CHAPTER V - Turgot a Cabinet Minister

The Duchess d'Enville belonged heart and soul to the philosophers and the economists, whom she received in her beautiful ehd/tall of La Roche*Guyon. She was an impassioned advocate of frec trade in corn, and was spared neither by the satires, nor by the songs, nor even by the c.aricntures with which the courtiers and the gentlemen of the parliament continually over whelmed the new reformers. She belonged to the La Rochefoucauld family, with which Count de l\laurepas was very proud of being connected. She recommended Turgot to him most strongly at the very time when the Countess de ~taurepas and Very were recommending him likewise. Thus it is that Turgot became minister, not c.alled, perhaps, by public opinion, as it has been said, because public opinion did not exist then, or was only just beginning to appear; but he was designated by his admirers and friends to an all-powerful prime minister.

This event caused great joy in the camp of the economists and the Em:ydojJtdis/es/ but a rather serious disappointment afterwards manifested itself when they learnt that, if Turgot was indeed minister, it was to the navy, and not to the finances, that he had been appointed. &« This selection meets with general approval." :Mercy writes to :Maria Theresa, U not because Turgot is supposed 94 to possess great talent for naval matters, but everyone knows that he is thoroughly honest." Marie Antoinette was not dissatisfied, and said to her mother that "Turgot enjoys the reputation of a very honest man." The na\'y, besides, was only a temporary appointment. One month later, August 24th, 1774, Turgot was named {01tlt'lj/ttlY gblt.Yal. 'Vhilst thanking the king, Turgot was very much mo,,·ed. Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse relates that he said to him: U It is not to the king that I give myself up, but to the honest man," and that the king answered, taking him by both hands, "You will not have been mistaken."

The Abbe de Very gives of that scene a similar description. Turgot was with him at Compiegne, where the whole court had assembled, when ~laurepas came to inform him of his appointment to the £'()lltrole genero/. He went immediately to the king, and, on his return, this is how he related to Very the conversation he had just had with Louis XVI: "Sire," said he, ")'ou must allow me to put down in writing my general views, and if 1 may so say, my conditions on the manner in whichyou should assist me in this administration of the finances; for, I own to you, it makes me tremble on account of the superficial acquaintance I have with it." "Yes! yes!" the king is reported to have said, U just as you please; but I give you my word of honour beforehand," and he took hold of both his hands whilst he went on speaking, "to share all your views, and always support you in the courageoussteps you will have to take."

111rgot's Progral1l1UC. 95 On the next day Turgot delivered to the king his famous programme. "I limit myself just now, Sire, to remind lOU of these three cxpresstons; NQ bankruptcy, no increase in the taxes, no loans. No bankruptcy, either avowed or conceak'd by compulsol}' redut':tion. No increase in the taxes: the rcason of this lit-os in the situa.tion of your people, and still more in the heart of your Maji."Sty. No loa.ns, because every loan always diminishes the available income ,; it nec::essitates, besides, at the end of some time, either bankruptcy or an increase in the taxes." 'ro carry out this progranmlc he only proposed one means, the reducing of the expenditure, and the bringing of its amount below that of the receipts. He knows per~ fectIy well that aU those who have expenses to carryon in the variQus branches of the public service will ever maintain that all thos~ expenses are indispensable, and he feels no doubt that they \,,"ill support their statement by excellent arguments; but he knows also that all their statements ·shouJd yiekJ to the absolute neces~ sity of economy. He represents strongly to the king that the people can be relieved only through the reform of abuses, which is difficult, bC<.":ause there are always many people interested in keeping up abuses, "for there is no abuse which does not maintain some person or other. . . . U " I shall have to fight/' said he, "against your ~Iajesty's naturalkindness and generosity, and against that of the personsdearest to you. c •• Your ~lajcsty will be pleased to remember that I abandon Turgot.

myself less to the king, than to you individually, to the bonest man, to the man just and good." Turgot evidently dreaded the influence of the queen. I ha\·e read the very draft of the programme. After having written the words, "against your ~fajesty's generosity," "furgot had already added the words, U and of the ••.n when he stopped and covered the "and of the 't by U and against that of the persons, et~..n On the very next day Turgot set to work. Named COlltnUeur lrhzeral, August 24th, 1774, he was to be dis missed ~fay 18th, Ii 76, at the end of twenty months and eighteen days. Out of these twenty m.onths he enjoyed go<>d health during thirteen, and suffered from gout during the seven others; but mnessdid not influence his w'Ork, and we can affirm that during the whole time that he exercised his duties as contruleur gfJzeral he never ceased for one single instant the frank and honest execution of what we can designate his programmt!) to use a modern expression, that i!: to say, the re-establish· ment of the finances, the struggle against the abuses, the destruction of privileges, freedom of work, commerce, and industry) which had been crushed by regulations and monopolies,endeavouringthus to realisewithout violence, fifteen years before the Revolution or' 1789, all the reforms conquered later on in the civil and economic order, at the cost of so many efforts and sufferings.

He was implacable for persons who stood up for abuses in order to live upon them, whenever he thought these persons intelligent enough to appreciate their own The FanJlers-GclltraiFrighle1led. 97 acts; but he \\"as indulgent for the ignorant, vigorously stnmping out at the snme time the disordersinto which their ignorance might hurry them. He hnd n due regnrd, besides, (or vested rights. and he always took care to pay equitably the amount of the offices which he decided upon suppressing. His accession to the (Oil/role gb,t,nl had (rightened the farmers-genernl. Ie People S&"ly that the financiers are frightened to death," the Abbe Haudeau wrotei U they are wrong; ~I. Turgot is not giddy enough to upset immediately the lease of the Carnung of the taxes, or the other financial arrangements." During the discussion which he had in 1776 with ~lirom~ni1 on the suppression of the (ortleel (statute.

labour) he penned some notes in answer to the observa· tions of the keeper of the seals. In those notes a passage occurred well worth the attention of those who used to consider, or who still consider TurKot as the chief oC a band of fanatics. "I know quite as well as anybody else that we should not always do the best thing possible, and that, if \~ cannot give up the idea of correcting by degrees the defects of an old constitution, we must proceed only slowly, in proportion as public opinion and the course of events render the alterations possible." \Vith the view of convincing public opinion, and destroying prejudices \vhich he considered as founded upon ignorance,he had conceived the plan of a board which would have fonned an administration analogous to our Ministry of Public Instruction.

