Chapter 2

"Nature had bestowed on the Duke of Orleans all those gifts which usually captivate mankind. His physiognomy was agreeable and prepossessing: to a natural eloquence he joined uncommon sweetness of manner. Brave, full of liveliness, his penetration was never at fault, and his abilities would have procured for him distinction at the head of councils or armies. Those Who were about his person became attached to him, because they found him amiable and indulgent. They lamented his faults, without ceasing to love him, carried away by the graces of his character and amiability of his manners, which recalled, they said, those of his grandfather, Henry IV. He had the good fortune, rare in princes, to preserve his friends to the hour of his death. He readily forgave offences and pardoned injuries. But the mind endowed with so many amiable qualities was destitute of that which can alone develop or turn them to good account--he had no force of character. Without the energy which prompts crime, he was equally without that which leads to virtue. After having lost his first preceptor, his ill fortune placed him in the hands of Dubois, the most corrupt of men. This Dubois, the son of an apothecary of Brives-la-Gaillarde, founded his hopes of fortune on the entire demoralisation of the prince committed to his care. Inspired by the genius of vice, he divined and encouraged the vices of others, and above all of his master. He taught him to believe that virtue is but a mask worn by hypocrisy, a chimera on which no one can rely in the business of life; that religion is a political invention, of use only to the lower people; that all men are cheats and deceivers, and pretended rectitude a mere cover for intended villany. Madame, the mother of the Regent, early discovered the character of this detestable man. 'My son,' said she, 'I desire nothing but the good of the state and your glory: I ask but one thing for your safety, and I demand your word of honour for it--it is never to employ that scoundrel the Abbé Dubois--the greatest miscreant on the earth: who would at any time sacrifice the state and you to the slightest interest of his own.' The Duke of Orleans gave his word accordingly, but he was not long of breaking it. Shortly after, he made Dubois a councillor of state. The debaucheries into which that man impelled him soon became all indispensable distraction for that soft and enervated mind, to which the _ennui_ of a court was insupportable. He loved its scandal and rumours--even the report of incest was not displeasing to him. Every evening, he assembled his _roués_, his mistresses, some _danseuses_ from the Opera, often his daughter the Duchess de Berri,[3] and some persons of obscure birth, but brilliant for their talent or renowned for their vices. At these suppers the choicest viands, the finest wines, exhilarated the guests, all the disorders and scandal of court and the city were passed in review. They drank, they became intoxicated; the conversation became licentious; impieties of every sort issued from every mouth. At last, fatigued with satiety, the party was broken up: those who could walk retired to rest; the others were carried to bed;--and the next evening a similar scene was renewed."--(Vol. i. pp. 22-24.)

It may be conceived what an effect manners such as these pervading the head of a court, already sufficiently inclined to excitement and gratification, must have had upon the general tone of morals among the higher ranks. M. de Tocqueville portrays it in strong colours, but not stronger we believe than the truth:--

"The disorders of its head spread to all the branches of the royal family. There was not a princess who had not her lover--not a prince who had not his mistresses. This system soon descended from the palace to the hotels of the nobles. Conjugal fidelity was considered as a prejudice, fit only to be the subject of ridicule. Adultery became the fashion, intemperance a path to distinction--the seduction of women was deemed the great object of life, and conquests in that line were sought as the highest glory; minds absorbed in the frivolous pursuits of a man _à bonnes fortunes_, became incapable of attention to serious affairs. When a young woman appeared in the world, no inquiries were made as to the union which prevailed in her establishment, the sole point was what lover they were to give her. The men with pretensions in that line, the corrupted women, entered into a league to plunge her into crime; and in that abominable lottery, they fixed beforehand on the person to whom she was to fall. The example of the Duchess de Berri obtained many imitators. Sometimes devotion was mingled with debauchery, as if a feeble struggle was still kept up between the recollections of the past and the seductions of the present. Women of gallantry, ambitious debauchees, passed from their orgies to the cloister; and the abstinence of penitence furnished some respite to the pleasure of the world and the agitations of politics. Such was the society of the great world, under the regency. The impulse given to vice during that period, continued through that which followed it. Neither the good example given by Louis XV., during the first years of his youth, nor the grave habits of Cardinal de Fleury, could avail as a barrier to the inundation. It only abated something of its audacity; more veiled, it excited less public scandal."--(Vol. i. p. 31.)

