The French Revolution

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Meanwhile it is singular how long the rotten will hold together,
provided you do not handle it roughly. For whole generations it
continues standing, 'with a ghastly affectation of life,' after all life
and truth has fled out of it; so loth are men to quit their old ways;
and, conquering indolence and inertia, venture on new. Great truly is
the Actual; is the Thing that has rescued itself from bottomless deeps
of theory and possibility, and stands there as a definite indisputable
Fact, whereby men do work and live, or once did so. Widely shall men
cleave to that, while it will endure; and quit it with regret, when it
gives way under them. Rash enthusiast of Change, beware! Hast thou well
considered all that Habit does in this life of ours; how all Knowledge
and all Practice hang wondrous over infinite abysses of the Unknown,
Impracticable; and our whole being is an infinite abyss, over-arched by
Habit, as by a thin Earth-rind, laboriously built together?

But if 'every man,' as it has been written, 'holds confined within him
a mad-man,' what must every Society do;--Society, which in its commonest
state is called 'the standing miracle of this world'! 'Without such
Earth-rind of Habit,' continues our author, 'call it System of Habits,
in a word, fixed ways of acting and of believing,--Society would not
exist at all. With such it exists, better or worse. Herein too, in this
its System of Habits, acquired, retained how you will, lies the true
Law-Code and Constitution of a Society; the only Code, though an
unwritten one which it can in nowise disobey. The thing we call written
Code, Constitution, Form of Government, and the like, what is it but
some miniature image, and solemnly expressed summary of this unwritten
Code? Is,--or rather alas, is not; but only should be, and always tends
to be! In which latter discrepancy lies struggle without end.' And
now, we add in the same dialect, let but, by ill chance, in such
ever-enduring struggle,--your 'thin Earth-rind' be once broken! The
fountains of the great deep boil forth; fire-fountains, enveloping,
engulfing. Your 'Earth-rind' is shattered, swallowed up; instead of a
green flowery world, there is a waste wild-weltering chaos:--which has
again, with tumult and struggle, to make itself into a world.

On the other hand, be this conceded: Where thou findest a Lie that
is oppressing thee, extinguish it. Lies exist there only to be
extinguished; they wait and cry earnestly for extinction. Think well,
meanwhile, in what spirit thou wilt do it: not with hatred, with
headlong selfish violence; but in clearness of heart, with holy zeal,
gently, almost with pity. Thou wouldst not replace such extinct Lie by
a new Lie, which a new Injustice of thy own were; the parent of still
other Lies? Whereby the latter end of that business were worse than the
beginning.

So, however, in this world of ours, which has both an indestructible
hope in the Future, and an indestructible tendency to persevere as
in the Past, must Innovation and Conservation wage their perpetual
conflict, as they may and can. Wherein the 'daemonic element,' that
lurks in all human things, may doubtless, some once in the
thousand years--get vent! But indeed may we not regret that such
conflict,--which, after all, is but like that classical one
of 'hate-filled Amazons with heroic Youths,' and will end in
embraces,--should usually be so spasmodic? For Conservation,
strengthened by that mightiest quality in us, our indolence, sits for
long ages, not victorious only, which she should be; but tyrannical,
incommunicative. She holds her adversary as if annihilated; such
adversary lying, all the while, like some buried Enceladus; who, to gain
the smallest freedom, must stir a whole Trinacria with it Aetnas.

Wherefore, on the whole, we will honour a Paper Age too; an Era of hope!
For in this same frightful process of Enceladus Revolt; when the
task, on which no mortal would willingly enter, has become imperative,
inevitable,--is it not even a kindness of Nature that she lures us
forward by cheerful promises, fallacious or not; and a whole generation
plunges into the Erebus Blackness, lighted on by an Era of Hope? It
has been well said: 'Man is based on Hope; he has properly no other
possession but Hope; this habitation of his is named the Place of Hope.'



Chapter 1.2.IV.

Maurepas.