l1trgot. " I think," said he to the king, « that I cannot propose to your ~fajesty anything more advantageous for your people. and more likely to maintain peace and good order, better qualified to give activity to all useful works, to make your authorit)< cherished, and to attach more and more t.) yourself the hearts of your subjects, than to have them all thoroughly instructed in the obligations they have towards society, and towards your power which protects society: the duties which these obligations lay upon them, the interest they have in fulfilling these duties for the public good and for their own. This moral and social training requires books expressly written by competition, and a schoolmaster in every parish who shall teach them to the children, togetber with writing, ciphering, and land-measurement . • • . The civic education given throughout the whole extent of the kingdom under the direction of the educational board, together with the common-sense books it would order to be written, and from which it would compel every professor to teach, would contribute still more Lo train a well-informed and virtuous people/' 'Vhilst preoccupied with the thought of destroying prejudices for the future, and moulding, as he was wont to saYt a new nation, Turgol attended quite as eagerly to the prescnt, and sought the promptest and most efficacious means of healing the inveterate wound of financial disorder, rendered worse still by the Abbe Terray's dishonest administration.

He had been scarcely installed in the office of (on/roletiT 1erray's Intrigues. 99 gIn frat than he commissioned those of his assistants in whom he had the greatest confidence to collect the ele~ ments of what we should now can the budget of income and of expenditure. u He ordered,l1 says Dupont de Nemours, "the draw... ing up of methodical and minute tahles which should contain the most complete details on every branch of the income and the expenditure." This statement has been pre&t:f\'ed. \Ve have also a statement of the same kind made hy his predecessor a few days before. The Abbe Terray, whom Louis XVI had retained for a few months in the ministry, had hoped that he might remain there perm:t nently. by setting his system of policy in tune with the new reign, and by transforming his principles, since new principles seemed fashionable. In the memoir and the statementto which we alluded, he cast upon d'Aiguillon and de Boynes, respectively~Iinisters of 'Var and of the Navy, the responsibility of the deficit, and laid a great stress on the efforts he had made to reduce the expendi.

ture b}' every possible means. \Veber states that in the conversationshe had with his friend, the abbe said that "he had succeeded by dint of injustices,bankruptcies, :md spoliations in filling the deficit, all but five millions. He had left 57,000.000 in the treasury,besides 14,000,000 in reserve for unforeseen requirements. The antidpa. tions were reduced to two months. He had provided for the usual expenses, war preparations, the circumstance 100 Tttrgot. of three weddings, nnd other extraordinar)? outlays which were to remain secret." Turgot's adversaries have contrasted the situation of the treasury at the two epochs of Terray's downfall and of Turgot'~; and they ha"'e pretended that Turgot exw hausted the:: reserve left by his predecessor. Linguet used to say of Terray that he was a Suny, because he had amassed an amount of 56,000,000. Turgot, according to hiro, could be compared only to Sully's successors, who had squandered away the millions heaped up in the Bastille. \Ve shaH follow neither the discus~ sion of Terrny's supporters nor the arguments of Turgofs champions,for both would be equally idle; posterity has pronounced its verdict; it has selected between the un· scrupulous minister of Louis XV and the honest minister of Louis XVI.

t. One of Turgot's first measures had been to dismiss the maUre des "t~lI;les, Brochet de Saint-Prest, director ofthe corn agency. "I am delighted," wrote l\Iademoisellede L'Espinasse, "that :M. Turgot has already dismissed the man of the corn business." \Ve must remember that in 1770, that is to say, four years previously, Terray had suppressed the liberal clauses of the declaration of 1763, and the edict of 1764 on the trade in corn, and that he had once again brought that trade under the se~·erity of the old police regulations. B}' the return to the former usages he had flatteredthe The A bbl Galialli. leI prejudices of the people and the parliaments, and satis fied the publicists, who contended that the national subsistence could not be abandoned to what they called the unfettered cupidity of commercial people. He had found, besides, a valuable support {or the upholding of his politkaJ ,'jews in the book of a man of considerable wit, an intimate friend of lil/eralellrsand Ent;J'c/ojtdistts, whose ideas on questions of economy, not very liberal, contrasted singularly with the opinions of most of his friends.

The Abbe GaHani, for it is to him that we allude, had composed a series of dialogues on free trade in corn, and in these dialogues, full of sharpness, of ",it, and of examples borrowed (rom the history of all nations, he had affirmed that so far as commerce in cereals is concerned, policy could be only one arising from cir cumstances ; it must be different according to the variou'i countries, and in the same country it could not be the same in the interior and on the sea-coast. The Abbe Terray did nQt disdain the help brought to him by the Abbe Gatiani, but he cared very little about his arguments. It was really neither the cries of the peoI»e, nor the wishes expressed by the parliaments, nor Galiani's theories, which were to decide him to cancel the edict of 1764-He yielded to none of the arguments of those who reasoned in conConnity with his own view~, just as he neglected the advicesscnt to him by Turgot (rom l.imousin, in the seven admirable letters which \\'t~ have analysed above.

102 lurgot. The aim he pursued was none else but the establish ment of a monopoly in the corn trade--monopoly handed over to his underlings, his associates, and perhaps, as it has often been stated, the associates of King Louis XV. According to the arrangement which has been designated by the too startling expression of Ie pacle de fami1le, the great point was to realise at any ratc the monopoly of ~peculation on the article of con sumption of prominent necessity par excellence,the bread of the people. ~luch has been written on the pacle de famine / it is an incident, the importance of which has been much exaggerated by popular report; but it remains beyond doubt that dealings in corn which have been the result of it were accompained by thefts, criminal dilapidations, and disgraceful speculations which we are right in denouncing and condemning, although no historian has ever been able to draw up an' exact list of them, or to give the enumeration of the persons who made their fortune by them, or derived from them some profit.

A lawyer, a man of business, named Leprevost de Beaumont, had been informed of the agreement made for the establishing of a society by a retired Paris baker, Malisset, inventor of an improved system for the grinding of corn, and a certain number of capitalists. The object of that society was the execution of a treaty entered upon with the government for cc the care, the providing, and the preservation of the kings cereals."

