The old Marquis de Mirabeau, father of him who became so prominent a figure during the early months of the Revolution,—a curious, crabbed old fellow, who called himself the “friend of men,” and whose peculiarities are described by Dumas in the “Comtesse de Charny,”—wrote in his memoirs a description of a peasant’s holiday which he witnessed in the provinces about the time of the death of Louis XV. (1774). After describing the dance which ended in a battle, and “the frightful men, or rather frightful wild animals,…of gigantic stature, heightened by high wooden clogs,…their faces haggard and covered with long greasy hair,-the upper part of the visage waxing pale, the lower, distorting itself into the attempt at a cruel laugh and a sort of ferocious impatience,”—he moralizes thus: “And these people pay the taille! And you want, further, to take their salt from them! And you know not what it is you are stripping barer, or as you call it, governing,—what, by a spurt of your pen, in its cold, dastard indifference, you will fancy you can starve always with impunity, always till the catastrophe come! Ah, Madame, such government by blindman’s-buff, stumbling along too far, will end in a general overturn.”
It is curious to notice with what unanimity the good intentions of Louis XVI. are admitted, almost taken for granted, by all writers upon this period, except the virulent pamphleteers of the day. Even Michelet admits it, though somewhat grudgingly,—Michelet, who went out of his way to charge Louis XV., whose load of sin was heavy enough in all conscience, with a foul crime for which there seems to be no shadow of authority.
But it is hard to convince one’s self that the general overturn could have been avoided, even had the will and character of the young king been as worthy of praise as his impulses and intentions undoubtedly were. Hastened it was, beyond question, by his weakness at critical moments, by his subserviency to the will of the queen, which was exerted uninterruptedly, and with what now seems like fatal perversity, in the wrong direction, during the years when there was still a chance, at least, of saving the monarchy. It was through the influence of the queen and her intimate circle that step after step, which, if taken in time, would have made a favorable impression upon an impressionable people, “whose nature it was to love their kings,” was delayed until it was, so to say, extorted, and hence bereft of all appearance of a willing, voluntary concession. Numerous instances of this fatality, if we may so call it, are told by Dumas; notably the day’s postponement of the king’s journey to Paris after the day of the Bastille.
With the virtuous, philosophic Turgot, “who had a whole reformed France in his head,” for Controller-General of the Finances, the reign of Louis XVI. seemed to start off under the best of auspices. But, as Carlyle tersely puts it, “Turgot has faculties, honesty, insight, heroic volition, but the Fortunatus’s purse he has not. Sanguine controller-general! a whole pacific French Revolution may stand schemed in the head of the thinker, but who shall pay the unspeakable ‘indemnities’ that will be needed? Alas! far from that; on the very threshold of the business he proposes that the clergy, the noblesse, the very parliaments, be subjected to taxes like the people! One shriek of indignation and astonishment reverberates through all the chateau galleries;…the poor king, who had written to him a few weeks ago, ‘You and I are the only ones who have the people’s interest at heart,’ must write now a dismissal, and let the French Revolution accomplish itself, pacifically or not, as it can.”
To Turgot succeeded Necker, also a skilful and honest financier, also with schemes of peaceful reform in his head. For five years he carried the burden; and at last he, too, was driven to propose the taxation of clergy and nobility, and thereupon to take his departure, May, 1781.
Under the short administrations of Joly de Fleury and D’Ormesson, matters failed to improve (as indeed, how could they do otherwise?), until on the retirement of the latter, when the king purchased Rambouillet, without consulting him, in the autumn of 1783, “matters threaten to come to a still-stand,” says Carlyle.