But now, among French hopes, is not that of old M. de Maurepas one of
the best-grounded; who hopes that he, by dexterity, shall contrive to
continue Minister? Nimble old man, who for all emergencies has his light
jest; and ever in the worst confusion will emerge, cork-like, unsunk!
Small care to him is Perfectibility, Progress of the Species, and
Astraea Redux: good only, that a man of light wit, verging towards
fourscore, can in the seat of authority feel himself important among
men. Shall we call him, as haughty Chateauroux was wont of old, 'M.
Faquinet (Diminutive of Scoundrel)'? In courtier dialect, he is now
named 'the Nestor of France;' such governing Nestor as France has.

At bottom, nevertheless, it might puzzle one to say where the Government
of France, in these days, specially is. In that Chateau of Versailles,
we have Nestor, King, Queen, ministers and clerks, with paper-bundles
tied in tape: but the Government? For Government is a thing that
governs, that guides; and if need be, compels. Visible in France there
is not such a thing. Invisible, inorganic, on the other hand, there is:
in Philosophe saloons, in Oeil-de-Boeuf galleries; in the tongue of the
babbler, in the pen of the pamphleteer. Her Majesty appearing at the
Opera is applauded; she returns all radiant with joy. Anon the applauses
wax fainter, or threaten to cease; she is heavy of heart, the light of
her face has fled. Is Sovereignty some poor Montgolfier; which, blown
into by the popular wind, grows great and mounts; or sinks flaccid,
if the wind be withdrawn? France was long a 'Despotism tempered by
Epigrams;' and now, it would seem, the Epigrams have get the upper hand.

Happy were a young 'Louis the Desired' to make France happy; if it
did not prove too troublesome, and he only knew the way. But there
is endless discrepancy round him; so many claims and clamours; a
mere confusion of tongues. Not reconcilable by man; not manageable,
suppressible, save by some strongest and wisest men;--which only a
lightly-jesting lightly-gyrating M. de Maurepas can so much as subsist
amidst. Philosophism claims her new Era, meaning thereby innumerable
things. And claims it in no faint voice; for France at large, hitherto
mute, is now beginning to speak also; and speaks in that same sense.
A huge, many-toned sound; distant, yet not unimpressive. On the other
hand, the Oeil-de-Boeuf, which, as nearest, one can hear best, claims
with shrill vehemence that the Monarchy be as heretofore a Horn of
Plenty; wherefrom loyal courtiers may draw,--to the just support of
the throne. Let Liberalism and a New Era, if such is the wish, be
introduced; only no curtailment of the royal moneys? Which latter
condition, alas, is precisely the impossible one.

Philosophism, as we saw, has got her Turgot made Controller-General; and
there shall be endless reformation. Unhappily this Turgot could continue
only twenty months. With a miraculous Fortunatus' Purse in his Treasury,
it might have lasted longer; with such Purse indeed, every French
Controller-General, that would prosper in these days, ought first to
provide himself. But here again may we not remark the bounty of Nature
in regard to Hope? Man after man advances confident to the Augean
Stable, as if he could clean it; expends his little fraction of an
ability on it, with such cheerfulness; does, in so far as he was honest,
accomplish something. Turgot has faculties; honesty, insight,
heroic volition; but the Fortunatus' 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 Parlements be subjected to taxes! One shriek of indignation
and astonishment reverberates through all the Chateau galleries; M. de
Maurepas has to gyrate: the poor King, who had written few weeks ago,
'Il n'y a que vous et moi qui aimions le peuple (There is none but
you and I that has the people's interest at heart),' must write now
a dismissal; (In May, 1776.) and let the French Revolution accomplish
itself, pacifically or not, as it can.