The "Pacte de FaIl1i11e." 1°3 This was in 1765, and the agreement which must now be executed anticipated a permanent 5uppl)". The corn or the flour produced by it was to he constantly main tained in a good state of preservation, and with that. view the society (or the farming of the cereals was authorised to sell the old purchases and replace them by new ones, according to the fluctuation of the markc:~t. a circumstance which excused, sanctioned, and en· eouraged speculation. l.epre\'ost de Beaumont saw in that agreement a compact made with the vic\v of starving the people··..·../t peult tit famint: he wanted to denounce it, but, overtaken before he could give to the Rouen parliament a copy of it which he had prepared. he was arrested and sent to the Bastille, from which he came out only on the 14th of July, 1789. The Revolution it was which set him free. "It is not," said he, "from suspicions,reports, conjectures, or false statements that I denounce this horrible machination; it is from the terms of its compact." And when Laverdy, the contra/ell' gb,t,al who had signed that deed in 1765, appeared on Brumaire 3rd, year II of the Republic, before the Revolutionary tribunal, I..cprevost c.ame to support, spontaneously,Fouquier-Tinville's accusation. All those, however, who had fonned part of that society, who had concurred towards that s().Called paclt' dt famine, and whom Leprevost de Beaumont had reproached {or having gained,as he said, "tens of millions, by hundreds at a time," had successively died, either ruined or in a state of insolvency; and ~fali$set himself, the agent1°4 Tttrgot.

general of the company, still alive in 1791, vegetated without any resources, and as if out of his mind. Leprevost de Beaumont's accusations were evidently exaggerated. It is possible that the corn company gave shares of interests on its profits to influential personages, to the king's favourites both male and female, perhaps to the king himself; proof has been found that such was the case for the shares in the profits of the general farming of the taxes. It is not less dear that l~ertain of the society's agents speculated on their own account, and that a few clerks gave themselves lip to dilapidations and thefts, of which the produce was squandered by them, and helped them to keel> up an impudent opulence,little justified by their patrimonial fortune. But never has anyone been able to find the track of the tens of thou y sands of millions, which, if we believe Leprevost de Beaumont, were drawn by :Malisset's accomplices from the people, so wretchedly poor, of the last years of Louis XV.

In consequence of Leprevost de Beaumont's revela tions) whether from fear lest they should be made public, or from other reasons of public or prh-ate interests, the )falisset·agreement was quashed by the Abbe Terra)' himself. A new combination, that of the regie ill/tress/e, bad been invented as its substitute. That regie was to pursue the same aim as the previous farming, that is to say. it was to provide for the distribution of corn, so that the provinces the best supplied should give their over.. plus to the less favoured ones. cc A commission had been formed,tl so say the memoirs on Terray, It to inquire into the cc:>rn business. It had under its n.uthor it}' two directors or agents-gen.eral for the purcrmses and tr..msmi~sjon~ (Sorin de Bonne and Doumerc); so that ~\H ahuses, in this branch of the public s~rvice, ought to have beenimmt:diately suppressed. But the(;ounciJlors of St.'lte complained that they were not eonsuhed, that nothing was conuntmkat(~d to them, amI, indt~ed,. the Abbe Terray had always brought to them the work half.

done; this conduct had become still more suspected, because Brochet de Saint~Prest, his sworn ally, a thorough beggar when he entered the council, displayed since he formed part of it an extraordinary amount of opulence and luxury; hence the supposition that .Ml\L Terray and Brochet, far from checking the monopoly, favoured it and carried it on by their underlings, who, too, were extremely rich." One month ,\fter Hrochet de Saint-Prest's dismissal, September 18th, 1774, two fishermenfound in the SeineJ in the neighbourhood of Suresnc, under a big stone, a bundle of papers referring to the administration of corn. Albert, the economist,the commercialilllelldan!, the friend ofTurgot, and who had been appointed in IJrochet's stead, received the bundle discovered by the fishermen. He immediately c.lused the government seals to be placed on the papers of Sorin and Doumerc, ordering the two men to be locked up in the Bastille. Crushing proofs were found against Brochet and his wife, who had borrowed heavy sums from the exchequer of the admin· 11 106 istration~ but the books of the administrators seemed regularly kept. Traces, indeed, were found of some mi5~ appropriations at which the ('tm,IY(Ut'IIY g/:Ub"ll/.--,,--wemean Terray,,,,,,·hadno doubt winked, hut nothing result(~d from the inquest which could justify a criminal pursuit.

Albert set the two administrators at liberty, dedaring that it was merely th(: casc()f settling of accounts to be brought before the ordinary and duly qualified tribunals. As for the irregular profits rC~llised in private speculations. they could not but escape all investigations: it was im possible to procure a statement of them. After so many scandals, so many rumours and reports, there was only one resolutionto adopt: return to freedom in the eorn trade, and break up all these companies, all these ad~ ministrntions, whieh, H if th~~y had consisted C\'(:n of angds/' as Turgot said in Ii70, CQuld not escape the suspicion and the anger of tht~ people. The (.(.mlro" leuy iff/leral, a(~cordingly, resolved upon suppressing the legislation extcmpol'ised by Termy in 1770, and he did welL He returned to the freedom, still very limired, of the declaration ofr 763 and of the edict of 1764, the initiative of which had been formerly taken by the f."tJlllnlkIlY ghll~ral Bertin, Turgofs colleague in the 1774 cabin~t.

The decree on the freedom, of the corn trade was si~ned in the Council of Finan(x~s, September 13th, 1776 ; but it was published only on the 20th of the same month. As early as September 7th, Daudeau announced in his jonrnal that U the declaration of J\lay 25th , 1763, B"'tiict Oil the C~rlt Trade. 1°7 on the liberty of home; trade is about to be rc-estabHshcd hy an edict of the counc::il blotting out all the Abbe Termy~s scribbling t '; but on the 18th he was still ignorant that the decision had been taken, and he said; U There are some fine cootradktQry rumours on the forthcoming edict of the council which relates to the corn trade. Some say that it is a continuation of the old principles, Oft at the utmost, the replacing of one (~ompany by another. The provision dealers (appnJ1.!is' J;mmeurs), Sorin and Doumerc, boast of going on with their swindling." The truth is that, during the week after Turgot's proposition, there had been a discussion at the council· board. Bertin, who during his tenufe of office as a:mlrukur gbllral had caused the liberal declaration of 1763 and the 1764 edict to be produced, was now .!\finic;ter of' Agriculture; and, whilst sharing Turgot's opinions, he was afraid of coming too strongly into collision with popular prejudices. lIe was convinced that in the corn question there was only one measure sanctioned by experience, viz., "pro&tTess by sknv and slH::cessh'esteps.f1 In September, 17i4, probably between the 13th and the 20th, after the first communication of thl~ scheme of edict to the Council of 14'inances,and before it had been made public, he wrote to TurgQt: "The d(X~umcnts you have forwarded to me, whilst they revive all my hopes for th(~ general good, and for that of my spt~dal oflke, have renewed all my regrets as to the past . . . • I exhort you to give to your progress all the Pi :z 108 Ttt1;g-ot.