It is impossible that in any country, but most of all in a monarchical and in aristocratic one, such manners can exist in the higher ranks, without inducing a total depravity of general thought, and perversion of the power of mind. Talent, often the most venal of venal things, follows in the wake of corruption. Covetous of gain, thirsting for patronage, it fans, instead of lowering, the passions by which all hope to profit. Whenever prevailing vices have set in upon a nation, be they such as spring from a monarchical, an aristocratic, or a democratic régime, the great majority of its abilities will do nothing but encourage its excesses, because it is there alone they can gain profit. A few great and generous minds will probably set themselves to resist the torrent, and they may produce a great effect upon a future age; but in their own, they are almost sure to meet with nothing but ridicule, abuse, and neglect. We see this deplorable subservience of talent, even of a very high cast, to the taste of the majority holding preferment in their hands, around us in Great Britain at this time; and the same evil was experienced in an equal degree in France during the whole course of the reign of Louis XV. and his virtuous but ill-fated successor.

"The reign," says Tocqueville, "of Louis XIV. finished: that of Louis XV. commenced. During its course we shall see every thing change: of old forms there will remain only the shadow. Never was alteration more complete among mankind."

"In lieu of lofty thoughts, and their serious expression, will appear a sterile futility. An incurable frivolity will get possession of the high society, and come entirely to direct thought. Licentiousness of language will accompany wicked manners, and lend a seduction the more to vice. Libertinism becomes the fashion. Impiety _á la mode_, miserable vanities, will supplant a noble pride to achieve a reputation in letters: it will become necessary to raise a doubt, wherever truth has been admitted. Amidst the din of feasts and the music of the ball-room, they will sap the foundations of religion, morality, and society. They will call themselves philanthropic, they will declaim on humanity--at the very moment that they are taking from the people the consolations which render supportable the miseries of life, and the religious curb which suspends wrath and restrains vengeance. It is thus, also, that they will obtain the envied title of philosophy, and merit the protection of the great; for they, too, will desire the reputation of _Esprits forts_. All will give way together. In war, no more great generals. The pulpit will no longer resound with the illustrious orators, whose words seemed to descend from divine inspiration. Statesmen will be without elevation: instead of able men, mere intriguers: the influence of talent will be replaced by the influence of coteries. Business will be treated of in boudoirs, and decided according to the caprice of abandoned women. They will dispose of administrations, lower politics to the level of their own minds, and even ecclesiastical dignities will depend on their patronage. As a consequence of that general debasement, an unmeasured disdain will arise in the inferior classes of all that is great in the state. Doubt will be applauded, and it will extend to the power of the king, the noblesse, and the clergy. The spirit of investigation and analysis will replace the flights of the imagination. Men will sound the depths of that power which they have ceased to regard with respect. The authorities of the earth will not be sufficiently respected to make them look up to them--they must bring them down to their own level, and look below them. A terrible reaction will arise--the result of old rancours to which general feeling will no longer oppose any barrier. On all sides will spring up the ideas of liberty and independence. Meanwhile the redoubtable progress of a revolution, which is advancing, will escape the observation of those whom it is to swallow up; for the frivolity of their lives, and the vacancy of their thoughts, will have deprived them of all foresight."--(Vol. i. p. 22.)

The courage with which the French church frequently denounced the vices and corruptions in high places with which it was surrounded, has always been one of the most honourable features of its glorious annals. Massillon, in the corrupted days of the regency, was not behind Bourdalone and Bossuet and Fénélon, in the time of Louis XIV., in the discharge of this noble duty:--

"When Massillon ascended the pulpit to instruct the young king, he threatened with the wrath of God the great on the earth who violated his commandments, and the Regent manifested no displeasure: conscience had palsied his mind. Never had religion been more sublime,--never did she appear clothed in more magnificent language. To the profound corruption of the court, the preacher opposed the example of the little and the weak; to their pride, the virtue of the poor, and its omnipotence in the sight of God. 'If Providence permits,' said he, 'the elevation of some unworthy characters, it is that they may be rendered useful to others. All power comes from God, and is established only for the use of man. The great would be useless on the earth if they were not surrounded by the poor and the indigent; they owe their elevation to the public necessities; and, so far are the people from being made for them, it is they who are made for the people. It is the people who give the great the right which they have to approach the throne; and it is for the people that the throne itself has been raised. In a word, the great and the princes are but, as it were, the men of the people: thence it is that the prosperity of the great and their ministers, and of the sovereigns who have been the oppressors of the people, has never brought any thing but shame, ignominy, and maledictions to their descendants. We have seen issue from that stem of iniquity the shameless shoots which have been the disgrace of their name and of their age. The Lord has breathed upon the heaps of their ill-gotten riches; he has dispersed them as the dust: if he yet leaves on the earth the remnants of their race, it is that they may remain an eternal monument of his vengeance.

