John Stevens Cabot Abbott - The History of French Revolution

"I have, against my inclination, imposed great burdens on my subjects; but have been compelled to do it by the long wars which I have been obliged to maintain. Love peace, and undertake no war, except when the good of the state and the welfare of your people render it necessary."

These words were not heeded, until the people were, in their terrible might, inspired by fury and despair.

There is nothing more mournful to contemplate than the last days of Louis XIV. He was the victim of insupportable melancholy, dreading death almost with terror. His children and his grandchildren were nearly all dead. The people were crushed by burdens which they could no longer support. The treasury was in debt over eight hundred millions of dollars. Commerce was destroyed, industry paralyzed, and the country uncultivated and in many places almost depopulated. The armies of France had been conquered and humiliated; a disastrous war was threatening the realm, and the king from his dying bed could hear the execrations of the people, rising portentously around his throne.

8.Histoire de Madame de Maintenon, et des principaux Evenements du Regne de Louis XIV. Par M. le Duc de Noilles, Paris, 1848.

9."Madame de Maintenon," writes St. Simon, "had men, affairs, justice, religion, all, without exception, in her hands, and the king and the state her victims."

10.Under these circumstances the Protestants sent the following touching petition: "It being impossible for us to live without the exercise of our religion, we are compelled, in spite of ourselves, to supplicate your majesty, with the most profound humility and respect, that you may be pleased to allow us to leave the kingdom, with our wives, our children, and our effects, to settle in foreign countries, where we can freely render to God the worship which we believe indispensable, and on which depends our happiness or our misery for eternity." This petition met only the response of aggravated severities.— Hist. of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice , p. 486.

11.History of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice, p. 405.

12.History of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice, p. 408.

13.Histoire de l'Édit de Nantes, par Elias Benoît, tome v., p. 953.

14.Boulainvilliers.

15."It is painful to detect continually the hand of the clergy in these scenes of violence, spoliation, and death. The venerable Malesherbes, the Baron de Breteuil, Rulhières, Joly de Fleury, Gilbert de Voisins, Rippert de Monclus, the highest statesmen, the most eminent magistrates, who have written upon the religious affairs of this period, utter but one voice on it. They agree in signalizing the influence of the priests, an influence as obstinate as incessant, sometimes haughty, sometimes supple and humble, but always supplicating the last means of restraint and severity for the re-establishment of religious unity."— History of the Protestants of France, by G. de Félice , p. 487.

Table of Contents

State of France.—The Regency.—Financial Embarrassment.—Crimes of the Rulers.—Recoining the Currency.—Renewed Persecution of the Protestants.—Bishop Dubois.—Philosophy of Voltaire.—Anecdote of Franklin.—The King's Favorites.—Mademoiselle Poisson.—Her Ascendency.— Parc aux Cerfs. —Illustrative Anecdote.—Letter to the King.—Testimony of Chesterfield.—Anecdote of La Fayette.—Death of Pompadour.—Mademoiselle Lange.—Power of Du Barry.—Death of Louis XV.

The reign of Louis XIV. was that of an Oriental monarch. His authority was unlimited and unquestioned. The people had two powerful foes, the king and the nobles. The nobles, as the most numerous, were the most dreaded. The people consequently looked to the kings to protect them against the nobles, as sheep will look to their natural enemy, the dogs, to defend them from their still worse enemies, the wolves. The king had now obtained a perfect triumph over the nobles, and had gathered all the political power into his own hands. He had accomplished this by bribery, as well as by force. The acquiescence of the nobles in his supremacy was purchased by his conferring upon them all the offices of honor and emolument, by exempting them from all taxes, and by supporting them in indolence, luxury, and vice, from the toil of the crushed and starving masses. There were now in the nation two classes, and two only, with an impassable gulf between them. On the one side were eighty thousand aristocratic families living in idleness and luxury; on the other were twenty-four millions of people, who, as a mass, were kept in the lowest poverty, maintaining by their toil the haughty nobles, from whom they received only outrage and contempt

Louis XIV. just before his death drew up an edict appointing a council of regency during the minority of his great-grandson, the young king. The Parliament of Paris, however, declared the will null, and appointed the Duke of Orleans, who was considered favorable to the nobles, regent! For eight years, from 1715 to 1723, the regent, by shameless profligacy and extravagance, was but filling up the measure of wrath which had been accumulating for ages. Nothing was done to promote the welfare of the people, and, notwithstanding the misery which was actually depopulating the provinces, the gorgeous palaces of France exhibited scenes of voluptuousness which the wealth of the Orient had never paralleled.

Louis XIV. had expended upon the single palace of Versailles more than two hundred millions of dollars. The roofs of that vast pile would cover a surface of twenty-five French acres. Thirty thousand laborers were frequently employed simultaneously in embellishing the magnificent park sixty miles in circuit. 16Marly, with its fountains, its parks, and gardens, had also been constructed with equal extravagance. Both of these palaces exhibited scenes of measureless profligacy gilded by the highest fascinations of external refinement and elegance. Louis XIV. left the nation in debt eight hundred and fifty millions of dollars. For several years the expenditure had exceeded the income by nearly thirty millions of dollars a year. The regent during the seven years of his profligate administration had added to this debt a hundred and fifty millions of dollars.

There was now fearful embarrassment in the finances. All the measures for extorting money seemed to be exhausted, and it was found impossible to raise the sums necessary to meet the expenses of the court and to pay the interest upon the debt. Taxation had gone to its last extremity; and no more money could be borrowed. The Duke of St. Simon proposed that the treasury should declare itself bankrupt.

"The loss," said he, "will fall upon the commercial and moneyed classes, whom no one fears or pities. The measure," he continued, "will also be a salutary rebuke to the ignoble classes, teaching them to beware how they lend money to the king which will enable him to gain the supremacy over the nobles."

The Duke of Orleans, who was regent only, not king, could sympathize in these views. The general discontent, however, was such, that he did not dare to resort to so violent a measure. The end was accomplished in a more circuitous way. A commission of courtiers was appointed to examine the accounts of the public creditors. Three hundred and fifty millions of francs ($76,000,000) were peremptorily struck from their claims. There was no appeal. This mode of paying debts seemed so successful that the commission established itself as an inquisitorial chamber, and summoned before it all those who had been guilty of lending money to the king. Most of these were thrown into prison, and threatened with death unless they purchased pardon for the crime with large sums of money. The regent and the nobles made themselves merry with the woes of these low-born men of wealth, and filled their purses by selling their protection.