slowness of prudence. I would even go so far as to invite you, if it was as possible for you as it is to me to do so, and if you had not long ago made a profession of your principles, to conceal your views and your opinions from the child whom you have to govern and to restore to health. You cannot help performing here the part of a dentist." Bertin was not the only person who recommended him prudence. Others came who wished to turn him aside from the object he had in view. They were no doubt less devoted to him individually; that was perhaps the reason why Turgot repelled them with a certain degree of haughtiness. Necker, who had just been crowned by the Academie Franc;aise for his Hoge of Colbert, asked of him an audience, with the view of explaining to him his ideas on the corn question. This is how ~lorellet, in his memoirs, relates this incident: "M:. Turgot answered rather dryly to the author, in a personal interview, that he might print whatever he liked; he, Turgot, dreaded nothing; the public would judge; he refused to see the work; he stated all this with that contemptuous manner which he put on too frequently when he refuted ideas contrary to his own; and what I state now I do not express from hearsay, for I sa\v it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own cars, for I was then at 1\1. Turgot's. Nt Necker came there, bringing with him his 1\-15.; I heard the answer made to his proposition; and I saw him retire with the appearance of a man who was offended, and yet not discouraged."

L011/r()l.lCrsy 'lvi/It l\-'ecJ,"C1-. 109 Just like the minister of whom :Madame dt' Doumers used to say: U His is a coldness which freezes you. n Neckersent his ~IS. to the press, and published it at the time of the disturbances; he caused a copy to be delh-ered to Turgot, who acknowledged it by the following laconic and cutting reply bearing d~\te April 23, 1775: "I ha.ve received, sir, the (~opy of your work which you have caused to be left at my door; I thank you for )"our attention. If I had had to write on the subject, and had thought proper to defend the opinion which you maintain, I would have waited for a more quiet moment, when the question might have intere.sted only people in a stat(~ to judge it dispassionately. But on this point, as on many others .• each one has his way of thinking. I am, sir, very truly yours, et<:., etc." Necker's answer was soon despat(~hed. He modestly founds his justification on the vcr)' date of the impn'malur, date which was anterior, not only to the disturbances, but even to all rise in the price of corn.

U Then," says he, "there' was not the slightest dearness anywhere. If the rise which has since come about in several places, had seemed to you, sir, Of to the keeper of the seals, a motive for delaying the publication of the book, and if you had informed me of your opinion. I would have respectfully complied with your wishes ... It is sufficiently annoying for me to differ from your way of thinking on some points of political economy; I would wish you to have no other subject of complaint against mc. I would rC:llly yalue your opinion on this subject."

J 10 Necker's book obtained an immense success. A large number of editions of it were su(~cessively published. Turgot's adversaries, the parliamentaries, the adminis trators belonging to Colbert's school, praised it to the skies. The champions of the protectionist system have made of 1t, and can still make of it at the present day, their manual; nor do they fail to do so, deriving from the work on the legislation and the trade in corn arguments t he value of which increases by reason of the honesty of him who has supplied them with these arguments. There exists another school, however, connected with the doctrines of certain adversaries of Turgot, which professes for Necker's· book quite as passion:lte an admiration: it is the socialist school of the organisation of labour. U Then Necker took up his pen," Louis Illanc writes in his" History of the French Revolution," "and out of a subject which Galiani believed he had exhausted he produced a powerful book, a book where from end to end reigned a grave eloquence, a subdued emotion, and certain pages of which might have been owned equally by a statesman and by a poet. Seeking in the question of corn merely an opportunity of attacking, for the benefit of the people, the system of individualism, and going back to the principles con stitutive of society, Necker submitted them to an inquiry equally elevated and audacious."

In the edition which he ha..c; given of the Legislatj()n sur Ie c()mmercedes grains, l\{. de Molinari passes upon it a judgment very opposite, judgment which may be Edict 011 C."OY1l Published. 1 I I thought severe, but which Hheral~ cannot denounce us such. He discovers in the book "grcut order and method, n cerbin warmth Q( st)rlc, hut a complete absence of prindples~ and a childish ignorance of facts. The author proceeds by hypotheses, and these hy potheses are gcn(~ra]]y wrong. :M. Ne<.~ker>s book has contributed more than any other to lead opinion astray on the important question of articles of subsistence." The edict of Tuesday, September 13th, 1774, brought onct.~ more before the council at its sitting of the following Tuesday, September 20th, was published at last. It crcated profound jO}' amongst all the minister's friends. \Vhat had struck them from the vcry first, and what, we may say, commanded the approval of all men of ~n elevated turn of mind, was the care taken by Turgot to explain, in a lengthened preamble, the reasons of the change introduced by the new decree to the then existing legislation. To discuss before the public was a novelty .at the time; Turgot thus invented the system, generally practised since in free governments, of introducing legislative enactments (projds de lois) by what we now desiE:,YJluteas (XP{)Sfs 4tS 1IJotifs.

Mademoiselle de I/Espinasse writes to 1'1. de Guibert: "\Vithin a few days will be published an edict on the trade in corn; it will be justified by a preliminary state ment ("UJ/it.~); this expression is a new one." Condorcet S3yS, on his side: "He set the useful (~xmllplc of giving to the public a detailed and reasoned account of the principles according to which the laws were drawn up."

