The Eve of the French Revolution

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It was on the approach of the meeting of the Estates General that the
habit of political reading assumed the greatest importance. In the
latter part of 1788 and the earlier months of 1789 a deluge of
pamphlets, such as the world had not seen and is never likely to see
again, burst over Paris. The newspapers of the day were few and
completely under the control of the government, but French heads were
seething with ideas. In vain the administration and the courts made
feeble attempts to limit the activity of the press. From the princes of
the blood royal (who issued a reactionary manifesto), to the most
obscure writer who might hope for a moment's notoriety, all were rushing
into print. The booksellers' shops were crowded from morning until
night. The price of printing was doubled. One collector is said to have
got together twenty-five hundred different political pamphlets in the
last months of 1788, and to have stopped in despair at the impossibility
of completing his collection.[Footnote: Droz, ii. 93. "Thirteen came
out to-day, sixteen yesterday, and ninety-two last week." A. Young, i.
118 (June 9, 1789). Cherest, ii. 248, etc.]

In most political crises there is but one great question of the hour;
but in France at this time all matters of government and social life
were in doubt; and every man believed that he could settle them all by
the easy and speedy application of pure reason, if only all other men
would lay down their prejudices. And a special subject was not
wanting. The question which called loudest for an answer was that of
representation. Should there be one chamber in the Estates General,
in which the Commons should have a number of votes equal to that of
the other two orders combined, or should there be three chambers? This
matter (which is more particularly discussed in the next chapter) and
the general political constitution occupied the chief attention of the
pamphleteers, but law reform and feudal abuses were not forgotten.

The pamphlets came from all quarters and bore all sorts of titles.
"Detached Thoughts;" "The Forty Wishes of the Nation;" "What has surely
been forgotten;" "Discourse on the Estates General;" "Letter of a
Burgundian Gentleman to a Breton Gentleman, on the Attack of the Third
Estate, the Division of the Nobility, and the Interest of the
Husbandmen;" "Letter of a Peasant;" "Plan for a Matrimonial Alliance
between Monsieur Third Estate and Madam Nobility;" "When the Cock crows,
look out for the Old Hens;" "Ultimatum of a Citizen of the Third Estate
on the Memoire of the Princes;" "Te Deum of the Third Estate as it will
be sung at the First Mass of the Estates General, with the Confession of
the Nobility," "Creed of the Third Estate;" "Magnificat of the Third
Estate;" and "Requiem of the Farmers General."

The pamphlets are generally anonymous, from a lingering fear of the
police. The place of printing is seldom mentioned; at least, few of the
pamphlets bear the true one. The imprint, where one appears, is London,
Ispahan, or Concordopolis. One humorous and distinctly libelous
publication is "sold at the Islands of Saint Margaret, and distributed
gratis at Paris." The pamphlet entitled "Diogenes and the Estates
General" is "sold by Diogenes in his Tub."

In spite of the stringent orders against printed attacks on the
government, in spite of the spasmodic activity of the police, the
boldness of some of the pamphlets is remarkable. One of them, for
instance, begins as follows: "There was once, I know not where, a king
born with an upright spirit and a heart that loved justice, but a bad
education had left his good qualities uncultivated and useless." The
king is then accused of eating and hunting too much, and of swearing.
And when we pass from personal to political subjects there is almost no
limit to the rashness of the pamphleteers. It was not the most sane and
judicious part of the nation which became most conspicuous by its
writings at this time and in this manner. The pamphlets are noticeably
less conservative than the _cahiers_, which were likewise produced
in the spring of 1789.

Yet the subversionary writers were not left to occupy the field alone.
Nobles and magistrates took up their pens to defend old institutions.
Moderate men tried to get a hearing in behalf of peace and good will.
But, alas, the old constitution was a dream. France was in fact a
despotism with civilized traditions and with a few customs that had
almost the force of fundamental laws, and her people wanted a liberal
government. As to the form of that government they were not entirely
agreed; although they were not quite so subversionary as many of the
pamphleteers wished them to be, or as their subsequent history would
lead us to believe them to have been. But no leader appeared, for a long
time, strong enough to dominate the factions and to keep the peace.

