The Eve of the French Revolution

E >> Edward J. Lowell >> The Eve of the French Revolution

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30

It is very important in a democracy to keep old laws and customs; for
things tend to degenerate, and a corrupted nation seldom does anything
great. To maintain an aristocratic republic, moderation is necessary.
The nobles should be simple in their lives and hardly distinguishable
from plebeians. Distinctions offensive to pride, such as laws
forbidding intermarriage, are to be avoided. Privileges should belong to
the senate as a body and simple respect only be paid to the individual
senators.[Footnote: Montesq., iii. 151 (liv. iv. c. 5). Ibid., iii.
165-183 (liv. v. c. 2-8).]

As honor is the motive principle of monarchy, the laws should support
it, and be adapted to sustain that _nobility_ which is the parent
and the child of honor. Nobility must be hereditary; it must have
prerogatives and rights; it forms the link between the prince and the
nation. Monarchical government has the great advantage over the
republican form, that, as affairs are in a single hand, there is the
greater promptitude of execution. But there should still be something to
moderate the will of the prince. This is best found, not in the nobility
itself, but in such bodies as courts of law with constitutional rights,
like the French Parliaments.[Footnote: In a despotic government the
motive principle is fear. The governor of the town must be absolutely
responsible Montesq., iii, 191 (liv, v. c. 10).]

Montesquieu has been much blamed, both in his own age and since, for his
partiality to the monarchy as he found it existing in France. While
recognizing that a republic was a more just and equal form of
government, he thought that monarchy was that best suited to his time
and country. Many people who have watched the history of France since
his day will be found to agree with him. While defending some practices
which are now considered among the flagrant abuses of old France, he
recommended some reforms which would have been very salutary. It is
often wiser to find excuses for retaining an old custom than reasons for
introducing a new one; and Montesquieu was a conservative, made so by
his nature, his social position, his wealth, his education as a lawyer,
his age and his experience. When he wrote the "Persian Letters" he might
possibly have been willing to overthrow the principal institutions of
his country for the sake of remedying abuses; but when he had spent
twenty years over the "Spirit of the Laws," when he had realized the
complication of life, and the interdependence of things, he was more
ready to reform than to destroy.

In a despotic government the motive principle is fear. The governor of
the town must be absolutely responsible to the governor of the province,
or the latter cannot be entirely responsible to the sovereign. Thus
absolutism extends throughout the state. As there is no law but the will
of the prince, and as that law cannot be known in detail to every one,
there must be a great number of petty tyrants dependent on those
immediately above them.[Footnote: Montesq., ii. 209 (liv. v. c. 16).]

After a not very successful attempt to define liberty, which he decides
to be the power to do that which we ought to desire and not to do that
which we ought not to desire,[Footnote: Ibid., iv. 2-4 (liv. xi. c. 2,
3).] Montesquieu tells us that political liberty is found only in
limited governments, for all men who have power will tend to abuse it,
and will go on until they meet with obstacles; as virtue itself needs to
be restrained. Various nations, he then says, have various objects:
conquest was that of Rome, war of Sparta, commerce of Marseilles; there
is a country the direct object of whose constitution is political
liberty. That country is England.[Footnote: Montesquieu, here and
elsewhere, avoids mentioning England or France by name; a curious
affectation. The references, however, are unmistakable.]

There are in every state three kinds of power, the legislative, the
executive, and the judicial. Political liberty in a citizen is the
tranquillity of mind which comes from the opinion he has of his own
security; and to give him this liberty the government must be such that
no citizen can be afraid of another. Now this security can exist only
where the legislative, executive, and judicial powers are in different
hands. In most of the monarchies of Europe the government is limited,
because the prince, who has the first two powers, leaves the third to
others; he makes laws and executes them, but he appoints other men to
act as judges in his place. In the republics of Italy all three powers
are united. The same body of magistrates makes the laws, executes them,
and judges every citizen according to its pleasure; such a body is as
despotic as an eastern prince.[Footnote: This judgment is somewhat
softened as to Venice. The most conspicuous example in modern times of
the tyranny of a single popular body is that of France under the
Convention.] The judicial power, says Montesquieu (with the English jury
in his mind), should not be given to a permanent senate, but exercised
by persons drawn from the body of the people, forming a tribunal which
lasts only as long as necessity may require it. In serious cases the
criminal should combine with the law to choose his judges, or at least
should have a right of challenge. The legislative and executive powers
can with less danger be given to permanent bodies, because they are not
exercised against individuals. He then commends representative
government and the freedom left to members of Parliament in the English
system. He believes the people more capable of choosing representatives
wisely than of deciding questions, an opinion on which modern experience
may have thrown some doubt. He approves of the existence of a second
chamber, composed of persons distinguished by birth, wealth, or honors;
for if such were mixed with the people and given only one vote apiece
like the others, the common liberty would be their slavery, and they
would have no interest in defending it, because it would oftenest be
turned against themselves.[Footnote: Montesq., iv. 7 (liv. xi. c. 6).]