112 Turgot. La Harpe writes: "Ht: is the first amongst us who trans fonned the acts of the s<lvercign into a work of argument and of persuasion." Nor does Voltaire spare his praise for the novelty in tht.~ form: "Never yet had edicts been seen in which the ~overcign condescended to instruct his subjects, r(:.ason with them, enlighten thtm as to their interests, persuade them before commanding them; the substance of all1'lOst all the orders emanating from the throne was contained in the words, (for such is our good will and pleasure 1 (car ttl est )wtre bon p/ajsir)." The preamble of the.:.' decree of Sl~ptember J 3th is really a di,;cussion of principles, in which Turgot en~ deavours to pron:., and succeeds in doing 50, that free trade in corn secures the subsistence of nations more completely and under better conditions than police rcgulations. It is in some sort a fresh cxpianation of the doctrines so well defended it. few years before in the seven letters on cereals addressed to the Abbe Terray, and of which we have given the substance.

" The more commerce i:-; free, brisk, extended," says that admirable statement, U the more promptly, efficaciollsly~ and abundantly is the lwople provided for. The prkes are proportionately more uniform; they vary proportionately less frorn the avt~rage and usual pri<..~<.~ a<xording to which salaries arc necessarily fixed. Victualling made by the care of the government cannot have the same success. The attention of the State, divided between too many objects, cannot be as aetive as that of merchants who are EllthusiaslJl he Extites. I 13 cxclusi\.·c:~ly occupied with their trade. It knows later and less correctly both needs and resources. The agents em~ ployed by the government, having no interest in economy, buy at a dearer market, convey the provisions at a greater cost, and preserve them with smaller precautions. A large amount of corn is lost and damaged. Through want of skill, or even through dishonesty, these agents \"Z)ay increase to exc..:essthe cost attending their operations.

They may indulge in criminal intrigues unknown to the government. Even when they are most innocent, they cnnnot nvoid being suspcc;ted of fraud, and the suspicion always reflects upon the administration which employs them, and which becomes hateful to the people through the "cry care it takes in supplying them with foou." UNo rninister/' says ~Ictrats correspondence, "without excepting Sully, Colbert, d'Argenson, has ever made our mas ters utter a nobler and kinder langt1<1ge/' Baudeau writes in his journal: u It (the edict) is received with great applause by the public. Good Turgot's enemies are some"'hat silly at the turn which this edict has taken, and at the \\'isdom of the principles which he t~xplains in the dear<~st mannt~r." Voltaire writes to D'Ak:mbert: "I have just rend 1\1. Turgoes masterpiece. It St~ems as if new heavens and a new earth had made their appearance." Unfortumltely, cir<~umstances became more and more difficult. 'The harvest had been middling in 1774, and seemed as if it would be almost nun in 1775. llachumnont said, in his iJ/tJllcircssurds: H The tOlllrcUeurghlt~ral, per~ 114 Tttrgot.

sisting in his s}'stem of free trade in corn, is not affected by the rise in price, \\'hich takes place everywhere. He assures us that it will not exceed the pitch it had attained at the time o{ the monopoly; the calamity, he adds, will only be temporary, and the speculators, punished {or their cupidity, will lose {or ever the desire of hoarding their provisions of corn." On the 18th of April, 1715, a troop of peasants in~ vaded Dijon, plundering private houses, destroying mills, and searching all the places where an amount of com was supposed to exist. The governor was threatened with death, being accused of having said: "~ly friends, the grass is beginning to grow, go and browse." The bishop went into the streets, harangued the peasants, and finally prevailed upon them to leave the town. People have tried to discover, at the time of that riot, and even since, what was the cause of a movement so sudden and so speedily suppressed. 'Vas it a mere popular outbreak, such as is sometimes seen when whole populations suffer? It is quite certain that those who took part in the Dijon riots had not read Turgot's expos!

dfS moti/s, and understood nothing of his serious and lofty discussion on the principles of free trade. The riot was therefore provoked neither by the perusal of the edict, nor by that of the preliminary remarks. It is related that Turgot, communicating this preamble to one of his friends, said to him, laughing: "It will be found diffuse and flat; this is my motive: I wished to make it so clear that every village magistrate might make the peasants The [Ji.jOll Riots. 115 understand it. It is :1 subject on which publicopinion' ('~n exercise great influence." }lopular opinion could certainly do much in an evil direction; but village judgf.~s hnd not )'ct been able to prepare it for good, by giving to the peasants the lessons mentioned by Turgot; they were far from having dissipated prejudices which last some~· times for several centuries when all enlightened men have succeeded in throwing them off.

It is always easy to explain a popular rising by a plot, just as it is easy to explain the phenomena of nature, when they produce themselves, by the spedal interference of a superior and occult power. 'Vf~ judge thus in most cases from extreme shortsightedness, and we should not be too easily satisfied with explanations of that kind. I-Iowever, events occurred at Dijon, as tht~y did later on at Pontoise, \Tersailles, and Paris, which it is diflkult to account for, if we do not suppose the action of a directing club, and of chiefs more or less disguised, whose aim it was to excite popular wrath and to promote the attacks of the rioters. II The first point. of my sermon," Voltaire writes to Condorcet, " is the abominable popular superstition which rises against free trade in corn, and free trade of any kind. You see the horrors which have just been perpetrated at Dijon. God grant that the fetishes may not have excited underhand this small copy of Saint llartholomew)sDay".; and in another letter, writtenone month later to ~fadame de Saint.Julien: "If you had been at Dijon, you lVould have stopped the criminal 116 Tllrgot.

riot excited in an underhand manner by ~1. Turgot's enemies." Turgot replierl to the Dijon disturbances, not by making a concession to the champions of police regula tions, but by giving new pledges to free trade, which was more in accordance with his views, at Dijon itself, and likewise at Beaune, Saint-Jean de Losne, and at Mont bard. He tried to meet high prices with a diminution in the taxes. In a decree of the council, dated April 22nd, 1775, that is to say, four days after the insurrection, and at the very moment when he was informed of it at Paris, he said: "The king, occupied by the means of preventing the corn necessary for the sustenance of his people from rising above the equitable and natural value it ought to have, consistent with the inconstancy of the seasons and the state of the harvest, has established, by his decree of September 13th, 1774, and by his letters patent of November 2nd last, freedom in trade, which alone can by its activity supply corn to the di~tricts where need might be felt, and stop by competition all ex(;essive rise in prices. . . . Consequently, the levying of all duties on corn and flour, at the entrance of towns as well as in markets, either under the title of municipal dues (octrois),or under the domination of minage,aunage, hal/age, or any others, is suspended in the towns of Dijon, Saint-Jean de Losne, and ~Iontbard."

