The French Revolution

T >> Thomas Carlyle >> The French Revolution


How singular this perpetual distress of the royal treasury! And yet it
is a thing not more incredible than undeniable. A thing mournfully true:
the stumbling-block on which all Ministers successively stumble, and
fall. Be it 'want of fiscal genius,' or some far other want, there is
the palpablest discrepancy between Revenue and Expenditure; a Deficit
of the Revenue: you must 'choke (combler) the Deficit,' or else it will
swallow you! This is the stern problem; hopeless seemingly as squaring
of the circle. Controller Joly de Fleury, who succeeded Necker, could
do nothing with it; nothing but propose loans, which were tardily filled
up; impose new taxes, unproductive of money, productive of clamour and
discontent. As little could Controller d'Ormesson do, or even less; for
if Joly maintained himself beyond year and day, d'Ormesson reckons only
by months: till 'the King purchased Rambouillet without consulting him,'
which he took as a hint to withdraw. And so, towards the end of 1783,
matters threaten to come to still-stand. Vain seems human ingenuity.
In vain has our newly-devised 'Council of Finances' struggled, our
Intendants of Finance, Controller-General of Finances: there are
unhappily no Finances to control. Fatal paralysis invades the social
movement; clouds, of blindness or of blackness, envelop us: are we
breaking down, then, into the black horrors of NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY?

Great is Bankruptcy: the great bottomless gulf into which all
Falsehoods, public and private, do sink, disappearing; whither, from the
first origin of them, they were all doomed. For Nature is true and not
a lie. No lie you can speak or act but it will come, after longer or
shorter circulation, like a Bill drawn on Nature's Reality, and be
presented there for payment,--with the answer, No effects. Pity only
that it often had so long a circulation: that the original forger were
so seldom he who bore the final smart of it! Lies, and the burden of
evil they bring, are passed on; shifted from back to back, and from rank
to rank; and so land ultimately on the dumb lowest rank, who with spade
and mattock, with sore heart and empty wallet, daily come in contact
with reality, and can pass the cheat no further.

Observe nevertheless how, by a just compensating law, if the lie with
its burden (in this confused whirlpool of Society) sinks and is shifted
ever downwards, then in return the distress of it rises ever upwards
and upwards. Whereby, after the long pining and demi-starvation of those
Twenty Millions, a Duke de Coigny and his Majesty come also to have
their 'real quarrel.' Such is the law of just Nature; bringing, though
at long intervals, and were it only by Bankruptcy, matters round again
to the mark.

But with a Fortunatus' Purse in his pocket, through what length of
time might not almost any Falsehood last! Your Society, your Household,
practical or spiritual Arrangement, is untrue, unjust, offensive to the
eye of God and man. Nevertheless its hearth is warm, its larder well
replenished: the innumerable Swiss of Heaven, with a kind of Natural
loyalty, gather round it; will prove, by pamphleteering, musketeering,
that it is a truth; or if not an unmixed (unearthly, impossible) Truth,
then better, a wholesomely attempered one, (as wind is to the shorn
lamb), and works well. Changed outlook, however, when purse and larder
grow empty! Was your Arrangement so true, so accordant to Nature's ways,
then how, in the name of wonder, has Nature, with her infinite bounty,
come to leave it famishing there? To all men, to all women and all
children, it is now indutiable that your Arrangement was false. Honour
to Bankruptcy; ever righteous on the great scale, though in detail it
is so cruel! Under all Falsehoods it works, unweariedly mining. No
Falsehood, did it rise heaven-high and cover the world, but Bankruptcy,
one day, will sweep it down, and make us free of it.



Chapter 1.3.II.

Controller Calonne.

