Chapter 1: 3.vi

Loménie’s Plots.

Was ever unfortunate Chief Minister so bested as Loménie-Brienne?
The reins of the State fairly in his hand these six months; and
not the smallest motive-power (of Finance) to stir from the spot
with, this way or that! He flourishes his whip, but advances not.
Instead of ready-money, there is nothing but rebellious debating
and recalcitrating.

Far is the public mind from having calmed; it goes chafing and
fuming ever worse: and in the royal coffers, with such yearly
Deficit running on, there is hardly the colour of coin. Ominous
prognostics! Malesherbes, seeing an exhausted, exasperated France
grow hotter and hotter, talks of “conflagration:” Mirabeau,
without talk, has, as we perceive, descended on Paris again,
close on the rear of the Parlement,[73]—not to quit his native
soil any more.

Over the Frontiers, behold Holland invaded by Prussia;[74] the
French party oppressed, England and the Stadtholder triumphing:
to the sorrow of War-Secretary Montmorin and all men. But without
money, sinews of war, as of work, and of existence itself, what
can a Chief Minister do? Taxes profit little: this of the Second
Twentieth falls not due till next year; and will then, with its
“strict valuation,” produce more controversy than cash. Taxes on
the Privileged Classes cannot be got registered; are intolerable
to our supporters themselves: taxes on the Unprivileged yield
nothing,—as from a thing drained dry more cannot be drawn. Hope
is nowhere, if not in the old refuge of Loans.

To Loménie, aided by the long head of Lamoignon, deeply pondering
this sea of troubles, the thought suggested itself: Why not have
a Successive Loan (_Emprunt Successif_), or Loan that went on
lending, year after year, as much as needful; say, till 1792? The
trouble of registering such Loan were the same: we had then
breathing time; money to work with, at least to subsist on. Edict
of a Successive Loan must be proposed. To conciliate the
Philosophes, let a liberal Edict walk in front of it, for
emancipation of Protestants; let a liberal Promise guard the rear
of it, that when our Loan ends, in that final 1792, the
States-General shall be convoked.

Such liberal Edict of Protestant Emancipation, the time having
come for it, shall cost a Loménie as little as the
“Death-penalties to be put in execution” did. As for the liberal
Promise, of States-General, it can be fulfilled or not: the
fulfilment is five good years off; in five years much intervenes.
But the registering? Ah, truly, there is the difficulty!—However,
we have that promise of the Elders, given secretly at Troyes.
Judicious gratuities, cajoleries, underground intrigues, with old
Foulon, named “_Ame damnée_, Familiar-demon, of the Parlement,”
may perhaps do the rest. At worst and lowest, the Royal Authority
has resources,—which ought it not to put forth? If it cannot
realise money, the Royal Authority is as good as dead; dead of
that surest and miserablest death, inanition. Risk and win;
without risk all is already lost! For the rest, as in enterprises
of pith, a touch of stratagem often proves furthersome, his
Majesty announces _a Royal Hunt_, for the 19th of November next;
and all whom it concerns are joyfully getting their gear ready.

Royal Hunt indeed; but of two-legged unfeathered game! At eleven
in the morning of that Royal-Hunt day, 19th of November 1787,
unexpected blare of trumpetting, tumult of charioteering and
cavalcading disturbs the Seat of Justice: his Majesty is come,
with Garde-des-Sceaux Lamoignon, and Peers and retinue, to hold
Royal Session and have Edicts registered. What a change, since
Louis XIV. entered here, in boots; and, whip in hand, ordered his
registering to be done,—with an Olympian look which none durst
gainsay; and did, without stratagem, in such unceremonious
fashion, hunt as well as register![75] For Louis XVI., on this
day, the Registering will be enough; if indeed he and the day
suffice for it.

Meanwhile, with fit ceremonial words, the purpose of the royal
breast is signified:—Two Edicts, for Protestant Emancipation, for
Successive Loan: of both which Edicts our trusty Garde-des-Sceaux
Lamoignon will explain the purport; on both which a trusty
Parlement is requested to deliver its opinion, each member having
free privilege of speech. And so, Lamoignon too having perorated
not amiss, and wound up with that Promise of States-General,—the
Sphere-music of Parlementary eloquence begins. Explosive,
responsive, sphere answering sphere, it waxes louder and louder.
The Peers sit attentive; of diverse sentiment: unfriendly to
States-General; unfriendly to Despotism, which cannot reward
merit, and is suppressing places. But what agitates his Highness
d’Orléans? The rubicund moon-head goes wagging; darker beams the
copper visage, like unscoured copper; in the glazed eye is
disquietude; he rolls uneasy in his seat, as if he meant
something. Amid unutterable satiety, has sudden new appetite, for
new forbidden fruit, been vouchsafed him? Disgust and edacity;
laziness that cannot rest; futile ambition, revenge,
non-admiralship:—O, within that carbuncled skin what a confusion
of confusions sits bottled!