The government of France, says Montesquieu, has not, like that of
England, liberty for its direct object; it tends only to the glory of
the citizen, the state, and the prince. But from this glory comes a
spirit of liberty, which in France can do great things, and can
contribute as much to happiness as liberty itself. The three powers are
not there distributed as in England; but they have a distribution of
their own, according to which they approach more or less to political
liberty; and if they did not approach it, the monarchy would degenerate
into despotism.[Footnote: Montesq., iv. 24. (liv. xi. c. 7).] This
sounds somewhat like an empty phrase; yet there undoubtedly were in
Montesquieu's time some checks on the absolutism of a French monarch.
"If subjects owe obedience to kings, kings on their part owe obedience
to the laws," said the Parliament of Paris in 1753. And outside of its
own boundaries France had long been considered a limited monarchy.
[Footnote: Rocquain, 170. Machiavelli, ii. 140, 215, 322 (Discourses on
the first ten books of Livy).] Apart from the limitations imposed by the
privileges of the church and of the Parliaments, there appear to have
been some acknowledged fundamental laws (the succession of the crown in
the male line was one of them) which it would have been beyond the power
of the sovereign for the time being to destroy. And public opinion, as
Montesquieu has already told us, has power even in the most despotic
countries. In a European nation, not broken in spirit by long-continued
tyranny, and possessing the printing-press, this power must always be
very great.

As for Montesquieu's admiration of the English form of government, it
doubtless concurred with other causes to encourage on the Continent the
study of English political methods. Those methods have since been
adopted by many continental states, with hardly as many modifications to
adapt them to local circumstances as might have been desirable. But it
is the modern English constitution, in which power lies almost entirely
in the House of Commons, and is exercised by its officers, that has been
thus copied. In America the principle of the division of powers has been
carried farther than it ever was in England; and is, of all parts of
their form of government, that from which many intelligent Americans
would be most loath to part.

We have seen enough of Montesquieu's attacks on the church. The most
violent of them were made in his youth, and in a book avowedly
satirical. In mature life, writing in a more philosophical spirit, his
language is temperate and wise. "It is bad reasoning against religion,"
he says, "to bring together in a great work a long enumeration of the
evils which she has produced, unless you also recount the good she has
done. If I should tell all the harm which civil laws, monarchy, or
republican government have done in the world, I should say frightful
things."[Footnote: Montesq., v. 117 (liv. xxiv. c. 2).] This idea was
far beyond the reach of Voltaire.

Montesquieu goes on to argue about different forms of religion.
Mahometanism he holds especially suited to despotism, Christianity to
limited governments. Catholicism is adapted to monarchies,
Protestantism, and especially Calvinism, to republics. Where fatalism is
a religious dogma, the penalties imposed by law must be more severe, and
the watch kept on the community more vigilant, so that men may be driven
by these motives who otherwise would abandon self-restraint; but if the
dogma of liberty be established, the case is otherwise. Climate is not
without influence on religion. The ablutions required of a Mahometan are
useful in his warm country. The Protestant of Northern Europe has to
work harder for a living than the Catholic of the South, and therefore
desires fewer religious holidays. If a state can prevent the
establishment of a new form of religion within its borders, it will find
it well to do so; but if several religions are established, they should
not be allowed to interfere with each other. Penal laws in religious
matters should be avoided; for each religion has its own spiritual
penalties, and to put a man between the fear of temporal punishment, on
the one hand, and the fear of spiritual punishment on the other,
degrades his soul. The possessions of the clergy should be limited by
laws of mortmain.[Footnote: Ibid., v. 124-136 (liv. xxiv. c. 5-14).]