The rise in the price of corn persisted, nevertheless, and all those whose private interests had suffered from the destruction of monopoly did not cease accusing the "La GUt!rre des rariJles." I 17 «mlr~/tll" gbltrill of witnessing with indifference the sufferings of the people. And yet Turgot was very far from entertaining that indifference; and, as formerly during the period of his lnltlldanu at Limoges, he endeavoured to relieve, by the establishment of charitable workshops,those who were unable to providefor their wants. He ("..aused to be distributed among the Paris ,lUreS a memoir on the means of procuring by additional work resources for the population of the metropolis, in case a fresh rise should take place in the prices of provisions; he addressed to aU the provincial ill/till/allis directions for the creation and administration of charitable work· shops in the rural districts. These two documents are respecth'ely dated !\Iay I st and 2nd, 1775. The ver>' day when they were published, the gllerre des jar;,zes hroke out.

II. Bands had gathered together in the country. They appeared first at Pontoise, not far {rom the estates of the Prince de Conti, plundering, burning the houses, begging for bread, and destroying the corn, exciting the people t(> seize upon the corn~barges, as at l\lery~sur-Oise, and to divide between themseh·es the contents of those barges; to penetrate into the towns with the view of upsetting the markets. The ChevalierTurgot. brother of the minister, relating afterwardsto Soulaviethe e\·ents of l\{ay, 1775, said to him that "the plunderers seemed to have gold and I 18 silver nbout them; their movements were directed as an insurrectional operation) and according to the best principles of military art, no doubt under the command of an experienced general..>$ On the 2nd of .May, 1775, the mob went to Versailles) they penetrated as far as the palace, filled the cO:lrtyard, c1umouring for bread. Turgot was then in Paris, ,,,,·here he had gone to hold a conference with the lieutenant of police and l\farshal Biron. The king appeared at the balcony, wished to speak, but was not listened to¥ The rumour spread that he had yielded to the urgent advice of his entourage, and that he had promised to impose a duty of two SOllS (onc penny) on bread. The correspondence of the king with Turgot, preserved amongst the Lantheuil records by :Marquis Turgot, con tradicts this opinion most decidedly. On the 2nd of .May, 1775, Louis XVI wrote indeed two letters to Turgot.; the fonner is dated J I o'clock in the morning; the latter, two (/clock in the afternoon. Here is the text of both : "~Iay 2, 1775, I I o'clock in the morning.

H I have just received your letter, sir, by ~1. de Beauveau. Versailles is attacked, and by the same people who went to Saint-Germain. I shall settle with .l\larshal de :i\Iuy and ~t d'Atrry as to what is to be done; you :may rel)· on my firmness. I have just despatched the guards to the market-pla<:e; I am very satisfied with the pre<:autions you have taken (or Paris, l~cl'ers of LOllis X VI. I 19 whcrt:,~ I most fcared lest disQrders should break out; you rn~y tdl:\1. ll~~rticr that I approve his conduct.; you will dQ wt:11 h) put umkr .Ur(~5t the pt.~rsons you mention; but t.~spcciaHy, when you havc SCt~urcd them, let there be no hurry, but pk~nty of questions. I have just given orders for what is tQ be done h~~re, and for the markets and mi11s of the neighbourhood. Ii LOUIS." Three hOUlS afterwards, a fresh leU(:,:r: "Two o'clock, Tuesday, ~Iay 2nd. '"' I have just seen :\1. Bcrtit'r, sir; I howe bt~en very satisfiedwith the arrangements taken by him with respect to the Oise and the Lower Seine; he gave me an account of what took place at Gonessc, and of the encourage ments he had given to the labourers and <:orndealcrs not to interrupt the trade. I have sent orders to the Comp~\ny of Noaillcsat Beauvais to arrange with him in case of need. He has just started for :Mantes, whert~ he will find ~lt lIeubn the light cavalry and the gendannes, who are diret:tcd to arrang<.~ with him; he will, besides, find infantry in both towns. The musketeers are under orders to hold themseh'cs in readiness at Paris, a.ccording to the ne(~d you may have of them j the Black, who are all quartered at the Faubourg Saint~Ant()ine, can send detachments in the direction of the :\Iarne.; and the GrtJ', in the Faubourg Saint~Germain, can ()r\yard some towards th(~ Lowt:r Seine. 1\1. "Intendant has told me that he entertains no fcars for the Upper Seine and the :Marne, which do not supply any Hour; nevertheless 120 Ttergot.

we shall despatch troops there. The colonel-.general shall go to .Montereau and to :\IeIun, ~uld Lorraine t() Meaux. Here we are perfectly easy. The riot was beginning to assume serious proportions; the forces sent put a stop to it, and the rioters kept quiet before them . .1\1. de neauveau, who went there, asked them some questions; some answered that they came from Sartrou· ville and from Carrieres Saint~Denis;. the others said that they came from more than twenty villages; the greater part said that they had no bread, and that they had come to have some; they showed some very b,ld barley loaves for which they had paid two sous (one penny); that w.as the only brt'ud they could procure. The greatest blunder committed was that the market had not been open; as soon as it was so, everything went on very well. The people bought and sold as if nothing had happened. They went off afterwards, and detach ments of the body~guards followed them to know the direction they took. I do not believe the Joss has been considerable. I have caused soldiers to be stationed on the road to Chartres, and on those leading to the mills of the Orsay and Chevreuse valleys; precautions are like· wise taken for the Neauphle and Rambouillet markets.

I trust that aU the communications will he free, and that trade will go on reguhuly. I have recommended to ~I. l'Intendant to find out, jf he can, those who paid; I look upon them as our best capture. H I shall not go out to·day ; not that I fear in the least, but I wanl everything to quiet down.