Hope, then, is deferred? Deferred; not destroyed, or abated. Is not
this, for example, our Patriarch Voltaire, after long years of absence,
revisiting Paris? With face shrivelled to nothing; with 'huge peruke a
la Louis Quatorze, which leaves only two eyes "visible" glittering like
carbuncles,' the old man is here. (February, 1778.) What an
outburst! Sneering Paris has suddenly grown reverent; devotional with
Hero-worship. Nobles have disguised themselves as tavern-waiters to
obtain sight of him: the loveliest of France would lay their hair
beneath his feet. 'His chariot is the nucleus of a comet; whose train
fills whole streets:' they crown him in the theatre, with immortal
vivats; 'finally stifle him under roses,'--for old Richelieu recommended
opium in such state of the nerves, and the excessive Patriarch took too
much. Her Majesty herself had some thought of sending for him; but was
dissuaded. Let Majesty consider it, nevertheless. The purport of this
man's existence has been to wither up and annihilate all whereon
Majesty and Worship for the present rests: and is it so that the world
recognises him? With Apotheosis; as its Prophet and Speaker, who has
spoken wisely the thing it longed to say? Add only, that the body of
this same rose-stifled, beatified-Patriarch cannot get buried except by
stealth. It is wholly a notable business; and France, without doubt, is
big (what the Germans call 'Of good Hope'): we shall wish her a happy
birth-hour, and blessed fruit.

Beaumarchais too has now winded-up his Law-Pleadings (Memoires);
(1773-6. See Oeuvres de Beaumarchais; where they, and the history of
them, are given.) not without result, to himself and to the world. Caron
Beaumarchais (or de Beaumarchais, for he got ennobled) had been born
poor, but aspiring, esurient; with talents, audacity, adroitness; above
all, with the talent for intrigue: a lean, but also a tough, indomitable
man. Fortune and dexterity brought him to the harpsichord of Mesdames,
our good Princesses Loque, Graille and Sisterhood. Still better, Paris
Duvernier, the Court-Banker, honoured him with some confidence; to
the length even of transactions in cash. Which confidence, however,
Duvernier's Heir, a person of quality, would not continue. Quite
otherwise; there springs a Lawsuit from it: wherein tough Beaumarchais,
losing both money and repute, is, in the opinion of Judge-Reporter
Goezman, of the Parlement Maupeou, of a whole indifferent acquiescing
world, miserably beaten. In all men's opinions, only not in his own!
Inspired by the indignation, which makes, if not verses, satirical
law-papers, the withered Music-master, with a desperate heroism,
takes up his lost cause in spite of the world; fights for it, against
Reporters, Parlements and Principalities, with light banter, with clear
logic; adroitly, with an inexhaustible toughness and resource, like
the skilfullest fencer; on whom, so skilful is he, the whole world now
looks. Three long years it lasts; with wavering fortune. In fine, after
labours comparable to the Twelve of Hercules, our unconquerable Caron
triumphs; regains his Lawsuit and Lawsuits; strips Reporter Goezman of
the judicial ermine; covering him with a perpetual garment of obloquy
instead:--and in regard to the Parlement Maupeou (which he has helped
to extinguish), to Parlements of all kinds, and to French Justice
generally, gives rise to endless reflections in the minds of men. Thus
has Beaumarchais, like a lean French Hercules, ventured down, driven
by destiny, into the Nether Kingdoms; and victoriously tamed hell-dogs
there. He also is henceforth among the notabilities of his generation.



Chapter 1.2.V.

Astraea Redux without Cash.

Observe, however, beyond the Atlantic, has not the new day verily
dawned! Democracy, as we said, is born; storm-girt, is struggling for
life and victory. A sympathetic France rejoices over the Rights of Man;
in all saloons, it is said, What a spectacle! Now too behold our Deane,
our Franklin, American Plenipotentiaries, here in position soliciting;
(1777; Deane somewhat earlier: Franklin remained till 1785.) the sons
of the Saxon Puritans, with their Old-Saxon temper, Old-Hebrew culture,
sleek Silas, sleek Benjamin, here on such errand, among the light
children of Heathenism, Monarchy, Sentimentalism, and the Scarlet-woman.
A spectacle indeed; over which saloons may cackle joyous; though Kaiser
Joseph, questioned on it, gave this answer, most unexpected from a
Philosophe: "Madame, the trade I live by is that of royalist (Mon metier
a moi c'est d'etre royaliste)."