Of the mass of political literature which saw the light in 1788 and
1789, three lines only are commonly remembered. They are on the first
page of a pamphlet by the famous Abbe Sieyes. Of the many persons who in
our own time have wondered how to pronounce his name, all are aware that
he asked and answered the following questions:

"(1.) What is the Third Estate? Everything.

"(2.) What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing.

"(3.) What does it ask? To become something."

Few have followed him farther in his inquiries. Yet his pamphlet
excited great interest and admiration in its day. It is an eloquent
and well-written paper, as strong in rhetoric as it is weak in
statesmanship.

In agriculture, manufactures, and trade, and in those services which are
directly useful and agreeable to persons, and which include the most
distinguished scientific and literary professions and the most menial
service, the Commons, according to Sieyes, do all the work. In the army,
the church, the law, and the administration of government, they furnish
nineteen twentieths of the men employed, and these do all that is really
onerous. Only the lucrative and honorary places are occupied by members
of the nobility. These upper places would be infinitely better filled if
they were the rewards of talents and services recognized in the lower
ranks. The Third Estate is quite able to do all that is needful. Were
the privileged orders taken away, the nation would not be something less
than it is, but something more.

"What is a nation?" asks Sieyes; and he answers that it is "a body of
associates living together under a common law and represented by the
same legislature." But the order of the nobility has privileges,
dispensations, different rights from the great body of the citizens. It
is outside of the common order and the common law. It is a state within
a state.

The Third Estate, therefore, embraces everything which belongs to the
nation; and all that is not a part of the Commons cannot be considered a
part of the nation. What, then, is the Third Estate? Everything.

What has the Third Estate hitherto been? Nothing. It is but too true
that you are nothing in France if you have only the protection of the
common law. Without some privilege or other, you must make up your mind
to suffer contempt, contumely, and all sorts of vexation. The
unfortunate person who has no privileges of his own can only attach
himself to some great man, by all sorts of meanness, and thus get the
chance, on occasion, to demand the assistance of _somebody_.

What does the Third Estate ask? To become something in the state. And in
truth the people asks but little. It wants true representatives in the
Estates, taken from its own order, able to interpret its wishes, and
defend its interests. But what would it gain by taking part in the
Estates General, if its own side were not to prevail there? It must,
therefore, have an influence at least equal to that of the privileged
orders; it must have half the representatives. This equality would be
illusory if the chambers voted separately; therefore, the voting must be
by heads. Can the Third Estate ask for less than this? And is it not
clear that if its influence is less than that of the privileged orders
combined, there is no hope of its emerging from its political nullity
and becoming something?

Sieyes goes on to argue that the Third Estate should be allowed to
choose its representatives only from its own body. He has persuaded
himself, by what seems to be a process of mental juggling, that men of
one order cannot be truly represented by men of another. Suppose, he
says, that France is at war with England, and that hostilities are
conducted on our side by a Directory composed of national
representatives. In that case, I ask, would any province be
permitted, in the name of freedom, to choose for its delegates to the
Directory the members of the English ministry? Surely the privileged
classes show themselves no less hostile to the common order of people,
than the English to the French in time of war.

Three further questions are stated by Sieyes.

(4.) What the ministers have attempted and what the privileged classes
propose in favor of the Third Estate?

(5.) What should have been done?

(6.) What is still to be done?

Under the fourth head, Sieyes considers the Provincial Assemblies
recently established, and the Assembly of Notables, both of which he
considers entirely incapable of doing good, because they are composed of
privileged persons. He scorns the proposal of the nobility to pay a fair
share of the taxes, being unwilling to accept as a favor what he wishes
to take as a right. He fears that the Commons will be content with too
little and will not sweep away all privilege. He attacks the English
Constitution, which the liberal nobles of France were in the habit of
setting up as a model, saying that it is not good in itself, but only as
a prodigious system of props and makeshifts against disorder. The right
of trial by jury he considers its best feature.

