III. 1778. 54. Universal which the successes of the Ameri -princes, dukes, marquises, and counts, solicited, with CHAP. impatient zeal, commissions in the regiments which were to aid the insurgents. Not a few of the oldest family and highest connexion were fortunate enough, as it was then deemed, to obtain them-among whom were the enthusiasm Marquis Lafayette, who afterwards played so important a part in the history of the Revolution; the Comte de can war Rochambeau, who subsequently commanded the French excited. forces in the New World; the Chevalier de la Lucerne, the Comte de Bouillé, the Duc de Crillon, and many others of the highest nobles and bravest men in France. The brilliant successes with which the American war was crowned the return of officers adorned with the laurels won in the cause of freedom, with the star of the order of Cincinnatus, which the Americans had established, on their bosom, added to the general enthusiasm. Nothing seemed so glorious, so worthy of a really great man, as to have taken part in the overthrow of an established power. The government encouraged these feelings, and bestowed rewards on the officers whose exploits had excited them-regarding the contest merely as the means 377. Ségur, of humbling England. But Rousseau foresaw, in this 189. Lab. universal delusion, the commencement of a new era in v. 92, 94. human affairs, and prophesied it would be the ERA OF REVOLUTIONS.1 1 Droz, i. i. 100, 149, ii. 4,5. Lac. The passion for republican institutions increased with 55. pulse it the successes of the American war, and at length rose to Great imsuch a height as to infect even the courtiers of the palace. gives to Thunders of applause shook the theatre of Versailles at republican the lines of Voltaire, "Je suis fils de Brutus, et je porte en mon cœur La liberté gravée, et les rois en horreur." It was easy to see, from the general frenzy which had seized even upon the highest classes, that the era of revolutions was not to be confined to the New World. The philosophers of France used every method of flattery to bring over the young nobles to their side; and the ideas. III. 1779. CHAP. profession of liberal opinions soon became as indispensable a passport to the saloons of fashion as to the favour of the people. Even in foreign courts the same sentiments were rapidly gaining ground, from the extreme interest taken in the American contest; and Count Ségur found at St Petersburg his decoration of the republican order of Cincinnatus more an object of envy than any which he had obtained from the European monarchs. Emperors, kings, and nobles seemed at that period to have combined with a view to establish a new order of things, from the extravagant eulogiums they pronounced on philosophers and liberal opinions; and it was only after having themselves erected the fabric that they strove to pull it down -forgetting that the human mind, like time, is always advancing, and never recedes. They were astonished when they found that men had discernment enough to apply to them the principles they had inculcated in regard to others. Lafayette was hailed as a hero, a divinity, so 1 Lab. ii. 2, long as he supported the cause of Transatlantic indepeni. 189, 252, dence; but he was stigmatised as a rebel, when he 255; ii. 46; endeavoured to maintain the same principles in support of European freedom.1 3. Ségur, 56. Financial ments to which the American war gave rise. But wars in support of the principles of revolution, as well as all other wars, require an expenditure of money; embarrass- and the event soon proved the truth of Turgot's prophecy, that the French finances would be reduced to a state of inextricable embarrassment by the expenses of the American contest. Though the war with England lasted only five years, yet its expenses, as is always the case with contests carried on in such distant quarters, were enormous, and only rendered greater by the successes, which raised such a tumult in the nation as rendered it impossible for the government to restrain it within due bounds. But the Tiers Etat was already taxed as heavily as it could possibly bear; and the slightest approximation even towards the imposition of any new burden on the privileged classes, was certain to produce such a ferment III. 1779. as had already proved fatal to the ministry of Turgot. CHAP. In this extremity but one resource was left to the Swiss minister-namely, that of borrowing; and his great credit with the moneyed interest enabled him to make a skilful use of this seducing but dangerous expedient. He was far too able a man, and skilful a financier, not to perceive the dangers of such a system. But he erroneously imagined that these dangers arose entirely from the national finances being enveloped in mystery; and constantly affirmed that the example of England demonstrated, that if due publicity were given to the public accounts, it was possible for the state to borrow almost to an unlimited extent, without any