Rousseau and Revolution Read online

  Never has want been more universal, more murderous for the class which is condemned to it; never, perhaps, amidst apparent prosperity, has Europe been nearer to a complete upheaval. … We have reached, by a directly opposite route, precisely the point which Italy had reached when the slave war [led by Spartacus] inundated it with blood and carried fire and slaughter to the very gates of the mistress of the world.61

  The Revolution came in his time despite his advice, and sent him to the guillotine (1794).

  The Abbé Gabriel Bonnot de Mably kept his head by dying four years before the Revolution. He came of a prominent family in Grenoble; one of his brothers was the Jean Bonnot de Mably with whom Rousseau stayed in 1740; another was the Condillac who made a sensation of psychology. Still another famous relative, Cardinal de Tencin, tried to make a priest out of him, but Gabriel stopped short at minor orders, attended the salon of Mme. de Tencin in Paris, and succumbed to philosophy. In 1748 he quarreled with the Cardinal and withdrew into scholarly retirement; thereafter the only events in his life were his books, all of them once renowned.*

  His seven years in Paris and Versailles gave him a knowledge of politics, of international relations, and of human nature. The result was a unique mixture of socialistic aspirations with pessimistic doubts. Mably insisted (contrary to Machiavelli) that the same moral standards that are applied to individuals should be applied to the conduct of states, but he recognized that this would require an enforceable system of international law. Like Voltaire and Morelly he was a theist without Christianity, but he believed that morality cannot be maintained without a religion of supernatural punishments and rewards, for most persons “are condemned to the permanent infancy of their reason.”62 He preferred the Stoic ethics to those of Christ, and the Greek republics to modern monarchies. He agreed with Morelly in deriving the vices of man not from nature but from property; this is “the fountainhead of all the ills that afflict society.”63 “The passion for enriching oneself has taken a growing place in the human heart, stifling all justice”;64 and that passion is intensified as inequality of fortunes increases. Envy, covetousness, and class divisions poison the natural amity of mankind. The rich multiply their luxuries, the poor sink into humiliation and degradation. Of what good is political liberty if economic slavery persists? “The freedom which every European thinks he enjoys is only the freedom to leave one master and give himself to another.”65

  How much happier and finer would men be if there were no mine and thine! Mably thought that the Indians were happier under Jesuit communism in Paraguay than the Frenchmen of his time; that the Swedes and the Swiss of that age, who had given up the quest for glory and money and were content with a moderate prosperity, were happier than the English who were conquering colonies and trade. In Sweden, he contended, character was held in greater honor than fame, and a modest contentment was valued above great wealth.66 Real freedom is possessed only by those who are not anxious to be rich. In the kind of society advocated by the physiocrats there would be no happiness, for men would always be agitated by the desire to equal, in possessions, those more affluent than themselves.

  So Mably concluded that communism is the only social order that will promote virtue and happiness. “Establish community of goods, and nothing is thence easier than to establish equality of conditions, and to affirm on this double foundation the well-being of man.”67 But how can such communism be established with men so corrupted as they now are? Here the skeptic in Mably raises his head, and despondently admits that “no human force today could re-establish equality without causing greater disorders than those one wished to avoid.”68 Democracy is theoretically splendid, but in practice it fails through the ignorance and acquisitiveness of the masses.69 All that we can do is to hold up communism as an ideal toward which civilization should gradually and cautiously move, slowly changing the habits of modern man from competition to co-operation. Our goal should be not the increase of wealth, nor even the increase of happiness, but rather the growth of virtue, for only virtue brings happiness. The first step toward a better government would be the summoning of a States-General, which should draw up a constitution giving supreme power to a legislative assembly (this was done in 1789-91). The acreage possessed by any one person should be limited; large estates should be broken up to spread peasant proprietorship; there should be strict curbs on the inheritance of wealth; and “useless arts” like painting and sculpture should be banned.