He then passes to the question: What should have been done? and here he
gives us the foundation of his system. Without naming Rousseau he has
adopted the Social Compact as the basis of government. A nation is made
up of individuals; these unite to form a community; for convenience they
depute persons to represent them and to exercise the common power.
[Footnote: It need hardly be pointed out that Sieyes falls short of the
full measure of Rousseau's doctrine when he allows the law-making, or
more correctly the constitution-making power, to be delegated at all.]
The constitution of the state is the body of rules by which these
representatives are governed when they legislate or administer the
public affairs. The constitution is fundamental, not as binding the
national will, but only as binding the bodies existing within the state.
The nation itself is free from all such bonds. No constitution can
control it. Its will cannot be limited. The nation assembling to
consider its constitution is not controlled by ordinary forms. Its
delegates meeting for that especial purpose are independent of the
constitution. They represent the national will, and questions are
settled by them not in accordance with constitutional laws, but as they
might be in a meeting of the whole nation were it small enough to be
brought together in one place; that is to say, by a vote of the
majority.[Footnote: Sieyes and his master do not see that if unanimity
cannot be secured, and if constitutional law be once done away, men are
reduced under their system to a state of nature, and the will of a
majority has no binding force but that of the strong arm.]

But where find the nation? Where it is: in the forty thousand parishes
which comprise all the territory and all the inhabitants of the country.
They should have been arranged in groups of twenty or thirty parishes,
and have thus formed representative districts, which should have united
to make provinces, which should have sent true delegates, with special
power to settle the constitution of the Estates General.

This correct course has not been followed, but what now remains to be
done? Let the Commons assemble apart from the other orders. Let them
join with the Nobility and the Clergy neither by orders, as a part of a
legislature of three chambers, nor by heads, in one common assembly. Two
courses are open. Either let them appeal to the nation for increased
powers, which would be the most frank and generous way; or let them only
consider the enormous difference that exists between the assembly of the
Third Estate and that of the other two orders. "The former represents
twenty-five millions of men and deliberates on the interests of the
nation. The other two, were they united, have received their powers from
but about two hundred thousand individuals, and think only of their
privileges. The Third Estate alone, you will say, cannot form the
Estates General. So much the better! It will make a _National
Assembly_."

I have considered this famous pamphlet at some length, because it was
eminently timely, expressing, as it did, the doctrines and the
aspirations of the subversionary party in France. I believe, and
principally on the evidence of the cahiers, that this party did not form
a majority, or even, numerically, a very large minority, of the French
nation. A constitutional convention, organized from the Commons alone as
Sieyes would have had it, if left to itself and uncontrolled by the
Parisian mob, would undoubtedly have settled the question of a single
chamber in a popular sense, but it would have preserved the privileges
of the nobility to an extent which would have disgusted the extremists,
and perhaps have saved the country from years of violence and decades of
reaction. But the people of violent ideas were predominant in Paris and
in some of the towns, and were destined, for a time, to be the chief
force in the French Revolution. The passions of this party were love of
equality and hatred of privilege. To men of this stamp despotism may be
comparatively indifferent; liberty is a word of sweet sound, but little
meaning. Sieyes hardly refers to the king in his pamphlet. "The time is
past," he says, "when the three orders, thinking only of defending
themselves from ministerial despotism, were ready to unite against the
common enemy." This comparative indifference to the tyranny of the court
was not the feeling of the country, but it was that of the enthusiasts.
Nothing is too bad according to these last, for men who hold privileges.
They have no right to assemblies of their own, nor to a voice in the
assemblies of the people. To ask what place they should occupy in the
social order "is to ask what place should be assigned in a sick body to
the malignant humor which undermines and torments it."

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CAHIERS.