injury either to its own credit or to the resources of its subjects. Proceeding on this principle, having already resolved to publish the state of the public finances, he provided for the whole extraordinary expenses of the American war by successive loans, almost all contracted in the costly form of life Soul. iv. annuities; and their amount from 1776, when he com- Calonne, menced his operations, to 1781, when he retired from Finances the administration, was no less than 530,000,000 francs, 32, 39. (£21,200,000,) and the annual charge on this amount was 45,000,000 francs, or £1,800,000!1 1 111, 117. sur les de France, 57. barrassment tracted to the So considerable an addition to the debt of the state was not made without adding greatly to the embarrass- Great emment, already sufficiently great, of the public finances. which the An attempt to uphold its credit by a partial and delusive loans constatement of the public accounts, though for a time suc- occasioned cessful, in the end, as such attempts generally do, only finances. aggravated the evil. From the compte rendu, published by Necker when finance-minister in 1780, he made it appear that the receipts exceeded the expenses by 10,000,000 francs (£400,000,) and this announcement produced a prodigious sensation, from being so much. more favourable than had been anticipated. In consequence, it increased greatly the minister's facility of borrowing. It might at the time, however, have been III. 1780. CHAP. suspected that there was something delusive in this flattering account of the excess of revenue above expenditure, when, on the strength of his candid statement, and amidst an universal chorus of applause for his financial ability, M. Necker succeeded in borrowing, in a few months after the publication of the compte rendu, no less than 236,000,000 francs, or nearly ten millions sterling, for the service of the state. In effect, Necker himself gave a very different account of matters when he was out of the ministry; for from his work on the finances of France, published in 1784, three years after his retirement, it appeared that the deficit, even as acknowledged by government, was already above 100,000,000 francs (£4,000,000) annually.* And M. Bailly has affirmed that, taking into view the anticipations of the revenue of succeeding years, the real deficit of 1781 was 218,000,000 francs, or £8,700,000. Such a state of matters loudly called for a remedy; and Necker could see none but in diminishing the charge, which had always been so considerable, of collecting the revenue, and he proposed accordingly some rigorous reductions in that department. Forty-eight receivers-general were abolished-a reduction which met with vehement opposition at the court, from the Oct. 19, 1780. -See NECKER, sur les Finances de France, 1784, i. 92, 93, and ii. 517,518. Bailly's account of the matter was as follows, III. 1780. influence of the persons struck at by it. At the same CHAP. time he ventured on a much more questionable measure, and which savoured not a little of revolutionary confiscation. This was the sale of the property of such hospitals as produced less than three per cent revenue on their estimated capital, throwing their future maintenance as burden on the state-an example too closely followed after times by the National Assembly, in regard to the property of the church and whole remaining foundations for the poor.1 a in 1 Soul. iv. 118, 120. Droz, i. 290, 300, 274, 282. states some of the Another favourite project of Necker's excited at this 58. time general attention and interest, both at the court and Existing in the country. This was the formation of provincial general in assemblies, or minor states-general, in the several pro- provinces. vinces, where matters of local interest and taxation might be discussed, and in which the landed proprietors and people might be gradually trained to the exercise of social and political duties. A model for such institutions already existed in the monarchy, in those states last annexed to the crown-in particular Languedoc, Burgundy, and Brittany, which had retained the right of having their taxation, and matters of local interest, regulated by their own estates. The King, in regard to them, fixed by royal edict the sum to be paid by the province, but the charge and mode of collecting it were left to its own assemblies; and as they in general claimed exemption from certain imposts which were levied elsewhere in the monarchy, this was one of the great causes of the inequality of taxation so generally complained of before the Revolution. Advantages and evils, as in all human institutions, had been found to attend the practical working of these provincial assemblies. Taxation, in general, was lighter in the districts so governed than in the rest of the kingdom; the roads were in better order, and the public burdens more equally distributed over the inhabitants. On the other hand, these provincial assemblies, as is always the case |