Part 10

In his public life, d'Argenson is distinguished rather for what he might have done than for anything he did. In 1745 he was, as it has been necessary to show, in no sense responsible for the policy of France; while throughout the year 1746 his position was being undermined in all directions. There was, however, at least one transaction for which his responsibility is clear and undivided. His conduct of the Negotiation of Turin displays in brief the character of the man, and the peculiar qualities of his statesmanship. It reveals one capital defect, the defect of one who has been long accustomed to look upon the world through his own eyes. He made a fatal mistake in attributing his own motives to the Sardinian Government, and in imagining that it would consent for a national ideal to hazard its present and material interests. He did not see that in offering the King of Sardinia the hegemony of the Italian states, he was inviting him to accept the desperate part which had been played by Frederick in Silesia; and that, though the reward would indeed be brilliant, it was far too distant and uncertain to be readily sought by the Government of Turin. The defect, grave as it was, proceeded chiefly from lack of the experience, which a man like d'Argenson can only gain through the terrible bitterness of a first disappointment. We have only to consider the incident further to see that no man ever compassed disaster with so many of the qualities which make for success. The scheme was distinguished by grandeur of conception, and in pursuing it the author gave proof of decision and intrepidity. Incidentally he achieved one triumph of which any statesman might be proud. His dealings with Spain were a monument of reasoned daring and determination; and the acceptance of the Treaty of Turin by Elisabeth Farnese is the most striking tribute that could have been paid to d'Argenson's political capacity. It is true that he was carried away by an enthusiasm which a longer experience would certainly have chastened; and that he courted disaster by endeavouring to accomplish in three weeks the work of thirty, or a hundred and thirty, years. Yet his callow temerity was not ignoble; and French diplomacy can boast of few more honourable failures.

France owes to d'Argenson one lasting debt. He strove, as gallantly as ever man could, to arrest the disintegration of French policy. His determination to adhere to the anti-Austrian tradition embroiled him with his colleagues in the Ministry, and became the occasion of his fall; while it has been made the principal ground of impeachment by certain writers of his own country. He is charged with having sacrificed the substantial interests of France to his blind prejudice in favour of Prussia; and with having refused to recognise the new problems created by the decline of the Austrian House. Such criticism must not pass unchallenged.

It cannot be too clearly remembered that to French statesmen in 1745 the decline of Austria had not yet begun.[376] Fondly had they dreamed of the ruin of her dominion; they woke up to find that in the person of Maria Theresa the Hapsburg dynasty had renewed its youth. The Austrian succession had been maintained in arms; and it would never even have been questioned had it not been for Frederick's seizure of Silesia. As to Frederick himself we have to beware of misconceptions; for in much of French criticism with regard to him we recognise the impressions of 1763--or even of 1870. No one suspected what was in the man, and it was not until December, 1745, that people began to think of him as "the Great." Only three months before the campaign in Saxony, which won from his people and wrung from his enemies that noble salutation, he was described by the oldest of his admirers, d'Argenson himself, as "a man who _might have been great_."[377] It was not until after the Treaty of Dresden that he ceased to be looked upon as merely an able and unscrupulous prince who had wantonly provoked the resentment of his neighbours, and who had only to be abandoned by his one ally to receive the punishment his insolence had deserved. When, in the previous September, the Empress, at the cost of some of her Flemish provinces, offered to purchase the withdrawal of France, neither she nor d'Argenson mistook for a moment the real meaning of the proposal. In all human probability Frederick would have been doomed. Those who suggest that the "traitor of Hanover" should have been abandoned to his fate, forget the sublime capacity for vengeance with which men like Frederick are endowed. If such a man had yielded to the Empress the sword of Prussia, it would have been to receive it back as the sword of the Empire. The Imperial troops, headed by the Prussians and commanded by the victor of Friedbourg, would have marched to wrest from the common enemy his ill-gotten provinces of Flanders and Lorraine; France might have taken the place of Saxony, and the pride of Paris been bitterly rebuked a hundred years before the time. D'Argenson may not have seen all this; but he was a statesman and a thinker, and he was wise enough to know that such cheap successes as the Empress offered him are often the very dearest of all. With an admirable moral courage, he maintained that nothing Frederick could do, no treason he might contrive, could lessen the interest of France in maintaining him in Silesia; and he would not allow the resentments of a month to obscure the tradition or the teaching of a century.