Under such circumstances of tristesse, obstruction and sick langour,
when to an exasperated Court it seems as if fiscal genius had departed
from among men, what apparition could be welcomer than that of M. de
Calonne? Calonne, a man of indisputable genius; even fiscal genius, more
or less; of experience both in managing Finance and Parlements, for he
has been Intendant at Metz, at Lille; King's Procureur at Douai. A man
of weight, connected with the moneyed classes; of unstained name,--if
it were not some peccadillo (of showing a Client's Letter) in that
old D'Aiguillon-Lachalotais business, as good as forgotten now. He
has kinsmen of heavy purse, felt on the Stock Exchange. Our Foulons,
Berthiers intrigue for him:--old Foulon, who has now nothing to do but
intrigue; who is known and even seen to be what they call a scoundrel;
but of unmeasured wealth; who, from Commissariat-clerk which he once
was, may hope, some think, if the game go right, to be Minister himself
one day.

Such propping and backing has M. de Calonne; and then intrinsically such
qualities! Hope radiates from his face; persuasion hangs on his tongue.
For all straits he has present remedy, and will make the world roll
on wheels before him. On the 3d of November 1783, the Oeil-de-Boeuf
rejoices in its new Controller-General. Calonne also shall have trial;
Calonne also, in his way, as Turgot and Necker had done in theirs, shall
forward the consummation; suffuse, with one other flush of brilliancy,
our now too leaden-coloured Era of Hope, and wind it up--into
fulfilment.

Great, in any case, is the felicity of the Oeil-de-Boeuf. Stinginess has
fled from these royal abodes: suppression ceases; your Besenval may
go peaceably to sleep, sure that he shall awake unplundered. Smiling
Plenty, as if conjured by some enchanter, has returned; scatters
contentment from her new-flowing horn. And mark what suavity of manners!
A bland smile distinguishes our Controller: to all men he listens with
an air of interest, nay of anticipation; makes their own wish clear to
themselves, and grants it; or at least, grants conditional promise
of it. "I fear this is a matter of difficulty," said her
Majesty.--"Madame," answered the Controller, "if it is but difficult, it
is done, if it is impossible, it shall be done (se fera)." A man of such
'facility' withal. To observe him in the pleasure-vortex of society,
which none partakes of with more gusto, you might ask, When does he
work? And yet his work, as we see, is never behindhand; above all, the
fruit of his work: ready-money. Truly a man of incredible facility;
facile action, facile elocution, facile thought: how, in mild suasion,
philosophic depth sparkles up from him, as mere wit and lambent
sprightliness; and in her Majesty's Soirees, with the weight of a world
lying on him, he is the delight of men and women! By what magic does he
accomplish miracles? By the only true magic, that of genius. Men name
him 'the Minister;' as indeed, when was there another such? Crooked
things are become straight by him, rough places plain; and over the
Oeil-de-Boeuf there rests an unspeakable sunshine.

Nay, in seriousness, let no man say that Calonne had not genius: genius
for Persuading; before all things, for Borrowing. With the skilfulest
judicious appliances of underhand money, he keeps the Stock-Exchanges
flourishing; so that Loan after Loan is filled up as soon as opened.
'Calculators likely to know' (Besenval, iii. 216.) have calculated that
he spent, in extraordinaries, 'at the rate of one million daily;' which
indeed is some fifty thousand pounds sterling: but did he not procure
something with it; namely peace and prosperity, for the time being?
Philosophedom grumbles and croaks; buys, as we said, 80,000 copies of
Necker's new Book: but Nonpareil Calonne, in her Majesty's Apartment,
with the glittering retinue of Dukes, Duchesses, and mere happy admiring
faces, can let Necker and Philosophedom croak.

The misery is, such a time cannot last! Squandering, and Payment by Loan
is no way to choke a Deficit. Neither is oil the substance for quenching
conflagrations;--but, only for assuaging them, not permanently! To the
Nonpareil himself, who wanted not insight, it is clear at intervals,
and dimly certain at all times, that his trade is by nature temporary,
growing daily more difficult; that changes incalculable lie at no great
distance. Apart from financial Deficit, the world is wholly in such a
new-fangled humour; all things working loose from their old fastenings,
towards new issues and combinations. There is not a dwarf jokei, a cropt
Brutus'-head, or Anglomaniac horseman rising on his stirrups, that
does not betoken change. But what then? The day, in any case, passes
pleasantly; for the morrow, if the morrow come, there shall be counsel
too. Once mounted (by munificence, suasion, magic of genius) high enough
in favour with the Oeil-de-Boeuf, with the King, Queen, Stock-Exchange,
and so far as possible with all men, a Nonpareil Controller may hope
to go careering through the Inevitable, in some unimagined way, as
handsomely as another.