The spirit of moderation should be the spirit of the legislator. This
Montesquieu declared to be the great theme of his book. Political good,
like moral good, is always found between extremes.[Footnote: Montesq.,
v. 379 (liv. xxix. c. 1).]

It was this moderation which made the "Spirit of the Laws" distasteful
to the more ardent Philosophers. Sharing in many of the feelings of his
contemporaries, and especially in their distrust of the church,
Montesquieu was yet unwilling to go to the same extremes as they. His
chapter on Uniformity and the criticisms made on it by Condorcet, form
an admirable instance of this.

"There are certain ideas of uniformity," says Montesquieu, "which
sometimes take possession of great minds (for they touched Charlemagne),
but which invariably strike small ones. These find in them a kind of
perfection which they recognize, because it is impossible not to see it;
the same weights in matters of police, the same measures in commerce,
the same laws in the state, the same religion in all its parts. But is
this always desirable without exceptions? Is the evil of changing always
less than the evil of suffering? And would not the greatness of genius
rather consist in knowing in what case uniformity is necessary, and in
what case difference? In China, the Chinese are governed by the Chinese
ceremonies, and the Tartars by Tartar ceremonies; yet this is the nation
in all the world which is most devoted to tranquillity. So long as the
citizens obey the law, what matters it that they shall all obey the
same?"

This chapter (the whole of it is given above, and it may pass in the
"Spirit of the Laws" for one of middling length), is, according to
Condorcet, "one of those which have acquired for Montesquieu the
indulgence of all prejudiced people, of all who hate intellectual light;
of all protectors of abuses, etc." And after going on with his invective
for some time, Condorcet states the substance of his argument as
follows: "As truth, reason, justice, the rights of men, the interest of
property, of liberty, of security, are the same everywhere, we do not
see why all the provinces of one state, or even why all states should
not have the same criminal laws, the same civil laws, the same laws of
commerce, etc. A good law must be good for all men, as a true
proposition is true for all. The laws which appear as if they should be
different for different countries, either pronounce on objects which
should not be regulated by laws, like most commercial regulations, or
are founded on prejudices and habits which should be uprooted; and one
of the best means of destroying them is to cease to sustain them by
laws."[Footnote: Montesq., v. 412 (liv. xxix. c. 18). Condorcet, i.
377. Yet Condorcet speaks elsewhere of Montesquieu as having made a
revolution in men's minds on the subject of law. D'Alembert, i. 64
(Condorcet's _Eloge de d'Alembert_). Rousseau also teaches that all
laws and institutions are not adapted to all nations, but it is because
he considers most nations childish or effete.]

In these two passages we have the issue between Montesquieu and the
Philosophic party fairly joined. He alone of the great Frenchmen of his
century recognized the enormous complication of human life and human
affairs. Not denying that there are fundamental principles of justice,
he saw that those principles are hard to formulate truly, harder to
apply wisely. For their application he offered many valuable
suggestions. These were lost in the rush and hurry of approaching
revolution. The superb simplicity of mind which could ignore the
diversities of human nature was perhaps necessary for the uprooting of
old abuses. But the delicate task of constructing a permanent government
cannot succeed unless the differences as well as the resemblances among
men be taken into account.

CHAPTER XI.

PARIS.

The members of the Third Estate differed among themselves far more than
did those of the Clergy or the Nobility. This order comprised the rich
banker and the beggar at his gate, the learned encyclopaedist and the
water-carrier that could not spell his name. Every layman, not of noble
blood, belonged to the Third Estate. And although this was the
unprivileged order, there were privileged bodies and privileged persons
within it. Corporations, guilds, cities, and whole provinces possessed
rights distinct from those of the rest of the country.

In the reign of Louis XVI. the city of Paris held a position, in the
world even more prominent than that which it holds to-day. For France
was then incontestably the first European power, and Paris was then, as
it is now, not only the capital and the metropolis, but the heart and
centre of life in France. The population was variously estimated at from
six to nine hundred thousand. The city was growing in size, and new
houses were continually erected. There was so much building at times
during this reign, that masons worked at night, receiving double wages.
Architects and master masons were becoming rich, and rents were high
when compared to those of other places. Strangers and provincials
flocked to Paris for the winter and returned to the country during the
fine season. Sentimentalists read the works of Rousseau and praised a
country life, but then as now few people that could afford to stay in
the city, and had once been caught by its fascination, cared to live
permanently out of town.[Footnote: Mercier, iv. 205, vii. 190. Babeau,
Paris en 1789, 27.]