So thinks light Maurepas too; but the wind of Philosophism and force of
public opinion will blow him round. Best wishes, meanwhile, are sent;
clandestine privateers armed. Paul Jones shall equip his Bon Homme
Richard: weapons, military stores can be smuggled over (if the English
do not seize them); wherein, once more Beaumarchais, dimly as the Giant
Smuggler becomes visible,--filling his own lank pocket withal. But
surely, in any case, France should have a Navy. For which great object
were not now the time: now when that proud Termagant of the Seas has her
hands full? It is true, an impoverished Treasury cannot build ships;
but the hint once given (which Beaumarchais says he gave), this and the
other loyal Seaport, Chamber of Commerce, will build and offer them.
Goodly vessels bound into the waters; a Ville de Paris, Leviathan of
ships.

And now when gratuitous three-deckers dance there at anchor, with
streamers flying; and eleutheromaniac Philosophedom grows ever more
clamorous, what can a Maurepas do--but gyrate? Squadrons cross the
ocean: Gages, Lees, rough Yankee Generals, 'with woollen night-caps
under their hats,' present arms to the far-glancing Chivalry of France;
and new-born Democracy sees, not without amazement, 'Despotism tempered
by Epigrams fight at her side. So, however, it is. King's forces and
heroic volunteers; Rochambeaus, Bouilles, Lameths, Lafayettes, have
drawn their swords in this sacred quarrel of mankind;--shall draw them
again elsewhere, in the strangest way.

Off Ushant some naval thunder is heard. In the course of which did
our young Prince, Duke de Chartres, 'hide in the hold;' or did he
materially, by active heroism, contribute to the victory? Alas, by a
second edition, we learn that there was no victory; or that English
Keppel had it. (27th July, 1778.) Our poor young Prince gets his
Opera plaudits changed into mocking tehees; and cannot become
Grand-Admiral,--the source to him of woes which one may call endless.

Woe also for Ville de Paris, the Leviathan of ships! English Rodney has
clutched it, and led it home, with the rest; so successful was his new
'manoeuvre of breaking the enemy's line.' (9th and 12th April, 1782.) It
seems as if, according to Louis XV., 'France were never to have a Navy.'
Brave Suffren must return from Hyder Ally and the Indian Waters; with
small result; yet with great glory for 'six non-defeats;--which indeed,
with such seconding as he had, one may reckon heroic. Let the old
sea-hero rest now, honoured of France, in his native Cevennes mountains;
send smoke, not of gunpowder, but mere culinary smoke, through the old
chimneys of the Castle of Jales,--which one day, in other hands,
shall have other fame. Brave Laperouse shall by and by lift anchor, on
philanthropic Voyage of Discovery; for the King knows Geography. (August
1st, 1785.) But, alas, this also will not prosper: the brave Navigator
goes, and returns not; the Seekers search far seas for him in vain.
He has vanished trackless into blue Immensity; and only some mournful
mysterious shadow of him hovers long in all heads and hearts.

Neither, while the War yet lasts, will Gibraltar surrender. Not though
Crillon, Nassau-Siegen, with the ablest projectors extant, are there;
and Prince Conde and Prince d'Artois have hastened to help. Wondrous
leather-roofed Floating-batteries, set afloat by French-Spanish Pacte de
Famille, give gallant summons: to which, nevertheless, Gibraltar answers
Plutonically, with mere torrents of redhot iron,--as if stone Calpe had
become a throat of the Pit; and utters such a Doom's-blast of a No,
as all men must credit. (Annual Register (Dodsley's), xxv. 258-267.
September, October, 1782.)

And so, with this loud explosion, the noise of War has ceased; an Age
of Benevolence may hope, for ever. Our noble volunteers of Freedom have
returned, to be her missionaries. Lafayette, as the matchless of his
time, glitters in the Versailles Oeil-de-Beouf; has his Bust set up in
the Paris Hotel-de-Ville. Democracy stands inexpugnable, immeasurable,
in her New World; has even a foot lifted towards the Old;--and our
French Finances, little strengthened by such work, are in no healthy
way.