  Many of these proposals were adopted in the French Revolution. Mably’s collected works were published in 1789, again in 1792, again in 1793; and a book published soon after the Revolution listed Helvétius, Mably, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Franklin, in that order, as the principal inspirers of that event, and the true saints of the new dispensation.”70

  VI. THE KING

  Louis XV, so far as he knew them, smiled at these communists as negligible dreamers, and passed amiably from bed to bed. The court continued its reckless gambling and extravagant display; the Prince de Soubise spent 200,000 livres to entertain the King for one day; and every “progress” of his Majesty to one of his country seats cost the taxpayers 100,000 livres. Half a hundred dignitaries had their hôtels, or palaces, at Versailles or Paris, and ten thousand servants labored proudly to meet the wants and foibles of nobles, prelates, mistresses, and the royal family. Louis himself had three thousand horses, 217 carriages, 150 pages garbed in velvet and gold, and thirty physicians to bleed and purge and poison him. The royal household in one year 1751 spent 68,-000,000 livres—almost a quarter of the government’s revenue.71 The people complained, but for the most part anonymously; every year a hundred pamphlets, posters, satirical songs displayed the King’s unpopularity. “Louis,” said one brochure, “if you were once the object of our love, it was because your vices were still unknown to us. In this kingdom, depopulated because of you, and given over as a prey to the mountebanks who rule with you, if there are Frenchmen left, it is to hate you.”72

  What had led to this transformation of Louis le Bien-Aimé into a despised and insulted king? He himself, aside from his extravagance, negligence, and adulteries, was not quite as bad as vengeful history has painted him. He was physically handsome, tall, strong, capable of hunting all afternoon and entertaining women at night. His educators had spoiled him; Villeroi had given him to understand that all France belonged to him by inheritance and divine right. The pride of sovereignty was moderated and confused by the shadow and tradition of Louis XIV; the young King was obsessed and made timid by a sense of his inability to meet that august standard of grandeur and will; he became incapable of resolution, and gladly left decisions to his ministers. His boyhood reading and his tenacious memory gave him some acquaintance with history, and he acquired in time a considerable knowledge of European affairs; through many years he kept his own secret diplomatic correspondence. He was languidly intelligent, and judged well and mercilessly the character of the men and women about him. He could keep pace with the best minds in his court in conversation and wit. But apparently he accepted even the most absurd dogmas of the theology that Fleury had poured into his youth. Religion became an intermittent fever with him as he alternated between piety and adultery. He suffered from fear of death and hell, but gambled on absolution in articulo mortis. He halted the persecution of the Jansenists, and in retrospect we perceive that the philosophes, on and off, enjoyed considerable leeway in his reign.

  He was sometimes cruel, but more often humane. Pompadour and Du Barry learned to love him for himself as well as for the power he gave them. His coldness and taciturnity were part of his shyness and self-distrust; behind that reserve lay elements of tenderness, which he expressed especially in his affection for his daughters; these loved him as a father who gave them everything except good example. Usually his manners were gracious, but at times he was callous, and talked too calmly about the ailments or approaching death of his courtiers. He quite forgot to be a gentleman in his abrupt dismissals of d’Argenson, Maurepas, and Choiseul; b
ut that too may have been the result of diffidence; he found it hard to say no to a man’s face. Yet he could face danger bravely, as in the hunt or at Fontenoy.

  Dignified in public, he was pleasant and sociable with his intimate friends, preparing coffee for them with his own anointed hands. He observed the complex etiquette that Louis XIV had established for royalty, but he resented the formalism that it laid upon his life. Often he rose before the official lever, and made his own fire so as not to awaken the servants; more often he lingered in bed till eleven. At night, after having been put to bed with the official coucher, he might slip away to enjoy his mistress or even to visit, incognito, the town of Versailles. He avoided the artificialities of the court by hunting; on those days when he did not run off to the chase the courtiers said, “The King is doing nothing today.”73 He knew more about his hounds than about his ministers. He thought that his ministers could take care of matters better than he could; and when he was warned that France was moving toward bankruptcy and revolution, he comforted himself with the thought that “les choses, comme elles sont, dureront autant que moi” (things as they are will last through my time).74

  Sexually he was a monster of immorality. We can forgive him the mistress that he took when the Queen was oppressed by his virility; we can understand his fascination with Pompadour, and his sensitivity to the beauty and grace and bright vivacity of women; but there is little in royal history so despicable as his serial passage through the girls prepared for his bed in the Parc aux Cerfs. The coming of Du Barry was, by comparison, a return to normalcy.