At all events, for these three miraculous years, it has been expedient
heaped on expedient; till now, with such cumulation and height, the pile
topples perilous. And here has this world's-wonder of a Diamond Necklace
brought it at last to the clear verge of tumbling. Genius in that
direction can no more: mounted high enough, or not mounted, we must fare
forth. Hardly is poor Rohan, the Necklace-Cardinal, safely bestowed in
the Auvergne Mountains, Dame de Lamotte (unsafely) in the Salpetriere,
and that mournful business hushed up, when our sanguine Controller once
more astonishes the world. An expedient, unheard of for these hundred
and sixty years, has been propounded; and, by dint of suasion (for
his light audacity, his hope and eloquence are matchless) has been got
adopted,--Convocation of the Notables.

Let notable persons, the actual or virtual rulers of their districts,
be summoned from all sides of France: let a true tale, of his Majesty's
patriotic purposes and wretched pecuniary impossibilities, be suasively
told them; and then the question put: What are we to do? Surely to adopt
healing measures; such as the magic of genius will unfold; such as, once
sanctioned by Notables, all Parlements and all men must, with more or
less reluctance, submit to.



Chapter 1.3.III.

The Notables.

Here, then is verily a sign and wonder; visible to the whole world;
bodeful of much. The Oeil-de-Boeuf dolorously grumbles; were we not
well as we stood,--quenching conflagrations by oil? Constitutional
Philosophedom starts with joyful surprise; stares eagerly what the
result will be. The public creditor, the public debtor, the whole
thinking and thoughtless public have their several surprises, joyful
and sorrowful. Count Mirabeau, who has got his matrimonial and other
Lawsuits huddled up, better or worse; and works now in the dimmest
element at Berlin; compiling Prussian Monarchies, Pamphlets On
Cagliostro; writing, with pay, but not with honourable recognition,
innumerable Despatches for his Government,--scents or descries richer
quarry from afar. He, like an eagle or vulture, or mixture of both,
preens his wings for flight homewards. (Fils Adoptif, Memoires de
Mirabeau, t. iv. livv. 4 et 5.)

M. de Calonne has stretched out an Aaron's Rod over France; miraculous;
and is summoning quite unexpected things. Audacity and hope alternate in
him with misgivings; though the sanguine-valiant side carries it. Anon
he writes to an intimate friend, "Here me fais pitie a moi-meme (I am
an object of pity to myself);" anon, invites some dedicating Poet or
Poetaster to sing 'this Assembly of the Notables and the Revolution
that is preparing.' (Biographie Universelle, para Calonne (by Guizot).)
Preparing indeed; and a matter to be sung,--only not till we have seen
it, and what the issue of it is. In deep obscure unrest, all things
have so long gone rocking and swaying: will M. de Calonne, with this
his alchemy of the Notables, fasten all together again, and get new
revenues? Or wrench all asunder; so that it go no longer rocking and
swaying, but clashing and colliding?

