II.

CHAP. tion of the debt, or even the regular payment of its interest. It is true a large proportion of the public burdens consisted of life annuities; but still the exhausted state of the treasury made some extraordinary expedient necessary to satisfy even their passing demands. No other measure appeared practicable but the convocation of the 1 Necker, de States-general, from whom some relief, by the approl'Adminis priation of part of the church property, was expected Finances, i. by all parties; and the immediate cause of the Revolup.87. Mig. i. 13, 23. tion, as will appear in the sequel, was the improvidence Th. i. 22. Lac. vi. 110. and waste of preceding reigns, coupled with the obstinate resistance of the parliaments to any new taxes.1

tration des

93.

efforts of

to make up

The sovereigns of France, having, with an exhausted Ineffectual exchequer, to supply the demands of an expensive court, preceding a vast military establishment, and an insatiable nobility, Sovereigns had made, as might well be expected in such circumthe deficit. stances, the most strenuous efforts, during the course of preceding reigns, to augment the revenue, and fill up the void which, for above a century before, had been so painfully felt between the receipts and the expenditure of the public treasury. But all their endeavours had been rendered abortive by two causes: First,-The nobility,

-See Comptes Rendus par CALONNE et NECKER, 1781, 1787, and 1788, 2 vols. 4to; and NECKER, sur les Finances de France, i. 92; ii. 517, 518.

II.

though abundantly ready to engross for their own families CHAP. the whole offices and lucrative employments in the state, could never be brought by any effort to abandon their privileges of exemption from the taille, the most productive of the direct taxes; and in this resistance they were cordially supported by the clergy, who enjoyed a similar exemption, as well as exemption from the vingtième. Their mode of resistance was perfectly simple, and, withal, entirely efficacious. They had influence enough in the parliaments, when a royal decree, imposing any new tax, required to be registered to give it legal validity, to prevent its registration, if it imposed any burden upon themselves. These legal bodies, though in part composed of the descendants of the Tiers Etat, yet formed a sort of subordinate noblesse, and were entirely in the interest of the old aristocracy, many of the highest of whom were proud of a seat in their councils, and with whom they were all associated, either by marriage, or by the nobility conferred by holding office. The financial and internal history of France, for a century before the Revolution, is for the most part made up of successive efforts, on the part of the crown, to get new taxes registered by the parliaments, met by refusals on the part of these bodies to comply with the demand. Secondly,The old taxes, all of which were exacted from the Tiers Etat, and part only from the nobility, had become so oppressive, chiefly in consequence of the greater part of them being imposed in the direct form, that experience had proved that any augmentation of these imposts, levied according to the existing system, was wholly unavailing, as the increased burden brought no additional revenue into the public treasury.1 Thus, the only resource.116, 117, of the crown to meet its constantly increasing expenses Smyth's was to borrow money; and to such a length was this Revolution, carried that, during the four years alone of Necker's Necker, sur administration of the finances, ending in 1781, the loans i. 54, 67. contracted had amounted to 530,000,000 francs, or

1 Soulavie,

French

i. 116, 117.

les Finances,

II.

CHAP. £21,200,000 sterling; the annual interest of which, being for the most part on life annuities, was no less than 45,000,000 francs, or £1,800,000 yearly mense burden for a nation, the whole net income of which at that period did not exceed £18,000,000.*

an im

* Necker gives the following account of the income of France in 1784, when he published his work on the Finances. Those marked *, are those from which the nobility and clergy are exempt,-t, those from which the clergy only ;

From this table it appears, that out of a clear revenue of £20,000,000 annually, no less than £8,320,000 belongs to the direct taxes, the taille,

II.

Contempt

XX. While so many different causes were conspiring CHAP. to produce at once weakness in the government, deeprooted discontent among the people, and a general de- 94. parture from ancient landmarks on the part of the and weakleaders of public thought, the aristocracy and clergy, which the the natural defenders of the throne, were, from another nobility had set of causes, daily becoming feebler and more divided.

vingtièmes, and capitation-the most obnoxious of any, from which either the nobility or clergy, or both, holding fully half the lands of the kingdom, were exempt; and that from the taille, amounting to £3,600,000, they were both relieved.

The national expenditure was as follows:

Intérêts de la dette,

Remboursements,

Pensions,

Guerre,

Affaires étrangères,

Maison du Roi, (Gardes,).

Batimens et Prévoté,

Maisons Royales,

207,000,000 francs, or £8,280,000

27,500,000

ness into

fallen.

or 1,100,000

Maison de la Reine,

II.

CHAP. The policy, so long and successfully carried on by Richelieu and Louis XIV., of attracting the principal nobility, by the lavish distribution of court favours and honours, to the capital, had at once weakened their influence on their own estates, alienated them from the more humble rural proprietors who still remained in the country, and destroyed their respectability and consideration in the eyes of the nation. It was impossible that the peasantry on the estates of the absent proprietors could retain, through successive generations, any attachment to a succession of nobles whom they never sawexcept, perhaps, for a flying visit of a day or two at the interval of years. Their very names even would have been unknown to them, except for the constant and grinding requisitions for rent or services with which they were associated. The noblesse campagnarde, or rural nobility, whose fortunes were too inconsiderable to permit of their following the general bent to Paris, had no ideas in common with the elegant but frivolous seigneurs, to whom they were an object of contempt, who spent their time in the saloons of the capital, or the antechambers of Versailles. The nation, in an age of increasing knowledge and vehement aspirations, could feel no respect for a body of privileged aristocrats who monopolised all the elevated and honourable situations in the kingdom, without possessing any other qualifications for them but Rev. Frane. their insinuating manners or address in intrigue, and who Scott's Na- increased, by the pensions which they enjoyed from the poleon, chap. 1. vol. i. 37, crown, the burdens of the country, without contributing any thing in return, at least in a direct form, towards the public revenue.1

1 Necker,

i. 158, 161.

42. Segur,

i. 76.

95.

of the no

The influence of the nobility was also weakened, in a Inefficiency most serious degree, by the great number of persons belonging to that order who were to be found in all parts of the country in destitute circumstances, or discreditable employments. Four-fifths of the eighty thousand noble families who existed were in extreme poverty: the young

blesse as a political body.