  VII. DU BARRY

  She began in the Champagne village of Vaucouleurs about 1743 as Marie-Jeanne Bécu, daughter of Mlle. Anne Bécu, who, it appears, never revealed the father’s identity. Such mysteries were quite frequent in the lower classes. In 1748 Anne moved to Paris and became a cook to M. Dumonceux, who arranged to have Jeanne, aged seven, boarded in the Convent of St.-Anne. There the pretty girl remained for nine years and, it seems, not unhappily; she kept pleasant memories of this well-ordered nunnery, received instruction in reading, writing, and embroidery, and retained throughout her life a simple and unquestioning piety, and a reverence for nuns and priests; the shelter that she gave to hunted priests in the Revolution shared in leading her to the guillotine.75

  When she emerged from the convent she took as her surname that of her mother’s new mate, M. Rançon. She was sent to a hairdresser to learn his art, but this included seduction, and Jeanne, irresistibly beautiful, knew not how to resist. Her mother transferred her to Mme. de La Garde as a companion, but Madame’s visitors paid too much attention to Jeanne, and she was soon dismissed. The millinery shop in which she became a salesgirl attracted an unusual number of male patrons. She became the kept woman of a succession of rakes. In 1763 she was taken up by Jean du Barry, a gambler who procured women for aristocratic roués. Under the elegant name of Jeanne de Vaubernier she served this pimp for five years as hostess at his parties, and added some refinement to her charms. Du Barry thought that he too, like Mme. Poisson, had discovered a “morsel for the King.”

  In 1766 good King Stanislas died in Lorraine, which thereby became a province of France. His daughter, Marie Leszczinska, the modest, pious Queen of France, fell into a rapid decline after his death, for their mutual love had upheld her in her long servitude to a faithless husband in an alien environment; and on June 24, 1768, she passed away, mourned even by the King. He gave his daughters hope that he would take no more mistresses. But in July he saw Jeanne, who happened to be straying through the Palace of Versailles as innocently as La Pompadour had driven in the Sénart hunting park twenty-four years before.

  He was struck by her voluptuous beauty, her gaiety and playfulness; here was someone who could amuse him again, and warm his cold and melancholy heart. He sent his valet Lebel for her; “Comte” du Barry readily agreed to part with her for a royal consideration. To appease appearances Louis insisted that the girl should have a husband. The “Comte” married her in short time to his brother Guillaume, the real but impoverished Comte du Barry, who was brought from Lévignac in Gascony for the purpose. Jeanne bade him farewell immediately after the ceremony (September 1, 1768), and never saw him again. Guillaume was awarded a pension of five thousand livres. He took a mistress of his own, carried her off to Lévignac, lived with her there for twenty-five years, and married her on learning that his wife had been guillotined.

  Jeanne, new-named Comtesse du Barry, joined the King secretly at Compiègne, then publicly at Fontainebleau. The Duc de Richelieu asked Louis what he saw in this new toy. “Only this,” his Majesty answered, “that she makes me forget that soon I shall be sixty.”76 The courtiers were horrified. They could readily understand a man’s need of a mistress; but to take a woman whom several of them had known as a prostitute, and elevate her to a place above marquises and duchesses! Choiseul had hoped to offer his sister to the King as maîtresse en titre; this rejected lady goaded her usually cautious brother into open hostility to the pretty upstart, and La Barry never forgave him.

  The new mistress was soon swimming in livres and gems. The King dowered her with a pension of 1,300,000 francs, plus an annuity of 150,000 more, levied on the city of Paris and the state of Burgundy. Jewelers hurried to supply her with rings, necklaces, bracelets, tiaras, and other sparkling adornments, for which they billed the King 2,000,000 francs in four years. Altogether, in those four years, she cost the treasury 6,000,375 livres.77 The people of Paris heard of her brilliance, and mourned that a new Pompadour had come to swallow their taxes.