Be this as it may, in the bleak short days, we behold men of weight and
influence threading the great vortex of French Locomotion, each on
his several line, from all sides of France towards the Chateau of
Versailles: summoned thither de par le roi. There, on the 22d day of
February 1787, they have met, and got installed: Notables to the
number of a Hundred and Thirty-seven, as we count them name by name:
(Lacretelle, iii. 286. Montgaillard, i. 347.) add Seven Princes of the
Blood, it makes the round Gross of Notables. Men of the sword, men of
the robe; Peers, dignified Clergy, Parlementary Presidents: divided into
Seven Boards (Bureaux); under our Seven Princes of the Blood, Monsieur,
D'Artois, Penthievre, and the rest; among whom let not our new Duke
d'Orleans (for, since 1785, he is Chartres no longer) be forgotten.
Never yet made Admiral, and now turning the corner of his fortieth year,
with spoiled blood and prospects; half-weary of a world which is more
than half-weary of him, Monseigneur's future is most questionable. Not
in illumination and insight, not even in conflagration; but, as was
said, 'in dull smoke and ashes of outburnt sensualities,' does he
live and digest. Sumptuosity and sordidness; revenge, life-weariness,
ambition, darkness, putrescence; and, say, in sterling money, three
hundred thousand a year,--were this poor Prince once to burst loose from
his Court-moorings, to what regions, with what phenomena, might he not
sail and drift! Happily as yet he 'affects to hunt daily;' sits there,
since he must sit, presiding that Bureau of his, with dull moon-visage,
dull glassy eyes, as if it were a mere tedium to him.

We observe finally, that Count Mirabeau has actually arrived. He
descends from Berlin, on the scene of action; glares into it with
flashing sun-glance; discerns that it will do nothing for him. He had
hoped these Notables might need a Secretary. They do need one; but
have fixed on Dupont de Nemours; a man of smaller fame, but then of
better;--who indeed, as his friends often hear, labours under this
complaint, surely not a universal one, of having 'five kings to
correspond with.' (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau (Paris, 1832), p. 20.)
The pen of a Mirabeau cannot become an official one; nevertheless
it remains a pen. In defect of Secretaryship, he sets to denouncing
Stock-brokerage (Denonciation de l'Agiotage); testifying, as his wont
is, by loud bruit, that he is present and busy;--till, warned by friend
Talleyrand, and even by Calonne himself underhand, that 'a seventeenth
Lettre-de-Cachet may be launched against him,' he timefully flits over
the marches.

And now, in stately royal apartments, as Pictures of that time still
represent them, our hundred and forty-four Notables sit organised; ready
to hear and consider. Controller Calonne is dreadfully behindhand with
his speeches, his preparatives; however, the man's 'facility of work' is
known to us. For freshness of style, lucidity, ingenuity, largeness
of view, that opening Harangue of his was unsurpassable:--had not the
subject-matter been so appalling. A Deficit, concerning which accounts
vary, and the Controller's own account is not unquestioned; but which
all accounts agree in representing as 'enormous.' This is the epitome of
our Controller's difficulties: and then his means? Mere Turgotism; for
thither, it seems, we must come at last: Provincial Assemblies; new
Taxation; nay, strangest of all, new Land-tax, what he calls Subvention
Territoriale, from which neither Privileged nor Unprivileged, Noblemen,
Clergy, nor Parlementeers, shall be exempt!

Foolish enough! These Privileged Classes have been used to tax; levying
toll, tribute and custom, at all hands, while a penny was left: but to
be themselves taxed? Of such Privileged persons, meanwhile, do these
Notables, all but the merest fraction, consist. Headlong Calonne had
given no heed to the 'composition,' or judicious packing of them; but
chosen such Notables as were really notable; trusting for the issue to
off-hand ingenuity, good fortune, and eloquence that never yet failed.
Headlong Controller-General! Eloquence can do much, but not all.
Orpheus, with eloquence grown rhythmic, musical (what we call Poetry),
drew iron tears from the cheek of Pluto: but by what witchery of rhyme
or prose wilt thou from the pocket of Plutus draw gold?

Accordingly, the storm that now rose and began to whistle round Calonne,
first in these Seven Bureaus, and then on the outside of them, awakened
by them, spreading wider and wider over all France, threatens to become
unappeasable. A Deficit so enormous! Mismanagement, profusion is too
clear. Peculation itself is hinted at; nay, Lafayette and others go so
far as to speak it out, with attempts at proof. The blame of his Deficit
our brave Calonne, as was natural, had endeavoured to shift from
himself on his predecessors; not excepting even Necker. But now Necker
vehemently denies; whereupon an 'angry Correspondence,' which also finds
its way into print.