What to do with the Finance? This indeed is the great question: a small
but most black weather-symptom, which no radiance of universal hope
can cover. We saw Turgot cast forth from the Controllership, with
shrieks,--for want of a Fortunatus' Purse. As little could M. de Clugny
manage the duty; or indeed do anything, but consume his wages; attain
'a place in History,' where as an ineffectual shadow thou beholdest him
still lingering;--and let the duty manage itself. Did Genevese Necker
possess such a Purse, then? He possessed banker's skill, banker's
honesty; credit of all kinds, for he had written Academic Prize Essays,
struggled for India Companies, given dinners to Philosophes, and
'realised a fortune in twenty years.' He possessed, further, a
taciturnity and solemnity; of depth, or else of dulness. How singular
for Celadon Gibbon, false swain as he had proved; whose father, keeping
most probably his own gig, 'would not hear of such a union,'--to find
now his forsaken Demoiselle Curchod sitting in the high places of
the world, as Minister's Madame, and 'Necker not jealous!' (Gibbon's
Letters: date, 16th June, 1777, &c.)

A new young Demoiselle, one day to be famed as a Madame and De Stael,
was romping about the knees of the Decline and Fall: the lady Necker
founds Hospitals; gives solemn Philosophe dinner-parties, to cheer her
exhausted Controller-General. Strange things have happened: by
clamour of Philosophism, management of Marquis de Pezay, and Poverty
constraining even Kings. And so Necker, Atlas-like, sustains the burden
of the Finances, for five years long? (Till May, 1781.) Without wages,
for he refused such; cheered only by Public Opinion, and the ministering
of his noble Wife. With many thoughts in him, it is hoped;--which,
however, he is shy of uttering. His Compte Rendu, published by the royal
permission, fresh sign of a New Era, shows wonders;--which what but
the genius of some Atlas-Necker can prevent from becoming portents? In
Necker's head too there is a whole pacific French Revolution, of its
kind; and in that taciturn dull depth, or deep dulness, ambition enough.

Meanwhile, alas, his Fotunatus' Purse turns out to be little other than
the old 'vectigal of Parsimony.' Nay, he too has to produce his scheme
of taxing: Clergy, Noblesse to be taxed; Provincial Assemblies, and the
rest,--like a mere Turgot! The expiring M. de Maurepas must gyrate one
other time. Let Necker also depart; not unlamented.

Great in a private station, Necker looks on from the distance; abiding
his time. 'Eighty thousand copies' of his new Book, which he calls
Administration des Finances, will be sold in few days. He is gone; but
shall return, and that more than once, borne by a whole shouting Nation.
Singular Controller-General of the Finances; once Clerk in Thelusson's
Bank!



Chapter 1.2.VI.

Windbags.

So marches the world, in this its Paper Age, or Era of Hope. Not without
obstructions, war-explosions; which, however, heard from such distance,
are little other than a cheerful marching-music. If indeed that dark
living chaos of Ignorance and Hunger, five-and-twenty million strong,
under your feet,--were to begin playing!

For the present, however, consider Longchamp; now when Lent is ending,
and the glory of Paris and France has gone forth, as in annual wont.
Not to assist at Tenebris Masses, but to sun itself and show itself,
and salute the Young Spring. (Mercier, Tableau de Paris, ii. 51. Louvet,
Roman de Faublas, &c.) Manifold, bright-tinted, glittering with gold;
all through the Bois de Boulogne, in longdrawn variegated rows;--like
longdrawn living flower-borders, tulips, dahlias, lilies of the valley;
all in their moving flower-pots (of new-gilt carriages): pleasure of the
eye, and pride of life! So rolls and dances the Procession: steady, of
firm assurance, as if it rolled on adamant and the foundations of the
world; not on mere heraldic parchment,--under which smoulders a lake of
fire. Dance on, ye foolish ones; ye sought not wisdom, neither have
ye found it. Ye and your fathers have sown the wind, ye shall reap the
whirlwind. Was it not, from of old, written: The wages of sin is death?

