in a loud voice, "Gentlemen of the clergy? None present. Gentlemen of the noblesse? None present. " Certain parish priests alonehad the courage to separate from their order and submit their powers forverification. All the deputies of the third (estate) at once gave themprecedence. The day of persecution was not yet come. 

Legality still stood; the third estate maintained a proud moderation, theborder was easily passed, a name was sufficient. 

The title of States-general was oppressive to the new assembly, itrecalled the distinction between the orders as well as the humble postureof the third estate heretofore. "This is the only true name, " exclaimedAbbe Sieyes; "assembly of acknowledged and verified representatives ofthe nation. " This was a contemptuous repudiation of the two upperorders. Mounier replied with another definition "legitimate assembly ofthe majority amongst the deputies of the nation, deliberating in theabsence of the duly invited minority. " The subtleties of metaphysics andpolitics are powerless to take the popular fancy. Mirabeau felt it. "Let us call ourselves representatives of the people!" he shouted. Forthis ever fatal name he claimed the kingly sanction. "I hold the king'sveto so necessary, " said the great orator, "that, if he had it not, Iwould rather live at Constantinople than in France. Yes, I protest, Iknow of nothing more terrible than a sovereign aristocracy of six hundredpersons, who, having the power to declare themselves to-morrowirremovable and the next day hereditary, would end, like thearistocracies of all countries in the world, by swooping down uponeverything. "

An obscure deputy here suggested during the discussion the name ofNational Assembly, often heretofore employed to designate the States-general; Sieyes took it up, rejecting the subtle and carefully prepareddefinitions. "I am for the amendment of M. Legrand, " said he, "and Ipropose the title of National Assembly. " Four hundred and ninety-onevoices against ninety adopted this simple and superb title. In contemptof the two upper orders of the state, the national assembly wasconstituted. The decisive step was taken towards the French Revolution. 

During the early days, in the heat of a violent discussion, Barrere hadexclaimed, "You are summoned to recommence history. " It was an arrogantmistake. For more than eighty years modern France has been prosecutinglaboriously and in open day the work which had been slowly forming withinthe dark womb of olden France. In the almighty hands of eternal God apeople's history is interrupted and recommenced never.