"'The glory of a conqueror will be always stained with blood:--He passes like a torrent over the earth, only to devastate it, and not as a majestic river which brings joy and abundance. The remembrance of his reign will recall only the recollection of the evils he has inflicted on humanity. The people suffer always from the vices of their sovereign. Whatever exaggerates authority, vilifies or degrades it; princes, ruled by their passions, are always pernicious and bizarre masters. Government has no longer a ruler when its head has none.

"'The Lord has ever blown on the haughty races and withered their roots. The prosperity of the impious has never passed to their descendants. Thrones themselves, and royal succession have failed, to effeminate and worthless princes; and the history of the crimes and excess of the great is, at the same time, the history of their misfortunes and of their fall.

"'Prince's and sovereigns cannot be great but in rendering themselves useful to the people--in bringing them, like Jesus Christ, abundance and peace. The liberty which princes owe to their people, is the liberty of the laws. You know only God above you, it is true; but the laws should have an authority even superior to yourselves.

"'A great man--a prince--is not born for himself alone. He owes himself to his subjects. The people, in elevating him, have entrusted him with power and authority, and have reserved to themselves, in exchange, his care, his time, his vigilance. He is a superintendant whom they have placed at their head to protect and defend them. It is the people who, by the order of God, have made them what they are.--Yes, Sire! _It is the choice of the nation which has put the sceptre in the hand of your ancestors._ It is it which proclaimed them sovereigns. The kingdom came in time to be considered as the inheritance of their successors; but they owed it at first to the free consent of their subjects, and it was the public suffrages which, in the beginning, attached that right and that prerogative to their birth. In a word, as their prerogative first flowed from ourselves, so kings should make no use of their power but for us.'"--(Vol. i. p. 67.)

Such was the eloquent and intrepid language in which Massillon addressed the Regent Orleans and Louis XV., in the plenitude of their power, in the chapel-royal at Versailles. It was a minister of the _established_ church, be it recollected, who thundered in those unmeasured terms to the prince who held in his hands the whole patronage of the church of France. We should like to see a preacher of the Free and popular dissenting establishments of Great Britain or America, thunder in equally intrepid strains on the sins which most easily beset the democratic congregations upon whom their elevation and fortune depend.

"There is nothing new," says the Wise Man, "under the sun." We have seen enough, of late years, of railway manias, and the almost incredible anxiety of all classes to realise something in the numerous El Dorados which infatuation or cupidity set afloat in periods of excitement. But, from the following account of De Tocqueville, it appears that a hundred and thirty years ago the same passions were developed on a still greater scale in France; and even our ladies of rank and fashion may take a lesson in these particulars from the marchionesses and countesses of the court of the Regent Orleans.

"In the month of August 1719, the anxiety to procure shares (in the Mississippi scheme) began to assemble an immense crowd in the street Quincampoix, where, for many years, the public funds had been bought and sold. From six in the morning, crowds of people, men and women, rich and poor, gentlemen and burghers, filled the street and never left it till eight at night. There were spread all sorts of rumours, true or false; and all the devices of stock-jobbing were put in practice, in order to effect a rise or fall in the prices. The price of some shares rose to _six-and-thirty times_ their original value. Their price often varied, during the course of a single day, several thousand francs. From this perilous gambling arose alternately incredible fortunes and total ruins.

"The numerous instances which occurred of person who had risen from nothing and suddenly become possessed of immense wealth, raised the public avidity to a perfect frenzy. At that epoch of scandal and opprobrium, there was no folly or vice in which the high society did not take the lead. The degradation of men's minds was equal to the corruption of their manners. The courtiers, even the princes of the blood, besieged the Regent to obtain shares. He flung them among them with open hands; and soon they were seen mingling in the crowds of speculators, and covetous like them of discreditable gains. 'My son,' said the Regent's mother, 'has given me, for my family, two millions in shares. The King has taken some millions for his house. The whole royal family have received some; all the children of France, all their grandsons and princes of the blood.'--(28th Nov. 1719.)