But at Longchamp, as elsewhere, we remark for one thing, that dame and
cavalier are waited on each by a kind of human familiar, named jokei.
Little elf, or imp; though young, already withered; with its withered
air of premature vice, of knowingness, of completed elf-hood: useful in
various emergencies. The name jokei (jockey) comes from the English; as
the thing also fancies that it does. Our Anglomania, in fact , is grown
considerable; prophetic of much. If France is to be free, why shall she
not, now when mad war is hushed, love neighbouring Freedom? Cultivated
men, your Dukes de Liancourt, de la Rochefoucault admire the English
Constitution, the English National Character; would import what of it
they can.

Of what is lighter, especially if it be light as wind, how much easier
the freightage! Non-Admiral Duke de Chartres (not yet d'Orleans or
Egalite) flies to and fro across the Strait; importing English Fashions;
this he, as hand-and-glove with an English Prince of Wales, is surely
qualified to do. Carriages and saddles; top-boots and redingotes, as
we call riding-coats. Nay the very mode of riding: for now no man on a
level with his age but will trot a l'Anglaise, rising in the stirrups;
scornful of the old sitfast method, in which, according to Shakspeare,
'butter and eggs' go to market. Also, he can urge the fervid wheels,
this brave Chartres of ours; no whip in Paris is rasher and surer than
the unprofessional one of Monseigneur.

Elf jokeis, we have seen; but see now real Yorkshire jockeys, and what
they ride on, and train: English racers for French Races. These likewise
we owe first (under the Providence of the Devil) to Monseigneur. Prince
d'Artois also has his stud of racers. Prince d'Artois has withal
the strangest horseleech: a moonstruck, much-enduring individual,
of Neuchatel in Switzerland,--named Jean Paul Marat. A problematic
Chevalier d'Eon, now in petticoats, now in breeches, is no less
problematic in London than in Paris; and causes bets and lawsuits.
Beautiful days of international communion! Swindlery and Blackguardism
have stretched hands across the Channel, and saluted mutually: on the
racecourse of Vincennes or Sablons, behold in English curricle-and-four,
wafted glorious among the principalities and rascalities, an English Dr.
Dodd, (Adelung, Geschichte der Menschlichen Narrheit, para Dodd.)--for
whom also the too early gallows gapes.

Duke de Chartres was a young Prince of great promise, as young Princes
often are; which promise unfortunately has belied itself. With the huge
Orleans Property, with Duke de Penthievre for Father-in-law (and now the
young Brother-in-law Lamballe killed by excesses),--he will one day be
the richest man in France. Meanwhile, 'his hair is all falling out,
his blood is quite spoiled,'--by early transcendentalism of debauchery.
Carbuncles stud his face; dark studs on a ground of burnished copper. A
most signal failure, this young Prince! The stuff prematurely burnt out
of him: little left but foul smoke and ashes of expiring sensualities:
what might have been Thought, Insight, and even Conduct, gone now, or
fast going,--to confused darkness, broken by bewildering dazzlements; to
obstreperous crotchets; to activities which you may call semi-delirious,
or even semi-galvanic! Paris affects to laugh at his charioteering; but
he heeds not such laughter.

On the other hand, what a day, not of laughter, was that, when
he threatened, for lucre's sake, to lay sacrilegious hand on
the Palais-Royal Garden! (1781-82. (Dulaure, viii. 423.)) The
flower-parterres shall be riven up; the Chestnut Avenues shall fall:
time-honoured boscages, under which the Opera Hamadryads were wont to
wander, not inexorable to men. Paris moans aloud. Philidor, from his
Cafe de la Regence, shall no longer look on greenness; the loungers and
losels of the world, where now shall they haunt? In vain is moaning. The
axe glitters; the sacred groves fall crashing,--for indeed Monseigneur
was short of money: the Opera Hamadryads fly with shrieks. Shriek not,
ye Opera Hamadryads; or not as those that have no comfort. He will
surround your Garden with new edifices and piazzas: though narrowed, it
shall be replanted; dizened with hydraulic jets, cannon which the sun
fires at noon; things bodily, things spiritual, such as man has not
imagined;--and in the Palais-Royal shall again, and more than ever, be
the Sorcerer's Sabbath and Satan-at-Home of our Planet.