In the Oeil-de-Boeuf, and her Majesty's private Apartments, an eloquent
Controller, with his "Madame, if it is but difficult," had been
persuasive: but, alas, the cause is now carried elsewhither. Behold
him, one of these sad days, in Monsieur's Bureau; to which all the other
Bureaus have sent deputies. He is standing at bay: alone; exposed to an
incessant fire of questions, interpellations, objurgations, from those
'hundred and thirty-seven' pieces of logic-ordnance,--what we may well
call bouches a feu, fire-mouths literally! Never, according to Besenval,
or hardly ever, had such display of intellect, dexterity, coolness,
suasive eloquence, been made by man. To the raging play of so many
fire-mouths he opposes nothing angrier than light-beams, self-possession
and fatherly smiles. With the imperturbablest bland clearness, he, for
five hours long, keeps answering the incessant volley of fiery captious
questions, reproachful interpellations; in words prompt as lightning,
quiet as light. Nay, the cross-fire too: such side questions and
incidental interpellations as, in the heat of the main-battle, he
(having only one tongue) could not get answered; these also he takes
up at the first slake; answers even these. (Besenval, iii. 196.) Could
blandest suasive eloquence have saved France, she were saved.

Heavy-laden Controller! In the Seven Bureaus seems nothing but
hindrance: in Monsieur's Bureau, a Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop
of Toulouse, with an eye himself to the Controllership, stirs up the
Clergy; there are meetings, underground intrigues. Neither from without
anywhere comes sign of help or hope. For the Nation (where Mirabeau is
now, with stentor-lungs, 'denouncing Agio') the Controller has hitherto
done nothing, or less. For Philosophedom he has done as good as
nothing,--sent out some scientific Laperouse, or the like: and is he not
in 'angry correspondence' with its Necker? The very Oeil-de-Boeuf
looks questionable; a falling Controller has no friends. Solid M. de
Vergennes, who with his phlegmatic judicious punctuality might have kept
down many things, died the very week before these sorrowful Notables
met. And now a Seal-keeper, Garde-des-Sceaux Miromenil is thought to be
playing the traitor: spinning plots for Lomenie-Brienne! Queen's-Reader
Abbe de Vermond, unloved individual, was Brienne's creature, the work
of his hands from the first: it may be feared the backstairs passage is
open, ground getting mined under our feet. Treacherous Garde-des-Sceaux
Miromenil, at least, should be dismissed; Lamoignon, the
eloquent Notable, a stanch man, with connections, and even ideas,
Parlement-President yet intent on reforming Parlements, were not he the
right Keeper? So, for one, thinks busy Besenval; and, at dinner-table,
rounds the same into the Controller's ear,--who always, in the intervals
of landlord-duties, listens to him as with charmed look, but answers
nothing positive. (Besenval, iii. 203.)

Alas, what to answer? The force of private intrigue, and then also the
force of public opinion, grows so dangerous, confused! Philosophedom
sneers aloud, as if its Necker already triumphed. The gaping populace
gapes over Wood-cuts or Copper-cuts; where, for example, a Rustic is
represented convoking the poultry of his barnyard, with this opening
address: "Dear animals, I have assembled you to advise me what sauce I
shall dress you with;" to which a Cock responding, "We don't want to be
eaten," is checked by "You wander from the point (Vous vous ecartez
de la question)." (Republished in the Musee de la Caricature (Paris,
1834).) Laughter and logic; ballad-singer, pamphleteer; epigram and
caricature: what wind of public opinion is this,--as if the Cave of the
Winds were bursting loose! At nightfall, President Lamoignon steals
over to the Controller's; finds him 'walking with large strides in his
chamber, like one out of himself.' (Besenval, iii. 209.) With rapid
confused speech the Controller begs M. de Lamoignon to give him 'an
advice.' Lamoignon candidly answers that, except in regard to his own
anticipated Keepership, unless that would prove remedial, he really
cannot take upon him to advise.