"Women of the highest rank did not scruple to pay the most assiduous court to Law to obtain shares. They passed whole days in his ante-chamber waiting for an audience, which he very seldom gave them. One caused her carriage to be overturned before his door to attract his attention, and had the good fortune, in consequence, to get a few words from him. Another stopped before his hotel and made her servants call out 'Fire,' to force him to come out, and thus obtain an interview. They were to be seen seated on the front part of the carriage of Madame Law, striving to obtain from her a profitable friendship. That woman who had the effrontery to take the name of Law, though she was only his mistress, treated them with hauteur.

"The same passion was not less vehement in the other classes of society. The latest _arrêts_ of the council had ordained that all shares should be paid in paper: and instantly a crowd assembled round the bank, to exchange their gold and silver for bank-notes. The women sold their diamonds and pearls, the men their plate. Ere long the provinces became envious of the profits made in the capital, and desirous to share in them: proprietors sold their lands for whatever they would bring, and hastened to Paris to acquire the much coveted shares. Ecclesiastics, bishops even, did not scruple to mingle in these transactions. In a short time, the population of the capital was increased by three hundred thousand souls. Foreigners also arrived in crowds; but, less intoxicated by the prevailing madness than the French, they foresaw the fatal denoûement, and, for the most part, extricated themselves in time from its effects."--(Vol. i. pp. 129, 130.)

The ultimate issue of this, as of all other general manias, was disastrous in the extreme.

"The rise of shares having at length experienced a check, they continued for some time to oscillate up and down without any material variation, according to the devices employed by skilful speculators. These variations occasioned enormous changes in the fortune of the gamblers. Those newly enriched, displayed an unheard-of luxury; hastening to enjoy wealth which had come to them like a dream, and which the wakening from it might dissipate. Never had the equipages been so magnificent, never so numerous. Laquais rolled about in their chariots, and, from the force of habit, were seen sometimes _to get upon the back of their own carriages_. 'Put the most showy arms on my coach,' said one to his coach-maker. 'I will have that livery,' said another, when a particularly stylish one drove past. Their furniture was sumptuous, their repasts exquisite, and the _noblesse_ did not disdain to honour their tables, making such condescension the first step to alliances which might hereafter convey to them some of the profits of their speculations.

"Meanwhile a frightful tumult disturbed every existence. Speculation became universal, unbounded, at length brutal. Persons were crushed to death in the approaches to the Rue Quincampoix: the men with large portfolios were in hourly danger of their lives. Assassinations were committed: a Count de Horn was condemned to be broken on the wheel by the Parliament, and the sentence carried into execution, for having robbed and murdered a courtier. Alarmed at the crowds, the Regent interdicted the speculators from making use of the Rue Quincampoix: they took refuge in the Place Vendôme. In a single day that square was covered with tents, where the most sumptuous stuffs were displayed; and, without disquieting themselves with the wild joy of some, or the abject despair of others, the ladies of the court seated themselves at gambling tables, where the choicest refreshments were handed to them. Bands of musicians and courtezans served to amuse that insensate crowd. Soon its excesses led to its being expelled from the Place Vendôme; it then fixed itself in the Hotel de Soissons."--(Vol. i. pp. 133-134.)

This exceeds even the joint-stock mania of 1824, or the railway mania of 1845, in this country, of which, in the conclusion of his first volume of "Tancred," Mr D'Israeli has given a graphic picture. Lady Bertie and Bellair, whose billet regarding the "_broad gauge_" occasioned her to swoon, and dispelled the romantic attachment of Lord Montacute, was but a repetition of the French countesses, who thronged the antechambers of Law a century before. More vehement in their desires, more mercurial in their temperament than the English, the French, when seized with any general mania, push it even into greater excesses, and induce upon themselves and their country more wide-spread calamities.

M. De Tocqueville frequently says that he is not a military historian; and although he has considerable powers of description, and, like all his countrymen, understands something of the art of war, yet it is very apparent that his inclination does not lie in that direction. We gladly give a place, however, to his admirable account of the battle of Fontenoy, and the exploits of the famous "English column," which, though in the end unsuccessful, displayed a valour on the banks of the Scheldt which foreshadowed the heroism of Albuera and Waterloo:--