III. 1775. Turgot "Have we nothing to reproach ourselves with CHAP. in the measures we have adopted?" This well-timed severity, however, put down the disturbances, but not before they had become really formidable, and done great local mischief. Two things were observed during their continuance, of much importance and sinister augury for future times. The parliament of Paris openly took the part of the insurgents, addressed the King to lower the price of grain, and were only subdued by a lit de justice held at Versailles, and a royal decree which took the prosecutions entirely out of their hands; and the disturbances were conducted with so much unity of design, and simultaneous violence in different places, as to leave no room for doubt that they were instigated with a common design, and directed by no ordinary leaders.* The disposition of the Parisians to make light of the most serious convulsions, was already conspicuous while they 16 lasted. The theatres were open the whole time; Biron's 170 Soul. "Campagne des Farines" was the subject of many witty Biog. Univ. couplets; and the mantua-makers immediately brought (Turgot.) out "bonnets à la révolte."1 1 Droz, i. ii. 296, 298. xlvii. 77, character herbes. GUILLAUME DE MALESHERBES, whose firmness mainly 29. contributed to the suppression of these dangerous dis- History and turbances, was born of an ancient family of the magistracy of Males in 1721; so that, when elevated by Louis to the ministry, he was fifty-five years of age. He was educated by the Jesuits, and early trained for the magistracy, which he entered at the age of twenty-three, and was soon after * In the address to the curés, to be read in the parish churches during these disturbances, the King made use of the remarkable expression,-" When the people shall be made acquainted with the authors of the sedition, they will regard them with horror." It was subsequently, however, and probably wisely, judged more prudent not to adopt any measure which might reveal the secret information which government had received on the subject. What confirmed the opinion that the disturbances had a deeper origin than merely the high price of provisions, and were in truth a political movement, was the extraordinary and systematic regularity of this outrageous movement. The keeper of the seals said to the parliament of Paris, "The movements of the brigands appear combined; their approach is announced before it takes place; public rumour indicates the place, the hour, where their violences are to be III. 1775. CHAP. appointed substitute to the procureur-général before the parliament of Paris. In 1750 he succeeded, on the promotion to the chancellorship of his father, Lamoignon de Malesherbes, who had long held the office, to the situation of president of the "Cour des Aides," the chamber of the parliament which took cognisance of exchequer or tax prosecutions. In that important situation, which he held for the next twenty-six years, he had ample opportunities for displaying both the integrity and firmness of his character; and it is no small proof of both, that he was banished for four years by Louis XV. in 1771, for refusing to recognise the suppression of the parliament. Many were the memorials which he addressed great the efforts he made, during his long tenure of office, to shield innocence from oppression, or deliver wretchedness from detention; and it was in one of these remonstrances that he made use of the celebrated expression, so characteristic of France under the ancient régime, "No one is so great as to be beyond the reach of the hatred of a minister, nor so little as to escape the notice of a farmer of the revenue.' He was desirous, when brought back in triumph on the restoration of the parliament in 1774, to resign his situation as president of the Cour des Aides, that he might pass the remainder of his life in study and retirement ;1 and it was only on a third request, and as a personal favour to Turgot, for whom he had a great regard, that he could be prevailed on to accept the committed. It appears that a general plan has been formed to pillage the country, to interrupt the communications, to stop the transport of corn along the high-roads, in order to succeed in famishing the great towns, and especially Paris." In addition to this, it appeared that great numbers of the mob were drunk, and had money to distribute to others; and when they broke into the granaries and bakers' shops, instead of eating the grain or carrying it away, they destroyed it, or threw it into the streets. Turgot was convinced to the latest hour of his life that these riots were the result of a conspiracy formed by the Prince of Conti and the party in the parliament of Paris hostile to his designs; and the Duke of Orleans did not escape suspicions of being connected with the plot.-See DROZ, Histoire de Louis XVI., i. 168; and Biographie Universelle, xlvii. 76, (TURGOT.) 1 Boissy d'Anglas, Vie de Malesherb. i. 225, 249. Biog. Univ. xxvi. 359, 361. i. 177. Droz, * His first words on returning were,-"Oublions le passé, excusons les faiblesses, sacrifions les ressentimens."-DROZ, i. 174. situation of minister of the interior, upon the dismissal of CHAP. La Vrillière in August 1774. III. 1775. 