In maintaining his policy, d'Argenson had to struggle against the irresistible current which was carrying the Monarchy to destruction. Since the death of Louis XIV., private convenience had been the only criterion of national interest. Dubois and Fleury, for their own purposes, had dismantled the tradition of French foreign policy; and though an effort had been made to re-establish it by Chauvelin and his pupil d'Argenson, their work could not long stand against the forces of disintegration. After d'Argenson's withdrawal no further attempt was made, and he lived to see the complete surrender of those cherished principles he had striven so bravely to maintain. D'Argenson admired and reverenced Richelieu; and he has been laughed at for aspiring to be his worthy successor.[378] Banished from power until the age of fifty, he could never attain the eminence of his master. He could only defend for the last time the policy which that master had bequeathed to France.

His defence was in vain. The collapse abroad heralded the collapse at home. It was only in 1789 that the French Monarchy surrendered its charter to the French People. It had resigned it, thirty-three years before, into the hands of Maria Theresa.

V.

1747-1757.

A momentous decade--The Journal--Private life.

It was on the 10th of January, 1747, that d'Argenson's ministry came to an end. For a year or so he found it a little hard to support his banishment from power; but it is plain that after that time his personal ambitions were gradually forgotten amid the press and play of wider interests. It is true that he never quite dismisses his hopes of office, and that he even fondles the pretty, courtier-like phrase with which he will accept an invitation to return; but there is none of the ardent, even feverish anticipation which clouds the period before his ministry; and we feel that when he speaks of his own prospects it is with the smiling, tranquil air of a man who is fond of pleasant dreams. He was far from being unhappy. The ten years that preceded his death were a period when a man of d'Argenson's character will desire rather to watch than to work.

Though his outward life meanwhile was devoid of incident, it was inwardly full of stir and excitement. Throughout these years society in France was passing through the most critical of all its phases. Men's veins were tingling with that new wine with which the old bottles were already bursting; while across the history of the time is writ the word of omen--Revolution. It is this that lends to d'Argenson's pages such a vivid power and fascination.

The chief interest of his retirement was the composition of that Journal which is, and which he evidently designed to be, the most important commentary on a momentous period. He spared no pains to obtain direct and definite information, securing correspondents at the Court, in the Parlement, in the army, and in every department of the public service; while in handling events he added to the industry of the chronicler the grasp and acumen of a political expert. It is from these pages that we catch the impression of d'Argenson's power. We feel that a man cannot act in one year like a blind, blundering doctrinaire, and write like a statesman in the next. It may be useful to glance very lightly at the history of the time as it appeared to one of its most sagacious observers. In doing so we are in the hands of a cicerone who is not satisfied to speak by rote.

In December, 1747, after speaking sorrowfully of the national prospects, d'Argenson writes:--

"Will any one have the hardihood to propose an advance towards republican government. So far as I see, the people are utterly unfitted for it; the nobility, the great lords, the tribunals, accustomed as they are to servitude, have never turned their thoughts in that direction, and they have no inclination of the kind. Still these ideas are coming, and a habit is readily formed among the French."[379]

Two years after these words were written a profound change had taken place. The terms of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had created grave discontent; and it was fanned to the heat of fury by the news that the idol of the Parisian populace, the English Prince Charles Edward, was to be expelled from France. His violent arrest at the doors of the Opera aroused bitter indignation, which d'Argenson shared.

"This 'garrotting' will be an eternal disgrace for France. We shall be put, no doubt, by the side of Cromwell, who beheaded his king. For no purpose whatever we have garrotted the lawful heir to this Crown. Nay more, he had been useful to us, and we were indebted to him for an effective diversion which placed Brussels in our hands. It will be long before people have done talking of this" (December, 1748).[380]

People did more than talk. The event gave rise to some of the most venomous tirades that indignation ever wrung from helplessness; and curiously enough, it was the starting point of that alert and violent opposition which vexed the country for forty years. The excitement occasioned by it had not subsided when a renewal of the great struggles between the Crown, the Clergy, and the Parlement, gave a new motive to popular passion. The clergy refused to administer extreme unction to those who had not accepted the Bull Unigenitus; they were opposed by the resolution of the Parlement of Paris; the Crown interfered on behalf of the clergy; and Church and Crown united their forces in an endeavour to coerce the Parlement. At the same time the attempt of the Controller-General Machault to force the vingtième upon clergy and people alike united the Church and the Parlement in opposition to the Crown. The Crown, incapable of pursuing a policy of its own, allowed itself to be buffetted between the two parties; it was regarded with alternate scorn and fury; and popular feeling rallied in support of the outraged Parlement of Paris. The Church too was feared, hated, and afterwards despised;[381] and every day added to the influence and prestige of the rising party of Enlightenment.[382]