It is seldom, indeed, that a great nation can express fully, frankly,
and yet officially, all its complaints, wishes, and hopes in respect to
its own government. Our knowledge of national ideas must generally be
derived from the words of particular classes of men: statesmen,
politicians, authors, or writers in the newspapers. The ideas of these
classes are more or less in accord with those of the great mass of the
people which they undertake to represent; yet their expressions are
necessarily tinged by their own professional way of looking at things.
But in the spring of 1789 all Frenchmen, with few exceptions, were
called on to unite, not merely in choosing representatives, but in
giving them minute instructions. The occasion was most solemn. The
Estates General, the great central legislature of France, which had not
met for nearly two centuries, was summoned to assemble at Versailles. It
should be the old body and something more. It was to partake of the
nature of a constitutional convention. It was not only to legislate, but
to settle the principles of government. It was called by the king to
advise and consent to all that might concern the needs of the state, the
reform of abuses, the establishment of a fixed and lasting order in all
parts of the administration, the general prosperity of his kingdom, and
the welfare of all and each of his subjects.[Footnote: _Royal Letter
of Convocation_, January 24, 1789, _A. P._ i. 611. The principal
printed collection of cahiers, together with much preliminary matter,
may be found in the first six volumes of the Archives Parlementaires,
edited by MM. Mavidal et Laurent, Paris. The seventh volume consists of
an index, which, although very imperfect, is necessary to an intelligent
study of the cahiers. The cahiers printed in these volumes occupy about
4,000 large octavo pages in double column. These volumes will be
referred to in this chapter and the next as A. P. Many cahiers and
extracts from cahiers are also found printed in other places. I have not
undertaken to give references to all the cahiers on which my conclusions
are founded, but only to a few typical examples. The letters C., N., and
T indicate the three orders. Where no such letter occurs the cahier is
generally that of a town or village.]

The three orders of men, the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Commons, or
Third Estate, were to hold their elections separately in every district,
[Footnote: Saillage, senechaussee.] unless they should, by separate
votes, agree to unite.[Footnote: The three orders did not often unite,
but there is often evidence of communication between them. They all
united at Bayonne, A. P. iii. 98. Montfort l'Amaury, A. P. iv. 37.
Rozieres, A. P. iv. 91. Fenestrange, A. P. v. 710. Mohon, A. P. v. 729.
The Clergy and the Nobility united at Lixheim, A. P. v. 713; the
Nobility and the Third Estate at Peronne, A. P. v. 355.] In accordance
with ancient custom they were to draw up petitions, complaints, and
remonstrances, which were intended to form a basis for legislation.
These complaints were to be brought to the Estates, and were to serve as
instructions, more or less positive, to the deputies who brought them.
They were known in French political language as Cahiers.

The cahiers of the Clergy and of the Nobility were drawn up in the
electoral meetings which took place in every district. To these local
assemblies of the Clergy, all bishops, abbots, and parish priests,
holding benefices, were summoned. Chapters and monasteries sent only
representatives. The result of this arrangement was that the parish
priests far outnumbered the regular ecclesiastics and dignitaries, and
that the clerical cahiers oftenest express the wishes of the lower
portion of the secular clergy. This preponderance of the lower clergy
appears to have been foreseen and desired by the royal advisers. The
king had expressed his wish to call to the assemblies of the Clergy "all
those good and faithful pastors who are occupied closely and every day
with the poverty and the assistance of the people and who are more
intimately acquainted with its ills and its apprehensions."[Footnote:
Reglement du 24 Jan. 1789, A. P. i. 544. Parish priests were not allowed
to leave their parishes to go to the assemblies if more than two leagues
distant, unless they left curates to do their work. But this provision
did not keep enough of them away to alter the character of the
assemblies.]

To the local assemblies of the nobles, all Frenchmen of the order, not
less than twenty-five years of age, were summoned. Men, women, or
children possessing fiefs might appear by proxy. The latter provision
did not suffice to take the meetings out of the control of the more
numerous part of the order,--the poorer nobility. To pride of race and
intense loyalty to the king, these country gentlemen united distrust and
dislike of the court, and the desire that all nobles at least should
have equal rights and chances. Their cahiers differ somewhat from place
to place, but are wonderfully alike in general current.[Footnote: N.,
Perigord, A. P., v. 341.]

For the Third Estate a more complicated system was adopted. The
franchise extended to every French subject, neither clerical nor noble,
twenty-five years of age, and entered on the tax rolls.[Footnote: In
Paris only, a small property qualification was exacted.] Every town,
parish, or village, drew up its cahier and sent it, by deputies, either
to the assembly of the district or to an intermediate assembly. Here a
committee was appointed to consider all the local cahiers and
consolidate them; those of the intermediate assemblies being again
worked over for the general cahier of the Third Estate of each electoral
district. Thus the cahiers of the Commons finally carried to the Estates
General at Versailles were less directly the expression of the opinions
of the order from which they came than were the cahiers of the Clergy
and of the Nobility. Fortunately, however, large numbers of the primary
or village cahiers have been preserved and printed.