The public buildings and gardens were worthy of the first city in
Europe. With some of them travelers of to-day are familiar. The larger
number of the remarkable churches now standing were in existence before
the Revolution. Of the palaces then in the city, the three most famous
have met with varied fates. The Luxembourg, which was the residence of
the king's eldest brother, is the least changed. To the building itself
but small additions have been made. Its garden was and is a quiet,
orderly place where respectable family groups sit about in the shade.
The Louvre has been much enlarged. Under Louis XVI. it consisted of the
buildings surrounding the eastern court, of a wing extending toward the
river (the gallery of Apollo), and of a long gallery, since rebuilt,
running near the river bank and connecting this older palace with the
Tuileries. About one-half of the space now enclosed between the two
sides of the enormous edifice, and known as the Place du Carrousel, was
then covered with houses and streets. The land immediately to the east
of the Tuileries palace was not built upon, but part of it was enclosed
by a tall iron railing. Such a railing, either the original one or its
successor, was to be seen in the same place until recent times and may
be standing to-day. The Place du Carrousel, as it then existed outside
of this railing, was a square of moderate size surrounded by houses.

The Palace of the Tuileries itself has had an eventful history since
Louis XVI. came to the throne, and has only in recent years been
utterly swept from the ground. But the gardens which bear its name are
little changed. The long raised terraces ran along their sides then as
now; although there was no Rue de Rivoli, and the only access to the
gardens on the north side was by two or three streets or lanes from
the Rue Saint-Honore. Within the garden the arrangement of broad,
sunny walks and of shady horse-chestnuts was much the same as now.
Well-dressed persons walked about or sat under the trees, and the
unwashed crowd was admitted only on two or three holidays every
year. In consequence of this exclusion the wives of respectable
citizens used to come unattended to take the air in the gardens. They
were brought in sedan-chairs, from which they alighted at the gate.
What is now the Place de la Concorde was then the Place Louis Quinze,
with an equestrian statue of that "well-beloved" monarch where
the obelisk stands. Not far from the pedestal of that statue
overturned,--not far from the entrance of the street called
Royal,--near the place where many people had been crushed to death in
the crowd assembled to see the fireworks in honor of the marriage of
the Dauphin and the Princess Marie Antoinette of Austria,--was to
stand the scaffold on which that Dauphin and that princess, after
reaching the height of earthly splendor, were to pay for their own
sins and weaknesses and for those of their country.

To the west of the square came the Champs Elysees, still somewhat rough
in condition, but with people sitting on chairs even then to watch the
carriages rolling by, as they still do on any fine afternoon. The
Boulevards stretched their shady length all round the city, and were a
fashionable drive and walk, near which the smaller theatres rose and
throve, evading the monopoly of the opera and the Francais. But the
boulevards were almost the only broad streets. Those interminable,
straight avenues which even the brilliancy and movement of Paris can
hardly make anything but tiresome, had not yet been cut. The streets
were narrow and shady; most of them not very long, nor mathematically
straight, but keeping a general direction and widening here and there
into a little square before a church door, or curving to follow an
irregularity of the ground. Such streets were not in accordance with the
taste of the age and caused progressive people to complain of Paris.
Rousseau, who had seen Turin, was disappointed in the French capital. On
arriving he saw at first only small, dirty, and stinking streets, ugly
black houses, poverty, beggars, and working people; and the impression
thus made was never entirely effaced from his mind, in spite of the
magnificence which he recognized at a later time. Young thought that
Paris was not to be compared with London; and Thomas Jefferson wrote
that the latter, though handsomer than Paris, was not so handsome as
Philadelphia. But the Parisian liked his uneven streets well enough.
There were fine things to be seen in them. Although the city was
crowded, there were gardens in many places, belonging to convents and
even to private persons. And once in your walk you might come out upon a
bridge, where, if there were not houses built upon it, you might catch a
breath of the fresh breeze, and watch the sun disappearing behind the
distant village of Chaillot; for nowhere does he set more gloriously
than along the Seine.[Footnote: _Paris a travers les ages._
Babeau, _Paris en 1789_. Cognel, 27, 74. Rousseau, xvii. 274
(_Confessions_, Part i. liv. iv.). Young, i. 60; Randall's
_Jefferson_, i. 447.]