'On the Monday after Easter,' the 9th of April 1787, a date one rejoices
to verify, for nothing can excel the indolent falsehood of these
Histoires and Memoires,--'On the Monday after Easter, as I, Besenval,
was riding towards Romainville to the Marechal de Segur's, I met a
friend on the Boulevards, who told me that M. de Calonne was out. A
little further on came M. the Duke d'Orleans, dashing towards me, head
to the wind' (trotting a l'Anglaise), 'and confirmed the news.' (Ib.
iii. 211.) It is true news. Treacherous Garde-des-Sceaux Miromenil is
gone, and Lamoignon is appointed in his room: but appointed for his own
profit only, not for the Controller's: 'next day' the Controller also
has had to move. A little longer he may linger near; be seen among the
money changers, and even 'working in the Controller's office,' where
much lies unfinished: but neither will that hold. Too strong blows and
beats this tempest of public opinion, of private intrigue, as from the
Cave of all the Winds; and blows him (higher Authority giving sign)
out of Paris and France,--over the horizon, into Invisibility, or uuter
(utter, outer?) Darkness.

Such destiny the magic of genius could not forever avert. Ungrateful
Oeil-de-Boeuf! did he not miraculously rain gold manna on you; so that,
as a Courtier said, "All the world held out its hand, and I held out my
hat,"--for a time? Himself is poor; penniless, had not a 'Financier's
widow in Lorraine' offered him, though he was turned of fifty, her hand
and the rich purse it held. Dim henceforth shall be his activity, though
unwearied: Letters to the King, Appeals, Prognostications; Pamphlets
(from London), written with the old suasive facility; which however do
not persuade. Luckily his widow's purse fails not. Once, in a year or
two, some shadow of him shall be seen hovering on the Northern Border,
seeking election as National Deputy; but be sternly beckoned away.
Dimmer then, far-borne over utmost European lands, in uncertain twilight
of diplomacy, he shall hover, intriguing for 'Exiled Princes,' and
have adventures; be overset into the Rhine stream and half-drowned,
nevertheless save his papers dry. Unwearied, but in vain! In France he
works miracles no more; shall hardly return thither to find a grave.
Farewell, thou facile sanguine Controller-General, with thy light rash
hand, thy suasive mouth of gold: worse men there have been, and better;
but to thee also was allotted a task,--of raising the wind, and the
winds; and thou hast done it.

But now, while Ex-Controller Calonne flies storm-driven over the
horizon, in this singular way, what has become of the Controllership?
It hangs vacant, one may say; extinct, like the Moon in her vacant
interlunar cave. Two preliminary shadows, poor M. Fourqueux, poor
M. Villedeuil, do hold in quick succession some simulacrum of it,
(Besenval, iii. 225.)--as the new Moon will sometimes shine out with a
dim preliminary old one in her arms. Be patient, ye Notables! An actual
new Controller is certain, and even ready; were the indispensable
manoeuvres but gone through. Long-headed Lamoignon, with Home Secretary
Breteuil, and Foreign Secretary Montmorin have exchanged looks; let
these three once meet and speak. Who is it that is strong in the Queen's
favour, and the Abbe de Vermond's? That is a man of great capacity?
Or at least that has struggled, these fifty years, to have it thought
great; now, in the Clergy's name, demanding to have Protestant
death-penalties 'put in execution;' no flaunting it in the
Oeil-de-Boeuf, as the gayest man-pleaser and woman-pleaser; gleaning
even a good word from Philosophedom and your Voltaires and D'Alemberts?
With a party ready-made for him in the Notables?--Lomenie de Brienne,
Archbishop of Toulouse! answer all the three, with the clearest
instantaneous concord; and rush off to propose him to the King; 'in such
haste,' says Besenval, 'that M. de Lamoignon had to borrow a simarre,'
seemingly some kind of cloth apparatus necessary for that. (Ib. iii.
224.)