XXIII. 1787. genuine source of revenue, and the only means of BOOK providing for the necessities of the state, and of restoring that credit which borrowing had reduced to the brink of ruin." The king, incensed at their presumption, ordered this resolution to be erased from their records-declaring " that he would never consent that the parliament should so far abuse his confidence and clemency as to make themselves the censors of his administration. He declared himself satisfied with his comptrollergeneral, and determined on no account to suffer groundless apprehensions to interfere with the execution of plans calculated for the good of the state and the welfare of the nation." The hostile disposition of the parliament, and the evident impossibility of obtaining their cordial concurrence to the measures in contemplation, determined the minister to adopt a plan more suited to the boldness and extent of his views. In the month of August, 1786, M. de Calonne presented a memorial to the king, representing "the amelioration of the finances to be essentially connected with public order; and averring that what the national benefit required could not be effected by partial operations, and that the reparation of the whole was necessary to prevent the ruin of the whole. Of consequence, the project he had formed embraced all the parts of the monarchy, and was intended to bring them to a closer union. It would be an inexhaustible source XXIII. 1787. BOOK of happiness for the people of France; it would set the monarch for ever at rest respecting the situation of his finances; it would raise his POWER higher than that of the most prosperous of his ancestors, and enrol his name with those of the most virtuous and enlightened legislators. In fine, what induced him to conjure his majesty to adopt it was, that out of the circle of this reformation he could foresce nothing but calamity and ruin." This magnificent and wonder-working plan was no other than to convene, by royal authority and appointment, after the example of antient times, an assembly of the most considerable and enlightened persons in the kingdom, under the denomination of NOTABLES, by whose influence and under whose sanction "a reformation might (to use the words of M. de Calonne) be effected of whatever was vicious in the constitution of the state." The minister accompanied this proposal with a specification of various details, indicating a vigorous and comprehensive mind, penetrated with a clear conviction of the necessity of a radical reform in the state, so far at least as related to that detestable aggregate mass of extortion and oppression which assumed the lofty appellation of the National System of Finance. Amongst the new regulations recommended by M. de Calonne, were the equalization of the vingtièmes or territorial revenue-the abolition of the corvée-the establishment of an uniform tariff throughout all the provinces of the kingdom-the alleviation of the odious gabelle the extinction of the feudal rights as vested in the crown-the suppression or melioration of the fo rest laws and the application of the royal demesne lands to the service of the public. BOOK XXIII. n 1787, of Notables Versailles, This memorial was received by the king with Assembly approbation; and before the termination of the convened at year summonses were issued accordingly for the meeting of the assembly of NOTABLES at Versailles, on the 22d of February, 1787. It consisted of one hundred and forty-four persons, amongst whom were seven princes of the blood, nine dukes and peers of France, eight field mareschals, eight counsellors of state, and eleven bishops and archbishops. The remaining members were chiefly selected from the different parliaments and magistracies in the kingdom. The Convention of NOTABLES was opened in great state by the king in person, with a speech from the throne, in which he declared "that they had been chosen by him from the different orders of the state, to impart to them his designs, and to receive from them the observations of which they might think them susceptible. This, said the monarch, has been the custom of many of my predecessors, and particularly of the CHIEF of my FAMILY, whose name remains still dear to every Frenchman, and whose example I shall always be proud to make the rule of my conduct. His majesty then in general terms stated the views by XXIL 1787. BOOK which he was actuated-the IMPROVEMENT of the REVENUE-the equalization of taxes-the liberation of commerce-and expressed the fullest confidence in the zeal with which they were animated for his service." This was followed by a long and claborate harangue from M. de Calonne, in which he accused his predecessor M. Necker of leaving at his dismission from office an arrear of six hun dred and eighty-four millions of livres totally unprovided for. The difference subsisting between the annual revenue and the annual expenditure he estimated at eighty millions. "It is impossible (said this minister) to suffer the state to remain in the constant and imminent danger to which a deficiency such as the present exposes it-impossible to go on year after year applying palliatives and expedients, which, though they may retard the crisis for a time, are sure to render it more fatal at last." The minister proceeds to develope his plan for restoring energy and stability to the state by a grand reform of its abuses, of which he exhibits an interesting and curious detail. In summing up the aggregate of this account, and in solving the grand question, why these intolerable abuses and oppressions have been transmitted from reign to reign, and from age to age, he thus with flowing eloquence expresses himself: "It was not in the bosom of ignorance and confusion, whose veil over-shadowed the times of our first kings-it was not when kings, insecure upon their thrones, XXIII. 1787. were entirely occupied in repelling the continual BOOK usurpations of over-grown subjects-it was not in the midst of the disorder and anarchy of the feudal system, when a band of petty tyrants, issuing from their castles, committed the most atrocious depredations-it was not when the rage for crusades, inflamed by the double enthusiasm of religion and glory, carried into the other hemisphere the strength, the gallantry, and the misfortunes of France-it was not when a prince surnamed AuGUSTE recovered the principal dismemberments of the kingdom, and augmented its power and splendor; nor when the gloomy politics of one of his successors, by giving extension to a municipal government, prepared the means of uniting in the hand of the sovereign all the power of the public strength; nor when the monarch, the most eager after glory and the bravest of knights, contended with a rival sovereign for the renown they both acquired at the expence of their people-it was not in those turbulent and inauspicious times, when fanaticism, rending the bosom of the state, filled it with horror and calamity; nor when that good king, so dear to Frenchmen, conquered his kingdom at the point of his sword, and was taken up in adjusting the long disorders and the disastrous effects of the civil wars--it was not when all the energy of an able and formidable minister was concentrated in the double design of restraining the ambition of a power become for. |