The cahiers of the Third Estate differ far more among themselves than do
those of the upper orders. Some of them, drawn up in the villages, are
very simple, dealing merely with local grievances and the woes of
peasant life. The long absence of the lord of the place causes more loss
to one village than even the price of salt, or than the taille, with
which the people are overburdened. Then follows the enumeration of
broken bridges, of pastures overflowed because the bed of the stream is
obstructed, of robbery and violence and refusal of justice, with no one
to protect the poor, nor to direct repairs and improvements.[Footnote:
Paroisse de Longpont, A. P., v. 334.]

In another place we have the touching humility of the peasant. "The
inhabitants of this parish have no other complaints to make than those
which are common to folk of their rank and condition, namely, that they
pay too many taxes of different kinds already; that they would wish that
the disorder of the finances might not be the cause of new burdens upon
them, because they were not able to bear any more, having a great deal
of trouble to pay those which are now levied, but that it much rather
belonged to those who are rich to contribute toward setting up the
affairs of the kingdom.

"As for remonstrances, they have no other wishes nor other desires than
peace and public tranquillity: that they wish the assembly of the
Estates General may restore the order of the finances, and bring about
in France the order and prosperity of the state; that they are not
skillful enough about the matters which are to be treated in the said
assembly to give their opinion, and they trust to the intelligence and
the good intentions of those who will be sent there as deputies.

"Finally, that they know no means of providing for the necessities of
the state, but a great economy in expenses and reciprocal love between
the king and his subjects."[Footnote: Paroisse de Pas-Saint-Lomer, A.
P., v. 334.]

Not many of the cahiers are so modest as this one. Some of them are many
pages long, arranged under heads, divided into numbered paragraphs.
These contain a general scheme of legislation, and often also particular
and local petitions. They ask that such a lawsuit be reviewed, that such
a dispute be favorably settled. Many localities complain, not only that
the country in general is overtaxed, but that their particular
neighborhood pays more than its share. Their soil is poor, they say,
water is scarce or too plenty. The cahiers of the country villages
contain more complaints of feudal exactions, while those of the towns
and of the electoral districts give more space to political and social
reforms.

Many models of cahiers were prepared in Paris and sent to the country
towns. Thus the famous Abbe Sieyes, whose violent doctrines were
considered in the last chapter, composed and distributed a form. It was
brought to Chaumont in Champagne by the Viscount of Laval, who undertook
to manage the election in that town in the interest of democracy and the
Duke of Orleans. Dinners and balls were given to the voters; promises
were made. The badges of an order of canonesses, which the duke proposed
to found, were distributed among the ladies. The abbe's cahier was
accepted, but the peasants of Champagne appended to its demands for
constitutional reforms the petition that their dogs might not be obliged
to carry a log fastened to their collars to prevent their running after
game, and that they themselves might be allowed to have guns to kill the
wolves.[Footnote: Beugnot, Memoires, i. 110.]

Some of the cahiers were entirely of home manufacture, drawn up by the
lawyer or the priest of the village. The people of Essy-les-Nancy, in
Lorraine, describe the process. "Each one of us proposed what he thought
proper, and then we chose our deputies, Imbert Perrin and Joseph
Jacques, whom we thought best able well to represent us. The only thing
left was to express our wishes well, and to draw up the official report
of the meeting. But our priest, in whom we trust, who feels our woes so
well, and who expresses our feelings so rightly, had been obliged to go
away. We said: `We must wait for him; we will first beg his assistant to
begin, and then, when the priest comes back, we will give him the whole
thing to correct, and have our affairs ready to be taken to the assembly
of the district.' He came back in fact; we asked him to draw it all up.
We told him all we wanted. He kept writing, and scratching out, and
writing over, until we saw that he had got our ideas. Everything seemed
ready for the fifteenth. But we heard that the district assembly would
be put off until the thirtieth. We said to him: `Sir, wait again, let us
profit by the delay, we shall think of something more, you will add it;'
he consented."[Footnote: Mathieu, 423.]

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