John Stevens Cabot Abbott - The History of French Revolution

A wealthy financier was perishing in one of the dungeons of the Bastille. A count visited him and offered to procure his release for sixty thousand dollars. "I thank you, Monsieur le Comte," was the reply, "but Madame, your countess, has just been here, and has promised me my liberty for half that sum."

The reign of the regent Duke of Orleans was the reign of the nobles, and they fell eagerly upon the people, whom Louis XIV. had sheltered from their avarice that more plunder might be left for him. The currency was called in and recoined, one fifth being cut from the value of each piece. By this expedient the court gained nearly fifteen millions of dollars.

Soon this money was all gone. The horizon was darkening and the approaching storm gathering blackness. Among the nobles there were some who abhorred these outrages. A party was organized in Paris opposed to the regent. They sent in a petition that the States-General might be assembled to deliberate upon the affairs of the realm. All who signed this petition were sent to the Bastille. There had been no meeting of the States-General called for more than one hundred years. The last had been held in 1614. It consisted of 104 deputies of the clergy, 132 of the nobles, and 192 of the people. The three estates had met separately and chosen their representatives. But the representatives of the people in this assembly displayed so much spirit that the convention was abruptly dismissed by the king, and neither king nor nobles were willing to give them a hearing again.

A bank was now established with a nominal capital of six millions of francs ($1,200,000). The shares were taken up by paying half in money and half in valueless government bills. Thus the real capital of the bank was $600,000. Upon this capital bills were issued to the amount of three thousand millions of francs ($600,000,000). Money was of course for a time plenty enough. The bubble soon burst. This operation vastly increased the financial ruin in which the nation was involved. Five hundred thousand citizens were plunged into bankruptcy. 17The Parliament of Paris, though composed of the privileged class, made a little show of resistance to such outrages and was banished summarily to Pontoise.

Dubois, one of the most infamous men who ever disgraced even a court, a tool of the regent, and yet thoroughly despised by him, had the audacity one morning to ask for the vacant archbishopric of Cambray. Dubois was not even a priest, and the demand seemed so ridiculous as well as impudent that the regent burst into a laugh, exclaiming,

"Should I bestow the archbishopric on such a knave as thou art, where should I find a prelate scoundrel enough to consecrate thee?"

"I have one here," said Dubois, pointing to a Jesuit prelate who was ready to perform the sacrilegious deed. Dubois had promised Rohan that if he would consecrate him he would bring back the favor of the court to the Jesuit party. One of the mistresses of the regent had been won over by Dubois, and the bloated debauchee was consecrated as Archbishop of Cambray. Dubois was now in the line of preferment. He soon laid aside his mitre for a cardinal's hat, and in 1722 was appointed prime minister. The darkness of the Middle Ages had passed away, and these scandals were perpetrated in the full light of the 18th century. The people looked on with murmurs of contempt and indignation. It was too much to ask, to demand reverence for such a church. 18

The infamous Jesuit, Lavergne de Tressan, Bishop of Nantes, who consecrated Dubois, revived from their slumber the most severe ordinances of Louis XIV. Louis XV. was then fourteen years of age. Royal edicts were issued, sentencing to the galleys for life any man and to imprisonment for life any woman who should attend other worship than the Catholic. Preachers of Protestantism were doomed to death; and any person who harbored such a preacher, or who should neglect to denounce him, was consigned to the galleys or the dungeon. All children were to be baptized within twenty-four hours of their birth by the curate of the parish, and were to be placed under Catholic instructors until the age of fourteen. Certificates of Catholicity were essential for all offices, all academical degrees, all admissions into corporations of trade. This horrible outrage upon human rights was received by the clergy with transport. When we contemplate the seed which the king and the court thus planted, we can not wonder at the revolutionary harvest which was reaped.

The Catholic Church thus became utterly loathsome even to the most devout Christians. They preferred the philosophy of Montesquieu, the atheism of Diderot, the unbelief of Voltaire, the sentimentalism of Rousseau, to this merciless and bloody demon, assuming the name of the Catholic Church, and swaying a sceptre of despotism which was deluging France in blood and woe. The sword of persecution which had for a time been reposing in its scabbard was again drawn and bathed in blood. Many Protestant ministers were broken upon the wheel and then beheaded. Persecution assumed every form of insult and cruelty. Thousands fled from the realm. Religious assemblies were surrounded by dragoons, and fired upon with the ferocity of savages, killing and maiming indiscriminately men, women, and children. Enormous sums of money were, by the lash, torture, the dungeon, and confiscation, extorted from the Protestants. Noblemen, lawyers, physicians, and rich merchants were most eagerly sought.

The seizure of Protestant children was attended with nameless outrages. Soldiers, sword in hand, headed by the priests, broke into the houses, overturned every thing in their search, committed brutal violence upon the parents, and, reckless of their lamentations and despair, seized the terrified children, especially the young girls, and forced them into the convents.

Fanaticism so cruel was revolting to the intelligence and to the general conscience of the age. Maddened priests could easily goad on a brutal and exasperated populace to any deeds of inhumanity, but intelligent men of all parties condemned such intolerance. It is, however, worthy of note that few of the philosophers of that day ventured to plead for religious toleration. They generally hated Christianity in all its forms, and were not at all disposed to shield one sect from the persecutions of another. Voltaire, however, was an exception. He had spent a year and a half in the Bastille on the charge of having written a libel against the government, which libel he did not write. When it was proved to the court that he did not write the libel he was liberated from prison and banished from France. Several years after this, Voltaire, having returned to France, offended a nobleman, the Chevalier de Rohan. The chevalier disdainfully sent his servant to chastise the poet. Voltaire, enraged by the degradation, sent a challenge to De Rohan. For the crime of challenging a noble he was again thrown into the Bastille. After six months he was released and again exiled. Soon after his Lettres Philosophiques were condemned by the Parliament to be burned, and an order was issued for his arrest. For many years he was compelled to live in concealment. He thus learned how to sympathize with the persecuted. In his masterly treatise upon toleration, and in his noble appeals for the family of the murdered Protestant, Jean Calas, he spoke in clarion tones which thrilled upon the ear of France. When Franklin in Paris called upon Voltaire, with his grandson, he said, "My son, fall upon your knees before this great man." The aged poet, then over eighty years of age, gave the boy his blessing, with the characteristic words, " God and freedom ." The philosophy of Voltaire overturned the most despicable of despotisms. His want of religion established another despotism equally intolerable.

The miserable regent died in a fit in the apartment of his mistress in 1723. The young king was now fourteen years of age. He was a bashful boy, with no thought but for his own indulgence. When a child he was one day looking from the windows of the Tuileries into the garden, which was filled with a crowd.