  On April 22, 1769, entering in a blaze of jewelry and on the arm of Richelieu, she was formally presented at court. The men admired her charms, the women received her as coldly as they dared. She bore these slights quietly, and appeased some courtiers by the modesty of her behavior and the melodious laughter with which she regaled the King. Even to her enemies (except Choiseul) she showed no malice; she gained favor by bending his Majesty to issue pardons more frequently than before. Bit by bit she gathered around her titled men and women who used her intercession with the King. Like Pompadour, she took good care of her relatives; she bought property and title for her mother, and secured pensions for her aunt and her cousins. She paid the debts of Jean du Barry, gave him a fortune, and bought for him a sumptuous villa at L’Isle-Jourdain. She herself won from the King the Château of Louveciennes, which the Prince and Princesse de Lamballe had occupied, on the edge of the royal park at Marly. She engaged the greatest architect of that generation, Jacques-Ange Gabriel, to remodel the château to her convenience, and the meticulous cabinetmaker Pierre Gouthière to decorate it with furniture and objects of art to the value of 756,000 livres.

  She lacked the background of education and association that had made Pompadour a willing and discriminating patron of literature, philosophy, and art. But she collected a library of well-bound books, from Homer to pornography, from Pascal’s pious Pensées to Fragonard’s spicy illustrations; and in 1773 she sent her homage and portrait to Voltaire with “a kiss for each cheek.” He replied with a poem, as clever as ever:

  Quoi! deux baisers sur la fin de ma vie!

  Quelle passeport vous daignez m’envoyer!

  Deux! c’est trop d’un, adorable Égérie.

  Je serai mort de plaisir au premier*78

  She asked Louis XV to let Voltaire return to Paris; he refused; she had to content herself with buying an assortment of watches from Ferney. In 1778, when the old Master came to Paris to die, she was among the many who climbed the stairs in the Rue de Beaune to pay her respects to him. He was charmed, and ended by rising from his bed to escort her to the door. On the way down she met Jacques-Pierre Brissot, the future revolutionist; he was hoping to submit to Voltaire a manuscript on criminal law; he had sought entry the day before and had been refused; he was trying again. She led him back to Voltaire’s door, and arranged for his admittance. In his Mémoires he recalled her “smile so full of warmth and kindness.”79

&nb
sp; She was unquestionably good-natured and generous. She bore without recrimination the enmity of the royal family, and the refusal of Marie Antoinette to speak to her. Choiseul alone she could not forgive, and that was because he never ceased his efforts to drive her from the court. Soon he or she would have to go.

  VIII. CHOISEUL

  He came of an old Lorraine family, and was already in early life the Comte de Stainville. He earned distinction for his bravery in the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1750, aged thirty-one, he replenished the fortunes of his family by marrying a wealthy heiress. His brilliant mind and gay wit soon won him prominence at court, but he interrupted his rise by opposing Pompadour. In 1752 he changed sides and gained her gratitude by revealing to her a plot to get her dismissed. She secured his appointment as ambassador to Rome, then to Vienna. In 1758 he was summoned to Paris to replace Bernis as minister for foreign affairs, and was made a duke and peer of France. In 1761 he transferred his ministry to his brother César, but continued to direct foreign policy; he himself took the ministries of war and marine. He became so powerful that at times he overruled and intimidated the King.80 He rebuilt both the army and the navy; he reduced speculation and corruption in military payments and supplies, restored discipline in the ranks, and replaced superannuated dignity with untitled competence in the officer corps. He developed French colonies in the West Indies, and added Corsica to the French crown. He sympathized with the philosophes, defended the publication of the Encyclopédie, supported the expulsion of the Jesuits (1764), and winked at the reorganization of the Huguenots in France. He protected Voltaire’s security at Ferney, furthered his campaign for the Calas family, and won from Diderot an apostrophe of praise: “Great Choiseul, you watch sleeplessly over the fortunes of the Fatherland.”81