30. ples of Turgot and Malesherbes were entirely at one as to the necessity of great reforms to restore stability to the Maleshermonarchy, and eradicate the numerous abuses which had bes' princigrown up under the despotic reigns of former sovereigns. government. But their principles of government were widely different ; and if they had continued long in office together, this difference must have led to a schism between them. Both were upright in their principles, sincere in their character, and passionately desirous of promoting the general good. Both felt the necessity of great reforms to effect it, and were gifted with the moral courage and disinterested patriotism necessary to carry them into practice, in the face of the interested opposition of the most powerful corporations and individuals in the state. Both were liberal in their principles, intimately connected with the philosophical party in Paris, and imbued with the deistical principles, and prejudices against Christianity, then unhappily so prevalent in France. But here their union terminated. On the principles of the new government which they proposed to establish in the room of the old régime, they were widely at variance. Malesherbes was a reformer, but not an innovator. Descended of a legal family, and trained to legal habits, he had no intention. of subverting the fundamental laws and institutions of the state; he only desired to clear them of their abuses, and restore them to the efficiency for practical good, of which he still thought them capable. He proposed, therefore, to eradicate all oppressive powers and institutions, and provide safeguards against the recurrence of abuses, but to leave the general institutions of the monarchy unchanged. He made it the first condition of accepting office, that the King should sign no lettresde-cachet but what he presented to him; and his first care was to visit in person the state prisons, and deliver half the inmates, many of whom had lingered for years III. 1775. CHAP. in their dungeons. He intended to restore gradually the States-general; to concede to accused persons the right of being defended by counsel; to remove the restrictions on the Protestants in the exercise of their religious worship; to abolish torture and the punishment of the wheel; to re-enact the Edict of Nantes; to remove the censorship of the press; and, without altogether abolishing lettres-de-cachet, to limit them to extraordinary cases, and give the person arrested the right, in all instances, of Malesherb, bringing his detention before an elevated tribunal created for that special purpose. He proposed, as he himself said, "to plead the cause of the people before the King;" but still it was before the King that the process was to depend. He little anticipated that he would be called on, in his old age, to plead the cause of the King before the people.1 1 Boissy d'Anglas, Vie de i. 247, i. 176, 179. 361. Lab. ii. 14, 15. 31. Views of Turgot, and Bred in the school of the Philosophers, imbued with the principles of the Economists, Turgot took a bolder his general and more speculative view with regard to the regeneraprinciples. tion of France. He proposed to remould its institutions according to a model framed by the hands of philosophy. He acted on the principle of human perfectibility, of which, in common with Condorcet, he was so strenuous a supporter. He began by giving a noble proof of disinterested virtue himself, by refusing the customary present of a hundred thousand crowns, (£25,000,) which had always been paid by the farmers-general of the revenue to the finance minister when they signed their bail-bonds, directing it to be given to the hospitals and poor of Paris. This splendid deed won him public admiration Soul. iii. and private enmity; the majority of men in secret ever Biog. Univ. hate a generosity which they feel themselves unable to imitate.2 Though fully aware of the present selfishness and egotism of men, he thought that it was the result of 134, 137. xlvii. 74, (Turgot.) "Every one seeks to deceive the government, and to throw the social charges on his neighbour; the revenues of all are concealed, and can only be discovered very imperfectly by an inquisition, which puts the King, as it were, at war with his people."-TURGOT, Mémoire sur l'Administration, 1775; SOULAVIE, iii. 139. III. 1775. vicious institutions or antiquated prejudices; and that by CHAP. the aid of the light of philosophy, social felicity might in the end be built upon the broad basis of general virtue. His ideas, in consequence, embraced a total change of society, as the only effectual means of eradicating the evils under which it at present laboured. 32. designs. He conceived that religion should be left to the voluntary support of those who required it, and not supported His ultimate by the property of the church; that the tithe should be gradually abolished, after making due provision for the existing incumbents; that the ecclesiastical property should be put at the disposal of the nation, and in part appropriated to instruction in the elementary branches of knowledge and morality; and that, to avoid the disputes of sects, no religious opinions or ceremonies should be inculcated at these schools, but the moral principles only on which all were agreed. In civil government, he held that the existence of separate orders of nobility and clergy was a fundamental error; that the right of making laws, however, should be limited to the class of proprietors, and votes be in proportion to the property held;* that all citizens should be alike eligible to every employment, civil and military; that all corporations, statutes of apprenticeship, and monopolies of whatever sort, should be abolished, so that the career of industry in every branch should be alike open to all; and that legislative assemblies should be formed in the provinces, chosen by and deriving their power from the general election of the people.1 1 Condor cet, Vie de Turgot, 51, 78. Soul. iii. 135.139; ii. 344. for immedi In a word, all the changes of the Constituent Assembly, 33. which fifteen years afterwards overturned the whole fabric His designs of society in France, had their origin in the ideas of ate change. Turgot for its regeneration. It was only as the final result, however, and after a long course of previous training, that he contemplated the adoption of such extensive * He proposed to the King, that freehold property to the extent of 1000 francs, or £40 a-year, should be the requisite for a vote, and that inferior proprietors should only have a fraction of a vote.-TURGOT's Memoir to Louis XVI.; SOULAVIE, iii. 142. |