The houses were tall and dark, and the streets narrow and muddy. There
was little water to use, and none to waste, for the larger part of the
city depended upon wells or upon the supply brought in buckets from
the Seine. The scarcity was hardly to be regretted, for there were few
drains to carry dirty water away, and the gutter was full enough
already. It ran down the middle of the street, which sloped gently
toward it, and there were no sidewalks. When it rained, this
street-gutter would rise and overflow, and enterprising men would come
out with little wooden bridges on wheels and slip them in between the
carriages, and give the quick-footed walker an opportunity to cross
the torrent, if he did not slip in from the wet plank; while a pretty
woman would sometimes trust herself to the arms of a burly
porter.[Footnote: See the print in Fournel, 539, after Granier.
Conductors were coming into use before the Revolution. _Encyc. meth.
Jurisp._, x. 716.] The houses had gutters along the eaves, but no
conductors coming down the walls, so that the water from the roofs was
collected and came down once in every few yards in a torrent, bursting
umbrellas, and deluging cloaks and hats. The manure spread before sick
men's doors to deaden the sound of wheels was washed down the street
to add to the destructive qualities which already characterized the
mud of Paris. An exceptionally heavy fall of snow would entirely get
the better of the authorities, filling the streets from side to side
with pools of slush, in which fallen horses had been known to drown.
When the sun shone again all was lively as before; the innumerable
vehicles crowded the streets from wall to wall, with their great hubs
standing well out beyond the wheels, and threatened to eviscerate the
pedestrian, as he flattened himself against the house. The carriages
of the nobility dashed through the press, the drivers calling out to
make room; they were now seldom preceded by runners in splendid
livery, as had been the fashion under the former reign, but sometimes
one or two huge dogs careered in front, and the Parisians complained
that they were first knocked down by the dogs and then run over by the
wheels. At times came street cleaners and swept up some of the mud,
and carted it away, having first freely spattered the clothes of all
who passed near them. In some streets were slaughter-houses, and
terrified cattle occasionally made their way into the neighboring
shops. The signs swung merrily overhead. They appealed to the most
careless eye, being often gigantic boots, or swords, or gloves,
marking what was for sale within; or if in words, they might be
misspelt, and thus adapted to a rude understanding. Large placards on
the walls advertised the theatres. Street musicians performed on their
instruments. Ballad-singers howled forth the story of the last great
crime. Amid all the hubbub, the nimble citizen who had practiced
walking as a fine art, picked his careful way in low shoes and white
silk stockings; hoping to avoid the necessity of calling for the
services of the men with clothes-brush and blacking who waited at the
street corners.[Footnote: Mercier, xii. 71, i. 107, 123, 215, 216.
Young, i. 76. In 1761 the signs in the principal streets were reduced
to a projection of three feet. Later, they were ordered to be set flat
against the walls. Babeau, _Paris_, 42; but see Mercier. Names were
first put on the street corners in 1728. Babeau, _Paris_, 43.
Franklin, _L'Hygiene_.]

They were a fine sight, these citizens of Paris, before the male half of
the world had adopted, even in its hours of play, the black and gray
livery of toil. The Parisians of the latter part of King Louis XVI.'s
reign affected simplicity of attire, but not gloom. The cocked hat was
believed to have permanently driven out the less graceful round hat. It
was jauntily placed on the wearer's own hair, which was powdered and
tied behind with a black ribbon. For the coat, stripes were in fashion,
of light blue and pink, or other brilliant colors. The waistcoat and
breeches might be pale yellow, with pink bindings and blue buttons; the
garters and the clocks of the white stockings, blue; the shoes black,
with plain steel buckles. This would be an appropriate costume for the
street; although many people wore court-mourning from economy, and
forgot to take it off when the court did. A handsome snuff-box, often
changed, and a ring, were part of the costume of a well-dressed man; and
it was usual to wear two watches, probably from an excessive effort
after symmetry; while it is intimated by the satirist that clean lace
cuffs were sometimes sewn upon a dirty shirt.[Footnote: Babeau,
_Paris_, 214. Fashion plates in various books. For evening dress,
suits all of black were beginning to come in towards 1789. In the street
gentlemen were beginning to dress like grooms, aping the English. The
sword was still worn at times, even by upper servants, but the cane was
fast superseding it. Women also carried canes, which helped them to walk
in their high-heeled shoes. Mercier, xi. 229, i. 293.]

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30