Di'slllrbal1tesill Paris. I 2 J u ~I. de Deau\'eau interrupts me to inform me of a foolish step which has been taken, namely, allow the rioters to take bread at two sous. He pretends that there is no middle course between permitting them to take it thus, and compelling them under threats of the bayonet to buy it at the present prices. This market is over, but when the next occurs t the greatest precautions must be taken to prevent the rioters (rom coming to lay down their conditions. Let me know what had best be done. for the state of things is most perplexing. 'Turgot returned to Versailles in the COurse of the evening; he immediately cancelled the order of ~.J. de lleauveau, and prohibited the requiring of the mct(;hnnts and bakers that they should sell corn or bread under market price. The next day, ~fay 3rd, the rioters entered I)aris, and began plundering; U in some of the streets one might have fancied one's self in a town taken by storm/' The police showed no energy, and allowed the men to have it their own way; it is even stated that they obliged several bakers to open their shops) and that the mutineers were at liberty to carry off bread without paying for it.

Turgot, who was incessantly going from Versailles to Paris, and from Paris to Versailles, requested the council to meet during the night of the 3rd to the 4th of )lay. 1775. He spoke most energeticallyagainst Lenoir, the lieutenant of police, who had done nothing to stop the 1 122 Turgot. riots, he obtained his dismissal, and caused immediately his friend Albert to be appointed in his place. The commander of the police (gud), both infantry and cavalry, was likewise dismissed, and l\Iarshal Biron organised resistance as in the case of a real war. Two armies ,,·ere raised at once; the one {or Paris, under the orders of Biron; the other for the parts outside the metropolis, under the direction of one of his lieutenants. On the 4th, the rioters tried to recommence the plunder; but the attitude of the troops frightened them. They withdrew, and the Parisians, venturing out to find the riot, as they said, no longer discovered it.

During the da}" the parliament had assembled c:md caused an edict to be posted up forbidding the assembly of groups of idlers, but'adding that the king should be asked to lower the price of bread. Turgot forthwith stopped the distribution of that edict, and directed the parliament's manifesto, posted up in divCl"S places, to be covered by a proclamation forbidding, in the king's name, gatherings, under penalty of death. At the same time he caused an edict to be published assigning to the Tournelle the duty of trying the rioters. The Parliament met a second time to draw up a reply. They asserted that the last-·named edict was an infringement of the rights of "superior police" (hattlt pullet), which had always been onc of the prerogatives of the parliament. They issued a new decree, claiming the right of conduct· ing the case, and praying once more the king to lower the price of the bread. Turgot at once ordered the Bed of Justicc.

parliament to meet at Versailles, (or the purpose of receiving the king's commands in a bed of justice. The sitting was held on the morning of the 5th. As Turgot was not present, the king informed him by a note, dated 6 ddock p.m., that everything had passed off <luietly, and that the councillors cc had toned down much Qf their impertinence." "1 nearly lost my memory at the first speech," said the king, "but I made up for it as I could, without getting disconcerted." In this bed of justice the decree of the previous day was annulled, and the trying of the rioters was given to the jrh.'(Usit la marfchll tJ.Utt. The commissionprh~(Uale, immediately called together, sent to the gallows two poor wretches, who ascended the gallows sa)'ing that they were dying for the peQple; a few fights took place in the country districts, and twenty· three peasants---so it is said--were killed in an engage ment which occurred on the Versailles highroad.

At the same time, and to reassure the dealers in corn, Turgot reimbursed to them the amount of the goods they had lost. The (Cl11l1ntl1lCS were obliged to pay the damages caused by the rioters. A friend of the 1\larquis de :Mimbeau, named Butre, wrote to Turgot, asking him to be exonerated from the tax to which his property had been assessed in consequence of the riots. Turgot thus :mswered him: "As for the compensation you ha\'e to pay for reparation of the damages suffered by the corn, I acknowledge that it is disagreeable for you, as it is for many others who certainly have taken no part in the I 2 124 TU1'gOt. rtoting; but you must feel that if the general distribution of these kinds of compensation is an evil for the innocent persons upon whom it falls, it is nevertheless indispem)~ able in order to establish the confidence of traders against popular outbreaks, and to interest the whole of the country in preventing and opposing them."

This was a great victory for Turgot. The king had supported him with firmness. "You are quite right in saying," thus Louis XVI wrote on 1\lay 6th, "that all this will cost a great deal of money and necessitate great re¥ trenchments; but whether a little more or a little less~ we must have passed through this crisis, and as, some~ times, e\'j) leads to good, people will have seen from this affair that I am not so weak as was supposed, and that I shall know how to carry on what I have resolved to do; this will render easier the operations we may have to perform; the fact is that I am more embarrassed with one man than with fifty." Turgot, then, enjoyed at that time the king's fuJI con~ fidence; he had triumphed not only over the riot, but also over the opposition of the parliament. the esprit de I~rondc of the Parisians, the affected indifference of his colleagues. The Parisians had pretended that they had hunted about (or the riot, and had not found it. 'Vhen an was over, they made songs about it; the women wore caps ala rn'ulle, and the name of guerrt des jan'Izes was given for fun to this popular movement. Everyone believed in a plot. In his instructions and decrees, Turgot makes the king expressly say so. CI The Turgols Pottier. 12 5 destruction, ft he writes, "was committed by men foreign to the parishes which they came to plunder ..•. It seems as though the purpose of this plot \Vas to <,:reate a real famine in the provinces around Paris, and in Paris itself, in order to drive the people to the last excesses through want and despair." (Instructions sent by his .~lajesty's orders to all the curt.r of his kingdom, I\fay9th, 1775.) \Vriting to the king of Sweden on the 15t.h of July following, Louis XVI said: "The bad harvest, and the evil disposition of cert:lin persons whose schemes were concerted, have led some rogues to plunder certain rnarkets." l\laria Theres~'l, answering to ~tarie Antoin·· cue, remarked: "1 believe, as you do, that there is something under an this." ~[any persons were accused of having taken a part in this plot. Some said it was Sartine ; Turgot believed that Conti was the instigator. "I would not dare to affirm that this rumour was without founda~ lion," l\larmontd 'writes in his memoirs.

The hope of the instigatorsof the riot was, however, very much deceived, for never did Turgot enjoy greater power with the king than during the days ''.thieh f()lIowed the repression of the disturbances. The support given to him by ~falesherbes in his rtmtmtral1CUof l\lay 21St, 1775t and the accession of that great and good man to the ministry, confirmed his triumph. The queen herself, who was the secret stay of the Choiseul party, seemed disarmed,for a space of time, alas! too short.