D'Argenson's attitude throughout the controversy may be summed in a single word. He was with the Parlement against the Church, and with both against the Crown. It is often an occasion of wonder that Machault's proposal to bring the clergy under the ordinary fiscal arrangements of the realm should have met with such violent opposition. In a single sentence d'Argenson reveals the reason:--

"These pamphlets" (for proving "that the King has the whole right and jurisdiction over the property of the clergy") "have been unfavourably received, their cause, their object, being nothing but money, the need of money, the Treasury already so full of money, the Ministry appearing to think so little of relieving the burden of the people, the Court spending right and left; and not a wise reformation of the clergy. That is the thing to excite the people against the soundest principles."[383]

Such a passage alone is sufficient to show the deep distrust into which the Government had fallen. The organ of that distrust was the Parlement of Paris. D'Argenson at first had trembled for its existence; he soon saw that the forces behind it were irresistible.

"In the general commotion," he writes, "the Parlement of Paris has nothing more to fear. The entire nation is rising in opposition to ungoverned and arbitrary will, and they have the Parlements at their head" (April, 1752).[384]

So acute an observer could not fail to see that the most alarming features of the struggle were the indirect results which it might produce. It had scarcely begun when he devoted to it one of the boldest and most penetrating of all his reflections.

"I am afraid that all this, if pushed too far, may produce some great outbreak. Men may arise who, under colour of the clerical cause, will sustain the cause of the nation. With little merit or ability of their own, these men will obtain influence, they will secure the affection of the people. Let no one say that such men exist no longer. The statue is in the block of marble; the meanest of men will rise to the occasion. Even to-day mark how many writers there are of learning and enlightenment. For some years the wind has been blowing from England upon these materials; the materials may catch fire. Look at the tone of the remonstrances against the vingtième prepared by the Parlements and the Estates. These Attorneys-General of Parlement, these syndics of Estates, such might be these great men I speak of; the whole nation might catch fire, the Nobility throwing in its lot with the Clergy, and afterwards the Third Estate. If the result were that it became necessary to summon the States-General of the Realm, they would find occasion to regulate the finances and the demands of money for the future. Those Estates would not assemble in vain. Let the men in power have a care; they would be very much in earnest" (December, 1750).[385]

D'Argenson's apprehensions were soon confirmed. A year later he writes:

"To-day the popular mind is occupied with this approaching revolution in the government; people talk of nothing else, and every one is full of it, even the bourgeois" (November, 1751).[386]

Among high and low the feeling was the same.

"The evil consequences of our absolute monarchy are finally persuading every one, both in France and throughout Europe, that it is the worst of all forms of government. Among men of enlightenment (_philosophes_) I hear nothing but the confident assertion that even anarchy is to be preferred to it; for it leaves to each inhabitant at least the enjoyment of his property, and whatever disorders or acts of violence may occur are to the prejudice of private people only, and not, as now, to the body of the state" (September, 1752).[387]

These eight years of clamour and coercion, violence and weakness, produced a very profound impression upon French society, and upon d'Argenson himself.

"The opinion of the nation is gaining ground, and may lead us far. It is remarked that never until to-day have the names of 'Nation' and 'State' been so frequently in use. Under Louis XIV. these two names were never pronounced, and people had no idea even of their meaning. Never has knowledge of the rights of the nation and of liberty been so widely diffused as it is to-day. Even I, who have always made these matters the subject of thought and study, had a very different mind and feeling with regard to them. The change is due to the Parlement and the English" (June, 1754).[388]

This last word suggests one final reflection, which is prompted by a hundred passages of d'Argenson's Journal, and which, to us at least, is of singular interest. Ten or twenty years before, Frenchmen had been proud of their own government, and had laughed at that of England as a masterpiece of absurdity. After 1750 a change took place. It was not that they had begun to admire the English constitution or the balance of powers commended by Montesquieu; of that they knew little and comprehended less. What they were impressed with was none other than that very spirit of noise and turbulence and apparent disorder which they had before regarded with contemptuous wonder. As they watched their country outstripped in the race, they came to feel that there was some virtue in a rude independence: and that the government of England, anomalous as it appeared, was consistent with national honour and prosperity. If it be allowed, in deference to French protest, that the influence of English philosophy upon the Revolution was slight and circuitous, it is no less true that the influence of the English people and polity was rapid, powerful and direct. In fanning the glow of revolutionary feeling during these seven or eight years at least, the comparative excellence of the English government was only less operative than the worthlessness of the French. It is a fact of which we hear very little, but with which d'Argenson at any rate was deeply impressed.

Interlocked with the political battle, there proceeded a spiritual conflict of far more broad renown. Again light had become darkness; and out of the darkness came the world-old cry, "Let there be Light!" Again with d'Argenson's bright intelligence may we watch the movement of emancipation.