“Eight Couriers,” in course of the day, gallop from Versailles,
where Loménie waits palpitating; and gallop back again, not with
the best news. In the outer Courts of the Palais, huge buzz of
expectation reigns; it is whispered the Chief Minister has lost
six votes overnight. And from within, resounds nothing but
forensic eloquence, pathetic and even indignant; heartrending
appeals to the royal clemency, that his Majesty would please to
summon States-General forthwith, and be the Saviour of
France:—wherein dusky-glowing D’Espréménil, but still more
Sabatier de Cabre, and Fréteau, since named _Commère_ Fréteau
(Goody Fréteau), are among the loudest. For six mortal hours it
lasts, in this manner; the infinite hubbub unslackened.

And so now, when brown dusk is falling through the windows, and
no end visible, his Majesty, on hint of Garde-des-Sceaux,
Lamoignon, opens his royal lips once more to say, in brief That
he must have his Loan-Edict registered.—Momentary deep
pause!—See! Monseigneur d’Orléans rises; with moon-visage turned
towards the royal platform, he asks, with a delicate graciosity
of manner covering unutterable things: ‘Whether it is a Bed of
Justice, then; or a Royal Session?’ Fire flashes on him from the
throne and neighbourhood: surly answer that ‘it is a Session.’ In
that case, Monseigneur will crave leave to remark that Edicts
cannot be registered by _order_ in a Session; and indeed to
enter, against such registry, his individual humble Protest.
‘_Vous êtes bien le maître_ (You will do your pleasure)’, answers
the King; and thereupon, in high state, marches out, escorted by
his Court-retinue; D’Orléans himself, as in duty bound, escorting
him, but only to the gate. Which duty done, D’Orléans returns in
from the gate; redacts his Protest, in the face of an applauding
Parlement, an applauding France; and so—has _cut_ his
Court-moorings, shall we say? And will now sail and drift, fast
enough, towards Chaos?

Thou foolish D’Orléans; Equality that art to be! Is Royalty grown
a mere wooden Scarecrow; whereon thou, pert scald-headed crow,
mayest alight at pleasure, and peck? Not yet wholly.

Next day, a Lettre-de-Cachet sends D’Orléans to bethink himself
in his Château of Villers-Cotterets, where, alas, is no Paris
with its joyous necessaries of life; no fascinating indispensable
Madame de Buffon,—light wife of a great Naturalist much too old
for her. Monseigneur, it is said, does nothing but walk
distractedly, at Villers-Cotterets; cursing his stars. Versailles
itself shall hear penitent wail from him, so hard is his doom. By
a second, simultaneous Lettre-de-Cachet, Goody Fréteau is hurled
into the Stronghold of Ham, amid the Norman marshes; by a third,
Sabatier de Cabre into Mont St. Michel, amid the Norman
quicksands. As for the Parlement, it must, on summons, travel out
to Versailles, with its Register-Book under its arm, to have the
Protest _biffé_ (expunged); not without admonition, and even
rebuke. A stroke of authority which, one might have hoped, would
quiet matters.

Unhappily, no; it is a mere taste of the whip to rearing
coursers, which makes them rear worse! When a team of Twenty-five
Millions begins rearing, what is Loménie’s whip? The Parlement
will nowise acquiesce meekly; and set to register the Protestant
Edict, and do its other work, in salutary fear of these three
Lettres-de-Cachet. Far from that, it begins questioning
Lettres-de-Cachet generally, their legality, endurability; emits
dolorous objurgation, petition on petition to have its three
Martyrs delivered; cannot, till that be complied with, so much as
think of examining the Protestant Edict, but puts it off always
“till this day week.”[76]

In which objurgatory strain Paris and France joins it, or rather
has preceded it; making fearful chorus. And now also the other
Parlements, at length opening their mouths, begin to join; some
of them, as at Grenoble and at Rennes, with portentous
emphasis,—threatening, by way of reprisal, to interdict the very
Tax-gatherer.[77] ‘In all former contests,’ as Malesherbes
remarks, ‘it was the Parlement that excited the Public; but here
it is the Public that excites the Parlement.’