126 71lrgol. III. But we must retrace our steps. In order not to interrupt the narrative of the corn~business from the re-establishment of free trade, September 13, 1774, to the gucrre desjarinc'fJ,May 2-·6, 1775, we have left aside for further discussion the greatest event connected with the beginning of the reign, we mean the reinstatement of the parliaments. The l\:[aupeou CQUp d'etat, as it was then called, had created a profound sensation when it took place in 177I, and at the accession of Louis XVI that sensation was still lasting with the same intensity as on the first day. The suppression of the parliaments, and the cruel violences exercised against their members, had raised an opposition of feeling which kept up and further increased the formidable opposition of interest excited in the magistracy by the radical change which l\-1aupeou had prepared. The new sovereign was strongly urged to return to the old organisation of justice. ~Iaupeou, besides, had not been able to stccr clear of a rock on which revolutions most frequently make shipwreck in which the question of persons have a leading share. The substitutions, hurriedly made, left much to be desired; the new judges had less merit than the old ones. These sham-judges (juges p()Stt"CMS), as they were called, enjoyed, not unreasonably, no consideration. A kind of public opinion seemed therefore to force upon the government, l?ccall l!f Ihc Partifl/Ilenl. 12 7 even independently of the society amidst which the parties concerned moved, the dismissal of the new judges and the rc<:".aH of the former ones. J...et us not make a mistake, hem'ever, The destruction of the old par1i~\,· ments, and the establishment of a magistracy whose sole business would have been to administer justice without troubling itself with either government or politics~ were the preliminary conditions of the civjJ~ economic, and political reforms which might have prevented the violt~nces of the close of the century, and aHowed the French Revolution to accomplish its work by making gradually the principles of modern government succeed to those of the ancien r:~111t. In an article on Louis XV I and Turgot (Ccrrtspmulanl, AU&rtlst 1868), 1\:1. de Larey considers the recall, of the parliaments as the first step taken in the direction of a political system which, according to him, could find its issue only in danger.

Turgot was opposed to the recall, and, so far, was in agreement with all his cone~gues, except ~faurepas. " It is stated, U says the ~Ietra correspondence. t "that the king has been obliged to take upon himself the whole responsibility of the business, and even to use his authority for this purpose of bringing it about; the members of the council took the opposite view." 13ut 1tlaurepas was clever, more so than Turgot, and he ended by isolating him. Condorcet wrote to Turgot to beg of him to persevere in his resistance, and most of his arguments were no 128 Turgot. doubt in perfect agreement with those which Turgot gave to himself. "P(~oplc sar," Condorcet writes (October or November 1174), "that the old parliament is about to return uncon ditionally, that is to say, with its insolence, its pretensions, and its prejudices. From this arrangement it results that all reforms in the laws are impossible, because our laws are excellent for the judges and detestable for the persons tried. The more cruel, secret, and oppressive criminal jurisprudence is, the more powerful are the parliaments. As these gentlemen ignore or despise public opinion, their only anxiet)', it is said, will always be to enjoy the favour of the population; they will defend all the tyrannies of the prohibitive system, stand in the way of all freedom, and excite seditions against any minister who would endeavour to establish a liberal policy. As these gentlemen hold the views maintained by the fools of the fourteenth century, as they are ridicu lously ignorant of all that is not to be found in the OIim register, as they despise an light, all philosophy, and are puffed up with an amount of pride equal to their ignorance, they will be the enemies of all light, they will persecute it, and will tf}' to drive us back to that state of barbarism which in their remonstrances they call the simplicity of good old times . . . .

"Adieu, sir; I cannot tolerate that you should be a minister, and yet that good should be unattainable." Turgot, no doubt, took care not to show Condorcet's letter to the members of the council ,; and if he opposed The Pariian/cIII. 12 9 th(~ reinstatement of the parliaments, it was, of course, hy nddudng the interests of the royal authority. A pupil of the ph)'siocf'oles,ht7 was necessarily touched by their doctrines, those even which might have s(~emed to him excessive. lIe further believed, with the utmost sinccritYt that the king had the power of altering the ancient institutions ()f the country whenever the good of the public made it a duty for him to do so) and he did not admit that the intervention of the parliament was necessary to impart to the royal decisions a compulsory legislative character. Some pers(ms have e\'en ascribed to him the following maxim, so often repeated since hy ·t~e Jacobin school, that is to say, by the men who have always been most opposed to his economic doctrines: "Allow me five )'e.us of despotism t and Fr~nce shall be frce,"

'Ve must acknowledge that Turgot had not all his freedom of action to oppose, in the council nnd in the presence of the king, the propositionmade by :Maurepas to recall the parliaments. He had helped in the dis~ missal of Terray and ~raupeou, and it was Terray himself whose place he had fined, after having had to put up with him as a colleague, we know with-impatience, for the space of three months. It was at n meeting of the council, while he sat in his capacity as l\linister of the Navy, on the anniversary of Saint Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1774, that the exileof Terrnyand of1\faupeou had been decided, He was,accordingly, responsibte,as weB as his colle:lgues, for what was called a Saint Barlhu/a13° Ttt':f ot. lIle1f/s massa(re ()Imini's/ers,and he certainly would not have contradicted Count d'Aranda, who, hearing the phrase, had added: " Yes, but it is not the massacre of the Innocents." ~laupeou's exile had for its natural con sequence the reinstatement of the parliaments. Turgot was obliged to put up with it, because the proposition of }laurepas was the natural const.~quence of a political system to which he had associated himself with dis~· tinction. On November 29, 1774, Louis XVI, in a bed of justice, reinstated 10 their functions the members of the parliament of Paris who had been deprived of them on January 24th, 1771; but he took, or thought he took, in a series of edicts registered at that same bed of justke, precautions against the administrative or political en croachments of the judicial courts. The parliament met, several days later, to protest against the diminution of its authority, and soon matters resumed their old course, despite the edicts which accompanied the reinstalment of the judges. The parli3ment looked upon itself as charged quite as much by the past, jf not more, to defend what it called the old constitution of the realm against the reforms which it was the design of some persons to introduce into it.

The day when parliament recovered its power has been a fa~'\l one for France. It was on]y too easy to perceive that the parliament would fatally become the instrument of Turgot's downfall, and that by persisting in maintaining the order of things to which the name of ancien regime has been given, it would render a peaceful re\'olution more and more difficult.