He gives us momentary glimpses of men then painfully struggling into fame, and now as illustrious as their enemies are obscure. Here is the great Encyclopædist, as he first appeared to d'Argenson:

"The man Diderot, author of the obscene book 'Bijoux Indiscrets' and of the 'Aveugle clairvoyant,' has been examined in prison at Vincennes. He received the magistrate with the pride of a fanatic. He was told by the person who examined him that he was an insolent scoundrel, and would remain there for a long time. This Diderot, when arrested, had just finished the composition of a surprising book against religion, entitled 'Le Tombeau des Préjugés'" (August, 1749).[389]

"Buffon, the author of the 'Natural History,' is beside himself with apprehension at the success of his book. The devout party are furious, and mean to have it burnt by the hand of the hangman. It is quite true that it contradicts Genesis completely" (December, 1749).[390]

"Voltaire writes here that he is much pleased with his residence in Prussia. He says he means to show how cleverly he can live with all the world, since he is on the best of terms with the father of the faithful--(the Pope, whose letter he has had printed at the head of his tragedy of 'Mahomet')--and with the father of heretics, the King of Prussia" (April, 1751).[391]

"Jean Jacques Rousseau of Geneva, a pleasing writer and a would-be philosopher, says that men of letters should take these three vows, of poverty, freedom, and truth. That has prejudiced the government against him; he expressed these sentiments in certain prefaces; in consequence he was spoken of in the private apartments, and the King observed that it would be a good plan to have him locked up in Bicêtre. His Serene Highness the Count de Clermont added that it would not be a bad thing to let them give him a sound thrashing as well. People are afraid of these free philosophers. My friend d'Alembert is one of them, and he is threatened with the reprehension of our state Inquisitors. The Jesuits are the prime movers in this system of inquisition" (April, 1753).[392]

In the very centre of light and learning, this Jesuit influence was at work. Here is a little picture of an election to the Académie Française:

"Buffon, whose 'Natural History' is at present under examination by the Sorbonne, and d'Alembert, of the Encyclopædia, are withdrawing in fear of being suddenly branded; there will remain none but fools to elect. I am acquainted too with Bougainville, who hoped for a place but is suspected of Jansenism: and with the Abbé de Condillac, the metaphysician, who, however, has spoken too freely of the soul.... It seems that everything is being done to establish the Inquisition in France; and the more our priests are hated, the more hateful they manage to make themselves" (June, 1753).[393]

To-day, penetrated with the power and impalpability of the spirit, we have lost faith in the arm of flesh. To d'Argenson however, it seemed as though the Unholy Office establishing in France would flourish as fatally as its Spanish prototype.

"'Lettres de cachet' have been issued against the Abbés de Prades and Yvon; the rumour runs that they are also out against Diderot, the principal author of the Encyclopædia. Woe to the enemies of the Jesuits! The French Inquisition is increasing in extent and power; it is now to be reinforced by the bigotry of the Court.... Woe to the honest men who go about their business and are sound of heart and mind, but who are not sufficiently careful to control their tongues when speaking of light and liberty!" (February, 1752).[394]

Among the "honnêtes gens tranquilles, qui ne maîtrisent pas leur langue," none had more reason to tremble than d'Argenson. For some time a remarkable political work of his[395] had been circulating quietly among the Philosophic party; and his religious opinions were at least as licentious as any to be found even among the clergy.[396] By political profession he was an adherent of the Gallican Church; by private conviction he was a deist after the manner of Voltaire, but with none of Voltaire's apostolic bitterness. Deist or Gallican, he was a confirmed enemy of obscurantism in all its forms.[397] His habitual attitude towards it is prettily illustrated in the following passage:

"At last we shall see a ridiculous censure of the Sorbonne upon the 'Esprit des Lois' of President de Montesquieu, for they hold it to contain many things contrary to revealed religion. This condemnation will be a positive scandal, for the 'Esprit' is a philosophical book universally admired, and honourable to our age and nation. This Sorbonne, which is now no more than a carcass, will remind one of Fat John remonstrating with the priest of the parish; and revealed religion will suffer through its interference, instead of gaining by it" (March, 1753).[398]

The great movement was in its infancy when d'Argenson died; but he lived long enough to see that there was much in the old society besides the Sorbonne[399] which was "now no more than a carcass." He tells us how Madame de Pompadour invited Diderot and d'Alembert to resume the work upon the Encyclopædia which their Jesuit enemies had been unable to continue: and his reflections from time to time enable us to measure the growing influence of the Philosophic leaders. In May, 1754, was written this eloquent tribute to their advancing power.